Česká a německá reformace v ilustraci české knihy první poloviny 16. století

Title: The Czech and German Reformations in the illustration of Czech books in the first half of the 16th century. -- In contrast to the German lands, very few manifestations of Reformation illustration in Bohemia have been preserved. This is due, on the one hand, to the slow acceptance of title or textual illustrations in the Czech lands, and on the other, the shortage of native graphic artists. For printers in Bohemia it was more economical to borrow or purchase second-hand goods from Germany than to invest in the building of new centres of graphic art, as was done thoroughly and innovatively by the Severins from 1533 onwards. Despite the fact that the Nuremberg printing plates introduced to Bohemia and Moravia by printers in the 1520s-40s were frequently worn-out, they remained in circulation in the Czech lands and Poland throughout the whole 16th century, and sometimes much longer. The author finds the third major reason for the limited number of illustrations to be due to the contemporary literary landscape, the greater part of which covered the religious needs of the Utraquist Church and the Unity of the Brethren. There was significant movement on only two occasions, first of all in the 1520s, when, despite censorship, ten translations of Luther’s treatises were published in quick succession, and the Utraquists printed the works of Chelčický and Hus. At the same time, thanks to the Bohemian Master of fine hatching, there was a brief flourishing of the portrait and Reformation satire. These were, however, a phenomenon of the contents of printed works, and not the title page. The second wave occurred in the 1540s. However, as Prague-based literary graphic art was dominated by the Severin workshop until 1542, distinguished by its ideological neutrality and entertaining elements on decorative pages, it was more convenient to reuse older German printing plates. Due to their extended functionality and mobility, these plates came to be utilised in a wide variety of literary and confessional contexts, and they lost their original meaning. Thus the most frequently documented propagators of Reformation iconography in literature were not printers and illustrators, but bookbinders, whose work it was very difficult for preliminary state or church censorship to uncover. Printing rolls with portraits of reformers started to reach Bohemia from around 1546 onwards. ISBN 978-80-86890-57-