THE CROATIAN HUMANISTS: COSMOPOLITES OR PATRIOTS?

MICHAEL B. PETROVICH

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Journal of Croatian Studies, XX, 1979, – Annual Review of the Croatian Academy of America, Inc. New York, N.Y., Electronic edition by Studia Croatica, by permission. All rights reserved by the Croatian Academy of America.

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1.

The Croatian lands, particularly Dalmatia and the whole eastern Adriatic coast, produced many Humanists. Some two hundred are known by name, just in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.[1]

A cosmopolitan spirit was an outstanding characteristic of Humanism everywhere in Europe. To be sure, the medieval Catholic world was cosmopolitan too, joined by a common loyalty to the Church of Rome and to church Latin as a universal language. However, Humanism brought to educated Europeans a new, secular cosmopolitanism based on the revival of interest in the pagan culture of ancient Greece and Rome and particularly in the literature of classical antiquity. This renaissance of learning and the arts gave the scholars and artists of Western Christendom a sense of belonging to a pan-European republic of arts and sciences which knew no political boundaries and which shared to same language, neoclassical Latin.[2] Even in our own jet age one must be impressed by the frequency with which European scholars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries visited one another's countries and even found permanent employment there.

On the other hand, this Humanist internationalism also coincided with the rise of national states and national literatures in Europe. Conditions in the Croatian lands prevented political nationalism. The Croatian people were partitioned by three foreign powers: Croatia Proper and Slavonia were ruled by Hungarian kings since 1102 in a personal union with Hungary, and, after 1527, by the Habsburg rulers of Austria; most of the eastern Adriatic coast fell under Venetian rule between 1407 and 1420; while the remaining Croatians came increasingly under Ottoman domination after the fifteenth century. However, it was precisely the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Age of Humanism and the flowering of a neoclassical Latin literature among the Croatians, that also saw the rise of a Croatian national literature in the popular tongue.

Thus it is useful to ask: To what degree were the Croatian Humanists cosmopolites or patriots?

The evidence on the side of cosmopolitanism is so plentiful that it might seem to the hasty observer to leave little room for any feeling of cultural nationalism.

To begin with, most Croatian Humanists in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Dalmatians, and Dalmatia had long been strongly cosmopolitan throughout much of its recorded history. The eastern Adriatic coast was, both ethnically and culturally, the product of a symbiosis between the earlier Romanized settlers and the Slays who swept down from the Dinaric Alps in early medieval times.[3] This westernmost region of the Balkan Peninsula was pre-eminently Roman Catholic. Even the Serbs of the southern Adriatic coast have been Roman Catholics from the advent of Christianity.[4] The Latin language was firmly entrenched and cultivated in this region, though outside the walls of the Dalmatian cities Latinity was countered by a nativist Slavic literary tradition, in both its Glagolitic and Cyrillic (Bosančica) forms.[5] The merchant city-republics of the eastern Adriatic coast were separated from the Balkan hinterlands by forbidding mountain ranges and later by the Ottoman invasion. On the other hand, they were joined to the Mediterranean world by the Adriatic Sea, and thus they were open to the cultural influences of the West, especially of neighboring Italy. Long before the Venetian occupation, it was customary for Dalmatian cities to import their bishops, chancellors, clerks, physicians, and teachers from Italy, and for Dalmatian patricians to send their sons to Italian universities.[6] And even after the Venetians occupied Dalmatia, the city-republic of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) continued this custom of importing learned Italians though it remained free of Venetian rule.[7]

With very few exceptions the great majority of Croatian Humanists studied abroad. Most went to Italy, to the academies and universities of Padua, Bologna, Florence, Venice, Rome, Ferrara, Pavia, Siena, Perugia and Ancona, to name the most popular choices. Others went to Vienna, Paris, Cracow, Heidelberg, Nürnberg, Ingolstack, and elsewhere in Europe for their studies.[8]'

Many of these scholars remained abroad most of their lives, some never to return to their homeland. Assuming Latin names, as was the custom of Humanists in all Europe, they became so much a part of the countries in which they lived that even scholars who specialize in the history of Humanism either do not know that these often distinguished Humanists were of Croatian origin or they do not regard this as relevant. Croatian Humanists made their careers in especially two places—the city-states of Renaissance Italy and Hungary. In addition, a Protestant contingent was drawn to the Germanies. Abroad they found not only a livelihood but, many of them, fame, as papal legates, imperial and royal ambassadors, chancellors, archbishops and bishops, admirals and captains, the theologians and philosophers, and poets laureate.[9]

What kept many of them from going home was lack of opportunity in the homeland. Despite its commerce, Dalmatia was still les developed than the Italian city-states, and its patricians could hardly rival the wealth and power of the ecclesiastical and civil ruling class of Italy as patrons of culture. Moreover, the Venetian occupation meant that the leading posts in the government and church in Dalmatia went to aspiring Venetians rather than to native sons.[10] Besides, the warring Turks were 'literally at the gates of many cities in Dalmatia, while much of the hinterland was already in their hands.[11] Life was too insecure to permit the flowering of culture there. As for the ever threatened agrarian hinterland of Hungarian Croatia and Slavonia, the provincial conservative feudalism there was culturally stifling. What enlightenment there was tended to be centered at the Hungarian Court in Budapest. Thus there was little place in the Croatian lands for the well educated Croatian Humanist, except in a few centers along the coast such as Dubrovnik, Split, and Zadar.

Yet there were Croatian Humanists, all Dalmatians, who spent most of their lives in their native cities. It would be wrong to sup-pose that Croatian Humanism was nothing but a provincial pale reflection of Italian Humanism, though all of European Humanism owed much to the Italian. It is instructive to remember, for example, that the first Humanist histories of England, Poland and Hungary were all written by Italians—Polydore Vergill (1470-1535), Filippo Buonaccorsi (1437-1496) and Antonio Bonfini (ca. 1427-1503) respectively.[12] With all of its debt to Italy, Croatian Humanism developed on its own longstanding foundation of Latinity, and it assumed certain characteristics of its own. For one thing, most Croatian Humanists tended to be conservative and religious at home though not abroad.[13]

Regardless of their views or places of residence, many Croatian Humanists have left various expressions of their love of homeland, though they identified that homeland not with Croatia as a whole, since such a Croatia did not exist at the time, but with their city-state, island or province. They all shared an abhorrence for the Ottoman Turks and a sorrow for the Croatian lands which had fallen to these invaders. Some also expressed not only an awareness of a Croatian folk culture but an admiration for it.

While comparisons may be not only odious but unfair, we cannot help but observe the striking difference in this respect between Croatian and Slovenian Humanism, apart from the fact that the former was more developed. Scholars who deal with Slovenian Humanism can at best speak only of Humanism in the Slovenian lands, for it is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain whether many Humanists from the Slovenian-inhabited provinces were Slovenes rather than Italians or Germans.[14] Even those with Slovenian names have scarcely recorded any recognition of their Slovenian nationality. Such was the very nature of Slovenian cultural history for that period. Not so with Croatian Humanists. True, even among the two hundred or so of them finds cases where it is difficult to establish a Croatian origin with certainty, often for lack of any biographical material. Nonetheless any study of Croatian Humanists as a whole can leave little doubt about the Croatian origin of the great majority of those about whom something more is known than just their names. Moreover, many have left various proofs of their Croatian sentiments.

2.

It is characteristic of Croatian Humanists that they so often proclaimed their origin even in the classical Latin names which they assumed.[15] It was the fashion among European Humanists of all nationalities to give themselves Latin names, under which they also published their works. It was this convention and not any rejection of one's origin that caused Croatians with good Slavic names such as Brodarić, Crijević, Pribojević, Vrančić or Zavorić to be called Brodericus, Cervinus, Priboevius, Verantius or Zavoreus. It is in part because of this custom that the learned world never knew, or particularly cared, that the bearers of names such as Cepio, Tubero Cervarius, Salvatius, Patricius, and the like were really Croatians.

Yet judging by some of their Humanist Latin names, the Croatian Humanists cared, for they often took names that referred to their birthplace. Thus Šižgorić added Sibenicensis to his name to show that he was from Šibenik, Dobrić Dobrićević added Ragusaeus to Boninus de Boninis as a native of Dubrovnik (Ragusa), Nikola Modruški called himself Machinensis after his native region of Maine or Maini in the Montenegrin Littoral, Matej Andreis called himself Andronicus Tragurinensis after his city of Trogir, and so on.

Occasionally local patriotism was enlarged to include a regional designation, but in its classical Latin form, derived from the provinces of the Roman Empire. Thus particularly Croatians from the Adriatic coast adopted the cognomen "Dalmata." The Humanist grammarian Šimun of Trogir made his origin doubly known by adding to his Humanistic name Aretophylus, the designation Tragurinus Dalmata. Helius Tryphon of Kotor also signed himself Trypho Dalmata. Feliks Petanočić of Dubrovnik (Felix Brutus Petancius, ca. 1455- post 1517), diplomat, historian and miniaturist at the Hungarian Court, styled himself Ragusinus Dalmata. Though Antun Vrančić (Antonius Verantius, 1504-1573) reached the pinnacles of power and glory in Hungary as Royal Chancellor and Archbishop of Esztergom, this did not keep him from adding to his lofty titles the double designation Sibenicensis Dalmata. Šižgorić also used this form after his own name on occasion. The pioneer encyclopedist Pavao Skalić was so proud of his native province, Lika, that he used the name even though this small and poor mountain region had no Latin name: the title page of his encyclopedia, printed in Basel in 1559, says "Pauli Scalichi de Like" (in addition to a couple of fictitious noble titles!).[16]

As for the rest of the Croatian hinterland, Ivan Česmički (1434-1472)—if that was his name—called himself Janus Pannonius in Latin, after the Roman province of Pannonia, whose territory came to include not only western Hungary but all of inner Croatia that was not in Dalmatia. Janus Pannonius himself identified his region of Pannonia with the later province of Slavonia, as is clear from his epigram In Sclavoniam, in which he refers to "a part of Pannonia, which is now called Slavonia" (Pars ea Pannoniae, quae nunc Scaavonia fertur).[17] The life of Janus Pannonius was bound up almost entirely with Italy, where he received his education, and with Hungary, where he served as statesman and bishop. Yet when he was caught in a plot against King Matthias Cervinus, it was to Croatia that Janus Pannonius fled for safety, and it was in Croatia (Medvedgrad, a fortress north of Zagreb) that he died and was buried (in Remete) before his body was transferred to Pecs in Hungary, where he was a bishop.

Some Croatian Humanists went beyond local or regional patriotism in seeking a name that would include all Croatians. They found this name in the Roman Illyricum, a province that once included both Dalmatia and Pannonia. Several Croatian Humanists in the period of the Renaissance adopted the cognomen Illyricus. In the case of the Franciscan theologian Thomas Illyricus (1450-1528) of Zadar his Slavic name is not known at all, though he also called himself Sclavus. Two Croatians in Protestant Germany, both from Istria and personal friends, bore the name Illyricus. The older of the two was Matija Grbac or Matthias Garbitius Illyricus (ca. 1508-1559), who taught classical Greek at Heidelberg, Wittenberg, and Tubingen, where he died. The more famous was Matija Vlačić or Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520-1575), the renowned Protestant publicist and historian, author and editor of the ency¬clopedic church history known as the Magdeburg Centuries.[18] Petar Gučetić Dragojević (1493-1564) of Dubrovnik was known as "Doctor Illyricus" as a professor of theology and philosophy in Paris and Louvain.

3.

Like European Humanists everywhere, Croatian Humanists wrote in Latin. However, it must be remembered that Latin had long been the native language of the eastern Adriatic coast since Roman times. The ancestors of the Croatians were among the first Slays to come into contact with Latin-speaking civilization. They were also the last Slays, indeed, the last Europeans, to give up Latin as an official language: Latin was the language of the Croatian Diet until October 23, 1847.[19] Especially in Dalmatia and the Ragusan Republic Latin remained the language not only of learning and of the Church but of civic affairs as well. This was true to such a degree that it is appropriate to speak of a diglossia in Croatian culture and society for many centuries.[20] The use of Latin by Croatians by no means signified a denial of one's own Croatian culture. On the contrary, in view of Venetian, Hungarian and Habsburg political domination, the Croatians' use of Latin rather than the national languages of their overlords paradoxically served to protect the Croatian national culture from Italinization, Magyarization and Germanization until a national Croatian literature developed sufficient strength.

It is true that a leading Croatian Humanist: Ilija Crijević (Aelius Lampridius Cervinus) of Dubrovnik, believed that Latin was the only language worthy of literary status and that he once mocked the Croatian tongue by calling it "Scythian" and "Illyrian screeching" (stribiligo illurica).[21] Yet it is equally true that one of the greatest Croatian Humanists, Marko Marulić (Marcus Marulus, 1450-1524) of Split, whose Latin works were known throughout Europe, was also a founder of modern Croatian literature in the popular tongue. The fact remains that, with a very few exceptions, practically all Croatian Humanists wrote largely in Latin, and when they did write in some other tongue, especially those who lived abroad, it was not in Croatian but in the language of the country in which they lived, most often in Italian.

On occasion Croatian Humanists used Latin to bring before the world works originally written in their Slavic tongue. When Marulić translated the medieval Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea (or Bar Genealogy), under the title Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta, this was certainly more a patriotic act than a contribution to historiography. As he wrote in 1510 in a letter to Dmine Papalić, who had discovered the Slavic version, "At your request I have translated into Latin the short treatise which you recently found in Krajina and which is among the oldest written documents of that people, containing the deeds of the Croatian and Dalmatian kings, a matter certainly worthy to relate and to be known not only by those who understand our vernacular tongue but also by those who know Latin."[22]

Juraj Šižgorić of Šibenik (Georgius Sisgoreus Sibenicensis, ca. 1420-1509) did not himself write in Croatian, but he was enthusiastic in his praise of folk poetry. In his little treatise De situ Illyriae et civitate Sibenici he declared that he preferred the lyrical folk poems of his people to the elegies of Tibullus and Propertius or to the poetry of Catullus and Sappho.[23] He was also the first to collect Croatian folk proverbs and to translate them into Latin, together with his Humanist friend Jakov Naplavčić, under the title Dicteria.[24] Unfortunately this work has not been preserved.

Ludvik Paschale (Ludovicus Pascalis, ca. 1500-1551), poet of Kotor, wrote in Latin and in Italian, but this did not keep him from praising the Croatian poetry of his contemporary Hanibal Lucić and from hailing his compatriot as the new Dalmatian lyre."[25]

At least one Croatian Humanist, Šimun Kožičić-Benja (Simon Begnius, ca. 1460-1536), canon in his native Zadar and bishop of Modruš, expressed his Croatian patriotism by championing not the current Croatian vernacular but its Church Slavonic form and glagolitic alphabet. Both were time-honored badge of Croatian identity in the face of a Latinizing Roman Catholicism. Though he himself wrote excellent Latin, Kožičić was the founder of the glagolitic press in Rijeka (Fiume) in 1530-31 and publisher not only of church service books but also of translations from Latin into the Croatian glagolitic redaction of Church Slavonic.[26] In his preface to Žitija rimskih arhijerejov i cesarov (Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and Caesars) Bishop Kožičić urged his compatriot and fellow-prelate Toma Niger to hurry with his own Croatian work Knjižice od hrvacke zemlje i od hvali njeje (Small Discourses on the Croatian Land and Its Praises). Niger was never to finish the work.[27]

At least two Croatian Humanists took pains to acquaint the learned world of Europe with the Croatian language, Bartol Djurdjević and Faust Vrančić.

Bartol Djurdjević (Georgievicz, Georgius, ca. 1506-post-1566), whose Latin works on the Turks were widespread throughout Europe, may also be considered the first Croatian lexicographer. His first work, published in Antwerp in 1544 under the title De afflictione tam captivorum quam etiam sub Turcae tributo viventium Christianorum (On the Affliction of Both Captives and of those Christians Living under the Turks as Tributaries); contained a brief dialogue in Croatian, with an interlinear Latin translation, giving some practical phrases for the traveller, as well as a vocabulary of everyday words dealing with the seasons, weather, terrain, agriculture, animals, clothing, and the like. To this Djurdjević added the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, and the Apostles' Creed in the Croatian vernacular (in its ikavian and štokavian form) with the interlinear Latin, as well as a section on numerals and a brief explanation of the place of Croatian among the Slavic languages.[28]

Faust Vrančić (Verantius, 1551-1617) of Šibenik and nephew of the statesman and primate of Hungary Antun Vrančić, compiled the first independently printed dictionary of the Croatian language, in Venice in 1595.[29] It was entitled Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europae linguarum (Dictionary of Five Most Noble Languages of Europe) and included Latin, Italian, German, "Dalmatian" and Hungarian. The Croatian is in the čakavian dialect but with some štokavian forms as well. Perhaps it was not only scholarly interest but national pride that prompted Vrančić to add a list which he entitled "Dalmatian words which the Hungarians have appropriated."[30]

4.

Croatian Humanist literature abounds in expressions of love for the fatherland and of pride in one's homeland and its beauties. Ilija Crijević may have mocked the Croatian tongue as a literary language, but he was the first poet to depict the charms of the eastern Adriatic coast, particularly of his native Dubrovnik and its environs. How much he loved his birthplace is evident in his Ode in Rhacusam (Ode to Dubrovnik) in which, in his invocation, he refers to his fatherland as the apple of his eye (Ocelle mi Rhacusa, ocelle mi patria).[31] In his unfinished poem De Epidauro (On Epidaurum), of which 572 hexameters have survived, he wrote of the ancient city out of whose ruins the glorious new city of Dubrovnik would arise.[32] Crijević lavished some of his loveliest Latin verses on the city's environs. In an elegy addressed to Cardinal Alexander Farnese, he vaunted the natural beauties of the nearby island of Lopud.[33] His poem to his friend Marijan Bunić, O mihi iucundos..., praises the idyllic scenery of Ombla (Rijeka Dubrovačka), where even in the fifteenth century Ragusan patrician families had their summer houses. Crijević assured his friend that whoever came there to escape the summer's heat had no need of Capri's hills, Baiae's baths or Corcyra's groves.[34]

Ivan Bona-Bolica (loannes Bona de Boticis, ca. 1520-ca. 1570) has left as his main work a poem of 331 hexameters devoted to a description of his native city Kotor, Descriptio Ascriviensis urbis. Though not a great poet, he managed to bring together in his verses not only something of the spirit of Vergil's Georgics and Aeneid but of his own love for his native region. In his invocation the poet called upon the Illyrian Muses to help him describe the towering mountains and the waters of his fatherland (Illyyrides Musae, liceat mihi munere vestro descripsisse situm patriae ...) [35]

The word "fatherland" (patria) came easily to the Croatian Humanists, whether their conception of it was broad or local. It is hard to tell for which Pribojević (Vincentius Priboevius, ca. 1450-post-1525) had more love, for his native island of Hvar, for Dalmatia, or for the Slavs as a whole. Yet he certainly felt attachment for some fatherland when he wrote to his best friend and compatriot Petar Vitaljić of Hvar, "not only for ourselves are we born, rather for the fatherland, friends, and the common weal." (Non enim nobis Solis nati sumus, sed potius patriae, amicis et communi utilitati).[36] Although Pribojević is best remembered for his pan-Slavic feelings, he was deeply imbued with pride in Dalmatia and his native Hvar. It would be difficult to find in all of Croatian literature more lavish praises of one's country and one's compatriots than in his work De origine successibusque Slavorum (On the Origin and Events of the Slavs). His Dalmatia abounds in natural beauties, rich resources, handsome and spirited people who have produced a multitude of heroes and writers, scholars, popes, martyrs, etc. And among these brave, pious and gifted Dalmatians his fellow-islanders of Hvar are particularly blessed with all virtues.

When the Ragusan poet Damjan Benešić (Damianus Benessius, 1477-1539) wrote his lament on the death of the poet Jakov Bunić (Jacobus Bonus), also of Dubrovnik, he ended with the exclamation that not only his house but, alas, his fatherland (et patria, heu!) mourned him.[37] In his encomium to the Croatian Latinist, philosopher and theologian Juraj Dragišić (Georgius Barlignus Salviatus), Benešić evidently saw the fatherland as something more than the city-republic of Dubrovnik when he wrote that Dragišić was for Illyritum what Scotus was for Britain, Jerome for Dalmatia, and Ambrose for the Gallic peoples.[38] When Ludovik Paschale of Kotor bade farewell to his friends, in a poem entitled Ad amicos, he did not forget to take leave of his Illyrian woods, mountains, and streams, and of the lace and penates of his fathers.[39] He ended with the hope that the heavenly powers would bring him back safely to the bays of his fatherland. In his poem to Klement Ranjina of Dubrovnik he urged the author to make known his writings to both sides of the Adriatic Sea so that the Italian land could also hear Illyrian voices (sentiat Illyricos Itala terra sonos).[40]

Such were the patriotic feelings of Croatians who lived and wrote in their homeland. However, this love of the native soil was just as strong among many Croatian Humanists who lived abroad for most or all of their adult lives.

Antun Vrančić (Antonius Verantius, 1504-1573) is a good example. Born in Šibenik, where he also received his early education, he was taken to Hungary as a boy by his powerful kinsman Bishop Petar Berislavić, who made him arch-deacon of Veszprem. Upon his patron's death in 1520, young Vrančić received the protection of his uncle Ivan Statilić, Bishop of Transylvania, who sent him to Padua, Vienna and Cracow to study theology and law. After that Vrančić's career was one long succession of important diplomatic and ecclesiastical posts. He died in 1573 as Emperor Maximilian's Regent in Hungary, Archbishop of Esztergom, Primate of Hungary, and a cardinal. In over half a century he was able to visit his native Šibenik only once, in 1546, on his way back from a diplomatic mission to King Francis I of France. Yet this distinguished statesman and prelate of Hungary never forgot his origin. He often added to his signature the designation "Sibenicensis Dalmata," and he maintained what ties he could with his compatriots.[41]

There are moving expressions of Vrančić's love of homeland in his letters to his countrymen. In 1544 he wrote from Alba Julia to Bishop Ivan Lucius of his native city of Šibenik, "Indeed, I desire nothing more meanwhile than to see again the most sweet soil of the fatherland, though it be rocky and poor ..." (Etenim nihil certe in-terdum aeque desidero, ac patriae suavissimum solum, esto, quod petricosum ac tenue sit, revisere,...)[42] Six years later he wrote an even more fervently homesick letter, from Vienna, to the renowned Croatian Humanist Fran Trankvil Andreis (Andronicus Tranquillus Parthenius, 1490-1571), who had retired to his native Trogir after an eminent career as diplomat, poet, orator and historian. Vrančić, then secretary to Emperor Ferdinand I, wrote to Andreis how much he envied the older man's life of peace and quiet back in the fatherland. In this vein he exclaimed, "Do not give up Dalmatia for the whole world, nor Trogir for whatever more thriving city. Woe is me that I came to realize too late the sweetness and peace of my fatherland." (Nec des Dalmatian pro toto mundo, Tragurium pro urbe quamvir felicissima! Miserum me, quod sero intellexi patriae suavitatem et quietem).[43]

A very unusual expression of Vrančić's Croatian consciousness was his diplomatic message of 1559 to Ottoman district governor (sancakbeyi) Hasan Bey, himself a Croatian by origin. Vrančić reminded his Ottoman neighbor of their common Croatian nationality (nostrae nationis Croatae) and then appealed to him on behalf of some peasants "for the sake of our neighborliness and Our common Croatian origin so dear to both of us ..."[44]

A high official and churchman of the Hungarian realm, Vrančić took special pride in other similarly placed Croatian dignitaries. He wrote biographies of two of them: Juraj Utješenović or Utišenić (1482-1551), governor of Transylvania, statesman and cardinal; and Petar Berislavić (ca. 1450-1520), Ban of Croatia, bishop, and patron of several Croatian Humanists.[45] In the former's biography, for example, Vrančić makes clear that Georgius Utissenius was born in Croatia and "of that nation's ancient stock." In writing of his subject's birthplace, Vrančić went into loving detail in his description of the countryside, even translating into Latin the place name Kamičak, literally pebble (quod Croata lingua lapillum notat) [46]

There is something especially touching about a tie which Vrančić maintained with his Croatian mother tongue—a prayer that he spoke every day of his life. Vrančić's collected works, which consist of twelve published volumes, contain nothing in Croatian. Yet to the end of his days, as Regent of Hungary and Archbishop of Esztergom, Vrančić recited his little Croatian prayer. It was published in Rome, in 1627, under the title Molitva koju složi i govori svaki dan (A Prayer Which He Composed and Recited Daily)[47]

Perhaps no Croatian Humanist was farther removed from his homeland than Matija Vlačić (Matthias Flacius Illyricus, 1520-1575) of Istria, not just geographically but spiritually. A convert to Protestantism, he spent most of his life in Germany, as a university professor of Hebrew and theology and as a champion of the Reformation. His religion cut him off (from his Roman Catholic fatherland forever. Yet Vlačić not only asserted his origin by adopting the cognomen of Illyricus; there is evidence that he planned the founding of a college in Regensburg and Klagenfurt for Slays and especially for Croatians and Slovenes[48] An accomplished Latinist, he also participated in the printing of Protestant literature in Croatian and Slovenian and himself wrote several brochures in Croatian.[49] Moreover, there are several sections of the Magdeburg Centuries, the encyclopedic church history which he edited, that refer to the history of the South Slavs and which might never have been there had it not been for Vlačić's interest and knowledge as a Croatian and as a Slav.[50]

To give a few final examples of Croatian Humanists' ties with their homeland, when Faust Vrančić died in Venice, in 1617, his body was brought back home and buried in the parish church in Prvić, the island just opposite his native Šibenik.[51] The Venetian pioneer printer, writer and diplomat Boninus de Boninis (1454-1528), actually Dobrić Dobrićević of the island of Lastovo, maintained ties with his homeland to the end of his days as dean of the cathedral in Treviso. There is a painting of the Madonna by Bissola with a votive inscription and portrait of himself as the donor which Dobrićević donated to a church in Lastovo in 1516.[52]

5.

Nowhere did Croatian Humanists express their patriotism more vociferously than in their many appeals to the conscience ,of Europe for help to the Croatians against the Ottoman invasion[53] They thereby contributed significantly to that whole body of Renaissance literature on the Turkish peril. Only whereas Italians, Germans, and other 'Europeans saw this peril from a distance and portrayed it in the familiar 'frame of the encounter between Christendom and Islam, the Croatians were already physically engaged in that encounter and felt the very existence of their nation to be at stake. Dinko Zavorović (Zavoreous) reflected this immediacy of the Ottoman onslaught for Croatians when he ended his history of Dalmatia, De rebus Dalmaticis, written in 1602, with the observation, after stopping at the year 1437, "From that time on only misfortune befell our land, so that we cannot record anything for posterity since then but the looting of cities, the burning of towns, the pillaging of villages, and constant Turkish attacks on us, so that the misfortunes along our border can be measured not in days but in so many hours of march."[54] Several Croatian Humanists experienced the Ottoman invasion in a very personal way. Juraj Dragišić (Georgius Benignus Argentinensis Salviatus, ca. 1450-1520) was forced to flee to Dubrovnik as a child from his native Bosnia in 1463 when the Turks invaded.[55] Ludovik Paschale (Ludovicus Pascali's) of Kotor had been captured by Moorish pirates and sold as a slave in North Africa.[56] Djurdjević was taken prisoner by the Turks at the battle of Mohacs in 1526, when he was twenty years old, and spent nine years as a slave, mostly in Asia Minor.[57]

For over a century Croatian Humanists assumed the task of persuading the potentates of European Christendom to come to the aid of the embattled Croatian people. Their appeals to various popes, emperors and councils are not only highly literate examples of neoclassical Latin rhetoric but moving testimonials to their patriotism. Their theme was always the same: the Croatian people were a wall between the Ottoman might and Western Christendom, and if Catholic Europe allowed that rampart to crumble, it too would be inundated. Indeed, it was in response to an appeal by Tomo Niger that Pope Leo X used that very metaphor of a wall when he referred to Croatia as the antemurale Christianitatis (bulwark of Christendom), a phrase that was to become famous in Croatian history.[58]

Two of the most energetic of these appeals came from Bishop Kožičić-Benja (Simon Begnius), who had been driven from his see of Modruš by the invading Turks. He delivered the first appeal in 1513 before the sixth session of the Lateran Council, and the other in 1516 before Pope Leo X.[59] The title given to the latter—De Corvatiae desolatione (On the Desolation of Croatia)—amply describes the Croatian bishop's principal theme, the abandonment of Croatia by the West to the afflictions of the Ottoman invasion. Though he was respectful, Bishop Kožičić minced no words in chiding the Pope for his inaction. What good does it do, for God's sake, he demanded, to collect gold and silver with insatiable lust just to watch over it and build marble palaces in Rome when Turks were looting churches in Croatia? Describing how he him-self had paid ransom to Turks to deliver Croatian captives at Mod-rug, Kožičić urged that the Papacy's money might better be used to ransom Christian prisoners. He called on the Pope to take up the sword and to lead the rulers of Christendom against the infidel. As a Croatian he promised that they would not regret saving a people which was so brave and experienced in fighting the Turks. The Humanist bishop ended with a threat: If the Croatians continued to be abandoned, desperation might force them to join the Turks and to fight other Christians as unwilling allies. And if this should occur, Kožičić stated to the Pope, let whoever is to blame remember that Kožičić had told him so (reminiscamini quia ego dixi vobis) [60]

Fran Trankvil Andreis (Tranquillus Andronicus Parthenius) of Trogir, who was schooled in Dubrovnik and in Italy, Vienna, Ingolstadt and Leipzig, addressed the Emperor Maximilian and the German Imperial Diet at Augsburg in 1518, when he was but twenty-eight years old. He came there as the "orator" or envoy of his compatriot Bishop Petar Berislavić, Ban of Croatia, to report on the plight of Croatia.[61] His address was published that same year. In 1518 he also published, in Leipzig, a Latin work entitled Ad Deum contra Thurcas oratio carmine heroico (A Prayer to God against the Turks; a Heroic Poem).[62] Later, in 1545 while in Poland, he returned to the Turkish peril again in his work Ad optimates Polonos admonitio (Admonition to the Polish Nobles).[63] As an old man, in 1566, Andreis addressed a lengthy epistle to Pope Pius V in which he stressed the catastrophic consequences of the Ottoman conquest and of the failures of the ecclesiastical and political rulers of Europe to come to the aid of the Croatians. His criticism of church leaders was so sharp that this work was brought to the attention of the Inquisition, though only after his death in 1571.[64]

Marulić's letter of 1522 to Pope Adrian VI is a particularly fine example of Croatian Humanist literature. In it the Humanist from Split described the tribulation which the Turks were visiting upon the Croatians—the slaughter, looting, burning, destruction of fields, and enslavement. Marulić begged the Pope to reconcile the Christian rulers of Europe and to join them in a crusade against the Turks. "You could do nothing at this time which would be more helpful to your Church", he ended, "nothing that would bring more praise to you, nothing that would please God more ..."[65]

No Croatian Humanist was as widely read throughout all of Europe in his day as Bartell Djurdjević (Georgius).[66] After escaping from years of slavery as a Turkish captive, he devoted his life to publishing works about the Turks. Written in Latin, these popular works were translated into Italian, French, German, English, Dutch, Polish and Czech. What lent his works such interest was the wealth of his firsthand observations on the life and customs of the Turks. Far from denigrating the Turks, whom he had cause to hate, Djurdjević in fact extolled their virtues to show the reason for their strength and to impress upon Europeans how formidable was their threat. Behind all these works was his hope that European Christendom would be sufficiently aroused by the Turkish threat to come to the aid of his suffering nation. This is why he dedicated his various works to potentates such as Emperor Charles V, King Sigismund of Poland, and Pope Julius II.[67]

It was not only in their prose works that Croatian Humanists deplored the fate of the Croatian nation at Ottoman hands. Šižgorić (Sisgoreus) devoted several of his poems to his personal reactions to the Ottoman invasion. Printed in 1477 in Venice, under the title Elegiarum et carminum libri III (Three Books of Elegies and Lyric Poems), these were the first Latin poems by any Croat to be printed.[68] In an elegy on the death of his two brothers, the author told how the older brother died fighting for his country (pro patria pugnans) [69] Šižgorić again lamented not only over his brother's death but over the fate of his homeland, in his poem Elegia de Sibenicensis agri vastatione (Elegy on the Devastation of the Plain of Šibenik).[70] In verses studded with classical allusions, the poet bemoaned the destruction which the Turks had brought to the lands of the Greeks and now to his own fatherland. He closes with the declaration that be would put aside Apollo's lyre for Mars' sword and shield, and he vowed that he would sacrifice his life for his holy faith and dear fatherland (pro te, sacra fides, et, dulcis patria, pro te ...).[71]

Such expressions were not mere rhetoric. More than one Croatian Humanist quite literally took up the sword against the Otto-man invader. One of Šižgorić s fellow-citizens and fellow-poets Juraj Divnić (Georgius Diphnycus Sibenicensis, ca. 1450-1530) was bishop of Nin during the worst Ottoman attacks and himself took part in the defense of his city.[72] His report of September 27, 1493, to Pope Alexander VI on the battle of Krbava Field less than three weeks after the event is a precious source for the history of this crushing defeat of the Croatians at the hands of the Turks.[73] Koriolan Ćipiko (Coriolanus Cepio, 1425-1493) of Trogir was a naval commander in Venice's expedition against the Turks from 1470 to 1474, and his popular description of the Venetian military leader statesman Pietro Mocenigo is, in fact, a history of that campaign. Published in 1477 in Venice, this is among the first printed books by any South Slavic writer after the invention of the printing press.[74] Similarly the account of the battle of Mohacs in 1526 by the Croatian Humanist and State Chancellor of Hungary Stjepan Brodarić (Stephanus Brodericus, ca. 1480-1539) is the testimony of a participant and a rare survivor.[75] As previously pointed out, Bartol Djurdjević was taken prisoner at the same battle. Bishop Tomo Niger opposed not only the Turks but the Venetians. Just after returning from the Lateran Council in Rome in 1512 he was arrested in Split for taking part in a popular revolt against Venetian rule and spent over a year in a Venetian prison. After his see of Skradin fell to the Turks, he devoted his efforts to preparing the defenses of the fortress of Klis, a vital strategic point just north of Split. He was with Petar Kružić, Captain of Senj, in 1524 when their reinforcements beat back the Ottoman troops after a two-month siege[76]. Humanists such as these fought with both pen and sword for their land.

6.

The Croatian Humanists were undoubtedly a part of the spirit of cosmopolitanism which marked the Age of Humanism in all Europe. Many were cosmopolites not only by inclination but necessity inasmuch as they pursued career away from their native land.

Yet Croatian Humanists were patriots as well, though certainly not in a modern sense. It would be anachronistic to identify Croatian patriotism in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the political integral nationalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The very term "Croatia" did not mean then what it came to mean later. The patriotic sentiments of the Croatian Humanists only rarely embraced all Croatians but were most often reserved for one's native city or island or, on a broader plane, for one's province. In this respect the Croatian Humanists were not so different from Italian Humanists. Some Croatian Humanists took pride in belonging to the Slavs as a whole. Yet some of them left testimony of their attachment to the Croatian people, and many of them recognized and proclaimed their ethnic origin to the world.

It may be argued that by its cosmopolitan nature Humanism retarded the development of a national Croatian culture and spirit. Such a thesis would regard the Latinity of Croatian Humanist literature as antithetical to the rising national literature in the vernacular tongue. Yet it cannot be said that Humanist literature retarded the development of a vernacular literature. There was no dearth of talented men in both damps. Moreover, no one can show that Croatian vernacular literature of the sixteenth century was any more patricide or nationalistic than Croatian neolatin literature of the same period.

Croatian Humanism represented a considerable advance in the development of Croatian culture. The distinguished literary historian Mihovil Kombol has called Humanism the second great link, after Catholicism, between the Croatian people and Western culture.[77] As he has suggested, Humanism was a school for Croatian men of letters.[78]78 In this school they learned a formal literary discipline, esthetics, correct use of language, composition, style, all of which they used in turn to give shape to a developing vernacular literature. Humanism also served to unite Croatian intellectuals from various regions of a politically partitioned Croatia. At a, time when a standard Croatian language did not exist, Latin served a paradoxically national function in that it was supra-regional and kept the Croatians from adopting the literary languages of their more powerful neighbors and political overlords, the Italians and the Magyars. This is precisely why the Croatians insisted on using Latin as a parliamentary language until the very middle of the nineteenth century, since the use of Latin put them on an equal footing with the Hungarian part of their formally joint kingdom. Finally, though cosmopolitan in form, Croatian Humanism reflected a certain individuality in its content and feeling that was rooted in its own native soil and which developed in the special conditions of Croatian historical cultural development.

Finally, though we have made this point elsewhere in some detail, let us observe that Croatian Humanist writers of history gave their people a heightened sense of their own past as a nation.[79] The dean of modern Croatian historians Ferdo Šišić has suggested that the real starting point of a modern Croatian national historiography was the rediscovery of the Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea (Ljetopis Popa Dukljanina) or the Bar Genealogy, and its creative translation into Latin in 1510 by Marko Marulić.[80] It may also be said that the culmination of Croatian Humanist historiography was the first major and truly all-Croatian history in modern times, De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae libri sex (Six Books on the Realm of Dalmatia and Croatia), by Ivan Lucius (1604-1679) of Trogir. It was published in Amsterdam in 1666. During the century and a half between Marulić's translation of the Bar Genealogy and Lucius' magnum opus, it was the Croatian Humanists who wrote histories of their own city or region. While these histories were often sparse and unscholarly by modern standards, they did give Croatians a better knowledge of themselves as a people and, at a time of political dismemberment and foreign domination, an appreciation for their own dignity as a historical entity.[81]

 



[1] For a detailed survey of Croatian Humanists see the relevant sections of the article "Humanizam kod Južnih Slavena" by Kruno Krstić in Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, IV (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1960), pp. 287-300.

[2] Denis Hay. "Intellectual Tendencies; 1. Literature: The Printed Book," in The New Cambridge Modern History. II. The Reformation, 1520-59, edited by G.R. Elton (Cambridge University Press, 1958), p. 368.

[3] Viktor Novak, "The Slavonic-Latin Symbiosis", The Slavonic and East European Review, XXXII (December, 1953), 1-28. Grga Novak, Prošlost Dalmacije I, Od najstarijih vremena do Kandijskoga rata (Zagreb, 1944), Ch. VIII. "Pohrvaćivanje dalmatinskih romanskih gradova", pp. 175-180.

[4] See, e.g., Francis Dvornik, Byzantine Missions among the Slavs (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1970), p. 31, 33-34, and passim; Konstantin Jireček, Istorija Srba, I (Belgrade, 1922), pp. 125-6; Matthew Spinka. A History of Christianity in the Balkans (Chicago: The American Society of Church History, 1933), p. 23, 73-76; Djoko Slijepčević, Istorija Srpske Pravoslavne Crkve, I (Munich: Iskra, 1962), p. 34, 51-2.

[5] For a discussion of the use of the Glagolitic, Cyrillic and Latin alphabets by the Croatians in medieval times, see Slavko Ježić, Hrvatska književnost od početka do danas 1100-1941 (Zagreb: Naklada A. Velzek, 1944), "5. Hrvatska pismenost u srednjem vieku", pp. 20-32. On the use of the Cyrillic alphabet by some Croatians see Mihovil Kombol, Povijest hrvatske književnostil do narodnog preporoda, 2nd ed. (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska. 1961), pp. 22-23. Kombol points out that the special form of Cyrillic used in Bosnia has been called bosančica or bosansko-hrvatska ćirilica. For a dissenting opinion on the use of such terms see Petar Kolendić, "'Bosančića', 'bosansko-hrvatska ćirilica' i Dubrovčani", in a collection of his essays Iz staroga Dubrovnika (Belgrade: Srpska Književna Zadruga, 1964), pp. 70-74.

[6] Krstić, op. cit., p. 288; also Marko Šunjić, Dalmacija a XV stoljeću (Sarajevo: Svjetlost. 1967), pp. 265-266.

[7] Josip Torbarina, Italian Influence on the Poets of the Ragusan Republic (London: Williams & Norgate, 1931), p. 19 and passim.

[8] Krstić, op. cit., pp. 287-303 passim.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., p. 288. On the effects of Venetian rule on Dalmatian autonomy and society see Grga Novak, op cit., especially pp. 184-185. See also Šunjić, op. cit., especially Ch. V on the organization of Venetian rule in Dalmatia in the 15th century, and Ch. VIII on society and culture, particularly p. 259.

[11] Grga Novak, op. cit., Part IV. Dalmacija pod Venecijom, Ch. II, Turci u Dalmaciji, Ch. III. Dalmacija i mletačko-turski ratovi u XVI. v., pp. 187-195.

[12] Harry Elmer Barnes, A History of Historical Writing (New York: Dover, 1962), pp. 114; Eduard Fueter, Geschichte der neueren Historiographie (Munich and Berlin: Oldenbourg, 1911), p. 243.

[13] Veljko Gortan and Vladimir Vratović, "'Temeljne značajke hrvatskog latinizma:' Hrvatski latinisti; Croatici auctores qui latine scripserunt, I lz latiniteta 9-14. stoljeća, pisci 15. i 16. stoljeća; ex monumentis latinis saec. IX-XIV, auctores saec. XV et XVI (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1969), p. 13.

[14] Rado L. Lenček, "Humanism in the Slovene Lands", a paper delivered on October 15, 1977, at a session of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, in Washington, D.C. We are especially grateful for the "Bio- and Bibliographic Survey" which accompanied the paper.

[15] Wherever possible we have accepted as the best standard source for the Croatian and Latin names of Croatian Humanists the indispensible bibliographies published by the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, both the work of Professor Šime Jurić and his collaborators: Iugoslaviae scriptores latini recentiorit aetatis Pars I. Opera scriptorum latinorum natione croatarum usque ad annum MDCCCXVIII typis edita, Tomus I. Index alphabeticus [in 3 volumes] (Zagreb, 1968); Tomus II. Index systematicus (Zagreb, 1971).

[16] For a photograph of the title page of Skalić´s encyclopedia see "Enciklopedije kod južnih slavena", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, III (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1958), p. 239.

[17] Veljko Gortan, "Janus Pannonius," Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, IV (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1960), p. 461. The Hungarian scholar Antal Pirnat has observed that Hungarians, Croatians, and even Germans have claimed Janus Pannonius for their compatriot. ("Die lateinische Literatur des Humanismus in Ungarn," in Acta conventus neolatini Lovaniensis [Proceedings of the First International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies, Louvain, 23-28 August 1971], edited by J. I. Jsewijn and E. Kessler, Leuven University Press, 1973, p. 481). There is, of course, no doubt as to Janus Pannonius' importance in Hungarian history and cultural development. However, as to his ethnic origin, he was educated, as a Slav. The illustrious Italian Humanist Enea Sylvio Piccolomini: who later became Pope Pius II, spoke of both Janus Pannonius and his uncle Ivan Vitez of Srednje, who began as a canon in Zagreb and died as Primate of Hungary, as being of Slavic origin ("originem Slavonicam ferunt"). Panonius' Italian friend and biographer, the famous Florentine bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci, wrote in his Vita de uomini illustri that Pannonius was "of the Slavic nation" (di nazione Schiavo). The 16th-century Croatian Humanist historian Ludovicus Cerva Tubero referred to him in his Commentaries as being of Slavic birth (genre itidem Slavum). On this evidence, presented by Gortan in the article cited above, by Kombol, op. cit., p. 64, as well as in his essay "O Marku Maruliću", in vol. 86 of Pet stoljeća hrvatske književnosti (Zagreb: Zora, Matica Hrvatska, 1971), pp. 155-156, and by S. Krešić in his paper "Croatian Neo-Latinists; Developments in History and Research," pp. 351-352 of the same volume in which Pirnat's paper appeared, we conclude that it is his Croatian homeland which Janus Pannonius praises in his epigram Laus Pannoniae when he calls it his fatherland (nobilis ingenio Patria facta meo). The epigram is printed in Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 221.

[18] The most comprehensive study on Matthias Flacius Illyricus, particularly from the standpoint of his Croatian origins and ties, is the monograph by Mijo Mirković. Matija Vlačić Ilirik (Zagreb: Jugoslavenska Akademija Znanosti i Umjetnosti. Djela. Knjiga 50. 1960). This work also contains material about Matthias Garbitius Illyricus or Grbac.

[19] Ježić. op. cit., p. 216. The motion to supplant Latin with Croatian was made by deputy Ivan Kukuljević.

[20] Gortan and Vratović, "Temeljne značajke hrvatskog latinizma", Hrvatski latinisti, I. p. 7.

[21] Vladimir Vratović "Ilija Crijević; Aelius Lampridius Cervinus (1463-1520)," Hrvatski latinasti, L p. 373.

[22] Ferdo Šišić, ed. Letopis Popa Dukljanina (Srpska Kraljevska Akademija, Posena izdanja, knjiga LXVII, Filosofski i filološki spisi, knjiga 18, Belgrade-Zagreb, 1928), Part II. Hrvatska redakcija Marulićevim latinskim prevodom, p. 382.

[23] "De situ Illyriae et civitate Sibenici", in Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 147.

[24] Maria Franičević, "Šižgorić, Juraj", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije. VIII (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1971). p. 251; Kombol, Povijest brvatske književnosti do preporoda, p. 66.

[25] Kombol, ibid., p. 74.

[26] Veljko Gortan, "Šimun Kožičić-Benja, Simon Begnius (oko 1460-1536)". Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 505. See particularly the study by Petar Kolendić, Zadranin Simun Kožičić i njegova štamparija na Rijeci, (Split: Hrvatska Štampariia S. Vidović. 1935; reprint from Magazin Sjeverne Dalmacije. 1935), 95-107.

[27] Miroslav Kurelac, "Niger. Toma", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, VI (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1965), p. 286; Kolendić, op. cit., p. 104.

[28] De afflictione tam captivorum quam etiam sub Turcae tributo viventium Christianorum, cum figuris res clare exprementibus: additis nonnullis vocabalis, Dominica oratione, Angelica salutatione, Symbolo Apostolorum lingue Sclavonicae, cum interpretation Latina, libellus. Autore Bartholomaeo Georgii Hongaro, peregrino Hierosolymitano (etc.). (Anverp. typis Copenni, An. 1544). The pages are not numbered.

[29] Mirko Breyer O starim i rijetkim jugoslavenskim knjigama (Zagreb: Izdavački Zavod Jugoslavenske Akademije Znanosti i Umjetnosti, 1952), pp. 20-21.

[30] That section is entitled in Latin Vocabula dalmatica quae Ungri sibi usurparunt.

[31] In Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 385.

[32] Hrvatski latinisti, I, pp. 448-453.

[33] "Alexandro Pharnessio Cardinali, suo principi," Hrvatski latinisti, pp. 424-427.

[34] "O mihi iucundos... " Hrvatski latinisti, I, pp. 408-411.

[35] "Descriptio Ascrivensis urbis", Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 671, lines 3-4.

[36] "Frater Vincentius Priboeuius Pharis Dalmata Sacre Theologiae professor ordinis preadicatorum Petro Vitaleo patritio Pharensi trierarco amicorum optimo", in Vinko Pribojević, O podrijetlu i zgodama Slavena; De origine successibusque Slavorum (Zagreb: Jugoslavenska Akademija Znanosti i Umjetnosti, 1951), p. 55.

[37] "Epicedion in morte Jacobi Boni", in Hrvatski latinisti, I. p. 537, line 40.

[38] "Ad Georgium Benignum Salviatum", Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 541, lines 1-6.

[39] "Ad amicos", Hrvatski latinisti, I. p. 591, lines 12-16.

[40] "F. Clementi de Ragnina", Hrvatski latinisti, I, line 14.

[41] Vladimir Vratović, "Antun Vrančić, Antonius Verantius (1504-1573): in Hrvatski latinisti, I. p. 601.

[42] Laszlo Szalay, ed., Verancsics Antal Osszes munkai, Vol. VI (Pest: Monumenta Hungariae Historica; Magyar tortenelmi emlekek, 1860), "LXXX. Antonius Wrancius Joanni Lucio S.", p. 176.

[43] The complete letter is contained in Vrančić s collected works, edited by the Hungarian scholar Szalay Laszlo [i.e., Laszlo Szalay], Verancsics Antal Osszes munkai, Vol. VII (Pest: Monumenta Hungariae Historica; Magyar tortenelmi emlekek, 1865), "XXVIII. Antonius Wrancius Tranquillo Andronico S.", pp. 50-51. (See also the excerpt in Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 627).

[44] Ibid., Vol. VIII, "XXV.I. Ad Hassan begun Zangziacchum Hatvanensem", pp. 77-78. See also the excerpt in Hrvatski latinisti, I, pp. 637-639. There is a Latin excerpt and English translation in the BC Review [British-Croatian Review], IV, No. 13 (October, 1977), p. 12. The translator's name is not given.

[45] Laszlo Szalay, ed., Verancsics Antal Osszes munkai Vol. I (Pest: Monumenta Hungariae Historica, Magyar tortenelmi emlekek, 1857), "III. Antonius Wrancius de Georgii Utissenii, Fratris appellati, vita et rebus commentarius," pp. 16 34; Vol. IL "II. Vita Petri Berislavi Bosnensis, Episcopi Vesprimensis, Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Slavoniae, Bosnaeque Bani, etc.", pp. 217-281. The latter has been plagiarized by Ivan Tomko Mrnavić (Marnavich), 1580-1637.

[46] Ibid. Vol. I, p. 24.

[47] Kombol, Povijest, p. 78. Kombol states that Vrančić s prayer was published by Ivan Tomko Mrnavić in his Nauk kršćanski. On p. 224 he explains that this work of Mrnavić's, the full title of which is Istumačenje obilnije nauka krstjanskoga, was published in Rome in 1627, both separately and as a supplement to his poem Potuzenje pokornika radi smrti Isusove k narodu čovičanskomu. The former work was a Croatian translation of Cardinal Bellarmine's Catechism. Could Vrančić s Croatian prayer be another of Mrnavić's notorious fabrications?

[48] Mirković, Matija Vlačić Ilirik, Ch. XV. "Pokušaj osnivanja sveučilišta za jugoslavene", pp. 456-477.

[49] lbid., Ch. XIV. "Pojam domovine i odnosi prema njoj", pp. 438-455.

[50] Ibid., especially pp. 320-322.

[51] Miroslav Kurelac, "Vrančić, Faust", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, VIII (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1971), p. 535.

[52] Kruno ,Krsuić, "Dobrićević, Dobrić"; Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, III (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1958), p. 24.

[53] Kombol, Povijest, p. 75, lists some of these appeals.

[54] Ibid., p. 78.

[55] Ibid., p. 75; also Kruno Krstić, "Dragišić, Juraj," Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, III (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod 1958), p. 68.

[56] Vladimir Vratović, "Ludovik Paskalić; Ludovicus Pascalis (oko 1500-1551);" in Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 571.

[57] Kruno Krstić, "Djurdjević, Bartol." Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, IV (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1960), p. 299.

[58] Miroslav Kurelac. "Niger, Toma", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, VI (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1965), p. 286.

[59] "De Corvatiae desolatione", in Hrvatski latinisti, I, pp. 509-513.

[60] Ibid., p. 513.

[61] Kombol, Povijest, p. 77.

[62] Kruno Krstić, "Andreis, Trankvil", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, I (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1955), p. 101.

[63] Ibid.

[64] Ibid., p. 102.

[65] "Epistola ad Adrianum VI. Pont. Max.", in Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 313. See also the Latin excerpt and English translation in the BC (British-Croatian) Review, IV, No. 13 (October 1977). 10-12. The name of the translator is not cited.

[66] In his Italian work on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Specchio della peregrinatione delli piu notabili luoghi della Terra Santa (Rome, 1554), Djurdjević, refers to himself as "B. Georgieuicz di Croatia". See Miroslav Kurelac, "Djurdjević. Bartol", Jugoslavenska Enciklopedija, III (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1958), p. 209.

[67] Kurelac, ibid.

[68] Kombol, Povijest, p. 65

[69] "Elegia de duorum obitu fratrum", Hrvatski latinisti, I, p. 125, line 50.

[70] Ibid., pp. 139-143.

[71] Ibid., p. 143, line 95.

[72] "Divnić, Juraj" Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, III, p. 18.

[73] Ibid.

[74] Kruno Kruk, " Čipiko, Koriolan," Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, II (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1956), p. 381.

[75] Pirnat, op. cit., p. 485; Kruno Krstić, "Brodarić, Stjepan", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, II_ pp. 228-229.

[76] Miroslav Kurelac, "Niger, Toma", Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, VI (Zagreb: Leksikografski Zavod, 1965), p. 286

[77] Kombol, Povijest, p. 79.

[78] Ibid., p. 57.

[79] Michael B. Petrovich, "Croatian Humanists and the Writing of History in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries," Slavic Review, 37 (December, 1978), 624-639.

[80] Ferdo Šišić "Hrvatska historiografija od XVI do XX stoljeća", Jugoslovenski Istorijski časopis, I-II (1935, 25.

[81] Michael B. Petrovich, "Dalmatian Historiography in the Age of Humanism". Medievalia et Humanistica, XII (1958), 103.