In the late Middle Ages, clerical documents (e.g. The Proceedings of the Synod of Split; after 917) and books (e.g. Vecenega's Gospel Book, Zadar, 1096; kept in the Bodleian Library) were written in Latin. Latin was also used in royal charters (e.g. Petar Kresirnir IV's charters of 1066 and 1069, the Golden Bull of King Andrija II, 1222, the fundamental law of the Croatian constitution); in the records of international agreements (e.g. Pacta Conventa, 1102); and in the minutes of the sessions of the Croatian parliament (e.g. Zagreb, 20 April 1273). It was the official language of the Croatian parliament (Sabor) until 23 October 1847. Many medieval notarial documents (e.g. Zadar, 1146}, municipal statutes (e.g. Split, 1240) and chronicles were also written in Latin (e.g. the finest medieval chronicle Historia Salonitana, produced by Thomas Archidiaconus in the mid-thirteenth century).

From the fourteenth century Latin was increasingly used as a literary language. The Catholic faith and the pervasive influence of Italian Humanism both contributed to the constant use of Latin for cultural and administrative purposes. During the age of Humanism and the Renaissance, Latin became the language of literature and science and of the educated elite. Moreover, before the invention of the printing press, which led to the promotion of national languages and the emergence of vernacular literatures, Latin, as an international language with a long tradition and universal currency, hindered the progress of Croatian national literature in the vernacular.

Among Latin incunabula, the earliest work by a Croat is the funeral oration Oratio in funere Reverendissimi Domini D. Petri Cardinalis Sancti Sixti habita, delivered by Bishop Nicolas of Modrus for Cardinal Pietro Riario, the nephew of the Pope. This work was printed in six editions between 1473 and 1482 in Venice and Padua. Bishop Nicolas was a contemporary of the Latin poet Janus Pannonius, very well known in the history of Humanism. Born in 1434 near Cazma in the Croatian-Hungarian borderland, he died at the castle of Medvedgrad, near Zagreb, in the year 1478. He was one of the followers of the scholar Guarinus of Ferrara and was on friendly terms with several famous representatives of the Italian Renaissance, especially Pope Pius II, who appointed him, at the age of twenty-six, Bishop of Pecs (Funlkirchen) in Hungary. Janus, the nephew of the Royal Chancellor Johannes Vitez ( 1408-1472), a distinguished Latin orator, spent most of his life at the Italophile court of King Matthias Corvinus (14581490) of Hungary in Buda, among a comparatively wide circle of his Croatian compatriots, who zealously and successfully encouraged the intellectual efforts of the king. Janus's work, notably his poetic works, Panegyrica, Elegiarum and Epigrammata, were not printed until after his death in 1478 and carried his name and glory to wider spheres.

More than five hundred years ago, around 1480, Juraj Sizgoric (Georgius Sisgoreus), Canon of Sibenik, one of the earliest Latin authors in Dalmatia, wrote De situ Illyriae et civitate Sibenici (1487). This work, which was never printed, contains an interesting description of physical geography of Croatia under the name Illyria and ends with a glorification of Sibenik. It is in this work that one finds the chapter `De moribus guibusdam Sibenici "("Concerning some popular customs of Sibenik"), in which the author, in translating traditional proverbs from Croatian into Latin, states that he finds them wiser than the laws of Solon and the Sentences of Numa; wiser too than the theorems of Pythagoras. He found the dirges (songs) of the people more moving than the lamentations of Thetis for Achilles, and the wedding songs more beautiful than the epithalamia of Catullus. The love songs which amorous young men used to sing at night seemed to him in no way inferior to those of the refined Tibullus, the ffattering Propertius, or the poetess Sappho.

Folk songs and Croatian customs emerging from the depths of the most distant past were the foundation stone of the earliest Croatian literature. Later various external influences stimulated Croatian literature, which soon mirrored philosophical movements seen in western Europe. Yet the echo of the tragic plight of the Croatian people, threatened by the Turks who were making deep inroads into Croatia, continued to reverberate and predominate in their literature for a long time to come, thus making anti-Turkish propaganda the main theme of Croatian Humanist literature. Here was the sombre epic of their painful struggle and their agony resulting from repeated assaults by the Turks over centuries.

Juraj Sizgoric, in addition to the works already mentioned and others which survive only in manuscript, had printed a volume of poetry entitled Georgii Sisgorei Sibenicensis Dalmatae: Elegiarum et carminum libri tres (Venetis, per Adam de Rodueil, 1477), the oldest printed collection of poems by a Croatian Latinist. Prior to this work, his long poem Ad Christum Dominum nostrum eadeq. Virgine gloriosa epigrammata had appeared in a collection around 1475.

A whole series of Latin works on moral philosophy and theology was written at this time by the Franciscan Juraj Dragisic, Archbishop of Nazareth, better known by his Latin name Georgius Benignus de Salviatis. He was born at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia around 1445 and died in Italy in 1520. As a child, while taking refuge in Dubrovnik during a Turkish invasion of Bosnia, he found asylum in a Franciscan convent, an order which he was later to enter himself. He continued his studies in Italy and completed them in Paris and Oxford. He was very gifted and was highly esteemed as teacher and priest at the court of Urbino and that of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence. His defence of Picodella Mirandola, the most brilliant Italian mind of the period, and later of Savonarola, and his support for the great German Humanist Johann Reuchlin have made him famous. Of his works the following have been printed, mostly in Florence and Venice: Dialectica Nova (1488 and 1520), Septem et septuaginta Nicolai de Mirabilibus reperta Mirabilia (1497), Opus de natura caelestium spirituum (1499), and Defensio praest. viri Joannis Reuchlin (s.l. 1517). His most important work on logic, Artis dialecticae praecepta vetera et nova, was published in Rome (1520).

Among other authors and works of this early period one must also mention Simon Dalmata Pharensis, Opusculum quo tractatur de baptismo sancti spiritus (Venetiis, per P. Gallum, 1477); Martin Nimireus Arbensis, Sermo de passione domini apud div. Alexandrum Pont. Max hab. (Romae, 1494); and Koriolan Cippico of Trogir, who gave a vivid description of the naval operations against the Turks by the Venetian commander Pietro Mocenigo in Petri Mocenici imperatoris gestorum libri tres (Venice, 1477). Cippico's work went into four editions and was translated into Italian three times.

Jacobus Bonus (Bunic) of Dubrovnik was famous for his mythological epic De raptu Cerberi, a classical allegory depicting Christ's descent into limbo. The poem De raptu Cerberi libri tres (s.l. 1500) was dedicated to Cardinal Caraffa. Bunic's long religious epic De vita et gestis Christi (The life and deeds of Christ, 1526), based on the four Gospels, and describing the whole life of Christ, was published nine years before the famous epic Christias (1535) by the Italian Humanist Girolamo Vida.

About 1499, Elegiarum libellus de Iaudibus Gnaese puellae (A book of elegies in praise of the maiden Agnes) by Carolus Puteus (Pucic, 1458-1522) of Dubrovnik was printed probably in Florence or Venice. Neither must one forget the work of the Franciscan Benedict Benkovic of Zadar, Navigium beate Marie virginis, which, according to Pellechet's bibliography of incunabula, appeared c.1495, nor his treatise Scotice subtilitatis Epidicticon, printed c. 1520 at Pavia, which was remarkable from a didactic point of view for its explanation of the teaching and work of Duns Scotus. From the hand of Johannes Policarpus Severitanus of Sibenik there appeared between 1494 and 1522 in Rome and Venice several poetic and grammatical works. The Franciscan Thomas Illyricus, an ardent defender of the Roman Catholic faith, worked in France, where he was famous for his learned discussions and defence of Catholicism against Luther. Alongside his Clypeus Ecclesiae catholicae (1524), he published other works printed in Toulouse and Turin.

In 1532 there appeared in Venice the work of the Dominican Vincent Priboevus (Pribojevic) of Hvar, Oratio de origine successibusque Slavorum, which was filled with national pride and later cited as a formulation of the concept of Panslavism. Ten years later, the eminent historian and Humanist Antun Vrancic (1504-1573) of Sibenik, who became Archbishop of Ostrogon and Primate of all Hungary, published a collection of 41 Latin poems, mainly epigrams, under the title Otia (Poems of leisure) in Krakow (1542). Together with the Flemish Humanist Busbecquius, he discovered the famous Monumentum Ancyranum, a long inscription in Latin and Greek describing the Res gestae divi Augusti (Achievements of the divine Augustus). The inscription is a grave and majestic narrative of the public life and work of Augustus, inscribed on the walls of the temple at Ancyra (modern Ankara). In 1551, four volumes of poetry, Carmina, mostly elegies by Ludovicus Pascalis (Paskalic, 1500-1551), were published in Venice. Previously he had also published a collection of Italian poems (Rime volgari, Venice, 1549), inspired by Bembo and Petrarch.

The first Latin liturgical books of the bishopric (later the archbishopric) of Zagreb were the Breviarium Zagrabiense, printed by Erhard Ratdolt of Augsburg in Venice (1484) and reprinted in the year 1505 by Lucantonio Giunta in Venice, andj the beautiful Missale Almi ep(iscop)atus Zagrabiensis. Impressum yenetiis in aedibus Petri Liechtenstein Coloniensis Germani ISII. These two works are precious books of the greatest rarity. One must also mention the names of three Croatian printers who in the fifteenth century practised the art of Gutenberg in Italy: Dobric Dobricevic (Boninus de Boninis de Ragusa, 1457-1528) of Lastovo in Dubrovnik district; Andrija Paltasic of Kotor, who worked in Venice ( 1476-93); and Gregorius Dalmatinus, who also worked in Venice (1482-83).

After the fall of Bosnia ( 1463) and Hercegovina ( 1482) to the Turks, the Croat heartlands were left exposed to the Ottoman onslaught. From the mid-fifteenth century, Croatia was repeatedly raided by Turkish forces, culminating in the disastrous defeat of Croatia's nobility at the battle of Krbava in 1493.

The first Croatian Latinist who wrote on Turkish affairs was Felix Petantius (1445-1517) of Dubrovnik. From 1487 to 1490, he was in charge of the calligraphists and miniaturists working at the court of King Matthias Corvinus in Buda, who died in 1490. Matthias's successor Ladislas II sent Felix on diplomatic missions to Dubrovnik, Spain, France, Constantinople and the island of Rhodes. After his return from Rhodes, he wrote three memoirs. In 1502 he presented to the king his first memoir entitled De itineribus quibus aggrediendi sunt Turci, which was reprinted fifteen times between 1522 and 1797 and translated into German and Italian. His second memoir, which is a description of the administrative, judicial, financial and military organisation of the Turkish Empire, is preserved in two manuscript versions; one is held in the National Library in Vienna and the second is kept at the National Library in Budapest; it is richly illustrated with numerous "portraits" of Turkish sultans. The third memoir, known as Historia Turcica, is held at the Municipal Library in Nuremberg (pressmark Ms Solger 31.2°). It was written in Buda and was beautifully illuminated in the miniaturists' workshop of Matthias Corvinus at the end of 1501. Petantius's account of the affairs of the Turkish state seems to be more objective and comprehensive than the narrative of events and experiences related by his compatriot Bartol Georgijevic, who spent nine years in Turkish captivity (1526-35).

As the beginning of the sixteenth century proved so fatal to Croatia, Croatian leaders, in their Latin orations and epistles, appealed in desperation to western rulers for help in their struggle against the Ottoman invaders. Their voice made itself heard above the oppression and dissipation of the Ottomans- They rise before us like bronze columns, bloody witnesses of an inexorable destiny.

Among the printed Latin orations and epistles which have survived, most of which are held in the British Library in London, let us mention Oratio habita presente Julio II Pont. Opt. Max. (Romae, 1512). This was delivered by Bernardo Zane, Archbishop of Split, on behalf of Ban (Viceroy} Petar Berislavic, who died in 1520 in a battle against the Turks. Then we have the impressive speech recounting the devastation of Croatia by the Bishop of Modrus, Simun Benja Kozicic (1460-1536), in the Lateran Council on 27 April 1513, Simoni Begnae Episcopi Modrusiensis de Croatiae desolatione ad Leonem X Pont. Max. (Romae, 1516), and also the Oratio Stephani Possedarski pro Domino Johanne Torquato . . . defensore Crovacie, a request made in the name of Ban Ivan Torquat Karlovic (1521-25) for weapons to defend Croatia, and for priests to encourage and console the people in their despair at the aggression.

In 1522, Count Bernardinus de Frangepanibus (1453-1529), a survivor of the battle of Krbava, delivered a distressing address to the State Senate in Nuremberg, Oratio pro Croatia, Nurenbergae in Senatu Principum Germaniae habita, imploring westrn potentates for help. Bernardinus was one of the most distinguished members of the family of Frankapans, which had been linked for centuries with the destiny of Croatia. He concluded his appeal by quoting Horace: "Et tua res agitur, paries quum proximus ardet" ("You are concerned when your neighbour's house is burning").

Almost at the same time the oration delivered in the presence of the Pope by Bernardinus's heroic son, Christopher (14&2-1527), left the press. He had become famous by virtue of his strange destiny, and the several years he spent in captivity in Venice. The Danish art historian, Henry Thode, dedicated his admirable book Frangipani's ring, an event in the life of Henry Thode (published by John Macqueen, London, 1900) to the memory of Christopher.

Only one copy of his Oratio ad Adrianum Sextum Pont. Max. Christophori de Frangepanibus veg. Seg. Modrusieque Comitis (Paris, 1523?) has survived, and it is held by the British Library. Christopher had added to his oration a memorial, which begins: "Holy Father! the counts, barons, nobles and people of the kingdom of Croatia, addressed themselves to my lord and father speaking thus, `You who are the oldest and mightiest among us must zealously put our case to our Holy Father the Pope and to the apostolic Holy See and to Christian Princes and Kings. Tell them with what ills, miseries, and anguish the Turks torture and torment us, how in overrunning our country they forcibly drag us into cruel captivity, how abandoned by all we are compelled either to leave our homes and to wander abroad, and to make our way by begging through the world, or to conclude a treaty with the Turks and serve them if the protection and help of His Holiness is denied to us"'.

Another member of the family of Frankapans, Count Vuk, Ban of Croatia and Dalmatia, spoke at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530: Oratio ad Carolum V. . . ac ad . . . principes Romani imperii, facta ex parte regnicolarum Croatiae, 24 Aug. 1530 habita (Augustae Vindeliconum, 1530). His moving speech, full of pathos, appeared simultaneously in the Latin original and a German translation. He declared that little Croatia had defended herself single-handedly for eighty years, but that now she would be compelled to surrender to superior forces unless help arrived soon. He himself fell in the battle of Schmalkalden in 1546.

The peripatetic Humanist, Tranquillus Andreis (Andronicus Andrijevic, 1490-1571), offered persuasive warnings, and tirelessly urged the Christian states to unite against the Turkish peril, which was becoming more and more threatening every day. He was born in Trogir in Dalmatia, and was descended from a family of old nobility. He had studied in Italy and was a keen Humanist who lectured on Cicero and Quintilian, among others, at the University of Leipzig.

It was in Leipzig that he had his Oratio de laudibus eloquentiae printed ( I 518). At Erfurt he was saluted in a dithyrambic poem by Eobanus Hessus, the king of the German Latin poets. Among the letters of Erasmus of Rotterdam there can be found a long message addressed to him Later, Andrijevic took up diplomacy, serving as secretary and ambassador to the court of the Grand Sultan and to the French, English, Polish and Valachian courts. He served first under Francis I of France, then under the Hungaro-Croatian King Ivan (John) Zapolya, and finally under Ferdinand I of Austria and Charles V.

Amongst Andrijevic's published works are Ad Deum contra Thurcas Oratio carmine heroico (1518), and, dating from the time of the Diet of Augsburg, Oratio contra Thurcas ad Germanos habita (Augsburg, 1518). In 1545 he published Ad Optimates Polonos admonita (Cracouiae, 1545). Eduard Bocking sang his praises in his edition of the works of Ulrich von Hutten, and reprinted his writings on the Turks.

During this same period, Marko Marulic ( 1450-1524) of Split was active. He was a Humanist of worldwide fame who, although a layman, devoted his life to religious contemplation and to the moral improvement of his fellow man, notably his fellow citizens. By the beginning of the sixteenth century we come across the first secular work of Croatian literature, Istoria svete udovice Judit (The History of the Holy Widow Judith), by Marko Marulic. This first Croatian epic, which tells the biblical story of Judith and the slaying of Holofernes, was published in five editions between 1521 and 1627. The story of the Apocryphal book of Judith, which is included in the Roman Catholic Vulgate, proved extremely popular with a wide cross-section of the population in the Croatian version. It was particularly popular with women and girls, untrained in Latin, who were greatly attached to their native tongue. In the preface to his Judit, Marulic writes: "In reading this history I was minded to translate it into our [Croatian] tongue, so that it might be understood by those who are not learned in Latin or clerical writing."

As the culture of some Croatian Humanists was bilingual or even trilingual, they used to write in Latin, Croatian or Italian. Thus, a characteristic feature of Croatian Humanist literature, shared by Humanism throughout Europe, was the parallel development of Latin and vernacular literature.

Marulic also wrote under the Latin form of his name, as was the custom of the time. As Marcus Marulus Spalatensis, he was wellknown as the author of a series of works of religious morality written in Latin, some of which were highly regarded: De Institutione bene beateque vivendi per exempla sanctorum (1st edn., 1498), Evangelistarium (1487), Dialogus de laudibus Herculis (1524), and other noteworthy works in poetry, history and archaeology, most of which were published in several editions, as well as being translated into German, Italian, French, Czech and Portuguese. In the sixteenth century Marulic's De Institutione went into seventeen editions, published in major cities such as Venice, Antwerp, Basle, Cologne, and Paris. It was translated into five languages, and these translations went into forty-five editions.

A Japanese adaptation of De Institutione (Sanctos no gosayuno) came out in Nagasaki in 1595. Moreover, De Institutione served as a vade-mecum to St Francis Xavier on his missions to India. In 1577 the English Catholic printer John Fowler of Bristol, by then in exile in Antwerp, published M. Maruli dictorum libri sex (De Instituione).

Evangelistarium was printed six times during Marulic's lifetime; unfortunately, not a single copy of the 1487, I500 and 1515 editions has been found so far. In 1529, a copy of Evangelistarium became a bedside book of Henry VIII, who entered annotations in his own hand. In 1585-87 Sir Philip Howard, Earl of Arundjel, while imprisoned in the Beauchamp Tower within the Tower of London, occupied himself by translating into English Marulic's L,atin poem as A Dialogue Betwixt a Christian and Christ Hanging on the Cross (thirty-nine four-line stanzas).

Marulic's considerable opus includes the beautiful and lofty Epistola ad Adrianum VI Pont. Max. De calamitatibus occurrentibus, et exhortatio ad communem omnium Christianorum Unionem et Pacem (Romae, per Bern. De Vitalibus, 1522). This epistle is an impressive exhortation to resist the Turkish invader.

The eminent French scholar, Charles Bene, whose seminal work Erasme et Saint Augustin (Geneva, 1969) is one of the landmark books in the history of Humanism, placed Marulic alongside the great figures of European Humanism.

In 1526, after the defeat of the young Jagellon, Louis II, at the battle of Mohacs, the greater part of the kingdom of Hungary was annexed by the Turks, who reached the gates of Vienna in 1529. At the same battle, a young Croatian scholar, Bartol Georgijevic was taken prisoner by the Turks, and deported as a slave to Turkey, where he served seven different masters over several years of captivity. Georgijevic's mother tongue, Croatian, was very useful in Turkey, and, according to him, Sultan Suleiman II knew and esteemed the languaage. Besides Croatian, Georgijevic also spoke Hungarian, Latin, Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew.

While still in captivity, he spent some time in Armenia, and taught Greek in Damascus, before he succeeded in escaping to Jerusalem in 1535. He took service in the Franciscan monastery there and found refuge until 1537. In 1538 he fulfilled a vow by undertaking pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostella, and in 1544 he went to The Netherlands and Germany, and later to France and Italy as "peregrinus Hierosolymitanus".

Georgijevic published a series of books in Latin, De Turcorum moribus epitome (Antwerp, 1544), describing the fate awaiting Christian prisoners. Also in 1544, he published De afflictione tam captivorum . . . (Antweip, 1544), a further description of the distressing plight of Christians held in Turkish captivity, with fragments in the Croatian language, and De ritibus differentiis Graecorum et Armeniorum. In 1545 he published Epistola exhortatoria contra infideles, an exhortation to war against the Turks, and Prognoma sive praesagium Mehemetanorum, a prophecy of the decadence of Turkey.

From 1544 until his death in Rome in 1566, Georgijevic produced many books on Turkish ways, customs, religion, and ceremonies, as well as on the miserable state of the Christians in Turkish bondage. In his various works on Turkish affairs, he implored, harangued and urged European rulers and religious leaders to attack the advancing Turks. His books about the Turks and their Christian captives, his history of the Turkish sultans, and his description of his own journey to Jerusalem were read with great interest all over Europe, and found a favourable response in intellectual circles. He was helped by Philipp Melanchthon and Martin Luther, not to mention Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Maximilian II, Sigismund II of Poland, the Popes Julius III and Pius V, and other influential figures. His works were translated into French, German, Flemish, Italian, Czech, Polish and English Georgijevic's work as translated into English by Hugh Goughe was printed by Thomas Marsche, and published in London (1570) under the title The offspring of the house of Ottoman, and officers pertaining to the great Turks Court.

Georgijevic's books created a sensation in his time because of their unique subject matter and presentation. No Croatian Humanist was more widely read in Europe than him. The British Library in London holds 44 copies of Georgijevic's various works.

A dramatic description of the battle of Mohacs was given by Stjepan Brodaric (1471-1539) in his monograph Clades in campo Mohacz (1568), which went into eight editions, while the brilliant stylist Ludovicus Cerva (Crijevic) Tuberon (1459-1527) provided another work on the origin, customs and deeds of the Turks, De Turcarum origine, moribus & rebus gestis commentarius (Florence, 1590). Crijevic's Commentaria (Commentaries) was put on the Roman Catholic "Index of Prohibited Books" because of its criticism of Church policy, morals and attitudes, and its marked tolerance of other religions and objectivity regarding the Turks.

The most original Croatian philosopher of the Renaissance, Franjo Petric (F. Patrizi, Patricio), was born on the Adriatic island of Cres in the Gulf of Kvarner, in north-west Croatia, in 1529. He studied at Ingolstadt and read philosophy and humanities at the University of Padua ( 1547-54). He spent many years in Venice, where a number of his writings were published between 1553 and 1572. He was professor of Platonic philosophy at the University of Ferrara ( 1579-92), and then at the Collegio della Sapienza in Rome until his death in 1597.

Petric was a versatile writer, a typical Renaissance homo universalis, with interests in many different intellectual fields. He published treatises on history, poetics, rhetoric, literary criticism, metaphysics, ethics, natural philosophy and mathematics, besides translating a number of Greek works into Latin. His major systematic philosophical work Nova de universis philosophia (Ferrara, 1591; reprinted in Venice in 1593) is a blend of Platonism and natural philosophy, with a strong anti-Aristotelian bias. Plato's philosophy had a great appeal for Petric, probably because it attaches great importance to mathematical knowledge. His philosophical and scientific theories are expounded in Della nuova geometria and De rerum natura libri II (both published in Ferrara in 1587).

The wandering, adventurous Humanist and polyhistor, Paul Skalic (1534-1573), published his work Encyclopaedia seu orbis disciplinarum tam sacrarum quam prophanarum epistemon (Encyclopaedia, or Knowledge of the World of Disciplines . . .) in Basle (1559). Although it is not strictly speaking an encyclopaedic dictionary, but a publication containing "a more heterogeneous collection of essays" (Encyclopaedia Britannica (1971), vol. 8, p. 363), it is worth mentioning here since it is "the first work known to contain the word [encyclopaedia] in the title" (cf. Encyclopedia Americana ( 1979), vol. 10, p.330). "Scalich's Encyclopaedia brought the term back into prominence" (Macmillan Family Encyclopedia, vol. 7, p.163). Skalic also penned the musical treatise, Dialogus de Lyra (Cologne, 1570).

The most prominent Croatian Protestant Humanist, who lived in Germany in the mid-sixteenth century, was the theological controversialist Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520-1575) of Labin in Istria. He began his Humanist studies at Venice, and later went to Basle, Tubingen and Wittenberg, which was the cradle of Lutheranism. There he came under Martin Luther's influence and became a confirmed Lutheran. He was professor of Hebrew and Greek at Wittenberg University from 1544 to 1549 and led the Gnesio (i.e. legitimate) Lutheran party, which claimed to follow Luther's teachings unmodified.

De Dominis became involved in the struggle between the papacy and Venice during the interdict controversy, when the Pope tried to break the resistance of the Venetian clergy to the supreme authority of Rome. His writings on behalf of Venice were censured in Rome, especially when he wrote against the papal secular prerogatives and refuted the secular power of the Church In 1616, he fled to England, where he was hospitably received. When de Dominis first arrived in England, King James I asked Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, whether the Bishop of Split was a Protestant or not. Bishop Andrewes replied: "Truly, I know not; but he is a Detestant of divers opinions of Rome" (Granger, A Biographical History of England, 1824, vol. II, p. 63). Regarding de Dominis as a convert to Anglicanism, James I appointed him Dean of Windsor, and gave him the rich living of West Ildesley in Berkshire. He was also made a Doctor of Divinity by Cambridge University.

In 1617 the first part of de Dominis's main theological work De republica ecclesiastica. . . was published in London. Immediately, after publication, it became the first book on the Roman "Index". In it de Dominis asserted that the Pope did not have jurisdiction over bishops, but was primus inter pares, and he urged the unity of all Christian churches, and their commitment to exclusively spiritual ends and peace among nations. He also favoured the rights of national churches, and developed a vision of world peace which he opposed to Roman centralism. In De republica ecclesiastica, de Dominis represented himself as a Catholic universalist, bearing the parallel titles of Archbishop of Split and Dean of Windsor. According to his own words, his main concern during his stay in England was to reconcile the Anglican and Roman churches.

When his friend and fellow countryman Gregory XV became Pope, de Dominis decided to leave England, and went to Brussels. While waiting for the Pope's permission to proceed to Rome, de Dominis published Sui reditus ex Anglia consilium (1623), in which he denounced the Church of England as a wretched schism and a degraded body. This was a complete recantation of his former tract Consilium profectionis . . . (Heidelberg, 1616), in which he explained the reasons of his departure for England and his "flight from Babylon". In 1623 he returned to Rome, formally made his recantation, and reconverted to the Church of Rome.

After Gregory XV's death, de Dominis was imprisoned as a relapsed heretic in the Castel Sant' Angelo, where he died soon afterwards. He was posthumously found guilty of heresy. His body and theological books were burned on the Campo di Fiore in Rome on 21 December 1624, and the ashes were thrown into the Tiber. Eight years later, de Dominis's successor at Padua University, Galileo, was also put on trial as a heretic and condemned by the same judge, Cardinal Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII.

In 1595 the Dictionarium Quingue Nobilissimarum Europae Linguarum, Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmatiae et Ungaricae Fausti Verantii was published in Venice by Nicolaus Morettus (vi + 128 pp. in-8°). This multilingual dictionary is often regarded as the first major dictionary of the Croatian language and its author, Faust Vrancic (1551-1617), as the father of Croatian lexicography. Vrancic's work undoubtedly represents a landmark in the history of Croatian, and indeed European, lexicography.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the first grammar of the Croatian language, Bartol Kasic's Institutionum linguae Illyricae libri duo, was printed in Rome (1604). Both Vrancic and Kasic tried to place Croatian vernacular as a standard language on the same level as Latin, to which it was subordinated yet free to develop independently, just as the western European vernaculars were doing.

Among historical works written in Latin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the foremost is De Regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae libri sex by Ivan Lucic (Lucius) of Trogir, the founder of modern Croatian historiography. The title of this work alone is proof of the links created by lamguage and destiny. The first edition was published in 1666 by the famous bookseller Johannes Blaeu in Amsterdam. It is recognised as an excellent and serious work whose composition and development rival the best of its contemporaries. From amongst many works one must mention those of Baron Georgius Rattkay, (Memoria Regum et Banorum regnorum Dalmatiae, Croatiae et Slavoniae, Vindobonae, 1652), and Balthasar Adam Krcelic, Canon of Zagreb, (De regnis Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Sclavoniae notitiae praeliminares, Zagrabiae, 1770); and to these can be added a whole series of specialised works.

The distinguished numismatist and palaeographer Anselino Banduri (1671-1741) of Dubrovnik worked in Italy and France. His monumental four-volume history of Byzantium and its antiquities, Imperium orientale . . ., was published in Paris (1711). He was a member of the French Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

At the turn of the seventeenth century, Pavao Ritter Vitezovic ( 16521713) emerged as "the first builder of political and cultural unity of all Croats" (Franjo Fancev). His great contribution to the progress of intellectual Iife can scarcely be appreciated in its true light today. Far in advance of his time, he achieved a great deal by creating a secular popular literature in Croatian, by placing his literary activity in the service of the Croatian language in general and by his work in the field of history. His unwavering friendly relationship with the Carniol historian Johann Weickhard Valvasor (1641-1693) is seen in the signs of his evident collaboration in the work of the latter.

Vitezovic wrote many works in Croatian and Latin but only a few have been printed. Thus his important Latin-Croatian dictionary (Lexicon latino-illyricum, one volume, 1132 pp.) remained in manuscript. In taking over a printing shop that a patriotic Croatian gentleman gave to the nation in 1666, he became the first printer in Zagreb. His activity in the field of heraldry and of political history in Latin was various and characterised by great patriotism and a rare perspicacity. In 1696 he appealed to the estates of the realm of Croatia, asking to be supplied with reproductions of coats of arms and information on families and various regions in view of his plan to publish a work entitled De Aris et Focis Illyricorum. The fruits of this appeal appeared in his book of heraldry, Stemmatographia, Sive Armorum Illyricorum Delineatio, Descriptio, et Restitutio, Authore Ecquite Paulo Ritter, published in Vienna (1701). Amongst his Latin works one must also cite his historical writing in hexameters, Plorantis Croatiae saecula duo (Tivo Centuries of Grieving Croatia, 1703), a melancholy versicular description of the Turkish wars in Croatia and an apologia of the greater Croatia, Croatia rediviva (Croatia Reborn), Zagreb, 1700. These 1wo works show the same "cruciatus doloris" (torment of pain) which, two centuries earlier, Sizgoric had said was the inspiration for his poetry. Towards the end of his life there appeared in Trnava, in 1712, his Bosna captiva, an expression of his distress that Bosnia remained under Turkish domination and of his desire and hope that Turkey would be fully vanquished. Paul Vitezovic was an exceptional man with bold ideas which were still alive more than a hundred years after his death, for they fired with enthusiasm and inspired Ljudevit Gaj (1809-1872), the creator of modern "Illyrianism", whose activity at the time of the Croatian national awakening was that of a pioneer. Vitezovic died in 1713, after a troubled life full of privations, far from his homeland in exile in Vienna.

The Franciscan Filip Lastric (1700-1783), in his Epitome vetustatum Bosnensis provinciae (1762), provided a comprehensive history of the Bosnian Franciscan province (Provincia Bosnae Argentinae). His bilingual (Latin-Croatian) collection of sermons, Testimonium bilabium . . , was published in Venice (1755). In his treatise In veterem Croatorum patriam indagatio philologica (Philological Research on the Ancient Homeland of the Croats, Zagreb, 1790), the philologist Matija Petar Katancic (1750-1825) of Valpovo in Slavonia, professor of archaeology at the University of Budapest, claimed that the Croats were the indigenous inhabitants of Pannonia and Dalmatia. His views strongly influenced partisans of the so-called "Illyrian Movement" of the 1830s, who firmly believed the Croats to be direct descendants of the Illyrians. Even more important is his Specimen philologiae et geographiae . . . in guo de origine, lingua et litteratura Croatorum . . . disseritur (Zagreb, 1795), in which he credits the Dalmatian writers, especially those of Dubrovnik, with being the founding fathers of Croatian classical literature. A bilingual (Latin-Croatian) collection of Katancic's poetry, containing 47 Latin poems, entitled Fructus auctumnales (Autumnal Fruits), was published in Zagreb (1791).

Croatian Latinists also translated works from other languages, especially classical Greek, into Latin. Thus Rajmund Kunic ( 17191794) of Dubrovnik, for many years professor of rhetoric and Greek at Rome, translated the Iliad ( 1776), a work which is considered the best Latin translation of Homer's epic. His satirical and love epigrams were published posthumously: Epigrammatum Iibri quinque (Parma, 1803) and Epigrammata (Dubrovnik, 1827). The learned Jesuit Kazimir Bedekovic (1726-1782), who taught Newton's laws of motion and gravitation at the Zagreb Academy, translated into Latin Reflexions upon learning by Thomas Baker, as Tractatus de incertitudine scientiarum / orig. Reflexions upon learning Auctore Thoma Baker. In Academia Zagrabiensi latinitate donatus a Casimir Bedekovich . . . (Zagrabiae, 1759). He also wrote several religious plays in Latin, Ioseph (Vienna, 1778) and Hilaria ante cineres (Merry plays before Ash Wednesday, Vienna, 1780), depicting the lives of St Bernard and St Justin.

As the international language of science, Latin was the cultural medium par excellence. Early Croatian scientists, following the western European model, made Latin an indispensable part of their means of expression.

Hermann of Dalmatia (fl. 1 138-43) was an important figure in the transmission of Arabic learning to the west. By 1138 he had settled in Spain and become sufficiently fluent in Arabic to produce nine works, mostly astrological translations from Arabic into Latin. He produced a Latin edition of Ptolemy's Planisphere from the Arabic translation of the Greek original, the only extant version of this astronomical treatise, and a version of Euclid's Elements. In 1143 Hermann completed his only independent work of philosophy, De Essentiis, in which his view of the fundamental elements of the universe shows the strong influence of the Platonic school of Chartres. Hermann's De Essentiis was copied several times during the Middle Ages; of the three copies extant to date, in Naples, London and Oxford, one is held by the British Library manuscript collections.

Federico Grisogono (1472-1538) of Zadar studied medicine and philosophy at Padua. After receiving a doctorate from the University of Padua (1506), he taught there for a while and then in 1508 he returned to Zadar, where he practised medicine and made astronomical observations. In his work De modo collegiandi, prognosticandi et curandi febres, nec non de humana felicitate, ac denique de fluxu et refluxu maris (Venice, 1528) Grisogono solved the problem of the tides in the special section entitled Tractatus de occulta causa fluxus et rejluxus maris. The problem of the second daily tide was one of the most difficult problems of his time, and Grisogono's solution showed the influence of the fourteenth-century Italian scientist Jacopo Dondi. He argued that the tides result from the combined action of the sun and the moon. He also constructed a mathematical model which predicted the high tide quite accurately.

Marko Antun de Dominis (1560-1624), while teaching mathematics at Padua, wrote two works on physics. The first one, De radiis, visus et lucis in vitris perspectivis et iride (Venice, 1611), deals with geometrical optics and the theory of the rainbow. It is apparently the first treatise to point out that in the phenomenon of the rainbow the light undergoes two refractions and an intermediate reflection in each raindrop. In the second, Euripus seu de fluxu et refluxu maris sententia (Rome, 1624), de Dominis is concerned with tides. He believed that the moon and the sun influence the sea in a manner analogous to a magnet. He adopted and corrected Grisogono's theory of a second daily tide caused by the influence of both bodies in any position.

Although Faust Vrancic, who studied philosophy and law at Padua (1568-70), was principally a man of letters and spent most of his career as a diplomat, administrator and ecclesiastic, he also studied mechanics and mathematics in his leisure time. In 1616, he published a treatise on logic (Logica nova, Venice, 1616) and wrote an important folio volume entitled Machinae novae (Venice, 1620?). In Machinae novae Vrancic illustrates five different types of horizontal mills (pls, XIII, XII, XI, IX, VIII). Three out of the five illustrations show gear-arm construction, with four arms crossing each other to form at the centre a square through which the main shaft passes. These illustrations of Vrancic are the earliest examples of the improved clasp-arms wheels in windmills. How many of these early designs were actually put into practice is not known. Vrancic is renowned in the history of technology as the author of Machinae novae. Although some of his "machines" were not wholly original, they were nevertheless explained in print for the first time. A particularly interesting section entitled "Homo volans" includes the first published mention of a parachute.

The mathematician and physicist Marin Getaldic (1566-1626) of Dubrovnik lived the peripatetic life of a scholar. He lived in Italy, France, England, Germany and Belgium. Daring his stay in Paris he was particularly influenced by Francois Viete, with whom he associated. Getaldic wrote in Latin and his works were widely known. Archimedes and especially Apollonius were his inspiration. His first work, Promotus Archimedis (Rome, 1603), dealt with the famous problem of the crown. In it he theoretically explained the method of determining the specific gravity of solid bodies. His works on mathematics and geometry can be divided into two different groups. The first group consists of works published during his life: Supplementum Apollonii Galli (Venice, 1607), Apollonius redivivus (Venice, 1607), Apollonius redivivus, Iiber secundus (Venice, 1613), and Variorum problematum collectio (Venice, 1607). In all these works Getaldic solves geometric problems by Euclidean methods. His last work, published posthumously, De resolutione et compositione mathematica (Rome, 1630), constitutes the second group in which Getaldic applies consistently the so-called algebraic (Viete's) method of analysis.

Another polyhistor from Dubrovnik, Stjepan Gradic (1613-1683), during his stay in Rome (1642-83), moved in the political and scholarly circles of Pope Alexander VII and Queen Christina of Sweden. He was the custodian and, by the end of his life, the head of the Vatican Library. His work Peripateticae philosophiae pronunciata disputationibus proposita (s.a., s.l.) is a systematic review of logic, scholastic philosophy and Aristotle's natural philosophy. In his second work, Dissertationes physico-mathematicae quatuor (Amsterdam, 1680), he follows Galileo's scientific method of observation and direct evidence. He also deals with the natural causes of motion and the laws of acceleration and falling bodies.

The most fervent follower and proponent in Europe of the "new natural philosophy" (Newton's laws of motion and gravitation) was Rudjer Boskovic. Born in Dubrovnik in 1711, he entered the Society of Jesus and passed his novitiate in Rome at the Collegium Romanum, where, in 1735, he began studying Newton's Opticks and Principia. In 1740, he became professor of mathematics at the Collegium Romanum. Boskovic continually promoted international co-operation in geodesy (large-scale measurements of the earth, allowing for its curvature). He collaborated enthusiastically with an English colleague, Christopher Maire, Recter of the English Jesuit College in Rome, in measuring an are of two degrees of the meridian between Rome and Rimini. This onerous task took three years, and the report on it came out in Rome at the end of 1755.

Boskovic's magnum opus, Philosophiae naturalis theoria redacta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium, was published in Vienna in 1758. A bilingual Latin-English edition was published in Chicago and London in 1922 under the title A Theory of Natural Philosophy. Boskovic always wanted to visit Newton's homeland. Finally his wish became reality when he was sent on a mission to London, and on 23 January 1760 he landed at Dover. The following day he went to Greenwich to see the famous observatory. In London he was well received in all circles, as his reputation amongst scientists and scholars had preceded him. He met Benjamin Franklin, who demonstrated to him his electrical experiments, and he dined with Dr Samuel Johnson. He also had discussions with representatives of the Church of England, and visited Oxford and Cambridge.

Boskovic attended several meetings of the Royal Society in London, at which he stressed the importance of observing the imminent transit of Venus across the sun. He even submitted a Latin treatise to the Society entitled De Proximo veneris sub Sole Transitu, which was published in volume 51 of Philosophical Transactions (1759-60). Soon afterwards, he dedicated to the Society his Latin poem De solis et lunae defectibus (On the eclipses of the sun and the moon), which was printed in London in the autumn of 1760. On 15 January 1761, the Royal Society elected Boskovic a Fellow, a month after he had reluctantly left England (on 15 December 1760).

On leaving England, he travelled to Turkey. He returned to Italy in 1764, and became professor of mathematics at the University of Pavia, and director of the observatory at Brera. Sadly, his vanity, egotism and petulance made him many enemies, and in 1770 he removed to Milan. He was deprived of his post as a result of intrigues; and because of the suppression of the Jesuit order in 1773, he left Italy and accepted an invitation to Paris, where a post was arranged for him as director of optics for the navy. He remained in Paris for ten years, but his position became intolerable; therefore, in 1783, he returned to Italy and settled in Bassano. There he occupied himself with the publication of his five-volume Opera pertinentia ad opticum et astronomicum (Vienna, 1758). He then moved to Vallombrosa near Florence, and subsequently to Milan. There he fell into melancholia, lapsed into madness, and died on 3 February 1787 at the age of 75.

After Ruder Boskovic visited England, his theory of atomism spread throughout Great Britain and served as the basis for a number of scientific points of view during his lifetime. There is a long tradition in Britain relating to Boskovic's theory of natural philosophy, set out in his seminal work Theoria philosophiae naturalis . . . (2nd edn, Venice, 1763). While he was still alive his theory was accepted by the famous British philosophical scientists Joseph Priestley and John Robinson. Although Boskovic's theory and its application were discussed throughout Europe, there were differences between Great Britain and the rest of Europe. In Europe the theory was considered more critically, especially because of Boskovic's belief that the fundamental particles of matter were immaterial atoms. It is certainly relevant that in Boskovic's tune the British were already trying to combine purely empirical facts with the philosophical tradition: this explains the subsequent attempts to reconcile Boskovic's abstract natural philosophy with empiricism. Particularly important is Boskovic's influence on five great men of British science: Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin and Joseph John Thomson.

Among eighteenth-century chemists who wrote in Latin, one should mention Pavao Thaller (1735-1800), Josip Franjo Domin (1754-1819) and Ignjat Martinovic (1755-1795).

Thaller, who lived and worked as a chemist in Pozega (Slavonia), wrote a manual of chemistry entitled Introductio ad Veram Chemiam (1757) (241 pp. +44 pp, addenda +3 pp, of Tabula affinitatis). This manuscript has never been published.

Franjo Domin studied philosophy, mathematics and physics at the Zagreb Academy, and obtained his diploma in 1776. In the same year he won a scholarship for postgraduate studies at the University of Trnava in Slovakia, where he obtained his PhD in 1777. Soon afterwards he was appointed Professor of Theoretical and Experimental Physics at the Academy of Gyor in Hungary. There he lectured on Newton's laws, Boskovic's atomic theory, and the kinetic theory of heat. In 1784, Domin published his first major work, Dissertatio Physica . . , written in Latin. Translated into English, its full title is Physical Treatise on the Genesis, Nature and Utility of Factitious Air. It was the first work of this kind to be published in Hun "Factitious air" was an eighteenth-century term for any artificial gas differing from natural, atmospheric air. In this work Domin praises "the foremost modem physicists whose endeavour, under Priestley's leadership, raised this whole discipline to the level it now occupies".

Domin adhered to Priestley's theory of "phlogiston", which held that all combustible materials contain an element, phlogiston, which is given off when they burn. It was thought that when the air is saturated with phlogiston, it is less able to support combustion. Consequently, Priestley called the gas in which a candle flame burns brightly "dephlogisticated air". In fact, it is oxygen. When Domin wrote his Physical Treatise, the phlogiston theory was still generally accepted in the explanation of chemical phenomena. He used it conventionally, following Priestley's interpretation closely, although he was not a slavish adherent of the phlogiston theory. Domin was certainly one of the most competent experts in Priestleyan chemistry. However, in his Physical Treatise, he included the research and discoveries of other chemists apart from Priestley, such as J. Ingenhousz, T. Cavallo, F. Fontana, and others. He also paid considerable attention to the first aerostats, seeing in them a prospective application of the physics and chemistry of gases.

Ignjat Martinovic, who taught natural sciences in Buda, Slavonski Brod and Lviv ( 1783-91 ), was also a follower of the phlogiston doctrine. His manual of physical chemistry, Prelectiones Physicae experimentalis I, was published in Lviv (1787) and his mathematical work Theoria generalis aequationum omnium graduum was published in Buda (1780).

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the social prestige of Latin began to decline, the direct relationship between Croatian and German or Hungarian gave rise to a new type of language question. During the Croatian national awakening, Ivan Derkos wrote, in a "neutral", supranational Latin, a book entitled Genius patriae super dormientibus suis filiis (The Genius of Fatherland above His, Sleeping Sons, Zagreb, 1832), in which he appealed to all Croats to unite and to resist Germanisation and Magyarisation. He took Hugo Grotius's verses as the epigraph of his work:

Croats were the only people in the Roman Slavdom (Slavia Romana) who strongly resisted the Latin universalism of the Roman Church and tried to defend and assert their native language. As examples, witness the Croatian Glagolitic heritage; the Croat Protestant writers who in Urach, near Tubingen, printed books in the vernacular (1561-65); and the radically populist Bosnian Franciscans who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in their pastoral work and sermons, brought the Bible to the common people in their native tongue. Despite their success with the vernacular, these writers were constant in their belief that Latin was a more noble language. On the other hand, Latin provided access to western European culture, participation in the western republica litterarum and involvement in international affairs. As a relatively neutral, supranational lingua franca, Latin also served as a shield against Hungarian and German linguistic, political and cultural encroachments upon Croatia's body politic.

As a literary and cultural medium, Latin had been used in Croatia up to the mid-nineteenth century when it was superseded by literary Croatian. However, there were poets who wrote in Latin even in the twentieth century. Thus the poet and literary critic Ton Smerdel ( 19041970) published four collections of his Latin poems in the 1960s. It is worth noting that there are 4300 printed Latin works by Croatian authors up to 1848, as recorded in Sime Juric's bibliography: Opera scriptorum latinorum natione Croatorum usque ad annum MDCCCXLVIII typis edita, tom. I - Index alphabeticus, Zagrabiae 1968, tom. II - Index systematicus, Zagrabiae 1971. In his Bibliografia Hrvatska (Croatian Bibliography, Zagreb, 1860), Ivan Kukuljevic registered 3000 books written in Croatian up to 1860. Consequentty, up to the mid-nineteenth century, Croatian authors had written more works in Latin than in Croat.

1 E. Hosch, The Balkans, Faber and Faber, London, 1972, p. 64.
2 E. D. Goy, "Marko Marulic", BC Review, No. 13, Oct. 1977, pp. 7-8.
3 Charles B. Schmitt, Dichonary of Sciendfic Biography,Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, vol. X, p. 416.
4 R. Kolb, "Flacius Illyricus", The Encyclopedia of Religion, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1987, vol. 5. p. 348