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Tamas I, Count Nadasdy

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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I., Count, called the great palatine (1498-1562), Hungarian statesman, was the son of Francis I. Nadasdy and was educated at Graz, Bologna and Rome. In 1521 he accompanied Cardinal Cajetan (whom the pope had sent to Hungary to preach a crusade against the Turks) to Buda as his interpreter. In 1525 he became a member of the council of state and was sent by King Louis II. to the diet of Spires to ask for help in the imminent Turkish war. During his absence the Mohacs catastrophe took place, and Nadasdy only returned to Hungary in time to escort the queen-widow from Komarom to Pressburg. He was sent to offer the Hungarian crown to the archduke Ferdinand, and on his coronation (Nov. 3rd, 1527) was made commandant of Buda. On the capture of Buda by Suleiman the Magnificent, Nadasdy went over to John Zapolya. In 1530 he successfully defended Buda against the imperialists. In 1533 his jealousy of the dominant influence of Ludovic Gritti caused him to desert John for Ferdinand, to whom he afterwards remained faithful. He was endowed with enormous estates by the emperor, and from 1537 onwards became Ferdinand's secret but most influential counsellor. Subsequently, as ban of Croatia-Slavonia, he valiantly defended that border province against the Turks. He did his utmost to promote education, and the school which he founded at Uj-Sziget, where he also set up a printing-press, received a warm eulogy from Philip Melanchthon. In 1540 Nadasdy was appointed grandjusticiar; in 1547 he presided over the diet of Nagyszombat, and finally, in 1559, was elected palatine by the diet of Pressburg. In his declining years he aided the heroic Miklos Zrinyi against the Turks.

See Mihaly Horvath, The Life of Thomas Ncidasdy (Hung.) (Buda, 1838); T. Nadasdy, Family correspondence of Thomas Nadasdy (Hung.) (Budapest, 1882). (R. N. B.)