Raven, lion, oysters
MúzeumCafé 3.
The Medicis sent Matthias Hunyadi protocol gifts of lions and a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Astronomers even renumbered the meridians just to please him, starting from the circle arching his palace in Buda. The Year of the Renaissance, 2008, marking the 550th anniversary of his coronation, includes exhibitions, conferences and events looking for possible contemporary manifestations of the progressive mentality associated with the name of Matthias, besides recalling the past. Historians and scholars, such as Jacques Barzun in his social history From Dawn to Decadence, often draw a line between the Renaissance and the phenomena of the present world. Barzun sees the end of the 20th century as the end of Western culture, which began 500 years ago, while in his book The Proletarian Renaissance Elemér Hankiss draws attention to the democratisation and expansion of validity in the opportunities of the earlier cultural-historical era.