Original scientific paper
Marulić the Prisoner: A new Contribution to the Biography
Branko Jozić
orcid.org/0000-0003-2490-148X
; Marulianum, Split
Abstract
The curriculum vitae et artis of Croatian humanist Marko Marulić is fairly well known to the cultural and scholarly public both at home and abroad. For this we have to thank the publication of his works and studies of the sources: important information is to be found in the biography written by his friend Frane Božićević, in the literary bequest of Marulić himself and his friends (in which biographical elements can occasionally be gleaned) and in the archival records.
Nevertheless, there are still some unresolved issues that require further research, and one of them is a kind of Marulićian duality. One form of this was mentioned by the author of his life, Božićević, who gave the death of his brother Šimun as a certain turning point in Marulić’s life: before, he had been a coxcomb, but afterwards he entirely elevated his spirit in the direction of things divine and »about forty years, closeted with the Muses, did devotedly engage in the reading of sacred volumes and with writing works of his own, and thereto, in the severest of penances, mortified himself with keeping watch, hair shirts, prayers, and very painful scourging«.
From the curt information about his being a coxcomb, the figure of a conceited Split nobleman can be sensed, the secular Marulić, certainly a different one than is usually perceived. The impression of the self-confident Split native is suggested to an extent by some of his epigrams. On the other hand, he several times expresses his awareness of his sinfulness and its consequences. In a letter to Katarina Obirtića he recalls his youthful strayings, his »night-time fishing… in the darkness of this world«; he writes to Jerolim Ćipiko that he will devote the rest of his life to, among other things, purging his sins, because of which he had been justly afflicted. The remorseful tone at his own sinfulness can also be met in several verses in Croatian; particularly poignant is the confessional statement in which he, as translator of Saint Bonaventure’s Philomela in Croatian (Od slavića – On the nightingale) expressly presents himself as the greatest sinner. There is no doubt that in these self-accusatory statements one should read the topos of humility, but also in them a sincere expression of pious emotionality can be seen.
In a previously unnoticed chancellery entry from the archives of the old Split commune we have the information that in 1482 Marulić was for some time incarcerated in the Venetian tower in Split. The document records that on October 3, 1482, in the chancellery of the rector of Split, in the presence of the witnesses Nikola Martinić (de Martinis) and Dujam, cobbler of Split, were Karlo Martinšević and Šimun and his brother Aleksandar, sons of the late Nikola Picenić (also Marulić’s brothers). In the wish to deliver Marko Picenić (i.e., Marulić) from the tower in which he was locked up, they guaranteed that Marko would in no way depart from the Split castello without the express permission of the Rector. If he did so depart, they promised that at the rector’s demand, they would pay for him into the ducal exchequer the sum of one thousand ducats in gold, binding themselves with all their present and future wealth.
This could not have been a very serious offence, for as early as November 2, 1482, i.e., just a month after this guarantee statement, Marulić appears in the documents alongside the rector as one of the commune’s judges (iudex curię). For want of any more concrete data about when and for what reason Marulić was incarcerated, it would be useful to mention the possible circumstances that led to this. In these years, that is, he and his family were conducting a number of civil cases about property. The virulence of the conflict is conjured up by words from the hearings, full of open hostility and menaces. At the same time about, also imprisoned was Marulić’s maternal uncle, Ivan (Jancius) Alberti, a witness in the case, on behalf of the rights of his sister, Marulić’s mother, Dobrica. If the parties to the case could not be forced to agree in any other way, the Statutes of the City of Split provided for remand and monetary guarantees, in order to prevent any bloodshed.
It should be seen that Marko’s imprisonment (1482) occurred a little before the death of his brother Šimun (assumed to have died around 1484), after which, according to Božićević, Marulić began to live the life of an ascetic. This means that about 1484 there must have been a volte face in Marulić’s life, a kind of a conversion, brought about, perhaps, not only by Šimun’s death but also by the experience of imprisonment. In the light of these facts, the expressions of devout feeling about his own iniquity can be better understood.
Keywords
Marko Marulić; biography; topos of humility; sinner; conversion; Statutes of the City of Split; Split jail; Ivan (Jancius) Alberti
Hrčak ID:
199394
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2018.
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