The work was written by the Italian humanist, Bishop of Lucera, Pietro Ranzano (Latin: Petrus Ransanus) who was the envoy of the Kingdom of Naples at the court of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary between 1488 and 1490.
[1] The high priest Ranzano's authority as a historiographer was raised not only by the already written books of the Annales, but also by his work on the life of John Hunyadi (De Ioanne Corvino), i.e. the development of the family's origin myth.
[4][3] Pietro Ranzano was commissioned by Queen Beatrice to write the history of Hungarians based on the Chronica Hungarorum by Johannes Thuróczy, including the story of the Hunyadis.
[1][4] Ranzano started the Epitome rerum Hungarorum at the beginning of 1489, he finished his work before the death of King Matthias Corvinus (6 April 1490).
Regarding Charles the Short and the early reign of Sigismund, Ranzano used the chronicles of Venetian diplomat Lorenzo de Monacis.
In the fall of 1490 after the end of his embassy, when Ranzano returned to Italy, he left the original manuscript in Hungary and he took the revised copy with him to Palermo.
This codex is a decorated copy of Ranzano's work made for the famous Hungarian royal library of King Matthias Corvinus (Bibliotheca Corviniana).
Johannes added a new preface and in 1513, gifted the manuscript to the Hungarian archbishop, Tamás Bakócz who was at that time in Rome on the papal election.
In addition to the characterization of Matthias, Ranzano praises the king's son John Corvinus on the occasion of his proposed wedding with Bianca Maria Sforza.
[1] Based on a work of a certain French author Elinius, Ranzano claims that the Hungarians' original homeland laid near the then-existing Grand Duchy of Moscow and its ruler Ivan III bore the title "dux Hungariae".
The Epitome rerum Hungarorum rewrote the events of the Hungarian conquest, and except for the year, nothing resembles to the Thuróczy Chronicle.
The chronicler emphasizes that Stephen was elected king through the people's choice (similarly to Matthias), downplaying the importance of his sacred coronation.
[1] Ranzano collects the narrations of geographers and historians – for instance, Herodotus, Strabo and Appian – from Classical antiquity regarding Pannonia.
It is clear from the text that he knew the Danube region with great precision, providing the names settlements along the river in the appropriate order.
Ranzano tells a detailed story about each of them, often relying on oral tradition (the phonetic transcription of the names of the settlements can be detected, which proves this method of work).
He provides much less detailed data on parts of the country far from the main trade routes (e.g. the Great Hungarian Plain or Transylvania).
According to him, the most important trade cities were Pest, Kassa (today Košice, Slovakia) and Pécs at the time of the compilation of his work.
He lists 13 episcopal seats, eight bishops by name, in addition to numerous monasteries (primarily Pannonhalma Archabbey) and provostries (e.g.