Pjetër Bogdani

Pjetër Bogdani
Pjetër Bogdani on a 1989 Albania stamp
Born	circa 1630 Gur i Hasit, near Prizren,Ottoman Empire (modern-day Kosovo)
Died	1689 Pristina, Ottoman Empire (now Kosovo)
Nationality	Albanian
Other names	Pietro Bogdano
Occupation	Catholic priest, writer, poet
Known for	author of the first prose work of substance originally written in Albanian language

Pjetër Bogdani (c. 1630 – December 1689), known in Italian as Pietro Bogdano, is the most original writer of early literature in Albania. He is author of the Cuneus Prophetarum (The Band of the Prophets), 1685, the first prose work of substance written originally in Albanian (i.e. not a translation).

He was born in the village of Gur in the area of Has, near Prizren in 1630. Its exact location is unknown, but Robert Elsie has proposes two modern day villages of Gjonaj and Breg Drini in Prizren area. Bogdani was educated in the traditions of the Catholic church. His uncle Andrea Bogdani (c. 1600–1683) was Archbishop of Skopje and author of a Latin-Albanian grammar, now lost. Bogdani is said to have received his initial schooling from the Franciscans at Chiprovtsi in modern northwestern Bulgaria and then studied at the Illyrian College of Loreto near Ancona, as had his predecessors Pjetër Budi and Frang Bardhi. From 1651 to 1654 he served as a parish priest in Pult and from 1654 to 1656 studied at the College of the Propaganda Fide in Rome where he graduated as a doctor of philosophy and theology. In 1656, he was named Bishop of Shkodra, a post he held for twenty-one years, and was also appointed Administrator of the Archdiocese of Antivari (Bar) until 1671.