There is much that is striking and original in his history of Serbs in Italy (Gli Slavi Serbi dell' Italia, 1885).
H Kovačić was baptised Hristifor (hence "Risto") in Risan in the tradition of his ancestral Herzegovinian adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
After completing his high school education in Kotor, Dubrovnik and Zadar, he studied philosophy in Zagreb and Vienna.
Upon graduation, he became a professor at a gymnasium in Kotor and at a Serbian Naval School in Herceg Novi, from 1867 until 1871 and again from 1880 to 1881.
[1] The writings of both Risto Kovačić and Graziadio Isaia Ascoli concur with writer Giovanni de Rubertis who considered the Schiavoni (Slavs) or Dalmati (Dalmatians) of Molise in Italy to be the Serbs that were brought there by Skanderbeg during his Italian expedition in 1460—1462 along with the Albanians who settled in Calabria.