The Crnojević printing house ( sr, Штампарија Црнојевића, Štamparija Crnojevića) or Cetinje printing house ( sr, Цетињска штампарија, Cetinjska štamparija), was the first printing house in

Southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (a ...

; the facility operated between 1493 and 1496 in Cetinje,

Zeta Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...

(modern

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

). It was founded by

Đurađ Crnojević Đurađ Crnojević ( sr-cyr, Ђурађ Црноjeвић, cu, Гюргь Цьрноевыкь; d. 1514) was the last Serbian medieval Lord of Zeta between 1490 and 1496, from the Crnojevic dynasty. The son of Ivan Crnojević and Goisava Ariani ...

, the ruler of Zeta between 1490 and 1496. The printing press was operated by Serbian Orthodox monks at the supervision of

Hieromonk Makarije Hieromonk Makarije ( sr, Јеромонах Макарије; 1494–d. after 1528) is the founder of Serbian and Romanian printing, having printed the first book in Serbian and the first book in the territory of Walachia (part of modern-day Rom ...

. The Crnojević printing press was also the first state press in the world. Five

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

liturgical book A liturgical book, or service book, is a book published by the authority of a church body that contains the text and directions for the liturgy of its official religious services. Christianity Roman Rite In the Roman Rite of the Catholic C ...

s were printed in this printshop: '' Oktoih Prvoglasnik'', ''Oktoih Petoglasnik'', ''Psaltir'', ''Trebnik'' (''Molitvenik'') and ''Cvetni Triod''. * Octoechos of the First Tone (''Oktoih prvoglasnik'') is the first book printed in the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

among the

South Slavs South Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria, ...

. It was finished on 4 January 1494. There are 108 copies of this book existing. It contains 270 leaves sized 29 x 21,6 cm. It is characterized by high quality and clean two-coloured printing, red and black, with nicely shaped letters. It is decorated with headpieces and

initial In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...

s printed from

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...

s in the spirit of the Renaissance with traces of old manuscript traditions. *Octoechos of the Fifth Tone (''Oktoih petoglasnik'') represents the first illustrated South Slavic incunabulum. It is preserved in fragments, the longest one containing 37 leaves. It has six woodcut illustrations, made by an artist who managed to put rather complex compositions with many characters on a relatively small space. * Psalter with Additions (''Psaltir s posledovanjem'') was printed in 1495. It is not only of liturgical and conventional but also historical and literary significance. It is decorated with three headpieces and 27 initials repeated for 221 time. There are 36 complete and partial copies preserved. The National Library of Montenegro "Đurđe Crnojević" published 650 facsimiles of the psalter in 1986.

Legacy

In his 1514 letter to Ragusan senate, Ragusan nobleman Luka Primojević emphasized that he had intention to print books using the same letters used by Serbian priests in their churches, the same letters used in the Crnojević printing house which books were well respected and praised. Although his intention to establish a printing house in Dubrovnik and to print Cyrillic books failed, his written statements left significant testimony about high reputation of books printed in the Crnojević printing house.

Legacy

References

Sources

Further reading