History of printing in Poland

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Sole surviving copy of the Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 Calendarium cracoviense.jpg
Sole surviving copy of the Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474
Copernicus' translation into Latin of Greek poems by Theophylact Simocatta, printed by Johann Haller, 1509 Symokatta epistole morales.jpg
Copernicus' translation into Latin of Greek poems by Theophylact Simocatta, printed by Johann Haller, 1509
The Narratio prima of Rheticus, an abstract of Copernicus' heliocentric theory, printed 1540 in Danzig by Franz Rhode Narratio prima.jpg
The Narratio prima of Rheticus, an abstract of Copernicus' heliocentric theory, printed 1540 in Danzig by Franz Rhode

The history of printing in Poland began in the late 15th century, when following the creation of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455, printers from Western Europe spread the new craft abroad.

Contents

The Polish capital at the time was in Kraków, where scholars, artists and merchants from Western Europe had already been present. Other cities which were part of the Polish kingdom followed later. Cities of northern Polish province of Royal Prussia, [1] like the Hanseatic League city of Danzig (Gdańsk), had established printing houses early on.

The first printing shop was possibly opened in Kraków by Augsburg-based Günther Zainer in 1465. In 1491, Schweipolt Fiol printed the first book in Cyrillic script.

The next recorded printing shop was a Dutch one known by the name Typographus Sermonum Papae Leonis I. that might have been established in 1473 on Polish territory, but its exact location has yet to be determined. [2]

The oldest known print from Poland is considered to be the Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 (Cracovian Almanac for the Year 1474) [2] which is a single-sheet astronomical wall calendar for the year 1474 printed and published in 1473 [3] by Kasper Straube. The only surviving copy of Almanach cracoviense measures 37 cm by 26.2 cm, and is in the collections of the Jagiellonian University.

The first text in Polish was printed in Breslau (Wrocław) in 1475. [1] [4] The first book printed in Polish was Historyja umęczenia Pana naszego Jezusa Chrystusa ("The story of the martyrdom of our Lord Jesus Christ"), published in 1508 by Johann Haller's publishing house. [5] For a long time, the first print written in Polish was believed to be Hortulus Animae polonice, a Polish version of Hortulus Animae written by Biernat of Lublin, printed and published in 1513 by Florian Ungler in Kraków. The last known copy was lost during World War II.[ citation needed ]

One of the first commercial printers in Poland is considered to be Johann Haller [3] who worked in Kraków in the early 16th century, starting in 1505, and who in 1509 printed a Latin translation by Nicolaus Copernicus of Greek poems by Theophylact Simocatta, Theophilacti Scolastici Simocatti Epistole morales, rurales at amatoriae, interpretatione latina.

Other well known early printers in Poland are:

In the late 16th century there were seven printing shops in Kraków, and in 1610 ten. A decline started in around 1615. Due to this fact in 1650 there remained only three secular printing shops, accompanied by a few ecclesiastical ones.

Only one printing shop is recorded in Warsaw in 1707, owned by the Piarists. This situation improved during the realm of the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, that marked political and cultural revival in Poland. Unfortunately his attempts to reform the state led to the Partitions of Poland carried out by Prussia, Austria and Russia.

See also

Related Research Articles

Year 1473 (MCDLXXIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.

Polish literature Literary tradition of Poland

Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Esperanto. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama and poetic self-expression than on fiction. The reasons were manifold but mostly rested on the historical circumstances of the nation. Polish writers typically have had a more profound range of choices to motivate them to write, including past cataclysms of extraordinary violence that swept Poland, but also, Poland's collective incongruities demanding an adequate reaction from the writing communities of any given period.

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in the 15th century.

<i>Hortulus Animae</i>

Hortulus Animae was the Latin title of a prayer book also available in German. It was very popular in the early sixteenth century, printed in many versions, also abroad in Lyons and Kraków.

Biernat of Lublin

Biernat of Lublin was a Polish poet, fabulist, translator and physician. He was one of the first Polish-language writers known by name, and the most interesting of the earliest ones. He expressed plebeian, Renaissance and religiously liberal opinions.

<i>Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474</i>

Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 is a broadside astronomical wall calendar for the year 1474, and Poland's oldest known print. This single-sheet incunable, known also as the Calendarium cracoviense, was published at Kraków in 1473 by Kasper Straube, an itinerant Bavarian printer who worked in Kraków between 1473 and 1476. It has been suggested that the Almanach was written by astronomer Petrus Gaszowiec.

Global spread of the printing press

The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany c. 1439. Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.

Kasper Straube

Kasper Straube was a German 15th-century printer from Bavaria.

Johann Haller

Johann Haller or Jan Haller (1463–1525) is considered one of the first commercial printers in Poland.

Schweipolt Fiol

Schweipolt Fiol was a German-born 15th century pioneer of Cyrillic printing.

Florian Ungler

Florian Ungler and Kasper Hochfeder were printers from Bavaria that after 1510 became pioneers of printing and publishing in the Polish language.

Hieronymus Vietor Silesia-born printer and publisher (c.1480–1546 or 1547))

Hieronymus Vietor was a printer and publisher born in Silesia and active in Vienna and Kraków. Famous for the quality and quantity of his prints, he is considered one of the most important early book printers in Poland, also because he was the first to regularly print in Polish. He is also known as Hieronymus Philovallensis or Hieronymus Doliarius, or in Polish as Hieronim Wietor or Büttner.

Michael Falkener, Michał z Wrocławia, Michał Wrocławczyk, Michael de Wratislava, Michael Vratislaviensis was a Silesian Scholastic philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, theologian, philologist, and professor of the Kraków Academy.

Günther Zainer

Günther Zainer was the first printer in Augsburg, where he worked from 1468 until his death; he produced about 80 books including two German editions of the Bible and the first printed calendar. He came to Augsburg from Strassburg and printed in 1472–76 three large works of moral instruction. He also printed the first large illustrated book, Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea in 2 volumes with 131 woodcuts, 1471–76. Johann Zainer, the first printer in Ulm, was probably his brother.

Johann Bämler German printer

Johann Bämler was a printer, illuminator and bookseller from Augsburg, Germany.

Johann Veldener, also known as Jan Veldener or Johan Veldenaer; was an early printer in Flanders. He worked as a punchcutter and printer in Cologne, together with William Caxton, who may have financed his first books. They both left for Flanders in 1472. Evidence indicates that Veldener assisted Caxton in setting up his printing office in Bruges and helped printing his first work there, the 1472-1473 Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye by Raoul Lefèvre. Afterwards, Veldener went to Leuven and set up his printing company there, becoming the second printer in Leuven after John of Westphalia, and the third or fourth in the Netherlands. He entered the Leuven University on 30 July 1473 in the faculty of Medicine.

John of Westphalia, also known as John of Paderborn, Johann von Westphalen and other spelling variations of Johannes, Paderborn and Westfalia, was the first printer in Leuven and possibly in Flanders. He was born in Paderborn or Aachen and seems to have been first active in Venice, but returned to Germany and studied at the university of Cologne before moving to Flanders as a printer. He was active from 1473 in Aalst, working together with Dirk Martens on four books, and from 1474 in Leuven. He worked there in the University until 1498, producing at least 180 books. On his death in 1498, Dirk Martens bought his shop and settled in Leuven. John's brother Conrad of Westphalia was also a printer.

Petrus Gaszowiec, was a Polish astrologer, doctor and professor at the Kraków Academy.

The Scharffenberg family was a family of sixteenth-century printers, bookdealers and publishers, who lived in the Kingdom of Poland. They worked in various parts of the book trade, including the production of paper and woodcuts, in Kraków, Wrocław, Nysa, Lusatia and Zgorzelec. Some of the Scharffenberg offices continued to operate for another two centuries, though under the control of new owners.

Maciej Wirzbięta (alternatively Wierzbięta; – Polish printer, translator and bookseller based Kraków. He printed the works of Mikołaj Rej, Jan Kochanowski, Łukasz Górnicki, and Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, among others.

References

  1. 1 2 Stone, Daniel Z. (2001). The Polish-Lithuanian state 1386-1795. University of Washington Press. pp. 30, 102. ISBN   978-0295980935.
  2. 1 2 Wieslaw Wydra, "Die ersten in polnischer Sprache gedruckten Texte, 1475–1520", Gutenberg-Jahrbuch , Vol. 62 (1987), pp. 88–94 (88)
  3. 1 2 (in English)Davies, Norman (2005). "Anjou: The Hungarian Connection". God's Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes. Vol. I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 118. ISBN   0-19-925339-0.
  4. ↑ "Old Prints Department - History of the collection". bu.uni.wroc.pl. Wroclaw University Library. Archived from the original on 13 July 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  5. ↑ "The history of literature in Krakow". krakowcityofliterature.com. Archived from the original on 16 June 2019. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
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