The exhibition was organized by the Szekler Museum of Ciuc and the Franciscan Monastery of Șumuleu-Ciuc in 2001, on the occasion of the 325th anniversary of the foundation of the printing house.

The printing house in Șumuleu was founded in the time of Mihály Apafi I (1661-1690), when there were eight other printing houses in the principality: in Sárospatak, Cluj, Sibiu, Brașov, Alba-Iulia, Sebeș, Criș, Debrecen.  The printing house of the prince of Alba-Iulia, founded by Gábor Bethlen, ceased to exist after the Turkish invasion of 1658. In the seventies of the century, the printing press in Sárospatak was evacuated to Debrecen, while the remaining printing press in Alba-Iulia was merged with the typography in Oradea, which had become bankrupt by then, by Prince Mihály Apafi, who donated it to the colleges in Cluj and Aiud and moved it to Cluj. In addition to the Protestant printing presses, an Orthodox Romanian printing press was also active (its location changed several times, but always with the same equipment in Alba-Iulia, Sebeș and Sibiu). At the eastern end, the first Catholic typography of the principality was established in the Franciscan monastery in Șumuleu-Ciuc. In the same period, Catholic printing was carried out in four places in Hungary: in Bratislava and Nagyszombat, two important centres of Hungarian Catholicism, in Lorettom on the western border, in 1670-1672, in the printing house of Archduke Ferenc Nádasdy, and in the Jesuit printing house in Kassa, in 1673-1674. The only Catholic printing house of national influence was that of the Jesuit University of Nagyszombat, which stood out from other printing houses in Hungary by the large number, circulation and distribution of its publications. By the last third of the century, with the conversion of most of the Protestant lords to Catholicism in retaliation for Wesselényi's anti-Habsburg conspiracy, no further Protestant printing houses could be established.

In the last quarter of the 17th century and at the beginning of the 18th century, until 1726, when the Jesuit printing house in Cluj was established, Șumuleu-Ciuc was the only Catholic workshop in Transylvania. It is the only Catholic printing house, along with the Jesuit printing house at the University of Nagyszombat, to have been in operation for several centuries. Its foundation and operation were closely linked to the consolidation and spread of Catholicism and Counter-Reformation in Transylvania. Its founder was the industrious and learned Franciscan Father János Kájoni. It was his contemporary and fellow monk Modestus, with the help of the former Transylvanian guardian of Roma, who obtained the necessary permission from Rome to set up the printing press. According to a letter from the Holy Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, dated 22 June 1676, the Franciscans of Șumuleu-Ciuc were allowed to print the Latin grammar of Aelius Donatus and Emmanuel Alvarus, the family letters of Cicero, and the abacus, the table of reckoning. In addition to his fellow friars, Kájoni was supported in the acquisition of the hand press and its equipment, and later in the publication of books by Transylvanian Catholic nobles such as Gáspár Kornis, János Haller and his wife Kata Kornis, Margit Kristofné Bánffy Farkas, István Torma, István Apor, etc. He also received a bookbinder from the Mariana Province in Hungary with the permission of Rome.

The first known publication of the printing house, and the most significant from the point of view of literary history, is the Cantionale Catholicum from 1676, edited by János Kájoni. His hymnal was reprinted in 1719, 1805 and 1806. This popular collection of hymns was used and is still used by Catholics throughout Szeklerland and Moldavia. From the time the printing press was established, it had a profound impact on the cultural and intellectual life of the Szekler Catholic community, since the vast majority of its publications are works of piety and theology in Hungarian and Latin. His activities were also closely linked to the formation and development of the Catholic school network in the region as a programme of the Counter-Reformation and Hungarian Catholicism. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Friars' manuscript press printed several textbooks in Latin and Hungarian: a Latin grammar, a catechism, an alphabet book, an arithmetic table, spelling rules and methodological books.

During the revolution of 1848-1849, the workshop, which was seized by the rebels, also printed several manifestos and the so called "Hadi Lap", a newspaper of the Hungarian War of Independence. It was also the first news paper in Szeklerland. Edited by Captain Sándor Biró, the revolutionary newspaper was a valuable historical source and served the cause of the revolution and the freedom struggle. Its objectives included a significant place among the educational activities, informing the population and the military about the events in the battlefield and foreign policy. The Friends were hard pressed to print the paper and the manifestos. During the persecutions that followed the War of Independence, they were persecuted and the printing press confiscated. The Austrian military imposed a war fine of 5000 forints on the monastery.

The bookbinding workshop must have started its activity in the first half of the 17th century, probably during the first gvardianate of Miklós Somlyai. The oldest known binding was made between 1644 and 1650 for Marcus Bandinus, Archbishop of Marcianopol and Apostolic Administrator of Moldavia. The Șumuleu bindings are of different styles. Both blind printing and gilding techniques were used for decoration. Here, in the 17th century, leather bindings with late Renaissance decoration were mainly made in the German style. From 1676 until the end of the 19th century, the workshop ran in parallel with the printing works. In 1676 a new era in the history of the bookbinding workshop began. Just as the printing press was set up by János Kájoni and his family out of a well-understood interest, so the renovation of the bookbinding workshop was dictated by necessity. We are then confronted with a unique example of Transylvanian binding history, in a sense the publishing house bindings of Șumuleu-Ciuc. Here, books published by the printing house and some items from the famous library were bound, but work was also done for external orders. This second period lasted until the end of the century. This period saw an increase in the number of decorative elements and the production of late Renaissance, transitional and fan-work bindings. The 18th century saw a partial continuation of the style of the previous period, followed by a change in style from the middle of the century, when newer stamps with Rococo designs were added to the tooling. The workshop reached its heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries. After this period, the printing and bookbinding workshop went into decline, with the monastery's compaectors producing mainly simple and inexpensive full or half leather and paper bindings.

The Franciscans equipped the workshop to an excellent standard, which was not inferior to the typography of the time, even abroad. It continued to operate, with a few interruptions, not only throughout the 17th century but also until probably 1900. We know of more than 15 publications in the 17th century and more than 80 in the 18th century. In the 18th century, the Franciscans twice added to the printing works' stock by purchasing different types of type from Sibiu and Nuremberg. In the first century, the workshop was housed in a cell of the monastery until it moved to new premises in the seventies of the 18th century. In 1778, a separate building was erected for the printing press, attached to the west wing of the convent. This was demolished in 1924, after the printing works ceased to exist. At the beginning of the 20th century, the printing house was moved to the Franciscan monastery in Cluj, where the modern St Bonaventure Printing House was established in 1906. In July 1910, the equipment of the once famous printing house in Ciuc was transported in three ox wagons to the railway station in Miercurea Ciuc. Its complete set was also on display at the exhibition organised by the Franciscan Order of Transylvania on the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the St. Bonaventure Printing House and in 1926 in the monastery of Cluj Napoca in memory of János Kájoni.

Now, nearly 125 prints and bookbindings are on display, grouped as follows: on the one hand, prints from 1676-1700, on the other hand, textbooks from the 18th and 19th centuries, works by Franciscan authors, hymnbooks, prayer books, liturgical books, publications of religious societies, discussion papers, legal works, funeral publications, account books of the printing house and bookbinding. The exhibition also includes the surviving equipment of the printing press: the Kájoni hand press, restored in the 18th century, copperplates for book illustrations and sacred images, and bookbinding tools.