Franciscan monastery of the Holy Spirit is a Bosnian Franciscan monastery in Fojnica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was founded in 1668 and it includes a library of ca. 12,500 volumes, including 13 incunabula and 156 works written in Bosnian Cyrillic. It is a designated National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is part of the Franciscan Province of Bosna Srebrena.
The monastery's museum collections holds the 15th century Ahd-Namah (the Order) of Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror guaranteeing security and freedom to the Franciscans. This document allowed the Franciscans of the day to preach freely among the Catholics in BiH, which in turn enabled the preservation of Bosnian Catholicism through the centuries.
The museum also houses the Book of Coats of Arms, dating from 1304, probably one of the oldest books in the region, with historical coats of arms of some Balkan countries and of then-prominent Bosnian families. A rare numismatic collection is also on exhibit.
Most of the works are philosophical and theological, printed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The library's archive preserves more than 3,000 documents from the Ottoman Empire, with 13 of them dating back to 1481.
References:Towering 52 meters above the sea, Bengtskär lighthouse is the tallest one in Scandinavia. The building started in in 1905 after the shipwreck of S/S Helsingfors and was completed in 1906. The lighthouse was designed by architect Florentin Granholm. On December a special petrol lantern, designed and built in Paris, was brought to Bengtskär and installed atop the tower.
German fleet bombarded Bengstkär in the First World War in 1914. Since the Gulf of Finland was heavily mined, it was not until 1919 that the surrounding seas were declared safe for shipping, that the light was lit again.
After the war the military value of Bengtskär increased as part of the defence system of independent Finland. In Second World War (1941) Soviet Union made a suprise attack to island. After a bloody battle, the small Finnish garrison emerged victorious. Intermittent repairs to the facility continued during the post-war period.