Juraj Šižgorić

Juraj Šižgorić ( or Sisgoritus, ca. 1420/1445–1509) was a Croatian Latinist poet and priest from Venetian Dalmatia. He was the first humanist from Šibenik and the central personality of Šibenik's humanist circle and also one of the most important figures in 15th-century cultural life of the Croatian people.

Life

There's not much information about Šižgorić's personal life. Born in a noble family which in the mid-14th century re-settled from old county of Luka in Northern Dalmatia to Skradin and from there to Šibenik, as one of at least three brothers, he studied in Padua, Italy, where received PhD in canon law in 1471. When came back to home city, held the position of vicar general in Diocese of Šibenik.

In 1462, alongside noblemen Jakov Naplavić and Petar Tolimerić, was on a diplomatic visit to Doge of Venice, Pasquale Malipiero, who accepted their request and published a document confirming previous laws of Šibenik from 1413.

Marko Marulić in 1465–66 wrote a Latin epistle, enconium dedicated to Šižgorić. In his circle of home city friends was Ambroz Mihetić.

Works

• His Elegiarum et carminum libri tres ("Book of elegies and poems", Venice, 1477) is considered the first published incunable (book) by a Croatian poet. It includes 62 poems.
• De diebus festis (calendar collection of poems). It also mentions Ottoman's attack on hinterland in 1468.
• An untitled collection of Latin poems, dated to 1487, remained unpublished as a manuscript until 1962.
• A historical-geographical discussion in prose De situ Illyriae et civitate Sibenici (1487). In it, most notably, mentions St. Jerome and that the Italians are trying to "steal him" from the Illyrians. In it is mentioned that along Jakov Naplavić/Naplavčić collected Croatian folk proverbs and translated them in Latin, but nothing was preserved of Dicteria illyrica.
• Unpublished threnody Prosopopeya edita per Georgium Sisgoreum Sibenicensem studentem Patauii.

References

Further reading

• Dukić, Davor: Latinska književnost hrvatskog humanizma, Katedra za stariju hrvatsku književnost Odsjeka za kroatistiku Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu, 2007./2008.
• Leksikon hrvatskih pisaca (ed. D. FaliÅ¡evac, K. Nemec, D. Novaković), Zagreb 2000.