At the beginning of the 18th century, numerous printing workshops were founded in the Czech countryside. On the example of the Znojmo printing workshop, the text follows the establishment of a new workshop in the region; it asks questions about the reasons for it and tries to define groups of the workshop’s customers and to determine the possible share of the printing production in the transformation of the society at that time. The article is divided into two complementary parts. The small Znojmo workshop is first presented through its owners whose fates were decisive for its functioning; on the basis of archival research, the existing picture of its operation is then corrected and complemented by means of contextualised biographical explanation. The second section provides, building on the analysis of extant printed books, the typology of their commissioners and presents the range of the workshop’s publications. Based on these analyses, the concluding part attempts to answer the questions raised above and outline the research directions that should complement the existing results. Besides the detailed description of the workshop’s production, the article presents the relations of the workshop to Moravian and partly also Lower Austrian printing workshops, the basic features of the distribution network, as well as the structure of the printed books published not to order but at the initiative and risk of the printer.
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