Valamar Blog

500 years have passed since Marin Drzic was born in Dubrovnik. He was one of the greatest Croatian Renaissance writers, a man who showed culmination of his artistic creation in two of his comedies: Dundo Maroje (Uncle Maroje) and Skup (Miser), the works that even today, after half of the millennium, are still increasingly important.

Besides writing, he was active in other social areas and he caused some controversies in his time. He was, among others, a priest, head of university, political activist, to put it in briefly, the man with very interesting biography from which we will chronologically extract a few interesting events.
We should point out once again that it is 500th anniversary of this great writer’s birth and the year 2008 is proclaimed the year of Marin Drzic.

1508 Marin Drzic, afterwards called Vidra (Otter), was born in Dubrovnik in a plebeian family. In the previous generation of this family the writer Dzore Drzic was born.

1538 Drzic is chosen for the organist position in the cathedral of Dubrovnik, and a few months later Vijece umoljenih (The senate) grants him financial support for continuing his education.

1541 In Tucan city of Siena Marin Drzic was chosen for the position of the head of university.

1542 The police of Siena conduct investigation on one play in a private house. Drzic, the head of university, took part in the play, in a role of a lover. The participants were severely punished, but authorities were not so strict to Drzic, because of his social position.

1543 Drzic is in Ancona where, along with another citizen of Dubrovnik, borrows 100 ducats of the place from a certain citizen of Florence, after which we will meet him again in January, 1546 in Dubrovnik. In the following years he exercises the function of the rector of the Church of All Saints, at the same time managing his modest estate and exercising small state functions.

1545 Return to Dubrovnik and making acquaintance with Austrian count Regendorf. A trip to Vienna and Istanbul.

1546 Again in Dubrovnik after political disputes with some citizens of Dubrovnik in Istanbul.

1548 “Pomet company” performs the comedy Pomet, which is lost.

1549 The premiere of the pastoral play Tirena. Contemporaries and citizens attack Drzic and accuse him of plagiarism. Drzic defends himself, and other defend him, too, and among them is a respectable writer Mavro Vretanovic.

1550 Novela od Stanca (Farce of Stanac) is performed.

1551 The comedy in prose Dundo Maroje is written

1552 The first performance of Pjerina

1553 The comedies Mande and Arkulin are performed

1555 The performances of Skup (Miser) and Grizula

1558 The authorities are opposed to performance of the comedy Hekuba

1562 Marin Drzic leaves Dubrovnik and he serves as the chaplain of the Venetian bishop in Venice, where his brother Vlaho lived.

1566 The conspiracy against oligarchic authority in his native city of Dubrovnik, which was dreamed of for a long time and precisely thought of, receives its textual confirmation in letters to Cosimo Medici. The letters are not answered.

1567 Drzic dies in Venice, buried in the common tomb in the Basilica of Saint John and Paul.