Vilnius, Lithuania/vilnius133
Previous | Home | NextThe doorway into the university gives a pictorial history, celebrating the written word and the printing house at Vilnius, which has published in Lithuanian, Latin, and Polish. Above the frame is (in Lithuanian) "The first Lithuanian book 1547-1991." The first frame (upper left) is of Martinus Mosvidius' "The Simple Words of Cathechism," the first book published in Lithuanian, in 1547 (in Königsburg, Prussia; now Kaliningrad, Russia; the city is 300 km east of Vilnius). The second frame (upper right) portrays the first book printed in Lithuanian still surviving, by Milajous Dauksa, a catechism, published in 1595.. The third frame shows the first university close to Lithuania, in Königsburg, Prussia, founded in 1544, where Lithuanians were studying. the fourth frame tells us that Vilnius University itself was founded in 1579, making it one of the earliest universities in Europe. Subsequent frames follow through the early history, with the bottom frames celebrating the printing house and book-making process itself.
