The Archive of the Rovinj Collegiate of Canons

Abstract

A collegiate is an assembly of clergymen appointed by the ecclesiastic authorities and promoted into canons. The collegiates are grouped either round a cathedral, which serves as an episcopal church, or important churches including those which were once centres of abolished dioceses. The Rovinj Collegiate of Canons stems from the ancient Diocese of Cissa - Rovinj and at one point in the past gained a distinguished status (with insignia) within the Poreč Diocese. The Rovinj Collegiate used to have many members headed by a prepositor and an archdeacon. According to the 16th century collegiate regulations, a collegiate of canons had to comprise five canonical bodies headed by a prepositor. From 1530 to 1810 the auditor and general vicar of the Bishop of Poreč was considered a member of the Rovinj Collegiate of Canons. In terms of the number of valuable historic and scientific documents collected over centuries of its existence and work, the archive of the Rovinj Collegiate of Canons is in Istria second only to that of the Diocese of Poreč. Many precious codexes and parchments went lost together with a clergyman shipwrecked in 1568 while carrying them to Venice, so that the Archive has only few of these documents from the lime before that tragic event. Plowever, the subsequent materials include many transcripts of older documents. The Archive was sorted out and properly listed in 1971 and since then it has been accessible to interested researchers.