Marko Marulić

Marko Marulić Splićanin ( pronounced [mâːrko mǎrulitɕ splîtɕanin]; Latin: Marcus Marulus Spalatensis; 18 August 1450 – 5 January 1524) was a Croatian poet, lawyer, judge, and Renaissance humanist. He is the national poet of Croatia. According to George J. Gutsche, Marulić's epic poem Judita "is the first long poem in Croatian", and "gives Marulić a position in his own literature comparable to Dante in Italian literature." Marulić's Latin poetry is of such high quality that his contemporaries dubbed him "The Christian Virgil." He has been called the "crown of the Croatian medieval age", the "father of the Croatian Renaissance", and "The Father of Croatian literature."

Marulić scholar Bratislav Lučin notes that he was well-versed in both the Christian Bible and in the Fathers of the Church. At the same time, Marulić also attentively read the Pre-Christian Greek and Latin Classics. He read and interpreted Latin epigrams, wrote glosses on the erotic poetry of Catullus, read Petronius' Satyricon, and admired Erasmus of Rotterdam. Marulić also composed humanist elegies, satirical poetry, erotic epigrams inspired by Ovid, and Latin Christian poetry inspired not only by the epics of Homer and Virgil, but also by Lucan, Statius, Faltonia Betitia Proba, Juvencus, Venantius Fortunatus, Cyprianus Gallus, Coelius Sedulius, and many other both Pagan and Christian writers in the same language.