Month: June 2025

More than half a thousand incunabula are currently counted in Lithuania and this number is slowly but surely increasing. The Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences currently holds 67 incunabula (one of which was identified during the preparation of the exhibition). This exhibition aims to present the incunabula, their unique features, and to show how the form of the first printed documents has evolved, allowing the book gradually to become what we are used to seeing nowadays. The visitors are also invited to become acquainted with the incunabula of the Wróblewski Library, to see their curiosities, and the uniqueness of individual specimens in one way or another. However, the exhibition does not pretend to be objective, especially in regard to that which is beautiful or interesting. The audience is invited to follow the links to view the books that were discussed in this exhibition or only mentioned in the Wroblewski Library’s list of incunabula, and to discover which ones are of personal interest. As the digitisation of the Wroblewski Library’s incunabula is completed, those who want to get to know one or another book in detail can browse the document of interest online. The links to the incunabula will be updated after the books have been digitised.

All the incunabula in the virtual exhibition are described mainly using the British Library’s Incunabula Short Title Catalogue, which, together with the German catalogue of incunabula, Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW), are the primary sources for researchers.  Source numbers, which are given alongside the book descriptions, are the modern identification code for these books.