Csapodi Csaba, Csapodiné Gárdonyi Klára: Bibliotheca Hungarica. Kódexek és nyomtatott könyvek Magyarországon 1526 előtt. I. Fönnmaradt kötetek: 1. A–J (A MTAK közleményei 23. Budapest, 1988)

Bevezetés

8 The publication of results is all the more justified since during our investigation we have come to the conclusion that what we know nowadays may be 70- 80 % of the extant material. Although the appearance of many unknown and valuable materials may be expected in foreign libraries from year to year but their number cannot be so nigh, especially in the case of codices and incunabula. There are larger white spots in our collection of books printed between 1501 and 1526 because only some are identified in the libraries of the one-time Upper Hungary (today Slovakia) and Transylvania. However, these sixteenth century books have not been put apart and processed separately in those collections until now and for a Hungarian researcher it would be a hopeless undertaking to examine closely thousands of books abroad. Essentially, the codices and books known so far are reliable sources of the studying of the Hungarian mediaeval history of culture and within this, the history of books. Thus, our publication contains the materials which can be found in the collections of Hungary and all those from the foreign collections which were identified by our predecessors and ourselves during our earlier investigations in sixty collections of about thirteen countries. Having examined the publications of the proper periodicals and the codex catalogues of the libraries in Hungary, we have consulted the printed catalogues of foreign manuscript departments and collections of incunabula that are accessible in Hungary, together with microfilms, which were acquired, on our proposal, by the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the National Széchényi Library, and through wide-ranging correspondence. We are indebted to our contemporary researchers for many valuable materials. These are the collection of the history of bindings of Éva Koroknay, the collection of the sources of mediaeval music of Janka Szendrei as well as the possessor card-index, which was made up through the thorough examination of the country's whole stock of incunabula by Arisztid Oszvald, Vidor Pataky and Antal Tibor Horváth. Research activities were conducted by a special work-group, under our guidance, within the framework of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences between 1978 and 1986. In addition to us whose names are on the title-page, and who partook in the collection of the material, too, and edited it as well, László Papp, Mária Kónyi, Marianne Rozsondai and Kinga Körmendy worked in the team. It is to György Rózsa Director-General of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who fully supported us from the beginning that we owe thanks for the completion of our work. Further on, we should like to offer our gratitude to those who assisted our research both in Hungary and abroad: Johann Tomaschek, Admont - Giro Zanetti, Assisi - Salzbrunn, Augsburg - Bernhard Schemmel, Bamberg - Martin Steimann, Basel — Klara Waitkus, Ursula Winter, Berlin - Filep Ottó, Bern - Ladislao Lászlóczky, Brescia - Andrée Scufflaire, Georges Dogaer, Bruxelles - Gedeon Borsa, István Borzsák, Mária Klinda, Éva Koroknay, Sándor Mailer, László Rásonyi, Mária Szent-Györgyi, László Tókés, Budapest - F. Gueth, Colmar - Csaba Fekete, Debrecen - Helmut Deckert, Dresden - Gregorio Andres, El Escorial - G. Bauer, A. Dietzel, Gerliride Frank, Erlangen - Mátyás Erdós, Esztergom - Maria Pelczar, Gdansk - Antal Lökkös, Geneva - Rockar, Gotha - Klaus