Information Text: Krakow - Renaissance - Wood and timber industry

Paper industry

In 1533, the City Council of Kraków, having obtained the King’s permission, built a lumber-mill on the Rudawa riverbank. In 1538, the City Council granted the Kraków carpenter, Tomasz Ptaszyńki, the permission to found saw mills in two municipal villages. 

During the Old Polish period, the amount of the produced paper reflected the civilization development and the intellectual level of the nation.

Kraków was the biggest centre of the paper industry on the Polish territory. In the last decade of the 15^th century, the first Kraków paper mill was established. In 1557, the Paper Guild consisted of 20 master craftsmen: eight of them carried Polish names.

There was a constantly growing demand for paper. Soon, new paper mills were set up. They were characterised by windmills situated next to small rivers. As a rule, they were not located at big rivers because of spring flooding and other natural disasters, but at smaller ones which ensured the constant flow of water necessary for the moving of waterwheels.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Boner family established two paper mills. Their paper was most common until the end of the century and it was easily recognizable by the watermark of the Boner Family’s crest – the double lily. The paper from their paper mills was considered to be exquisite, strong, not losing its gloss and one of the best in Europe. The register books of King Zygmunt were written on it.

In the middle of the 16th century, Kraków was the strongest centre of the paper industry in Poland. One thousand reams of paper (one ream equals 480 sheets) were produced yearly. In 1581, there were 10 paper mills in the vicinity of Kraków employing 10 master craftsmen, 30 apprentices and about 40 students. Their yearly production ranged between 72 and 100 thousand paper reams. The paper mills supplied not only the Kraków printing shops and the King’s, town and court chambers, but their paper was also exported. Polish watermarks had already been known in the 15^th century.

The paper craftsmen from Kraków helped the development of another branch of guild manufacture, namely the manufacture of playing cards. Playing cards were very expensive in Poland, and that is why in the 15^th century they had been played only at Zygmunt I Stary’s court. However, thanks to their local production in the 16^th century, they became more popular. In 1499, there had already existed two card manufacturers in Kraków. The paper needed for card production was exported from Nysa, although in Prądnik, paper had been made since 1493. In the 16^th century, there were 54 card manufacturers operating in Kraków, and the city became the most important centre of card production in Poland.

 

Printing industry

In the 16th century, the book production was an important manufacturing branch in Poland. In 1503, there were seven printing shops in Kraków, and only five elsewhere in Poland. In the second half of the 16^th century, their number significantly increased. Only in Kraków did 14 printing shops operate, while there were 41 of them in the whole country. At the same time, some other branches related to the printing industry such as papermaking, illustration art and book binding developed. The Kraków book binders had their own guild consisting of 12 masters. Even books from the Vilnius library of Zygmunt August were bound in Kraków. The book market supply in Kraków was enormous at that time. According to Artur Banis, there were about 26,000 manuscript volumes in the Kraków bookstores, which equalled one volume for each Kraków inhabitant.

Jan Haller (1467–1525) from Franconia was responsible for the development of the Kraków printing industry. He traded books and financed prints manufactured abroad for Polish clients, for example, liturgical books printed in Nuremberg or university textbooks letterpressed in Leipzig. He received the King’s privilege allowing him to monopolise the whole printing manufacture. Consequently, he bought a printing mill and established the first regular printing shop in Kraków. Jan Łaski's “Statues” (1509) and “Letters” by Teofilakt Symokatta, a Greek poet, translated into Latin by Mikołaj Kopernik were printed there. Yet, as the result of cut-throat competition, Haller was made to give up his privilege in 1517. 

At the beginning of the 16th century, another Kraków printer, Florian Ungler from Bavaria, came to prominence. He was the first printer in Poland who used Roman instead of Gothic type. He also printed maps drawn by Bernard Wapowski (1450 – 1535), the father of Polish cartography. Ungler’s edition of Biernat’s of Lublin “Paradise of the Soul” (1513) was the first book to be printed in the Polish language bearing an author’s name.

From 1513 to 1546, the printing shop of Hieronim Wietor from Silesia, yet another well known early Polish printer, was operating in Kraków. He printed Polish translations of Erasmus from Rotterdam, books in the Greek language, and, as the first in the world, prints in Hungarian.

Jewish printing shops also played an important role in the Kraków printing business.

Roman type: the "regular" or upright lettering

Watermark: a graphic design put onto paper identifying its printing mill.