Original scientific paper
“Catalogus episcoporum ecclesiae Nonensis” of the Zadar Canon Ivan A. Gurato
Zvjezdan Strika
; Augsburg
Abstract
In this short contribution to the history of the Nin bishopric, the chronological survey of the Nin bishops which was compiled in Notizie sulla chiesa di Nona, Ecclesia Nonensis sive Aenonensis by the Zadar canon Ivan A. Gurato (1804−1874) has been edited. Today this manuscript is stored in the Scientific Library in Zadar, sign. 16519, Ms 448. Its title indicates the fact that Gurato’s manuscript is not a single unified work written with the intention of depicting the history of the Nin bishopric but rather a piece of writing which has collected various data relating to that church. The first part of the article begins by drawing attention to the biography and the writing-copying activities of the author. There was no intention of elaborating all the matter in detail but only to indicate the importance and the significance of Ivan A. Gurato’s entire opus that pertains to the history of Zadar and Nin but also to the history of the Croatian people. The very title of the study Catalogus episcoporum… indicates the central theme, the importance of the chronological survey of the Nin bishops in older but also in newer historiography beginning with Farlati’s Povijest Ilirika (History of the Illyrians) through Carlo F. Binachi up to the newest sequence which has been set forth in Šematizam Zadarske nadbiskupije (Names of the Zadar Archbishopric). True to say, Gurato’s chronological survey is not complete and one immediately notices blank spots but it nevertheless makes a contribution to a better understanding of the development of church structures in Nin and the Nin archbishopric. The achievement of his survey does not only consist in the chronological listing of names of individual bishops but much more in his efforts to purify it of the sediments of medieval chronicles. At the same time the author with his survey indicated the importance of archival material accessible in various archives which he listed by name on pag. 35. The critical turn of the article is preceded by a short account of the dilemmas attending the historical establishment of the Nin bishopric which is formulated as “founding or restoration” and with this the author seeks to show that historiography has not said the final word in regard to this problem. The Nin bishopric was not founded only after Croats accepted Christianity but as an institution it existed much earlier so that it is possible that the name of a particular bishop which is mentioned by Carlo F. Bianchi refers to a real person but today there are no available facts. Ivan A. Gurato begins with bishop Theodesia whom he considers the first bishop of Nin and proceeds to chronologically list the names of other bishops up to Grgur Parčić. On separate pages Ivan A. Gurato gives brief information about two Nin bishops, namely Ivan Krstitelj Jurilić and Josip Grgur Žuvić. In 1807 the last mentioned bishop was promoted to a chair of the Zadar archbishopric and after him nobody was named the residential bishop of the church in Nin. In 1828 the reorganization of bishoprics in Dalmatia rescinded the Nin bishopric and its territory was practically conjoined to the Zadar archbishopric.
Keywords
Catalogus episcoporum; Nin; Zadar; canon I. A. Gurato
Hrčak ID:
26682
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2007.
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