Enthusiasmus by the Jesuit Missionary Marcus Antonius Kappus, A. D. 1708

Rediscovery of a Lost Poem and its Cultural-Historical Significance

Abstract

Jesuit Marcus Antonius Kappus (1657–1717), born in Kamna Gorica (north-western Slovenia), set sail for the New World in 1687. He spent the next thirty years as a missionary among the indigenous Ópata people in the far northwest of Mexico, then part of the Spanish colony of New Spain. In 1708, he wrote a poem entitled Enthuʃiaʃmus ʃive, ʃoLeMnes LVDI PoëtICI MetrIs, pro DVrante anno 1708 ChronographICIs sVb PyroMaChIa DepICtI, which was published in Mexico City. The poem consisting of 276 hexameters in Latin, each printed as a chronogram, was devoted to Louis Philip of Bourbon, the newly-born Prince of Spain (1707–1724). For a long time, only the title of the poem was known, and it was even thought to be lost, as no exemplar could be found in either American or European libraries or archives. Janez Stanonik devoted a special study to the poem, published in Acta Neophilologica in 1995. The author of this article, prompted by Stanonik’s research on Kappus, then came across a copy of the poem in 2021 during an online search in the Biblioteca Foral de Bizkaia in Bilbao. Enthusiasmus is of great significance for understanding Kappus’ missionary and political activities, as well as his literary and artistic capabilities. The article in this issue of the journal discusses the fate of the long-hidden poem, the historical circumstances of its creation, and provides an overview of its content, message and cultural-historical significance within the political and social context of contemporary New Spain and more broadly of the Spanish empire during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). Envisaged for the forthcoming issue is a transcription of the poem together with its English translation accompanied by a linguistic and literary-historical study, as well as a synthesis of the current knowledge on this extraordinary work by Kappus.