Janez Svetokriški e gli animali. Per un’introduzione al ‘bestiario’ del Sacrum Promptuarium

Janez Svetokriški and Animals. For an Introduction to the ‘Bestiary’ of the Sacrum Promptuarium
The Capuchin preacher Janez Svetokriški (Joannes a Sancta Cruce, 1647-1714) is without doubt the principal Slovene writer of the late Counter-Reformation and also, among those who wrote in the local Slavonic language, of 17th century Carniola tout court. The five-volume collection of his sermons, published under the title Sacrum Promptuarium (SP) between 1691 and 1707, is to be considered a milestone in Slovene culture and, according to some, also represents the true beginning of Slovene fiction. Among the multitude of anecdotes which enrich the ‘ideological’ core of the work – mainly made up of Holy Scriptures and the writings of the fathers of the Church – a significant vein is dedicated to the animal world, along the same lines as the so-called ‘bestiaries’, which in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, a period whose culture Svetokriški is steeped in, made a significant contribution to the creation of western collective imagination. Based on examples from the vast corpus of the Capuchin preacher’s sermons, this brief contribution presents the principal traits of just a few examples of the many and varied animal species in which, alongside many other motifs, Svetokriški’s stories abound.