Camoenae Hungaricae 3(2006) - Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények

sylvania as one of its “provinces.” The Illyrian terminology borrowed from Vitezović
shows up in the descriptions of the languages spoken by the peoples of the region: “The
Rascians belong to the Slavic peoples, i.e. to the one that populates the entirety of Illyria,
i.e. Dalmatia, Slavonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Bulgaria and whose language show little
dialectic differences compared to each other. These then [sc. the Rascians] also speak the
Illyrian tongue.” 85
Acta pacis Carlovicensis
However, the issue here is not what kind of help is offered by the Marsili papers in
Bologna to the analysis of the sources of the Danubius (though this is an important and
partially unresolved one as well) but whether this grandiose heap of material should be
regarded as a mere miscellany, a Wunderkammer left behind by a passionate collector?
Could it be but a mishmash of the leftover building material and of the scaffolding that
was taken down after the completion of the building of the Danubius, or could it still
conceal works other than the ones mentioned above or at least unfinished efforts from the
third creative phase? Well, what I have to say here may be surprising and even banal but
it is something I have not encountered in the literature: in my opinion, the Work we are
looking for is the Collection itself, or at least a large part of it.
If the foreword is to be believed, the publication of the Danubius was almost accidental.
86 In any case, though the monumental work was published in the 1720s, its inception
belongs, in its entirety, to Marsili’s first and second creative period. 87 It is difficult to
imagine that the count, while undertaking an important military task in defence of the
Papal State against the Habsburgs 88 and being in continuous contact with the major public
figures, politicians and scholarly associations of his day and attributing, as he did, a
quasi-religious role to politics, 89 would have been content as a political writer to pen his
own defence against the humiliation the Habsburg government dealt him and circulate it
85 “Rasciani Nationis Slavae pars sunt; illius videlicet, quae totum Illyricum, Dalmatiam, Sclavoniam, Bosnam,
Serviam, Bulgariamque occupat, Linguae tantum exigua quadam diversitate, seu potius Dialectorum varietate
interpresa. Hi quoue Linguam Illyricam habent.” Danubius, I, 25.
86 Marsili was in London and Amsterdam on behalf of the Institution in Bologna, when, at the instigation
of the Royal Society and the publishing company’s unsolicited approach, he dusted off the manuscript of the
Danubius, which “lay neglected in the dark for 22 years.” Ibid., Dedication.
87 The idea for the Danubius was beginning to take a concrete form in Marsili’s mind during the idle winter
months of 1689–1690, when he began “to collect all information pertaining to antique relics in the regions
lying by the Danube.” (Autobiografia, 122). STOYE 1994, op. cit., 82–86. attributes the conception of the
Danubius to the inspiration of the relics of the Roman civilization and the history of the Roman Empire.
88 Luigi SIMEONI, Il Generale Marsili e la difesa dello Stato pontificio nel 1708–9, in: Memorie intorno a
Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, ed. cit., 91–144. Cf. STOYE 1994, op. cit., 271–276.
89 Even during his audience with the Pope (Clement XI), preparatory to the opening of the Institution, he
mostly discussed politics: Autobiografia, 235–238.
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