Kövy Zsolt - Szabó György - S. dr. Lackovits Emőke: A Pápai Református Gyűjtemény (Pápa, 1987)

Zsolt Kövy: The Calvinist Collection of Pápa

copper ornaments was made in the 18th century. The codex written on parchment was given to the library by Dénes Pázmándy the chairman of the Parliament in 1848. The oldest of the 8 incunbula we have is the work of Romanus Aegidius from 1482 with the title: De regimine principium.

The collection of ancient Hungarian prints consists of 600 volumes. The oldest of them was written by Péter Bornemissza and printed at Sempte in 1574 — with the title: Masic része az evangliumokból . . . való tanúságoknac. Among the authors of the collection of old Hungarian prints (to 1711) we can find the names of the greatest reformers and polimath scientists of their times as: Albert Szenei Molnár, Péter Pázmány, János Samarjai, Pál Med- gyesi, István Geleji Katona, János Apáczai Csere, János Comenius Amos, György Komáromi Csipkés, Ferenc Pápai Páriz, Pál Debreceni Ember, Mátyás Dévai Bíró, István Szegedi Kis. Among the books of the 16th century — not concerning Hungary — there are the works of Calvin, Luther, Melanchtron, Béza, Zwingli, Chrysos- tomus, Flavy, Livy, Pliny, Horace, Erasmus, Cicero, Virgil, Plutarchos. A volume of this collection with the title: De encharistia sacrosanctissima by Georgius Vuicelius — printed in Lipcse in 1539 — has a note in it about the existence of the library: „Collatus est in usum scholae Papensis 26 die Octobr. Anno 1637”. It is interesting to mention a 1724 copy of the Code of Calvinist College of Pápa (Liber legum coetus Papensis) from 1585, that we can find in the collection of manuscripts. Bálint Kocsi Csergő, who has been condemned to the galleys because of his religion, wrote a book in the years of 1679—82, 1693—95 with exhorting speeches to the students. They are mostly in Latin but 5 of them are in Hungarian. Manuscripts of the great professors of the college in the 19th century (as István Mándi Márton, Lajos Tarczy, István Bocsor) must be mentioned as valuable sources for scientific research in pedagogy. The college had 3 students in 1842 who became well known after leaving the town. Sándor Petőfi, the great Hungarian poet, Mór Jókai the writer and Soma Orlai Petries the painter met here as students. Some of their works from the year of 1842 can be found here in the library. Letters by Lajos Kossuth, registers of national guards and soldiers remind of the Hungarian war of indeprendence in 1848—49.

The archives of manuscripts consist of 1300 units. The library has several precious collections beside the ones of 2000 smaller prints

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