„ORYGINAŁ ZOSTAŁ ODNALEZIONY I NIE ZMIENIŁ WŁAŚCICIELA ”. LOSY GNIEŹNIEŃSKIEGO STARODRUKU PL 178, ZAWIERAJĄCEGO OFFICINA FERRARIA
‘THE ORIGINAL WAS FOUND AND DID NOT CHANGE ITS OWNER’. THE FATE OF THE GNIEZNO EARLY PRINTED BOOK PL 178, CONTAINING ‘OFFICINA FERRARIA’

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this article is the fate of an early printed book from the resources of the Archdiocesan Archives in Gniezno, which contains a unique Polish-language poem from 1612 by Walenty Roździeński, entitled ‘Officina Ferraria’. This jointly bound book was given to the Gniezno chapter library as a testamentary gift by Rev. Anthony Dyament in 1885. Its scientific and historical value was discovered before World War II by the librarian and chapter archivist, Rev. Canon Leon Formanowicz; it was scientifically analysed by Prof. Roman Pollak in 1936. The book – taken by the Germans to Poznań during the war, then returned to its rightful owner after the war – was reintroduced to the inventory in 1955. That same year, Rev. Stanislaw Bross, PhD, chapter vicar of the Gniezno Archdiocese while Primate Stefan Wyszyński was imprisoned, loaned it without notifying the metropolitan chapter to Prof. Kornel Wesołowski of the Warsaw University of Technology. Wesołowski held the book until his death in 1977, after which his widow donated it to the National Library. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Primate’s Chapter in Gniezno tried unsuccessfully to reclaim the valuable book. Most recently, in 2017, the current director of the Archdiocesan Archives in Gniezno, Rev. Michał Sołomieniuk, analysed the Gniezno early printed book in Warsaw. In the Cathedral Library in Gniezno the book retains the reference number BK Pl 178.

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