Marko Marulić

Marko Marulić Splićanin (; in Latin Marcus Marulus Spalatensis;}} 18 August 1450 – 5 January 1524), was a Croatian poet, lawyer, judge, and Renaissance humanist who coined the term "psychology". He is the national poet of Croatia. According to George J. Gutsche, Marulic's epic poem ''Judita'' "is the first long poem in Croatian", and "gives Marulić a position in his own literature comparable to Dante in Italian literature." Furthermore, Marulić's Latin poetry is of such high quality that his contemporaries dubbed him "The Christian Virgil."

Marulić has been called the "crown of the Croatian medieval age", the "father of the Croatian Renaissance", and "The Father of Croatian literature."

According to Marulić scholar Bratislav Lučin, he was well-versed in both the Christian Bible and in the Fathers of the Church. At the same time, Marulić also attentively read the Pre-Christian Greek and Latin classics. He read and interpreted Latin epigrams, wrote glosses on the erotic poetry of Catullus, read Petronius' ''Satyricon'', and admired Erasmus of Rotterdam. Marulić also composed epic works of Christian poetry, humanist elegies, and even satirical and erotic epigrams.

According to Franz Posset, Marulić aspired to the Renaissance humanist ideal of the ''uomo universale'' ("universal man"). To this end, he was interested in painting and drawing, local and national history, languages, and poetry. His overall goal always remained ''renovatio Christiana'' ("The Renewal of Christianity") as represented by the future Counter-Reformation. This is why, like many other Renaissance humanists who shared his views, Marulić denounced simony and immorality among Roman Catholic priests and members of the Hierarchy in often violent language throughout his writings.

However, even though Marulić and Martin Luther lived at the same time and were published by two of the same Basel printers, their collected writings make no mention of each other. Lacking new discoveries, it must be assumed that both theologians were simply unaware of the other's existence. At the same time, both men shared a common belief in ''Evangelica Veritas'' ("Gospel Truth") and "theology for piety". They also both built their differing theology upon the similar training they both received in scholasticism, Renaissance humanism, and ''Devotio moderna''. Like fellow Renaissance humanists Johann Reuchlin, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas More, and John Fisher, however, Marko Marulić remained committed to an internal renewal of Roman Catholicism and loyal to the Holy See, while Martin Luther and his adherents did not.

At the same time, though, Marulić's writings were admired both by many of the greatest and most influential Catholic saints of the Counter-Reformation and also, as much of Marulić could be read without violating ''Sola Scriptura'', by generations of believers in Protestantism.

Marulić's writings in Renaissance Latin, once adored and envied across Europe, shared the destiny that befell most Renaissance Humanist literature and faded into obscurity. According to Lučin, however, the passage of time has slowly revealed the important web of influence that the poet and writer wove all over Europe and far beyond its borders. Marulić's writings were admired by churchmen such as Saints Francis Xavier, Francis de Sales, Peter Canisius, and Charles Borromeo, by monarchs and statesmen such as King Henry VIII, Thomas More, and Emperor Carl V, and emulated by poets like Jan Dantyszek, Conrad Peutinger, and Francisco de Quevedo. Furthermore, manuscripts of Marulić works previously thought to have been lost, such as his Christian epic poem the ''Davidiad'' in 1952, his Latin-Croatian literary translation of Thomas à Kempis' ''The Imitation of Christ'' in 1989, and the Glasgow Codex in 1995, continue to resurface and to belatedly see publication for the first time.

More recently, Pope John Paul II quoted from a Marulić poem during his 1998 Apostolic Visit to Solin, Croatia. Provided by Wikipedia