After the Council of Trent, Pope Gregory XIII and Croatian Glagolitic priests recognised the need for printing new Glagolitic liturgical books, but in a language as close as possible to the common people. This idea was put into practice by editors and translators Aleksandar Komulović and Šime Budinić, however, during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V, the undertaking almost came to a standstill. This changed in 1622 with the founding of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) in Rome, which became responsible for the printing of liturgical books and handbooks in Glagolitic.

Four years later, on the initiative of a Franciscan provincial in Trsat (Croatia) Franjo Glavinić, Emperor Ferdinand II allowed 26 chests containing typographic equipment confiscated from the Croatian Protestant printing house in Urach to be transported to the Capuchin monastery in Rijeka and used for the printing of Catholic liturgical books in the Croatian language. However, since that same year, 1626, the Congregation’s printing house was established in Rome, Ferdinand’s policy, in great many aspects dependant on Papal support, changed, resulting in the relocation of all the equipment to Rome. Arriving together with the equipment was Rafael Levaković, who became the Congregation’s first official translator and writer. Upon taking upon itself the task of publishing liturgical books in Glagolitic, between 1628 and 1971, the Congregation printed 19 Croatian Glagolitic books, including the notable breviaries and missals edited by Rafael Levaković, Ivan Paštrić and Matej Karaman.

References:

Lokmer, J. (2008). Tiskane glagoljske liturgijske knjige u fondu knjižnice biskupija senjske i modruške u Senju. Senjski zbornik, 35 (1), pp. 161-211.

Nazor, A. (1978). Zagreb, riznica glagoljice : katalog izložbe (pp. 74-75). Zagreb: Nacionalna i sveučilišna biblioteka.