Marko Marulic
Encyclopedia
Marko Marulić was a Croatian
national poet and Christian
humanist
, known as the Crown of the Croatian Medieval Age and the father of the Croatian Renaissance. He signed his works as Marko Marulić Splićanin ("Marko Marulić of Split"), Marko Pečenić, Marcus Marulus (or de Marulis) Spalatensis, or Dalmata
. He was also the first who defined and used the notion of psychology
, which is today in current use.
Marulić was a nobleman born in Split
, Dalmatia
, coming from the distinguished aristocratic family of Pečenić (Pecinić, Picinić), who in the 15th century began calling themselves Marulus or De Marulis.
Very little is actually known about his life, and the few facts that have survived to this day are fairly unreliable. It is certain that he attended a school run by a humanist scholar Tideo Acciarini in his hometown. Having completed it, he is then speculated to have graduated law at the Padua
University
, after which he spent much of his life in his home town. Occasionally he visited Venice
(to trade) and to Rome
(to celebrate the year 1500).
He lived for about two years in Nečujam on the island of Šolta
. In Split, Marulić practised law, serving as a judge
, examinator of notarial entries and executor of wills. Owing to his work, he became the most distinguished person of the humanist circle in Split.
, Antique writers and Christian hagiographies. He wrote in three languages: Latin (more than 80% of his preserved opus), Croatian
and Vulgar Italian
(three letters and two sonnet
s are preserved). Marulić was active in the struggles against the Ottoman Turks who were invading the Croatian lands at that time. He wrote, among other works, an Epistola to the Pope
where he begged for assistance in the fight against the Ottomans.
His Europe
an fame rested mainly on his works written in Latin which had been published and re-published during 16th and 17th century and translated into many languages. He published Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae containing the earliest known literary reference to psychology
. He wrote De institutione bene vivendi per exempla sanctorum, a moralist tractate of Biblical inspiration which he managed to publish in 1506 in Venice
; this work influenced St Francis Xavier, and it was claimed by one of Francis' associates in 1549 to be the only book that he read during his missionary work. Marulić also wrote the Evanglistarium, a systematic discourse on ethical principles that he managed to publish in 1516 and in 1517 - The Davidiad a religious epic which fused Biblical motifs and Antique, Virgilian poetics in 14 verse
s, the most important being the story on the life of the Bilbical King David. Unfortunately, the Davidiad was discovered only in 1924, only to be lost again and rediscovered finally in 1952. However, Marulić's Latin works of devotional and religious provenance, once adored and envied across Europe, shared the destiny that befell the Humanist genre of those centuries: they vanished into oblivion.
In the works written in Croatian, Marulić achieved a permanent status and position that has remained uncontested. His central Croatian oeuvre, the epic poem Judita
written in 1501 and published in Venice in 1521, is based on the Biblical tale from a Deuterocanonical Book of Judith, written in Čakavian dialect - his mother tongue and described by him as u versi haruacchi slozhena ("arranged in Croatian stanzas"). His other works in Croatian are:
His works are neither aesthetically nor stylistically superior to the works of his Dubrovnikan predecessors. Three puzzling facts tend to raise questions:
Marulić's national eminence is due to a happy confluence of some other facts: no one among his contemporaries or predecessors had achieved fame during his lifetime. Further, his deeply patriotic and Catholic verses had assimilated the frequently superficial and imitative poetry of his southern compatriots and transformed it into an epitome of Croatian national destiny. His Judith representing the Croat people defending against the Ottoman Empire
invasion – Marulić remained the ineradicable centre of Renaissance
Croatian patriotism – of Croathood itself. That is why his stature as the father of Croatian literature
is secure and unshakeable.
Marulić's portrait is depicted on the obverse
of the Croatian 500 kuna
banknote, issued in 1993.
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
national poet and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
humanist
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, known as the Crown of the Croatian Medieval Age and the father of the Croatian Renaissance. He signed his works as Marko Marulić Splićanin ("Marko Marulić of Split"), Marko Pečenić, Marcus Marulus (or de Marulis) Spalatensis, or Dalmata
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
. He was also the first who defined and used the notion of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, which is today in current use.
Biography
Split (city)
Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...
, Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
, coming from the distinguished aristocratic family of Pečenić (Pecinić, Picinić), who in the 15th century began calling themselves Marulus or De Marulis.
Very little is actually known about his life, and the few facts that have survived to this day are fairly unreliable. It is certain that he attended a school run by a humanist scholar Tideo Acciarini in his hometown. Having completed it, he is then speculated to have graduated law at the Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
University
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, after which he spent much of his life in his home town. Occasionally he visited Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
(to trade) and to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
(to celebrate the year 1500).
He lived for about two years in Nečujam on the island of Šolta
Šolta
Šolta is an island in Croatia. It is situated in the Adriatic Sea in the central Dalmatian archipelago, west of the island of Brač, south of Split and east of the Drvenik islands . Its area is 58.98 km2 and it has a population of 1,675 .The highest peak of Šolta is the summit Vela Straža...
. In Split, Marulić practised law, serving as a judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
, examinator of notarial entries and executor of wills. Owing to his work, he became the most distinguished person of the humanist circle in Split.
Writing
The central figure of the humanist circle in Split, Marulić was inspired by the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, Antique writers and Christian hagiographies. He wrote in three languages: Latin (more than 80% of his preserved opus), Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
and Vulgar Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
(three letters and two sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
s are preserved). Marulić was active in the struggles against the Ottoman Turks who were invading the Croatian lands at that time. He wrote, among other works, an Epistola to the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
where he begged for assistance in the fight against the Ottomans.
Latin works
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an fame rested mainly on his works written in Latin which had been published and re-published during 16th and 17th century and translated into many languages. He published Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae containing the earliest known literary reference to psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
. He wrote De institutione bene vivendi per exempla sanctorum, a moralist tractate of Biblical inspiration which he managed to publish in 1506 in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
; this work influenced St Francis Xavier, and it was claimed by one of Francis' associates in 1549 to be the only book that he read during his missionary work. Marulić also wrote the Evanglistarium, a systematic discourse on ethical principles that he managed to publish in 1516 and in 1517 - The Davidiad a religious epic which fused Biblical motifs and Antique, Virgilian poetics in 14 verse
Verse (poetry)
A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
s, the most important being the story on the life of the Bilbical King David. Unfortunately, the Davidiad was discovered only in 1924, only to be lost again and rediscovered finally in 1952. However, Marulić's Latin works of devotional and religious provenance, once adored and envied across Europe, shared the destiny that befell the Humanist genre of those centuries: they vanished into oblivion.
Croatian works
Judita
Judita is one of the most important Croatian literary works, an epic poem written by the "father of Croatian literature" Marko Marulić in 1501.-Editions:...
written in 1501 and published in Venice in 1521, is based on the Biblical tale from a Deuterocanonical Book of Judith, written in Čakavian dialect - his mother tongue and described by him as u versi haruacchi slozhena ("arranged in Croatian stanzas"). His other works in Croatian are:
- Suzana (Susan) - biblical poem in 780 stanzas, listing Croatian works at the end and theming Babylon Jewish woman falsely accused on adultery
- Poklad i korizma (Carnival and Lent), Spovid koludric od sedam smrtnih grihov (Nun's confession of seven deadly sins), Anka satir (Anka the satire) - secular poetryPoetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, poems dedicated to his sister Bira - Tuženje grada Hjerosolima (Jerusalem's Lament) - anti-Turkish laments
- Molitva suprotiva Turkom (Prayer against the Turks) - poem in 172 doubly rhymed dodecasyllablicDodecasyllableDodecasyllable verse is a line of verse with twelve syllables. 12 syllable lines are used in a variety of poetic traditions, including Italian and French poetry, and in poetry of the Southern Slavs...
stanzas of anti-Turkish theme, written between 1493 and 1500. Poem has a hidden acrosticAcrosticAn acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...
Solus deus potes nos liberare de tribulatione inimicorum Turcorum sua potentia infinita, "Only God can save us from the misery of our enemies Turks", discovered by Luko Paljetak. The poem is assumed to exhibit influence of Juraj ŠižgorićJuraj ŠižgoricJuraj Šižgorić was a Croatian latinist poet.He was the first humanist from Šibenik and the central personality of the Šibenik's humanist circle and also one of the most important figures in 15th century cultural life and history of Croatian people.His Elegiarum et carminum libri tres was a first...
's Elegija o pustošenju Šibenskog polja and medieval song Spasi, Marije, tvojih vjernih from Tkonski miscellany. This Marulić's work influenced ZoranićPetar ZoranicPetar Zoranić was a Croatian Renaissance writer from Zadar.He is most important as the author of Planine, the first Croatian novel. Pastoral in nature, the novel shows influence of Virgil, Ovid, Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio. The novel was written in 1538 and published...
's PlaninePlaninePlanine is the title of the first Croatian novel, written by Petar Zoranić in 1536 and published posthumously in Venice in 1569....
- the first Croatian novel, in which ganka pastira Marula is sung alluding to Turks, and also to Petar Lučić and his work Molitva Bogu protiv Turkom, and Primož TrubarPrimož TrubarPrimož Trubar or Primož Truber was a Slovene Protestant reformer, the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church of the Slovene Lands, a consolidator of the Slovene language and the author of the first Slovene-language printed book...
's Pjesni zuper Turke.
His works are neither aesthetically nor stylistically superior to the works of his Dubrovnikan predecessors. Three puzzling facts tend to raise questions:
- Marulić's Croatian work is aesthetically plainly inferior to the lyric poetry of Hanibal LucićHanibal LucicHanibal Lucić or Annibale Lucio was a Croatian Renaissance poet and playwright.- Biography :He was born to a Croatian noble family of Antun and Goja in Hvar, where he spent most of his life. Early in his youth, he was a judge and later became a lawyer of the Hvar municipality...
and the dramatic vitality of Marin DržićMarin DržicMarin Držić is considered the finest Croatian Renaissance playwright and prose writer.- Life :Born into a large and well to do family in Dubrovnik, Držić was trained and ordained as a priest — a calling very unsuitable for his rebel temperament...
. - Even in terms of chronology, Džore DržićDžore DržicDžore Držić was a Croatian poet and playwright, one of the fathers of Croatian literature.This respectable citizen of Dubrovnik, the uncle of the greatest Croatian playwright Marin Držić, the rector of the Church of All Saints, the chancellor of the Dubrovnik chapter, a contemporary of the poet...
and Šiško MenčetićŠiško MenceticŠišmundo Menčetić Vlahović, , or Sigismondo Menze was a poet from the Republic of Ragusa, chiefly creating his opus in the 15th century.-Biography:...
wrote in an essentially modern Croatian Shtokavian dialect some 3 decades before him.
Marulić's national eminence is due to a happy confluence of some other facts: no one among his contemporaries or predecessors had achieved fame during his lifetime. Further, his deeply patriotic and Catholic verses had assimilated the frequently superficial and imitative poetry of his southern compatriots and transformed it into an epitome of Croatian national destiny. His Judith representing the Croat people defending against the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
invasion – Marulić remained the ineradicable centre of Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Croatian patriotism – of Croathood itself. That is why his stature as the father of Croatian literature
Croatian literature
Croatian literature is a definition given to the compilation of novels, dramas, short stories, poems and other various work of written kind entirely attributed to the medieval and modern culture of the Croats and the Croatian language....
is secure and unshakeable.
Marulić's portrait is depicted on the obverse
Obverse and reverse
Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags , seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse...
of the Croatian 500 kuna
Croatian kuna
The kuna is the currency of Croatia since 1994 . It is subdivided into 100 lipa. The kuna is issued by the Croatian National Bank and the coins are minted by the Croatian Monetary Institute....
banknote, issued in 1993.
External links
- Facsimile of the editio princeps of Judita, Venice, 1521
- projekt VALMAR: Valorizzazione e recupero degli scritti e dei luoghi dell'umanista spalatino Marko Marulić/Marcus Marulus (Italian)
- Vita Marci Maruli Spalatensis per Franciscum Natalem, conciuem suum, composita Latin text and French translation
- French translations of Marulić's poems: Divici Mariji, Molitva suprotiva Turkom, Tuzen'je grada Hjerozolima, Od muke Isukrstove