Mymer's Dictionarius... and Cotenius' Vocabulary...: Unique Editions of Much-Read Books in the Early Printed Books Collection of the National Library

• Authors: Bożena Sajna

Title variants

PL

Dictionarius … Mynera i Wokabularz … Koteniusza – unikatowe edycje ‘zaczytanych’ książek w zbiorach starych druków Biblioteki Narodowej

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article presents two valuable publications bought recently for the National Library collection. Dictionarius trium linguarum by Franciszek Mymer, printed in Krakow by Maciej Szarfenberg, probably not before 1533, and Wokabularz roamaitych i potrzebnych sentencji [Vocabulary of various and useful sentences] printed in Toruń by Andrzej Koteniusz [Cotenius] in 1603. Such publications being sorts of handbooks, dictionaries, conversations, tutorials occur in a small number of copies and often are incomplete, as useful sources for education and everyday use they became over-read. The copy of Mymer's Dictionarius (on the front page referred to as fourth edition) wasn't known to bibliographers before, only one copy of the 1603 edition was described at some point by Karol Estreicher. Mymer's dictionary has been for quite a long time in use by philologists to research 16th century Polish language and the linguistic analysis by Elżbieta Kędelska was the reason to acknowledge the incomplete copy of Dictionarius now kept at the University Library of Uppsala as the first edition (of 1528 or slightly later); the Uppsala copy lacks the front page where the date probably had been printed, the year 1528 appears under a fragment of an existing dedication. Typographical research conducted by Henryk Buhak undermines this version – it proves that this copy could have been printed ca. 1533; we now know the dedication was reprinted in the subsequent copies without changing the date.

• Publisher: Biblioteka Narodowa
• Journal: Polish Libraries
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 1
• Pages: 220-233

Contributors

author

Bożena Sajna

• Biblioteka Narodowa, Zakład Starych Druków