Dialogus creaturarum

Page from Johann Snell’s printing of Dialogus creaturarum

Dialogus creaturarum (more properly Dialogus creaturarum optime moralizatus or Dyalogus creaturarum moralizatus), a collection of 122 Latin-language fables, was the first book ever printed in Sweden (1483).

It was printed on Riddarholmen island in Stockholm on December 20, 1483 by Johann Snell, an immigrant from Rostock. Five copies from the original run survive today.

Each short fable tells of the interactions of various anthropomorphized animals and ends with a moral explanation. Common human problems are solved according to the teachings of the Bible, church fathers or classical Greek or Roman philosophy. The author is unknown, but is thought to be either Mayno de Mayneri or Nicolaus Pergamenus (both 14th-Century writers).

At the book’s 500th anniversary in 1983, Bra Böcker, a Swedish publishing house, produced a facsimile edition with added translation and commentary.

References

• Wood Engraving: Its History and Practise, originally printed in the Illustrated London News in 1844.

External links

• Dyalogus Creaturarum - Johann Snell – excerpts from English translation with original illustrations.