Post-Tridentine Liturgical Books for the Polish Church: Printed Chant Books from Kraków and Their Contexts.

Post-Tridentine liturgical books printed in Poland have not attracted much attention from book historians. However, given their special, sacred, and confessionally unifying status, they provide interesting material for comparative study of printing in the large European cities (e.g., Antwerp, Venice), and smaller provincial centers such as Kraków. The paper presents as products of the printing press the Psalterium, Antiphonarium and Graduale Romanum printed in Kraków in 1599-1600 by Andrzej Piotrkowczyk as well as later editions of these works. The decision to commission them in a local print shop rather than abroad came after prolonged debates within the Polish Catholic hierarchy. Materials used by the printer (paper, type, ornaments etc.) and the results he achieved (typography) are analysed at the backdrop of European printing and related to more general problems involved with the production of complex and voluminous books in the economic and cultural realities of an Eastern European city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]