TAMAS I

NADASDY  ., COUNT, called the great palatine (1498-1562), Hungarian statesman, was the son of Francis I . Nadasdy and was educated at Graz, Bologna and Rome . In 1521 he accompanied Cardinal Cajetan (whom the pope had sent to Hungary to preach a crusade against the Turks) to Buda as his interpreter . In 1525 he became a member of the council of state and was sent by King Louis II. to the diet of Spires to ask for help in the imminent Turkish war . During his absence the Mohacs catastrophe took place, and Nadasdy only returned to Hungary in time to escort the queen-widow from Komarom to Pressburg . He was sent to offer the Hungarian crown to the archduke Ferdinand, and on his coronation (Nov . 3rd, 1527) was made commandant of Buda . On the capture of Buda by Suleiman the Magnificent, Nadasdy went over to John Zapolya . In 1530 he successfully defended Buda against the imperialists . In 1533 his jealousy of the dominant influence of Ludovic Gritti caused him to desert John for Ferdinand, to whom he afterwards remained faithful . He was endowed with enormous estates by the emperor,; and from 1537 onwards became Ferdinand's secret but most influential counsellor . Subsequently, as ban of Croatia-Slavonia, he valiantly defended that border province against the Turks .

He did his utmost to promote

education, and the school which he founded at Uj-Sziget, where he also set up a printing-press, received a warm eulogy from Philip Melanchthon . In 1540 Nadasdy was appointed grandjusticiar; in 1547 he presided over the diet of Nagyszombat, and finally, in 1559, was elected palatine by the diet of Pressburg . In his declining years he aided the heroic Miklos Zrinyi against the Turks . See Mihaly Horvath, The Life of Thomas Nddasdy (Hung.) (Buda, i838); T . Nadasdy, Family correspondence of Thomas Nadasdy (Hung.) (Budapest, 1882) . (R . N .