HUNYADI, JÁNOS. - A brilliant strategist and Hungarian hero in the struggles against the Turks, b. at Hunyad Castle in Transylvania ca. 1387, d. at Zemun on 11 Aug. 1456.

Of Romanian origin, he first served King Sigismund in the Hussite wars, then in the years 1433-35 he fought in the pay of Filippo Maria Visconti, lord of Milan, where he thoroughly learned the art of war and was initiated into humanistic culture.

Having returned to Hungary, he conducted numerous victorious campaigns against the Turks on behalf of King Ladislaus I, driving them back beyond the Balkans (1443). But the advantageous situation was overturned by the disastrous battle of Varna (1444), undertaken against H.'s instructions by the King, who perished there together with Cardinal Legate G. Cesarini (v.), the principal promoter of this new expedition. In the period 1446-53 H., captain of the Kingdom and regent, victoriously defended the succession rights of Ladislaus Posthumus, under whose reign he continued the struggles against the Turks and in 1456, with his troops - inflamed by St. John of Capistrano (v.) - liberated besieged Belgrade. But struck down by the epidemic, he died at Zemun. His second son Matthias H., called Corvinus, became King of Hungary in 1458.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: L. Kupelwieser, Die Kämpfe Ungarn mit den Osmanen bis zur Schlacht bei Mohdes (1526), Vienna 1895; Pastor, I, p. 290 ff. Further bibl. in J. Calmette, L'élaboration du monde moderne, 3rd ed., Paris 1949, pp. 263 and 297. Giuseppe Oliv

@incollection{ec6_hunyadi_janos, author = {Olšr, Giuseppe}, title = {Hunyadi, janos}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {1510}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/hunyadi-janos} }

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Hunyadi, János

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