II Messale di Gjon Buzuku: la lingua materna nella prassi liturgica albanese
The Messal of Gjon Buzuku: The Maternal Language in the Albanian Liturgical Practice

Summary/Abstract: Meshari ‘The Missal’ (1555) is the first known printed book in Albanian. It is a translation from the Latin of the Catholic Missal, made by the ecclesiastical Gjon Buzuku. The only known copy extant is preserved in the Apostolic Library of the Vatican in Rome. It is missing the frontispiece and the first 16 pages, so the title and place of publication of the work are not known. The place the book was printed is thought to be Venice. The Meshari contains texts of prayers, rituals, catechetical texts and the liturgies of the main holidays. All we know about the author is from the book’s colophon written by Buzuku himself in Albanian. In the colophon, he explains the reasons that led him to divulge the Christian doctrine using the language of its land. The time in which The Meshari appeared was of great cultural decay for Albania, a land where frictions have been consumed between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and where Christian and Muslim civilizations were one against the other. Buzuku offers to the people of Albanian believers to approach the Sacred scriptures through their language. Since the use of Latin was far from the understanding of Albanian people, Buzuku translated the divine Word in order to allow that it was comprehensible to the Albanian Christians.

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