MARULIĆ, MARKO

Croatian humanist, poet, moralist, and "father of Croatian literature"; b. Split, Aug. 18, 1450; d. there, Jan. 6, 1524. He was the son of a lawyer who belonged to the nobility, and he studied classical languages and literature, poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy at Padua, Italy. Equipped with this wide culture, Marulić returned to Split and dedicated his life to study and literature. He was also proficient in painting and sculpture. At 60 he withdrew to a Franciscan monastery on the nearby island of Solta, but, disillusioned at the religious life he encountered there, he returned after two years to Split, where he continued to live an ascetical life. His reputation rests primarily on his Latin didactic-moral works, which were widely diffused, being translated into Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Czech; numerous editions of the works appeared up to the 19th century.

The most important of these works are De institutione bene vivendi per exempla sanctorum (1506), a treatise that St. Francis xavier carried on all his journeys; Evangelistarium (1506); Quinquaginta parabolae (1510); De humilitate et gloria Christi (1519); and Dialogus de laudibus Herculis (1524). His Sermo de ultimo Christi judicio remains in MS. In all these, inspired by the doctrine of St. Bernard and St. Bonaventure, he inculcated a practical Christian morality based on the Gospels and the examples of the saints. He wrote the Carmen de doctrina Jesu Christi pendentis in cruce in Latin verse, and his major Latin poetic work, the remarkable epic Davideidos libri XIV, is in Vergilian style. His archeological and historical studies led to the translation of a medieval Croatian chronicle under the title Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta and to a polemic piece, In eos qui beatum Hieronymum ltalum esse contendunt. Both of these were published in De Regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae (1666) by the historian J. Lucius, who also included Marulić's Inscriptiones Salonitanae antiquae in his Inscriptiones Dalmatiae (1673). Marulić's In epigrammata priscorum commentarius is extant in MS.

Marulić's vernacular poetry marks the coming of age of Croatian literature. His most important work in this genre, Istorija svete udovice Judit u versih hrvacki složena (The History of the Holy Widow Judith), was written in 1501, published in 1521. It is an epic in six cantos, in whose classical structure lyrical Petrarchian elements and strains from popular Croatian poetry mingle. Marulić sought by the example of Judith to strengthen his people in their conflict with the Turks. The same impulse to save Christianity from the Turks inspired Tuženje grada Hjeruzolima, a summons to the Christian nations to organize a crusade; Molitva suprotiva Turkom (Prayer against the Turks); and the Latin Epistola … ad Adrianum VI … de calamitatibus … et exhortatio ad communem omnium Christianorum unionem et pacem (1522).

Marulić's moralistic and didactic bent is evident in other vernacular poems, e.g., the epic Istorija od Suzane (History of Susanna), Urehe duhovne (Spiritual Adornment), and Dobri nauci (Good Teaching). Writing for his nun sister and her convent companions, Marulić adopted at times a humorous-satiric tone, as in Poklad i Korizma (Carnival and Lent), Spovid koludric od sedam smrtnih grihov (Nuns' Confessions and the Seven Capital Sins), and Anka Satira. Finally, he wrote some dramatic pieces on the life of Christ and the saints, and translated De Imitatione Christi, the Disticha moralia Catonis and some selections from St. Bernard and St. Bonaventure.

As a poet, Marulić was not distinguished for profound inspiration or creative imagination, but he was kindly, cultured, deeply patriotic, endowed with a fine sensitivity to the demands and challenges of life and with an extraordinary, rich idiom. In him are epitomized all the elements that characterized subsequent Croatian literature: the strains of popular poetry, a Christian spirit, classical culture, and the consciousness of the Turkish threat.

Bibliography: Complete vernacular works, Pjesme, v.1 (1869) of Stari pisci hrvatski, 29 v. (Zagreb 1869); Latin works, Zbornik u proslavu petstogodišnjice rodenja Marka Marulića, ed. j. badalic and n. majnariĆ (Zagreb 1950), contains complete bibliog. m. kombol, Poviest hrvatske književnosti do narodnog preporoda (Zagreb 1945). f. trogranČiĆ, Storia della letteratura croata (Rome 1953).

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