“Incunabula Croatica”: NSK presents its monograph spotlighting Croatia’s earliest printed books
On 25 September 2025, the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK) presented Incunabula Croatica, its monograph documenting the findings of decades of extensive research into Croatia’s earliest printed books and their relevance in the context of European cultural heritage.
Issued as part of a major publishing project supported by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media and the Adris Foundation, the monograph was prepared as a result of the Library’s cooperation with a large number of institutions, many of them religious. Emphasising the importance of this cooperation in her welcome address, the NSK Director General Dr Ivanka Stričević expressed deep gratitude to all who through their goodwill, knowledge and dedication as professionals laid the foundations for the project, documenting the Croatian incunabula and creating bibliographic records serving as the lasting basis for all further research into the history of the Croatian book.
Also underscoring the significance of all whose efforts contributed to the monograph’s publication, the Croatian Minister of Culture and Media Dr Nina Obuljen Koržinek highlighted in her address the immense value of the Croatian incunabula for reinforcing Croatia’s place within the European cultural community, in which context the monograph is the evidence of Croatia’s cultural maturity and a strong message to the world about its invaluable cultural heritage.
The monograph’s editor-in-chief Associate Professor at the Department of Information Sciences and Technologies at the University of Zadar Marijana Tomić, NSK Director General Dr Stričević, the consulting editors Associate Professor at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences of the Zagreb University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Ivana Hebrang Grgić and Fellow of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Mateo Žagar, along with the monograph’s contributors the Head of the NSK Manuscripts and Rare Books Collection Dr Irena Galić Bešker and member emeritus of the Institute of Art History in Zagreb Dr Milan Pelc provided the presentation participants with deeper insight into all the stages of the monograph’s preparation and its relevance for understanding the most valuable part of Croatian written heritage.
The symbolic cradle of Croatia’s printed heritage – made available online
The monograph spotlights 180 copies of the Croatian incunabula preserved in Croatian institutions. Featuring three research studies and a comprehensive bibliography, it includes each copy’s detailed description and an accompanying QR code for accessing its digitised version on the Incunabula Croatica website. This not only enables long-term preservation of the presented incunabula, but it makes them widely available in the digital environment.
Standing out among Croatian incunabula is by all means a ‘Missal by the Law of the Roman Court’ (Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora; Missale Romanum glagolitice), the pride of the NSK Manuscripts and Rare Books Collection and a gem of the Croatian Glagolitic tradition. Printed only 28 years after the completion of the Gutenberg Bible and a decade before Columbus’s discovery of the Americas as the first printed book in the Croatian language and the first book in Europe not printed in the Latin script, it made Croatian culture part of Europe’s and global cultural and technological mainstreams.
Being so much more than a mere register of the earliest Croatian books, Incunabula Croatica is a lasting testimony to the cultural wealth of the Croatian people. At the same time, it encourages new research, along with reminding us of the importance of the preservation of printed heritage and inspiring new discoveries.
You may order your copy of the Incunabula Croatica monograph via the Library’s website.
