János Lászai (also Lazói or ánosLáLázói, , ; 1448 – 17 August 1523) was a Hungarian Humanist poet and clergyman.
Life
He was born in 1448 in Lázó or Lászó, Torna County, the territory of present-day Hungary (now an uninhabited area between Perkupa and Szőlősardó). His parentage is unknown, he was orphaned early. His family had kinship relations with the Sánkfalvis. He was adopted by Transylvanian nobleman John Barlabássy, who served as castellan of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia). One of his stepbrothers was Leonard Barlabássy, an influential magnate and vice-voivode. Lászai's tutor was Anthony Sánkfalvi, who later became Bishop of Nyitra (Nitra). Following that, he attended a university in Italy. He returned to Hungary with the title of "magister" in the 1470s.
According to contemporary records, he was an excellent orator and poet, understood mathematics and spoke Latin, Italian, Greek and "Slavic" beside his native Hungarian (but "knowing not one word of German", as Felix Fabri emphasized). He became a prominent member of that Transylvanian Humanist scholar circle, which based in Gyulafehérvár under the guidance of Bishop Ladislaus Geréb (a cousin of King Matthias Corvinus). Lászai entered ecclesiastical career, he was elevated into the offices of canon of Gyulafehérvár and archdeacon of Telegd (Tileagd).
Upon the invitation of Dominican friar Felix Fabri, his former roommate in Italy, Lászai traveled to Jerusalem as a pilgrim in 1483 with three large groups of companions. Fabri documented their pilgrimage in his work "Fratris Felicis Fabri Evagatorium in Terræ Sanctæ, Arabiæ et Egypti peregrinationem", who belonged to the same group with Lászai and four other travelers. He described Lászai as a highly worthy person and "pure-bred Hungarian". Leaving in early June 1483 and arriving back in January 1484, they traveled first to Venice, where they stayed for three weeks. They then took ship for Corfu, Modon and Rhodes - all still Venetian possessions. After Jerusalem and Bethlehem and other sights of the Holy Land, they went to Mount Sinai and Cairo. According to Fabri's account, Lászai improvised a poem in honor of St. Catherine at the Saint Catherine's Monastery. In Cairo, he preached to "infelicitous Hungarian Mamluks" (Hungarin-origin slaves, who were abducted during Ottoman incursions). He also missionized, solemnized, and Christianized these people. These Hungarian Mamluks guided the pilgrims around Cairo, Old Cairo and Giza. After taking a boat down the Nile to Rosetta, the pilgrims took ship back to Venice. Historian Lajos Tardy considered it is possible that Lászai also fulfilled some kind of diplomatic mission in Egypt on behalf of his monarch, Matthias, when the travelers appeared in the court of Qaitbay, Sultan of Egypt. Both monarchs fought against the Ottoman Empire, and there were existing diplomatic relationships between them.
Lászai returned to Hungary in the spring of 1484. He was granted nobility by King Matthias Corvinus in November 1489, who also donated a joint Renaissance-style coat-of-arms to him and his relatives, Anthony Sánkfalvi and some members of the Hős (Heős) family. Lászai became rector of the Holy Cross altar in the St. Michael's Cathedral in Gyulafehérvár by 1493. Lászai visited the Roman Curia in the spring of 1500 in order to grant permission from Pope Alexander VI to erect a chapel, who allowed it, but the subsequent death of Geréb (1502) hindered the implementation of his plans. He made another pilgrimage to the Holy Land sometime between 1500 and 1508, but the details of this trip have not survived. For now, he was the leader of the pilgrimage, and guided his two fellow Hungarian travelers, Francis of Pannonia, a canon of Pécs and Michael Pesti, a cleric at Vác.
In 1508, Lászai's stepfather John Barlabássy made his last will and testament, in which he bequeathed to his "dearest stepson" a significant amount in the form of a right to recover debts. Lászai established a chapel within the St. Michael's Cathedral around 1510; he transformed a Romanesque-style outbuilding, which had connected to the cathedral's northern side-aisle, into a chapel (called "Lászai's chapel" or "Lazo chapel"), which was consecrated in 1512. While its rib vault represents Gothic architecture, the building were decorated with Renaissance-style decorations and frescoes. The coats-of-arms of his benefactors and friends (i.e. Anthony Sánkfalvi, Ladislaus Geréb, Leonard Barlabássy and John Barlabássy) were depicted on the walls along with four epigrams written by Lászai himself. Within the chapel, Lászai also erected an altar dedicated to the Souls of the Faithful Departed. It was his initial intention that the chapel he founded be his final resting place.