National Library acquires two rare old books

With the financial support of the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania has acquired two valuable old books.

The first book is a unique publication ‒ a two-part Lithuanian-language elementary book Naujas pibelis, arba Knygelės, iš kurių kūdikiai gali išsimokintis skaitytines pažint, jas sudėt ir iš knygų skaityt by Johann Gottlieb Weiss (1762‒1819), a priest and superintendent from Königsberg. It was published in Königsberg by the Hartung family printers (active 1745‒1934) without any indication of the author or year of publication. The approximate year of publication ‒ after 1850 ‒ is based on the historical facts of the Hartung printing house, since it was in 1850 that the Hartungs lost their rights and privileges as royal printers and the name of the printing house changed. In Lithuania Minor, in addition to various elementary books, mainly translated from German into Lithuanian, Johann Gottlieb Weiss’ Naujas pibelis (first known edition 1808) was particularly popular and became compulsory reading for Lithuanian schools in the first decades of the 19th century. The first part of this elementary book contains the alphabet and syllabic exercises. The second, larger part is numerical. It consists of educational texts on cattle, animals, birds, grains and other plants, on earth, water, fire, heaven and its bodies, as well as moral and religious texts and hymns on the human body, mind, soul, conscience and death. Sayings, proverbs and extracts from the Holy Scriptures are provided for educational purposes. According to the research carried out so far, the Naujas pibelis was republished 13 times between 1808 and 1897. The copy acquired by the National Library is a previously unknown edition of the 14th elementary book, which is not registered in the Lithuanian National Bibliography and is not in the possession of any Lithuanian memory institution.

The second book is a two-part Latin work, Logica selectis disputationibus et quaestionibus illustrate, by Martynas Smigleckis (1563‒1618), a Catholic theologian, philosopher, professor at the University of Vilnius, Jesuit and Grand Duke of Lithuania, published in Oxford (UK) in 1658. Of the 23 works attributed to Smigleckis, the Logica is the best known, making him famous throughout Europe and widely used and appreciated until the 19th century. It was first published in 1618 in Ingolstadt (Germany). Three further editions in 1634, 1638 and 1658 in Oxford (Great Britain) testify to its importance. The book is a systematic presentation of scholastic logic based on the work of Aristotle. None of the Lithuanian memory institutions has this 1658 Oxford edition. The book shows a few signs of having been read and has had more than one owner. It was read by Isaac [?] Watson in 1688, and the entries of the other owners have been erased. The book is bound in brown leather boards with the author’s name, title and year of publication stamped on the spine.

These two books are a significant addition to the archive of Lithuanian-language documents collected and preserved at the National Library. We hope that they will be of interest to researchers in various fields.

Photographs by Vygaudas Juozaitis.