The object of the month - World’s Fair award winner Nummulites preparations made by Miksa Hantken

Miksa Hantken (1821-1893) was the first head of the Department of Palaeontology in Budapest. His immense oeuvre related to several fields of geology and palaeontology is considered of outstanding importance even nowadays. His studies on the palaeobiology of the unicellular animals known as foraminifers (briefly forams), along with his results achieved in the utilization of them in search for the coal-seams of Eocene age – a highly valuated raw material at Hantken’s time – proved to be especially influential. Hantken recognized as first that the test of agglutinated forams (i. e. those that build their test via gluing together the grains available at the bottom where they live) is perforated, and that the tests of consecutive sexual and asexual generations of Nummulites – also known as “the coin of St. Ladislaus or St. Stephan” – are different in structure.

Tests of the fore-mentioned genus are emblematic fossils of marine sedimentary rocks deposited during the 22 million years of the Eocene epoch that began approx. 56 million years ago. The test of Nummulites is either lens- or disc-shaped, consists of several whorls divided into chambers and reaches 10 cm in diameter in some cases. Sound identification of Nummulites species requires the knowledge of internal characters. Usually two sections, oriented perpendicular to each other, are studied. One of them corresponds to the plane of symmetry of the test while the other one contains the imaginary axis of coiling. Beside complete specimens, such Nummulites sections are displayed in more than 2000 “green cassettes”, prepared for demonstrational and commercial purposes by Hantken and Zsigmond Ede Madarász (1822-1884) between 1862 and 1881 and housed in several private and public collections nowadays. 171 “green cassettes” were exhibited at the Vienna World’s Fair held in 1873 and Hantken was awarded gold medal for them.

Nummulites preparations made by Miksa Hantken and currently displayed at the temporary exhibition titled “Hungarian EXPO successes”, opened in the Hungarian National Museum

Size of cassettes is 3x5 cm.

Written by István Szente, ELTE Tata Geological Garden

Two hundred and fifty years ago, in 1773, Pope Clement XIII dissolved the Jesuit order, accelerating the process of the university's transfer to the state. Between 1635 and 1773, many distinguished Jesuits of great knowledge taught at our university, leaving a lasting mark on the history of the institution. In July our feature is on the owner of the collection, that forms the basis of the university’s mineral and rock collection, Matthias Piller. 

Matthias Piller was born in Graz in 1733 and entered the Jesuit order in 1750. From 1763 until the dissolution of the order in 1773, he led the Theresianum in Vienna, where he taught theology and natural history. From 1774, he became the first teacher of natural history (zoology and mineralogy) at the University of Nagyszombat. The following year, he wrote his textbook, which later appeared in several editions. In 1782, together with Lajos Mitterpacher, he took part in a trip to Slavonia, during which he made several natural history and ethnographic observations, as well as described new plant species. A separate volume was published about the trip. Matthias Piller’s huge collection of minerals, plants and paleontology was bought by the state for the university in 1800. This collection became the basis of the university’s mineral and rock collection. 

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CNKI One-stop Access Program starts from June 1, 2023 and all institutions participating in the program will enjoy four months of free access to CNKI platform from June to September.

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The ELTE University Library and Archives will be carrying out database maintenance on the 15th and 16th of July 2023, therefore the online catalogue and library system of the University Library Service will be temporarily unavailable during this period.

From the 17th of July 2023, all our services will be available again as usual.

Thank you for your understanding.

The ELTE University Library and Archives will be temporarily closed on the 13th and the 15th of July 2023 for technical reasons.

On Friday (14 July 2023) and from Monday next week (17 July 2023) our library we will be open as usual.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

A delegation of international professional guests visited the ELTE University Library and Archives on the 7th of July 2023 in the frame of the cultural programmes at the LIBER 2023 conference.

This year's event, organised by the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest between the 5th and the 7th of July 2023, under the title Open and trusted – Reassessing research library values, focused on the preservation and development of collections, open access, research support, research data management, service development and future challenges. Several members of our library staff represented our institution at the conference.

The group, which was hosted by our institution, had the opportunity to take part in a guided tour of our library, our exhibition entitled Buda Chronicle 550 and a book presentation of some of the special museum treasures in our collection.

Object of the month – Pável Memorial Room

In October 2006, the Berzsenyi Dániel College purchased Ágoston Pável's bookcase and desk from his daughter, Judit Simon Pável, to furnish the Pável Memorial Room. The Memory Room, currently located on the second floor of the Savaria Library and Archives of the ELTE University Library and Archives, features tableaux presenting the life and work of Ágoston Pável. In addition to the furniture and personal objects (briefcases, letters, ID cards), the Memorial Room also contains Ágoston Pável's dictionaries, his linguistic studies, poems and his translations.

Ágoston Pável (1886–1946) was one of the most prominent figures in the intellectual life of Vas County and the most famous Slovene in Hungary.

He was born into a Vend (Slovene) family, his mother tongue was Vend. He never denied his origins, always proud of his dual (Slovene and Hungarian) identity. To quote Gyula Illyés, Ágoston Pável is „the faithful son of two nations”. He graduated from the Premontrian Grammar School in Szombathely, and in 1905 he enrolled in the Hungarian-Latin department of Pázmány Péter University, but even there he was already deeply interested in Slavic philology. Already at that time, his writings on linguistics and his translations of fiction were published in many places.

He graduated in 1911 and received his doctorate in 1913 in Budapest. First he taught in Torda, then in Dombóvár, and finally in 1920 he returned to Szombathely and became a teacher at the State Girls' Secondary School.

From 1924 until his death he was the keeper of the library of the Szombathely Museum. During his activity, the books were categorised and the collection was continuously expanded (later the independent Szombathely library was established from this collection). The Friends of the Museums Association of Vas-Vármegye, founded in 1933, owes its existence mainly to Pável. In the same year, the association launched the journal Vasi Szemle, of which Pável became editor-in-chief. Between 1928 and 1942, he was the director of the ethnographic collection of the Museum in Szombathely. He was a member of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society. As a researcher, he was primarily concerned with the life of the Vend people and the cultural relations between the Vend and Hungarian people. He also played an important role in the ethnographic exploration of the Őrség.

In 1941, he was qualified as a private lecturer of South Slavic language and literature at the University of Szeged. Among his students was Albert Szent-Györgyi. Years later, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist still remembered Professor Pável with a warm heart.

He died young, on 2 January 1946.

His literary work:

His first literary efforts were published in his home village's newspaper, Bimbófüzés. In the 1930s he published two books of poems. Although he is not one of the most important Hungarian poets, his lyric poetry is remarkable, and he is not only respected by Hungarians and Slovenes in his native land, but also in Slovenia and even by Slovenes living in Austria.

Perhaps even more important than his poetry is his work as a translator. Ivan Cankar, the Slovenian novelist, is known in our country for his work.

Beyond his poetry and translations, he has also done much for Hungarian literature. As vice-president of the Ferenc Faludi Literary Society, he met almost all the leading intellectuals of the time. As a mentor, he helped many of them get their literary start. The most famous among them are Sándor Weöres, who was a student at Pávelék, as well as Erzsi Gazdag.

The Memorial Room also houses a plaster bust of Slovenian sculptor Ferenc Kühár, made in 1943 of Ágoston Pável.

Written by Bognárné dr. Lovász Katalin

The National Programme for Electronic Information Services and the Eötvös Loránd University of Applied Sciences have contracted to support Open Access publishing for ELTE affiliated authors and several publishers.

The details are summarised in this document. Further information is available here.

The Jesuit István Tarnóczy (1626–1689) taught in Nagyszombat (Trnava), Kassa (Košice), Sopron, Lőcse (Levoča), and Győr. He penned several religious books. The one entitled Rex admirabilis […] (Admirable king…) is the versified life of St. Ladislaus of Hungary (r. 1077–1095) in 50 eulogies. The book was published by the Viennese printing office of Christoph Cosmerovius (1652–1685), son of Matthäus Cosmerovius (1606–1674).

The work was republished two years later with a new titlepage. Many of the miracles performed with the intercession of St. Ladislaus are represented on engravings. In addition to Gábor Hevenesi’s book on saints and blessed related to Hungary titled Régi magyar szentség (1692), this was the main source of the chivalric king’s life in the 17th century. The engraving showing the saint’s equestrian statue erected in Várad (Oradea) in front of the cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary in 1390 is of particular attention. Since no reliable description, nor any contemporary representation of the statue has come down to us, it was hypothesized that the image in the book is a faithful depiction of the equestrian statue. However, as Terézia Kerny has pointed out, its original form was made unrecognisable by the baroque decorative elements. The other remarkable engraving in the book depicts the miracle of the „wringing water from a flint” known primarily thanks to one of the sermons of Pelbárt of Temesvár OFM. It became Tarnóczy’s version that was adapted again and again in the following centuries. In the opinion of Kerny, this miracle was filled with hidden symbolic meaning because it was easy to associate with the contemporary (18th–19th century) noble-national uprisings and liberation fights. This copy was possessed by the Jesuits in Trnava (Nagyszombat) in 1705.

The book is part of the book adoption program of the Foundation for the University Library. Save a book, adopt a book! For more information visit our website: https://konyvtar.elte.hu/en/support-us/adopt-a-book

RMK III 508a:1

Tarnóczi István: Rex admirabilis, sive vita S. Ladislai regis Hungariae historico-politica, ad Christianam eruditionem elogiis theo-politicis illustrata / authore R. P. Stephano Tarnoczi e Societate Jesu. Viennae Austriae [Wien] : typis Joannis Christophori Cosmerovii, Sac. Caes. Majest. Typographi Aulici, 1681.