Samarta, The Early Polish Kingdom. Translated, with introduction & notes by Bogdan Deresiewicz. Preface by Aleksander Janta

Los Angeles: The Plantin Press, 1976. One of 350 copies printed at the Plantin Press. Numbered and signed in ink on the colophon by the translator. The Nuremberg Chronicle was first printed in 1493 by Anton Koberger. Title page printed in black and red. Five facsimile engravings from The Nuremberg Chronicle. Red initial letters. A fine copy. A presentation copy from the translator inscribed to His Excellency Bishop Thaddeus Shubsda, the first bishop of Polish heritage in California. Buff cloth stamped decoratively in gilt with a printed spine label. Binding designed by Lillian Marks and executed by Earle Gray. Quarto. 48, [1], + [1, colophon] pp. Item #16274

In the preface, Aleksander Janta states, "The monumental compilation of the contemporary state of knowledge and of the state of ideas about the world represented by The Nuremberg Chronicle gives us a late medieval reflection of western European knowledge about the the Jagiellonian Commonwealth still appearing for the most part as the legendary Samarta... "The translator of the Latin fragments and the author of the introduction and notes, [Deresiewicz], received his Master's degree in classical philology from the University of Poznan, taught Greek and Latin in the Hugo Kollataj School of Krotoszyn. After World War II, he moved to the United States and studied librarianship at Rutgers University [...] In the ensuing years, he has worked with collections of rare books at Notre Dame University, and [as the] Librarian Emeritus at the University of California Santa Barbara" (pp. 9-10).

Plantin Press Bibliography, 393.

Price: $200.00

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