Our Notes & References

An early publication of the Propaganda Fide and one of the rare books printed in Croatian Glagolitic, reflecting the tensions and exigencies of the Counter-Reformation.

This is the first edition of the text in Croatian Glagolitic, following a first Croatian edition in Latin script in 1582 by another publisher, before the second Fide edition, in 1636, also in Latin script.

Only 60 books and leaflets were printed in Glagolitic throughout the 15th-18th centuries, including 18 by the Propaganda Fide (cf. Krumming). This scarcity is linked to the fact that uniquely among the Slavs, only the Croatian clergy still wrote in Glagolitic upon the invention of the printing press (and would do so until the 18th century). Glagolitic had long since been displaced in the East by Cyrillic, from the 11th century onwards. The Croatian version of Glagolitic acquired a more angular shape in imitation of the Latin Beneventan script and was thereafter known as uglata (angular/cornered). The first Slavic book ever printed, the Roman Glagolitic Missal published in Venice in 1483, was also in Croatian Glagolitic.

This was part of wider tensions between the Latin language and script of the Church in Rome and local needs in the vernacular language. The Slavic liturgy was outlawed until the Counter-Reformation, as the Church sought to contain the spread of Protestantism by presenting its doctrines in vernacular languages. This was a great about-face compared to centuries past, when the Councils of Split prohibited, “under the threat of excommunication, to promote to holy orders the Slavonic clergy unless they had learned Latin” (Verkholantsev, 43). Therefore, the Counter-Reformation contributed significantly to the number of printed books in the Croatian language — however, wherever possible, these books were printed in the Latin script.

The translator of this text, Šime Budinicì (1535-1600), was a Venetian-Croatian Catholic priest and scholar, most notable for his early attempt to Latinise the Croatian language, borrowing diacritics from Czech in order to do so (cf. Farkaš). “In this way the Croats were gradually drawn together into at least an alphabetic community, even while their political and dialectical differences remained” (Bukowski, 331).

The existence and survival of this early publication in Glagolitic is an interesting suggestion that the Church was willing to concede on the minor point of orthographical correctness as long as the Croatians did not go over to the Protestant side. Though eventually displaced by Latin script, Glagolitic has re-emerged in the modern day as a symbol of Croatian national and cultural identity (cf. Verkholantsev).

The text itself first appeared in Latin in 1560 (Breve Directorium ad confessarii ac confitentis munus recte obeundum Item De frequenti usu Sanctissimi Eucharistiae Sacramenti libellus), and is a guide for both confessors and penitents. The author, Juan Alfonso de Polanco (Joannes Polancus) (1517-76), served as secretary to Ignatius of Loyola (the later Saint Ignatius) (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuit order and a key figure of the Counter-Reformation. Naturally, the text focuses heavily on the importance of the hierarchies and institutions of the Holy Mother Church, declaring that although “the primary and efficient cause of this sacrament is God, secondary and instrumental is the minister of this Sacrament, who must be a Priest”.

The Propaganda Fide was established in Rome in 1622 to train foreigners as Catholic missionaries, and from 1626 onwards printed in an array of languages as diverse as Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Syriac, Burmese, Croatian, and Greek. The blocks used to print the Glagolitic books were allegedly donated by Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor. The Fide and its press would operate continuously, giving out its publications for free to the Church’s missions overseas, until the 1798 French conquest of Rome, upon which time it was suppressed and its equipment seized to be sold in Paris.

A scarce edition, with 4 copies traced in the USA (Harvard, NYPL, Universities of North Carolina and Illinois) and only another copy found at auction in recent decades.

Bibliography

Belluomini, Flavio. 2025. ‘Notes on the Pontifical Urban College de Propaganda Fide, from its foundation to the rise of the Pontifical Urban University (1627–1962)’. L’institut de recherche France-Asie (IRFA), March 17; Egan, Bartholomew. 1959. ‘Notes on Propaganda Fide Printing-Press and Correspondence Concerning Francis Molloy, O. F. M.’ Collectanea Hibernica, no. 2: 115–24; Farkaš, Loretana. 2021. ‘Croatian Latin Script Throughout the Centuries’. Croatian Studies Review 16–17 (1): 1–14; Kruming, A.A. 2025. ‘Slavianskie Staropechatnye Knigi Glagolicheskogo Shrifta v Bibliotekakh SSSR’. Problemy Rukopisnoi i pechatnoi knigi; Verkholantsev, Julia. 2015. ‘Croatian Monasticism and Glagolitic Tradition: Glagolitic Letters at Home and Abroad’. In Monasticism in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Republics. Routledge; Worcester, SJ, Thomas, ed. 2017. ‘Polanco, Juan Alfonso de, SJ (1517–1576)’. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits. Cambridge University Press.