Ernesto Cozzi (6 July 1870 – 23 March 1926) was a

South Tyrol it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol , settlement_type = Autonomous province , image_skyline = , image_alt ...

-born priest of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

who worked as a missionary and ethnologist in Albania until, in 1920, he was given the rank of archbishop and made the representative of the

Holy See The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome ...

to the Church in Albania.

Biography

Ernesto Cozzi was born in

Trent Trent may refer to: Places Italy * Trento in northern Italy, site of the Council of Trent United Kingdom * Trent, Dorset, England, United Kingdom Germany * Trent, Germany, a municipality on the island of Rügen United States * Trent, California, ...

, in the

South Tyrol it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol , settlement_type = Autonomous province , image_skyline = , image_alt ...

, in the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

, on 6 July 1870. He became a priest of the Catholic Church and served as a military chaplain in

Bolzano Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third la ...

. From May 1901 he was a parish priest and missionary to the northern mountain tribes of Albania. Albania was then under Ottoman rule, with Austria-Hungary providing for its Catholic population. Cozzi publicly espoused Albanian independence. In 1914 he was briefly an archbishop's secretary and in 1915 was sent on a diplomatic mission to Poland. With the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Albania in 1916, he became a military chaplain again. At the end of World War I, he returned to Albania and became a parish priest in Obot. In 1919 he was appointed an apostolic visitor and traveled throughout Albania in 1920 to produce a report for the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (CPF) and on 12 November

Pope Benedict XV Pope Benedict XV (Latin: ''Benedictus XV''; it, Benedetto XV), born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, name=, group= (; 21 November 185422 January 1922), was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His ...

named him the first

Apostolic Delegate An apostolic nuncio ( la, nuntius apostolicus; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international o ...

to Albania. On 16 December Pope Benedict named him a titular archbishop as well, the customary rank for papal diplomats. Cozzi received his episcopal consecration on 27 December from Cardinal

Willem van Rossum Willem Marinus van Rossum, C.Ss.R. (3 September 1854 – 30 August 1932) was a Dutch prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was made a cardinal in 1911, led the Apostolic Penitentiary from 1915 to 1918, and served as Prefect of the Congr ...

, Prefect of the CPF. Most of his research, written in Italian, was published between 1909 and 1914 in ''Anthropos'', a Viennese scholarly journal, the ''Revue d’ethnographie et de sociologie'', and others. His interests included folklore and superstition, women’s religious observance, blood feuds, and–his most significant contribution–popular legal norms. He died on 23 March 1926 on board a ferry en route to Bari, Italy. He was initially buried in Bari, but his remains were exhumed, returned to Albania, and buried in Shkodra on 29 May.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cozzi, Ernesto 1870 births 1926 deaths Apostolic Nuncios to Albania Roman Catholic missionaries in Albania 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic titular archbishops Austrian ethnologists Albanian ethnologists Albanologists People from Trento Missionary linguists