Page 367 - Stati inu obstati, revija za vprašanja protestantizma, letnik XI (2015), številka 21-22, ISSN 1408-8363
P. 367
SYNOPSES, ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN
UDC 090.1:"16":929 Prešeren J. K.
Luka Vidmar
A collector of Protestant books – Janez Krstnik Prešeren,
Ljubljana Cathedral provost
The article deals with the Ljubljana Cathedral provost Janez Krstnik Prešeren, who
collected Protestant books both for professional reasons and out of personal interest,
although this activity was forbidden in the Catholic Church and the Habsburg Mon-
archy. Despite his peasant background, he managed a rapid ascent of the social ladder:
as an expert in international and ecclesiastical law and church history in the 1680s, he
became a counsellor, diplomat and head of the library of the Salzburg archbishops, in
1692 he was appointed the Ljubljana Cathedral provost, and in 1693 was elected the
first president of Academia operosum. He purchased Protestant books on his numerous
journeys, whether in Protestant lands such as Brandenburg or on the black market in
Catholic book-trade centres such as Venice. His unshakable faithfulness to the Catholic
Church, the Habsburg dynasty and its pro-Catholic policy proved no obstacle to this
activity. His library contained works by the predecessors of the Reformation (Savonarola,
von Hutten), outstanding German Protestants of the 16th century (Luther, Melanchthon)
and early Protestant chroniclers of the Reformation (Schard, Sleidanus, Carion). He was
also attracted by younger Dutch and German Protestant authors (Penon, Grotius, Con-
ring, Megerlin). He read a considerable number of works connected with the Slovene
Reformation: the polemical writings of Peter Pavel Vergerij the Younger, directed against
the Tridentine Council and the Inquisition, Trubar's translation of Luther's Hišna postila
(1595), Dalmatin's Biblija and Megiser's Thesaurus Polyglottus (1603). He collected many
political discussions, essays and pamphlets which in the spirit of the Protestant north and
with its arguments attacked the established order of Catholic Europe, especially works by
Boccalini, Pallavicini, Sarpi in Leti. He also followed anti-Jesuit literature (Schoppe, abbé
Dupré). Prešeren was the greatest Carniolan collector of Slovene and European Protestant
books between Valvasor and Zois. He did not seek permission for such reading from the
Inquisition or the local ordinary, as he was obliged to do according to the regulations of
the Roman Index of Prohibited Books. Nor did he hide these books from his friends of
the cathedral chapter and the Academia operosum, while before his death he described
and bequeathed them together with his other books to the Public Library. In Prešeren’s
time the anathema which formally still applied to such books had almost entirely lost its
force among the social and intellectual elite of the Habsburg Monarchy.
365
UDC 090.1:"16":929 Prešeren J. K.
Luka Vidmar
A collector of Protestant books – Janez Krstnik Prešeren,
Ljubljana Cathedral provost
The article deals with the Ljubljana Cathedral provost Janez Krstnik Prešeren, who
collected Protestant books both for professional reasons and out of personal interest,
although this activity was forbidden in the Catholic Church and the Habsburg Mon-
archy. Despite his peasant background, he managed a rapid ascent of the social ladder:
as an expert in international and ecclesiastical law and church history in the 1680s, he
became a counsellor, diplomat and head of the library of the Salzburg archbishops, in
1692 he was appointed the Ljubljana Cathedral provost, and in 1693 was elected the
first president of Academia operosum. He purchased Protestant books on his numerous
journeys, whether in Protestant lands such as Brandenburg or on the black market in
Catholic book-trade centres such as Venice. His unshakable faithfulness to the Catholic
Church, the Habsburg dynasty and its pro-Catholic policy proved no obstacle to this
activity. His library contained works by the predecessors of the Reformation (Savonarola,
von Hutten), outstanding German Protestants of the 16th century (Luther, Melanchthon)
and early Protestant chroniclers of the Reformation (Schard, Sleidanus, Carion). He was
also attracted by younger Dutch and German Protestant authors (Penon, Grotius, Con-
ring, Megerlin). He read a considerable number of works connected with the Slovene
Reformation: the polemical writings of Peter Pavel Vergerij the Younger, directed against
the Tridentine Council and the Inquisition, Trubar's translation of Luther's Hišna postila
(1595), Dalmatin's Biblija and Megiser's Thesaurus Polyglottus (1603). He collected many
political discussions, essays and pamphlets which in the spirit of the Protestant north and
with its arguments attacked the established order of Catholic Europe, especially works by
Boccalini, Pallavicini, Sarpi in Leti. He also followed anti-Jesuit literature (Schoppe, abbé
Dupré). Prešeren was the greatest Carniolan collector of Slovene and European Protestant
books between Valvasor and Zois. He did not seek permission for such reading from the
Inquisition or the local ordinary, as he was obliged to do according to the regulations of
the Roman Index of Prohibited Books. Nor did he hide these books from his friends of
the cathedral chapter and the Academia operosum, while before his death he described
and bequeathed them together with his other books to the Public Library. In Prešeren’s
time the anathema which formally still applied to such books had almost entirely lost its
force among the social and intellectual elite of the Habsburg Monarchy.
365
