Opera omnia 15/IV

This, the latest volume in the complete critical edition of the works of John Amos Comenius, delivers two sets of his Latin textbooks—Eruditionis scholasticae pars prima, Vestibulum and Eruditionis scholasticae pars II, Janua. Both sets were intended for the first two grades out of the lower grades of a gymnasium-type secondary school, i.e. a three-year Latin school (the third grade comprised the Atrium). Comenius included them along with another part, for the Atrium (to be published in a future volume), in his complete edition of Opera didactica omnia (ODO, Amsterdam 1657). That complete edition is the model for our critical edition, and so the volume’s numbering also ties into the previous already published parts of the ODO; it is Volume 15. Both of these textbook collections represent for Comenius the apex of his efforts to perfect teaching aids for three-year Latin schools. With the exception of the teaching text Janua (Janualis … contextus) itself, volume 15/IV presents the first critical editions of the texts by Comenius that it contains, and if we are to overlook translations of samples from textbooks and prefaces, it is the first contemporary edition overall. From the standpoint of the availability of his texts, we can consider as important the fact that one of his language dictionaries is being published here in a modern edition and in full for the very first time since the 17th century