Since Imre Bán’s paper on 16th century rhetoric and poetic handbooks from 1971 only a few scholars have made further inquiries into the oeuvre of Péter Károlyi. Following a short introduction to the scholarly works of the the author, the article focuses on meditations in 16th century Hungary. The first half the paper describes Károlyi’s preface written for Erzsébet Bocskai, and covers such themes as the concept of death, remembering and forgetting, while outlining the changing role of the author as a preacher in the text. The second half of the essay is devoted to examining the possible polemic contexts of this work, concentrating on the conflicts between the Reformed Church and Unitarianism in the 1570s.

The paper points out various characteristics of Károlyi’s text which are combined together with great success in describing the art of good death.