Praises to God in the Christian Church

Praises to God in the Christian Church

Praises to God in the Christian Church
Bártfa, 1593.
Accompanying essay by Gabriella H. Hubert 
Facsimile edition after the copy at NSZL and at LIC HAS
Bibliotheca Hungarica Antiqua, 67.
OSZK – Balassi Kiadó – HAS Research Centre for the Humanities Institute for Literary Studies, Budapest, 2019., 428 pages + 70 pages of the essay
ISBN 978 963 456 046 3 facsimile
ISBN 978 963 456 047 3 essay

3 500,- Ft
Available

The richest collection of Protestant songbooks of the 16th century, implementing a demanding theological programme, is the Songbook of Bártfa (today Bardevoj), printed in 1593. It is unique in its structure: the songs follow the feasts of the church year, and are also aligned with the Gospel passage for the feast. It offers a rich selection of 274 hymns for worship and private devotions. Its spiritual, musical and poetic background is provided by the rich musical life, intellectual circles and numerous congregations of the five free royal towns of Upper Hungary: Bártfa (Bardevoj), Eperjes (Prešov), Kassa (Košice), Kisszeben (Sabinov) and Lőcse (Levoča). The editor of this songbook, probably János Mihálykó, the pastor of Eperjes between 1593 and 1613, wanted to organise evangelical congregational singing with the intention of creating a new standard.

The facsimile edition was published with an accompanying study by Gabriella H. Hubert.

Bibliotheca Hungarica Antiqua

The Bibliotheca Hungarica Antiqua series was founded by Béla Varjas (1959-1985) who remained its editor until his death. It is a series of facsimile editions of 16-17th century Hungarica prints, completed by explanatory essays, in some cases with English (German) summaries. From 1986, the series editor has been Péter Kőszeghy. Although the original goal was to make works of literary or typographical importance, sometimes with only one copy remained, available for research, many of these bibliophile publications can be of interest for the wide public. After the first 12 volumes published in the edition of Béla Varjas, the series reached a total of 44 volumes by 2014. NSZL has been its co-publisher from 2000, and in 2014 also the library of Hungarian Academy of Sciences has joined.