EXSTANT COPIES

There is no information about the size of edition of the 1483 Missal. In the early years of printing, editions, even for popular titles, rarely exceeded 200 copies. Of whole edition, there are preserved eleven incomplete copies and seven fragments. Although all more complete copies are printed exclusively on paper, three of the fragments are printed on parchment.

The National and University Library in Zagreb have two copies, one of which comes from the private library of Ljudevit Gaj, a 19th century Croatian politician, writer and leader of Illyrian cultural movement. One copy of the Missal (RI-4°-62a) has 211 pages, with most of the spaces for initials left empty. The other copy (RI-4°-62b) has 205 pages, with most of the initials drawn in with ink and some of them painted in red. On the last printed page, under the colophon is written letters NOEMIL, the meaning of which was object of numerous linguistically speculations, but without conclusive results. The volume is bound in wooden boards covered with blind-tooled brown leather and with metal corner guards (the LIBRARY CATALOG, digital entry M9-10 and M11-12).

The Library of Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences also has two copies of the Missal. One copy has 129 pages (Ink II 14) and other, discovered 1975 has only 62 pages (Ink II 14 b).

The Library of the monastery of Franciscan Third Order in Zagreb, has one copy, with 209 preserved pages. This copy was brought from the monastery in Glavotok, island of Krk.

The Library of Dominican monastery in Bol, island of Brač, has a copy of the Missal with only 46 pages surviving.

The Vatican Library have a two copies: one (Inc. II 733) with 217 pages, and second (Inc. II 734) with 171 pages.

The Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) has one copy (1D 14) with 215 pages. Their copy has a woodcut illustration of the Crucifixion (quire n|) by an unknown author.

The Library of Congress, the Rare Book Reading Room has one of the best-preserved copies of the Missal, a part of the Vollbehr Collection. It is identified as entry M-695 in Frederick Goff's Incunabula in American Libraries (1964). This copy has a hand-colored woodcut of the Crucifixion glued on the empty page opposite to the text of the Canon of the Mass (quire n|). Author and date of the illustration is not known.

The Library of Saltykov-Ščedrin in St. Petersburg has the best-preserved copy (Berč. 1) with 218 pages. The copy originally belonged to the philologist Ivan Berčić from Zadar, Croatia. In this copy was tucked in a small fragment (4 x 7 cm) of parchment page. The woodcut illustration in this copy is probably the oldest of three preserved, and could date from the time of printing of the Missal.

The Archive of Franciscan Third Order in Krk, island Krk, has two paper pages.

The Institute of Old-Slavic in Zagreb, has one paper page which originally came from Novi Vinodol, a town on the Adriatic coast.

The Academy of Old-Slavic in Krk, island Krk; monastery of the Franciscan Third Order on island Krk and Franciscan monastery on the island of Košljun, near the island of Krk, each have one parchment page of the Missal.

One incomplete copy was in the village of Ricmanji near Trieste, Italy. It is supposed that sometime before WWII, it came into the possession of the National Library in Beograd. The copy was lost in the conflagration of the Library during the 1941 bombing of the city (Nazor 1993, pp. 233-234  Krader 1963, pp. 97-98).

 

Bibliography

Krader, B. (1963). The Glagolitic Missal of 1483. The Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 20(2), 93-98.

Nazor, A. (1993). Hrvatskoglagoljske inkunabule. U povodu 500. obljetnice brevijara Blaža Baromića (1493-1993). Croatica. Prinosi proučavanju hrvatske književnosti, XXIII/XXIV(37/38/39).