by Anna Scala, cataloguer of antiquarian books, Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali di Siracusa, Sicily. Translation by Stephen Parkin, the British Library
Incunables held in three library collections in Nova Gorica in Slovenia have recently been described for the first time in both Italian and Slovenian in the catalogue Incunaboli a Nova Gorica. The findings have also been shared with MEI. The three collections are the public library France Bevk (1 volume), the library of the Franciscan monastery of Castagnavizza (Kostanjevica, 21 volumes), and the prestigious private collection belonging to David and Marinka Brezigar in Salcano (Solkan) in the municipality of Nova Gorica (5 volumes). The 27 volumes contain 35 separate editions printed between 1474 and 1500.
In the Castagnavizza monastery, as preparation for cataloguing, a thorough search of the holdings was first undertaken, resulting in some unexpected discoveries, including two books which had not been recorded among the library’s holdings: Vincent Ferrer’s Sermones de tempore et de sanctis, pars aestivalis, printed in Venice by Giacomo Penzio for Lazzaro Soardi in 1496 (GW 9843; ISTC if00137000) and the Expositio super Logicam Petri Hispani attributed to Johannes de Monte, printed in Venice by Albertino da Lessona between 1500 and 1501 (GW M4383; ISTC im00829000).
The various passages of each copy between different owners over time were then reconstructed with the aid of internal as well as external documentary evidence. This evidence in turn was used to investigate the history of the collection as a whole. This made it possible to find other volumes which once belonged to Castagnavizza, with the help of the institutions where these books are found today.
An example is the miscellaneous volume containing the Commentarii in librum secundum Historiae Mundi by Jakob Milich, printed in Hagenau by Peter Bruback in 1535, the seventh and eighth books of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historiae, printed in Vienna by Johann Singriener in 1522, Guillaume de Conches’s Philosophicarum et astronomicarum institutionum libri tres printed in Basel by Heinrich Petri in 1531, and lastly the incunable edition of the Sphaera mundi by Johannes de Sacro Bosco printed in Venice by Johannes Lucllius Santritter in 1488 (GW M14657; ISTC ij00407000).
There are clear indications in the volume that it once belonged to the library of the monastery of Castagnavizza, such as the fact that the oval stamp in black ink of the library of S. Bernardino in Trento was impressed over the oval stamp, also in black ink, of the library of Castagnavizza; there is also a circular stamp, in blue ink, of the library of the Franciscans in Arco (province of Trento); there is a 16/17th-century manuscript ownership note on A2r = f. 2r: Conventus Montis Sancti. Moreover, on the first title-page there is an old Castagnavizza shelfmark: Incunab III/9,[1] corrected to Incunab. 11[2], as well as the mark of ownership Repositus ad bibliothecam Beatae Virginis Gratiarum anno 1777 (probably the name of the Marian sanctuary of Monte Santo at Salcano near Nova Gorica)[3]. On the front endleaf there is the (cancelled) shelfmark 2207.2.b.6, which can be found in the catalogues of 1852 and 1858, and the earlier shelfmark 5486-5490. R.a.23, which is found in the catalogue compiled at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In ISTC, the copy is recorded in both the library of S. Bernardino in Trento (as described in the catalogue edited by Claudio Fedele and Anna Gonzo and published in Trento in 2004, Incunaboli e cinquecentine della Fondazione Biblioteca S. Bernardino di Trento) as well as in the library of the Castagnavizza monastery.
Some historical background…
During the Second World War the Italian friars of Castagnavizza, fearing raids and reprisals, moved archival documents and incunable editions held in the library to the Franciscan monastery in Trento. When the war ended Castagnavizza became part of Yugoslavia; the Italian friars decided to hand the monastery over to their Slovenian confreres. In 1954 negotiations began to arrange the restoration of the material which had been transferred during the war. These concluded in 1962 with the return of the volumes to their original home in Castagnavizza. Despite this agreement however, the miscellany described above was not sent back.
With the information on the volume which I together with Marco Menato described and reported and following the subsequent request made on 10 March 2023 by Father Jan Dominik Bogataj, the librarian of the Slovenian Franciscan Province of S. Croce, the committee responsible for the decision to send the volume back (the ‘Comitato tecnico scientifico per le Biblioteche e gli Istituti culturali’ of the Ministry of Culture – General Directorate of Libraries and Copyright) decided in favour of returning the book to the library of the Castagnavizza monastery. On Wednesday 5 July 2023 Father Luciano Giuliani, as the legal representative for the Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino in Trento, handed the volume to Father Dominik Bogataj, the librarian of the Slovenian Franciscan Province of S. Croce in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and to Father Niko Žvokelj OFM, the Father-Guardian of Castagnavizza, and the librarian Mirjam Brecelij, representing the monastery. After an absence exactly 80 years the volume has finally returned to its original home.
Fr. Luciano Giuliani – legal representative of Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento,
Fr. Jan Dominik Bogataj OFM- librarian of the Franciscan Province of S. Croce Ljubljana (Slovenia), Italo Franceschini – Deputy Director of Fondazione Biblioteca San Bernardino di Trento.
[1] As it appears in the register compiled by Father Romano Aldegheri in the years 1930-32, held in the library of the Castagnavizza monstery, folio 215nrr. 12-16.
[2] Shelfmark assigned by the library of S. Bernardino in Trento.
[3] The same note, with the addition of recens compactus (i.e according to a recent agreement), is present also in another incunable in the library of Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cividale del Friuli. It is the edition of Boethius, Della consolatio philosophiae, printed in Hagenau by Heinrich Gran in 1491 (GW 4549; ISTC ib00791000) with the 16th-century manuscript ownership note Conventus Montis Sancti supra Salcanum.
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