Pjetër BOGDANI

Pjetër Bogdani (ca. 1630-1689), known in Italian as Pietro
Bogdano, is the most original writer of early literature
in Albania. He is author of the Cuneus Prophetarum (The
Band of the Prophets), 1685, the first prose work of substance
written originally in Albanian (i.e. not a translation).
Born in Gur i Hasit near Prizren about 1630, Bogdani was educated
in the traditions of the Catholic church to which he devoted
all his energy. His uncle Andrea or Ndre Bogdani (ca. 1600-1683)
was Archbishop of Skopje and author of a Latin-Albanian grammar,
now lost. Bogdani is said to have received his initial schooling
from the Franciscans at Ciprovac in northwestern Bulgaria and
then studied at the Illyrian College of Loretto near Ancona,
as had his predecessors Pjetër Budi and Frang Bardhi. From
1651 to 1654 he served as a parish priest in Pult and from 1654
to 1656 studied at the College of the Propaganda Fide in Rome
where he graduated as a doctor of philosophy and theology. In
1656, he was named Bishop of Shkodra, a post he held for twenty-one
years, and was also appointed Administrator of the Archdiocese
of Antivari (Bar) until 1671. During the most troubled years
of the Turkish-Austrian war, 1664-1669, he hid out in the villages
of Barbullush and Rjoll near Shkodra. A cave near Rjoll, in which
he took refuge, still bears his name. In 1677, he succeeded his
uncle as Archbishop of Skopje and Administrator of the Kingdom
of Serbia. His religious zeal and patriotic fervour kept him
at odds with Turkish forces, and in the atmosphere of war and
confusion which reigned, he was obliged to flee to Ragusa (Dubrovnik),
from where he continued on to Venice and Padua, taking his manuscripts
with him. In Padua he was cordially received by Cardinal Gregorio
Barbarigo (1622-1697), whom he had served in Rome. Cardinal Barbarigo,
Bishop of Padua, was responsible for church affairs in the East
and had a keen interest in the cultures of the orient, including
Albania. He had also founded a printing press in Padua, the Tipografia
del Seminario, which served the needs of oriental languages
and had fonts for Hebrew, Arabic and Armenian. Barbarigo was
thus well disposed, willing and able to assist Bogdani in the
latter's historic undertaking.
After arranging for the publication of the Cuneus Prophetarum,
Bogdani returned to the Balkans in March 1686 and spent the next
years promoting resistance to the armies of the Ottoman Empire,
in particular in Kosova. He contributed a force of 6,000 Albanian
soldiers to the Austrian army which had arrived in Prishtina
and accompanied it to capture Prizren. There, however, he and
much of his army were met by another equally formidable adversary,
the plague. Bogdani returned to Prishtina but succumbed to the
disease there in December 1689. His nephew Gjergj reported in
1698 that his uncle's remains were later exhumed by Turkish and
Tartar soldiers and fed to the dogs in the middle of the square
in Prishtina. So ended one of the great figures of early Albanian
culture, the writer often referred to as the father of Albanian
prose.
It was in Padua in 1685 that the Cuneus Prophetarum,
his vast treatise on theology, was published in Albanian and
Italian with the assistance of Cardinal Barbarigo. Bogdani had
finished the Albanian version ten years earlier but was refused
permission to publish it by the Propaganda Fide which ordered
that the manuscript be translated first, no doubt to facilitate
the work of the censor. The full title of the published version
is:
"Cvnevs prophetarvm de Christo salvatore mvndi et
eivs evangelica veritate, italice et epirotice contexta, et in
duas partes diuisa a Petro Bogdano Macedone, Sacr. Congr. de
Prop. Fide alvmno, Philosophiae & Sacrae Theologiae Doctore,
olim Episcopo Scodrensi & Administratore Antibarensi, nunc
vero Archiepiscopo Scvporvm ac totivs regni Serviae Administratore"
(The Band of the Prophets Concerning Christ, Saviour of the
World and his Gospel Truth, edited in Italian and Epirotic and
divided into two parts by Pjetër Bogdani of Macedonia, student
of the Holy Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, doctor of philosophy
and holy theology, formerly Bishop of Shkodra and Administrator
of Antivari and now Archbishop of Skopje and Administrator of
all the Kingdom of Serbia).
The Cuneus Prophetarum was printed in the Latin alphabet
as used in Italian, with the addition of the same Cyrillic characters
employed by Pjetër Budi and Frang Bardhi. Bogdani seems
therefore to have had access to their works. During his studies
at the College of the Propaganda Fide, he is known to have requested
Albanian books from the college printer: "five copies of
the Christian Doctrine and five Albanian dictionaries,"
most certainly the works of Budi and Bardhi. In a report to the
Propaganda Fide in 1665, he also mentions a certain 'Euangelii
in Albanese' (Gospels in Albanian) of which he had heard, a possible
reference to Buzuku's missal of 1555.
The Cuneus Prophetarum was published in two parallel
columns, one in Albanian and one in Italian, and is divided into
two volumes, each with four sections (scala). The first volume,
which is preceded by dedications and eulogies in Latin, Albanian,
Serbian and Italian, and includes two eight-line poems in Albanian,
one by his cousin Luca Bogdani and one by Luca Summa, deals primarily
with themes from the Old Testament: i) How God created man, ii)
The prophets and their metaphors concerning the coming of the
Messiah, iii) The lives of the prophets and their prophecies,
iv) The songs of the ten Sibyls. The second volume, entitled De vita Jesu Christi salvatoris mundi (On the life of
Jesus Christ, saviour of the world), is devoted mostly to the
New Testament: i) The life of Jesus Christ, ii) The miracles
of Jesus Christ, iii) The suffering and death of Jesus Christ,
iv) The resurrection and second coming of Christ. This section
includes a translation from the Book of Daniel, 9. 24-26, in
eight languages: Latin, Greek, Armenian, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabic,
Italian and Albanian, and is followed by a chapter on the life
of the Antichrist, by indices in Italian and Albanian and by
a three-page appendix on the Antichità della Casa Bogdana (Antiquity of the House of the Bogdanis).
The work was reprinted twice under the title L'infallibile
verità della cattolica fede, Venice 1691 and 1702
(The infallible truth of the Catholic faith).
The Cuneus Prophetarum is considered to be the masterpiece
of early Albanian literature and is the first work in Albanian
of full artistic and literary quality. In scope, it covers philosophy,
theology and science (with digressions on geography, astronomy,
physics and history). With its poetry and literary prose, it
touches on questions of aesthetic and literary theory. It is
a humanist work of the Baroque Age steeped in the philosophical
traditions of Plato, Aristotle, St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.
Bogdani's fundamental philosophical aim is a knowledge of God,
an unravelling of the problem of existence, for which he strives
with reason and intellect.
Bogdani's talents are certainly most evident in his prose.
In his work we encounter for the first time what may be considered
an Albanian literary language. As such, he may justly bear the
title of father of Albanian prose. His modest religious poetry
is, nonetheless, not devoid of interest. The corpus of his verse
are the Songs of the Ten Sibyls (the Cumaean, Libyan, Delphic,
Persian, Erythraean, Samian, Cumanian, Hellespontic, Phrygian
and Tiburtine), which are imbued with the Baroque penchant for
religious themes and Biblical allusions.
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