Luka VIDMAR

Janez Gregor Dolničar (1655–1719), a lawyer and historian in Ljubljana and one of the most prominent members of Ljubljana's Academia operosorum, has been supposed to have spent a few years in Italy, between 1679 when he took a doctor's degree in Bologna and 1683 when he became married. Based on two books from Dolničar's legacy in the Seminary Library in Ljubljana, the present paper explains the first part of this Italian travel, of which no details have been known until now. One book contains two texts: Le glorie maestose del santuario di Loreto by Baldassare Bartoli (1677) and La S. Casa abbelita (1639) by Silvio Serragli. The other book entitled Villa Benedetta was written by Matteo Mayer and published in Rome in 1677. Dolničar signed and dated both books and enriched them with some notes and commentaries. These annotations prove that Dolničar was in Loreto in March 1679 and in Rome in April of the same year. The second part of the paper analyses the annotation that was written by Dolničar on the blank pages of Mayer's book – probably during his stay in Rome or immediately afterwards. The annotation, entitled Notabilia de Roma, is a Latin catalogue of antique, medieval and contemporary buildings in Rome with some short commentaries. It includes a list of the seven hills of Rome, a short description of the Pantheon, St. Peter's and the papal palace and lists of Roman temples, palaces, obelisks, churches, triumphal arches, imperial forums with columns, town gates and finally of houses and tombs of famous men of the antiquity. The structure in the form of a catalogue, the descriptive content and the antiquarian nature of this annotation are compared to the 17th century guidebooks that were bought and used by Dolničar or other members of his family in Italy and are now housed in the Seminary Library in Ljubljana. The one among them that seems to have influenced his writing most is Trattato nuovo delle cose maravigliose dell'alma Citta di Roma, written by Pietro Martire Felini and published in Rome in 1625.