Ivan Gundulić

Ivan Gundulić was born in Dubrovnik on January 8, 1589, into one of the city’s leading noble families, a family that served in the government administration of Dubrovnik and its surrounding territory.

He was the eldest son of Fran Gundulić and Džive Gradić. He was educated in Dubrovnik, chiefly under Camillo Camilini and Petar Palikuča. Throughout his schooling, and later as a grown man, he was shaped by the sermons and teaching of the Jesuits, who had only recently started their work in the city.

When his education was complete, in 1608, he took his seat on the Great Council. He was twice elected knez (governor) of Konavle, in 1615 and again in 1619, and in Dubrovnik itself he practised law.

By nature he was very calm and lived a rather retiring life, which is said to have earned him the nickname “Mačica” (Kitty).

In 1628 he married Nika Sorkočević. Their life together was short, but they had three sons and two daughters. The eldest, Fran Gundulić, later became a general, while Šiško became a Croatian poet.

He was elected a senator in 1636 and two years later became a member of the Small Council. He never rose to be Rector of the Republic of Dubrovnik, because he died before turning fifty, and the Republic’s law allowed only men over fifty to be elected rector.

He died in Dubrovnik on December 10, 1638, in his forty-ninth year, most likely of pleurisy. He was laid to rest in the Franciscan church, which also keeps the oldest surviving copies of his writings.

His writing

Gundulić started out writing poems and plays in verse, most often in the eight-syllable line known as the osmerac. His plays usually took up mythological and literary subjects and were lavishly staged, with dance and music. Unfortunately, a good many of them have been lost, among them Galatea, Kleopatra, Koraljka od Sira, Posvetilište ljuveno and Adon. Those that have come down to us include Arijadna, Dijana, Prozerpina ugrabljena od Plutona and Armida.

Thanks to his craft, the appeal of his epic imagery and the sharpness of his dramatic plots, Ivan Gundulić was ahead of most writers of his time. That is why he was already regarded as a “classic” and enjoyed literary fame while he was still alive.

Ivan Gundulić is the oldest of the Croatian Baroque writers. In his work he returned again and again to the passing nature of human life. He proved himself as a Christian writer with “Pjesni pokorne kralja Davida” (The Penitential Songs of King David), which contains meditative theological poems and a verse rendering of the seven penitential psalms.

The first edition of his poem “Suze sina razmetnoga” (Tears of the Prodigal Son) was published in Venice in 1622. It was something new in older Croatian literature, and it made him a model for other Croatian poets.

The Croatian National Revival proclaimed Gundulić an important Illyrian author because of his influence on the development of the Croatian language, and this secured him a place among the canonical writers of older Croatian literature.

Famous in his own lifetime, he is still remembered in his native city today. Dubrovnik honoured him by naming Gundulić Square after him, and his statue, by the Croatian sculptor Ivan Rendić, stands there.

Gundulić’s work still lives proudly on the Croatian stage. Every year, during the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, his own Dubrovnik hears again the words of which Croats are proud to this day.

In his famous “Dubravka”, Ivan Gundulić wrote:

“Hymn to Liberty”

O lovely liberty, O dear, O sweet,
the gift in which God on high gave us all treasures,
true cause of all our glory,
sole adornment of this Dubrava,
all the silver, all the gold, all human lives
could never be the price of your pure beauty.

L C