Dubrovnik Prayer Book


The Dubrovnik Prayer Book is "liber horarum" type of prayer book. This type of prayer book was the most popular religious book for the laity until the beginning of 17th century. The prayer book was printed in August 1512, in Venice. It is printed in Cyrillic. The book was first revealed to the public in modern times in 1932.

History

In 1512 Frančesko Micalović printed two Catholic prayer books in Venice, in the printing house of Giorgio Rusconi of Venice. One of them being Dubrovnik Prayer Book.
On 18 September 1512, immediately after his return to Ragusa, Micalović stated that two cases of Slavic books belonged to Đuro, father of Petar Šušić.

Language and script

Both books were printed by Micalović in Cyrillic script, classified by Zimmer as Bosnian Cyrillic, in Shtokavian dialect after being translated from Chakavian. In the contract signed by Micalović, the language of the prayer book was referred to as in littera et idiomate serviano 'in Serbian Cyrillic', Milan Rešetar made an analysis of script, content, spelling, and language, and concluded that "the Cyrillic alphabet which is used in the manuscript was not intended for the Orthodox Church or the Orthodox faith, Cyrillic alphabet which is part of that manuscript was regularly used by our Catholics and Muslims".
The four-part icon from church in the Orthodox Monastery of Virgin Mary's Birth in village of Sogle, have decorative elements painted under influence of Cyrillic Prayer Book printed by Micalović. According to Dejan Medaković, renaissance decorative elements of this 16th-century icon are directly copied from Prayer Book printed by Micalović.

Impact

In his reissue in 1938, Rešetar thought this was a historical and literary monument that was especially valuable because it revealed the Slavic culture in Dubrovnik as Serbian, though intended for Catholics.
It is sometimes considered first book printed in the Serbian vernacular, the earlier publications of the Crnojević printing house having been in Church Slavonic. But the language and faith have both caused contention in recent times. For example, in 2012 the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts held a scientific conference on the 500th anniversary of the book's publication under the name "Croatian Cyrillic Heritage", with the Dubrovnik Prayer Book as a central topic. This provoked controversy with Serbian academics.