King Matthias of Hungary, one of the most popular rulers in Hungary, was very ambitious. Two important events connected him with Olomouc – in 1469 he was elected King of Bohemia by the Catholic Estates and 10 years later he concluded the so-called Treaty of Olomouc. This event is commemorated by a memorial plaque on the Moravian Theatre building on Olomouc’s Horní náměstí.
He did not hesitate to take advantage of the historical circumstances in the expansion of his domain and to use some subterfuge against the Czech King George of Poděbrady. In 1460 he married Jiřík’s daughter Kunhuta. After her death in 1464, however, there was a cooling of mutual relations, which resulted in an open fight between the two monarchs. In 1468 Matthias invaded Austria against the Czech army and the following year advanced through Moravia into Bohemia. At Vilémov, however, he was surrounded by Jiřík’s army and agreed to a truce. However, he did not keep the mutual agreement and was crowned King of Bohemia in Olomouc. After Jiřík’s death (1471), he continued to fight for the Czech crown with his successor Vladislav Jagellonský. It was not until 1478 that both rulers – Vladislav and Matthias – accepted a mutually acceptable compromise formulated in the so-called Treaty of Olomouc: Vladislav continued to rule Bohemia, Matthias gained Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia. At the time of its confirmation, a spectacular meeting of two monarchical courts and two different cultures – the late Gothic of Vladislav and the Renaissance of Matthias – took place. The meeting took the form of several days of celebrations involving the whole town and fully directed by Matthias. The Hungarian monarch thus spectacularly presented the new lifestyle of his court. Matthias’s chronicler Antonio Bonfini described the meeting vividly in his writings, a contemporary copy of which is still preserved in the collection of the Olomouc Scientific Library.
The commemorative plaque of the Olomouc Covenant is located on Horní náměstí in Olomouc, on house No. 21 (the building of the Moravian Theatre Olomouc).
