A total of 47 descendants of the famous author of the 1689 encyclopaedia Glory of the Duchy of Carniola have announced their arrival at the event that will launch the 4th Valvasor International Days of Print.

While it had been believed only a good decade ago that Valvasor (1641-1693) had no descendants as all his sons became priests, it was revealed in 2006 that his youngest daughter Regina Konstancija had children.

Historian Boris Golec has tracked down all her descendants, stopping at 260 persons from a total of 13 generations. The last of them left Slovenia in 1941, exactly 300 years after the polyhistor's birth.

Two thirds of Valvasor's descendants now live in Austria, mostly in the Graz area, while they can also be found in North and South America and Australia.

They will met this year at Bogenšperk Castle for the first time as an organised group after coming in the previous years individually, the Bogenšperk public institute had announced.

The meeting comes ahead of the opening of the five-day Valvasor International Days of Print, which will see six print artists from Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Italy creating works that will be displayed at the castle as of September.

The events looks to raise awareness of the beginnings of printing art on the Slovenian territory and expand the extensive collection of prints at Bogenšperk Castle with the international production.

It was Valvasor who established a printing workshop at the castle near Šmartno pri Litiji in central Slovenia in 1678 as the first one of its kind on the territory of present-day Slovenia.