Bibliotheca fratrum polonorum.

Przypkowski, Samuel (1592-1670). Cogitationes sacrae... nec non tractatus varii argumenti, praecipue de jure christiani magistratus [edited by P. van Limborch]. Eleutheropoli [Amsterdam], 1692, folio (330 x 195mm.), binding: contemporary pale calf, gilt spine



together 9 volumes

see H. de la Fontaine Verwey, Uit de wereld van het boek, III, In en om de Vergulde Sonnewyser (Amsterdam, 1979), p. 168, who suggests that these volumes were printed by Blaeu; Jeroom Vercruysse, "Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum”, Histoire et Bibliographie (Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 21, 1976), pp.197-212; Jonathan Israel, "The Intellectual debate about toleration in the Dutch Republic" in The Emergence of Tolerance in the Dutch Republic (1997), pp.22-23.

This celebrated collection is the complete works (more or less) of all the great antitrinitarian writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose works hold a very special place, not only in the nice theological discussions of the time, but also in the growth of the idea of free thought and toleration, and ultimately the victory of rationalism and the Enlightenment.

Whilst many of the original editions of these texts, which were printed at Rakow in Poland, were widely circulated in the first half of the seventeenth century, many were destroyed or removed from libraries (e.g. the library at Eton College where there was a fine collection of these Racovian books in about 1630, possibly from 'the ever-memorable' John Hales, which had all disappeared by about 1674). Today they are far from common. There are substantial collections in the UK at Sion College (now at Lambeth Palace) and Dr William's Library, the Bodleian, All Souls (mostly given to Leeds in the early twentieth century) and, of course, the British Library. In the USA there are also some substantial collections.

With this great compilation however we are on stronger ground, and many sets were to be found in both public and private libraries in the seventeenth century. Famously John Locke possessed a copy ( 3 volumes only surviving; Harrison & Laslett 331), as he did of many of the earlier editions of Socinus, Smalcius etc., and of his own contemporary Nye. As Harrison & Laslett write (p. 23), "for all his unwillingness to repudiate the doctrine of the Trinity in public, for all his communication in the Church of England, Locke has left us enough evidence in his library lists alone to make it clear that his religious sympathies must have been with the unitarians". Locke's friend John Collins also possessed a substantial holding which is listed in his library catalogue (see James O'Higgins, Antony Collins,  The Hague, 1970, p. 34). The work was also much used by Bayle. Copies are to be found in various collegiate and chapter libraries, and the presence of the book in the Macclesfield collection together with much else by Toland and others of his contemporaries, notably Anthony Collins, is a testimony to the intellectual outlook of the first earl, although as Crenius writing in 1697 tells us there were those who bought it for show: "Multum illa reperitur in bibliothecis non tam doctorum Socinianorum, quam plebeiorum, indoctorum et Lingue Latinae expertium fere, hi enim ut libros ostendere possint, et ne nihil intelligere, videantur, emunt illam, ut parvam Bibliothecam et ornamentum camerae, non in studium, sed in spectaculum, ut ait Seneca".

Socinianism takes it name from Fausto Sozzini, called in Latin Socinus, an Italian nobleman from Siena, who became a convert to the reformed religion, and spent time in Lyon and in Geneva before eventually establishing himself in Poland, at that time (if not since) a centre of religious toleration, although at the end of his life he was expelled from Krakow in 1598 during a religiously fomented riot in which his work Contra atheos was destroyed. It was however in the town of Rakow that the printers Rodecki and Sternacki published a whole series of heterodox works, mostly Socinian, and many by Socinus himself, of which the so-called Racovian Catechism is well-known, and was reprinted elsewhere, including London.

This publication comprises in its basic form 8 volumes as follows: Volumes 1-2: Socinus, Faustus (1539-1604). Fausti Socini... opera omnia, engraved portrait. Volumes 3-5: Crell, Johann (1590-1633). Joannis Crellii... opera omnia [some written by J. Slichtingius, based on lectures of Crellius], 4 tom. in 3 volumes, engraved portrait. Volume 6: Szlichtyng, Jonas (1592-1661). Jonæ Slichtingii... commentaria posthuma, in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros... hactenus inedita, etc. 2 tom. in one volume, engraved portrait. Volumes 7-8: Wolzogen, Johann (1599-1661). Johannis Ludovici Wolzogenii... opera omnia, exegetica, didactica, et polemica, [etc.], engraved portrait. The ninth volume by Przypkowski was published hors série, but is intended as a complement, and is therefore here included. This was edited by Locke's friend and correspondent Philippus van Limborch (1633-1712).

The works of Crell and Szlichtyng were the first to be printed, although the works of Socinus form the first two volumes. Wolzogen was printed last and in this context it is worth noting that here the section title to volume 7 (Wolzogen) was printed conjointly with the general title, and is here bound in vol. 1. The editor was the grandson of Socinus, Andrzej Wiszowaty (1608-1678), who died in Amsterdam, who succeeded Daniel de Breen (1594-1664). The use of the imprints Irenopolis, city of peace, and Eleutheropolis, city of liberty, is in itself a statement in favour of toleration.