Frang Bardhi

Frang Bardhi (Latin: Franciscus Blancus, Francesco Bianchi, 1606–1643) was an Albanian Catholic bishop and Old Albanian author. Bardhi is best known as an author of the early eras of Albanian literature. He served as Bishop of Sapë (1635–1644).

Life
Bardhi was born in Kallmet or Nënshat in the northern Albanian Zadrima region near Lezhë. He came from a family consisting of many figures high in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and state officials or military commanders of the Republic of Venice. His uncle was Bishop of Sapa and Sarda. He studied theology in Italy. On 17 December 1635, Francesco Bianchi was appointed during the papacy of Pope Urban VIII as Bishop of Sapë. On 30 March 1636, he was consecrated bishop by Ciriaco Rocci, Cardinal-Priest of San Salvatore in Lauro, with Giovanni Battista Altieri, Bishop Emeritus of Camerino, and Ottavio Broglia, Bishop of Asti, serving as co-consecrators.

Bardhi is remembered as the author of the first Albanian dictionary Dictionarium latino-epiroticum (Latin-Albanian dictionary) published in Rome in 1635, comprising 5,640 entries. Its appendix contains a list of 113 proverbs, phrases, and idioms, some of which are translations from other languages into Albanian with the vast majority being collected from the Albanian folklore.

Bardhi also wrote a biography of George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, called The Apology of Scanderbeg published in Venice in 1636. The Apology of Scanderbeg was a polemic against Slavic Catholic priest Ivan Tomko Mrnavić, who claimed that Kastrioti was of Slav origin. Bardhi also complained that the Albanian language "was being lost and degenerating" under the blows of foreign occupiers, and in order to preserve it he saw himself contributing to the missing of rising the national pride between Albanians.

From 1637 on, Bardhi submitted reports in Italian and Latin to the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide in Rome which contain a mine of information about his diocese, about political developments, about Albanian customs and about the structure and position of the Catholic Church in Ottoman-occupied Albania.