Si Italie creverit puer ille, erit sulcimentum et patronum totius familie mee. The letters of Ferenc Várdai, a Hungarian University Student around 1500

The paper analyzes the missives sent home by Ferenc Várdai, who studied in Padua and Bologna between 1500 and 1504 and later became bishop of Transilvania. This inquiry provides some data about the flow of information in that period and shows the strategies which the Várdai family employed in order to improve its social status. Studying in a university was seen more as a middle to acquire power and relationships, rather than knowledge. The construction of a wide relationship network home and abroad was important in order to obtain major ecclesiastical benefices, for the prestige and enrichment of the family.

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