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Three Humanists on the Birthplace of Saint Jerome: Flavius Blondus, Marko Marulić and José de Espinoza de Sigüenza
Vinko Grubišić
; University of Waterloo, Kanada
Sažetak
One of the most important Italian historians and archaeologists during the early Renaissance, Flavius Blondus, started working on Italia illustrata in 1447 and completed the manuscript in 1453; two early editions (Rome 1474 and Verona 1481) prove its popularity in the fifteenth century.
The eleventh and final province described in Blondus’ work is Istria, on which Blondus wrote only four pages—much less than on any other of the ten provinces. Blondus’ »historical topography« is full of mythological and historical reminiscences and of various explanations of personal and place names.
Writing on Istria, Blondus quotes Saint Jerome’s own comment on his birth-place, stating that Sdrigna in Istria is identical to S. Jerome’s Stridon. Blondus based his words mainly on the Ten Sermons on Saint Jerome written by Petrus Paulus Vergerius the Elder, whom Blondus mentioned several times in the Italia illustrata and considered one the most eloquent men of his time (»inter primos et huius saeculi eloquentissimus«). Nevertheless, what was merely folk tradition for Vergerius became for Blondus »historical facts.«
When Blondus died, Marko Marulić was nine years old. We do not know what edition of the Italia illustrata Marulić might have used in writing his polemical short work entitled In eos qui beatum Hieronymum Italum fuisse contendunt (Against those Who Consider Saint Jerome to Have Been an Italian). In that work, Marulić opposed Blondus’ opinion that Sdrigna in Istria could be identified with Stridon, pointing out that a small location in the vicinity of Skradin, named Strigoum, is the name of the one-time city of Stridon.
The Spanish Jeronimite José de Espinoza de Sigüenza, in his work Vida de San Gerónimo Doctor de la Santa Iglesia (1595), commented in detail on Blondus’ words on Sdrigna. According to de Sigüenza, it is a matter of no relevance whether the former Stridon is Istrian or Dalmatian.
Much more interestingly, however, de Sigüenza pays special attention to Saint Jerome’s »invention of the Slavic alphabet,« devoting an entire chapter to Saint Jerome’s »translation of the Holy Bible in the Slavic language.«
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
23925
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.4.2008.
Posjeta: 1.948 *