The early printed books from the monastery’s library of Bernardine Fathers in Przeworsk in the collections of The Czartoryski Library in Cracow Cover Image

Starodruki z biblioteki klasztornej bernardynów w Przeworsku w zbiorach Biblioteki XX. Czartoryskich w Krakowie
The early printed books from the monastery’s library of Bernardine Fathers in Przeworsk in the collections of The Czartoryski Library in Cracow

Author(s): Agnieszka Fluda-Krokos
Subject(s): History
Published by: Laboratoire de Recherches sur l'Histoire des Congregations et Ordres Religieux (LARHCOR)
Keywords: early printed book; manuscript; monastery’s library; Bernardine Fathers; Przeworsk; Erwin Rödel; secularization; Czartoryski Family; collection of books; Czartoryski Library

Summary/Abstract: The article is an introduction to the research of the book collection of Bernardine Fathers convent in Przeworsk. A few references in literature inform that the facility had a rich library, of which presently little remained of its former glory. Its fragments – once neglected, stolen, given away – can be found i.a. in the collections of the Bernardine Fathers in Cracow and The Czartoryski Library. The set of manuscripts and the resource of 15th and 16th centuries prints became the basis of research on the forgotten, but in the years of splendor valuable, collection. The main character of the text is Erwin Rödel – antiquary from Przeworsk, one of the main “suppliers” of the manuscripts and books to the Czartoryski library in Sieniawa, stemming from the repression after the November Uprising and the need to evacuate the collections from Puławy. Seriously depleted resource from Puławy was replenished and expanded thanks to the donations and numerous contacts of librarians from Sieniawa, such as Karol Druziewicz and Józef Łepkowski, with antiquaries and monastic libraries. He was well-deserved to Czartoryski family, bringing to Sieniawa many valuable library collections, not always gained fairly and in accordance with the librarian policy, however, and as a result – causing also problems arising from the claims of the previous owners, whose collections he diminished or even deconstructed. The preserved documentation shows that the monastery in Przeworsk through the actions of Rödel has lost 11 parchment diplomas dated from 15th to 17th centuries, 30 manuscripts from the City Archive (i.a. books of city assessors, courts, voyts, and registries), 10 other manuscripts of the time range from 16th to 18th centuries, and about 300 old prints (partly from the monastic library of Bernardines, partly from the fahters of The Holy Sepulchre). The belonging to the presented library is indicated by numerous provenance entries described in the text.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 173-187
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: Polish