Catholic World News News Feature
Historic Albanian Book Disappears From Vatican Library August 23, 1996
TIRANA, Albania (CWN) - A 16th century book that is the oldest example of written Albanian disappeared from the Vatican Library, according to an Albanian newspaper report today.
The Gazeta Shqiptare said the "Book of the Mass", by Gjon Buzuku, dating from 1555 and discovered in 1740 in a seminary in Rome, was the first major document published in the Albanian language.
"We Albanians, sons of Buzuku, believed our language had a written document but now we do not have it any more," lamented scholar Musa Hamiti, told of the loss by the Vatican Library. The Albanian national library has three copies of the original in its archives.
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