Original scientific paper
The Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta of Marko Marulić in the Work De Rebus Dalmaticis of Dinko Zavorović
Iva Kurelac
orcid.org/0009-0007-2914-0567
; Odsjek za povijesne znanosti HAZU, Zagreb
Abstract
The unpublished work De rebus Dalmaticis libri octo (1602) of Šibenik Humanist and historian Dinko Zavorović (about 1540-1608) is the first systematically written history of Dalmatia. The text is extant in seven Latin transcripts and six translations into Italian, yet in spite of its historical importance it has not yet been published. For this research, parts of the best MS copy of the work De rebus Dalmaticis were transcribed; this is the copy in the Marciana Library in Venice, shelf number Cl. X. Cod. XK-3652, ff. 45r-78r. Since it has long been unknown to the scholarly public at large, De rebus Dalmaticis has not been subjected to any very systematic philological or historical analysis, although it certainly deserves attention in its own right considering the narrative sources quoted in it.
Since Marko Marulić’s Latin version of a fragment of the Croatian medieval chronicle Ljetopis Popa Dukljanina (Chronicle of the Priest of Doclea), which he gave the title Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta, is one of the key narrative sources for Humanist historiography, it is hardly surprising that his version has a prominent place in Zavorović’s historical work too. De rebus Dalmaticis contains an extensive reworking of almost the whole of Marulić’s translation Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta. The paper gives a detailed analysis of the differences of Marulić’s and Zavorović’s works at level of lexis, content and structure. From the examples of the differences in writing of some of the names of the rulers (Mivovoius / Razbivoius) and differences in content that relate to the episode with the brach Paluša, it is established the Zavorović probably made use of two transcripts of Marulić’s work, close to what is called the Belgrade MS of Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta.
A philological analysis of the differences in the reading reveals many Zavorović interventions into the original text of Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta that in their frequency and specific function show that Zavorović’s historiographical approach is somewhat more advanced than that which was established in Humanist historiography. Zavorović rebutted what was called the gothic theory of the origin of the Slavs, which derived actually from the Ljetopis Popa Dukljanina and from the work Historia Salonitana of Thomas the Archdeacon. Although it is still limited by the typically Humanist historiographic procedures (absence of authorial commentaries), Zavorovic in his numerous quotes from the Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta consistently replaces the ethnonym Gothi with the ethnonym Slovini, thus creating a specific late-Humanistic methodological criticism of narrative sources.]
Unlike his predecessors and contemporaries Ludovik Crijević Tuberon, Vinko Pribojević, Mavro Orbini and Ivan Tomko Mrnavić, who used the text of Ljetopis Popa Dukljanina as the main source for their claims as to the antiquity of the Slavic people, Zavorović, as precursor of critical historiography, corrected what were for him dubious ethnonyms from the work Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta. In the light of criticism of what is called the gothic theory, Zavorović’s interpretation of the destruction of Salona is crucial; the Šibenik historian, drawing on the slightlyknown work of Mattheus Izar(i)us (Matteo Izaro) Commentaria Illyrica, ascribes it to the Slavic king Ratimir.
The characteristics of Zavorović’s approach to the historical sources and topics are particularly clear in the quotes from Marulić’s Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta that tell of kings Zvonimir and Krešimir: the Šibenik historian intervenes in these quotes, making use of historical corrections, placing the rulers mentioned in the context of the history of Dalmatia and Croatia and in this way rebutting the gothic theory of the origin of the Slavs.
With this shift away from traditional trends, which comes out particularlyin Zavorović’s way of using the work Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta, the way was cleared for the critical historiography of the kind that in the 17th century would be written by Ivan Lučić.
Keywords
manuscript tradition; Humanist historiography; late-Humanist historiographic methodology; narrative sources; Dinko Zavorović; Marko Marulić; Dalmatia
Hrčak ID:
67396
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2011.
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