The Manuscript and Old Books Collection at the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences traces its origins to 1825, when István Széchenyi pledged his annual income to the Hungarian Scientific Society, and József Teleki donated his 30,000-volume family library, including 600 manuscripts and over 400 incunabula. As Antal Babus explains, incunabula are books printed before 1501, while antiquarian works typically span 1501–1600. With 1,200 incunabula, the Academy holds Hungary’s second-largest such collection, including rare volumes like the Carbo Codex—a Corvina from King Matthias’ famed Buda library.
The interview also explores Hungary’s earliest printed works. The first book entirely in Hungarian was printed in 1533 in Kraków: St Paul’s letters, translated by Benedek Komjáti. A few years later, János Sylvester printed the first book in Hungarian on Hungarian soil—his translation of the New Testament in Sárvár in 1541—thanks to the support of aristocratic patrons like Tamás Nádasdy and Katalin Frangepán. These pioneering works were instrumental in advancing book culture and the Hungarian Reformation.
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