Finally, I had arrived. It had been quite a journey from Florence to Buda. The point is that I am now where I was meant to be, in the Bibliotheca Corviniana, along with hundreds of other codices and manuscripts. The library is owned by King Matthias, who is said to be a powerful ruler. He became king of Hungary and Croatia in 1458, then king of Bohemia in 1469, and archduke of Austria in 1486. I know all this because I am not the only codex to find my way here from Italy. The king's wife, Beatrix of Aragon, brought countless books with her from her hometown of Naples, or so they say. We are almost from the same place, so we can easily find common ground. Anyway, I can't complain about the company here, because in terms of education, the place leaves no room for complaint. I admit, I never expected such a thing after Florence, especially when you consider that Lorenzo Medici's library is located there, which, believe me, is really impressive. There are some, who say that this collection of books is bigger than his. We, who were specially commissioned by King Matthias, even have our own name. We are The Corvinas. The origin of our name is the Latin word "corvus", which means ‘raven’, King Matthias' coat of arms. I have heard several fairy-tale explanations for the bird's inclusion in the coat of arms. Who knows which one is true, but my personal favourite is the story that explains the raven by saying that his mother, Erzsébet Szilágyi, used a raven to correspond with him when he was imprisoned in Prague as a young man. I don't know if it's true, but what we can be sure of is that he was a great king, who was supposedly elected on the frozen ice of the Danube, and then was later included in countless folk tales, which only mention him as Matthias the righteous.