Justyna Kilianczyk-Zieba

The oldest Polish book of fate and its background. An edition with an extensive introduction

The aim of my project is to prepare an edition of a Polish book of divination that was first printed in 1531. “Fortuna abo Szczęście” is the collection of more than 400 humorous oracles printed as a heavily illustrated volume. Using such a book the readers would choose one of the questions restricted to matters such as health, career choice, happiness in love and business. Then by throwing dice, they would be guided through a number of stages before they obtained a favourable or unfavourable answer. “Fortuna” provided enquiring minds with amusing methods of learning the future. Like other books belonging to the literary genre that flourished in the 15^th and 16^th century Europe it was entertaining and light-hearted and therefore enormously popular. But the popularity of the work resulted in disappearance of the copies. My work in Wolfenbüttel follows a discovery of the previously unknown complete copy of the book.