AZ ORSZÁGOS SZÉCHÉNYI KÖNYVTÁR ÉVKÖNYVE 1959. Budapest (1961)

IV. Könyvtár- és művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok - Summaires

woodcuts, not used in the same form elsewhere, and for this reason, familiarity with the illustrations and ornaments facilitates the determination of the printer of certain fragmentary publications or of those without imprints. The illustrations have given the clues to the identification of a defective 16th century book of pericopes of the National Széchényi Library (call-no. RMK I. 361 a.). The woodcuts of the book illustrate the text of the gospels in neat composition, with a fine space-effect and realistic character-drawing. They are the replicas (sized cca 26 X 27 mm) of that series of illustrations, which were cut by Hans Sebald Beham for Luther's translation of the NewTestament, published by Herrgott in Nuremberg, in 1526. The graphical work of H. S. Beham was well known in Hungary. Our 16th century calendars, without exception, used or imitated his illustrations of the months. There exist two copies of his miniature New Testament illustrations in 16th century Hungarian publications: one series was applied by the Heltai Press in Kolozsvár (Cluj), the other by the Hoffhalter Press. The illustrations in our defective book correspond to the woodcuts of the Hoffhalter Press. These were first used by Rafael Hoffhalter in Vienna in his edition of the Breviárium Strigoniense (1558). This eminent printer, expelled from Vienna, brought the blocks along with him to Hungary. In 1574 his son, Rudolf Hoffhalter used the same woodcuts to illustrate György Kultsdr's Postilla, printed in Alsólendva. Concluding from the woodcuts, therefore, the defective book of pericopes must have been made by the Hoffhalter Press. Its printing types also correspond to those applied in Hoffhalter prints. As the date of publication of the book of pericopes could not be determined on basis of the woodcuts and types which were in use for several decades, we had to consider and examine every 16th century edition of the gospels and epistles which the Hoffhalter Press might have used for the printing of its little book. According to the structural and textual collation of the various 16th century books of pericopes it could be established that the Hoffhalter publication was based on the second edition of the gospels and epistles of the printing office in Kolozsvár, and to all probability, was published after the death of Rafael Hoffhalter, in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), sometime around 1569. An examination of the condition of the woodcuts leads to the same results: gradual signs of wear and tear of the blocks can be observed on the illustrations of the three Hoffhalter publications with the identical woodcuts. The illustrations of the Breviárium Strigoniense published in 1558 are still undamaged in general, the ones in our book of pericopes are already more worn, but those in Kultsdr's book printed in 1574 show yet more serious injuries of the blocks used for these illustrations. The library of Miklós Istvánffy E. BERLÁSZ The study is an attempt, interesting also from a methodological point of view, at throwing light on the contents and fate of a dispersed 16th century private library. In the National Széchényi Library the author found three codices dating from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries (call no. Fol. Lat. 3606/1—III.). It was established from the super-ex-libris (or supralibros) on the bindings that originally they belonged to the library of the great Hungarian humanist, historian, and statesman Miklós Istvánffy (1538 — 1615). This discovery induced the author to search for the library of Istvánffy about which so far nothing has been known in the literature on Hungarian cultural and library history. In the introductory part a detailed description is given both of the external appearance and of the contents of the three Istvánffy codices. It is proved that the three volumes were a 403