THE CYRILLIC PRESS OF LORINŢ DIACON (1567-1579)
 

Besides the printing shop of Coresi and Philip - almost contemporanously with Coresi - it was Lorinţ diacon who printed books with cyrillic script in his workshop active between 1567 and 1579.
He carried on his activity in two Transylvanian towns, first in Brassó (Corona, Kronstadt, Braşov, R) and later in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia, R) with the same equipment at both sites.

Coat of arms of the Báthory-family, RMNy 435 (Gyulafehérvár / Alba Iulia 1579)

The first product of his press was the Old Church Slavonic liturgical book Osmoglasnik issued in Brassó in 1567 (RMNy 224). Among his prints there is also one with cyrillic letters in Romanian language. Following his stay in Brassó (1567–1572) for some years there is no trace of his whereabouts. It was only in 1578 when his continued his activity as a printer, this time in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia). In one of his books printed here a fine, renaissance-style wood-cut representing the coat of arms of the princely family Báthory appears. The printer Lorinţ gained a 30-year privilege from Prince Kristóf Báthory for the same book.

Carpet-like ornament with the coat of arms of Wallachia (Gyulafehérvár,/Alba Iulia 1579) RMNy 435

From its afterword it appears that Lorinţ printed this book on the commission of Prince Kristóf Báthory, in 1579 (RMNy 435)
As mentioned before, he was for some years working parallelly with Coresi in Brassó, nevertheless, there are no identities in their printing equipment, they were apparently working independently.

INITIALS

Ornamental initial letters used by Lorinţ

PRINTING TYPES

The printing type of Lorinţ

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FELHASZNÁLT IRODALOM:
JAKÓ Zsigmond, Szeben latin betűs könyvnyomtatása a XVI. században. In: Írás, könyv, értelmiség. Tanulmányok Erdély történelméhez. Bukarest, 1976, 180-192.
BIANU, Ioan–HODOŞ, Nerva–(SIMONESCU, Dan): Bibliografia româneăscă veche, I–IV (Bucureşti, 1903–1944.