Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku: źródła ikonograficzne i treści ideowe
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Spaustuvininkai; Spaustuvininkų ženklai; Knygos; Emblemos; Printers; Printer's Devices; Books; Emblemos.
ENPrinters’ devices were compositions that served to identify the products of individual publishers and printers. The early 15th century marks were regarded in the first place as a commercial convenience, but since they developed out of the pictorial vocabulary of medieval non-noble heraldry, they served as intelligible signs providing information about the origins of the publications: they identified books’ producers and spoke about printers’ and publishers’ social status and places of activity. Later development added to the printers’ devices’ marketing potential. Remaining symbols of recognition and signs of identification, they started to be designed to represent their owners’ religious affiliations and self-image, to reflect publishers’ and printers’ education and ambitions as well as their publishing programme. "Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku. Źródła ikonograficzne i treści ideowe" discusses the printers’ devices used in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century. It explores printers’ devices transition from simple signs towards symbolic compositions, concentrating on the ideological inspirations and iconographic models of the devices. As a result, it proposes interpretations for the devices used by early printers in Poland-Lithuania. On the one hand it reconstructs what the local printers wanted to communicate with their devices, but on the other, it speculates about the message that the contemporary readers might have understood when coming across these compositions in books that reached their hands. The book industry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was less developed than the early print culture in Italy, the German-speaking lands or France, and consequently the number of printers’ devices used in the country was small in comparison with the device inheritance of other European realms.But the Polish-Lithuanian devices confirm that the textual and visual discourses of the printers’ marks were pan-European, reflecting the networked communities of the European centres of learning and commerce, especially the universities and towns. The introduction provides a methodological point of departure for the monograph and establishes its theoretical framework, more specifically seeking to define the printer’s device. The first chapter that follows analyses a role of the printer’s device within the early printed book referring to the material printed in 15th- and i6th-century Poland-Lithuania. Chapter 2 investigates a group of devices rooted in the medieval tradition of heraldic recognition. These compositions usually adopted merchants’ marks as their most important visual components, made use of burghers’ arms assumed by the printers, coats of arms granted to them and the representations of the printers’ patron saints. This chapter discusses devices found in books published or printed by a Krakow bookman, Jan Haller (active in Krakow, first as a tradesman who could supply the books, and later as a printer) [...] The last part of chapter 2 centres on the heraldic devices used by Szarfenberger family in Krakow (all repeated the coat of arms granted by the emperor to sons of Marek Szarfenberg), Cyprian Bazylik in Brest Litovsk (Brześć Litewski) and Aleksander Augezdecki in Kaliningrad (Królewiec, Königsberg) and Szamotuły. [...] The devices documenting this new trend in Poland-Lithuania are discussed in chapter 3 of Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku. This chapter opens with the analysis of the Terminus device of Hieronim Wietor that started to be in use in 1523. [...] Further on chapter 3 discusses Polish devices that were modelled on the marks from Basel and Antwerp, but at the same time repeated an idea embodied in Alciato’s emblems.The earliest one was a woodcut of Florian Ungier who in 1533 employed the device where his Hausmarke was embedded on a shield supported by a half-figure. [...] Chapter 3 finishes with the discussion of iconographic and ideological inspirations behind Bellerophon device used since the 1590s in Drukarnia Akademii Zamojskiej in Zamość. [...] Chapter 4 interrogates devices that could be understood as signs of religious affiliation. It argues that especially the printers who were supporters of the Reformation or who openly declared affiliation to the reformed churches employed their devices to show who they were and what they believed in. [...] Chapter 4 closes with the remarks on the Pelican-in-her-Piety devices - the marks organised around a conventional symbol adopted on both sides of religious division. The fifth chapter concentrates on the devices employed by a 16th-century printing house whose ownership stayed within a single family [...]. The last, sixth chapter focuses on the devices used by Jewish printers active in Krakow (or rather its neighbouring town Kazimierz) and in Lublin. This chapter is an attempt to reconstruct the sources of the devices present in Jewish tradition, e.g. in Torah learning and in Talmud. The conclusion closes the book arguing that the early printers placed symbolic compositions on the title pages and final leaves of their books for effective communication with the reading public. Thus printers’ devices that appeared together with the name of the author, the book’s title and the imprint rarely served as a mere ornament. But early modern readers employed various visual and textual strategies of working with printers’ devices. [...] most of the early modern printers’ devices were deliberately invented in a way that made them messages to be read differently by audiences of varied cultural background. [...] printers wanted to be seen not only as businessmen but also as humanists. [From the publication]
