Ivan Franov Gundulić
375 years ago, 8th of December 1638 at the age of 49 – Ivan (in the Ragusan dialect: Dživo) Franov Gundulić [Italian: Gianfrancesco Gondola] had died in Ragusa (Dubrovnik), a politician and a baroque poet; an aristocrat from the Republic of Ragusa, from 1608 a member of the Great Council (Veliko Vijeće), then a senator (1636), a judge (1637) and in the year of his death a Rector (knez or governor) of the Republic; a creator of the canon of the Croatian literary language, his greatest epic the “Osman” – “ a narrative poem glorifying the Polish army, in the hope that Poland will free the Balkans”, in which the main character is prince Władysław Vasa (subsequently king Władysław IV); in the field of religious lyrical poetry an outstanding representative of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
prof. Jacek Bartyzel
translated by Arek Jakubczyk
Kategoria: Reactionary Diary