Pregledni rad
Inventories of the Istrian Custody according to the manuscript Libro della Custodia dell’Istria (1688-1739) The Archives of the Monastery of St. Francis in Cres
Ljudevit Anton Maračić
Sažetak
In the archives of the monastery of St. Francis in Cres, the Conventual Franciscans
safeguard a substantial hardback volume of 376 large format pages (31 x 22 cm), entitled
Libro della Custodia, with only a few blank pages.
The authors of these records are the custodians of the Istrian custody who every year
during the above mentioned period by official duty visited the monasteries of the custody
and compared the authenticity of the monastery’s records, so called inventories. These
custodians were elected for two years at the provincial congregations and they could be
elected twice in a row. The fact that in 1605 the guardians of the Istrian custody opposed
to the way the custodians were elected up to that time and agreed on the regular exchange
in monasteries, according to the geographical location (iuxta situm conventuum). Because
of this, regular friars, mostly with no degrees (master’s degree or baccalaureate) were
elected for custodians, which resulted in a lot of mistakes and nonsense in the manuscript.
The manuscript is written in a vernacular of the Italian language of that time with a lot
of Venetians expressions and dialect phrases, and with a lot of ortographic mistakes and
inconsistencies, especially when writing double consonants, which are omitted in the Venetian
language.
The custodians’ roles and duties were to check the state of the material goods, compare
it with the previous state and note the changes. The custodians’ reports in this volume
contain only the inventories of monasteries and churches’ movable goods. The custodians
didn’t address the legal, moral, economic, administrative and disciplinary issues of the
monasteries that they visited. These issues were addressed by the provincial and described
in his reports, which are safeguarded and stored elsewhere.
In this book’s reports the following parts are singled out and highlighted: church (chiesa),
sacristy (sacrestia), bedrooms (dormitorio), library (libraria), linen and towels (biancaria),
kitchen (cucina), dining room (refettorio), pantry (caneva), depository (dispensa),
basement (cantina)… The most interesting parts are the descriptions of the churches’ altars,
the overview of liturgical aids, the description and list of books, pictures and relics.
Almost every custodian made comments about the lack of something or the addition of
something to the items listed in the inventory which enables a comparative overview and
monitoring of the growth (accrescimento) and lacks (diminuzione).
Most of the custodians’ reports are transferred the way the custodians reported them,
with a lot of mistakes and frequent combination of Latin and Italian expressions. Italian
words and sentences are in italic in order to highlight the difference between the original
records and our inserts and explanations whereas the number in brackets represents the
page in the above mentioned manuscript. We also added some basic information about the
friars who are mentioned in the manuscript, sometimes with the source as well. It is our
aim to encourage further examination of the original material, especially the collection,
which is safeguarded in 20 volumes, under the name of Acta Provinciae, in the Archives of
the Croatian Conventual Franciscan Province of St. Jeronim in Zagreb.
Ključne riječi
Conventual Franciscans; Istrian Custody of the Province of St. Jeronin; the book of inventories of movable goods; 1688-1739
Hrčak ID:
179147
URI
Datum izdavanja:
5.4.2017.
Posjeta: 1.285 *