To Serve the Needs of Their Users: Two Natural-Philosophical Texts from Mrs. Heltai’s Printshop in Early Modern Transylvania

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
On April 3, 1655 flames engulfed most of the downtown of Kolozsvár (Klausenburg, Cluj) in the Principality of Transylvania, leaving smoldering rubble in their wake. Consumed by the fire was the town’s first known printshop, never to be rebuilt. What physically remains of the printshop is some of its typeface and some of the books it produced in its more than one-hundred-year existence. Among the surviving books are volumes printed by one of the region’s first known female printers, Zsófia Heltai, the widow of the printer, translator, and Protestant preacher Gáspár Heltai (Caspar Helth). While the Heltai printshop’s importance to the region’s book production and cultural life is widely recognized by historians, a comprehensive study of the widow Heltai’s operation of the printshop (~1574–1582) poses a challenge, owing, in part to a paucity of sources. This paper seeks to contribute to the scholarship on Mrs. Heltai’s multifaceted book-related activities by examining together the two known natural-philosophical texts that appeared under her care, an early herbarium and an astrological prognosticon, both published in 1578, in Hungarian. As a printer serving the reading needs of the wider region, publishing mostly vernacular works that would otherwise be unavailable through importation, her work contributed to the circulation of knowledge, including scientific ideas and practices.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Angela Gazda is a scholar of east central Europe whose current work focuses on the history of science, especially medicine.