Lexicon Latino-Illyricum I.
Volume I, The Manuscript Facsimile

Pavao Ritter Vitezović

Volume I of our edition of Pavao Ritter Vitezović's Lexicon Latino-Illyricum contains the facsimile of the manuscript dictionary, written around 1700 and now held by the Metropolitana Library in Zagreb. The size of the original volume is 16 x 21 cm. It contains 572 bound leaves, 566 of which are numbered. Pagination begins on leaf 6, after five blank leaves, and ends on leaf 566, which is followed by one more blank leaf. Endpapers were inserted before and after the stack of sheets. The book block is sewn and case bound; the hardcover is half clad in leather.

To make the facsimile, the manuscript was microfilmed and the images transferred to computer. Each page was then individually processed. The basic principle of this processing was to achieve maximum fidelity to the original by including everything that belonged on the page (including stains, grease, variations in darkness of ink, etc.) and ensuring that it could be clearly seen in the facsimile, while anything in the digital image that did not belong on the original page (such as text from the following sheet that appeared through tear or hole) was removed.

The five blank leaves at the beginning and the single blank leaf at the end were omitted. Our publication thus follows the numbering in the original manuscript: the facsimile begins with 1r and ends with 566v. Our page numbers for the entire volume appear in square brackets in the upper left or right corners of each page, while the manuscript itself is foliated. The average size of the original leaves (16 x 21 cm) is maintained in the facsimile.

Vitezović appended to his dictionary ten supplements: a wind rose; a dictionary of Croatian proper names; a dictionary of names from the Holy Scriptures; a dictionary of children's speech; a list of planets, gods, and heroes; a dictionary of exclamations; a dictionary of ships and nautical terms, a dictionary of mushrooms, and two supplements with interpretations of Croatian proper names.

An afterword by editor Bojan Marotti gives a detailed description of the manuscript and the process of editing the facsimile.