The Lost Collection of Incunabula of the Seminary Library in Płock

Warsaw: Biblioteka Narodowa, 2023 8vo (24.5 cm), 351, [1] pp. Publisher's boards. The catalogue presents the lost collection of incunabula from the Library of the Seminary in Płock, which was one of the most valuable collections in Poland before World War II. The library possessed approximately 80 medieval manuscript codices and 422 incunabula. This collection was taken by the Germans to Königsberg in 1941, and its further fate remains unknown. Studies focusing on the collection mainly addressed manuscripts, while the valuable collection of fifteenth-century printed books remained entirely unknown until 1939. The only trace of it was preserved in the collections of the National Library, in a registration notebook titled "Incunabula of the Seminary Library in Płock. Registration by Kazimierz Piekarski dated before September 1, 1939." It was prepared before World War II by the eminent Polish bibliographer Dr. Kazimierz Piekarski, who had been the head of the Department of Old Prints at the National Library since 1931. The archival material, represented by Kazimierz Piekarski's registration notebook, served as the starting point for Prof. Jolanta M. Marszalska and Rev. Prof. Waldemar Graczyk in compiling the catalogue. It contains a full identification of the Płock incunabula, arranged in alphabetical order, accompanied by an introduction and extensive indexes.