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Iconotheca Valvasoriana, a copy of which the British Library acquired recently, is a facsimile edition of the collection of prints and drawings from the library of Johann Weichard Valvasor (1641-1693), a historian and scientist from Carniola (Kranjska, a western region of present-day Slovenia).
Johann Weichard Valvasor in 1689. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
In 1685 Valvasor arranged his collection of prints and drawings into 18 large folio albums to which letterpress title pages were added summarizing the content of each album. Later he sold this collection of prints and drawings, which is now held at the Metropolitan Library in Zagreb, except for one volume which is missing.
The Janez Vajkard Valvasor Foundation at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana and the Metropolitan Library in Zagreb published a limited edition of 100 copies of Iconotheca Valvasoriana in 2004-2008. This critical edition consists of 17 large folio volumes which contain 7752 facsimiles of European prints and drawings from the 15th to the 17th centuries. It forms a catalogue of the collection of prints and drawings in which each entry has a catalogue description, commentary, bibliography and provenance note on facing pages in Slovenian, Croatian and English in parallel texts. The edition has a bibliography, an index of names (of engravers, monogrammists, inventors, printers, artists, publishers and previous owners), and an index of titles at the end of each volume.
The first three volumes contain prints on religious and sacred themes; volume four is the missing volume; volume five contains prints on popular allegorical themes; volume six comprises prints on secular themes; volume seven contains maps, topographical representations and views of towns; volume eight is dedicated mainly to illustrated broadsheets; volume nine depicts plants and animals; in volume 10 prints of classical works and mythological texts predominate; volume 11, with prints of scenes from classical mythology, continues the content of the previous volume. All these volumes are arranged by theme. The remaining six volumes are arranged by individual artists, such as Callot, Dürer, and Rembrandt as well as many other well- known or less familiar printers and artists, or by technique. All the woodcuts are in volume 16, which also contains coats of arms. Volume 17 contains drawings and volume 18 watercolours of plants and animals.
It is evident that Valvasor made use of his collection of prints and drawings for his principal study, a pictorial description of the Slovenian lands, which is his four-volume encyclopaedic work Die Ehre des Herzogthums Crain (‘Glory of the Duchy of Carniola’) published in Laybach (Ljubljana) and Nürnberg in 1689. The British Library has two complete copies (Shelfmarks 985.g.1.and 169.g.8-11.), and a digitised edition is available via the Digital Library of Slovenia.
The British Library copy of Iconotheca Valvasoriana is number 67 of 100 numbered copies. Each volume is catalogued separately in continuous order and placed at shelfmarks LF.37.b.231 to LF.37.b.247.
Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-Eastern European collections
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Previously published on blogs.bl.uk and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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