Dorota Sidorowicz-Mulak (Ossolineum National Institute, Ossolineum National Library, Poland)
An extremely impressive, representative devotional book embossed on silk “De sanctis angelis libellus” by the engraver Tomasz Makowski is the only copy of this work preserved to the present day. It was published in Nyasvizh/Nieśwież in 1609 at the request of the Lithuanian aristocrat Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, known as “the Orphan”, who had converted to Catholicism. The magnate was inspired by the decision of Pope Paul V to announce the feast of guardian angels.
The cult of the seven archangels spread thanks to the Sicilian monk Antonio del Duca and Tommaso Bellorosso. They discovered frescoes with such representations in one of the churches in Palermo. The purpose of popularization of the cult of the archangels was served, among other things, by the construction of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri on the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome as well as by publications.
Antonio del Duca was the author of works concerning seven archangels. The first one was published in 1543 in Naples, subsequent ones were published in other Italian cities in the 16th and 17th centuries. The text of the Sicilian monk’s book was reflected in Makowski’s publication. He included the texts of litanies to the angels taken from the del Duca’s work. The work from Nyasvizh/Nieśwież opens with a copperplate title page and an introduction addressed to readers. The artist from Nyasvizh/Nieśwież took the images of the archangels from graphic works created by Dutch artists.
The lecture will present the book’s rich typographic and content interior. The fate of the book will also be discussed from the time it entered the Ossolineum Library from Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński’s collection in the 19th century to the 21st century.