Yesterday I was walking down the street, heading down to catch sunset at the banks of the Danube when a small shop window piled with antique books caught my eye. ‘Antikvarium’ read the sign above my head and luckily for me, the door was open.
I entered a messy room full of stacked boxes and bookshelves seemingly inaccessible without an awkward climb. This place was definitely not set up to profit from or optimize consumer curiosity, but a friendly face greeted me nonetheless. I greeted the old man with graying beard in broken Hungarian and asked him if he was open for business. I continued with a few more stupid phrases, “Beautiful books, I like books…” in a mixture of shitty Hungarian, German and English.
He smiled widely at me and invited me to take a look at the books tucked away in an adjacent cramped niche behind his cluttered desk. He graciously waved his hand to turn on the motion-activated lights and I squeezed past him to check it out.
This was the first book I picked up….
Vintage book found at a small Budapest antique book shop written in Latin and printed in 1749 entitled:
Sermones sacri in singulas totius anni dominicas digesti, in quibus Selecta argumenta in Christianorum omnium, tum vero praecipue Iuventutis institutionem tractantur, olim e cathedra propositi, nunc vero ad uberiorem omnium utilitatem in lucem dati
Detail of finely cross-hatched interior illustration.
Most of the interior text is black but the title page has a rich, deep-red font as well.
Wonderful irregularities….
Detail of just one of many ornamental page flourishes.
Beautiful bookmark with handwriting found tucked away inside the book.
I’ve made a nice discovery online as well- the State Library of Bavaria has scans of various selected pages and they have done an excellent job of preserving the color and integrity of the content and old paper.
I am extremely happy to have come across this gem of a book and to add it to my modest collection of paper treasures.
Talissa Mehringer © Budapest, Hungary 2018