[Renaissance binding with images of the Habsburgs and Jagiellonians] Nowopolczyk - Apologia Alberti Novicampiani. Kraków 1559

03-03-2025

The "Best of the Best" section, the creme de la creme, "The best of the best" not only from our offer, but the best on the market. Extremely rare things, valuable and sought-after prints, real rarities.

These books are usually not featured on our website and are not available to the general public, but only to a carefully selected and affluent clientele.

To receive notifications about new products from this section, you must register in the store by providing full details including your phone number and agree to subscribe to messages from the "VIP Newsletter" category.

Due to the fact that we have been operating in the antique market for many years, we have extensive experience in acquiring valuable objects. We will help you acquire the most sought-after works in Poland.

Today it is a Polish old print and a valuable book for your collection.

NOWOPOLCZYK Wojciech (1504-1559) (Novicampiani, Alberti)

APOLOGY ALBERTI NOVICAMPIANI

For the Catholic Faith, and the Doctrine of the Truth of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, and of the Other Sacraments: also of the Liturgy or of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and of almost all others, which are discussed in this century: In Transylvania, in the assembly of Torda in the year of Christ, MD LVII, offered...

Łazarz Andreae excudebat, Anno 1559 Craccoviae (Kraków Poland); pp. 271 pages + index; format 17x22 cm

For sale a rare old print from 1559, published in Kraków by the prestigious Publishing House of Andreae Lazarus, i.e. Łazarz Andrysowicz (Andrysowica) (born? in Stryków, died before May 22, 1577).

The Andrysowicz publishing house published 261 prints in several languages, including 130 in Polish, including works by M. Kromer, A. Frycz Modrzewski, S. Orzechowski, collections of laws by B. Groicki and infidel leaflets.

It published numerous books important for the development of Polish science, such as "O spraw, sypaniu, wymiaraniu i rybieniu staw" from 1573, which is the first work in Polish on fish farming and civil engineering, as well as the first Polish-language work on geodesy and surveying "Geometria to jest miernicka nauka" by Stanisław Grzepski from 1566. His music publications are valued; he printed, among others, pieces by Mikołaj Gomółka, Wacław z Szamotuły and Valentin Bakfarek.

The printing house was famous for its high-quality publications and editorial level.

This historical work was written by Albertus Novicampianus (Wojciech Nowopolski), a doctor of medicine, philologist, theologian and professor at the University of Kraków on the apology of the Christian faith.

Wojciech Nowopolski graduated from the Kraków Academy in 1532 and began working there as a professor. At first he devoted himself to medicine, later he taught Greek. Towards the end of his academic career he focused on theology. In the years 1553-1557 he was the teacher of Johann Sigismund Zápolya, the first prince of Transylvania, anti-king of Hungary, prince of Opole-Racibórz, son of the king of Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania and Transylvania John Zápolya.

HARD COVER FULL LEATHER ON PERIOD BOARD. RENAISSANCE BINDING WITH IMAGE KNURLINGS

"Renaissance binding, anonymous workshop, probably Krakow, around 1560

Material: bevelled beech boards, brown cowhide leather, block sewn with three double and two single string ties, paper endpapers (partly preserved) without visible watermarks;

Clasps: brass and leather; pin-type clasps (one missing), with lanceolate plates covered with simple engravings; missing hooks (fragments of straps preserved); rectangular anchor plates, studded with a pair of brass nails.

Decoration: blindly pressed and gilded with so-called schaggold (gold with an admixture of silver causing patina/blackening) using a stricker, knurl, pistons and a plaque (wooden block). Composition of the facing decoration – frame with a mirror; on the upper facing, in the centre of the extensive mirror field, a rectangular, gilded plaque with the image of the Crucified Christ against the background of Old Testament scenes of the Sacrifice of Abraham and the Exaltation of the Brazen Serpent , framed from above by the arch of a Renaissance arcade; in the inner corners of the mirror field, gilded acorn motifs with a stalk and leaves, then a gilded frame made of double lines (outer and inner) creating a kind of strips touching in the corners (which is marked by short, diagonal chamfer lines); in the upper – horizontal strip of the frame, a gilded antique inscription “APOLOGIA” pressed from lettering pistons, constituting a shortened title of the bound print. The outer frame is blindly pressed from a knurl surrounded by strichulz lines; it shows a “gallery” of half-figures of rulers from the Habsburg dynasty – Emperor Charles V and King Ferdinand I of Bohemia and Hungary, and a representative of the Jagiellonian dynasty – King Louis II of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, dressed in courtly attire with a beret on their heads and a sword with a raised blade (Charles, Louis) or a sceptre (Ferdinand) in their hands; the figures appear in the gaps of windows with a semicircular arch supported by consoles and with a simple parapet (under the silhouette of Charles) or a small, three-sided bay window (under the silhouettes of Ferdinand and Louis), on which there is an antique identification inscription "CAROLVS", "FERDI[nandus]", "LVDOVI[cus]"; under the image of Charles there is an arabesque, and under the images of Ferdinand and Louis there is a console with floral decoration in the arabesque type; in the background of the half-figure of Louis, directly under the arch, the date of execution of the knurl "1540". The lower facing decoration is of a simplified (and therefore cheaper) form based solely on blind impressions: in the centre of the mirror, double, vertical knurling with images of Emperor Charles V, surrounded by attic lines, which create a frame with empty strips meeting in the corners with diagonal chamfers; above and below, additional frames, horizontal strips devoid of decorations; all around, a knurled frame of a form analogous to that of the upper facing. The spine decoration is limited to attic lines encompassing the so-called humps of the connections.

A representative example of a Polish Renaissance binding, the decoration of which exemplifies the interpenetration of German (especially Saxon) and Italian bookbinding influences. The former are primarily reduced to the general scheme of a knurled frame filled with figural decoration. In this respect, the portraits of rulers from the Habsburg dynasty (Emperor Charles V and the King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, and from 1558 Emperor Ferdinand I) and the Jagiellonian dynasty (King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, Louis II Jagiellon) deserve special attention. Their juxtaposition is an expression of political propaganda, emphasizing the dynastic connections of both ruling families. Equally characteristic of the German bookbinding tradition of the first decades of the 16th century, adapted in the Kingdom of Poland, is the gilded, rectangular plaque with a religious scene. In turn, the Italian element is revealed in the gilded, linear frames surrounding the central motif of the mirror. This decorative scheme originates from Venetian bookbinding at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, including primarily the so-called Aldian bindings, created by craftsmen from the circle of Aldus Manutius's publishing house. The category of borrowings from Italian bindings should also include small floral motifs visible in the inner corners of the upper facing. Their genesis is primarily associated with Venetian bindings, in which, however, the motif of the so-called Aldian leaf (Italian: foglio aldino ) was preferred." Dr. Hab. Arkadiusz Wagner

Dr. Hab. Arkadiusz Wagner - research and teaching employee at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, tegumentologist specialist. Author of numerous works on medieval and modern bookbinding in Poland and Europe, super exlibris as a book ownership mark and as a work of art, the art of exlibris in the 15th-21st centuries and book graphics in the 15th-21st centuries;

including: "Polish Superexlibris. A Study on Bibliophile Culture and Art from the Middle Ages to the Mid-17th Century", UMK Scientific Publishing House, Toruń 2016,

Mannerist elements in bookbinding ornamentation in Poland (from the 16th to the beginning of the 17th century), "Rocznik Biblioteki Narodowej", 2016, Vol. XLVII.

Condition DB/ binding with abrasions and minor losses, missing original endpapers and title page.

A handwritten entry on the inside cover – a reference to Bentkowski [Feliks Jan Bentkowski, "Historya literatury polskiej" 1814] and the handwriting may indicate that the book lost its title page before the first half of the 19th century.

Provenance: seal of Stefan Kowerski of the 'Białynia' coat of arms.

'The history of the Kowerski family of the "Białynia" coat of arms living in Lithuania dates back to the end of the 15th century. They settled in the Lublin region, and more precisely in the area of Kraśnik, Bychawa and Zakrzówek, after the fall of the January Uprising in the 1860s
. From that time, i.e. from 1867 to 1944 and from the so-called agricultural reform, or in fact, the expropriation of landowners from their family estates, it was possible for as many as four generations of Kowerski landowners to live there, co-creating the history and agricultural culture of this region near Lublin. When listing the male representatives of the Kowerski line near Lublin, it is necessary to mention in chronological order: Stefan Franciszek Szymon Kowerski (1824–1901), his son
from his second marriage, Stefan Kazimierz (1866–1948) and his son, Stefan Konstanty (1895–?).'

"Let us focus on Stefan Kazimierz Kowerski , a representative of the second generation of the Lublin Kowerski line, because it is precisely on the example of his activity and work as a landowner that
the thesis formulated in the subject of this sketch can be certainly confirmed. His place of birth was the Russian Siemion in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, where Stefan Franciszek Kowerski, a landowner from Lithuania, a widower, who was in exile, after losing his first wife, met eighteen-year-old Zofia Przewłocka, who had voluntarily accompanied her mother, Zofia Przewłocka-Goniewska, née Koźmian, in exile. The wedding of these two, despite the significant age difference (20 years), as well as the baptism of their firstborn son - Stefan Kazimierz, took place on July 4, 1865 in the nearest Catholic church.

Stefan Kazimierz acquired patriotism and attachment to national values and traditions from his family home, which had a rich collection of books collected by his mother, a famous writer and a father – an erudite with broad
intellectual interests. The atmosphere of the Kowerski house in Józwów was described in this way by the author of an article in a Lublin newspaper:
[...] she and her husband transformed their small property into a complex of flourishing assets
, radiating culture – both economic and intellectual – to the entire area
.
Some light on the personality of Stefan Kowerski, senior, and his attitude towards field workers is shed by a seemingly trivial fact: instead of the traditional vodka treat during afternoon tea, the heir paid each of the workers
five kopecks. The authority for the grandchildren in the Kowerski family was their maternal grandmother, Zofia Przewłocka-Goniewska (1818–1907), niece of the classicist poet, Kajetan Koźmian, a noble and devoted patriot. All this, as well as agricultural knowledge and farming experience passed down from father to son, and deepened during his years of study at the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry in Puławy (1888–1890), shaped Kowerski as a man with an absorbent and open mind, active in the social life of
the local community and the Lublin region".

Source: Maria Dębowczyk, The landed estates of Stefan Kazimierz Kowerski in the Lublin province as an example of effective and socially beneficial agricultural economy (19th/20th century) – a sketch.

binding with images of the Habsburgs and Jagiellonians, Nowopolczyk, Apologia Alberti Novicampiani, Kraków 1559, Polish Renaissance binding, Polish old prints, old prints Polonica, online antiquarian bookshop, rare books, valuable book, book for collection, 1

oprawa z wizerunkami Habsburgów i Jagiellończyków, Nowopolczyk, Apologia Alberti Novicampiani, Kraków 1559, polska oprawa renesansowa, polskie starodruki, starodruki polonica, antykwariat internetowy, białe kruki, cenna książka, książka do kolekcji, 8

If you like it, give it a thumbs up:

https://www.facebook.com/antyksobieski/#

Below you will find links to the item described here, other exceptional Polish old prints, and articles describing similar bibliophile treasures or rarities.