Korespondencija Francesca Maturanzia s Nikolom Modruškim

This article discusses the correspondence between a Croato-Dalmatian prelate at the papal curia, Nicholas bishop of Modruš, and a Perugian humanist Francesco Maturanzio, who for more than two years, from the spring of 1472 until the summer of 1474, enjoyed the loose patronage of the bishop. Maturanzio spent most of this period studying Greek on Rhodes and the majority of the letters are in fact his reports to the patron in faraway Rome on his own personal affairs and the turbulent political events in the East. The article analyzes and contextualizes the correspondence while chronicling Francesco Maturanzio’s and Nicholas of Modruš’s client-patron relationship. Finally, the appendix includes an edition of the correspondence.Ovaj rad se bavi korespondencijom hrvatsko-dalmatinskog biskupa Nikole Modruškog (oko 1425–1480) s uglednim perugianskim humanistom Francescom Maturanziom (1443–1518), koji je u mladosti nešto više od dvije godine, od proljeća 1472. do ljeta 1474, uživao biskupov patronat. Korespondenciju čini četrnaest pisama, od čega trinaest Maturanziovih i jedno Modruškog. Najveći dio pisama, njih deset, pisan je u razdoblju između proljeća 1473. i proljeća 1474, u vrijeme kad je Maturanzio boravio na Rodu, a Modruški u Rimu. Pisma su sačuvana u prijepisu, kao dio Maturanziova epistolara, koji je većinom prepisao ili sam Maturanzio ili njemu bliska osoba, a koji se danas čuva u Vatikanskoj knjižnici pod signaturom MS Vat. lat. 5890. Rad analizira korespondenciju Maturanzija i Modruškog rekonstruirajući njihov klijentsko-patronatski odnos. Francesco Maturanzio postao je dijelom pratnje Nikole Modruškog u proljeće 1472. u Veneciji, u vrijeme kad je Modruški u gradu nadgledao izgradnju papinskih galija koje je trebao voditi do Brindisija kako bi se ondje našao s vrhovnim zapovjednikom papinskog brodovlja, kardinalom Olivierom Carafom. Papinsko je brodovlje zajedno s mletačkim i napuljskim trebalo sudjelovati u pomorskoj ekspediciji protiv Osmanlija, koordinirajući pritom svoje akcije s Uzun Hasanom, vladarom Turkmenā Bijele ovce i glavnim rivalom Osmanlija na Istoku. Maturanzio je Modruškog pratio u Grčku kako bi ondje ostao učiti starogrčki jezik. Tijekom njihove plovidbe sastavio je prvu zbirku pohvalnih pjesama u čast svojega patrona, koju je po svemu sudeći predao Modruškom pri njegovu povratku u Italiju nakon završetka ekspedicije u jesen 1472. godine. Posvetni primjerak nije sačuvan, no prijepis pjesama te zbirke iz 1472. godine nalazi se u rukopisu koji sadrži Maturanziovo pjesništvo iz različitih razdoblja života, MS Ottob. lat. 2011 u Vatikanskoj knjižnici. Maturanzio, koji je na Rodu učio grčki s metropolitom Metrofanom, Modruškom je počeo pisati pisma u proljeće 1473. U tim pismima, u kojima svoj odnos s Modruškim redovito formulira kao odnos klijenta i patrona, posebno se ističu dvije teme: vijesti i molbe privatne prirode; izvještaji o političkoj situaciji na Istoku. Od pisama opsegom i ambicijom posebno se ističe Epist. 5, pisana 26. kolovoza 1473, koje je Maturanzio uobličio kao historiografski komentar uz politička događanja iz ljeta 1473, huius aestatis commentaria, kako ga dvaput naziva. U svojim ciceronovski stiliziranim pismima Maturanzio se pokazuje kao vrsni latinist koji se vješto oslanja na citate i aluzije na djela antičkih autora, kako latinskih tako i grčkih. Na taj niz od devet pisama pisanih s Roda (Epist. 1–2 i 4–10) Modruški je odgovorio samo jednom, no, čini se, više zbog otežane komunikacije, nego možebitne nezainteresiranosti za Maturanziovo stanje. To jedino pismo Modruškog (Epist. 3) otkriva, naime, kako se Modruški i u Rimu osjećao odgovornim za mladoga humanista te prikazuje biskupa kao relativno utjecajnog posrednika u papinskoj kuriji koji se po povratku s ekspedicije osjećao frustriranim zbog neispunjenih ambicija. Maturanzio se u Italiju vratio u ljeto 1474. Svoje putovanje je detaljno opisao u pismu kojim je iz Vicenze obavijestio Modruškog o svom povratku (Epist. 11). Na poziv Modruškog Maturanzio ga je posjetio u Fanu, gdje je biskup u to vrijeme služio kao upravitelj grada. Nadajući se da će konačno postati punopravnim članom njegova kućanstva, Maturanzio je Modruškom tom prilikom posvetio novu zbirku pjesama, koja je pored drugog ciklusa pohvalnih pjesama uključivala i ciklus pjesama posvećenih blagdanima Djevice Marije. Te se pjesme iz 1474. godine danas nalaze u istom rukopisu Maturanziove poezije kao i one iz 1472. godine, a zajedno s korespondencijom jasno svjedoče o velikim nadama koje je perugianski humanist polagao u Modruškog. Iako Modruški u to vrijeme nije u svojem kućanstvu imao mjesta za još jednog humanista pored svojeg tajnika Bernardina Bennatija, ipak je Maturanziju pomogao da dobije mjesto u kućanstvu sipontskog nadbiskupa i novoimenovanog upravitelja njegove rodne Perugie Niccolòa Perottija (Epist. 12–13), kojem je Maturanzio sljedeće tri godine služio kao tajnik i učitelj njegovih nećaka. Ljeto 1474. tako je označilo kraj labavog klijentsko-patronatskog odnosa Maturanzija i Modruškog, no humanist se biskupu javio i kasnije, u vrijeme kad je Modruški bio upravitelj Perugii susjednog Spoleta (između 1475. i 1477), moleći ga da intervenira u jednom sudskom slučaju koji se vodio na području njegove jurisdikcije (Epist. 14). O prirodi njihovih kasnijih kontakata, do kojih je moralo doći za vrijeme kad je Modruški živio u Perugii kao vicelegat cijele provincije Umbrije (1478), zasad nemamo izvora. U radu se donosi još nekoliko nepoznatih ili manje poznatih podataka o samom Nikoli Modruškom, ali i o drugim humanistički obrazovanim hrvatsko- dalmatinskim klericima i redovnicima koji su boravili u Italiji. Svraća se pozornost na dosad nepoznato pismo iz siječnja 1474. godine rapskog biskupa Leonella Chiericatija koji je prisustvovao pogrebu kardinala Pietra Riarija te se zatim pohvalno izrazio o pogrebnom govoru Nikole Modruškog za kardinala. Upozorava se na pismo Giovannija Lorenzija iz 1485. godine, sačuvano u istom rukopisu kao Chiericatijevo, u kojem se govori o bijesnoj reakciji Alviza Cipika, hrvatsko-dalmatinskog klerika i humanista na papinskoj kuriji, na činjenicu da po smrti kardinala Pietra Foscarija nije naveden u njegovoj oporuci: Cipiko navodno nije samo klevetao pokojnog kardinala po Rimu nego je čak htio i poništiti njegovu oporuku. Naposljetku, ističe se i veza Francesca Maturanzija s Ivanom Polikarpom Severitanom kojem je Maturanzio 1510. u Perugi napisao epigram o podrijetlu rimskog gramatičara Donata. U prilogu rada donosi se izdanje korespondencije Maturanzija i Modruškog. Uzimajući u obzir kvalitetu prijepisa i mogućnost da je posrijedi Maturanziova ruka, u izdanju je zadržana ortografija predloška, pri čemu se ispravljaju tek malobrojne greške u prijepisu. Uz svako pismo naznačeni su mjesto i vrijeme nastanka (ako nisu izričito datirana, taj je podatak u uglatim zagradama), pridodan je kratak opis sadržaja pisma i naposljetku referencija na raspon folija u rukopisu i poredak među pismima epistolara. Pisma su podijeljena na paragrafe, redovi su obrojčani, a uz kritički aparat pisma prati i aparat izvora

Nikola Modruški i latinski prijevodi Izokratovih Nikoklu i Demoniku: pitanja autorstva, izvora i posvete

The article examines the uncredited Latin translations of Isocrates’ parenetic orations To Nicocles and To Demonicus, located in Rome, Biblioteca dell’Accademia dei Lincei e Corsiniana, MS Corsin. 43.E.3 (127). In addition to the translations the manuscript contains two works of Nicholas of Modruš, a Croatian bishop who from 1464 until 1480 enjoyed a successful career at the papal curia. The bishop’s authorship of the translations has long been under question. The article revisits this problem by drawing on new palaeographic evidence, comparing the versions from the Corsinian manuscript to earlier translations of the orations, and proposing a possible solution to the question of the unnamed dedicatee of To Nicocles. Finally, it includes the editio princeps of the To Nicocles translation, and a new edition of the To Demonicus (published with errors by Karl Müllner in 1903 and attributed erroneously to Niccolò Sagundino).Anonimni prijevodi Izokratovih hortativnih govora Nikoklu i Demoniku koji se nalaze priloženi kao zasebni svežanj MS Corsin. 43.E.3 (127) u Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, u rukopisu koji sadrži djela hrvatskog biskupa i intelektualca Nikole Modruškog, više od stotinu godina po¬stavljaju probleme vezane uz pitanja autorstva i posvete. Započinjući od nedavnog istraživanja Antonija Rolla, koji je dokazao da je Nikola ipak učio grčki jezik, ovaj članak nudi odgovore na ta pitanja, te smješta rukopis u kontekst ranijih prijevoda. Prvo, upućuje se na biskupove interlinearne intervencije u corsinijanskom rukopisu. One su promakle ranijim istraživačima, a predstavljaju ključan dokaz da je riječ o biskupovim vlastitim prijevodima; nisu, naime, posrijedi samo emendacije pisarskih pogrešaka nego i stilske preinake teksta. Analizom rukopisa pokazuje se da je riječ o biskupovu vlastitom primjerku prijevodȃ; oni su, važno je imati na umu, bili izvedeni kao zasebni projekti, pri čemu je Nikoklu bio posvećen neimenovanomu mladom princu. Nadalje, Nikolini prijevodi govora ovdje su uspoređeni s ranijim njihovim prijevodima. Komparativnom analizom uvodnih paragrafa pokazalo se da se biskup uvelike služio prijevodom Carla Marsuppinija (prilikom rada na Nikoklu)i prijevodom Niccola Loschija (kod prevođenja govora Demoniku). Ta činjenica nije razlog za čuđenje, jer su se i drugi suvremeni prevoditelji oslanjali na ranije prijevode tih dvaju tekstova. Naposljetku, članak razmatra posvetu Nikolina prijevoda Nikoklu i pitanje identiteta adresata prijevoda. Budući da rukopis ne sadrži naslove tekstova, identitet adresata mora se razaznati iz sadržaja posvetnog pisma. Iz njega je pak jasno da je riječ o vrlo mladu vladaru, koji je tek nedavno došao na vlast, pri čemu posebnu pozornost treba pridati činjenici da Nikola predstavlja Nikokla ne kao kralja Cipra (kao što su ga točno bili imenovali svi raniji prevoditelji), nego kao kralja Sicilije. Čini se da je takva manipulacija trebala učiniti tekst relevantnijim za adresata, politički vezanoga uz Napuljsko Kraljevstvo, kojemu je službeni naziv bio Regnum siciliae. Razmatrajući imena potencijalnih kandidata koji bi odgovarali opisu iz posvetnog pisma a pritom mogli imati kontakte s Modruškim, – poput kalabrijskog vojvode Alfonsa, Costanza Sforze, Iacopa IV. Appianija i Bernardina Frankapana – zaključuje se da je najvjerojatnije posrijedi ipak bio Giovanni della Rovere d’Aragona, nećak pape Siksta IV., vojvoda Arce i Sore u Napuljskom Kraljevstvu, kojeg je kralj Ferrante poradi bliskih veza s papom Sikstom i posinio. Prijevod Nikoklu, koji bismo prema ovoj identifikaciji mogli datirati u razdoblje 1476./1477., kad je Nikola vršio dužnost upravitelja Spoleta, predstavljao bi tako, uz Pogrebni govor za Petra Riarija i obranu crkvene slobode (posvećenu Raffaeleu Sansoniju Riariju), još jedno svjedočanstvo o čvrstim vezama Modruškog s kurijom pape Siksta IV. Kao prilog članku donosi se prvo izdanje Nikolina prijevoda Nikoklu te novo izdanje prijevoda Demoniku, koji je 1903. priredio, uz mnogo pogrešnih čitanja, Karl Müllner pripisujući ga pritom Niccolu Sagundinu

School Glosses in the Trogir Manuscript of Propertius and Ovid (MS BAV Vat. lat. 5174): A Note on Humanist Teaching in Renaissance Dalmatia

In 1980 literary historian Šime Jurić drew the attention of the Croatian academia to MS BAV Vat. lat. 5174, a humanist miscellany copied in 1464/1465 in the Dalmatian city of Trogir, comprising Propertius’s Elegies, Ovid’s Epistula Sapphus, and shorter medieval and humanist poetry, most notably the elegiac poem by Ivan Lipavić, an otherwise unknown local humanist. While MS BAV Vat. lat. 5174 is thus long considered important as one of some twenty identified humanist manuscripts of Dalmatian provenance, this paper focuses on its annotations which have so far escaped scholarly attention. As is shown, the two sequences of glosses (V1 next to first three books of Propertius, and V2 next to Epistula Sapphus) reveal that the manuscript was used in the local school, which makes it the very first identified school manuscript from fifteenth-century Dalmatia. Highlighting the dominance of Italian humanist teachers in Dalmatian cities, such as Trogir, Zadar and Split, the paper turns to Robert Black’s seminal study of Italian humanist curriculum to categorize and contextualize the glosses of the two Trogir pupils, and reflect on some questions of humanist teaching in Dalmatia before the expansion of Venetian printing industry in the 1470s. Finally, the paper presents the transcription of the marginalia made by the two pupils

Julia Verkholantsev, The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome: The History of the Legend and its Legacy, or, How the Translator of the Vulgate Became an Apostle of the Slavs, Northern Illinois University Press, Dekalb IL 2014, xi + 262 str.

Prikaz knjige

Catherine, Queen of Bosnia and the Humanists, Part Two: Nicholas of Modruš, De humilitate

Ovo je drugi od dvaju članaka u kojima se istražuje odnos bosanske kraljice Katarine i humanista te analiziraju humanistička djela njoj posvećena. Ovdje se pritom iznosi hipoteza kako je hrvatski biskup Nikola Modruški Katarini posvetio svoj zagonetni i krnje očuvani traktat De humilitate (O poniznosti). U prilog toj hipotezi donosi se detaljan opis djela i rukopisa u kojem je sačuvano, razlaže se kontekst nastanka djela, te se naposljetku razmatra njegova svrha. Članak pritom donosi novi pogled na prve godine Katarinina života u Rimu.This is the second of the two articles that explores the relationship between Queen Catherine of Bosnia (1425-1478) and the Renaissance humanists. The purpose of the two articles is to show that Catherine, as the queen of the fallen Bosnian kingdom who spent fifteen years in exile, in Dalmatia and Rome, enjoyed regular contact with intellectuals of high profile and that some of them composed classicizing works in her honour. While the first article published in the previous issue of Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti HAZU (vol. 36) showed that the Queen stayed in Split in 1466 where she inspired the support and poetry of the Italian humanist Leonardo Montagna, the second explores the first years of her life in Rome where she moved in October 1467 and where, not long after, it is argued, the Croatian bishop Nicholas of Modruš dedicated to her his De humilitate (On humility). The De humilitate is a philosophical treatise preserved in a single autograph manuscript, and only in fragments which unfortunately do not include the dedication letter. The preserved parts do reveal, however, that the De humilitate was dedicated to a woman who had taken religious vows, and as a result Giovanni Mercati, the first scholar to drew attention to the work a century ago, has identified Nicholas’s cousin Francesca as the possible dedicatee – an attribution that has been repeated in scholarship ever since. In arguing that Queen Catherine was far more likely to have been the person to which this work was dedicated, this paper offers a detailed analysis of the contents of the work, the manuscript in which it was preserved, and the social context in which it was composed. The article thus shows that the work was composed in the summer of 1470, which both Queen Catherine and Nicholas of Modruš exceptionally spent in Rome and during which they began their close collaboration that would last until 1474. The Queen, it is argued, played a pivotal role within Rome’s Illyrian community, and the Croatian prelates at the papal curia, Nicholas of Modruš included, saw her not as a queen of a neighbouring kingdom but as their national, “Illyrian,” queen. On the other hand, the article highlights the well-known fact that the Queen lived in Rome, together with the ladies of her court, according to the rule of the Franciscan Third Order, and places this in the context of growing activity of female tertiaries in the city. The Third Order rule provided a structure to Catherine’s religious life and by 1470 her public acts of piety helped her establish the image of a humble, modest and even holy queen. In sum, the article argues that Nicholas of Modruš wrote the De humilitate to commemorate his national Queen’s decision to live by the rule of the Third Order, strengthen her aura of holiness, and, in prospect, serve other female tertiaries living across the city

[Anno Domini 1498...]; [Salve, lumen confessorum...]

Iako je u glagoljaškim krugovima hrvatsko-dalmatinskog svećenstva dugo bio čašćen kao apostol Hrvata, sveti je Jeronim vrhunac popularnosti doživio u petnaestom i šesnaestom stoljeću. U sklopu širenja humanizma i nacionalnog diskursa diljem Europe hrvatsko-dalmatinski su svećenici i humanisti pretvorili sveca u svojega nacionalnog zaštitnika. Ovaj članak svraća pozornost na zbirku tekstova koja svjedoči o popularnosti sv. Jeronima; sačuvana je na jednom listu papira među bilježničkim spisima zadarskoga notara Jerolima Vidulića. Zbirku čine dva teksta: jedan je polemički traktat o svečevu porijeklu, dok se drugi sastoji od crkvenog himna i molitve u njegovu čast. U radu se zbirka identificira kao povijesno-liturgijska knjižica i smješta se u žanrovski, ideološki i institucionalni kontekst, dok se u prilogu donosi prvo cjelovito izdanje i prijevod knjižice.Although he had long been revered as the apostle of the Croats in Glagolite circles of the Croatian church, St Jerome’s popularity reached a peak during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Having been exposed to the pan-European diffusion of humanism and humanist nationalism, Croatian-Dalmatian churchmen and lay humanists turned Jerome into their national patron saint and the emblematic figure of their nation. This paper draws attention to a historical-liturgical booklet that testifies to the wide popularity of the saint in Croatian-Dalmatian intellectual circles, specifically among the schiavone diaspora of Venice. The booklet, which was prepared in 1498 in Venice, consists of two texts: one is a polemical treatise on the origin of St Jerome composed by a certain V. S., while the other is a hymn and a prayer to the saint composed by a certain N. Ia. Sa. The texts were preserved on a slightly damaged folium among the papers of the fifteenth-century notary and canon of Zadar Cathedral, Jerolim Vidulić (ca. 1440–1499). Although they have received little attention, the texts are not completely unknown in Croatian scholarship. They were even published, though separately, with numerous errors and dubious editorial decisions by Vinko Valčić and Petar Runje. The paper starts by shedding light on the identity of Jerolim Vidulić. It is suggested that Vidulić received the texts through his personal or family connections to Venice, where he lived during the late 1470s and early 1480s, perhaps in the household of Maffeo Vallaresso, archbishop of Zadar. Vidulić is presented as a humanist who left very little of his own writing, yet who had a penchant for collecting short pieces of both humanist and Croatian vernacular literature. In the last year of his life, Vidulić received the booklet from Venice and then made a close-packed transcription on a single paper folium, unfortunately omitting the full names of its authors. The first of the two texts that form the booklet is V. S.’s Preface on the Origin of St Jerome. V. S. defines his treatise as a »preface to our prayer«; it is an invective against Biondo Flavio and other Italian historians who are »envious of our nation« and »falsely claim that Jerome was an Italian«. V. S. constructs his preface around a series of arguments disproving this claim. First, Jerome was not born in Istria, as Italian historians maintain, since the saint himself states that his hometown of Stridon was located in the middle, i.e. on the border, of Dalmatia and Pannonia, neither of which is contiguous with Istria. Indeed, according to V. S., the very name »Stridon« comes from the Illyrian (i.e. Slavic) »srida«, meaning »middle«, referring to its geographical location. He then identifies it as Srida (Glaž), a presently unidentified market town in western Bosnia, which according to V. S. has ruins and a church in St Jerome’s name, and is recognized as the birthplace of the saint. Modernizing the names of ancient provinces, V. S. disputes the identification of Pannonia with Hungary, and interprets it instead as Bosnia, which allows him to situate Jerome in the very heartland of Illyria proper, as it were. V. S. next presents a Pan-Slavic vision of the Illyrian nation, boasting that Czechs, Poles and Wallachians all speak the Illyrian language. This allows him to claim, with recourse to no known source, that Jerome’s father was a governor of the Dalmatian province not on behalf of the Romans, as Italians maintain, but on behalf of the king of the Vandals, i.e. the Polish king »Almeric«, presenting the Polish kingdom as the center of a polity that in Jerome’s time included the entire Illyrian nation under its rule. This is in fact the first known instance of Pan-Slavism in Croatian-Dalmatian humanist literature, appearing twenty seven years earlier than Vinko Pribojević’s celebrated speech De origine successibusque Slavorum held in Hvar in 1525. It is argued that the Pan-Slavism of both V. S. and Vinko Pribojević should be read as responses to the erosion of Hungarian authority after the death of Matthias Corvinus and the key role taken up by the Polish kings in the wars against the Ottomans. V. S. and the rest of the Venetian Schiavoni, who in 1498 had not yet received the news of the catastrophic outcome of the Polish campaign in Moldavia, presumably saw the Polish king as the liberator of their homeland from the Turkish oppression and with this in mind constructed a utopian vision of St Jerome’s times. The Preface ends with V. S.’s attack on the foolishness of Italian historians and a reminder that Jerome invented the Illyrian, i.e. Glagolitic, alphabet. After the end of V. S.’s preface, there follows a paragraph in which either N. Ia. Sa. or Jerolim Vidulić added an altered quote from Jerome’s letter to Nepotian (ep. 52) in order to further strengthen the argument that Jerome was an Illyrian. N. Ia. Sa.’s Hymn to St Jerome the Illyrian is composed of 17 quatrains that make altogether 68 verses and is based on an earlier hymn to the saint that was composed in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the center of the saint’s cult. In N. Ia. Sa’s hymn Jerome is celebrated according to the standard features of his iconography: as a cardinal, ascetic, model of learning, translator of the Bible. In line with Croatian-Dalmatian iconography of the saint, he is also shown as an Illyrian and inventor of the Glagolitic alphabet. However, there are two features in the hymn for which we find no parallels in other known texts. One is the image of Jerome as the teacher of nations: in two quatrains Jerome is presented as bequeathing the Vulgate not to Christendom but to Italians specifically, while in another one he is noted – presumably on the basis of N. Ia. Sa.’s misreading of Jerome’s comment in his De viris illustribus – as the editor of the Greek New Testament. This image of Jerome should be interpreted in the context of rivalries of national communities in Renaissance Venice, in which the Schiavoni were claiming Jerome for themselves but also stressing the indebtedness of Italians and Greeks to Jerome, and consequently to the entire Illyrian nation. The other notable feature in the hymn is Jerome’s role as the protector against plague, which also appears in the prayer to St Jerome that connects to the hymn. Thus, although the Schiavoni wanted to use the opportunity to claim Jerome for their nation and celebrated him as the national patron saint, the plague, which we know hit Venice in 1498, was in fact the main reason behind the composition of the entire booklet. In the final section of the paper, the booklet is interpreted in connection to the only institution in Venice that celebrated the cult of St Jerome the Illyrian, the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. The creation of the booklet should be seen as a result of the growing importance of Jerome, who was not the original titular saint of the confraternity when it was founded in 1451 but was coopted into the saintly pantheon later on. It is argued that this importance, most visibly seen in Vittore Carpaccio’s cycle of paintings produced for the confraternity in 1502–1507, was connected with the introduction of Slavonic liturgy into the life of the confraternity, which, during their litigation with the prior of San Giovanni del Tempio over this matter, the Schiavoni legitimized by calling on the myth that St Jerome invented the Glagolitic letters and Slavonic liturgy. The historical-liturgical booklet of 1498 was, of course, prepared for the purpose of the Latin service (which also continued to be in use), but it legitimized the use of Slavonic liturgy on special feast days. Finally, the paper suggests that the booklet was most likely meant for the printing presses – and, considering the great loss of copies of such small, cheap editions from this period, perhaps even was printed – in order to be distributed in the confraternity. The booklet stands as an important testament to the ideological horizons of the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni from the golden age of its history when its members decided to define their national identity through historical narrative and liturgy, painting and architecture, and make their presence known on the multicultural stage of Renaissance Venice. The appendix of the article includes the first complete edition of the booklet, drawing on the transcription of the texts done by Giuseppe Praga (1893-1958) when parts of the texts damaged by smudge were slightly more legible; the parts reconstructed by recourse to Praga appear in italics. The appendix also includes the first Croatian translation of both texts. In the edition, N. Ia. Sa.’s hymn and prayer, which constitute one single text, are marked separately as the second and third text of the booklet, for the sake of easier referencing

Alison Brown, The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2010., xiv + 139 str.

Prikaz knjige

Politika, patronat i intelektualna kultura na ugarskom dvoru u prvim godinama vladavine Matije Korvina : Nikola Modruški i Petrova lađica : (Studija, kritičko izdanje i prijevod)

Prilog donosi novo kritičko izdanje i prijevod Petrove lađice, traktata o problemu fizičkog zla hrvatskog renesansnog biskupa Nikole Modruškog (ca. 1425–1480), sastavljenog u mjesecima nakon osmanske invazije Bosanskog kraljevstva 1463. i posvećenog kaločkom nadbiskupu Stjepanu Várdaiju (ca. 1425–1471). Prilog uključuje i studiju koja na osnovi Petrove lađice i Dijaloga o sreći smrtnika, drugog poznatog djela koje je Nikola sastavio u tom razdoblju, kao i drugih literarnih i rukopisnih izvora analizira njegove veze s dvorom ugarskog kralja Matije Korvina (1458–1490), njegov intelektualni profil, ali i kasniju recepciju njegovih djela na dvoru. Analizom ugarske karijere Nikole Modruškog ova studija tako donosi šire zaključke o društveno-političkoj dinamici i intelektualnoj kulturi dvora u prvim godinama Matijine vladavine.Summary The article presents a new critical edition accompanied by a facing Croatian translation of Peter’s Barge (Navicula Petri), a theological treatise on the problem of physical evil composed by Nicholas bishop of Modruš (ca. 1425–1480), a Croatian Renaissance prelate who enjoyed close contacts with the court of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) before embarking on a successful career at the papal Curia. The edition is based on the sole extant witness of the text, preserved as part of a fifteenth-century miscellany located in the Archive of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (AHAZU) under shelfmark II.b.3. The two earlier editions of the work (Veličan 1999; Hrkać 2006) are not only marred by errors in transcription, but have moreover failed to recognize two major scribal errors and have thus included not the end of Peter’s Barge but the end of Leonardo Bruni’s Short Oration before Pope Martin V, the work which follows in the manuscript. The critical edition presented here corrects the transcription errors of previous editions, includes for the first time the ending of the work which can be found two folios further in the manuscript, and establishes the original sequence of this final portion of the text. As a work dedicated to the archbishop of Kalocsa Stephen Várdai (ca. 1425–1471), Peter’s Barge offers new perspectives on the political, social, and intellectual dynamics at the court of Matthias Corvinus during the first years of his reign, which are reexamined in the introductory study. The study first presents an overview of Nicholas of Modruš’s ecclesiastical and diplomatic career in the context of dynamic diplomatic activities between Buda, Rome and Venice that sought to counter the energetic Ottoman expansion in the Balkans. Owing to the influence of his earliest patron, Stephen Frankapan (†1481) lord of Modruš, the most powerful figure in Croatia at the time, king Matthias’ supporter and an important figure in these preparations, Nicholas entered the circle of intellectuals and diplomats around Várdai and especially John Vitéz bishop of Oradea (ca. 1408–1472), the two chief advisors to the king. At the same time, he was appointed by pope Pius II (1458–1464) as a legate to the Kingdom of Bosnia, only to witness its fall to the Ottomans in the spring of 1463. Though Nicholas of Modruš and Stephen Frankapan featured prominently in king Matthias’ autumn counteroffensive in Bosnia, during the following winter both fell out of grace with him. In order to shed more light on these events, the study proceeds by analyzing Nicholas’ contacts with the circle of Hungarian prelates, diplomats, and other intellectuals, highlighting the political and diplomatic roles of these figures, and interpreting their meetings not as mere idyllic otium spent in pursuit of intellectual topics, but as meetings during which discussions on the most important political concerns of the kingdom took fore. Having established the social hierarchy of the group, the study continues by analyzing themes, genres, and sources behind Peter’s Barge and Nicholas’ other work from this period, Dialogue on the Happiness of Mortals, as evidence of his intellectual profile. It challenges an earlier interpretation according to which Nicholas of Modruš was, much like Janus Pannonius or Galeotto Marzio, two other prominent intellectuals connected to the circle at the time, a humanist. Instead, as is shown, the bishop’s works present him as a scholastically educated prelate, a typical former student of Paul of Pergola’s philosophical school. Yet, rather than a product of a detached intellectual, Peter’s Barge has to be understood as part of a Renaissance intellectual tradition which interpreted physical evils of “Turkish” conquests as God’s retribution for the moral evils of the res publica Christiana, as it was supposed to be read against a backdrop of the dangerous political situation brought about by the fall of the Bosnian Kingdom. The study then analyzes Nicholas’ sudden banishment from the Hungarian court in the winter of 1464, connecting it, as earlier studies, to Stephen Frankapan’s removal from the position of the Croatian-Dalmatian ban. However, against earlier interpretations, it presents both the lord and bishop of Modruš not as passive victims of Matthias’ centralization efforts, but as active players at the state level who were, much as other factions, involved in court intrigues in order to promote their own political interests. This inglorious end of Nicholas’ Hungarian episode sheds light on his On Consolation, a treatise on sorrow and methods of consoling he composed upon his arrival to Italy, as an effort in self-medication that was supposed to remedy the bishop’s aegritudines animi brought about by his exile from the royal palace in Buda to a provincial city of the Papal States. Finally, a postscriptum to this discussion of Nicholas’ Hungarian career is devoted to the miscellaneous paper manuscript which preserves the sole surviving witness of Peter’s Barge, and which offers evidence of continuing circulation of Nicholas’ works at the court in the years following his banishment. It traces the manuscript’s provenance story from the lower stratum of the court’s intellectual milieu all the way to Dubrovnik, as yet another example of the vibrant cultural interaction between the city on the Adriatic and the Hungarian court