Naples, an important center of the Arbëresh-Albanian Renaissance in 19th Century
Naples, an important center of the Arbëresh-Albanian Renaissance in 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: By the term sofjot schools, borrowed from the prominent Arbëresh researcher, Domenico Cassiano, we refer to the group of intellectuals with illuminist intellectual formation and liberal political background, originally from Shën Sofia (Santa Sofia d’Epiro) in Calabria. They operated mostly in Naples, but also in Arbëresh Calabria during the second half of the 18th century. We are talking about Pasquale Baffi (1749-1799), who after being a Minister of culture in Naples, was sentenced to death by the Bourbons in 1799; Francesco Bugliari (1742-1806), the so-called “red bishop”, who fell victim of the creationists in 1806; and Angelo Masci (1758-1821). These eminent figures of the Arbëresh intelligentsia, with their multifaceted activities that took place during the last decade of the 18th century (in the case of Masci also during the first decades of the 19th century) paved the way to a more conscious Renaissance with illuminist basis and thus constituting the preliminary stage of the romantic Renaissance.

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