Incunabula are printed materials created in Europe from the time of Johann Gutenberg's invention until 1500. Incunabula originate from the Latin language (lat. Incunabulum) and mean cradle or the ...beginning of something. In this paper, the representation of individual states and cities in the creation of incunabula is investigated and presented. The persons responsible for such development are also listed. Special attention is given to the presentation of Croatian incunabula. The mentioned works describe the characteristic features. Incunabula testify to a high level of culture, standards, and technological development of a particular area. The studied works reveal and confirm, as confirmed in this paper, the attitude of society towards literacy, education, and the national culture of each nation. This paper aims to comprehensively present the importance of incunabula for the development of European and Croatian culture, technological and comprehensive progress.
The article calls attention to a neglected source for the over-all “look and feel” of the Glagolitic alphabet as it was first created by Constantine the Philosopher circa 863 ad. This source is the ...variant forms of the Greek and other alphabets (including Hebrew and Arabic) that consist of so-called Brillenbuchstabe (otherwise charactères à lunettes or ring-letters). These variant alphabets were employed chiefly for esoteric purposes, including astrological and magical ones. Because of their limited use, they have largely been overlooked in standard handbooks of Greek and Oriental paleography. An interest in such subjects as astrology and magic comports poorly with routine assumptions about the inner lives of Medieval Saints such as Constantine. Relying on the extant primary sources for Constantine’s life, however, the article shows that his education, interests and mystical inclinations make a familiarity with some of these esoteric alphabets virtually certain. Thus it is historically plausible that such alphabets were among the inspirations for the general style, that is, the “look and feel”, of the letters of Constantine’s original glagolitic alphabet. (This article supplements the author’s earlier study from 2014, “A New Reconstruction of the Original Glagolitic Alphabet”.)
The article presents about 70 marginal notes in Glagolitic liturgical codices from Beram, a place not far from Pazin in Istria, which are worthy of historiographical attention and originate from the ...mid-15th to the early 17th century. All of them, except one, are written in the Glagolitic script in the Croatian language. Beram was a parish in the Habsburg part of the Diocese of Poreč, a commune (rural municipality) and Städtl (town) in the Principality of Pazin and one of the most important places of Glagolitic culture. The notes were written consciously and spontaneously on the margins of liturgical codices and provide valuable information not only on local, but also generally on social, economic, and church history. The events recorded in the marginal notes are here presented in chronological order, with interpretation, and some of their authors are singled out, including those who became known in the history of Croatian literacy. The original records, following the “great history” from a marginal position, primarily speak about the consequences of certain circumstances and events (wars, robberies, epidemics, climate changes, etc.) on the everyday life of their authors. They are often like pictures from genre painting (peinture de genre), because they talk about people of modest background and their everyday life. Local ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries discuss the beginning of a new war between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Republic of Venice while drinking quality wine, an elderly priest becomes homeless in the whirlwind of war, and a student, satisfied with his school progress, casually writes that the harvest was good that year in Istria. The chronographic marginalia from Beram are therefore an excellent building material for a historiographical presentation of everyday life.
Dieser Artikel behandelt die frühe Überlieferung des Alphabetgedichts von Konstantin von Preslav. Aufgrund von signifikanten Fehlern wird argumentiert, dass vermutlich alle Zeugen auf die älteste ...erhaltenen Handschrift, GIM, Sinodal'noe sobr. No 262 aus dem 12. Jahrhundert, zurückgehen.
Латинский текст консисториальной буллы, регламентирующей права и привилегии Ордена св. Павла Отшельника (Ордена паулинов), был подписан папой Григорием XI в Авиньоне в 1371 г. Хорватский перевод ...буллы осуществлен, вероятно, в одном из паулинских монастырей средневековой Хорватии. Единственный сохранившийся глаголический список перевода хранится в Коллекции рукописей и старых книг Национальной и университетской библиотеки Загреба (шифр R 4476). Рукопись не содержит сведений о месте и времени создания и по умолчанию датируется 70-ми годами XIV в. В настоящей работе, подготавливающей новое издание текста хорватского перевода буллы, описываются ее палеографические особенности. Рассматриваются начертания строчных, заглавных и декоративных графем, лигатур, инициала, надстрочных и строчных знаков. Приводятся сводные таблицы. Палеографическое описание рукописи позволяет провести несомненные параллели с глаголическими памятниками XIV–XV вв., однако более точное определение места и времени возникновения сохранившегося списка буллы будет возможно по мере исследования других языковых уровней и выработки критериев, дифференцирующих глаголическое письмо в рамках указанных временных и территориальных границ.
The Latin text of the consistory bull regulating the rights and privileges of the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit (the Pauline Order) has been signed by Pope Gregory XI at Avignon in 1371. Its Croatian translation was carried out probably in one of the Pauline monasteries of medieval Croatia. Its only preserved Glagolitic copy is kept in the Manuscripts and Old Books Collection of the National and University Library of Zagreb (R 4476). The manuscript does not contain information on the place and time of its creation and it is usually dated to 1370s. In this paper, which resulted from the preparation work of a new edition of the manuscript, its paleographic features (uppercase, lowercase and decorative graphemes, initial, supralinear and linear marks) are described. Summary tables are provided. The paleographic description of the manuscript permits to draw parallels with the Glagolitic monuments from the 14th–15th centuries. However, for a more accurate dating and localization of the translation, it is necessary to study its language and develop appropriate paleographic criteria.
Papa Grgur XI. stavio je svoj potpis na latinski tekst konzistorijalne bule kojom se utvrđuju prava i privilegije Reda sv. Pavla Pustinjaka (pavlinskoga reda) u Avignonu 1371. godine. Hrvatski prijevod bule vjerojatno je nastao u jednom od pavlinskih samostana srednjovjekovne Hrvatske. Jedini sačuvani glagoljski prijepis prijevoda čuva se u Zbirci rukopisa i starih knjiga Nacionalne i sveučilišne knjižnice u Zagrebu (sign. R 4476). U rukopisu nema podataka o mjestu i vremenu nastanka, ali se smatra da je nastao sedamdesetih godina XIV. stoljeća. U ovome radu, koji je nastao tijekom priprema za novo izdanje teksta hrvatskoga prijevoda bule, daje se opis njegovih paleografskih osobina. Razmatra se oblik malih, velikih i ukrasnih grafema, ligatura, inicijala, nadrednih i drugih znakova. Građa se prikazuje tabelarno. Iako paleografski opis rukopisa omogućuje da se istaknu nesumnjive paralele s glagoljskim spomenicima XIV. – XV. stoljeća, ipak će preciznije određivanje mjesta i vremena nastanka sačuvanoga prijepisa bule biti moguće tek nakon što se istraže druge jezične razine teksta te utvrde kriteriji prema kojima se glagoljsko pismo diferencira u okvirima navedenih vremenskih i prostornih granica.
The paper discusses the Glagolitic, Cyrillic, and Latin orthographies of the Slavic books published by the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in Rome during the seventeenth and eighteenth ...centuries. Through a comparison of eight versions of the Slavic text of the Apostles' Creed, the specific features of the respective orthographies are analysed in a chronological perspective. In addition, cross-scriptal comparisons of three editions of Robert Bellarmine's Nauk karstjanski kratak (published in the Glagolitic alphabet in 1628, in the Cyrillic alphabet in 1629, and in the Latin alphabet in 1633) and of the parallel Glagolitic and Cyrillic texts of Matej Karaman's biscriptal Bukvar (1753) are made. As the analysis shows, all texts exhibit a clear development from orthographies reflecting Central South Slavonic linguistic features to orthographies that show influence of East Slavic orthographic models. These tendencies are most pronounced in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic texts, whereas the orthography of the Latin-script texts seems to be more stable.
The article includes as an appendix a preliminary check-list of Slavonic books published by the Propaganda Fide during the period 1627–1791.