Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing
and the Eisenstein Thesis
Robert Mathiesen
In her book, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and
Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe (rglg), and its abridgement, The Printing Reaolution in Early Modern Europe (1983), Elizabeth L.
Eisenstein puts forth a number of theses concerning the effect which the
invention of printing with movable type had on the subsequent course of
European history. Her work has called forth a certain amount of controversy:
historians, to whom she can speak as a fellow professional, have generally
ascribed a great deal of merit to it; while incunabulists and other specialists in
early printing, to whom she often appears to be a dilettante, have generally
found much to criticize in it. Indeed, the author often shows herself to be
much less familiar with the fine points of the history of printing than with
those of intellectual history.l I myself value Professor Eisenstein's work not
so much for her conclusions about the history and historiography of Early
Modern Europe, as for the questions which she has raised and for the
framework of concepts within which she has tried to answer them. In this
respect I believe her work will have lasting value.
Although Professor Eisenstein's titles refer to Early Modern Europe in
general, she clearly has only the western part of Europe in view: rarely
venturing as far east as Bohemia or Poland, she entirely ignores Lithuania,
Muscovy and the Balkans; and she makes reference to Constantinoplei
Istanbul only as a source from which the West could obtain Greek manuscripts and scholars) never as the centre of the far-flung Ottoman Empire, on
the history of which the invention and spread of printing might be thought to
have had an impact.z From this too narrow point of view she can write:
The early presses which were first established between 146o and r48o
were powered by many diflerent forces which had been incubating in the
age of scribes. In a different cultural context, the same technology might
have been used for different ends (as was the case in China and Korea) or
it might have been unwelcome and not used at all (as was the case in many
regions outside of Europe where Western missionary presses were the first
to be installed). In this light one may agree with authorities who hold that
the duplicating process which was developed in fifteenth-century Mainz,
was in itself of no more consequence than any other inanimate tool.
1 See especially the reviews by Grafton r98o, Kingdon r98o, Needham r98o, Westman
r98o, Gingerich r98r, D. Shaw r98r and Barker 1983.
'z Cf. Rafikov 1973.
.Solanus rgg2
4
Unless it had been deemed useful to human agents, it would never have
been put into operation in fifteenth-century European towns. IJnder
different circumstances, moreover, it might have been welcomed and put
to entirely different uses-monopolized by priests and rulers, for example,
and withheld from free-wheeling urban entrepreneurs.
Such counterfactual speculation is useful for suggesting the importance
of institutional context when considering technological innovation. Yet
the fact remains that once presses were established in numerous European
towns, the transforming powers of print did begin to take effect.3
Yet even for Europe, speculation along these lines need not be wholly
counterfactual. Presses were also established in a number of places outside
Western Europe during the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, and in
these places 'the transforming powers of print' led to rather different results
than in lil7estern Europe.
Latin and
Place
Czech
Polish
Croatian
German
Plzei
r476
Bratislava?
r48o?
Vimperk
Brno
r486
r475?
r484
r48z
r487
r48g
Prague
Kutn6 Hora
Malbork
Olomouc
Cracow
Chelmno?
Wroclaw
Gdansk
post r49o
r499
(r5o6) r513?
r473
r473
r475
ante 1499
(rtts)
ca. r49O
Croatia?
r495
Venice
Nore.' Dates in parentheses refer to first printing of relatively brief Slavic texts in Latin
books.
Sources:
Burger r9o2, Teichl 1964, Boinjak r968, Urbariczyk r983, Budi5a 1984.
Table
r. Latin-Alphabet Printing in Slavic Lands and Languages
(r5th-Early r6th Centuries)
3 Eisenstein 1979, pp.
7o2-7o3
(=
1983,
p. 273).
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenstein
Thesis
5
The invention of printing with movable type came early to the Slavs.a
The Latin alphabet was used to print Slavic languages as early as 1475 or
thereabouts, and the first S1avic languages printed by means of that alphabet
were Czech, Polish and Croatian. (See Table r.)
Moreover, Church Slavonic books were printed in one or other of the two
Slavic alphabets as early as 1483 (in the Glagolitic alphabet) and r49r (in the
Cyrillic alphabet). Thus the two Slavic alphabets were, respectively, the
fourth and fifth alphabets used to print books. (The first three are the Latin,
the Greek and the Hebrew.) These five alphabets are the only ones for which
Period
Western Scholarly and
Missionary Printing
r45o-r5oo
1465: Greek
(Mainz
Subiaco)
Indigenous Printing
1475: Hebrew (Piove di
Sacco, Reggio di Calabria)
r483: Glagolitic (place
unknown)
r49r : Cyrillic (Cracow)
r 5o
r-r6oo
r5r3: Ethiopic (Rome)
r514: Arabic (Fano)
Armenian (Venice)
r539: Syriac (Pavia)
r577: Malayalam (Goa)
r578: Tamil (Quilon)
r 583: Georgian (Berlin)
r583: Turkish (Berlin)
r583: Persian (Berlin)
r 583
:'Indian' (Berlin)
r593: Samaritan (Leiden)
r6or-r7oo
Sources :
r6r r: Runic (Stockholm)
r6z9: Coptic (Rome)
r665: Gothic (Dort)
Tables 4, 5, 6 andT below; also Reed 1952, p. 66, Emmel r987.
Table z. First Fonts of Type for Non-Latin Alphabets
(r5th-r7th Centuries)
a See Myl'nikov t967 for an excellent treatment of the events which ought to be taken as
marking the start of Slavic printing. However, the true date of publication of the Kronika
Trojdnska, which he rakes to be 1468 (as stated in its colophon), is controversial; see Teichl 1964,
pp.232-233 and Stilwell r97z,p.7r in favour ofa later date (ca. 1476-78?).
6
.Solanus rgg2
fonts of movable type were cut and cast during the fifteenth century.s (See
Table z.)
Nor was it long before each of these two alphabets had been used to print
vernacular languages: Glagolitic was first used to print books in SerboCroatian in t496, or possibly even in r49z; and Cyrillic was used to print
books in Serbo-Croatian in r5rz, in Belorussian in 15r7-r9, in Romanian in
1544, in Slovene in 1583, in Ukrainian in 1587, etc.6 However, only a very
small fraction of the books printed in Glagolitic or Cyrillic type prior to rToo
were in vernacular languages; the vast majority of them continued to be in
Church Slavonic well into the eighteenth century.
Despite its early beginning, the development of printing in Eastern Europe
took a different course than in $Testern Europe. Consequently the impact
which that invention had on the history of Eastern Europe was rather different
from that which it had in the \$7est. An examination of these differences will
lead us to a deeper understanding of the historical questions which Professor
Eisenstein has so provocatively asked, but only begun to answer.
Much of what I have to offer will be familiar to specialists in early Slavic
printing, and much of the rest will be equally familiar to their colleagues who
study early printing in N7estern Europe. It is chiefly by juxtaposing these two
fields of scholarship that I am able to make any substantial claim on your
attention,T
It will be most appropriate to examine these differences, which in large part
align themselves with different alphabets, against the general background of
printing in languages and alphabets other than the Latin during the fifteenth
to seventeenth centuries. \tr7e shall need to distinguish several cases during
those centuries:
r. languages other than Latin written by means of the Latin
alphabet, usually with minor modifications (e.g. many Western
European vernacular languages);
5 Even so satisfyingly exhaustive a reference work as Haebler's Tltpenrepertorium (t9o5-24),
though it indexes and classifies Greek and Hebrew type fonts of the fifteenth century as well as
Latin ones, fails not only to treat the Glagolitic and Cyrillic fonts of the same century, but even
to warn its user of this omission. There is only the briefest of references (vol. II, p. r39) to the
Glagolitic font possessed by Aldus Manutius and his heirs, and used by them to print three
Church Slavonic books in 1493, r5z7 and 156r (Kruming t977,nos.3, r r and zr).
6 Boiniak 1968, no.
44 (or possibly 4o), Badalit 1966, nos. r8fr9, zo, r79, Halenchanka
1986, no. r, Zapasko and Isaievych r98r-84, no. r8, Deletant 1975,p. 163.
7 There is a profound earlier study along the same lines by the Soviet scholar N. P. Kiselev
(196o), which deserves the attention of every historian of early printing-despite the corrections
to his views which have recently been proposed by A. S. Demin (1978, r98r, 1985, see also
Derzhavina 1979, Robinson 1982, and Pozdeeva in this issue of So/anzs).
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenstein
Thesis
7
z. languages other than Latin written by means of non-Latin
alphabets, but published largely for Latin-reading scholarly
markets in Western Europe or for use by \Testern European
Catholic missionaries (e.g. Greek, Ethiopic, Syriac, Coptic); and
3. languages other than Latin written by means of non-Latin
alphabets and published largely for indigenous markets (e.g.
Hebrew, Church Slavonic, Armenian).
\7e need not spend a great deal of time on the flrst of these three cases. By
the end of the fifteenth century, Latin-alphabet fonts of type had been used
to print books in more than a dozen European vernacular languages, and by
the end of the sixteenth century the list had grown to include a further dozen
or so European vernacular languages, fifteen Native American languages, and
a few other languages which do not fall under either of these heads. (See
Table 3.) This list continued to grow, of course, during the seventeenth and
subsequent centuries.
It is the second and third cases which interest us chiefly in the present
paper. They both look equally 'exotic' to a'W'estern European, and are little
discussed in histories of printing. I do not think that there is a single W'estern
European history of printing which even /isls all the relevant alphabets for
which fonts of type had been cut by the end of the seventeenth century, and I
have not been able to find a single comprehensive and insightful discussion of
the subject by any rJ7estern European scholar.
That there are two distinct kinds of historical events hidden behind the
mask of 'exotic' typography may be seen even from a comparison of the two
alphabets which are commonly treated in histories of printing, namely the
Greek and the Hebrew. Books printed in each of these alphabets first appear
about 1475, and continue to be printed in moderately large numbers
throughout the entire period with which we are concerned.
During that period, the vast majority of books printed in the Hebrew
alphabet were printed by Jews for Jewish use.8 Christian printing in Hebrew
type apparently began in the early sixteenth century) was largely restricted to
publications able to facilitate the study of the Jewish Bible and its languages
by Christian scholars, and at no time has ever been responsible for more than
a very small fraction of the total use of Hebrew type.e
The use of Greek type contrasts sharply with that of Hebrew type. The
vast majority of books printed with this type throughout the three centuries
under examination were produced by rVestern European scholars primarily
for their own use. Perhaps the earliest book printed by a Greek with Greek
E
This is true also in the Slavic lands, where printing in the Hebrew alphabet began
as early
(Freimann 1946, pp. 26, 59).
e Febvre and Martin r976,pp.268-z7r; cf. also Schwab 1883, Marx r9r9, t924, 1948.
as 15 12 at Prague and 1534 at Cracow
Solanus rggz
Period
Languages in which
t45r-r46o
Romance:
Latin-Alphabet Printing Begins
Latin
Germanic: High German
t46t-t48o
r48
r-r
5oo
Romance: Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan
Germanic: Dutch, English, Low German, Flemish
Slaoic : Czech, (Polish)
Romance: Portuguese
Germanic : Swedish, Danish
S laaic : Serbo-Croatian
Turkic: (Turkish)
r5or-r520
r52r-r540
S/aaic: Polish
Semitic: Arabic
Germanic: Icelandic
Bahic: Latvian
Other Europeaz.' Estonian, Hungarian
Nath.te American : Nahuatl
r
54r-r 560
Romance: Romansch
Slaaic: Slovene
B alt ic : Prussian, Lithuanian
Celtic: Welsh
Other Europeaz.' Finnish, Basque, Albanian
Natiae American: Huastec, Tarasc, Quich6, Chiapanec,
Zoque, Tzeltal, Chinantec
r56r-r58o
r 58
r-r6oo
Germanic: Old English
Celtic: Ir'ist^
Natiae American: Zapotec, Mixtec, Otomi, Chocho
Slaaic: Slovak
Natiae American: Quichua, Aymara, Tupi
Malay o- P olynesian : Tagalog
Nore.' Languages in parentheses refer to first printing of relatively brief vernacular texts
in Latin books.
Sources: Darlow and Moule r9o3-rr, Vargas Ugarte 1935-58, vol.7, Garcia
Icazbalceta 1954, Vogel 1962, Muller and R6th 1969, Rowe r974, Budisa 1984.
Table 3. First Latin-Alphabet Printing in Various Languages
(r5th-r5th Centuries)
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenstein
Thesis
use exclusively in view is the Greek orthodox Psalter which Justin Dekadyos
printed at venice in 494. In this book the printer stated his intention to
publish additional books for Greek orthodox liturgical use (but in fact he did
not do so).10 other printers did produce other Greek orthodox liturgical
books in the early sixteenth century and subsequently, but these were always
a small fraction of the total number of books printed in Greek type
throughout the world.ll It is a telling fact that, although many editions of
the whole christian Bible in Greek were printed from r5r8 throughout our
period, the first such edition printed specifically for the use of the Greek
orthodox church appeared only at our period's very end (venice: Nicholas
Glykys, t687).12
In each of these two cases it should be noted that we are dealing with
relatively small numbers of editions, compared with the number printed in the
Latin alphabet: the numbers of editions are in the low hundreds during the
fifteenth century, and perhaps twenty times as many during the sixteenth.l3
The corresponding figures for Latin-alphabet printing are in the neighbourhood of 3o,ooo editions during the fifteenth century and perhaps 2oorooo
during the sixteenth.la
Most of the 'exotic' fonts cut during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries belong, like the Greek fonts, to the second of the three cases listed
above. These include fonts for the alphabets (in one case, the syllabary) listed
in the left column of rable z. None of these fonts (except the Greek ones)
were employed in indigenous printing until the eighteenth century, to the
best of my knowledge.ls During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
they seem to have been used exclusively by sTestern European scholars and
missionaries, who also had at their disposal a relatively small number of fonts
for the alphabets in the right column of Table z (i.e. those used chiefly in
indigenous printing): Hebrew, Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Armenian. Table 4
displays some additional data on the use of all these fonts in Western
European scholarly and missionary printing during the sixteenth century.
During the seventeenth century several printing shops were formed which
had large holdings of 'exotic' fonts of type. Thus by 1636 the Typographia
Sanctae congregationis de Propaganda Fide at Rome had acquired fonts for
10
11
12
13
Legrand r885-19o6, no, rr.
Legrand r885-19o6, r894-r9o3, Procror r9oo, Veloudis 1974.
Legrand r894-r9o3, no. 6ro, Veloudis r974,rro.67.
It has been estimated that some zoo books were printed in the Hebrew alphabet during the
fifteenth century, and some 4,ooo during the sixteenth (Febvre and Martin 1976, pp. z7o-z7t).
1a Febvre and Martin 1976,pp.248-249,
z6z, Geldner 1978, pp. 235-46; cf. also Haebler
1933, p. zo5, Lenhart 1935, pp. 6-1 5, Hirsch 1974, p. ro5.
1s For the particularly
interesting case of Georgian see Gogoladze r964a, r964b. (The
earliest use of what may be Georgian type, at Berlin in r 583, seems to have escaped Gogoiadze's
notice, but see Vervliet r98r, pp. r4-r5.)
Solanus r99z
)
Alphabet
Western European ( Non- Indigenous
Ethiopic
r513 Rome, r5r8 Cologne, r527 Basel, r549 Rome,
1583 Berlin, r598 Leiden
1514 Fano, 1516 Genoa, r5r8 Venice, r566 Rome,
r58o Rome, 1583 Berlin, r593 Leiden
1539 Pavia, 1555 Vienna, 1569 Antwerp, r58o Rome,
r583 Berlin
1539 Pavia, 1579 Rome, 1583 Berlin
1577 Goa
r578 Quilon
r582 Rome, r583 Berlin
r583 Berlin
r583 Berlin
r583 Berlin
r583 Berlin
r583 Berlin
r593 Leiden
Arabic
Syriac
Armenian
Malayalam
Tamil
Cyrillic
Glagolitic
Georgian
Persian
Turkish
'Indian'
Samaritan
Use
r9o3-rr, Hitti 1942143, Nemoy 1952, Reed
153-167, r75*r78, Schurhammer and Cottrell 1952, I7iinman
1952-57, 1957, t96o, Vervliet 1968, pp. 3r5-32o, Strothmann r97r, Nersessian r98o,
pp. 36-38, r47-r79, G. Shaw r98r, Vervliet r98r, Rafikov 1982, ch. z, Mathiesen 1985,
K6vorkian r986, pp. XVIII-XIX, r52-r74.
Sources: Saltini r86o, Darlow and Moule
r952r pp.
5r-7t,
Table 4. Use of Alphabets Other than Latin, Greek and Hebrew
in Western European Scholarly and Missionary Printing
(r6th Century)
Greek, Hebrew (the rabbinical as well as the usual alphabet), Syriac (the
Esrangela as well as the usual alphabet), Arabic, Ethiopic, Samaritan,
Coptic, Georgian, Armenian, Glagolitic and Cyrillic.l6 At the same time the
press of Antoine Vitr6 at Paris had Greek, Hebrew (usual and rabbinical),
Syriac, Arabic, Samaritan, Armenian, Persian and Turkish.lT Two decades
later, the printing office of Thomas Roycroft in London had fonts for Greek,
Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Samaritan and Ethiopic, all of which it
employed during the printing of Brian $Talton's Polyglot Bible (r653-57) and
its accompanying grammars and dictionaries. 18
The third of the cases listed above is for indigenous printing in non-Latin
16 Pollard 1928, nos. z-9, Ishkhanian 1964a, Gogoladze r964a, Nazor 1978, pp.
74-8o,
Nersessian r98o, pp.36-38, Vervliet r98r, Mathiesen 1985, no.26, K6vorkian t986, pp.
r53-r65, Emmel r987.
17 Bernard 1857, Mathiesen 1985, no. zz.
'8 Reed t95z,pp.156-163, Mathiesen 1985, nos. z3-25.
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and tke Eisenstein Thesis
r
r
alphabets. Other than the Hebrew, only three alphabets belong here during
the period under discussion: the Glagolitic, the Cyrillic and the Armenian.le
Glagolitic printing was the first of the three to develop, but it seems never
to have been used widely. Fifty-eight books and broadsides are known to
have been printed in Glagolitic during the fifteenth through eighteenth
centuries, and all but fifteen of them were printed in just four place (Venice,
Nuremberg, IJrach and Rome). About half of these books were in a Croatian
variety of Church Slavonic, the other half in vernacular Serbo-Croatian.2o
Flowever, sixteen of the fifty-eight were published by Protestants at Nuremberg and Urach (near Ttibingen), and the use of a vernacular in them
conformed to the theological programme of Protestantism. The other fortytwo were from Catholic presses, and only about ten of these were in the
vernacular. (See Table 5.)
Place
r
450-r Sao
Croatia
4
Venice
I
r
5or-r6oo
r60r-r7oo
7or-r8oo
II
4
3
Nuremberg
2
r4
Urach
Rome
Totals:
t
3o
5
7
t2
7
r6
Note: The Glagolitic font available at Berlin in r583 had such slight use that it may be
excluded from this table (Vervliet r98r, pp. r4-r5).
Sources: Badali6 r966, Bo5njak r968, KruminE1977, Nazor r978.
Table 5. Distribution of Glagolitic Printing
(r5th-r8th Centuries)
Cyrillic printing was the next to develop, and has always been by far the
most productive of the three, not only in terms of the total number of
editions printed, but also in terms of the number of places where this
printing was caried out. (See Table 6.) If we confine our attention for the
le It is difficult to make a sharp distinction between indigenous printing and Western
European schoiarly and missionary printing in the Glagolitic alphabet, since the alphabet's
indigenous market consisted of Croatians (and to some extent Slovenes), who are also Vestern
Europeans.
'o On the varieties of Church Slavonic
see
Mathiesen 1984.
Solanus r99z
r45o-r 5oo
Place
r
5or-r6oo
r 6o
r-r
7oo
r 7o
r-r
8oo
Russia:
Moscow
St Petersburg
r9
elsewhere
I
4
7
III
r76
484
I13
Io
r95
Ukraine:
L'viv
Kiev
Chernihiv
3o
Pochaiv
elsewhere
13I
470
rt7
I
235
22
69
r9
5r
8r
5o
95
56
Belorussia and
Lithuania:
Vilnius/Vevis
Suprasl'
3
elsewhere
3
43
Balkans:
all places
4
I6
I
Romania and
Moldada:
all places
44
72
590
4
43
IO
367
8
2c,6
rro84
f,636
ather Lands:
all places
Totals:
Nore.'The cyrillic font available at Berlin in r583 had such slight use that it may be
excluded from this table (Vervliet r98r, pp. r4-r5). Printing in Cyrillic Civil type is
excluded from this table, but may be found in Table 8 below.
Sources: Bianu, Hodog and Simonescu r9o8-44, Zernova 1958, Mihailovi6 1964,
Badali6 1966, Bo5njak rg6S,Zernovaand Kameneva r968, Bykova r97r, Deletartt rg75,
t98z-83, Nemirovskii 19T6,Labyntsev rg79, rgSz,Zapasko and Isaievych r98r-84,
Halenchanka 1986.
Table 6. Distribution of Cyrillic Printing
(r5th-r8th Centuries)
moment to printing in the Old Cyrillic alphabet, rhere were 4,934 editions
printed during somewhat more than three centuries (r49r-r8oo). About one
seventh of them (7o6) were printed in Romania (including present-day
Moldavia), and constitute something of a special case. Virtually all the other
Old Cyrillic editions (4,228) are in one or another variety of Church
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenste'in Thesis
r3
Slavonic; only a very small fraction of them-perhaps a number in the low
hundreds-were in some vernacular Slavic language. In Romania and
Moldavia, however, the vernacular language was Romanian, which is not a
Slavic language but a Romance one, and there the use of Church Slavonic
gave place to that of Romanian. Even during the period before r7or, old
Cyrillic books in Romanian greatly outnumbered those in Church Slavonic:
64 of the 116 Old Cyrillic books printed in Romania or Moldavia were in
Romanian, while 39 were in Church Slavonic and another 13 employed both
languages.r, During the eighteenth century the fraction of the total output
printed in Romanian noticeably increased. At the same time the situation in
the Slavic lands was complicated through the introduction of a new Civil
Cyrillic alphabet, which was promulgated in the early eighteenth century by
the Russian emperor Peter the Great. During the eighteenth century more
than rr,ooo books were pubtished in this new alphabet, almost all of them in
one or another vernacular Slavic language (mostly Russian, but occasionally
Ukrainian or Serbo-Croatian). Consequently, the use of Old Cyrillic became
more and more limited to printing in Church Slavonic (or in Romanian) just
when the vernacular Slavic languages were ousting Church Slavonic from all
publications other than 'church books' in a very narrow sense of the term
(mostly liturgical books). As a result, printing in old Cyrillic sharply
declined just when the printing industry in the eastern half of the Slavic
world underwent its most dramatic period of growth, and it was printing in
the Civil Cyrillic alphabet that increased in response to the new conditions of
work for printers in that part of the world.22
Indigenous printing in the Armenian alphabet was the last of the three to
develop. It provides an instructive contrast to printing in the two Slavic
alphabets. Although the total number of books printed in the Armenian
alphabet during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seems to have been
163, and another 767 books appear to have been produced during the
eighteenth century, the number of places where indigenous Armenian printing
was carried on during those three centuries seems to have been about
fourteen.23 It was much less centralized than printing in either of the two Slavic
alphabets during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (See Table 7.)
Having presented these tables, I should now caution my readers that the
numbers in them, however precise they may appear, are in fact only
provisional, and are subject to change as new editions continue to be
discovered. Indeed, they may never become definitive, for the surviving
21
22
Deletant ry7 5, r98z-83.
Moreover, during the nineteenth century the Romanians adopted the Latin alphabet in
place of the Cyrillic for Romanian, thereby curtailing the use of Old Cyrillic even more.
^ ,.
To the jlaces listed in Table 7 add Echmiadzin, Madras, Calcutta, St Petersburg, Novyi
Nakhichevan' and Astrakhan' for the eighteenth century (Ishkhanian t964b)'
r4
Solanus r99z
Place
r
Venice
5or-t6oo
r 6o
r-r
7oo
8
Pavia
*I
Constantinople
Rome
*5
Berlin
L'viv
6
r3
*29
*2
3
*2
Milan
*4
Paris
New Julfa
8
Livorno
Amsterdam
Marseilles
Leipzig
4
3r
t7
*I
Padua
*2
Totals:
r4r
Nore.'Non-indigenous printing is marked with an asterisk (*). Davtyan et al. t963 was
not available at the time of writing.
Sources: Ishkhanian r964a, r964b, Nersessian r98o, K6vorkian r986.
Table 7. Distribution of Arrnenian Printing
(r6th-r8th Centuries)
records of the presses which produced these books indicate a surprisingly large
number of editions of which not a single copy seems to have survived; nor is it
unreasonable to assume that there were still other editions not mentioned in the
surviving records, which are far from complete when they survive at alll2a
2a Zernova 1958, pp. 8j, Isaievych r97o, pp.9rro, Zapasko and Isaievych r98r-84, vol.
r,
pp. 2r-22. Some of my readers may not be aware that the records of one of the oldest and most
productive of the Old Cyrillic presses, the Moscow Synodal Press (originally the Pechatnyi dtor)
had preserved most of its o1d records and equipment from as far back as 16z0, and had the
potential to become a printing-history museum to rival the famous Plantin-Moretus Museum at
Antwerp. See Mansvetov 1883, Nikolaevskii r89o-9r. W'hether any of the old equipment still
exists I do not krtow, but I am encouraged to learn from two recent studies that the records, and
also the huge library of copy texts and proof-reader's texts, still exist and form several separate
collections in the Central State Archive of Ancient Acts in Moscow (Luppov 1983, Siromakhova
and Uspenskii 1987, cf. also Klepikov 196o, p. r3z, and Pozdeeva in this issue of Solanus).
\7ould it be out ofplace to express the hope that our Russian colleagues may someday use these
materials to create a centre for the study of early printing at Moscow comparable to the
Plantin-Moretus Museum?
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenstein
Thesis
15
Nevertheless, though the numbers in these tables can never be definitive,
am confident that they are near enough to the truth for our purposes.
I
I7e now undertake to examine the differences between Latin-alphabet
printing and indigenous printing in other alphabets. These differences will
prove to be in part quantitative, in part qualitative, and the latter differences
are to some extent consequences of the former.
Possibly the most significant quantitative difference is found in the total
number of editions printed in the various alphabets during the fifteenth
through seventeenth centuries. These numbers (and the corresponding
numbers for the eighteenth century, when available) are shown in Table 8.
Latin
Period
r45o-r5oo
r5or-r6oo
3O,OOO?
2OOTOOO
|
,f0,,0,,,*,:'i'3i';,"ic
5
zo6
3o
22
7
r4r
r6
767
2TOOOTOOO?
rro84
r-r
even more!
3'636
8oo
r r ro65
I
Hebrew
2o0
8
r6or-r7oo
r7o
lArmenian
4rooo
)
Sources: The numbers for editions in the Glagolitic, Old Cyrillic and Armenian
alphabets are from Tables 5, 6 and 7 above. The number of editions in the Armenian
alphabet during the eighteenth century is from Ishkhanian ry64b, p.246. Those for
editions in the Latin and Hebrew alphabets derive from the text at footnotes r3 and 14
above. Those for editions in the Civil Cyrillic alphabet are from Bykova, Gurevich and
Kozintseva 1955-72, Kaufman t96z-75, Mihailovic 1964, Zapasko and Isaievych
r98r-84, andHalenchanka 1986, pp. r9o-r92.
Table 8. Cornparison of Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing
with Latin-Alphabet Printing: Nurnber of Editions
(r5th-r8th Centuries)
The number of editions printed even in Old Cyrillic-to say nothing of
type-during the 35o-year period
(r49r-r8oo) is noticeably less than the number of editions printed in the
Latin alphabet just during the first half century after the invention of
printing (r45o-r5oo). Even taking both the Old Cyrillic and the new Civil
Cyrillic alphabets together, no more than about 16,000 editions had been
printed by the end of the eighteenth century, and the number of 3orooo
those printed in Glagolitic or in Armenian
t6
Solanus r99z
editions printed is probably achieved sometime
in the first half of
the
nineteenth century.zs
One might also compare the relative contemporaneity of the works chosen
to be printed. Curt Btihler (rg5+), generalizing from a sample which may
represent about one fourth of all the books printed in the Latin alphabet
during the fifteenth century, fournd that about 7zo/o of the authors (68o in
all) whose works appeared in print during the fifteenth cenrury lived in the
fifteenth century, i.e. were more or less contemporary with the first printers.
The next largest groups were as follows: authors of the fourteenth centurygo/"; of Classical Antiquity-7o/o; and of the thirteenth century-6o/o.
Authors of all other centuries, including all Christian authors before the year
r2oo, formed no more than 60/o of the total.26 No comparable number of
authors, nor any comparable degree of emphasis on contemporary authors, is
found
in Old Cyrillic printing from the fifteenth cenrury through the
eighteenth.2T
A third, truly significant quantitative difference between printing in the
Cyrillic and the Latin alphabets during the period under examination is to be
found in the degree of centralization. After an initial relatively decentralized
period, Cyrillic printing became highly centralized during the seventeenth
century) and even more so during the eighteenth: not quite one half of all
books printed in Old Cyrillic from 16or through rSoo-excluding those
printed in the Romanian language-were printed in one place (Moscow) and
essentially in one printing office-the Pechatnyi dvor ('Printing Yard' or
'Printing House'), later renamed the Sinodal'naia tipografiia ('Synodal
Press').28 Latin-alphabet printing, in contrast, became increasingly decentralized during the same period. Even during the fifteenth century, Latinalphabet printing offices were found in somewhat more than 2oo places. In
twelve of those places local printers were able to produce more than r,ooo
editions each.2e Yet the editions printed in these twelve places were only
about two fifths of the total number of editions printed in the Latin alphabet
2s The same point can be made in another, equally instructive,
way. Zapasko and Isaievych
r98 r-84 have inventoried all the books known to have been printed in the Ukraine through r 8oo,
whether printed in the Cyrillic alphabet or the Latin. Although the numbers of these two kinds
of books are similar in the sixteenth century (29 in Cyrillic, z3 in Latin) and in the seventeenth
G8Z
in Cyrillic,
323
in Latin), they
Cyrillic, 2,364 in Latin).
diverge greatly during the eighteenth century
(gn
in
26
27
Cf. also Steele r9o3-o7.
Kiselev 196o, but cf. Demin 1985.
'z8 Printing in the Cyrillic Civil alphabet, once it had begun in the early eighteenth century,
soon became slightly less centralized than Old Cyrillic printing, but the contrast with
Latin-alphabet printing still remained sharp. See especially the index of presses in Kaufman
196z-7 5, vol. S, pp. 278-290.
2e Strasbourg Cologne, Rome, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Venice, Basel, Paris,
Lyons and Leipzig (Teichl 1964).
Milan, Florence,
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenstein
Thesis
17
during the fifteenth century. During the sixteenth and subsequent centuries,
Latin-alphabet printing became even more decentralized, as the political and
religious decentralization of Western Europe (and its colonies) increased.3o
Qualitative differences are more easily expressed in prose than in numerical
tables. One of the most important of these differences is that the rise of the
printed book did not immediately lead to the decline of the manuscript book
in the Slavic lands where the Cyrillic alphabet was in use. (\7e shall employ
Riccardo Picchio's convenient Latin term 'slavia Orthodoxa'to refer to these
lands.3t It remains a matter of controversy whether Romania and Moldavia
belong to Slavia Orthodoxa during the period under discussion here.) In
Western Europe, the printed book largely replaced the manuscript book
within a hundred years after the invention of printing, if not earlier, since
printed books answering to the demands of almost all markets soon became
available in much greater numbers and at much lower prices than manuscript
books. As a consequence, the invention of printing created a kind of filter in
Western Europe during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century: texts
which got into print continued to circulate while texts that were not printed
gradually dropped out of circulation and out of use. In Slavia Orthodoxa the
products of the printing press met the demands only of relatively limited
books until well into the late
was partly because the total
This
eighteenth century or the early nineteenth.
very much lower than the
remained
number of editions printed in Old Cyrillic
even more because the
but
alphabet,
number of editions printed in the Latin
much narrower: the
very
was
print
in Slavia Orthodoxa
range of texts put into
and the one basic
texts
liturgical
printed
was
in Old Cyrillic
bulk of what was
the student
'
which
of
means
(Azbuka
Buhoar
or
textbook-the Primer
)-by
aloud.
texts
liturgical
these
could be taught the art of reading
These basic qualitative differences between printing in Slavia Orthodoxa
and in Western Europe had as their consequence a whole series of secondary
differences, which may be grouped under most of Professor Eisenstein's six
principal heads of discussion: (r) dissemination, (z) amplification and
reinforcement, (3) preservation, (4) standardization, (5) data collection, and
sectors
of the whole existing market for
(6) reorganization of texts.32 Space permits me to give only a few of them here
30 By way of further comparison, the numbers of places where books were printed in the
Hebrew alpirabet may be cited: z7 in the fifteenth century, 8 r more in the sixteenth, ror others in
the seventeenth and still another rz5 in the eighteenth (Freimann 1946, pp. 8z-83)'
31
Picchio 1963.
32 Eisensrein
1979,pp.7o-rz9(or 1983,pp.+r-9o);Ihavealteredheretheorderinwhichshe
treats these six questions.
r8
Solanus t99z
as examples. Even so, consideration of these examples leads us not so much to
reject Professor Eisenstein's theses as to refine them.
(r) Dissernination. One of Professor Eisenstein's most interesting
theses is that the wider dissemination of books which followed upon the
invention of printing made it easier for the reader to juxtapose more texts for
consultation and comparison, and to iuxtapose a greater variety of such texts.
This in turn made contradictions between these texts more obvious, and the
methods which were then developed to deal with these contradictionsempirical methods in natural science; methods of textual and literary criticism
first in the study of belletristic texts, but eventually also in the study of
religious texts-led to the rise of modern science, on the one hand, and the
modern critical approach to religion, on the other.33 This thesis needs to be
more precisely stated if it is to account for the case of Slavia Orthodoxa as well
as that of !flestern Europe. In Slavia Orthodoxa it was chiefly liturgical texts
that were more widely disseminated after the introduction of printing, and the
most visible result of the increasing juxtaposition of texts within this
limitation may be the development in Muscovy of a series of increasingly
bitter controversies on points of liturgical practice, leading not only to a
schism within the Russian Orthodox Church, but also to many further
schisms within the resulting body of Old Believers. Clearly the invention of
printing can at best be a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one, for the
distinctive evolution of the natural sciences in Western Europe, in contrast to
Muscovite Russia, or for the distinctive characteristics which prevent one
from drawing too close a parallel between the sixteenth-century schism
between Protestants and Catholics in \Testern Europe and the seventeenthcentury schism between the Orthodox and the Old Believers in Muscovite
Russia.
(z) Amplification and Reinforcernent. According to Professor
Eisenstein, the development of printing served to reinforce linguistic and
literary frontiers, and eventually to amplify the diversely oriented national
'memories'which took shape during the following centuries as different parts
of the common Classical and Medieval heritage were taken up into the various
national vernacular traditions.3a In Slavia Orthodoxa, however, it was chiefly
the several varieties of the liturgical language-Church Slavonic-and not
the incipient national vernaculars, which were the main beneficiaries of
amplification and reinforcement during the period with which we are
concerned here.3s It was principally printing in the Cyrillic Civil alphabet
33
Eisenstein rg7g, pp. 7t-8o, 333-f38, 355-356, 466, 606-612 (partly also
42-5c).
3n Eisenstein
1983, pp. 88-9o).
D79,pp.rz6-rz8
3s Mathiesen t97 2, pp. 64-7
4, 1984, pp. 6z-64.
(:
in t983, pp.
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenstein
Thesis
19
which led to the same results for the vernacular languages of Slavia
Orthodoxa, and this alphabet was not created until the eighteenth century.
(Note that the Cyrillic Civil alphabet was one of the first alphabets invented
and promulgated specifically for use in printing.) Again we find that the
invention of printing, though
it
may be a necessary condition, is not
a
sufficient one for the kind of historical development specified by Professor
Eisenstein.
(3) Preservation. The invention of printing, according to Professor
Eisenstein, made it easier to preserve any text or any idea, whether progressive
or regressive, from destructionl likewise, a knowledge of the exotic and dying
languages in which some texts were written could be secured forever.36 The
physical safety of a few copies of a valued text does not lead so surely to its
preservation as does the publication of that text in quantity.3T The potential
of which Professor Eisenstein speaks here was realized in Slavia Orthodoxa
only in the case of those relatively few, most highly valued texts which were
put into print; it could not, of course, be realized in the case of texts which
were not printed.
(4) Standardization. The invention of printing made it easier to
standardize texts. One of Professor Eisenstein's theses is that this development afforded governments and churches more powerful means to secure
conformity and uniformity, to control the populace. The invention of printing
led to the printed blank form, which was important for the development of
bureaucratic methods of administration. Such printed blank forms were in
fact among the very first texts printed in Western Europe, and they continued
to be printed throughout our period.38 To the best of my knowledge, printed
blank forms in Old Cyrillic were not produced by Slavia Orthodoxa during
the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, and relatively few products ofthe
press-one thinks immediately of the Lithuanian Statute of 1588, the
Ulozhenie (Code of Laws) of t649 and the Kormchaia kniga (Nomocanon) of
165o-1653 as obvious isolated exceptions-had much to do with the dayto-day administration of church or state. In a more general sense, other texts
were occasionally printed which were meant to influence or control the
populace in specific ways, such as Patriarch Nikon's Pouchenie o morovoi iazoe
(Sermon on the Plague) of 1656. Flowever, this use of the printing press
clearly began much later, and constituted a much smaller part of the total
36
This is surely true of Church Slavonic; for the earliest indigenous grammars
and
dictionaries of that language, and the use made of them by Josef Dobrovsky (who wrote the first
modern grammar of Church Slavonic), see Mathiesen t97 z, ch. 5, r 98 r.
37 Eisenstein 1979,pp.rt3-126 (: 1983, pp.
78-88).
3E Eisenstein 1979; pp.59, 80-88, rr8-r19 (partly also in 1983, pp.
5o-63, 8z-83). For the
earliest blank forms printed in Western Europe (in 1454-55), see Stillwell 1972, nos. 8-r r.
20
Solanus r99z
printed output in Slavia orthodoxa than in riTestern Europe. Nevertheless, it
cannot truly be said that bureaucratic methods of administration were
under-utilized by the Slavic orthodox states and churches. In this respect, the
invention ofprinting does not seem to be even a necessary condition, let alone
a
sufficient one, for the development of bureaucracy.
(5) Data collection. Professor Eisenstein's theses in this area pertain
so largely to the specific development of the natural sciences in western
Europe that they appear to be untestable by comparison with Slavia
Orthodoxa during our period.3e
(6) Reorganization of Texts. According to professor Eisenstein,
differences in their production led to qualitative differences between printed
and manuscript books, despite their superficial similarities; they resulted in a
'paradoxical combination ... of seeming continuity with radical change,.ao
commercial pressures favoured innovations which were able to serve a
reader's convenience: graduated typefaces, headlines, footnotes, cross-
references, foliation and pagination, indices, tables of contents, title pages,
and so on. Printing served as a necessary tool for sorting out the whole chaotic
heritage of the past, creating in the process many new points of social conflict
and controversy.al Although Professor Eisenstein's general observation is
correct concerning the utility of many innovations which took place in the
development of the strucrure of the lTestern European book during the
century after the invention of printing, her thesis that the invention of
printing caused these innovations, or at least gave them their full importance,
will not stand up to critical investigation, for not only is the actual history of
these innovations in w'estern Europe more complicated and less connected
with the rise of printing than Professor Eisenstein assumes, but arso the same
technology failed to give rise to the same innovations in the same order and at
the same rate in Slavia Orthodoxa as in lTestern Europe.a2
Underlying the whole structure of concepts and theses which professor
Eisenstein has created is a very simple postulate which she stares in several
3e Eisenstein
ry7g,pp.ro7-r 13 (or 1983, pp. 73-78).
ao Eisenstein g79tp.5r
1983,p. zo).
a1 Eisensrein g79,pg.5r-52,88-ro7 (or
1983, pp. r9-2r,63-72).
a2 There are many
(:
ways in which much old cyrillic printing even as late as the early
eighteenth century is more like \07estern European printing of the incunable period (the fifteenth
century) than like $Testern European printing ofthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even
as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, virtually all Old-Cyrillic presses seem to have cut
and cast their owrl fonts of Old Cyrillic type, and the title page did not become a normal part of
most old cyrillic books printed ar Moscow until that same cenrury was well undei way.
Moreover, the details of composition and presswork remained in many cases faithful io
techniques and technology which in \il7estern Europe were largely confined to the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and the Eisenstein
Thesis
2r
places, but does not particularly emphasize. put most simply, this postulate
states that the invention of printing placed printers 'temporarily in command
of the nascent communications industry'; this industry in turn brought about
'something rather like a knowledge explosion' which began in the sixteenth
century (and has continued into the present).43 The foremost cause of the
differences between the impact which the invention of printing had on the
course of history in rJTestern Europe and in Slavia Orthodoxa, put with equal
simplicity, is that in western Europe printers did in fact achieve such a
position of command and kept it for centuries, whereas in Slavia orthodoxa
they did not do so. (The same is true, by the way, of printers in the Glagolitic
and Armenian alphabets.) whether this followed from differences in social
and economic conditions sufficient to require this development in rJTestern
Europe while preventing it in Slavia orthodoxa, or whether both courses of
development lay open in each region and the printers themselves happened to
take one path in w'estern Europe, the other in Slavia orthodoxa, may remain
controversial; but we do not need to settle this controversy in order to deepen
our understanding of the roles which the new craft of printing played in both
parts of the world. A simple comparison of the results suffices at present.
Thus we see how the history of indigenous printing in non-Latin alphabets
(and especially in the old cyrillic alphabet) from the fifteenth century
through the seventeenth provides an interesting and instructive contrast to
the history of printing in the Latin alphabet during the same cenruries. Even
so brief an exploration of this contrast has allowed us ro refine some of
Professor Eisenstein's theses, and to deepen our understanding of some of the
problems to which she has so provocatively directed our attention. I intend to
return to these problems in the future, and I invite others to do the same, for I
am persuaded that problems of this kind-problems which touch on the
means of communication and communion between people and between
peoples-are the problems which lie closest to the hidden processes that have
shaped and continue to shape the unfolding history of mankind. The history
of the book, whether manuscript or printed, is a complex of problems of just
this kind. To have deepened our undersranding of so basic a set of problems is
an achievement well worth the considerable efforts it may cost.
a3 Eisenstein
1979,pp. 385, 7z-73,rr5-rr6.
Solanus r99z
22
RrrrnsNcrs
Badali6, losip. t966. Jugoslaoica usque ad annum MDC: Bibliographie der siidslawischen
Frilhdrucke, Bibliotheca bibliographica aureliana, II. znd ed. (Baden-Baden:
Verlag Heitz).
Barker, Nicolas. 1983. [Review of Eisenstein 1979.) The Times Literary Supplement, z4
June r983, p.679.
Bernard, Auguste Joseph. 1857. Antoine Vitd et les caractdres orientaux de la Bible
Polyglotte de Paris: Origine et oicissitudes des premiers caractdres orientaux
introduits en France (Paris: Dumoulin).
Bianu, Ioan, Nerva Hodos and Dan Simonescu. r9o8-44. Bibliografia Romdniscdaeche,
r 5o8-r8 jo.4 vols (Bucuresci: J. V. Socec) (Reprinted, Nendeln: Kraus Reprint,
r968-69).
Boinjak, Mladen. 1968. A Study of Slavic Incunabula (Zagreb: Mladost-Munich:
Kubon & Sagner).
Budiia, DraZen. ry84. Poieci tiskarstaa u earopskih naroda (Zagreb: Kri6anska
sada5njost-Nacionalna i sveuiiliSna biblioteka).
Biihler, Curt F. 1954. 'Authors and Incunabula', in Studies in Art and Literature for
Belle da Costa Greene, edited by Dorothy Miner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press), pp. 4or-4o6 (Reprinted in Btihler t973, pp. 2t2-2t9).
t973. Early Books and Manusoipts: Forty Years of Research (New York: The
Grolier Club / The Pierpont Morgan Library).
Burger, Konrad. r9oz. 'The Printers and Publishers of the XV Century with Lists of
their'W'orks', Supplement to Hain's'Repertorium Bibliographicun', by W. A.
Copinger (London, r895-r9oz), vol. II, pp. i-xvi, 319-67o (Reprinted, Milan:
Grirlich, r95o).
Bykova, T. A. r97r. Katalog russkoi knigi kirillooskoi pechati Peterburgskikh tipografii
XVIII oeka (Leningrad: Gos. Publichnaia biblioteka im. M. E. SaltykovaShchedrina).
Bykova,
T. A., M. M.
napechatannykh
Gurevich and R.
I.
Kozintseva.ry55-72.Opisanie izdanii
pri Petre I: saodnyi katalog, z vols and supplement (Moscow,
Leningrad: Akademiia nauk SSSR).
Darlow, T. H., and H. F. Moule. r9o3-r r. Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of
Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 4 vols
(London: The British and Foreign Bible Society).
Davtyan, G.M., et al. 1963. Hay hnatip grk'i matenagitakan c'uc'ak, r5rz-t8oo
(Erevan).
Deletant, Dennis. 1975.'A Survey of Rumanian Presses and Printing in the Sixteenth
Century', The Slaaonic and East European Reztiew, vol. 53, pp. r6vr74,
r98z-83. 'Rumanian Presses and Printing in the Seventeenth Century', The
Slauonic and East European Reoiew, vol.6o, pp.48r-499, vol.6t, pp.48r-5rr.
Demin, A. S. (ed.) 1978. Literaturnyi sbornik XVII aeka: Prolog. Russkaia
staropechatnaia literatura (XVl-pervaia chetvert' XVIIIv.), vol. z (Moscow:
Nauka).
(ed.) r98 r. Tematika i stilistika predisloaii i poslesloaii. Russkaia staropechatnaia
literatura (XVl*pervaia chetvert' XVIIIv.), vol. r (Moscow: Nauka).
1985. Pisatel' i obshchestzto a Rossii XVI-XVII aekoa (Obshchesruennye
-. nastoeniia
) (Moscow: Nauka).
Derzhavina,O. A. (ed.) rg7g. PanegiricheskaialiteraturaPetrotsskogoaremeni. Russkaia
staropechamaia literatura (XVl-pervaia chetvert' XVIIIv.), vol. 4 (Moscow:
Nauka).
Cyrillic and Glagoliric Printing and the Eisenstein
Eisenstein, Elizabeth
L. rg7g. The Printing
Thesis
Press
as an Agent of
23
Change:
Communications and Cuhural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
1983. The Printing Reoolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Emmel, Stephen. 1987. 'Specimens of Coptic Type from the Sacra Congregatio de
Propaganda Fide in Rome', Yale Unhtersity Library Gazette,6r, pp. 97*to4.
Febvre, Lucien, and Henri-Jean Martin. ry76. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of
Printing, r45o-t8oo, English translation by David Gerard (London: NLB).
Freimann, Aron. 1946. A Gazetteer of Hebrew Printing (Revised ed.) (New York: The
New York Public Library).
Garcia Icazbalceta, Joaquin. ry54. Bibliografia mexicana del siglo XVI: catalogo
razonado de libros impresos en Mdxico de r 5 j9 a r6oo, edited by Agustin Millares
Carlo (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica).
Geldner, Ferdinand. 1978. Inkunabelkunde: Eine Einfiihrung in die Welt des friihsten
Buchdrucks, Elemente des Buch- und Bibliothekswesens, 5 flJTiesbaden: Dr.
Ludwig Reichert Verlag).
Gingerich, Owen. r98r. [Review of Eisenstein rgTg), Papers of the Bibliographical
Societg of America,75, pp. zz8-23o.
Gogoladze, V. M. r964a. 'Knigopechatanie v Gruzii XVI-XVIIvv.', in Chetyresta let
russkogo knigopechataniia, r564-1964, edited by A. A. Sidorov (Moscow:
Nauka), vol. I, pp. rz9-r3o,609.
r964b. 'Knigopechatanie v Gruzii XVIIIv.', in Chetyresta let russkogo
knigopechataniia, r 564-1964, edited by A. A. Sidorov (Moscow: Nauka), vol. I,
pp. 247-250,6t4.
Grafton, Anthony T. r98o. [Review of Eisenstein t97g), Journal of Interdisciplinary
Historg, rr: pp. 265-286.
Haebler, Konrad. rgo5-24. Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke. Sammlung
Bibliothekwissenschaftlicher Arbeiten rgf 2c, 22123,27,2gf 3c.,4o (Halle a/S,
Leipzig and New York) (Reprinted, Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1968).
1933. The Study of Incunabula. Revised by the author. Translated by Lucy
Eugenia Osborne (and Helmut Lehmann-Haupt) (New York: The Grolier Club)
(Reprinted, New York: Kraus Reprint, 1967).
Halenchanka, H. Ia. r986. 'Staradrukavanyia kirylichnyia vydanni XVI-XVIIIst.', in
Kniha Belarusi r5r7-rgr7: zaodny kataloh (Minsk: Belaruskaia savetskaia
entsyklapedyia), pp. 9-r92, 57o-585.
Hirsch, Rudolf. 1974. Printing, Selling and Reading, r45o-155o, znd printing
($Tiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz).
Hitti, Philip K. r94zlq. 'The First Book Printed in Arabic', Princeton Library
Chronicle,4, pp. 5-9.
Isaievych, Ia. D. r97o. L'ztias'ki aydannia XVI-XVIIIst.: kataloh (L'viv: L'vivs'ka
derzhavna naukova biblioteka AN URSR).
Ishkhanian, R. A. r964a. 'Knigopechatanie v Armenii XVI-XVIIvv.', in Chetyresta
let russkogo knigopechataniia, r564-1964, edited by A. A. Sidorov (Moscow:
Nauka), vol. I, pp. r25-r29,6c,9.
r964b. 'Knigopechatanie v Armenii XVIIIv.', in Chetyresta let russkogo
knigopechataniia, r 564-1 964, edited by A. A. Sidorov (Moscow: Nauka), vol. I,
pp. 240-246, 614.
Kaufman, l. M. 196z-75. Stodnyi katalog russkoi knigi grazhdanskoi pechati XVIII
aeka: r7z5-t8oo.5 vols and supplement (Moscow: Gos. Biblioteka im. V. I.
Lenina).
Solanus tggz
24
K6vorkian, Raymond H. 1986. Catalogue des 'incunables' arminiens ( r 5r r 1t695 ), ou
Chronique de l'imprimerie arminienne, Cahiers d'orientalisme, IX (Geneva:
Patrick Cramer).
Kingdon, Robert M. r98o. [Review of Eisenstein t97gl, The Library Quarterly,5o,pp.
r39-r4t.
XVII veka', Kniga: issledottaniia i
materialy, z, pp. tz3-t86.
Kruming, A. A. t977. Predvaritel'nyi spisok staropechatnykh izdanii glagolicheskogo
Kiselev, N. P. r96o. 'O moskovskom knigopechatanii
shrifta XV-XVIIIaa., V pomoshch' sostaviteliam Svodnogo kataloga
staropechatnykh izdanii kirillovskogo i glagolicheskogo shriftov, z (Moscow:
Gos. Biblioteka im. V. I. Lenina).
Labyntsev, Iu. A. 1979. Predaaritel'nyi spisok staropechatnykh izdanii kirilloztskogo
shriJtaatoroi polooiny XVI aekarV pomoshch' sostaviteliam Svodnogo kataloga
staropechatnykh izdanii kirillovskogo i glagolicheskogo shriftov, 4 (Moscow:
Gos. Biblioteka im. V. I. Lenina).
1982. Predztaritel'nyi spisok staropechatnykh
izdanii kirilloaskogo shrifta peraoi
XVII aeka, V pomoshch' sostaviteliam Svodnogo kataloga
staropechatnykh izdanii kirillovskogo i glagolicheskogo shriftov, 7 (Moscow:
chetaerti
Gos. Biblioteka im. V. I. Lenina).
Legrand, Emile. r885-t9o6. Bibliographie helldnique, ou Description raisonie des
ouarages publids en grec par des Grecs aux XVe et XVIe sidcles,4 vols (Paris: E.
Leroux) (Reprinted, Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1963).
r894-r9o3. Bibliographiehellinique,ouDescriptionraisoniedesouaragespublids
par des Grecs aux XVIIe siicle, 5 vols (Paris: A. Picard et fils, J.
Maisonneuve) (Reprinted, Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1963).
Lenhart, John M. 1935. Pre-Reformation Printed Books: A Study in Statistical and
Applied Bibliography, Franciscan Studies, r4 (New York: Joseph F' IJflagner).
Luppov, S. P. 1983. Chitateli izdanii Moskottskoi tipografii a seredine XVII oeka
(Leningrad: Nauka).
Mansverov, I. 1883. Kak u nas pravilis' tserkoanye knigi: material dlia istorii knizhnoi
spraay a XVII stoletii (po bumagam arkhiaa Tipografskoi biblioteki o Moskae)
(Moscow: Lavrov).
Marx, Alexander. r9r9. 'Aldus and the First Use of Hebrew Type in Venice', Papers of
the Bibliographical Society of America, 13, pp. 64-67.
1924. 'Some Notes on the Use of Hebrew Type in Non-Hebrew Books,
en grec
r475-r52o',
h
Bibliographical Essays:
A Tribute to
lVilberforce
Eames
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp' 38r-4o8.
1948. 'The Choice of Books by Printers of Hebrew Incunables', in To Doctor R:
Essays Here Collected and Published in Honor of the Seaenrieth Birthday of Dr. A.
S. W. Rosenbach (Philadelphia, PA), pp. r54-r73.
Mathiesen, Robert. 1972. The Inflectional Morphology of the Synodal Church Slaoonic
Verb. Pl.D dissertation, Columbia IJniversity, New York, NY.
r98r. 'Two Contributions to the Bibliography of Meletii Smotryc'kyi',
Haraard Ukrainian Studies 5' pp. 230-244.
1984. 'The Church Slavonic Language Question: An Overview (IX-XX
Centuries)', in Aspects of the Stattic Language Question, edited by Riccardo
Picchio and Harvey Goldblatt (New Haven,
CT: Yale Concilium
on
International and Area Studies), vol. I, pp. 45-65'
rg85. The Great Polyglot Bibles: The Impact of Printing on Religion in the
Sixteenth and Seaenteenth Centuries (Providence, RI: The John Carter Brown
Library).
Cyrillic and Glagolitic Printing and rhe Eisenstein
Thesis
25
XVIII aeka (Belgrade: Narodna
biblioteka SR Srbiie).
Muller, Jean, and Ernst R6th. t969. AuJ3ereurop(iische Druckereien im r6. Jahrhundert:
Bibliographie der Drucke, Bibliotheca bibliographica aureliana, XXII (BadenBaden: Verlag Heitz).
Myl'nikov, A. S. 1967. 'Gde i kogda nachalos' slavianskoe knigopechatanie?', Kniga:
Issledooaniia i materialg, 14, pp. r2r-t32.
Nazor, Anica. r978. Zagreb riznica glagoljice: Katalog izloibe (Zagreb: Ognjen Prica).
Needham, Paul. r98o. [Review of Eisenstein t9791, Fine Print, 6, pp. 23-35.
Nemirovskii, E. L. 1976. Predoaritel'nyi spisok staropechatnykh izdanii kirilloaskogo
shrifta XV-pervoi poloainy XVIoa., V pomoshch' sostaviteliam Svodnogo
kataloga staropechatnykh izdanii kirillovskogo i glagolicheskogo shriftov, r
(Moscow: Gos. Biblioteka im. V. I. Lenina).
N[emoy], L[eon]. 1952. 'The Psalms and Song of Songs in Ethiopic', Yale Uniztersity
Mihailovi6, Georgije. ry64. Srpska bibliografija
Library Gazette 27, p. 126.
Nersessian, Vrej. r98o. Catalogue of Early Armenian Books, r 5rz-r85o (London: The
British Library).
Nikolaevskii, Pavel. r89o-9r. 'Moskovskii pechatnyi dvor pri patriarkhe Nikone',
Khristianskoe chtenie, r89o/r, pp. rr4-r4r, r89o/5, pp. 434-467, r89r/r, pp.
t47-r86, t89tl4, pp. r5r-r86.
Picchio, Riccardo. r963. 'A proposito della Slavia ortodossa e della comunitd linguistica
slava ecclesiastica', Ricerche slavistiche, rr, pp. ro5-r27.
[Pollard, Graham.] 1928. Catalogue of , I, Typefounders' Specimens; II, Books Printed in
Founts of Historic Importancel III, Works on Typefounding, Printing and
Bibliography, Offeredfor Sa/e (London: Birrell & Garnett, Ltd., Booksellers).
Proctor, Robert. rgoa. The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century, Illustrated
Monographs of the Bibliographical Society, 8 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Rafikov, A. Kh. 1973. Ocherk istorii knigopechataniia v Turrsii (Leningrad: Nauka).
Reed, Talbot Baines. 1952. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries. Revised
edition by A. F. Johnson (London: Faber & Faber).
Robinson, A. N. (ed.) rg9z. Simeon Polotskii i ego knigoizdatel'skaia deiatel'nost',
Russkaia staropechatnaia literatura (XVl-pervaia chetvert' XVIIIv.), 3
(Moscow: Nauka).
Rowe, John Howland. 1974. 'Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Grammars', Studies
in the History of Linguistics: Traditions and Paradigms, edited by Dell Hymes
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press), pp. 36r-379.
Saltini, Guglielmo Enrico. r86o. 'Della Stamperie Orientale Medicea e di Giovan
Battista Raimondi', Giornale Storico degli Archioi Toscani, 4, pp. 257-3o8.
Schurhammer, Georg, and G. W'. Cottrell, lr. 1952.'The First Printing in Indic
Characters', Haroard Library Bulletin, 6, pp. 147-16o.
Schwab, Moise. r883. Les incunables orientaux et les impressions orientales au
commencement du r6e siicle (Paris:
L. Techener).
Shaw, David. r98 r. [Review of Eisenstein ry79], The Library (series 6), 3, pp. 26r-263.
Shaw, Graham !7. r98r. 'Scaliger's Copy of an Early Tamil Catechism', The Library
(series 6), 3, pp. 139-243.
Steele, Robert.
rgo347.'What Fifteenth Century Books are About', The Library
(series z), 4,pp.337-354; 5, pp. 337158;6, pp. r37-r55; 8, pp. zz5-238.
Stillwell, Margaret Bingham. 1972. The Beginning of the lYorld of Books, r4So to r4Zo
(New York: The Bibliographical Society).
Strothmann, \7erner. r97r. Die Anfringe der syrischen Studien in Europa, Gcittinger
Orientforschungen, I. Reihe: Syriaca, r (lTiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz).
26
Solanus rggz
Teichl, Robert. 1964. 'Der ri7iegendruck im Kartenbild' (znd ed.), Bibliothek und
lVissenschaft, r, pp. zo5-265a, map.
Urbanczyk, Stanislaw. ry83. Die ahpolnischen Orthographien des 16. Jahrhunderts'
Slavistische Forschungen, 37 (Cologne and Vienna: B<ihlau).
V.G., and B. A. Uspenskii.t987.'Kavychnye knigi 5o-kh godov
XVIIv.', Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za r986 (Moscow: Nauka), pp. 75-84.
Vargas IJgarte, Rub6n. 1935-58. Biblioteca peruana. rz vols (Lima: Editorial San
Siromakhova,
Marcos).
Veloudis, Georg. 1974. Das griechische Druck- und Verlagshaus 'Glikis' in Venedig
( r 67o-t 8 54 ) : Das griechische Buch zur Zeit der Tilrkenherrschaft, Schriften zur
Geistesgeschichte des <istlichen Europa, 9 (trTiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz).
Vervliet, Hendrik D. L. r968. Sixteenth-Century Printing Types of the Low Counties
(Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger).
r98r. Cyrillic and Oriental Typography in Rome at the End of the Sixteenth
Century (Berkeley, CA: Poltroon Press).
Vogel, Paul Heniz. 1962. Europ(iische Bibeldrucke des r5. und r6. Jahrhunderts in den
Volkssprachen: Ein Beitrag zur Bibliographie des Bibeldrucks, Bibliotheca
bibliographica aureliana, V (Baden-Baden: Verlag Heitz).
IJfestman, Robert S. r98o. [Review of Eisenstein 1979), Isis' 7r' pp. 474-477.
rJ(/ijnman, H. F. r95z-57. 'De Studie van het Ethiopisch en de Ontwikkeling van de
Ethiopische Typographie in West-Europa in de r6e Eeuw', Het Boek' 3r, pp.
326-447; 32, pp. 225-246.
r957. 'The Origin of Arabic Typography in Leiden', Books on the Orient, r 957
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, Bookseller).
196o. 'An Outline of the Development of Ethiopian Typography in Europe',
Books on the Orient, r96o (Leiden: E. J. Brill, Bookseller), pp. IX-XXVIII.
Zapasko, Iakym, and Iaroslav Isaievych. r98r-84. Pam"iatky knyzhkovoho mystetstaa:
kataloh starodtukia, oydanykh na Ukraini, vols I, IIlt' lllz (L'viv: Vyshcha
shkola).
Zernova, A. S. 1958. Knigi kirilloaskoi pechati, izdannye o Moskae a XVI-XVII
oekakh: saodnyi katalog (Moscow: Gos. Biblioteka SSSR im. V. I. Lenina).
and T. N. Kameneva. 1968. Saodu)i katalog russkoi knigi kirilloaskoi pechati
XVIII ze&a (Moscow: Gos. Biblioteka SSSR im. V. I. Lenina).
-,
This article and the following one by I. V. Pozdeeva were originally presented at a
conference entitled 'The Millennium of the Baptism of Rus'', convened by James
Billington, Librarian of Congress, ot z6-27 May 1988. Both papers were part of the
panel 'The Religious Book Culture of the Eastern Slavs', chaired by Edward Kasinec,
Chief of the New York Public Library's Slavic and Baltic Division, and commented on
by Professor Gary Marker, State lJniversity of New York at Stonybrook, and Professor
Edward L. Keenan, Harvard University.