JOHN FISHER. — Franciscan and Albanian poet, born in Zadrima on 13 Oct. 1871, died at Scutari on 30 Dec. 1940. In Bosnia he attended courses in philosophy and theology and, after being ordained priest at Scutari, taught literary subjects in the schools of the Order’s College, of which he later became provincial for Albania. He was also a deputy and, in 1921, vice-president of Parliament. He served as secretary of legation at the Paris Conference and, in 1930, at the Inter-Balkan Conference in Athens. Academician of Italy from 1939.
To the labours of sacred ministry and political activity he joined a devotion to poetry, quickly becoming popular among his people, whose genius he succeeded in interpreting effectively. He cultivated epic poetry (Laluta e Malcis [“The Mountain’s Trumpet”], a thirty-canto poem celebrating the struggles waged by the Albanians against the Montenegrins; La Lanza di Maria [“The Muses’ Abode”], a patriotic cento of 191 verses [“The Story of Anasat and Parnasit, Centre of European Chancelleries”]), and drama (L’Albanese civile, L’Albanese civile, three-act melodramas). In Valla e Parrizi are contained lyrics and dramas of religious subject. He translated Manzoni’s Sacred Hymns. His art unites primitivism and romanticism with singular representative effects.