Ivan Ančić

Ivan Ančić was a Croatian Franciscan priest and religious writer in the Catholic Revival tradition. Ančić, a native of Lipa in the region of Duvno, joined the Franciscan order in Bosnia and received an education in the Franciscan friaries in Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy. He served as a parish priest in his home province of Duvno and held various religious offices in several locations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After arriving in Ancona, Italy, in 1674, he began publishing his religious works written in Shtokavian dialect of Illyrian, an older term for the language spoken in regions historically associated with Croatia. Ančić is the first Bosnian Franciscan to write in a commoners' language using the Latin alphabet.