Short answers, pulled from the story.
Bálint Balassi was a Renaissance lyric poet born on the 20th of October 1554 in Zvolen, in the Kingdom of Hungary. He is considered the founder of modern Slovak lyric and erotic poetry, and he wrote in nine languages including Latin, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish, Slovak, Croatian, Magyar, and Romanian.
Bálint Balassi wrote in nine languages: Latin, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish, Slovak, Croatian, Magyar, and Romanian. This multilingualism was unusual even for Renaissance scholars and reflected the multinational character of the Kingdom of Hungary where he lived.
The Balassi strophe is a nine-line verse form invented by Bálint Balassi, arranged in the rhyme scheme a a b c c b d d b. It consists of three rhyming pairs alternating with a single rhyme that falls on the third, sixth, and ninth lines of each stanza.
Balassi's poems were not printed until 1874, when Farkas Deák discovered a manuscript copy in the Radványi library. Before that, the manuscripts had circulated among readers for generations without ever being published.
Bálint Balassi died on the 30th of May 1594 from a severe leg wound caused by a cannonball during the siege of Esztergom-Víziváros. He was buried in Hybe, in present-day Slovakia.
The Bálint Balassi Memorial Sword Award is an annual Hungarian literary prize founded by Pál Molnár in 1997. It is given to an outstanding Hungarian poet and to a foreign poet for excellence in translating Hungarian literature, including the works of Balassi.