Original scientific paper
Processi Maruli
Branko Jozić
orcid.org/0000-0003-2490-148X
; Marulianum, Split
Abstract
Marulić himself has shown to us the extent of the interaction and interdependence of curriculum vitae and curriculum artis. He once complained that the management of the estate, which he had had to take over after the death of his brother Valerius, took him away from his literary work. On another occasion he remarked that conflicts and litigation had driven him to find consolation in literary creation and in composing sonnets. In connection with a recently published item about Marulić’s stay in jail, I put forward the hypothesis that litigation and imprisonment, with the accompanying unpleasantness, probably contributed to a kind of conversion in him, to his withdrawal from public life and turning to literary work. For this reason, presented here are texts about Marulić’s court cases, which clearly constituted a torturous and exhausting phase of his life.
The manuscript is kept among the files of the old Split commune that are stored in the Zadar State Archives. A fascicle entitled Processi Maruli (box 17, volume 34, fascicle 6, ff. 33r-78v) documents litigation about property (and in addition, outside the fascicle mentioned, on ff. 113r-132v; and in box 18, vol. 35, ff. 431v-438v). The texts are written in Latin and Italian. The documents are fairly much damaged, worm-eaten and attacked by damp, and in places are hardly legible.
The first procedure, held before the rector, Antonio Loredano, on July 7, 1469, was filed by Stjepan Testa of Trogir, the joint plaintiffs being Stjepan and his brothers Nikola and Jeronim and the defendants Dobrica and Marko Pecinić. The plaintiffs claimed title to part of the assets of their uncle Antun Ivanov Testa, who had named Nikola Pecinić executor of his will (after Nikola’s death the executors of the will were his wife Dobrica and his son Marko). The three brothers were sons of the wealthy and influential commoner of Trogir Jakov Testa. Their repute and influence went well outside the district of Trogir, as shown by their diplomatic missions to and from Bosnia and the Apennine peninsula. The trial is documented tersely. Stjepan later on brought the same problem before the rector Marco Bondulmer. Both the opposing parties invoked the provisions of the Statutes of the city of Split that tended to support them: the appropriate documents were also produced (wills of forebears), but the reporting of the trial was abruptly broken off. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that the Marulićes were not satisfied. Because of the unsettled accounts between Antun Ivanov and Nikola Marulić, in 1477 Marko and Dujam Pecinić, as representatives of the testamentary dispositions (defensores commissarie) of Antun Ivanov filed a new suit before rector Andrea Zorzi against Nikola Jakovlić and Jerolim Cambi. They sought the reimbursement of costs that they had incurred as creditori de la commissaria of Antun Ivanov during his lifetime; the total debt was in excess of nine hundred ducats. This trial and two handwritten receipts are submitted, as well as letters of Antun Ivanov to Nikola Marulić. But in this case too the outcome is not reported.
In addition to that against Testa, a suit against Nikola Papalić is also documented; this was brought before rector Andrea Zorzi in 1478 by Marko and Dujam Marulić. They sought from the defendant 100 ducats, part of the dowry that he had not paid his sister Jakobina, married to the poet’s uncle Petar. Finally on October 3, the rector, Marco Bondulmer, dismissed the claim against Nikola Papalić; on October 20, Dujam lodged an appeal against the judgement. How the affair proceeded, we do not know. Irrespective of this, the documents provide us with invaluable information about the life of Marulić, about the Split of the time and the relations among the families, about commerce and the acquisition and preservation of assets, and they are accordingly published here as relevant material.
Keywords
Marko Marulić; Nikola Testa; court cases; everyday life in Split in the Renaissance; urban elite; early Modern Age
Hrčak ID:
257740
URI
Publication date:
22.5.2021.
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