Memorial plaque of Márton Csombor Szepsi

Márton Csombor Szepsi (1595–1622), “the most interesting and colorful figure of bourgeois late humanist literature,” was the author of the first Hungarian-language travelogue, Europica Varietas. ; Born in the market town of Szepsi, he completed his schooling in Nagybánya and Gönc, and then, after a year of teaching in Telkibánya, he set off on his study trip abroad in May 1616. His purpose, according to his own words, was “to see foreign places.” Therefore, from Poland, he sailed along the coasts of Denmark, Sweden, and Friesland to the Netherlands, and after admiring its cities, he crossed over to England, from where he then traveled to Paris. Continuing his journey on foot, he visited the Hungarian student colonies in Strasbourg and Heidelberg, and then returned home from his two and a half year wanderings via Nuremberg, Bohemia, Silesia, and Krakow. ; At home, he first became a schoolmaster in Košice, then in 1620 he entered the service of István Nyáry, a lord of Zemplén County, where two years later he fell victim to some kind of epidemic together with his student, Ferenc Nyáry. ; In his famous work, he describes his European tour of 1616–1619. The volume was published in Košice in 1620, when the then Košice judge Bocatius, on the recommendation of Péter Alvinczi, employed Csombor as the rector of the Košice School.