Michael Tarchaniota Marullus ( el, Μιχαήλ Μάρουλλος Ταρχανειώτης; it, Michele Marullo Tarcaniota; c. 1458 – 10 April 1500) was a Greek
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
scholar, poet of
Neo-Latin
New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...
, humanist and soldier.
Life
Michael Tarchaniota Marullus was born to a family of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
ancestry. Details of his biography are obscure: he was born in either
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
or near the site of ancient
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...
in the
Despotate of the Morea
The Despotate of the Morea ( el, Δεσποτᾶτον τοῦ Μορέως) or Despotate of Mystras ( el, Δεσποτᾶτον τοῦ Μυστρᾶ) was a province of the Byzantine Empire which existed between the mid-14th and mid-15th centu ...
on the
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic regions of Greece, geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmu ...
. His father was known as Manoli Marulo (Μανώλης Μάρουλλος) and his mother was Euphrosyne Tarchaneiotissa (Ευφροσύνη Ταρχανειώτισσα). The name
Tarchaniotes was borne by a noble Byzantine family and it probably derives from ''Tarchanion'', a village of
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
. Another Tarchaniotes, Ioannes, who was the author of several literary works in Greek and Latin in the 16th century, was a relative of Marullus'.
Both of Marullus' parents were Greek exiles who had fled from Constantinople when it
fell to the Turks in 1453,
Due to the Ottoman expansion in the 1460s, he fled with his parents to the
Republic of Ragusa
hr, Sloboda se ne prodaje za sve zlato svijeta it, La libertà non si vende nemmeno per tutto l'oro del mondo"Liberty is not sold for all the gold in the world"
, population_estimate = 90 000 in the XVI Century
, currency = ...
, where he spent his earliest years. From there, the family traveled further to Italy. He was educated in Italy, in
Ancona
Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic S ...
, and also perhaps in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
and
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
. Marullus travelled from city to city as a composer of Latin poetry and an ardent advocate of a crusade against the
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922).
Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...
. In the 1470s, he fought as a common
Stratioti
The Stratioti or Stradioti ( gr, στρατιώτες ''stratiotes''; sq, Stratiotë, Stratiotët;, it, stradioti, stradiotti, stratioti, strathiotto, strathioti; french: estradiots; sh, stratioti, stradioti; es, estradiotes) were mercenary u ...
against Turks in the
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
.
In order to liberate his subjugated homeland from domination he was willing to take up arms himself and allied with the king of France when he planned to go on a crusade. In Italy he served under the cavalry captain Nicholas Rolla, a Lacedemonian.
Through his poetry, Marullus got in contact with many influential people of his time, including popes, kings and members of the
Medici family
The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Muge ...
. In
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
in 1494, he married the learned
Alessandra Scala
Alessandra Scala (1475–1506) was a Florentine humanist and scholar of Latin and Greek in the late fifteenth century.
Biography
Alessandra Scala was the fifth daughter of the chancellor of Florence at the time, Bartolomeo Scala, and was born i ...
(1475–1506), daughter of
Bartolomeo Scala
Bartolomeo Scala (1430–1497) was an Italian politician, author and historian. Born in Colle Val d'Elsa, he became a protégé of Cosimo and Piero de' Medici, being appointed at the highest positions in the Florentine Republic (Chancellor, Sec ...
. On 10 April 1500, after visiting with the humanist
Raffaello Maffei
Raffaello Maffei (17 February 1451 – 25 January 1522) was an Italian humanist, historian and theologian; and member of the Servite Order. He was a native of Volterra, Italy, and therefore is called Raphael Volaterranus or Raphael of Volterra; a ...
in Volterra, he was riding in full armour to join the armed forces against
Cesare Borgia
Cesare Borgia (; ca-valencia, Cèsar Borja ; es, link=no, César Borja ; 13 September 1475 – 12 March 1507) was an Italian ex- cardinal and '' condottiero'' (mercenary leader) of Aragonese (Spanish) origin, whose fight for power was a major ...
when he drowned with his horse in the river
Cecina
Cecina may refer to:
* Cecina (meat), a Spanish and Mexican culinary specialty made of beef
* ''Cecina'' (gastropod), a genus of freshwater snails in the family Pomatiopsidae
* Cecina, Tuscany, Italy
* Caecinia gens, an ancient Roman family
* Far ...
near
Volterra
Volterra (; Latin: ''Volaterrae'') is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods.
History
Volter ...
.
The only substantial biography of Marullus is by
Carol Kidwell. In ''Marullus, Soldier Poet of the Renaissance'' (London, 1989), she reveals the life of a soldier poet who roamed exotic lands, composed poems at the borders of the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
, and participated in a military campaign of
Vlad the Impaler
Vlad III, commonly known as Vlad the Impaler ( ro, Vlad Țepeș ) or Vlad Dracula (; ro, Vlad Drăculea ; 1428/311476/77), was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death in 1476/77. He is often considered one of the most imp ...
(the inspiration for
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
). Yet Kidwell is not sensitive to the manipulative moves in Marullus's "autobiographical" poems. These, and their implications, have been explored in more detail by
Karl Enenkel in his chapter on the poet (see ''Die Erfindung des Menschen: Die Autobiographik des frühneuzeitlichen Humanismus von
Petrarca
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited w ...
bis
Lipsius'' (Berlin, 2008), pp. 368–428). Enenkel argues that it is improbable that Marullus was born in Constantinople. On the contrary, he suggests that the poet was born after the city fell to the Sultan in 1453. The French poet
Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard (; 11 September 1524 – 27 December 1585) was a French poet or, as his own generation in France called him, a "prince of poets".
Early life
Pierre de Ronsard was born at the Manoir de la Possonnière, in the village of C ...
(1524–1585) considered Marullus as one of his teachers and dedicated an epitaph to him.
Works
Marullus composed a large and varied collection of epigrams in four books. Some of his best love poems were later appropriated by Pierre de Ronsard and others. Marullus also composed a collection of hymns, the ''Hymni naturales,'' in which he celebrates the ancient
Olympian pantheon
Olympian or Olympians may refer to:
Religion
* Twelve Olympians, the principal gods and goddesses in ancient Greek religion
* Olympian spirits, spirits mentioned in books of ceremonial magic
Fiction
* ''Percy Jackson & the Olympians'', fiction ...
. His ''Institutiones principales,'' or the education of princes, he left unfinished. An ardent reader of the Roman philosopher-poet
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
, he proposed some valuable emendations which were not published until 1513.
Marullus's ''opera omnia'' were first edited by
Alessandro Perosa in 1951. The ''Hymnes'' and the ''Institutiones'' are available in translation. Both works were translated in German by
Otto Schönberger (Würzburg 1996 and 1997). In addition, the ''Hymnes'' were translated in Italian by
Donatella Coppini (Florence, 1995), and in French by
Jacques Chomarat (Genève, 1995).
In 2012, the Harvard I Tatti series published the first English translation of Marullus’ poetry by Charles Fantazzi.
See also
*
Greek scholars in the Renaissance
The migration waves of Byzantine Greek scholars and émigrés in the period following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 is considered by many scholars key to the revival of Greek studies that led to the development of the Renaissance ...
Notes
References
* Kidwell, C., ''Marullus. Soldier Poet of the Renaissance'' (London: Duckworth, 1989).
* Lefèvre, E., E. Schäfer (ed.), ''Michael Marullus: ein Grieche als Renaissancedichter in Italien'' (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2008) (NeoLatina, 15).
External links
''Constantinopolitani Epigrammata et hymni'', Paris, 1561
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marullus, Michael Tarchaniota
1450s births
1500 deaths
People from Laconia
Byzantine poets
New Latin-language poets
Greek Renaissance humanists
15th-century Latin writers
15th-century Byzantine people
Tarchaneiotes family
Stratioti
15th-century Greek writers