Legendary Ancestor of Hungarian Royalty
The Wallachian-Hungarian family of Korvin, which came to prominence with Janos Hunyadi and his son, Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi, King of Hungary and Bohemia, claimed to be descended from Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus.
This was based on the assertion that he became a big landowner on the Dacian-Pannonian frontiers, the future Hungary, that his descendants continued to live there for the following 1400 years, and that the Hunyadis were his ultimate descendants - for which there is scant if any historical evidence. The connection seems to have been made by Matthias' biographer, the Italian Antonio Bonfini, who was well-versed with the classical Latin authors.
Bonfini also provided the Hunyadis with the epithet Corvinus. This was supposedly due to a case in which Messalla, while on the battlefield, accepted a challenge to single combat issued to the Romans by a barbarian warrior of great size and strength. Suddenly, a raven flew from a trunk, perched upon Messalla's helmet, and began to attack his foe's eyes with its beak so fiercely that the barbarian was blinded, and the Roman beat him easily. In memory of this event, Messalla's agnomen Corvinus (from Corvus, "Raven") was interpreted as derived from this event.
The Hunyadis called themselves "Corvinus" and had their coins minted displaying a "raven with a ring". This was later taken up in the coat of arms of Polish aristocratic families connected with the Hunyadis, and also led to Messalla's exploits being commemorated in the pediment of the Krasiński Palace in Warsaw.
Read more about this topic: Valerius
Famous quotes containing the words legendary, ancestor and/or royalty:
“All legendary obstacles lay between
Us, the long imaginary plain,
The monstrous ruck of mountains”
—John Montague (b. 1929)
“I cannot yet begin to understand
Why we are proud that an ancestor knew
The crazy Poe, who was not of our kind
Bats in the belfry that round and round flew
In vapors not quite wholesome for the mind.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“If there be no nobility of descent in a nation, all the more indispensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent—a character in them that bear rule, so fine and high and pure, that as men come within the circle of its influence, they involuntarily pay homage to that which is the one pre-eminent distinction, the Royalty of Virtue.”
—Henry Codman Potter (1835–1908)