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

Abstract

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.