Henrik Marczali and his Vatican research

Abstract

Thanks to the former Secretary General of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Vilmos Fraknói (Frankl), Hungarian research in the Vatican was formalised in the 1890s. Some of Henrik Marczali’s most long-standing students were also involved in the regular work and even took a prominent role in the operation of the Hungarian Historical Institute of Rome. Marczali also did some research in the Eternal City, and had a strong, intimate relationship with Fraknói, as well as a good friendship with the scholar Archbishop of Kalocsa, Lajos Haynald, who supported research in Rome. The volumes of the Vatican Documentary Archives of Hungary, published between 1884 and 1891, were outstanding intellectual achievements of the late 19th century Hungarian Catholicism, which were also followed with appreciation by the secular academic forums in Hungary. Presumably, this may have played a role in Marczali’s 1890 study of the interactions between the papacy and Hungary in the modern era. However, the basis for his writing was not primarily archival sources, but a Hungarian bishop’s diary written 50 years earlier, mostly in the papal state, which the historian received from the former secretary of the deceased archpriest.