A Counter-Reformation Reaction to Slovenian and Croatian Protestantism: The Symbol of St. Athanasius in a Creed of 1624

Abstract

During the second half of the 16th century, Istria was influenced by the Lutheran ideas disseminated by the Slovene Primoz Trubar. According to recent researches, between 1561 and 1565, the followers of Trubar Stjepan Konzul and Anton Dalmatin, with the financial support of Baron Hans Ungnad von Sonneg, translated and transliterated fourteen books into Croatian with Glagolitic script, eight or nine into Cyrillic, six into Croatian with Latin script, four into Slovenian, six into Italian and one into German. Given that their “Slovenian, Croatian and Cyrillic Printing House” (Windische, Crabatische und Cirulitsche Thrukeray) of Urach, a city nearby Tubingen, was responsible for printing more than 30,000 copies, it is reasonable to affirm that Trubar and Ungnad’s aim was to cover not only the regions of Inner Austria (Slovenia, Croatia and the North Adriatic coastal area), but also the Balkans. In the turbulent years of the Counter-Reformation, when a great number of Istrian monks and priests were accused of apostasy, Gabriello Puliti, as a Franciscan, was compelled to dedicate some of his works to the most feared inquisitors and superiors. In 1614 he addressed his four-voice Psalmodia vespertina to Jakob Reinprecht, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Stična, and a fervent Counter-Reformer of the Carniola region (Krajnska region in present-day Slovenia), which enclosed the Pazin county of Istria, where the reformer Konzul worked. The subtitle of the collection of psalms specifies that it was composed “iuxta ritum Sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae”, and the author remembers the friendship of the dedicatee with the bishop of Trieste Ursino de Bertis. De Bertis, who served as a secretary of the Archduke Karl Hapsburg, contributed to the banishment of the indigenous Aquileian rite and its related books after the Council of Udine. In 1618 Puliti dedicated one motet of his solo-voice book Pungenti dardi spirituali, and in 1620 one of his motets Sacri accenti, to Gregorio Dionigi da Cagli, a Franciscan appointed “Grand Inquisitor” of Istria in 1616. Consequently, it is necessary to outline the role of Franciscan order, which was involved in the Dalmatian Province of St. Jerome, with the charge of reaffirming the Catholic faith in Istria and Dalmatia. From 1559 to 1806, the monastery of Koper hosted a tribunal of inquisition, under the control of Roman Holy Office so as to avoid any interference of local church. Even the edition of the Secondo libro delle messe a quattro voci (1624) must be taken into account as a case study of the influence of the Counter-Reformation. This book consists of two four-part masses, respectively entitled Messa concertata and Messa da choro. The first is a motto mass and the second an imitation mass on the madrigal La ver l’aurora, enclosed in Palestrina’s Primo libro di madrigali a quatro voci (1555). Instead of a cantus firmus, the head motif of Messa concertata is written down by Puliti, and it appears in each movement sustaining the structure of the polyphony. The motif recurs not only at the beginning of each of the five mass movements, but also within the Credo, where it is repeated as a separate monody before each verse on the words “Haec est fides catholica”. This sentence is drawn from the creed of St. Athanasius of Alexandria (fourth century). The so-called Symbol of Athanasius contains the words Puliti uses as a memento in his creed: “This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved”. This is an unusual kind of tribute to the Catholic profession of faith, both before and after the Council of Trent, that together with other interpolations was definitively prohibited by diocesan synods held in several bishoprics, with the aim of emphasizing the dogmatic value of the Professio fidei “Credo in unum Deum”. Why did Puliti insert a ‘trope’ to his creed? Was he perhaps charged by any prominent figure of the Cath