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Tag Archives: Hungarian

Book of the Week — تاريخ راشد افندي

10 Monday Jul 2017

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America, Arabic, Austria, Celebizade, dictionary, European, France, grammar, historian, historiographer, Holland, Hungarian, Ibrahim Muteferrika, Islam, Istanbul, Latin, Muslim, Muteferrika Press, Ottoman, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish, poet, Rasit Efendi, Turkish, typeface, woodcut

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-firstimage
تاريخ راشد افندي
تاريخ راشد
قسطنطنية : ابراهيم من متفرقه كان

The first Turkish printing house was established in Istanbul on December 14, 1727. The director of the press was Ibrahim Muteferrika (1674-1745), a Hungarian convert to Islam. In 1726 Muteferrika sent a report on the efficiency of the printing press to Vizier Damat Ibrahim Pasha, the Grand Mufti. After he submitted another report to Sultan Ahmed, he recieved permission to publish non-religious books, over the objections of calligraphers and religious leaders.

Muteferrika Press published sixteen books between 1729 and 1742. Each edition consisted of between five hundred and one thousand copies. The presses themselves came from France, the typefaces were designed and cut by Muteferrika. The printers were from Austria. The press’s first title, a dictionary, contained maps and drawings from the Islamic world. A grammar (1730) was the first printed Ottoman work in Latin. In 1732, the press published a history of the discovery of America. This was the first book by a Muslim author about the Americas and included thirteen woodcut illustrations.

The work presented here is Rasit Efendi’s Tarih-i Rashid Afandi, published in 1741 by the Muteferrika Press. This was the sixteenth book to be published by the press. The work covers the period 1071-1134AH (1660-1772) of the official Ottoman history.  Rashid’s work is added to with Celebizade Isma’il Asim’s Tarih-i Celebizade Efendi, a history by Celebizade (d 1173 [1760]. Both Rashid and Celebizade held the post of official historiographer for the Ottoman Empire. This publication, printed in four volumes, here bound as one, is considered the prime source for the period.

The text, printed in Arabic script, is in Ottoman Turkish. Rare Books copy has evidence of at least one hand underlining and marking in faded brown ink. Bound in Ottoman style with blind-stamped European leather, lined with patterned paper.

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-pattern

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-colophon

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-secondimage

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Book of the Week — Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ kamā kataba Mār Mattay waḥid min ithnay ‘ashar min talāmīdhihi

19 Monday Jun 2017

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Accademia del Disgno, Aleppo, Alessio dra Saggeto, Antonio Tempesta, Antonius Sionita, arabesque, Arabic, Armenian, Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ, bi-lingual, Book of Hours, borders, Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, Christian, College of Sapienza, colophon, Eastern Orthodox Church, Europe, European, Flemish, Florence, font, French, frescoes, gilt, Giorgio Vasari, Giovanni Battista Raimondi, Gospels, Hebrew, Hungarian, Ibrahim Muteferrika, illustrations, Islam, Islamic, Istanbul, Joannes Stradanus, Latin, Leonardo Parasole, mathematics, Matthew, Medici, military, Mohamedan, morocco, movable type, Muslim, Near East, Orientalist, Ottomon Empire, Palazzo Vecchio, peace, Persian, political, Pope Gregory XIII, printing, religious, Robert Granjon, Romae, Roman Catholic Church, Roman type, Rome, Santi di Tito, science, scripture, sprinkled calf, stamps, Sultan Ahmed III, sword, Syrian, translation, typographer, Typographia Medicea, Vatican, Villa Farnese, Waqf, woodcuts

BS315-A66-1591-title
“Ne arbitremini quod ego uenetim ut mitterem super terram pacem; non ueni ut mitterem pacem, sed gladium (“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.)” — Matthew 10:34

Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ kamā kataba Mār Mattay waḥid min ithnay ‘ashar min talāmīdhihi
Romae: in Typographia Medicea, MDXCI
Edicio princeps
BS315 A66 1591

Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ, the first printed edition of the Gospels in Arabic, is the first production by the Typographia Medicea press, a printing house established by Pope Gregory XIII and Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in order to promote and distribute Christian scripture to the Near East. Two issues of this work were printed, apparently simultaneously. One had Arabic-only text and was printed in an edition of 4,000 copies. The other, here, was printed in Arabic with interlinear Latin, in an edition of 3,000 copies. The Arabic-only edition has the date 1590 on the title-page, but 1591 in the colophon. Allegedly, a few of the bi-lingual copies were published with a preliminary leaf stating, “Sanctum Dei evangelium arab.-lat.” No known copies of this half-title are known to exist and this leaf may never have existed.

With a Latin translation ascribed to one Antonius Sionita, the book was edited by Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1540-ca. 1614), an esteemed Orientalist and professor of mathematics at the College of Sapienza in Rome. Raimondi travelled extensively in the Near East and was knowledgeable, if not fluent, in Arabic, Armenian, Syrian and Hebrew. His fame rests with the editorship of the Typographica Medicea. He and French typographer Robert Granjon, who created the Arabic font used in this work, were both recognized then and now for the earliest and best attempts to print Arabic in Europe.

Illustrated with 149 woodcuts, printed from 68 blocks, engraved by Leonardo Parasole (ca. 1587-ca. 1630). The artist, Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630), studied under Santi di Tito and Flemish artist Joannes Stradanus at the Accademia del Disgno. Tempesta later worked with Stradanus and Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) on the interior decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Tempesta then travelled to Rome, where he fulfilled several commissions, including frescoes for Pope Gregory XIII in the Vatican and panel paintings for the Villa Farnese. Many of the woodcuts are signed with the initials “AT” (Antonio Tempesta) and “LP” (Leonardo Parasole). The illustrations in Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ are excellent examples of Tempesta’s work, noteworthy for their clear composition and narrative of the episodes depicted.

Be that as it may, the illustrations may have played a part in the failure of this book to reach, let alone convince, its intended Islamic audience. Islam forbade religious illustration and these may have made the Gospels appear less than sacred, if not sacrilegious, to Arab Muslim readers.

To be fair, the Christian church had a long tradition of presenting their message with religious illustrations. As far back as the sixth century, Pope Gregory defended the value of such imagery, arguing that pictures were useful for teaching the faith to the unconverted and for conveying sacred stories to the illiterate. According to Bede, St. Augustine introduced Christianity to the heathen King Ethelbert of Kent, upon landing on the British Isles, by presenting a picture of Christ painted on a wooden panel. He then began to preach.

The Pope seems also to have denied the fact that more Christians lived in the Ottoman Empire than in any other European state. The first printed book in Arabic was a Book of Hours, probably intended for export to Syrian Christians. But these Christians were adherents to the Eastern Orthodox Church, not the Pope’s Roman Catholic Church. Christianity was hardly unknown in the predominantly Muslim Ottoman and Persian Empires. The Ottomans were, however, Christian Europe’s major military and political concern.

In addition to printing the Gospels in Arabic, Ferdinando de’ Medici charged Raimondi with printing “all available Arabic books on permissable human science which had no religious content in order to introduce the art of printing to the Mohamedan community.” Despite the superb quality — textually, typographically, and artistically — of its work, the Medici press was an economic failure and went bankrupt in 1610. The fact is that Raimondi displayed little understanding of Islamic culture. Although Raimondi’s selection of publications was not aimed at European scholars, his choices stimulated a study of the Near East in Europe.

It would be more than a century after the Medici Press closed that Ibrahim Muteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam, was given permission by Sultan Ahmed III (1673-1736) to open his printing house in Istanbul, in 1729. This was not the first printing press established in the Near East, but it was the first Eastern press to print in Arabic using movable type.

Arabic and small roman type text within double-ruled borders. Colophon and printer’s note to reader in Latin. Colophon decorated with large woodcut arabesque.

Rare Books copy bound in full, eighteenth century, sprinkled calf, with a gilt spine containing two burgundy morocco labels, and decorative gilt borders on the covers. The first leaf is shaved and reinserted on contemporary paper. This leaf contains four Waqf stamps, indicating the authentication of the Arabic translation. As in most copies, our copy lacks a title page. A former owner’s penciled inscription, “Alessio Dra Saggeto/en Aleppo 1871,” is on the free front end paper. Another signature, in ink, is at the top of the back free end paper.

For more on the woodcuts, see Field, Richard S. Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and Woodcuts for the Medicean 1591 Arabic Gospels, NE662 T45 F54 2001, in the rare book collections.

BS315-A66-1591-colophon

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Journal of the week — Vojvodjanski zbornik

23 Monday May 2016

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Arad, art, artists, Begrade, Bogdan Ciplic, Bogdan Suput, Bogdan Teodorovic, Budapest, children's literature, colorism, cubism, culture, Europe, fascists, German, Hungarian, Hungary, impressionism, Ivan Tabakovic, journal, landscapes, linocuts, Milan Konjovic, Milenko Sevan, modernist, Munich, Nava Sudarska, Novi Sad, Paris, Petar Dobrovic, portraits, Prague, prisoner-of-war, Romania, Serbia, Serbian, Serbo-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic, Sima Cucic, Stepan Bonarov, Vojvodjansk, Vojvojdina, woodcuts, World War II, Yugoslavia, Zagreb

PG1400.15-V64-knij.1-portrait
PG1400.15-V64-knj.1-buildingimage PG1400.15-V64-knij.1-wagon

Vojvodjanski zbornik: almanah. vols. 1 (1938) and 2 (1939)
Novi Sad: S.n., 1938-1939
PG1400 I5 V64

This journal of art and culture was produced in Vojvojdina, an autonomous province of Serbia, on the eve of the second World War. The journal, published in these two issues only, assembled the work of modernist artists and writers of the region, including many contributors whose work is otherwise unpublished or unrecorded. Many of the artists and writers did not survive the war.

The journals include prose, poetry and, in the first volume, illustrations – including original graphic works (woodcuts and linocuts) by Bogdan Teodorovic, Stefan Bodnarov, Milan Konjovic (1898-1993), Milenko Servan, Bogdan Suput (1914-1942), Ivan Tabakovic (1898-1977), Nava Sudarska, Petar Dobrovic (1890-1942) and others.

The journal was edited by Bogdan Ciplic and writer and critic Sima Cucic (1905-1988). Today in Serbia, annual awards for achievements in the field of children’s literature are given in the name of Sima Cucic.

Milan Konjovic (1898-1993) became a prominent Serbian painter. He went to school in Prague, lived in Paris between 1924 and 1932 and traveled throughout Europe before returning to Vojvodjansk. He survived a German prisoner-of-war camp.

Bogdan Suput, considered one of the great Serbian painters of the first half of the twentieth century, was born in 1914. He also spent time in Paris. In 1939 he returned to Belgrade where he became a member of the art group, “Ten.” That April, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia. Suput survived German captivity, but was shot by Hungarian fascists in Novi Sad in 1942. An art school in Novi Sad, begun sixty years ago, is named after him.

Ivan Tabakovic was born in Arad, Hungary (now Romania). He studied art in Budapest and Zagreb. He traveled briefly in Munich. In 1930 he moved to Novi Sad and began teaching in Belgrade in 1938.

Petar Dobrovic, a proponent, along with Milan Konjovic, of Serbian colorism, was known for his portraits and landscapes. He experimented with impressionism and cubism. He was President of the short-lived, small Serbo-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic in 1921. He died in Belgrade during the German occupation.

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Book of the Week – Emblemata et Aliqvot Nvmmi Antiqvi…

31 Friday Jan 2014

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Arnold Nicolai, Christopher Plantin, Cornelis Muller, emblem book, emblemata, engraving, Ferdinand I, Geoffroy Ballain, Gerard Janssen van Kampen, humanism, Hungarian, Janos Zsamboki, Kenneth Lawrence Ott, Lucas d'Heere, Maximilian II, Okanagan County Museum, Pieter Huys, Plantin, Plantini, Roman coins, Rudolf II, vignettes, wood engravings, woodcuts

Zsamboki, Emblemata, 1569, Cover
Zsamboki, Emblemata, 1569, Title Page
Zsamboki, Emblemata, 1569

Emblemata et Aliqvot Nvmmi Antiqvi…
Janos Zsamboki (1531-1584)
Antverpiae: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, mdlxix [1569]

The emblem book addressed a wide range of interests within humanist culture, among them the purpose of poetry and the relative power of the visual and the verbal. The first edition of physician Janos Zsamboki’s Emblemata was printed by the Plantin press in 1564. It was the first new emblem book to appear outside of Italy or France and is one of the largest and most influential examples of the genre at an early state of its development. An expanded edition was published in 1566 and was reprinted four times.

Janos Zsamboky was a Hungarian humanist who spent much of his life in Vienna as court-historiographer to the Habsburg emperors Ferdinand I, Maximilian II, and Rudolf II. This edition opens with an emblem dedicated to the newly elected emperor Maximilian II. Zsamboky prepared his emblem book at the end of two decades of traveling throughout Germany, France, Italy, and the Low Countries, before he entered the court in Vienna. Other works from Zsamboki include editions of classical texts and historiographical works. His was renowned for his scholarly patronage and an impressive collection of books and old manuscripts.

Emblemata consists of single pages containing a motto, a woodcut illustration and an epigram. Nearly a third of the emblems are also accompanied by dedications to well-known humanists, powerful courtiers, clergymen and friends and relatives. Zsamboki commissioned Lucas d’Heere to draw the illustrations. Christopher Plantin had half of d’Heere’s designs redrawn by Geoffory Ballain and Pieter Huys. The woodcuts were produced by Gerard Janssen van Kampen, Cornelis Muller and Arnold Nicolai. The Plantin printer’s device appears on the title-page. A full-page engraving of Zsamboki faces the preface. Various decorative vignettes throughout. Several leaves with wood engravings of Roman coins at the end of the book.

From the Kenneth Lieurance Ott Collection donated to the Okanagan County Museum, Washington.

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