The Italian presence in Hungary goes back two thousand years. Under the reign of Emperor Augustus (between 12 and 9 BC.) the Roman legions conquered the area west of the Danube, and the province of Pannonia, as it was then called, was added to the empire, remaining part of it right up to its fall, unlike Dacia, a region occupied a hundred years later which included Transylvania but was evacuated earlier. Surviving signs of that civilization are still much in evidence. This was the region through which the "Amber Road" led to the North, running east of just where Vienna was to be founded later; camps, towns and sanctuaries were built, which came to set the pattern for later settlement. (Thus the capital of Lower Pannonia, Aquincum, was one of the predecessors of the city of Budapest.) Agriculture, most notably viticulture, still preserves the memories of this early connection; thus Italian visitors of today should find the countryside familiar.
For long centuries, there was a steady influx of scholars, priests and artisans from Italy. Admittedly, there were some difficult years too, when the peninsula lacked the power to defend itself against the barbarian invasions from the north; these were precisely the kind of attacks the Hungarians themselves were to launch frequently when they conquered the Danubian region in the Carpathian Basin, after they had been ousted from their ancient steppe homelands. "De sagittis Hungarorum libera nos Domine!", the prayer was frequently heard in the towns of Northern Italy (first in Modena, if my information is correct), as the Asiatic horsemen kept not only Italy but also the Frankish Empire and Hispania in terror with their relentless raids. However, when the Holy Roman Emperor scored a decisive victory over the Hungarians, the Hungarian tribes organized themselves into a modern state (balancing carefully between Byzantium and Rome), under the crown of Saint Stephen and this opened the way to cooperation between the two great powers of the region, the House of Árpád and Venice.
This is the point where the diplomat and historian György Réti's chronicle actually picks up the story, offering a wealth of information and lavish illustrations collected with sound instinct to present the one thousand years of history that Italy and Hungary have in common. The text is bilingual and the scholarship is meticulous. Nor is the latter achieved at the expense of the book's readability; there are so many story lines that it all reads like a novel. The text is actually arranged in the form of a string of short novels, with their stories unfolding through the ages, beginning with the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and on to the Modern Age, right up to the present. In addition to romances and war, cultural and the increasingly important commercial interactions are also recorded. As an author of several books on Italy, I am convinced that the latter were extremely important from the viewpoint of Hungary's intellectual and economic development, especially before the Ottoman invasion early in the 16th century, which brought a decisive and long-enduring setback to a cooperation with Italy that had hitherto seen so much success. The Italian presence was perhaps at its height under the reign of the Humanist king, Matthias Corvinus, before the annihilation of the Hungarian army by the Turks at Mohács (1526). It was then that the court historian Maestro Bonfini recorded that the Hungarian sovereign "wanted to turn Pannonia into a second Italy". King Matthias' famous Corvina library (unmatched in the region), the elegance of the Royal Palaces at Buda and Visegrád, and his various architectural projects were all symbols of a flourishing European state. After the catastrophe of Mohács, however, all links with Italy were severed for a long time, and the Latin influence was gradually overtaken by the ascendancy of German culture, the philosophy of which was a far cry from Latin gaiety.
Therefore, the history of Hungarian-Italian relations can be divided into two major phases. The first phase—beginning with the connections of the kings of the House of Árpád through the continuously improving economic links right up to the Renaissance—is packed with interesting episodes. The country's joining the Christian fold (a necessary move to guarantee Hungary's survival) in the first months of the same millennium which is now drawing to a close, already provided a link to Italy and Southern France. To fend off the "protection" of secular powers, Stephen, who was later canonized, turned to the Pope in Rome for a crown, and Bishop Gerhardus (Gellért in Hungarian), who came to play such a major role in organizing the Catholic Church in Hungary, arrived from Venice. (Those who opposed this peculiar "consolidation" would never forgive the bishop: they later dumped him into a barrel which they hurled off the hill in Buda which now bears his name.) Stephen married off his sister to the Doge of Venice, and their son eventually succeeded to the Hungarian throne; King Ladislas got as far as the borders of the city state at the end of the 11th century; and Coloman Beauclerk married the daughter of the King of Sicily. Andrew II (1205–1235) took his wife from Ferrara: the elderly man was unable to resist the charms of a girl known for her fiery temper as well as for her habit of quaffing wine at dinner; Elizabeth, Andrew II's daughter from his first marriage, was canonized for her works of charity. The period abounds in stories of excess, sometimes ending in romance and sometimes in tragedy — it is a pity that Shakespeare had no knowledge of Hungarian history.
But the connections were not confined to dynastic ones. The majority of scholars of the time studied in Bologna: Janus Pannonius, the great Humanist and also a master of Latin erotic poetry, learned his art in Italy. The inhabitants of the peninsula frequently saw people from Hungary. (King Louis the Great, for example, was at one point the sovereign ruler of both Sicily and Jerusalem), while Venice, which relied on the continent for its food, could not survive without cattle from Hungary. The Hungarian presence in Italy was so natural (just as natural as the Italian presence in Hungary) that Dante mentioned Hungary as "a happy land" in the Divine Comedy.

In the second major phase of Italian-Hungarian relations, the partnership was no longer that between sovereign states; instead, throughout the northern, wealthier regions of the peninsula, the Italian people shared the Hungarians' experience of Habsburg rule, as well as the desire to shake it off. In 1686, when a European army recaptured Buda Castle from the Turks, the first soldier to enter the fortifications was Baron Michele D'Aste (there is a plaque on the wall of the Coronation Church to commemorate this). There was also an Italian legion that fought in the Hungarian cause in 1848/49, when the Hungarian people (following the Italian example) rose in arms against Austrian domination. In a way, the Hungarian people returned the compliment after the crushing of their own revolution, when many of those actively involved joined the army that Garibaldi led for the unification of Italy. They were especially involved in Sicily, where one of the main streets of Palermo is still named after a Hungarian. Also, the poets of the two countries frequently expressed their mutual respect for one another in their verse.
These cultural aspects, too, are covered in György Réti's summary: he quotes passages from the poems; he mentions Ferenc Liszt's Italian connections; and provides an account of all those writers who translated Hungarian literature. In the second half of the last century, the translation of foreign literature became something of a national pastime in Hungary, a country of linguistic isolation, with the result that almost all the major Italian literary oeuvres can be read in Hungarian. Joint historical research projects were launched to search the archives. Some theatrical interconnections were formed. Fiume enjoyed a special status while under Hungarian rule, with Trieste and Venice being within easy reach: there was an excellent railway connection to these cities. Honeymooning in Venice was fashionable.
Then, in 1915, when Italy left the Triple Alliance and entered the war on the side of the Entente, the two countries came to face each other on the battlefield. The fighting took a massive toll in casualties at the river Isonzo (Soc´a), where many Hungarian soldiers were engaged in battle, and Austria-Hungary suffered its last great defeat along the river Piave. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian soldiers sacrificed their lives there, and their cemeteries are kept up to this day. (A good ten years ago I took part in making a full-length documentary on the reunion of surviving veterans of that battle on site; perhaps the most emotional pictures in the film showed former enemies embracing each other while the two national anthems were played.)
When Hitler's menacing shadow began to loom on the horizon, Hungarian foreign policy once again tried to find an ally in Italy; however, Mussolini (although he actually mobilized his army in support of Austria) eventually shrunk back, and the hopes of that anti-German league were shattered. The alliance on the wrong side was worth nothing. And when the Iron Curtain was lowered after the Second World War, the links between the two countries were severed. Nevertheless, some connections in the field of literature were preserved: eminent Italian writers (Quasimodo, Pasolini, Moravia, Vigorelli) visited Hungary and Hungarian publishers tried to keep abreast of what contemporary writers were producing. After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which made a great impact in Italy, things slowly started to move in the direction of a political thaw and cooperation, a process that came to maturity only after the Iron Curtain vanished. Drawing on his personal experiences, the chronicler gives a thorough account of all these events, including the steady improvement of the market economy flourishing under democratic conditions. Italy became one of Hungary's leading trading partners in the 1990s. One example of these economic relations is the planned Trieste-Budapest-Kiev motorway, the construction of which, under the aegis of the Central European Initiative, will soon be under way; when completed, it will not only aid trade between the two countries, it will make it easier for tourists to visit Italy more frequently.
The book comes with an extensive bibliography and notes, with the latter listing the names of all the eminent intellectuals, Italian and Hungarian, who cooperated with the author. It is an indispensable book for anyone actively engaged in this particular field, regardless of their profession. ß