Piotr Skarga, Sermons for Sundays and Holidays Throughout the Year, Warsaw 1738

Piotr Skarga, Sermons for Sundays and Holy Days Throughout the Year. Reprinted for the fifth time.

Warsaw, 1738, Printed by J. K. Mci, Collegium Societatis Jesu

30 cm, [8], 585, [8] pp.

An 18th-century edition of the most famous homiletic work by Piotr Skarga, S.J. (1536–1612), the greatest preacher of the Counter-Reformation and one of the leading religious writers of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. “Sermons for Sundays and Holy Days Throughout the Year” belongs to the canon of Old Polish literature; for over two centuries, it served as essential homiletic reading for the Catholic clergy, combining rhetorical artistry with the exposition of doctrine and morality.

The 1738 Warsaw edition, described on the title page as “reprinted for the fifth time,” attests to the work’s unwavering popularity and its continued presence in pastoral practice. The book was published by the Collegium Societatis Jesu, one of the most important ecclesiastical printing houses in 18th-century Poland.

A copy in a period half-leather binding. On the title page, there is a former handwritten ownership inscription in pen and a provenance stamp reading “From the library of Fr. Edward Górski.” Father Edward Górski was a Roman Catholic priest and the owner of a private collection of theological and homiletic works from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; his ownership mark is found on religious prints from old clerical libraries. The handwritten inscription and the stamp establish the copy’s documented, multi-layered ecclesiastical provenance.

The book shows signs of previous repairs to the pages, evidence of insect activity, and water damage on the last few pages.