Hereditas Antikvárium

Fair Partner ✔
16. Könyvárverés

(Csíksomlyó), 1740k. (Ferences ny.) (32)p.
A previously unknown Latin-Hungarian alphabet and reading book. The fragment, which was soaked from the binding board, contains the eight-leaf booklets “B” and “C” of the publication, and most likely only the booklet “A” of the same size is missing. The first edition of a type of alphabet book compiled by the Jesuits for Hungarian Catholic schools usually under the title Libellus alphabeticus was published in Kassa in 1674, and with minor changes, it went through numerous editions during the 18th century.
The print was produced in the printing house of the Franciscan monastery in Csíksomlyó, utilising its fonts. The six types and the only cypher that appear have been in use since the founding of the first Catholic printing house in Transylvania in 1676, although they can already be seen in a worn state in the fragment. This wear led to the typography renewing its set in the first half of the 1740s. Based on this evidence, the print could have been released from the press around 1740. No other 17-18th-century edition of the alphabet book in Csíksomlyó is known.
Textbooks are among the most vulnerable types of publications due to their usage. Of the editions known today, usually only one, often fragmentary, copy has survived, but these are merely heralds of the countless editions that have likely vanished without a trace. Consequently, it is a great professional pleasure to discover even a small fragment, however, it is especially significant if a copy containing two-thirds of the original publication is found.
Modern hardpaper.
Prov.: From the library of József Horváth.