On the discovery of the glagolitic Missal of Senj and rare copies thereof

Sa？etak In 1849, Ivan Ber？i？ of Zadar made the first step towards the discovery of the first trace of the glagolitic Missal of Senj of 1494 in the village of Ugljan on the island of Ugljan in the vicinity of Zadar. There he found one half of one leaf of the book. In 1854, in another village on the island of Ugljan, he discovered two more leaves of the Missal, while in 1863, his former student, Sre？ko Bakija, “in whom, the moment I set my eyes on him, I saw the so-much-desired missal” (Ber？i？), brought him an incomplete copy (notched at the beginning and at the end) from the village of Pako？tane. He wrote a very detailed description of this copy and concluded that it had been printed in Senj in 1507. Twenty-four years after Ber？i？’s death, a copy of the Missal, complete with detailed colophon, emerged in Ludwig Rosenthal’s second- hand bookshop in Munich; in the book, its publication date was recorded: 1494. Miseca avgusta 7. ovi misali bi？e po？eti i svr？eni v Senji… (in 1494, on the 7th day of the month of August, this missal was commenced and finished in Senj…). The copy was bought for the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest at an auction held on 1 May 1895, despite Vatroslav Jagi？’s endeavours for it to be bought for the University Library in Zagreb. During the auction, the price grew too quickly, so that Zagreb could not compete. Hence, at the beginning of his extensive description of the Missal, Hungarian Slavist Oszkár ásbóth emphasised that the book was “of exceptional value” and that considerable material sacrifice accompanied its acquisition. In 1982, conventual friar Josip Vlahovi？ discovered one rather incomplete copy in the library of the conventual Franciscan friars in the town of Cres on the island of Cres. In 1984, Andrej Kruming discovered a fragment of the Missal of Senj (leaves 131–133) in Odessa (the State Scientific Library of Odessa, sign. 1-8814.). This fragment is of importance, since it is the (only) preserved canonical crucifix in xylograph. The facts related to the discovery of the Glagolitic Missal of Senj of 1494 and the state of preservation of the rare original copies thereof present arguments in favour of the importance of publishing a facsimile reprint. Regarding the publishing itself, Milan Mogu？, Fellow of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, who was born in Senj, played an essential role in the reprinting of the missal