Roma in Marci Maruli carminibus Latinis

Neven Jovanović / neven.jovanovic@ffzg.hr
University of Zagreb
Split, 21 April 2017
This page: croala.ffzg.unizg.hr/marulus-roma-split/
Repository: github.com/nevenjovanovic/marulus-roma-split

The Plan

The "spatial turn" and Croatian Latin

Romgedanke and Croatian Latin

Rome in Marulus: how?

Where?

What is Rome to Marulus?

Topography of Rome and loca memorabilia

What Marulus knew

Conclusions

The "spatial turn"

and Croatian Latin

We remember that every discipline in the humanities and social sciences has been stamped with the imprint of spatial questions about nations and their boundaries, states and surveillance, private property, and the perception of landscape, all of which fell into contestation during the nineteenth century.
Guldi, Jo (2011). "What is the Spatial Turn?", Spatial Humanities. A project of the Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship. Internet.

Es gibt Berührungspunkte zwischen fiktionaler und realer Geographie. Literaturgeographie geht davon aus, [...] daß eine referentielle Beziehung zwischen der inner- und außerliterarischen Wirklichkeit besteht
Piatti, B. (2008). Die Geographie der Literatur: Schauplätze, Handlungsräume, Raumphantasien. Göttingen: Wallstein.

The regions in which the Croats settled were a former part of the Roman Empire, and in the main centres, especially on the Adriatic coast, Latin remained for a long time the official language of administration and public life.
Gortan, V., and Vratović, V. (1971). The Basic Characteristics of Croatian Latinity. Humanistica Lovaniensia, 20, 37-68.

A reading of Croatian Latin defined by...

territoriality? places? spatial relationships?

Romgedanke

(and Croatian Latin)

Roma aurea.

Roma secunda et tertia.

Roma renascens.

Kytzler, Bernhard (1993). Rom als Idee. Darmstadt. Wege der Forschung / 656.

Verumtamen hodierna festivitas, praeter illam reverentiam quam toto terrarum orbe promeruit, speciali et propria urbis nostrae exsultatione veneranda est: ut ubi praecipuorum apostolorum glorificatus est exitus, ibi in die martyrii eorum sit laetitiae principatus. Isti enim sunt viri per quos tibi Evangelium Christi, Roma, resplenduit; et quae eras magistra erroris, facta es discipula veritatis. (...) Isti sunt qui te ad hanc gloriam provexerunt, ut gens sancta, populus electus, civitas sacerdotalis et regia, per sacram beati Petri sedem caput orbis effecta, latius praesideres religione divina quam dominatione terrena.
Leo Magnus (papa 440-461), Sermo 82, 1 (PL 54, 321-322, p. 422-423).

Quid mirum si te Romanis orta colonis
Nunc Ragusa suum gaudet habere ducem?
Effigies Romae, priscae probitatis imago,
Indolis antiquae, curia nostra, patres,
Vos simul o nostri memores estote libelli;
Aspires uati, Roma pusilla, tuo!

Ilija Crijević (Aelius Lampridius Cervinus, 1463-1520). Carmina e cod. Vat. lat. 1678 (ed. D. Novaković, 2004). 7, 2.

Rome in Marulić

Pelagios Commons provides online resources and a community forum for using open data methods to link and explore historical places

CroALa index locorum: a gazetteer of place names in Croatian Latin texts; Pelagios Resource Development Grant, 2016

Roma

urn:cite:croala:loci.locid05214

In Maruli carminibus: loci 9 (suspicatur: "Sunt quoque qui dicant Romano more securi...")

In aliis Maruli operibus: loci c. 500 in CroALa

Ubi in Marulo?

Carmina: De duodecim apostolis; De quattuor ecclesię doctoribus; Principium operis Dantis Aligerii...

Alia opera: Repertorium; De institutione bene uiuendi per exempla sanctorum; In epigrammata priscorum commentarius; Vita diui Hieronymi; Regum Delmatię atque Croatię gesta (8); Catulli carminis epitome (2); De humilitate et gloria Christi (1); De ultimo Christi iudicio sermo (1); Epistola ad Adrianum VI Pontificem Maximum (2)

Roma abest: Euangelistarium; De Veteris Instrumenti uiris illustribus commentarium

Quid Roma Marulo?

1 Roma apostolorum et martyrum

2 Roma superba

(vs. Syriae desertum)

3 Roma caput ecclesiae

4 Roma aurea

(et Dantis)

Loca terrarum

Memorabilia

Cardinalis et Spalatum

What Marulus knew

Repertorium

Tibicines, divortium, nobilitas

Conclusions

Marulus the Latin poet mentions Rome rarely. To him, it is primarily the city of the apostles and martyrs, but also a city of luxury and power, in strong contrast to Jerome's desert. Similar motives, though in larger numbers, are encountered in his prose (but Rome does not appear in Marulus' other major work, Euangelistarium).

Translating Dante, however, Marulus cannot resist the image of Roma aurea.

Repertorium and Institutio mention a certain number of places in Rome; especially prominent is the monastery of Pope Gregory I (St. Gregory in Clivo Scauri).

Two passages stand out, because they don't fit into this typology: a (probably contemporary) anecdote about a Roman cardinal, and the famous comparison of Diocletian's palace to Rome.

Reading Marulus' commonplace book, Repertorium, for passages mentioning Rome leads us to identify several sets of ideas which have not been included in his written works known to us.

A place of gluttony, a place where divorce was introduced, a republic of kings; to Marulus, Rome was that as well.

Though he did not develop these ideas further.