PRIMELE ILUSTRAȚII ALE UNUI CALENDAR ROMÂNESC (IAȘI, 1785, TIPOGRAF: MIHAIL STRILBIȚCHI)
The First Illustrations of a Romanian Calendar (Iași, 1785, Printer: Mihail Strilbițchi)

Summary/Abstract: Calendarul pe 112 ani [The Calendar for 112 years] was printed in Iași in 1785 by Mihail Strilbițchi in his own printing press. He was considered an outstanding personality in the domain of the Romanian Printing in the 2nd half of the 18th century. The respective Calendar was the second one published in the Romanian area (the first appeared in Brașov in 1733) and the first that was decorated with woodcuts. The illustrations representing the seven planets are signed by Mihail Strilbițchi alongside his son, Policarp. The 12 signs of the zodiac (small-sized xylographs), as well as the Zodiac Wheel (image in full page), are not signed, but we assign them to the same authors. Among the calendars which were to be printed after 1785 in Sibiu, Wien, Buda, Iași and Bucharest, it was only the one issued in Bucharest in 1823 that was as vividly decorated as that from Iași. Wheares the Zodiac Wheel followed a certain Ukrainian source, the signs of the Zodiac and the seven planets, which were very frequent in the medieval and postmodern European area, are of German manner.

• Details
• Contents