| Elio Cerva (Ilija Crijević) | |
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Elio Cerva (Ilija Crijević) |
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| Born | c. 1460 Ragusa, Republic of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik in Croatia) |
| Died | c. 1521 island on the Umbla |
| Occupation | poet |
| Nationality | Ragusan (Croatian) |
| Period | late '400 |
| Genres | Latin Laudes |
| Literary movement | Accademia Romana |
| Notable work(s) | De Epidauro, stribiligo illyrica |
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Influenced
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Ilija Crijević in in his lifetime was called Elio Lampridio Cerva (Latin: Aelius Lampridius Cervinus). He was a poet born in the city of Ragusa in the homonymous Republic c. 1460 (or 1434 as indicated by some sources[1]), and belonged to one of the most important local noble family, the House of Cerva.[2]
The life of Elio Cerva, 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 close to Italian language, Latin language and Dalmatian language and rejected the Slavic Croatian language:
| “ | Latin: «In speciem magnae deducta propagine Romae. Nec sapio Illyriam, sed uiuo et tota Latina Maiestate loquor.» English: «Now I shine as descendant of the great Rome. I don't know Illyric, but I speak and I live in the entire majesty of Latin.» |
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—Aelius Lampridius Cervinus, De Epidauro et Ad Sanctum Blasium pro Rhacusa[3] |
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This torment are clearly apparent in his works, where he declared his nostalgia for the times when no language other than Latin or Italian had been officially used in the Ragusan Republic (and he had as a wish not to hear the echo of that stribiligo Illyrian, "infecting Slavic language".[4])
He spent several years in Rome, where he arrived still child, to succeed his uncle Sthepan, ambassador to Pope Sixtus IV. Here, in the circle of Pomponio Leto, his poetic talent awoke. He studied ancient drama and made a study of the comedies of Plautus. It was in this period that he produced Lexicon (1480), an encyclopedic dictionary in Latin, 429 pages long and in quarto format (33 x 23 cm). He returned to Ragusa in 1490.
He was spokesman for the Republic of Ragusa. Finally, perhaps pushed by the circumstances in which he lived, Cerva decided to withdraw to the island of Ombla, where he remained until his death in 1521. Although called a poet, he 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 Cerva are published abroad more often than in Croatia.