TERMINUS Vol. 21 (2019), Special Issue 2, pp. 243–247 doi:10.4467/20843844TE.19.011.11119 Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6592-4747 Jagiellonian University in Kraków justyna.kilianczyk-zieba[at]uj.edu.pl Review Marian Malicki, Repertuar Wydawniczy Drukarni Franciszka Cezarego Starszego, 1616–1651 [Franciszek Cezary the Elder’s Printing House, 1616–1651], part 1: Bibliografia Druków Franciszka Cezarego Starszego, 1616–1651 [Bibliography of the Publications Printed by Franciszek Cezary the Elder, 1616–1651], Cracow, Księgarnia Akademicka 2010 (“Bibliotheca Iagellonica. Fontes Et Studia,” Vol. 17), pp. 80* Franciszek Cezary the Elder, sometimes mentioned alongside Andrzej Piotrkowczyk, is considered to be the most outstanding printer in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the first half of the seventeenth century. The achievements of this Cracow printer were already praised by nineteenth-century scholars and confirmed by research conducted by successive generations of historians of literature, books, and culture. The most comprehensive study to date on Cezary and his printing house’s output were the entries devoted to him and the dynasty of printers he initiated that Krystyna Korotajowa published * Publication of this paper was financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland under the grant 643/P-DUN/2018. Polish version: J. Kiliańczyk-Zięba, “Marian Malicki, Repertuar wydawniczy drukarni Franciszka Cezarego starszego, 1616–1651. Część 1: Bibliografia druków Franciszka Cezarego starszego, 1616–1651,” Terminus 25/14 (2012), pp. 269–272. 244 Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba in Drukarze dawnej Polski [Printers of early-modern Poland]. These entries bring many important biographic and bibliographic findings, therefore constituting an obligatory reference point for further research, but they are tailored to the needs of an encyclopaedia. Like many printers of the Commonwealth, Cezary, widely admired for his achievements, waited a long time for researchers to undertake in-depth research into his biography, translation and editorial work, and, finally, of the publishing output of his printing house. Fortunately, unlike the majority of other printers, the person of Franciszek Cezary drew the attention of a certain scholar, namely Marian Malicki, who wrote a monograph on the printer. Bibliografia druków Franciszka Cezarego starszego [Bibliography of publications printed by Franciszek Cezary the Elder, 1616–1651] is the first of two planned parts of the study devoted to the publishing activity of Cezary. It contains a list of publications signed with his name and anonymous editions identified by means of the so-called typographic method, titles available today in libraries and publications information about which was preserved for us by bibliographers active in foregone centuries. Although so far the volume of Cezary’s production was estimated at about 650 items, the readers of Malicki’s book receive a list of 773 publications. What is more, the remarks made in the introduction to the bibliography indicate that perhaps, in the course of further research, the list will be extended to included other editions (such as the copy of Hieronim Morsztyn’s Światowa Roskosz from 1624 kept in the Kórnik Library). Marian Malicki’s studies “increased” Cezary’s output by almost 13 per cent, which of course would not have been possible without impressive, wide-ranging and meticulous research. It also results in bibliographic descriptions—deliberately constructed, prepared with care for every detail that may prove important for historians of old books, librarians, and philologists/editors. The abridged version of the title is followed by a transcribed title page, where the types of letters, their colours, and even the kinds of frames used by the printer (the relevant lists are an important part of the study). Under “Content,” there is a detailed description of what the Marian Malicki, Repertuar Wydawniczy Drukarni… 245 edition comprises, including a list of paratexts and a presentation of the content of the work divided into books, chapters, and works of various authors. Descriptions that Malicki could prepare from what he saw himself determined the volume of editions and recorded errors in pagination or foliation, changes in the running headline, irregularities in the signing of section quires and the location of signatures in selected sections. Finally, it also contained bibliographic quotations (from Estreicher and catalogues of libraries, but also monographs of writers or bibliographies of particular types of literature) and an inventory of copies of each edition, taking into account both those surviving to this day (with information about defects and sometimes important features of purchased copies), as well as copies lost but once kept, for example, in Warsaw collections. In short, Malicki tried to include in his descriptions everything that could help to distinguish typographical varieties of editions and variants, as well as to enable such diverse (though interrelated) activities as precise determination of the size of the publishing house’s production, analysis of the publishing process, choice of the source text for the publication of an old work, or identification of catalogued old editions, especially copies that have been damaged or prepared by an anonymous typographer. The bibliography is arranged in chronological order, which makes it possible to view the production of Cezary over more than three decades of the printing house’s existence, including the number of titles, their sizes, languages in which they were printed, and authors published each year. The chronological arrangement, established in the Polish tradition thanks to the Polonia Typographica saeculi sedecimi, does not always prove applicable. Therefore, Marian Malicki (if only for the convenience of those who would like to know how many works of art by individual authors were printed by Franciszek the Elder) also included in the publication an alphabetical list of works printed by Cezary. This list is only one of a few additional inventories that accompany the bibliography and may be helpful to the reader. The enumeration of publications of the printing house is preceded by a table drawn up on the basis of lists known from Drukarze dawnej Polski. Malicki shows here the size, dynamics and linguistic diversity 246 Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba of Cezary’s production in subsequent years. Then there is a catalogue of texts together with the height of 20 lines of types, provided according to Haebler’s method, although “the smallest number of lines and their height, measurable in editions published by F. Cezary” was added for greater precision (p. 45). The following pages inform us which kinds of types identified by Malicki were used by Cezary in which years, and the illustrations at the end of the volume show seventeen of them. Here, there is also an inventory of vignettes, borders, and initials from the resources of the printing house. The book includes an introduction in which Marian Malicki discusses the “life and affairs” of Cezary, after presenting the objectives of his work and his research intentions. Contrary to the modest assurances he expresses, this is not a “report on the findings of [Malicki’s] predecessors” (p. 8), but an attempt to confront the conclusions of Cezary’s biographers (especially those mentioned in the work of Krystyna Korotajowa) with information that can be found in the editions published by the man himself. Apart from archival documents, we can draw information both about a book and its manufacturer from the book itself. In the second chapter of the introduction, Marian Malicki presents works published in Cezary’s printing house. This part of the work shows the benefits that can be derived from studying the material gathered in the bibliography and gives a foretaste of the analyses that the reader can expect in the second part of the study as Malicki repeats several times that his bibliographic monograph is only the first part of the work dedicated to Cezary, and only in the second part will we receive a detailed discussion of his publishing offer. There are no generalities here, only specific figures concerning the dynamics and volume of production (in comparison with the achievements of the competitors), the estate, as well as the professional and national affiliation of the authors of the works printed, and finally, the subject matter and nature of the publications that came out from Cezary’s press. Before Zasady opisu (Rules of description), in which Malicki explains the methodology of his bibliographic work, there is Szkic do charakterystyki zasobu typograficznego (Preliminary characterisation of the typographic inventory). Marian Malicki, Repertuar Wydawniczy Drukarni… 247 Marian Malicki promises that a detailed analysis of the writings and other elements of the typographic inventory of this printing house will soon be available to readers. Bibliography leaves its reader with no doubt about Malicki’s passion for his research work. Malicki’s conscientiousness: his meticulousness in collecting data and caution in formulating conclusions are striking. The Bibliography suggests that the experience of a researcher who has been in close contact with old books for decades, also as a seasoned co-author of catalogues of old editions kept in the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow and the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, does not provoke him to nonchalance, but encourages him to respect both the matter with which he deals and the prospective reader, or user of the publication. The structure and content of the Bibliography is designed to meet the needs of researchers of various fields, rooted in different disciplines and using heterogeneous research methodologies. Some of these needs are not easy to guess, and it is even harder to satisfy them today. I believe that the author of the bibliographic monograph of Franciszek Cezary has succeeded in this difficult undertaking and that his work will be used by generations of scholars interested in various aspects of the intellectual and cultural life of the “silver age”. Translated from Polish by Kaja Szymańska