Pjetër Bogdani’s Cuneus prophetarum (1685)

This essay investigates the background and nature of the most important early work written and printed in Albanian, Archbishop Pjetër Bogdani’s theological treatise Cuneus prophetarum. Evidence from Bogdani’s correspondence suggests that he was working on what became the second part of this large book, the part describing the life of Christ, in the mid-1670s. Possibly this derived from sermons which he had given to his flock (in present-day Kosovo). Gradually he expanded the project, adding arguments which were directed against both Orthodox Christianity and Islam. The intellectual context of this was a circle of theologians in Rome (identified here) who were engaged in conversionary work, both against those faiths and against Judaism. Conversion was, however, at most a secondary aim for Bogdani, who was writing primarily for his own Catholic flock. But his project was taken up by Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo in Padua, who eventually published the book in 1685, and for Barbarigo the conversion of Muslims was a major aim, linked to aspirations for the conquest of the Ottoman Empire. Barbarigo was also keen to display the capabilities of his newly established printing press; this explains why Bogdani’s text, which would ideally have been produced in a pocket-sized edition suitable for covert transmission inside the Ottoman Empire, appeared as a grand, illustrated folio volume, with passages in languages such as Syriac and Armenian. Bogdani’s project had, it is argued, been taken over and used for other purposes.