Hans von Ungnad

In 1540 Ungnad had been appointed on the position of Captain General of Lower Austria (modern-day Slovenia), Croatia and other Habsburg estates.[1] The main threat to the territory he was responsible for was the Ottoman Empire and its forces in Ottoman Bosnia.[1] He believed that the best way to confront it was to spread the Protestantism to the very gates of Istanbul.[2] In 1555 he refused to execute anti-Protestant measures requested by Ferdinand I, resigned his position and opted for voluntary exile in Germany.[3]

The South Slavic Bible Institute[4] (German: Südslawische Bibelanstalt)[5] was established in Urach (modern-day Bad Urach in Germany) in January 1561. Baron Ungnad was its owner and patron.[6] Ungnad was supported by Christoph, Duke of Württemberg, who allowed Ungnad to use his castle (former convent) of Amandenhof near Urach[7] as a seat of this institute.[8]

Baron Ungnad was interested in Protestant proselytism propagated by Primož Trubar and attended the session of German theologians held in Tubingen in 1561.[7] At that occasion Ungnad, probably instructed by Duke Christoph, agreed that he would take responsibility for publishing Slavic books.[7]

Within the institute, Ungnad set up a press which he referred to as "the Slovene, Croatian and Cyrillic press" (German: Windische, Chrabatische und Cirulische Trukherey).[6] The manager and supervisor of the institute was Primož Trubar.[6] The books they printed at this press were planned to be used throughout the entire territory populated by South Slavs between the Soča River, the Black Sea,[9] and Constantinople.[10] Until 1565 were published thirty titles with 25.000 copies. Today exist only 300 books. Translations of Bible texts were inspired by glagolitic tradition. Thirteen books were printed in glagolitic, nine in latin, and eight in cyrillic script.[11] Trubar had idea to use their books to spread Protestantism among Croats and other South Slavs[12] and even among Muslims in Turkey.[13] For this task, Trubar engaged Stjepan Konzul Istranin and Antun Dalmatin as translators for Croatian and Serbian.[14]