Bibliotheca Bavoroviana Leopoliensis : prints from the first half of the sixteenth century : a catalogue

Abstract

"The Baworowscy Library in Lviv was one of the major privately funded libraries in the period of the Partitions of Poland. Its was founded by a count Wiktor Baworowski (1826–1894), Prus II Wilczekosy coat of arms; a translator of Western-European literature into Polish, and a bibliophile, renowned for his eccentric behavior. His collection has its onset in Myszkowice estate near Tarnopol. Since 1857, taking Józef Ossoliński as an example, Baworowski aspired to open an entail. In 1861 Baworowski placed his book collection in an inherited building of the former Sieniawski Arsenal in Lviv, where he established a sort of library – museum which, apart from precious Polish material, held also the Slavic one, as well as a print collection, sculptures, paintings, and other relics of the former culture of the Republic of Poland. Owing to the assistance offered by a well-known collector Aleksander Batawski, Baworowski obtained whole book collections or most valuable fragments, particularly those concerning the history of Poland, among others, collections of Alekasander and Stanisław Stadnicki of Żmigród, Ewaryst and Józef Kuropatnicki, Ambroży Grabowski, Alojzy Osiński, Kazimierz Stronczyński, Leon Dembowski of Klimontowice, Dionizy Zubrzycki, and Jan Wincenty Bandtkie-Stężyński. In 1856 the library had six thousand Polish Works, three thousand foreign ones, as well as five hundred manuscripts. Henryk Schmitt, who began working on a catalogue of engravings and the regulations of the book collection, took care of them. Schmitt’s work was continued by other librarians, Wojciech Kętrzyński among others, who registered historiographic works in the collection, as well as works by Stanisław Orzechowski, Szymon Starowolski, sermons and funeral speeches, and Ad Lectorem also works on grammar and lexicology, literature, theology, and herbaria (...)." (fragm.)