Croatian Latin literature
The sarcophagus of Peter the Black (from Split) in the 11th century has an inscription pertaining to the transience of life written by the deacon Dabrus (Croatian: Dabro).
Notable is the tomb inscription of the nun Vekenega, director of the Benedictine Convent of St. Mary in Zadar (died 1111), with 20 verses in which an unknown poet celebrates her and the monastery.
The Supetar kartular ("Proceedings of transcripts of documents relating to the Monastery of St. Peter in a village not far from Split" dates to 1064, and is a source for the history of Croatia until the end of the 11th century.
The more primitive ritual concerns a quest for the tomb (Sepulchre Visitatio); the second involves the Christmas story (Officium stellae), depicting the Biblical Magi and their visit to Herod.
The author of the Chronicles was from Bar and called "Pop Dukljanin" by Croatian historian Ivan Lučić, who had it published as a contribution to his own work (De regno et Dalmatiae Croatiae, 1666).
It presented in chronological order the life and work of the Archbishop of Split-Solin since Roman times, representing a valuable historical source for the eras of Krešimir IV and Zvonimir.
In an elegy on fields laid waste in Šibenik (De agri Sibenicensis vastatione), Hafner expressed sadness and outrage because at Turkish incursions into his home country.
In addition to histories and travelogues, Vrančić published a collection of elegiac poems in 1542 which examine love, life's joys and social events.
Ćipiko Coriolanus (1425–1493) was a humanist in Trogir who wrote a biography titled Maritime: Three Books on the Works of Commander Peter Mocenigo (Petri Mocenici imperatoris gestorum libri tres) in 1477.
Also from Trogir was Fran Trankvil Andreis (Andronicus Tranquillus Parthenius, 1490–1571), who studied at Dubrovnik, Padua and other Italian universities and in Vienna, Ingolstadt and Leipzig.
The central figure in the Split humanist circle was Marko Marulić (Marcus Marulus, 1450–1524), known in Europe for his Latin morality tales and didactic works: Making Merry: Lives and Examples of the Saints (De institutione bene vivendi per exempla sanctorum, 1506; also known by its fourth title in 1530: Making Merry and Blessed in Life—De institutione bene vivendi beateque) and Evangelistarium (1516).
These were practical guidance on how believers could achieve a decent life with basic Christian virtues, written in the spirit of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Bernardus Claravallensis, 1090–1153), a chief exponent of ascetic mysticism.
A younger contemporary of Bunić was Damian Beneša (or Benešić, 1477–1539), author of the epic poem De Morte Christi ("Christ's Death"), which remained in manuscript form until its publication in 2006.
Historian Louis Crijević Tuberon (Ludovicus Cerva Tuber, 1459–1527) emulated Sallustius and Tacitus in his picturesque descriptions of events, personalities, social and economic conditions over wide areas of Buda and Constantinople from 1490 to 1522.
Philosopher Juraj Dragišić (Georgius Benignus de Salviatis, 1450–1520) hailed from Srebrenica in Bosnia; after initial training in Dubrovnik, he studied in Italy, Paris and at Oxford.
), which presented 650 witnesses, A Renegade from the Roman Church and The Key to the Scriptures (Clavis Scripturae Sacrae, 1567), an encyclopedic Hebrew dictionary which became fundamental to the Protestant interpretation of the Bible.
Franciscus Patricius (Croatian: Frane Petrić or Franjo Petriš, 1529–1597), from Cres, studied mostly in Padua; although the city was a center of Aristotelianism, he was inclined toward Platonism.
His work in Latin, Peripatetic Discussions (Discussiones peripateticae, 1581) emphasizes a pre-Socratic philosophy of nature and seeks to minimize the importance of Aristotle.
In his New Philosophy of the General (Nova de Universis philosophia, 1591) Patricius exposes his metaphysical conception of the world, based on several sources: Plato, the Stoics and Hermes Trismegistus.
Since the biblical account of Genesis was substantially different from the teachings of scholastic Aristotelianism, the work (despite the efforts of scholars to defend it, or enlighten quaedam loca obscuriora—"a dull place") was banned in 1594.
For about a century, epochal works appeared in Latin from representatives of the sciences and philosophy: Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz.
Among Gradius' best-known poems is "Prejasne Venetian Republic", which explored the troubles faced by his native city ("De laudibus Serenissimae Reipublicae Venetae et Patriae cladibus drought Carmen", 1675) in 315 hexameters, providing a striking description of the 1667 Dubrovnik earthquake.
Lucius is considered the founder of Croatian historiography, and was involved in a dispute about the authenticity of Trimalhionove Feast (Cena Trimalchionis) by the Roman satirist Petronius, which was found in Trogir.
The last four prominent Croatian Latinists (Ruđer Bošković, Raymond Rabbits, Brno Džamanjić and Mark Galjuf) primarily lived and worked abroad.
Since folk literature was popular, in 1794 Ferrich assembled a collection of 113 fables in Latin verse entitled Fabulae ab Illyricis adagiis desumptae (Croatian: Anecdote Prorečja Slovinskijeh).
This work, along with correspondence with Johannes Müller (curator of the imperial poetry library in Vienna) and Julius Bajamonti (mayor of Split) during the late 18th century, is still extant.
He also wrote many epigrams, and a verse on the Dubrovnik coast (Periegesis orae Rhacusanae, 1803) in 3379 hexameters, describing natural beauty, customs and historical events.
Rabbit's disciple and friend, Brno Džamanjić (Bernardus Zamagna, 1735–1820), published Ulysses in Latin verse (Homer Odyssee Latinis versibus Express) in 1777.
Mark Faustin Galjuf (Marcus Faustinus Gagliuffius, 1765–1834) said of himself, "Sort Ragusinus, vita Italus, ore Latinus" ("I'm from Dubrovnik, my life is in Italy and my language is Latin").
A Croatian Latinist of this period was Ton Smerdel [Wikidata] (1904–1970), a classical philologist who has published seven books of Latin verse by modern neo-Latin poets.
