Hieronymus Vietor

Printer's mark of Vietor as it appears in a print of Georg Ebner's Dialogus Philosophie de ritu omni verborum venustate editus, printed by Vietor in Vienna in 1513. Hieronymus Vietor (c. 1480, in Liebenthal (now Lubomierz) Silesia – late 1546 or early 1547, in Kraków) was a printer and publisher born in Silesia and active in Vienna and Kraków. Famous for the quality and quantity of his prints, he is considered one of the most important early book printers in Poland, also because he was the first to regularly print in Polish. As son of Augustin Büttner, Hieronymus was born about 1480 in Liebenthal, today Lubomierz. In 1497, he was immatriculated at the Jagellonian University at Kraków, Subsequently, he worked as a bookbinder and learned the trade and the art of book printing probably in the printing shop of Johannes Haller. In 1505, his name appears on a list of bookbinders of Kraków. They agree that he opened his own shop in Vienna in 1510 and printed the Parvulus philosophie naturalis there. The Roman date "xvii Kal. Sep." is the 17th day before the Calends of September, counting inclusively, i.e., August 16.|group=note

From September 1510 to December 1514, Vietor formed a partnership with the printer Johannes Singriener. Subsequently, Vietor again had his own print shop, located in 1516 at the Weihenburggasse in Vienna. The precise history of this process is not known; in any case Vietor came out of it unscathed. It appears that he had had to reaffirm his Catholic faith before the bishop, though. Their son Jan Łazarzowicz Januszowsky (Johannes Lazarides Janussovius) would become known as a printer and writer, too.

Works

Vietor was a most prolific printer: the output of his print shop in Kraków from 1518 to 1547 numbers more than 600 prints. Experts attest Vietor's prints a high level of quality, also in comparison to other European printers of the time.