The Scientific Work of the Bishop of Transylvania Ignác Batthyány: A Source for the Collections of Documents

Ignác Batthyány (1741–1798), the most famous Transylvanian bishop of the second half of the 18th century, had an inclination for research, which is proved by the scientific work he left behind. However, his position at the head of the Catholic Church did not allow him to devote himself solely to science. In this context, he called on various people who copied documents needed by the prelate, which he used in his work. Of these works, we mention only two Leges Ecclesiasticae, vol. I–III, 1785–1827 and Sancti Gerardi episcopi Chanadiensis Scripta, et Acta hactenus inedita, cum serie episcoporum Chanadiensium, 1790. The copies used – some of them made or brought by Imre Dániel, his librarian, some by acquaintances or even the bishop himself - are preserved in the collection of the Batthyaneum library. Some, those brought by Dániel from Italy or Austria, are preserved in volumes, others, which apparently were used or were to be included in works, are preserved in folders (15 in number).Our curiosity on this subject was aroused by the remark made by Mrs Doina Hendre Biro, who, in one of the works she edited, claimed that the writings of the Transylvanian prelate are neither the object of research nor of bibliographical reference. In this context, we have browsed through the main corpus of documents concerning the history of Transylvania and we have compiled in the Appendix a list of the acts that mention in the bibliography the two main works of the bishop. We found about 20 documents. In addition to this, some of the documents contain a number of remarks and comments by the editors of the two corpora on variants of certain terms. These comments can be found in the footnotes, so by default, they also refer to Ignác Batthyány’s works.