Beschreibung:

CROATIAN ALPHABET.] Ispoved' Marie , [ Alphabetum Croatice ] in Croation. Venice: Andreas de Torresanus, 1527.
CROATIAN ALPHABET.] Ispoved' Marie , [ Alphabetum Croatice ] in Croation. Venice: Andreas de Torresanus, 1527. 8 o (201 x 140 mm). 6 leaves. Printed in red and black. First leaf with historiated woodcut border, 20 small historiated woodcuts at beginning of each section, Torresanus's tower device in red at end. (Some pale dampstaining, last leaf with fore-margin reinforced on verso.) Modern red morocco by K. Ebert, Munich. Provenance : Karl W. Hiersemann (see facsimile edition); purchased from Emil Offenbacher, 2 February 1954. FIRST EDITION. A compilation, containing the Glagolitic alphabet, syllabary, Ave Maria, Lord's Prayer, the Credo, Confitor, and other prayers, generally known as the Introductorium Croatice . The book is one of the earliest Croatic monuments of literature. The prayers are written in Church Slavic with strong croatic elements in spelling and punctuation. The headings are in pure popular Croatic language, which, along with the illustrated form of the book, indicate that it might have been designed for the youth. The woodcut of the magister and his disciples on the title seems to confirm that it was meant for pedagogical purposes. EXTREMELY RARE: no copy is traceable at auction since at least 1950 according to American Book Prices Current and RLG lists a single copy (Harvard); a search of European libraries failed to locate a copy in Britain, Italy, German or France. Badalic, J. Jugoslavica , p. 41, no. 29; Nazor, A. Zagreb riznica glagoljice , 120; Renouard pp.293-94. [ With: ] Facsimile edition. Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann, 1933. 8 o. Original green cloth. With a 1-page description of the book in German, with reference that the only copy they had traced at that time was the publisher's own copy used to produce the facsimile.