{{Short description|First book printed in Finland}} {{italic title}} {{Refimprove|date=October 2021}}
thumb|upright=1.3|''Missale Aboense'' '''''Missale Aboense''''' was the first book printed for Finland.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://jyk.jyu.fi/jyk/kokoelmat/missale/tiedote.pdf|title=Missale Aboense|publisher=Jyväskylän yliopiston kirjasto|access-date=3 July 2025|language=fi}}</ref> As its name suggests, it was a prayer book used for Mass.<ref name=jyk>{{Cite web|title=Missale Aboense verkossa|publisher=Jyväskylän yliopiston kirjasto|access-date=3 July 2025|url= http://jyk.jyu.fi/jyk/kokoelmat/missale/index2.htm|language=fi}}</ref> It follows the tradition of the Dominican liturgy, which around the year 1330 was adopted as the official liturgy of the See of Turku. This poor bishopric could not afford to have its own missal printed, but its Dominican tradition came to the rescue.
At the same time as the ''Missale Aboense'' was printed, a simultaneous printing appeared for the Dominican order's needs elsewhere in the Scandinavian countries. In the ''Missale Aboense'' the only main difference from this were the necessary local features of the Turku See in the Calendar of Saints.
At that time there were no printing shops in Finland. (The first one, in the Royal Academy of Turku, was established in 1642.) The ''Missale'' was commissioned by Bishop {{ill|Konrad Bitz|fi}} from the Lübeck printer Bartholomeus Ghotan. Bitz dated his introduction to the book, Turku, 17 August 1488, and it was published in the same year. The ''Missale'' was printed on both parchment and paper. This firstborn of Finnish literature ran to some 550 folio pages. With regard to beauty of typography, it still competes successfully for a leading place among Finnish books. A facsimile edition of the work was brought out in 1971 and 1988.
==See also== * Dominican Rite *''Piae Cantiones''
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons category|Missale Aboense}} *[http://jyk.jyu.fi/jyk/kokoelmat/missale/ Missale Aboense online]
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Category:Illuminated missals Category:1488 books Category:Incunabula Category:15th century in Finland Category:History of Christianity in Finland Category:History of Turku Category:History of Lübeck Category:15th-century Christian texts Category:Christian prayer books Category:15th-century books in Latin