Figurae absurdae et inelegantes? Ikonografia medalionów all’antica w drugim wydaniu Kroniki wszytkiego świata Marcina Bielskiego (1554)

• Authors: Piotr Jaworski

Title variants

EN

FIGURAE ABSURDAE ET INELEGANTES? ICONOGRAPHY OF ALL’ANTICA MEDALLIONS IN THE SECOND EDITION OF KRONIKI WSZYTKIEGO ŚWIATA BY MARCIN BIELSKI (1554)

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

As early as three years after the first release of Marcin Bielski’s Kroniki wszytkiego świata by Helena Unglerowa press, a new edition was prepared at Hieronim Szarfenberg’s press in Cracow. It was completed by the author and was given a new graphic design. Similarly to the editio princeps, there were all’antica medallions presenting monarchs, which were used to illustrate the lives of biblical figures. Later, thanks to Hieronim’s widow, Elżbieta Fetrówna, all of these were added to the press run by Mateusz Siebeneicher (whom she married in 1557), and were used again in a third edition, released by this press in 1564. The medallions made for Hieronim Szarfenberg, in which the drawing of a person was placed in a double circle (or sometimes in three or more), were set in relief against a white background by black contour lines and an inner drawing. They consisted of 33 profiles, cut by a Cracovian wood engraver who was inspired by illustrations in Huttich’s Imperatorum et caesarum vitae, released by Balthazar Amoullet’s press in Lyon in 1550. The iconography of Amoullet’s woodcuts – being in fact another version of all’antica medallions in the style of Fulvio – was either authentically based, or just stylized on real coins. Similarly to the all’antica medallions in Unglerowa’s woodcuts, the second edition of Kroniki wszytkiego świata did not have figure identifications in the medallions, thus making them reusable. The busts placed in Bielski’s work were based on medallions from Lyon, which were not considered to be of a high artistic value, and were made carelessly by a Cracovian copyist. Moreover, some of them were changed so drastically that without comparing them with Amoullet’s original woodcuts, it is very hard to find a connection with antique coin iconography. We might conclude that the decision made by Szarfenberg to use woodcuts from Amoullet’s press as a graphic model in illustrating the second edition of Marcin Bielski’s Kroniki wszytkiego świata was dictated rather by the accessibility of the Lyon books in Cracow, than by a real knowledge of modern typographical techniques used in illustrating chronicles and biographies of the Caesars.

Keywords

EN

MODERN STUDIES; EARLY PRINTS; ICONOGRAPHY

• Publisher: Biblioteka Narodowa
• Journal: Rocznik Biblioteki Narodowej
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 43
• Pages: 87-111

Contributors

author

Piotr Jaworski

• Biblioteka Narodowa, Zakład Starych Druków, pl. Krasińskich 3/5