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Gutenberg, jego współpracownicy i pierwsi naśladowcy działali w świecie, w którym przekaz informacji odbywał się w znacznej mierze za pomocą obrazu, znaku i symbolu. Rzemieślnicy i przedsiębiorcy, nim jeszcze rozpoczęli działalność typograficzną czy nakładczą, nierzadko już posługiwali się znakami rozpoznawczo-własnościowymi. One także stawały się często podstawowym elementem ich późniejszych sygnetów drukarskich. Te niewielkie kompozycje graficzne dla dawnych czytelników, zaznajomionych z heraldyką, także nierycerską i nieszlachecką, były komunikatami o proweniencji druku, tożsamości, pochodzeniu czy przynależności społecznej jego wytwórcy. Dla dzisiejszego odbiorcy symbolika sygnetów z epoki początków „czarnej sztuki” bywa znana i czytelna, częściej jednak pozostaje całkiem zagadkowa lub zrozumiała tylko po części. Autorka na kartach swojej książki podjęła w bardzo zajmujący sposób próbę hipotetycznej rekonstrukcji genezy przedstawień wizualnych i formuł werbalnych współistniejących w sygnetach drukarskich, szukając wzorców ikonograficznych i źródeł ideowych owych kompozycji graficznych, używanych w XVI w. w drukarniach czynnych w Królestwie Polskim i Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim oraz analizując wymowę tych znaków i ich odbiór przez współczesnych. Niezwykle ciekawa lektura dla edytorów, filologów i historyków naukowo zainteresowanych tematem, ale także dla miłośników dziejów druku. Publikacja bogato ilustrowana, opatrzona zestawieniem bibliograficznym, indeksem osobowo-geograficznym i streszczeniem w języku angielskim. Printers’ devices were compositions that served to identify the products of individual publishers and printers. The early 15th-century marks were regarded in the first place as a commercial convenience, but since they developed out of the pictorial vocabulary of medieval non-noble heraldry, they served as intelligible signs providing information about the origins of the publications: they identified books’ producers and spoke about printers’ and publishers’ social status and places of activity. Later development added marketing potential to the printers’ devices’ marketing potential. Remaining symbols of recognition and signs of identification, they started to be designed to represent their owners’ religious affiliations and self-image, to reflect publishers’ and printers’ education and ambitions as well as their publishing programme. Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku. Źródła ikonograficzne i treści ideowe discusses the printers’ devices used in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century. It explores printers’ devices transition from simple signs towards symbolic compositions, concentrating on the ideological inspirations and iconographic models of the devices. As a result, it proposes interpretations for the devices used by early printers in Poland-Lithuania. On the one hand it reconstructs what the local printers wanted to communicate with their devices, but on the other, it speculates about the message that the contemporary readers might have understood when coming across these compositions in books that reached their hands. The book industry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was less developed than the early print culture in Italy, the German-speaking lands or France, and consequently the number of printers’ devices used in the country was small in comparison with the device inheritance of other European realms. But the Polish-Lithuanian devices confirm that the textual and visual discourses of the printers’ marks were pan-European, reflecting the networked communities of the European centres of learning and commerce, especially the universities and towns. The introduction (“Wprowadzenie”) provides a methodological point of departure for the monograph and establishes its theoretical framework, more specifically seeking its aim is to define the printer’s device. The first chapter that follows (“Sygnet w strukturze książki”/“A device in the structure of a book”) analyses a role of the printer’s device within the early printed book referring to the material printed in 15th- and 16th-century Poland-Lithuania. Chapter 2 (“Tradycje heraldyczne”/“Heraldic traditions”) investigates a group of devices rooted in the medieval tradition of heraldic recognition. These compositions usually adopted merchants’ marks as their most important visual components, made use of burghers’ arms assumed by the printers, coats of arms granted to them and the representations of the printers’ patron saints. This chapter discusses devices found in books published or printed by a Krakow bookman, Jan Haller (active in Krakow, first as a tradesman who could supply the books, and later as a printer). Haller identified his products with a group of different woodcuts that included his merchant’s mark: a minuscule h combined with a double cross. Drawing on archival materials and museum artefacts, chapter 2 shows how Haller’s Hausmarke also served as a signifier and an identifier in products other than books (i.a. it labelled sheets from the paper mill that Haller owned in Prądnik Czerwony near Krakow). Jan Haller employed used his merchant’s mark in his devices for almost two decades (1505-1524), never trying to experiment with more inventive compositions. At the same time the European printers were already testing symbolic devices of classical models and of emblematic affinity. This phenomenon revealed the evolution of the printers’ ambitions, and mirrored changes in how members of the new generation understood their social standing and professional position. In Poland-Lithuania, and first in Krakow, printers started to adapt this new tendency by employing devices that integrated their merchants’ marks into more sophisticated, symbolic compositions. A way of merging heraldic tradition with a symbolic or emblematic mode in a printer’s device could be that of making the printer’s Hausmarke a part of a design that on the one hand was a rebus signature of the printer, but on the other, had a symbolic value. That is why the second chapter of Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku tells us about devices used by Maciej Szarfenberg, Maciej Wirzbięta and Mateusz Siebeneicher. Particularly interesting are the devices of the latter two printers. Each of these woodcuts displayed a shield with a merchant’s mark hanging on a tree presented in the centre of a monumental cartouche. Hausmarken identified the printers and provided demarcations of class and status. Trees were the supporters and referred to the printers’ surnames: a willow-tree, Polish “wierzba”, for Wirzbięta, and an oak, German “die Eiche”, for Siebeneicher. The result in each case was a readily understood rebus, but also a design that conveyed intrinsic meaning associated with certain moral and social values. For example in the case of Wirzbięta’s devices, the willow was chosen to reappear in the printer’s books not only because it constituted a pun on his name, but also because it could be read as a symbol of the virtues of the Calvinists. Presented usually in union with the printer’s personal sign (the initials M and W), the tree denoted religious affiliations of Wirzbięta, and helped the device become a vehicle of self-propagandisation since it suggested the printers’ perseverance in his faith. This function of the printer’s device was perhaps most visible in the earliest woodcuts that Wirzbięta used, where Maciej’s initials were both embedded on a shield hanging from a willow-tree and placed under the representations of Caritas and Fides in the upper corners of the device’s cartouche. Since the virtues’ vernacular names in Polish - Miłość/Miłosierdzie (Eng. Love/Charity) and Wiara (Eng. Faith) - begin with the same letters as the printer’s name and surname, the device’s conceptual character was particularly manifest here. Its composition was organized around a printer’s merchant’s mark and a representation that was both a pun on his name and a symbol of ethical conduct and religious affiliations. The last part of chapter 2 centres on the heraldic devices used by Szarfenberger family in Krakow (all repeated the coat of arms granted by the emperor to sons of Marek Scharfenber), Cyprian Bazylik in Brest Litovsk (Brześć Litewski) and Aleksander Augezdecki in Kaliningrad (Królewiec, Königsberg) and Szamotuły. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth mercantile and heraldic forms of mediaeval origin remained a viable pictorial tool for the producers and buyers of books well into the 16th century. They belonged to iconographic traditions that were better known and better understood than classical imagery and the emblem genre. However, in the first decades of the 16th century printers of the Commonwealth, first in Krakow, started to employ devices influenced by what Michael Pastoureau termed “pulsions emblématiques”. Either truly learned themselves or advised by the scholars and poets working for them, local printers began to choose signs inspired by symbolic and archetypal culture codes as their devices; they referred to classical sources, at times preclassical, traditio pagana et christiana, as well as to mediaeval imagery, and - finally - to the modern books of emblems. Printers’ devices imitated emblem picturae (quite frequently using devices of other publishing houses as their direct models) or made use of common motives employed by both: printers and authors of the emblem books. The devices documenting this new trend in Poland-Lithuania are discussed in chapter 3 of Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku (“Antyczne źródła i emblematyczny filtr”/”Classical sources and emblematic filter”). Chapter 3 opens with the analysis of the Terminus device of Hieronim Wietor that started to be in use in 1523. Terminus signalled Wietor’s humanistic views and life-long enthusiasm for Erasmus of Rotterdam, as the imagery of the mark was clearly based on the reverse of the portrait medal prepared for Erasmus by Quentin Matsys. Wietor’s device repeated both the Dutch representation of Terminus and one of the two inscriptions found on the Erasmus’ medal. Although the second Erasmian motto was not directly incorporated, it was clearly reminiscent of other similar expressions of vanitas that Wietor placed on his device. The choice of the inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek and Latin in the Krakow composition suggests an interpretation of the riddle of Terminus in line with Erasmus’ explanation that Terminus represents death, which yields to none. At the same time surrounding the woodcut with mottoes shows that the same wisdom can be derived from traditio hebraica, traditio Christiana and traditio pagana. Wietor’s decision to make Terminus a printer’s device could have been intended not only as a manifestation of Wietor’s admiration for Erasmus’ works, but also as a demonstration of the printer’s education and the mental standing of a man who was eager to promote new and independent ways of thinking, repeating the bold words: ‘I yield to none’. Further on chapter 3 discusses Polish devices that were modelled on the marks from Basel and Antwerp, but at the same time repeated an idea embodied in Alciato’s emblems. The earliest one was a woodcut of Florian Ungler who in 1533 employed the device where his Hausmarke was embedded on a shield supported by a half-figure. This was more than a simple continuation of mediaeval models of heraldic display, because the man in the picture was the personification of silence, recognisable thanks to his gestures (signum Harpocratis) and the guidance of the mottos in Latin, Greek and Hebrew that surrounded the woodcut. Ungler’s device was a composition with a didactical purpose and correctly understanding its message required knowledge of the classical tradition filtered through the works of humanists (e.g. Andrea Alciato with his emblem In silentium). Chapter 3 finishes with the discussion of iconographic and ideological inspirations behind Belleronphon device used since the 1590s in Drukarnia Akademii Zamojskiej (Eng. Zamość Academy Publishing House) in Zamość. Picturae from the emblem books by Andrea Alciato and Achille Bocchi that illustrate the fight between Bellerophon and Chimera most probably constituted the visual sources of the device. In turn, the Italian emblems can be used to reconstruct its meaning. The Zamość device could symbolise virtutes et artes in the Academy’s curriculum and programme as well as the power of wisdom, of abilities (also rhetorical ones) and the might of the godly truth, all of which was contained in the books issued by the Zamość Academy Publishing House. At the same time the device could perhaps be understood as a reference to Jan Zamojski, the founder of Zamość, its academy and the local printing house, as someone who defeats the unlawful thanks to the power of wisdom and virtue. Chapter 4 (“We wspólnocie chrześcijan”/“In the Christian community”) interrogates devices that could be understood as signs of religious affiliation. It argues that especially the printers who were supporters of the Reformation or who openly declared affiliation to the reformed churches employed their devices to show who they were and what they believed in. In the opening decades of the 16th century circles of booksellers, printers and publishers in Poland-Lithuania significantly contributed to the promotion of ‘religious novelties’ in the country. Thus the text focuses first on the devices used by the publishers and printers who either contributed to the reform or were Protestants themselves. It discusses the devices of Hans Weinreich, Hans Lufft, Hans Daubmann and Georg Osterberger, who were the printers of the 16th-century Kaliningrad (Königsberg, Królewiec), where duke Albrecht promoted Luther’s teachings, rightly understanding the persuasive power of the printed word. Further on the text analyses the willow-tree devices of Wirzbięta mentioned already in Chapter 2 and a device employed by another Calvinist printer - Stanisław Murmelius. Furthermore, Chapter 4 presents the story of the Brazen Serpent device of Aleksy Rodecki and Sebastian Sternacki, Polish Brethren printers, active first in Krakow, and later in Rakow. The central motive of their device was taken from the Book of Numbers and was customarily understood as a prototype of the sacrifice of Christ. When Polish Brethrens started to use the image of the Brazen Serpent as their device, they were probably referring to the symbolic tradition, particularly appreciated by the 16th-century reformers of Christianity, who used the image of the Moses’ serpent as a representation of Christ the Saviour - ‘salus vitae’. The text argues that the symbolic image referred to the Christological teaching of the Polish Brethren. Aleksy Rodecki, who used this sign as the device for his publishing house, and Sebastian Sternacki, who introduced title-borders with an image of a winged serpent, had probably made conscious use of a religious symbol. By employing it, the printers declared not only their faith in the Crucified Jesus and their own trust in the redemptive power of his passion, but they also emphasised the importance which the Polish Brethren attached to Christ and the worship that was due to him. The device, symbolically presenting the Crucified Christ, ‘salus vitae humanae’, was an ideological declaration of the publishing house and its owners. A decision to mark the books produced by an Antitrinitarian publishing house with the symbol of a brazen serpent might have had a polemical role as well. It could have been treated as a voice in theological disputes with polemicists (especially Catholics and Calvinists), who tried to discredit the Polish Brethren by imputing that they negated the deed of the Redemption achieved by Christ. Chapter 4 closes with the remarks on the Pelican-in-her-Piety devices – the marks organised around a conventional symbol adopted on both sides of religious division. The fifth chapter of Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku (“Sygnety Drukarni Łazarzowej”/”Devices of Officina Lazari) concentrates on the devices employed by a 16th -century printing house whose ownership stayed within a single family, inherited by the subsequent printers: Hieronim Wietor, his wife Barbara, then her new husband Łazarz Andrysowic, and finally Jan Łazarzowic Januszowski, who was the son of Barbara and Łazarz. The most interesting device that Officina Lazari used was the obelisk first adopted as a device by Jan Łazarzowic Januszowski in 1583. The obelisk - a tool used in Krakow for astronomic observations by Joachim Georg Rheticus - reflected perhaps intellectual fascinations of Januszowski, who was interested in astrology and astronomy and who published hermetic treaties (Hanibal Roselli’s commentary to Corpus hermeticum and Asclepius). The Egyptian monument could be interpreted as a symbol of knowledge, since Januszowski knew Plinius’ opinion that first obelisks were erected in Egypt from godly inspiration and was aware of the deliberations of Rheticus, who wrote that obelisks used to be devoted to the sun, that is the eye that was shedding light on all things. The printer also knew that for Christian writers an obelisk signified Christ - the light of the world and the true sun. Thus the obelisk printed on the title pages of books published by Officina Lazari could be read as a sign that unites heaven and earth and symbolizes human thought and the immeasurable wisdom of God. At the same time it was perhaps understood as a symbol of fame and immortality. Such an interpretation of obelisks could be found for instance in the contemporary emblem collections. The obelisk constituted an excellent device as it provoked manifold interpretations. It was a representation evoking wide connotations and referring to the ancient tradition: a hermetic sign of godly wisdom and a symbol of earthly fame that is preserved in human memory. The last, sixth chapter of Sygnety drukarskie w Rzeczypospolitej XVI wieku (“Sygnety drukarzy ksiąg hebrajskich”/ “Devices in Hebrew books”) focuses on the devices used by Jewish printers active in Krakow (or rather its neighbouring town Kazimierz) and in Lublin. This chapter is an attempt to reconstruct the sources of the devices present in Jewish tradition, e.g. in Torah learning and in Talmud. Interestingly, the research undertook for this study suggests that the Jewish signs shared a number of characteristics with printers’ marks found in the books published by the Christian printers. This did not apply to the iconographical models and ideological inspirations behind the devices. But it implied that the methods pictorial and literary sources were exploited by the printers were similar, as were the ways these compositions were used within early printed books to identify the printers (e. g. by alluding to their names) and to declare moral values or ethical ideals. The conclusion closes the book arguing that the early printers placed symbolic compositions on the title pages and final leaves of their books for effective communication with the reading public. Thus printers’ devices that appeared together with the name of the author, the book’s title and the imprint rarely served as a mere ornament. But early modern readers employed various visual and textual strategies of working with printers’ devices. For example Mateusz Siebeneicher’s device of 1564 (analysed in the second chapter of the monograph) was for many viewers just a depiction of a merchant’s mark, a sign of identification and recognition, the only one that was displayed in a decorative setting. Those who noticed that a shield with Siebeneicher’s Hausmarke was hanging on an oak, and who spoke German and were familiar with rebuses and word plays, would recognise the pun on the printer’s name. Some intuitively understood that the mature tree represented strength, constancy and steadfastness. Finally, there were viewers for whom the larger context needed to read the device was established through the Bible or the works of the Church fathers, through classical texts, humanistic poetry and emblem books. For all, or at least almost all, readers who noticed the device in a printed book, it constituted a message-bearing image. The understanding of the information it carried was determined by the public’s acquaintance with heraldic convention, iconographic and literary tradition, and religious imagery. Perhaps most of the early modern printers’ devices were deliberately invented in a way that made messages be read differently by audiences of varied cultural background. Today the iconographical models, visual sources and finally the meaning of the printers’ devices are in many instances not clearly discernible. This is the case especially when there is no verbal commentary (a motto) to guide us in understanding the image. We can explain and interpret these compositions only as far as the limited iconographic vocabulary that we have inherited allows us to. Nevertheless, investigatin these cultural phenomena in a systematic way, provides us with some insight into the visual and intellectual tradition of the 16th century and allows us to reconstruct the mentality of contemporary printers who wanted to be seen not only as businessmen but also as humanists and intellectuals.

Jan Januszowski znany jest przede wszystkim jako wydawca Jana Kochanowskiego, najznakomitszy drukarz polskiego Odrodzenia. Był on prawdziwym człowiekiem Renesansu, l'uomo universale, który odebrał wykształcenie prawnicze, ale zajmował się historiografią i filologią, teologią i nauka o gwiazdach, pisał i tłumaczył. Oddawana do rąk Czytelników książka jest pierwszą monografią twórczości pisarskiej Jana Januszowskiego. Autorka zajęła się zidentyfikowaniem, zebraniem i omówieniem różnorodnych prac właściciela Oficyny Łazarzowej, których był autorem lub tłumaczem, oraz tych, o których wiadomo, że pełnił w stosunku do nich rolę twórczego i zaangażowanego w proces powstawania książki redaktora. Pozwoliło to ukazać rozległość zainteresowań Januszowskiego, rozpoznać jego intelektualne upodobania oraz stosunek, zwykle bardzo osobisty, do rozmaitych kwestii kształtujących życie społeczne i kulturalne końca XVI i początku XVII wieku. Czcionką i piórem kreśli intelektualną sylwetkę architypografa i opowiada życiowe przypadki sekretarza królewskiego, padewczyka rozległej wiedzy i horyzontów, wybitnego wydawcy, pisarza, a wreszcie księdza, z oddaniem służącego sprawie katolickiej reformy.

TERMINUS jest kwartalnikiem wydawanym przez Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w Krakowie. Ukazuje się od 1999 roku, obecnie w wersji elektronicznej w otwartym dostępie (wersja podstawowa), a także w wersji drukowanej. Obowiązuje procedura recenzyjna typu double-blind review. Na łamach czasopisma ukazują się artykuły dotyczące dawnej literatury polskiej, zwłaszcza jej związków z tradycją klasyczną i literaturą europejską od średniowiecza aż do XVIII wieku, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem renesansu i literatury nowołacińskiej. Zakres tematyczny publikowanych artykułów obejmuje badania nad dawną literaturą polską, literaturą nowołacińską, historią literatur europejskich, mediewistyką, humanizmem i reformacją, retoryką, historią książki, historią idei, emblematyką i komparatystyką literacką.

TERMINUS jest kwartalnikiem wydawanym przez Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w Krakowie. Ukazuje się od 1999 roku, obecnie w wersji elektronicznej w otwartym dostępie (wersja podstawowa), a także w wersji drukowanej. Obowiązuje procedura recenzyjna typu double-blind review. Na łamach czasopisma ukazują się artykuły dotyczące dawnej literatury polskiej, zwłaszcza jej związków z tradycją klasyczną i literaturą europejską od średniowiecza aż do XVIII wieku, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem renesansu i literatury nowołacińskiej. Zakres tematyczny publikowanych artykułów obejmuje badania nad dawną literaturą polską, literaturą nowołacińską, historią literatur europejskich, mediewistyką, humanizmem i reformacją, retoryką, historią książki, historią idei, emblematyką i komparatystyką literacką.