Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.21857/m3v76tev3y
Catherine, Queen of Bosnia and the Humanists, Part Two: Nicholas of Modruš, De humilitate
Luka Špoljarić
; Odsjek za povijest, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
This is the second of the two articles that explores the relationship between Queen Catherine of Bosnia (1425-1478) and the Renaissance humanists. The purpose of the two articles is to show that Catherine, as the queen of the fallen Bosnian kingdom who spent fifteen years in exile, in Dalmatia and Rome, enjoyed regular contact with intellectuals of high profile and that some of them composed classicizing works in her honour. While the first article published in the previous issue of Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti HAZU (vol. 36) showed that the Queen stayed in Split in 1466 where she inspired the support and poetry of the Italian humanist Leonardo Montagna, the second explores the first years of her life in Rome where she moved in October 1467 and where, not long after, it is argued, the Croatian bishop Nicholas of Modruš dedicated to her his De humilitate (On humility). The De humilitate is a philosophical treatise preserved in a single autograph manuscript, and only in fragments which unfortunately do not include the dedication letter. The preserved parts do reveal, however, that the De humilitate was dedicated to a woman who had taken religious vows, and as a result Giovanni Mercati, the first scholar to drew attention to the work a century ago, has identified Nicholas’s cousin Francesca as the possible dedicatee – an attribution that has been repeated in scholarship ever since. In arguing that Queen Catherine was far more likely to have been the person to which this work was dedicated, this paper offers a detailed analysis of the contents of the work, the manuscript in which it was preserved, and the social context in which it was composed. The article thus shows that the work was composed in the summer of 1470, which both Queen Catherine and Nicholas of Modruš exceptionally spent in Rome and during which they began their close collaboration that would last until 1474. The Queen, it is argued, played a pivotal role within Rome’s Illyrian community, and the Croatian prelates at the papal curia, Nicholas of Modruš included, saw her not as a queen of a neighbouring kingdom but as their national, “Illyrian,” queen. On the other hand, the article highlights the well-known fact that the Queen lived in Rome, together with the ladies of her court, according to the rule of the Franciscan Third Order, and places this in the context of growing activity of female tertiaries in the city. The Third Order rule provided a structure to Catherine’s religious life and by 1470 her public acts of piety helped her establish the image of a humble, modest and even holy queen. In sum, the article argues that Nicholas of Modruš wrote the De humilitate to commemorate his national Queen’s decision to live by the rule of the Third Order, strengthen her aura of holiness, and, in prospect, serve other female tertiaries living across the city.
Ključne riječi
Queen Catherine of Bosnia; Nicholas of Modruš; Renaissance humanism; Rome; Third Order Franciscans
Hrčak ID:
240565
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.12.2019.
Posjeta: 1.159 *