Professional paper
Suzana’s Park
Dražen Grgurević
; Split
Abstract
Marko Marulić, a great Renaissance poet and "the father of Croatian literature", a title well deserved, wrote a famous poem "Suzana", in which he described, for the first time in Croatian literature, a park or a garden (vartal, jardin), together with a variety of plants growing in the park.
With this poem, Croatia joined a small group of European nations in which a park was described as early as the Renaissance period.
Where did Marulić find inspiration for the garden? At that time, there was no such vartan (garden) in his town of Split or its surroundings threatened by the Turks.
He may have been influenced by contacts with Renaissance writers from Dubrovnik and by his knowledge of Dubrovnik parks and of Trsteno in particular. However, there is no testimony of this, except for some indirect encounters with Petar Hektorović, who was friendly with and kept correspondence with writers from Dubrovnik.
Petar Hektorović, a writer from Hvar and a contemporary of Marulić, described his park of Tvrdalj, which is very similar to Suzana´s Garden.
It is also possible that Marko Marulić saw a Renaissance park in the course of his travels to Italy and brought back relevant literature. According to some data, his rich library contained, among other valuable works, Crescenzi´s Ruralium Commodorum. Since he learnt Greek in his youth, he was probably also familiar with Alcinous´s garden from Oddyssey.
The influence of Boccaccio´s Decameron could also have played a role, since a park is described in the introduction to the third day.
Marulić´s park, or Suzana´s park,poses a number of open questions related to the profession, but also to the great poet himself.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
24156
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2008.
Visits: 2.396 *