A unique Krakow calendar for 1536 donated to the National Library
Thanks to the generosity of Krystyna Piórkowska, the National Library has enriched its collection with a valuable copy of an early Polish calendar for 1536 by Michał of Wiślica (ca. 1499–1575), professor of astrology and theology at the Kraków Academy.
The print was published by the well-known and distinguished publishing house of Maciej Szarffenberg (d. 1547), a representative of a family of Kraków printers originating from Silesia. The beginnings of his printing house date back to 1527. Since at least 1528, he had been publishing calendar prints in Polish and Latin; the oldest preserved ones are the forecasts of Jan Sandecki and Mikołaj of Szadek (see Polonia Typographica XII, 35-36). On July 3, 1537, Maciej Szarffenberg obtained a royal privilege for the monopolistic and lifetime publication and sale of forecasts and calendars by masters of the Kraków Academy. This type of privilege created a strong financial base for the company, which allowed Maciej to develop his workshop and enrich its equipment. The exclusive right to issue such popular publications quickly became a thorn in the side of competing Kraków companies. In 1538, the so-called calendar trial with Hieronim Wietor ended with the act of Sigismund I the Old of 10 April 1539, by which the king abolished all privileges of printers and established freedom of printing and selling books. Calendar prints by Michał of Wiślica – alongside similar publications by Mikołaj of Szadek – occupied a prominent place in Szarffenberg's publishing repertoire.
The author was a graduate of the Kraków Academy. In 1531, he took over the Department of Astrology and Mathematics, and in the same year became Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts. From 1550 until his death, he served several times as Dean of the Faculty of Theology. He was remembered by posterity as a bibliophile (he left his library to the University in 1543), but also as a conflict-prone and undisciplined man. He was often sued before the rector's court, among others because of vagrancy and beating up one of his colleagues (1530), wearing improper clothing (1533), committing scandalous acts during lectures (1542) – in the chapter of St. Florian and other places. As the official university astrologer, he published astrological calendars and prognoses in Polish, German and Latin. Every year, in the Kraków publishing houses of Hieronim Wietor, Florian Ungler and Maciej Szarffenberg, his works of "royal knowledge" were published in plano, quarto, sexdecimo formats, three per year, of which small calendars were intended especially for the general public. These were typically utility prints that expired very quickly – after a year, they were used as waste paper. Many of them survived only in fragments. For this reason, of all the rich calendar and prognostic work of Michał of Wiślica, we currently know only some publications for the years 1531–1539.
The Ephemeridiarium Anni Christi 1536…, in 16º presented here was accidentally preserved as waste paper inside a cover, in the form of sheets or folds pressed as a stiffening of the soft parchment binding. These sheets, after being extracted, were subjected to conservation and rebound.
The title page is decorated with a woodcut portrait of King Sigismund I the Old, dated 1532. Additionally, the text includes 12 woodcuts dated 1532–1533. On the verso of the title page, there is an explanation of the symbols used in the calendar part. From the recto of the page signed A2 to the recto of the A4 recto, the most important aspects of the Moon with the Sun and planets and the recommendations related to them are listed.
The calendar itself runs from the verso of the page signed A4 to the recto of the B8 recto. Each month, printed on two adjacent pages, is decorated with woodcut representations of typical activities for a given season, together with a verse maxim at the end of the text. The name of the month is given in both Latin and Polish. For each day, in addition to the celebrations of the saints' commemorations according to the liturgical calendar, the current position of the Moon in the signs of the Zodiac and the current aspects of the planets are given. This knowledge was to allow avoiding unfavorable days for undertaking various activities and choosing favorable ones.
On the verso of the last page there is information about the lunar eclipses predicted in 1536, along with a woodcut illustration and a colophon with the printer's name.
The calendar was purchased by Krystyna Piórkowska at the 168th auction of the Hungarian antiquarian bookshop Központi Antikvárium in Budapest and donated to the National Library. The print can already be viewed in the Polona digital library.