[RENAISSANCE BINDING WITH IMAGES OF THE HABSBURGS AND THE JAGIELLONIANS] NOVOPOLIS - APOLOGIA ALBERTI NOVICAMPIANI. Cracow 1559

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

Andrysovich's 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 dissenting pamphlets.

It published a number of books important for the development of Polish science, such as "On the Matter, Sleeping, Measuring and Fishing of Ponds" 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. Its musical publications are valued; it printed, among others, works by Mikołaj Gomółka, Wacław z Szamotuł and Valentin Bakfarek.

The printing house was famous for its publications of high quality 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 Krakow dot apologia of the Christian faith.

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

"Renaissance" binding, anonymous workshop, probably Cracow, circa 1560

Material: beech boards, beveled, brown leather, ox hide, block sewn with three double and two single string ganglia, paper lining (partially preserved) without visible watermarks;

Fasteners: brass and leather; fasteners (one missing) of stick type, with lancet plates covered with simple engravings; catches missing (fragments of straps preserved); anchor plates rectangular, nailed with a pair of brass nails.

Decoration: blindly pressed and gilded with the so-called shlaggold (gold with an admixture of silver causing patination/charring) using a loft, knurl, plunger and plaquette (wooden block). The composition of the decoration of the facings - framed with a mirror; on the upper facing, in the center of the extensive mirror field, a rectangular gilded plaque with the image of the Crucified Christ against the background of the Old Testament scenes of the Sacrifice of Abraham and the Exaltation of the copper serpent from above framed by the arc of a Renaissance arcade; in the inner corners of the mirror field, gilded motifs of an acorn with a stalk and leaves; further, the frame is gilded with double lines (outer and inner) forming a kind of slats meeting at the corners (as marked by short, diagonal lines of beveling); in the upper - horizontal slat of the frame, a gilded antique inscription "APOLOGIA" embossed from letterpress, constituting the abbreviated title of the framed print. The outer frame blindly imprinted from a knurl bordered with lofted 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 of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, Ludwig II Jagiellon, dressed in court costume with a beret on their heads and a sword with a raised wedge (Charles, Ludwig) or a scepter (Ferdinand) in hand; the figures are shown in window clearances with a semicircular arch supported by consoles and with a simple sill (under the figure of Charles) or a small, three-sided bay window (under the figures of Ferdinand and Louis), bearing the antique identification inscription "CAROLVS", "FERDI[nandus]", "LVDOVI[cus]"; under the image of Charles depicted arabesque, while under the images of Ferdinand and Louis a console with floral decoration in arabesque type; in the background of the half-figure of Louis, directly under the arch, the date of execution of the knurl "1540". Decoration of the lower lining with a simplified (and thus cheaper) form based solely on blind impressions: in the center of the mirror, double vertical knurl with images of Emperor Charles V, surrounded by strychule lines, which form a frame with hollow slats meeting at the corners with diagonal chamfers; above and below the frame, additional horizontal slats devoid of decoration; all around, a knurled frame of the same form as on the upper lining. The decoration of the back is limited to loft lines capturing the so-called humps of the scrolls.

A representative example of Polish Renaissance binding, whose decoration exemplifies the interpenetration of German (especially Saxon) and Italian bookbinding influences. The former mainly boil down to the general scheme of a knurled frame filled with figural decoration. In this regard, images of rulers from the Habsburg dynasty (Emperor Charles V and 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. Indeed, juxtaposing the two is an expression of political propaganda, emphasizing the dynastic ties of the two 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. The Italian element, on the other hand, is revealed in the gilded linear frames surrounding the central mirror motif. Such a decorative scheme derives from Venetian bookbinding of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, including above all the so-called Aldinian bindings, created by craftsmen from the circle of the Alda Manucius outhouse. In the category of borrowings from Italian bindings one should also consider the small floral motifs seen in the inner corners of the upper lining. Their genesis is associated primarily with Venetian bindings, in which, however, the motif of the so-called aldinian leaf (Italian: foglio aldino) was preferred." Dr. Arkadiusz Wagner

Dr. hab. Arkadiusz Wagner - scientific and didactic employee at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, specialist in tegumentology. Author of numerous works on medieval and modern bookbinding in Poland and Europe, superexlibris as a book ownership mark and as a work of art, the art of exlibris XV-XXI century and book graphics.a XV-XXI century;

Among others: "Polish Superexlibris. A Study of Bibliophilic 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 early 17th century), "Yearbook of the National Library", 2016, T. XLVII.

DB condition/ binding with rubbing and minor losses, original coverstocks and k.tit. of the work missing.

Handwritten entry on the inside of the binding - reference to Bentkowski [Feliks Jan Bentkowski, "Historya literatury polskiej" 1814] and the character of the handwriting may indicate that the book lost the k.tit. before the first half of the 19th century.

'The history of the Kowerski family of 'Bialynia' coat of arms, residing in Lithuania, dates back to the end of the 15th century. They settled in the Lublin region, more precisely in the vicinity of Kraśnik, Bychawa and Zakrzówek, after the fall of the January Uprising in the 1860s.
century. Since that time, that is, from 1867 to 1944 and since the so-called land reform, in fact, the expropriation of landowners from their ancestral estates, it was given to them to live there, contributing to the history and agricultural culture of this sub-Lublin area for as many as four generations of Kowerski landowners. Listing the male representatives of the Kowerski sub-Lublin line, it is necessary to mention, in chronological order, the following: Stefan Franciszek Szymon Kowerski (1824-1901), his son
from his second marriage, Stefan Kazimierz (1866-1948) and his son, Stefan Konstanty (1895-?)."

"Let us, however, focus on the person of Stefan Kazimierz Kowerski, the representative of the second generation of the Lublin line of the Kowerskis, since it is on the basis of his activity and work as a landowner that one can certainly
The thesis formulated in the subject of this sketch can be stated with certainty. The place of his birth was in the Russian town of Siemionow in the Nizhnovgorod Governorate, where Stefan Franciszek Kowerski, a landowner from Lithuania and a widower in exile, after losing his first wife, met 18-year-old Zofia Przewlocka, who voluntarily accompanied her mother, Zofia Przewlocka-Goniewska, née Koźmianska, in exile. The wedding of these two, despite the significant age difference (20 years) as well as the baptism of their first-born son Stefan Kazimierz took place on July 4, 1865 in the nearest Catholic church.

Stefan Casimir's patriotism and attachment to national values and traditions came from his family home, which had a rich book collection stocked by his mother, a well-known writer, and his father, an erudite man with broad intellectual interests.
intellectual interests. This is how the atmosphere of the Kowerskis' home in Józwów was scha rakterized by the author of an article in a Lublin newspaper:
[...] both she and her husband transformed their small property into a complex of flourishing estates
radiating culture - both farm and mind - to the entire neighborhood.
word.
Some light is shed on the personality of Stefan Kowerski, the senior, and his attitude to the field workers by a seemingly trivial fact: the heir, instead of the traditional treat of vodka during afternoon tea, paid each of the laborers
five kopecks. The authority for the grandchildren in the Kowerski family was the grandmother on the mother's side, Zofia PrzewłockaGoniewska (1818-1907), niece of the classicist poet Kajetan Koźmian, a figure of noble and dedicated patriotism. All this, as well as the agricultural knowledge and farming experience passed on by his father to his 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 a receptive and open mind, active in the social life of the local community and the Lublin region.
local environment and the Lublin region."

Source: Maria Dębowczyk, Land estates of stefan Kazimierz Kowerski in Lubelskie as an example of effective and socially useful agricultural economy (xix/xx century) - sketch.