In this paper, I argue that the primary goal of the three-book Historia de bello Pannonico
by the Transylvanian Saxon author Christian Schesaeus (1535?–1585) published
in Wittenberg in 1571 was not to give an account of the last campaign of Suleiman
the Great focusing on the famous sieges of Gyula and Szigetvár, as it purports,
but to create a (possibly counter-) narrative favorable to John II, the last member
of the Szapolyai dynasty. Schesaeus tells the events from a Szapolyai-friendly point
of view concentrating on the meeting between John and Suleiman and portraying
Maximilian II as responsible for Suleiman’s 1566 campaign and its disastrous outcome
for the Kingdom of Hungary.
