Elio Lampridio Cerva

Elio Lampridio Cervino or Cerva (Latin: Aelius Lampridius Cervinus, Serbo-Croatian: Ilija Crijević;[1] 1463–1520) was a Ragusan poet who wrote in Latin.

Elio Lampridio Cerva
Elio Lampridio Cerva
Born1463
Ragusa, Republic of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia)
Died1520
Ombla river island
Occupationpoet
NationalityRagusan
GenreLatin Laudes
Literary movementAccademia Romana
Notable worksDe Epidauro

Life

Cerva was born in 1463, belonging to one of the most important noble families of Ragusa, the House of Cerva.[2]

He spent several years in Rome, where he arrived still child, to succeed his uncle Stephan, 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, and became a spokesman for the Republic. Finally, perhaps pushed by the circumstances in which he lived, Cerva decided to withdraw to the Ombla river island, where he remained until his death in 1520. 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 Ottoman invasions of Ragusan territory.

A staunch supporter of Latin, he disliked Slavic,[3] which was spoken in the Republic in great numbers. He declared his nostalgia for the times when no language other than Latin had been officially used in Ragusa, and wished not to hear the "infecting Slavic language".[4] He knew and wrote solely in Latin, as mentioned by him in one of his works:

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.»

— Cerva, De Epidauro et Ad Sanctum Blasium pro Rhacusa[5]

See also
  • List of Ragusans

References
  1. Milorad Živančević (1971). Živan Milisavac (ed.). Jugoslovenski književni leksikon [Yugoslav Literary Lexicon] (in Serbo-Croatian). Novi Sad (SAP Vojvodina, SR Serbia): Matica srpska. p. 64.
  2. Sebastiano Valerio (2001). Un intellettuale tra petrarchismo e "Institutio principis": Paolo Paladino alla corte di re Federico d'Aragona. Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali. ISBN 978-88-8147-253-6.
  3. John V. A. Fine Jr. (1 January 2006). When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans: A Study of Identity in Pre-Nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods. University of Michigan Press. pp. 257–. ISBN 0-472-02560-0.
  4. Documentation Centre of Dalmatian Culture Archived 2011-07-22 at the Wayback Machine, Uomini Illustri, Elio Lampridio Cerva, poeta incoronato (in Italian)
  5. "Projekat "Croatiae Authori Latini"". Archived from the original on 2011-07-21.
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