The collections of the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences include a set of printed textes by Jan Seklucjan with a handwritten dedication to Albrecht Frederick, Duke of Prussia (†1618). Their binding is decorated with plaquettes with portraits of Albrecht von Brandenburg- Ansbach, Duke of Prussia (†1568) and his first wife Dorothea (†1547). The article analyses both compositions, providing the following conclusions: they were made in the Konigsberg circles of the so-called Formschneider between the end of the 1530s and the first half of the 1540s. Between the period in question and 1565, wooden plaquettes (blocks) with these portraits were kept by the Duke’s court bookbinder, Kaspar Angler. After his death they probably belonged to the workshop equipment of his pupil Wolff Artzt, although it is also possible that they were used by a local religious writer, bookseller and possibly also bookbinder – Jan Seklucjan. Both works are examples of adaptation in Konigsberg of a specific formula of Renaissance book binding decoration, being at the same time a bookplate, based on a rectangular portrait plaquette presented in the centre of the cover. Compositions of such works most often depended on the painted portraits – mainly from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder. Both Konigsberg portraits, however, are marked by prolonged proportions, a landscape background, and the display of coats of arms at the bottom. This fact should be explained by the painting models that were probably related to paintings in Albrecht’s Konigsberg residence. It is impossible to decide definitely whether they were made by a painter employed at his court (e.g. Crispin Herrant), or imported. Nevertheless, they are an indirect testimony to the existence of a gallery of portraits in the Konigsberg Castle, which was created on a long-term basis and with passion by the Duke of Prussia.

This paper is devoted to a precious sobiescianum from the Kórnik Library’s collection of manuscripts – the binding of a hand-written panegyric with emblems by Johann Jakob Rollos, dedicated to King John III Sobieski. This piece of bookbinding art is marked by its restrained although exquisite decoration centred around the monarch’s supralibros in the form of a monogram under a royal crown, encircled by palm branches. First, the binding is analysed in terms of its materials, technique, and decoration. Conclusions from the analysis were used to situate the work in the context of French 17th-c. bookbinding, which led to the conclusion that it is a classic example of an à la Duseuil (à la Du Seuil) binding, which has numerous counterparts in the output of French bookbinders of the Baroque era. The genesis of the form of the supralibros is then analysed, indicating French sample design books presenting inter alia designs of monograms. Analogies between the Sobieski’s supralibros and the French supralibros with a monogram or an escutcheon under a crown and encircled by palm branches or similar motifs turned out to be significant. Attention was also devoted to the genesis of the form of the marbled paper from which the endpapers were made. Finally, it was attempted to situate the book in the context of John III Sobieski’s book collection, from which only a handful of volumes have managed to survive until our own times. Attention was also paid to the issue of the royal monograms in Poland in the last years of the 17th century and the first decades of the 18th century.

The collections of the Kórnik Library include a copy of a printed Mszał gnieźnieński [Gniezno Missal] of 1555, protected by a binding with characteristic architectural decoration. Detailed analysis shows that the binding was made between 1558 and 1566 in a workshop of an anonymous bookbinder from Poznań, thus confirming the presence of the Italian thread in the Poznań bookbinding ornamentation of the Renaissance period. At the same time, it is the latest known example of Polish renaissance architectural binding. It also provides evidence that although this characteristic composition formula appeared in the repertoire of the Poznań bookbinders about twenty years later than in Kraków, it lasted longer.

Worthy of attention is also the volume’s provenance related to Stanisław Warszewicki – his being “the most influential figure of the [Jesuit] Order after Skarga” in Poland. He is commemorated by a supralibros with Kuszaba coat-of-arms and the sigles “S V C P” pressed into the centre of the bottom part of the binding.

The numerous cimelia of the Kórnik Library include Stanisław Sarnicki’s work Descriptio veteris ac novae Poloniae, printed by Aleksy Rodecki in Cracow in 1585. It is protected by a parchment binding with orientalising decoration marked with a supralibros dedicated by Jan Sienieński to King Stephen Báthory. In view of a scant number of the surviving bookbinding bathoriana, the paper provides a book cover-focused analysis of the work. It makes it possible to examine the binding against the Polish bookbinding art of the late 16th century, identify its maker, link it to other bindings of printed books from Báthory’s book collection, and picture the connections between the decoration of the covers and the illustrations of the publication the binding protected.

The holdings of the Kórnik Library include a small printed book by Walenty Schreck published by the Königsbergian printing house of Johann Daubmann in 1559. At the beginning of the book, there is a hand-written dedication from the author to Duke Albrecht Frederick, a son of Albrecht of Prussia (von Hohenzollern), and a versed poetic work. Since the volume was a gift to a juvenile duke (and indirectly to his father), it was bound in a masterly manner: in covers with rich, almost entirely gilded ornamentation and with gilded edges. The paper offers an analysis of this book-binding work, taking similar objects from Polish collections and information from relevant literature as a point of reference. This allowed a thesis that the object is a representative creation of the leading 16th century Königsbergian book-binder Kaspar Angler, in which he used several of his characteristic decorating tools (such as a roll with fi gures of cupids and putti, a roll with a cortège of a king and bishop, and 3 medallion plaques with Biblical scenes). Taking into account its high artistry and almost untouched condition, the work seems to be one of the most impressive objects of the 16th century European bookbinding industry in the collection of the Kórnik library. Its high historical value also results from its provenance – it originates from the ducal library in Königsberg.

Jan Walter of Chojnice (*about 1445, †1512), initially a vicar, and then a parson of St. Peter and Paul’s Church, as well as a secretary of Gdansk City Council, is one of the best known figures associated with the old book culture in Gdansk. The article describes one of the aspects of his bibliophilia: book covers marked with supralibros. It first discusses works by local bookbinders made for Walter, and then analyses a supralibros in the form of a miniature oval featuring the mark of a bibliophile (the head of a Negro) against the background of the European and local tradition of marking books in late Middle Ages. As a result, it is demonstrated that six from among the Gdansk citizen’s books we currently know, which contain the mark, were provided with it secondarily. This is mainly indicated by the non-typical locations of the supralibros – each one is in a way “squeezed in” between the regularly spaced elements of the blind embossing adornment of the covers.