Siedemnastowieczne drukarnie wielkopolskie na rzecz książki religijnej

Abstract

The aim of the study was to show the seventeenth-century typographic houses in the region of Greater Poland which published religious books. Religious literature, especially theological, has been given little attention in Poland on the part of scholars. One of the problems here is lack of a printed central catalogue of old prints. Karol Estreicher’s epoch-making work entitled Polish Bibliography is a little bit out of date owing to the two world wars, hence the collections changed places, were stolen by occupants, and the frontiers had been changed. The Polish Bibliography appeared in the years of 1882-1951. What is more, only some libraries have worked out rudimentary balance sheets. The term “rudimentary” means that we have, for instance, only the old prints of the authors from A to C, as in the case of the Catalogue of the Ossoliński National Institute in Wroclaw. Other libraries have no catalogue at all. It has been stated that in Greater Poland there were typographic houses in Poznań (academic printing house, Jan Rossowski, Wojciech Regulus, Wojciech Młodujewicz, and Wojciech Laktański printing houses), in Calissia, Kościan, Leszno, Lubin, Szlichtyngowa, Wschowa, and Sieraków. The academic printing house printed books for the Lubrański Academy, but only 170 years after its foundation, when on 22nd November 1689 it took over the old and merited Wolrab printing house. The house printed mainly Jesuit authors. The works written by the advocates of Catholicism were turned against Unitarians and neobaptists. In order to prevent the development of the Reformation, Archbishop Kramkowski founded a college and a seminary in Calissia, and he asked Jesuits to run them. They together initiated typography in this town. The existence of a printing house in Kościan is undermined. Rafał Leszczyński, advocate of the Czech Brothers, set up a printing house in Leszno. It printed religious books for the Unity and then was run by Daniel Yetter. In his workshop Catholic books were printed as well. At present, the printing house is estimated to have published 151 books. The printing house in Leszno was run by Wigand Funck. His workshop was used by the advocates of Lutheranism. It is not certain, however, whether there was an Arian printing house in Lubin. Both Protestant and Catholic books were printed in the Szlichtyngowa printing house. In Wschowa a typographic workshop was established by Jan Krzysztof Wild. He also printed both Lutheran and Catholic books. There is much doubt whether there was a printing house in Sieraków. To sum it up, many religious prints were published in the typographic workshops in Greater Poland. It was very uncertain, though, and many of them call for further investigation.