János Sylvester
János Sylvester sometimes khown as János Erdősi was a 16th-century Hungarian figure of the Reformation, and also a poet and grammarian, who was the first to translate the New Testament into Hungarian in 1541.Life
He was born into a middle-class family at Szinervaralja in Hungary.
He was a disciple of Erasmus studying at the University of Krakow 1526/27.
He went to study at the university of Wittenberg in central Germany in 1529 and returned 1534 to 1536, studying theology under Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. In Wittenberg he lived in accommodation on Schlossplatz east of the Schlosskirche.
On return to Hungary he set up one of the first printing presses in Ujsziget.
In 1543 he moved to the University of Vienna to teach Latin and Greek.
He died on 6 May 1552.Publications
- Rosarium the first poem in Hungarian
- Grammatica Hungarolatina the first document to establish "standardised spelling" in Hungarian
- The New Testament
He is also credited with creating the idea of an "essay".
