Memory of Slovenia exhibition brings ten heritage jewels

Ljubljana, 24 October - Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation will be put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia on Tuesday evening. They make the first batch of the country's written and documentary heritage, from the mid-13th to mid-20th century, on the National List compiled under UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme.

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
The herbarium book from 1696 by Janez Krstnik Flysser.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
Exhibition project head Alenka Miškec.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
The Stična Manuscript from around 1428.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
Correspondence by Slovenian Protestants from the second half of the 16th century.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
The Slovenian translation of Bible by Jurij Dalmatin from 1584.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
De Summa Totius Orbis, or the Piran Codex - a series of maps from the early 16th century by Pietro Coppo.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
Prayer Book by Father Ciprian Napast, mid-15th century (1450-1460), kept at the Library of the Franciscan Monastery of Novo Mesto.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

Ljubljana
Ten pieces of heritage of immense importance to the Slovenian nation put on show at the National Museum of Slovenia at the exhibition The Memory of Slovenia.
A deck of playing cards architect and painter Boris Kobe made in May 1945 in a Nazi concentration camp.
Photo: Katka Kodba/STA

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The exhibition The Memory of Slovenia: the Slovenian National List of UNESCO Memory of the World will be on show just for a month due to the sensitivity of the items.

In 1992, UNESCO launched the Memory of the World Programme to promote humanity's written and archival heritage kept at archives, libraries and museums etc.

As Alenka Miškec, head of the exhibition project, told the press, it covers manuscripts, books, newspapers, posters, letters, drawings, maps, musical notes, prints, but also audiovisual works, such as film and photos.

The global list features 494 units, including masterpieces by Frederic Chopin, the Gutenberg Bible (1445), and the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789).

Together with Poland and Russia, Slovenia has one item on it - the 10th century Codex Suprasliensis, the oldest document in any Slavic language written in the Cyrillic. Part of it is kept by the National and University Library in Ljubljana.

In 2020, Slovenia's World of the Memory National Committee was set up by the Slovenian National Commission for UNESCO to promote the UNESCO programme.

Its task was to select ten heritage items for the National List, which it did it 2022, with more items to be added in three-year intervals, explained Miškec.

She said the committee sought to make the list very diverse, with items coming from entire Slovenia and from different periods.

Administrative and religious texts nevertheless dominate it, such as Jurij Dalmatin's translation of the Bible (1584) or the Stična Manuscript (around 1428), a key Slovenian Mediaeval text.

The oldest item on the list is however a series of 738 documents by the counts of Cilli, one of the most important Slovenian Mediaeval houses, from 1262-1456.

Other fields are also represented, from botanics and cartography to correspondence, including the oldest herbarium book in Slovenia from 1696 by Janez Krstnik Flysser.

There is also "Prešerniana" - documents and manuscripts related to poet Franc Prešeren (1800-1849), and a deck of playing cards architect Boris Kobe made in 1945 in a concentration camp.

A masterpiece of global cartography is the Piran Codex, a series of maps from the early 16th century by Pietro Coppo, an Izola-born cartographer of Venetian descent.

Correspondence of Protestants, including Primož Trubar, from the second half of the 16th century, is meanwhile an important source to study the history of Slovenian language.

The ten pieces put on show come from a total of nine institutions, among them museums, archives, libraries, monasteries, and the state-owned Brdo Mansion often used for official and ceremonial events.

Oct 24, 2023, 13:30 eho/tv/mas