Friday, March 4, 2011

Jiří Melantrich of Aventinum (1511-1580)

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Catalogue number 0669
Date of issue 9.2.2011
Face value 30 CZK
Print sheets 50 stamps
Size of picture 23 x 40 mm
Graphic designer Pavel Hrach
Engraver Bohumil Sneider

Jiří Melantrich (Rožďalovský) of Aventinum (or Aventýn; born Jiří Černý Rožďalovický; c. 1511, Rožďalovice -November 19th, 1580, Prague) was an important Czech Renaissance printer and publisher.
It is not clear when Jiřík Černý, later known as Jiří Melantrich of Aventinum, was born. The alleged year of 1511 is based on the information from a calendar published by Daniel Adam of Veleslavín according to which Melantrich died at 69. He came from a non-wealthy Ultraquist family. Hardly anything is known of his early life. The first mention of him is from 1534, the year he became a bachelor at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague.
He set up a printing shop, and gradually started to flourish and gain European significance. The Melantrich's Bible (so-called "Melantriška"), issued by him in four or five editions, was at the core of his activities as publisher, although he published also three editions of the New Testament as well as a large number of other religious and moral books (e.g. works by Desiderius Erasmus) for both Catholic and Lutheran or Ultraquist readers, Czech Renaissance Humanist literature or collections of Latin poems. The publication of a Czech and later also German edition of Mattioli's Herbarium, resulting from Melantrich cooperation with famous Italian physician and botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli, gained European importance. Other of his publications included all kinds of handbooks and dictionaries, acts of Parliament and other legal literature, as well as inexpensive amusing books for ordinary people.
Melantrich also served as the Prague's Old Town councillor. He was raised to the rank of nobleman and granted a single coat of arms in 1557. Throughout his life Melantrich was known as a person educated in the spirit of Renaissance Humanism, an Ultraquist influenced by Lutheranism, who tolerated Catholicism. After he died in 1580, his son-in-law Daniel Adam of Veleslavín took over the Melantrich publishing house and continued its operations.

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