Mauro Vetrani ( hr, Mavro Vetranović) (1482–1576) was a writer and

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

monk from

Ragusa Ragusa is the historical name of Dubrovnik. It may also refer to: Places Croatia * the Republic of Ragusa (or Republic of Dubrovnik), the maritime city-state of Ragusa * Cavtat (historically ' in Italian), a town in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Cro ...

Biography

Born in Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik), then the Republic of Ragusa, in 1482, he entered the Benedictine Order in 1507 on the island of

Mljet Mljet (; la, Melita, it, Meleda) is the southernmost and easternmost of the larger Adriatic islands of the Dalmatia region of Croatia. The National Park includes the western part of the island, Veliko jezero, Malo jezero, Soline Bay and a sea be ...

, and after a period of education in

Monte Cassino Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley, Italy, west of Cassino and at an elevation of . Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is widely known for its abbey, the first h ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

returned to Mljet as the abbot of the monastery. In the 16th century, the monastery was the centre of the Mljet Congregation (Congregatio Melitensem or Melitanam), gathering all the monasteries of Benedictine monks in the area of 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 = ...

, and Vetranović was the first president of the Congregation from 1544. He wrote prolifically throughout his life, leaving a large body of work including

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

, religious and satirical

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

and an unfinished epic running to 4374 verses. In his writing he revealed himself to be a patriotic Ragusan who also might have shared some sort of identity with other Dalmatians and Croatians. Croatian academic Franjo Švelec has divided the work of Vetranović into three periods. In the first, up to the end of the 1520s, his topics were primarily youth and poetry with romantic and mythological themes. In the second, until the end of the 1540s, he was dominated by 'serious' themes. In the last, until the end of his life, he returned somewhat to the themes of his youth thus closing the circle of life and creative journey. Modern-day sources credit him as part of Croatian literature.

References

1482 births 1576 deaths Croatian dramatists and playwrights 16th-century Croatian poets 16th-century male writers Mljet Ragusan Benedictines Croatian male poets 16th-century dramatists and playwrights People from Dubrovnik Ragusan writers {{Croatia-writer-stub

Biography

See also

References