The Old Library Stock of the Nagyvárad Roman Catholic Diocese. Vol. I.

This two-volume publication contains the catalogue of the old stock of the Nagyvárad Roman Catholic Diocese Library. András Emődi’s work is a professional achievement and a value rescuing endeavor as a result of which the printed memories of a specific cultural area scattered during centuries are now published and made available for the interested public. The catalogues already completed or being still edited offer a picture, however fragmented, about the stock of the collections so rich in their time. Our volume also contains the material of church libraries at the Nagyvárad Diocese reviewed in 2000-2002 as well as the library stock of the Capuchin Order.

When analyzing the collections, Emődi makes some general statements regarding the history of books in the Diocese during the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the provenience of books related to former episcopal and seminar libraries, and the bibliophily of prelate and scholar Arnold Ipolyi (1823-1886). The history of how the old stock from the Capuchine monasteries previously founded in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy together with books of the Jesuit Order dissolved in 1773 from some Central-European monastery and seminar got to Nagyvárad and the area of the Diocese tells much about the “fate of books”. The analysis of possessor’s notes shed light on the book culture of clergymen at the re-founded churches, and also reveal that members of the Capuchin Order might have already been present in Nagyvárad by this time.

The first volume includes the incunabula, the 16th century antiqua prints from abroad, and the books printed before 1711 in Hungarian, in foreign languages in Hungary, or written by Hungarian authors and published abroad in a foreign language.

The database is introduced by a trilingual preface (Hungarian, Romanian, German), with the explanation of the principles of edition and a guide to how to use the catalogue.