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| Language | Church Slavonic |
|---|---|
Missal of duke Novak (Croatian:Misal kneza Novaka) was a 14th-centuryGlagolitic missal. The letters of the missal were later used for the first Croatian printed bookMissale Romanum Glagolitice.
The missal itself was written inCroatian recension of the Church Slavonic language, in theCroatian angular Glagolitic script and quite possibly illuminated, by the royal knightNovak Disislavić on his estates inKrbava in 1368. The author's family descended from theMogorovićgentis, which at that time belonged to the medieval institutionNobiles duodecim generationum regni Croatiae.[1] He was also named the duke of Šolgov in Hungary and duke ofNin in Dalmatia. The missal was written as a pledged gift to a church, where he was to be buried after death.[2]
The last page (colophon) also contains written down verses inChakavian by the author, a sequence of Christian mortality:
I pomisli vsaki h(rst)janin
da se svyt ništare ni,
jere gdo ga veće ljubi,
ta ga brže zgubi.Nu jošće pomisli vsaki sada:
ča se najde ot nas tada,
gda se d(u)ša strahom smete,a dila n(a)m skriti nete...
After Disislavić's death, the missal was not gifted to a church, but was kept by his sons. Ultimately, Novak Disislavić's son Petar, forced by financial trouble, sold it in 1405 for 45ducats.[3] The missal was then used by churches inIstria, where it remained for four centuries. In 1820, the missal was bought by Giovanni Battista Hettinger, an antiquarian, who brought it to Austria.[4] Today, it is kept in theAustrian National Library inVienna.[2]
