The National History Museum recalled today, through an online post, that 470 years ago, in 1554, the word printed in Albanian began its journey, with “Meshari” /Mass/ by Gjon Buzuku, where it was written: “Me, dom Gjoni, son of Bdek Buzuku, while remembering that our language had nothing in sacred printed and for the sake of the beloved our world, I wanted to toil as much as I could to enlighten the minds of those that understand … In the year M.D.L.IV., on the twentieth day  of March, I started and completed it a year after in January of M.D.L.V.”

“Meshari” is considered the oldest Albanian literary work, published and preserved until today.

The book consisted of 110 pages, but the copy of the book that has arrived is truncated and missing the first 16 pages, including the cover with the main page.

Buzuku was a Catholic priest, parish priest of a church in Northern Albania, not so far from the place of publication and one of the most important teachers of the Albanian language. With his work, he consolidated an important tradition of writing the Albanian language with the Latin alphabet.

The Franciscan Friar, Justin Rrota was the first to bring from the Apostolic Library of the Vatican to Albania, in 1929, three photo reproductions of the earliest book published in Albanian.

/a.p./