Books with chains (libri catenati)
The current text is an academic lecture on medieval books provided with chains. The libri catenati must be understood not just as some dusty old books, but as persuasive evidence of a direct manifestation of the culture in medieval Transylvania on various areas of medieval European spirituality. The cultural and political availability of reading books provided with chains remain an individualized expression of a culture taking the path of modernity. One cannot exclude also medieval views and practices connected directly to the process of reading, in an era when the book addressed only to a lesser number of readers, holding a high material value. In the end, the libri catenati represent books that helped define a concept of the civilized and modern European spirit.
Keywords: medieval Europe, medieval Transylvania, medieval books, libri catenati, reading in the Middle Ages
1.[1] Cf., orientativ, Liber librorum. Cinq mille ans d’art du livre. Présenté par Hendrik D. L. Vervliet. Introduction de Herman Liebaers, Bruxelles, „Arcade”, MCMLXXIII; Albert Flocon, Universul cărţilor. Studiu istoric de la origini până la sfârşitul secolului al XVIII-lea. Traducere de Radu Berceanu. Co o postfaţă de Barbu Theodorescu, Bucureşti, Edit. Şt. şi Enc., 1976.
2.[1] Un punct de vedere: Iacob Mârza, Unfamiliar Libraries XIV: the Batthyaneum Alba Iulia, în The Book Collector, Oxford, 24, 4, Winter 1975, p. 558-564; idem, Paradisul ca o bibliotecă, în Steaua, 8-9 (542-543), 1992, p. 55-56; idem, Die Bibliothek Batthyaneum von Alba Iulia (Karlsburg) in Siebenburgen, în Börsenblatt für den Deutschland Buchhandel, Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig, 51, 6, 1999, p. A 332 – A 337; idem, Paradisul ca o bibliotecă, în Steaua, 8-9 (542-543), 1992, p. 55-56.
3.[1] Vezi, de pildă: Robertus Szentiványi, Catalogus concinnus librorum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Batthyanianae, Szeged, 1958, passim; Petrus Kulcsár, Catalogus incunabulorum Bibliothecae Batthyanyanae, Szeged, 1965; Eva Selecká nunc Mârza, Stredoveká Levočská knižnica, Martin, l974; idem, A középkori Lőcsei könyvtár, Szeged, Scriptum KFT., 1997.
