Robert Elsie

Albanian Literature | Early Authors

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Colophon from Gjon Buzuku's "Missal", 1555.

Gjon BUZUKU   Gjon Buzuku, a northern Albanian Catholic cleric, who probably lived in or around Venice, was the author of the first book written and published in Albanian, a 188-page translation of the Catholic missal. Since the frontispiece and the first sixteen pages of the only copy of the book we possess, preserved in the Vatican Library, are missing, we unfortunately know neither its exact title nor its place of publication. In Albanian, it is known simply as the Meshari (The Missal), and was written in 1555. The scant information we do possess about the author comes from the colophon (postscript) of the missal which Buzuku wrote himself in Albanian, not unaware of the historic dimensions of his undertaking.