Short answers, pulled from the story.
Antonio Bonfini (1427-1502) was an Italian humanist and poet who served as court historian to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. He was commissioned by Matthias Corvinus to write a comprehensive chronicle of Hungarian history.
The Rerum Hungaricarum decades, meaning Decades of Hungarian History, is Bonfini's major work chronicling the history of Hungary. It was organized in the classical Latin tradition of grouping books into sets of ten, covering Hungarian history from its origins through Bonfini's own lifetime.
Bonfini's Rerum Hungaricarum decades served as the primary source for Hungarian history in European academic circles until the late 18th century, a period of roughly three hundred years.
Matthias Corvinus was a Renaissance patron who cultivated humanist scholars at his court. He commissioned Bonfini, a skilled Latin writer trained in the Italian humanist tradition, to produce a work of serious historical scope that could place Hungary within European civilization.
Antonio Bonfini was born in 1427 and died in 1502. He came to the Hungarian court in the later years of his career, during the reign of King Matthias Corvinus.
Bonfini is credited with invaluable merits in Hungary's history-writing tradition. His Rerum Hungaricarum decades was the most comprehensive Latin chronicle of Hungarian history and remained the authoritative European reference for the subject for roughly three centuries.