La centralità delle biblioteche e degli archivi ecclesiastici per la filologia albanese: il caso della "Dottrina Christiana" di Pietro Budi

Published in 1618, Dottrina Christiana by Pjetër Budi remains to this day a valuable source of information for Albanologists. Suta’s paper centres around a new sample of this book found in the li- brary Angelica. It differs from the traditional versions, as one part of the re- cently found sample contains additional and different data. Unexplored archives and data from the Reverenda Camera Apostolica, Vatican City, allowed Suta to reconstruct Budi’s fervent activities during 1621-1622, when he was working closely with the publishing house Zanetti on his other major works, namely, Rituale Romanum and Speculum Confes- sionis. The author of the paper endeavours to explain not only the differ- ences but to also recount the steps that Budi took to replace the first part of Dottrina Christiana (1618) before presenting it to the Apostolic Library of Vatican (1622). On the other hand, in order to understand better the historic circum- stances under which Budi operated, author Suta has explored other Vatican archives as well. The data provided here recount the educational policies that the Holy See undertook between the 16th and 17th centuries in Albania and across the Balkans in an attempt to spread the Catholic doctrine in national languages.