Heritage by Country / Bosnia and Herzegovina
Incunabula in Franciscan Monastery in Kraljeva Sutjeska
Info Sections
About the site
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kakanj
Type: Intangible Heritage
Epoch: Middle Ages
Theme: Intangible Heritage
World Heritage:
In the Late Middle Ages, Kraljeva Sutjeska was the seat of Bosnian rulers. A Franciscan Monastery was founded adjoining the castle and for more than six centuries it was the spiritual and cultural centre of the region. Just as the Monastery has its own long history, its archives, library and museum testify to the past periods of our history.
An incunabula is a book from the very beginnings of printing, published before the year 1500. They can be divided into two groups: those printed from wood blocks onto which each page was cut individually (tabular), and books printed using the movable type invented by J. Gutenberg (typographic).
The Incunabula Collection is part of the Monastery Library. Two types of books make this library particularly important and interesting. They are the incunabula and older works of local writers.
he Incunabula Collection is particularly important because of the total number located in Bosnia and Herzegovina (51), 22 can be found here.
The incunabula can be categorised into two groups. The first encompasses texts by authors who predate the invention of printing, i.e. incunabula where the works of writers from antiquity or the mediaeval period have been printed from a unique manuscript that has since been lost or has succumbed to the ravages of time. The second group of incunabula comprises works contemporary with the incunabula themselves, mainly theological and scholastic tractates.
Expert network