Marin Držić

Marin Držić.

Cover of the third edition of Marin Držić's Pjesni, titled Tirena comedia Marina Darxichia, in Venice 1630, containing Držić's Petrarchist poetry and versified plays.

Cover page of the Šibenik copy of Marin Držić's Hekuba with the data on company of "Od Bidzara" and the date of performance (29th January 1559).

Marin Držić (Croatian pronunciation: [mâriːn dř̩ːʒitɕ]; also Marino Darza or Marino Darsa; 1508-1567) is considered the finest Croatian Renaissance playwright and prose writer.

Life

Born into a large and well to do family (with 6 sisters and 5 brothers) in Dubrovnik, Držić was trained and ordained as a priest — a calling very unsuitable for his rebel temperament. Ordained in 1526, Držić was sent in 1538 to Siena in Tuscany to study the Church Canon Law, where his academic results were average. Thanks to his extroverted and warm personality, he is said to have captured the hearts of his fellow students and professors, and was elected to the position of Rector of the University. Losing interest in his studies, Marin returned to the Dubrovnik Republic in 1543.

Here he became an acquaintance of Austrian adventurer Christoph Rogendorf, then at odds with Vienna court. After a brief sojourn in Vienna, Držić came back to his native city. Other vagabond exploits followed: a connection with a group of Dubrovnik outlaws, a journey to Constantinople and a brief trip to Venice. After a career as an interpreter, scrivener and church musician, he even became a conspirator. Convinced that Dubrovnik was governed by a small circle of elitist aristocracy bent to tyranny, he tried to persuade in five letters (four of which survive) the powerful Medici family in Florence to help him overthrow the government in his home town; they did not respond. Marin died suddenly in Venice in 1567. He was buried in the Church of St. John and Paul.

Works

Držić's works cover many fields: lyric poetry, pastorals, political letters and pamphlets, and comedies. While his pastorals ("Grizula," Tirena; Venera i Adonis/Venus and Adonis) are still highly regarded as masterful examples of the genre, the pastoral has, as artistic form, virtually vanished from the scene.

However, his comedies are among the best in European Renaissance literature. As with other great comedy writers like Lope de Vega, Ben Jonson or Molière, Držić's comedies are full of exuberant life and vitality, celebrating love, liberty and sincerity and mocking avarice, egoism and petty tyrants — both in family and in state. His best comedies include:

• Dundo Maroje (1551)
• Skup, The Miser
• Novela od Stanca, Prank on Stanac
• Pomet

The gallery of young lovers, misers, cuckolds, adventurers, senile tyrants, painted with the gusto of buoyant idiom that exemplifies richness of the Croatian language in the Renaissance period has remained the pillar of Croatian high comedy theatre ever since.

Legacy

Since its independence Croatia has awarded the Marin Držić Award for dramatic work.^[1] The Croatian Parliament also declared 2008 the Year of Marin Držić, as it is the 500th anniversary of his birth.^[2] An avenue in Zagreb is named after him.

See also

• Republic of Dubrovnik
• Dubrovnik
• Libertas (film)

References

1. ^ Year of Marin Držić
2. ^ Držić's Year

External links

• Marin Držić Museum

Persondata
Name	Drzic, Marin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1508
Place of birth
Date of death	1567
Place of death