Original scientific paper
How A. Fortis Was Preparing a New Chapter on Dubrovnik for the Second French Edition of His »Voyage in Dalmatia«
Žarko Muljačić
Abstract
The author wants to reconstruct the chapter on Dubrovnik, which Alberto Fortis was preparing in the last years of his life for the second edition of his »Voyage in Dalmatia«. As the autograph of that edition of »Voyage en Dalmatie« was lost, the author analysed the sources that can tell us something about that chapter. They are :
a) Fortis’ correspondence
b) Fortis' inheritance in Bologna, in the first place the books of his own library with marginalia written with his own hand
c) Some of Fortis’ printed works dealing directly or indirectly with Dubrovnik and her past, geography, etc.
The author analyzed particularly Fortis’ political attitude at the time when he was preparing that chapter. As a good connoisseur of contemporary Dubrovnik in which he stayed three times (1779/1780, 1780, 1783), all in all for six months, then knowing many learned Dubrovnik men who either permanently or temporary lived abroad and some educated Dubrovnik women, as a man of France Fortis could say about Dubrovnik less than he wanted. On the other side, concerning his incomplete knowledge of Dubrovnik literary and cultural history, Fortis could not say all that should have been said.
It is a great pity that the prepared chapter was not preserved. In the meantime, regardless of that, Fortis’ printed state ments on Dubrovnik show, although incompletely, that Fortis thought highly of the independent Republic and her inhabitants and that he made efforts that the fame of Dubrovnik be heard of not only in Italy, but somewhere, else too, in the countries where French and German were spoken.
Keywords
Alberto Fortis; Dubrovnik; Voyage in Dalmatia
Hrčak ID:
244676
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1979.
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