La Bibbia ceca del 1506. Sonda nella cultura del libro in Boemia a cavallo tra XV e XVI secolo

In 1506, the printer Liechtenstein published the “Biblij Cžeská w Benátkach tisšten” (Bohemian Bible printed in Venice). The Venetian Bible (as it is commonly called) was written in Czech and was commissioned by three Prague residents. This article aims to show the Czech Bible of 1506 as an interesting “object” that somehow connects two very distant cultural realities of the early sixteenth century: Venice, the most important center of European printing, especially humanist printing, and Prague, the center of Utrakism. This study will focus on three aspects: the situation of Bohemian printing art in the early sixteenth century, which has received the most attention; the reasons why the Bible is a “printed artifact”; and finally, the choice of Venice as the place of publication. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the legacy of the Venetian Bible – a hybrid of two book cultures.