The Image of Aquilea in the Slovene Historical Short Story and Novel

Abstract

The article discusses the image of Aquilea Patriarchate in those Slovene literary texts that were designated by Slovene literary criticism as belonging to the types "historical short story" or "historical novel". It is generally true that this topic was more attractive to catholic writers and that it was even in the forefront of the first Slovene catholic novel by A. Carli. To the writers who included Aquilea in their literature, the essential fact-in a positive as well as in a negative sence- was a connection to Papal Rome. Despite the positive emphases that this connection had for Slovenes, even catholic authors did not paint an entirely positive image of Aquilea, particularly because of the secular exploits of its patriarch.