- Ilija Crijević
Ilija Crijević, also "Elio Cerva", ( _la. Aelius Cervinus) was a Ragusan poet, born in
Dubrovnik c. 1460.The life of Crijević, one of the more scholarly poets of his time, was stormy and restless. It was marked by a strong intolerance to the barbarism around him. Linguistically, he was closer to Latin than to Slavic (Croatian). This torment found ventilation in his nostalgia for the times when which no language other than Latin had been officially used in Dubrovnik (Ragusa).
He spent 13 years in
Rome to succeed his uncle Stefano, ambassador toPope Sixtus IV . Here, in the circle of Pomponio Leto, his poetic talent awoke. He studied ancient drama and made a study of the comedies ofPlautus . It was in this period that he produced "Lexicon" (1480), an encyclopedic dictionary in Latin, 429 pages long and in large format (33 x 23 cm). He returned to Ragusa in 1490. He was spokesman for theRepublic of Ragusa . Finally, perhaps pushed by the circumstances in which he lived, Crijević decided to withdraw to the island of Ombla, where he remained until his death in 1521. Although called a poet, Crijević only published only four short components (all in Latin) during his life. His main work, "De Epidauro", was a draft of an epic poem, about the Turkish invasions of Ragusan territory. Despite being one of the greatest Ragusans, whose literary work exceeds that of his contemporaries and fellow citizens by far, today the works of Crijević are published abroad more often than in Croatia.ee also
*
Republic of Ragusa
*List of notable Ragusans
*Dubrovnik
*Dalmatia
*History of Dalmatia
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