This article deals with the origin, content and development of the collection of The Thousand and One Nights and its reception in the Western and Eastern cultural and literary environments. The collection has been evolving in the Oriental environment for more than a thousand years. Although the original core of stories was relatively small, as the collection travelled from territory to territory, more and more narratives of various cultural and geographical origins were being added to it. Editors and translators have been modifying and reshaping its content over and over and so its character has been constantly changing. While the Western writers have considered the collection a true repository of inspiration, the opinion of the Arab intellectual elite was not always that positive.
The article provides information on the finding of a previously unknown Czech-language printed book from 1623, the work of the Prague typographer Pavel Sessius and an unknown Czech translator, who used the initials M.W.S. The unique printed book was discovered in the collections of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. Besides the textual part, comprising quotations from the Bible and short prayers, it includes a title border with the motif of Calvary, inspired by earlier domestic sources, and above all sixteen woodcut copies of selected scenes from the graphic cycle The Small Passion by the German painter and graphic artist Albrecht Dürer. The article describes the typography and illustration aspects of the printed book in detail. The author also tries to identify any foreign models for it., David Mach., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The article deals with the printer and Briefmaler (letter painter) Michael Peterle (1537–1588), who is also considered to be a woodcutter by Czech book scientists. It focuses on his pictorial broadsides and illustrated books and analyses the morphological features of the extant woodcuts. It has reached the conclusion that Peterle’s woodcutting activities cannot be proved. Apart from the art-historical perspective, it brings a number of new facts associated with Peterle’s printing activities: for instance, it documents the financial background of Prague printers in the 1570s and 1580s.