Cracoviense and Almanach 1474 Annum

The Collection Provides Insight into the Origins of Printing in Polish History

The Cracow Almanac for the Year 1474 (Almanach Cracoviense ad annum 1474) is one of the most important works in the history of printing within Europe. This was printed in 1473 by Kasper Straube, a German printer operating in Kraków, and it is one of the oldest items documenting printings issued within the Polish borders - an important step for Eastern-European printing revolution. The Almanach itself seems small potatoes — just a single sheet filled with astrological and calendar information for 1474 — but it had an outsized influence on Polish culture and intellectual life.

Kraków's Printing Pioneer — Kasper Straube

Kraków holds some early evidence of the newly established press, represented by the work of Kasper Straube, who produced his books there just two decades after Johannes Gutenberg brought movable type to Europe. The German-born printer Straube came to Kraków — a centre of culture and scholarship in medieval Poland — about 1470. He settled here and was one of the first to popularize printing in that area, releasing the Almanach Cracoviense in 1473. The almanac is both his first recorded publication and a reflection of the new technology deployed by European pioneers.

The Almanac: A Joint Between Science, Steiner and Routine

In medieval Poland, the Almanach Cracoviense offered readers practical information specific to their daily lives. Written in the form of an almanac (each issue covered one particular year), it provided astronomical and astrological forecasts, which were very important for the population, who thought earthly happenings depend on celestial bodies. In addition to astral predictions, the almanac contained information regarding weather phenomena, as well as Church feast days and other holidays. In the 15th century, this information was important for both spiritual and practical reasons, allowing people to organise their lives in relation to church calendrical observances or seasonal change, and attuning their behaviours with currents that they thought were about to arrive from beyond the gravitational influence of Earth itself.

These were highly regarded professions in this country, and astrology overlapped between what we know as science today and superstition. People who could afford to purchase a printed almanac came closer to being able to control their use of time in 15th-century Kraków, giving them more agency over planning agricultural decades as well as religious and daily activities. The Almanach rendered the celestial and terrestrial less like impositions but more as the contemplation and product of a broader cosmic order, offering detailed astrological and calendrical information.

The Prelude of Intellectual and Cultural Life in Kraków

We know that Kraków was considered as a centre of learning at this times thanks to the creation of the Almanach Cracoviense. You could see that the city housed the Jagiellonian University (established 1364), one of the oldest universities in Europe and an important Polish university attracting scholars from all parts of Europe. A printing press in this environment, however, would not only cater to local intellectuals and students but represent cross-regional knowledge exchange.

Here the Almanach Cracoviense serves us as more than just an astrological guide; it embodies the intersection of faith, science and human inquiry in late medieval Poland. This publication is both representative of the exchange of scholarly and practical knowledge that early printed materials enabled and an indication of a wider cultural awakening.

Long live the Almanach Cracoviense

While its content is commonplace, the Almanach Cracoviense shows us records from the early days of Polish print culture and is thus an invaluable source. We are an early printed book from what nowadays is Poland, one of survivals in the landscape of modern books, memorial marks that relate to the dawn of Europe and medieval Kraków cultural life. This year, the almanac illustrates how single-sheet publications (even those just consisting of one page) at the very local level could have such great impact on society, providing communities with a tool to help make sense of their own place in the world and ultimately helping pave the way for a more literate and informed growing population.

Today, the Almanach Cracoviense exists as an invaluable monument, representing the collection of Poland’s first academic and literary traditions in print. It is still a valuable piece of history, reflecting not only the technical accomplishment of primitive printing but also the familiar human desire to understand time, the universe, and life.