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Marko Marulić

Croatian national poet and European humanist

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Marulić scholar Bratislav Lučin notes that he was well-versed in both the Christian Bible and in the Fathers of the Church. At the same time, Marulić also attentively read the Pre-Christian Greek and Latin Classics. He read and interpreted Latin epigrams, wrote glosses on the erotic poetry of Catullus, read Petronius' Satyricon, and admired Erasmus of Rotterdam. Marulić also composed humanist elegies, satirical poetry, erotic epigrams inspired by Ovid, and Latin Christian poetry inspired not only by the epics of Homer and Virgil, but also by Lucan, Statius, Faltonia Betitia Proba, Juvencus, Venantius Fortunatus, Cyprianus Gallus, Coelius Sedulius, and many other both Pagan and Christian writers in the same language.

According to Franz Posset, Marulić aspired to the Renaissance humanist ideal of the uomo universale ("universal man"). To this end, he was interested in painting and drawing, local and national history, languages, and poetry. His overall goal always remained renovatio Christiana ("The Renewal of Christianity") as represented by the future Counter-Reformation. Accordingly, like many other Renaissance humanists who shared his views, Marulić denounced simony and immorality among Catholic priests and members of the hierarchy in often violent language throughout his writings.

Marulić's work was admired both by many of the greatest and most influential Catholic saints of the Counter-Reformation and also, since much of Marulić could be read without violating sola scriptura, by generations of believers in Protestantism.

His writings in Renaissance Latin, once adored and envied across Europe, shared the destiny that befell most Renaissance Humanist literature and faded into obscurity. According to Lučin, however, the passage of time has slowly revealed the important web of influence that the poet and writer wove all over Europe and far beyond its borders. Marulić's writings were admired by churchmen such as Saints Francis Xavier, Francis de Sales, Peter Canisius, and Charles Borromeo, by monarchs and statesmen such as King Henry VIII, Thomas More, and Emperor Charles V, emulated by poets like Jan Dantyszek, Conrad Peutinger, and Francisco de Quevedo, and translated into vernacular verse by still other poets; including Fray Luis de León, St Philipp Howard, Rhina Espaillat, and Edward Mulholland. Furthermore, manuscripts of Marulić works previously thought lost, such as his Christian epic poem the Davidiad in 1952, his Latin-Croatian literary translation of Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ in 1989, and the Glasgow Codex in 1995, continue to resurface and to belatedly see publication for the first time.

One of Marulić's books published in the 1510s is also the first time a literary work used the term "psychology". More recently, Pope John Paul II quoted from a Marulić poem during his 1998 apostolic visit to Solin, Croatia.

Biography

Marulić was born on 18 August 1450 into the Croatian nobility in Split, Dalmatia. He was the first of seven children. The palazzo in which he was born still stands on Papalić Street in Split. His father, Nikola Marulić, was descended from the Pečenić family (Pecinić, Picinić, Pezzini in Italian). Marulić came from a 15th century branch of the family whose founder was named Petar, and who only began calling themselves Marulić, Marulus or De Marulis, in the 15th century. His mother, Dobrica de Albertis, was a member of the Italian nobility.

Marko Marulić identified himself primarily as a citizen of Split and, secondly, as a Dalmatian. On the title pages of his books, he consistently signed as a native of Split.

Very little is known about his life, and the few facts that remain are often unreliable. It is certain that he attended a school in Split run by the Italian Renaissance humanist scholar Tideo Acciarini (1430–1490). Marulić's education is known also to have included instruction in the Greek language by Hieronymus Genesius Picentinus. Although his library later contained many textbooks on the language, Marulić read and spoke it imperfectly and only rarely used Greek words.

After completing school, Marulić is believed to have studied law at Padua University, after which he spent much of his life in his home town. His star-crossed love affair with a Split noblewoman ended when her father, the commander of the city's Venetian military garrison, allegedly buried her alive. A grieving Marulić lived for about two years as a postulant at a monastery on the island of Šolta, in the Adriatic Sea. Returning to Split, Marulić practiced law, serving as a judge, examiner of notarial entries and executor of wills. Owing to his work, he became the most distinguished member of Split's humanist circle.

Marulić's Evangelistarium ("Evangelistary"), a moral and theological compendium of Old and New Testament texts, was first published in 1487. The book was later republished by Italian Jewish publisher Gershom Soncino at Pisa and a copy of that edition was purchased by the German humanist scholar and Hebraist Johann Reuchlin in 1492. In 1519, another edition of the "Evangelistary" was published by Sebastian Münster.

Between 1496 and 1499, Marulić worked on a compendium of Christian morality, entitled De institutione bene vivendi per exempla sanctorum ("Instruction on How to Lead a Virtuous Life Based on the Examples of Saints"). According to Latinist and Classicist Edward Mulholland, Marulić's primary model for De institutione was the Memorable Deeds and Sayings of Valerius Maximus. Maximus had intended in the writing of his book, "to spare those who want to learn the lessons of history the trouble of prolonged researches" and accordingly organized the nine books of his volume, "to illustrate a particular virtue or vice", and it became a widely used textbook in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, both of rhetoric and as, "a gallery of practical moral instruction."

In addition to Old and New Testament examples, Marulić also drew upon the writings of St Jerome, Gregory the Great, Eusebius of Caesarea, John Cassian, the lives of the saints, and other Ecclesiastical writers.

Marulić's De institutione was first published in Latin at Venice in 1507 and became well known in the Germanosphere when Adam Petri reprinted it at Basel in 1513. The compendium was widely and repeatedly reprinted and translated into many vernacular languages, which established Marulić's fame throughout Europe.

Occasionally Marulić visited Venice (to trade) and Rome (to celebrate the year 1500).

According to his friend and early biographer Franjo Božičević, "for nearly forty years he sweated, shut up with the Muses, in divine volumes, nocturnal study, vigils, fasting, a hair shirt, prayers and rough floggings, not without harsh penance day and night."

He was a great admirer of the late medieval religious movement known as Devotio Moderna. By 1509, Marulić had finished translating Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ, a highly important literary and devotional work of the movement, from Medieval Latin into Croatian. His translation, however, remained unpublished until 1989.

His friend and fellow humanist Dmine Papalić found an old volume of local history composed in the Illyrian language and in the Early Cyrillic alphabet. At his friend's urging, Marulić both paraphrased and translated the volume into Latin as Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta ("The Deeds of the Kings of Dalmatia and Croatia"), as he completed Quinquaginta parabole ("Fifty Parables"), which is, according to Edward Mulholland, "Modeled after the parables of the New Testament, they consist in moral lessons in elegant Latin prose drawn from simple stories". Both books were first published in 1510. He finished writing The Life of St. Jerome in 1513. The following year, he completed Carmen de doctrina Domini nostri Iesu Christi pendentis in cruce ("Poem about the Teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ Hanging on the Cross"), which has usually been published as part of De institutione bene vivendi and which remains his most famous work of Christian poetry in Latin.

In 1517, Marulić finished his epic poem the Davidiad, which was considered lost for more than 400 years, only rediscovered in 1952, and published for the first time in 1954.

Similarly to both Catholic and Protestant humanists of the same era, Marulić used The Davidiad to preach a multilayered interpretation of the Old Testament, as pre-figuring the foundation of Christianity through the later events described in the New Testament. For example, Marulić compared David to Jesus Christ, King Saul to Caiaphas, the Pharisees, and the Sanhedrin, while comparing Goliath to the Devil. Marulić also used his description of David and his warriors eating the Bread of the Presence while fleeing from King Saul an opportunity to praise the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Furthermore, Marulić's study of the Hebrew language was just as often on display in the Davidiad; as, despite the difficulties he routinely faced in fitting Hebrew words into the rhythm of Latin dactylic hexameter, he regularly made humorous comments about how very well the etymology of Hebrew personal names fit the character or appearance of their bearers.

According to Edward Mulholland, "Most early modern poets chose as their heroes either ancient historical characters - Petrarch's Africa (written 1339-43, first published in Venice in 1501) on the Second Punic War showing the lead - or medieval figures such as Charlemagne in Ugolino Verino's Carlias (1480), or, most frequently, contemporary rulers. Marulić was the very first author to write a Neo-Latin Biblical poem, and he would remain unique in having found his inspiration in the Old Testament. Though certainly a Dalmatian patriot, Marulić did not choose to write a national epic. He is retelling the Biblical story first and foremost, but from the fullness of his multifaceted persona as, in Baumann's words, "a Croat, a humanist, a conservative Catholic, an intellectual and a patrician of Split."

Marulić wrote De humilitate et gloria Christi ("On the Humility and Glory of Christ") and An Account of Illustrious Men of the Old Testament the following year.

His final works were De ultimo Christi judicio ("On the Last Judgment of Christ") and Judita, Marulić's Christian work of epic poetry retelling the Book of Judith in the Croatian language, which he produced between 1520 and 1522. The latter, which also drew very heavily upon the Italian poetry of Dante Alighieri and Petrarch, earned Marulić the title "Father of Croatian literature."

Upon completing the poem on 22 April, which is still celebrated in Croatia as National Book Day (hr), Marulić wrote to a friend, "See it and you will say that the Slavonic language also has its Dante."

Marko Marulić died in Split on 5 January 1524 and was buried in the Church of St. Francis in the historic city center.

Marulić's Liber de laudibus Herculis ("A Book in Praise of Hercules"), in which he, "lets the followers of Hercules, the titan of the pagans, compete with the titan of the Christians, that is, Jesus Christ, who, of course, is ultimately the victor", was posthumously published in 1524. It is also known under the title Dialogus de Hercule a Christicolis superato ("The Dialogue about Hercules, Who was Surpassed by Those Who Worship Christ").

According to Edward Mulholland, "In it he makes the argument that one who has conquered beasts and monsters, as Hercules did, is not as strong as one who has mastered himself, which is the ideal of every Christian. But Marulić also shares his thoughts on the use of mythology and epic. The dialogue is between a theologian and a poet. The question underlying the dialogue seems to be which way is the most secure to arrive at the truth... For Marulić, as Elisabeth von Erdmann points out, pagan myth and poetry gained a certain legitimacy when employed in the service of theology."

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