Disertaţii tipărite în sec. XVII în Transilvania, păstrate în colecţia Teleki din Târgu-Mureş
Theses in Sámuel Teleki’s Collection Printed in 17th Century Transylvania
This collection of theses is an integral part of Sámuel Teleki’s vision regarding his scientific, encyclopaedic library. Thus the presence of the great number of volumes of theses is not surprising in this library that was created to further the culture, education and to close the scientific gap of Târgu-Mureş and in the interpretation of the founder that of the whole Transylvania.
As a didactic genre, the thesis has had centuries of history. During the centuries, the thesis in today’s sense written on the occasion of graduating a university or doctoral studies has been given several names, disputation, dissertation and thesis being the most used terms.
In the Teleki Library of Târgu-Mureş there are 10 theses that were printed17th century Transylvania. Some of these are rare editions (2-3 known copies, or just one complete copy), however there are theses that survived in two copies in Târgu-Mureş. The research and cataloguing of the theses is not one of the favourite activities of today’s librarians. Fittingly Sámuel Teleki himself said that this was a great and tedious work. However, these small prints can offer a great number of surprises that can be used not only in the history of education and schools, but also in the history of printing, as well as in the history of books and libraries (because of the fact that they are not as significant, there are many unique copies), they can also offer directions within the history of different disciplines of science, history of ideas, in issues regarding the history of philology, family and culture.
Keywords: 17th century printing, Transylvanica, history of education and schools, Sámuel Teleki’s Library.
