The Manuscript Misfortunes of Ilija Crijević

Abstract

: The poetry of the greatest Ragusan humanist poet, Ilija Crijević (Aelius Lampridius Cervinus, 1463-1520), has been published in print only recently. This might prompt the conclusion that there was no particular interest in his oeuvre in the past. The survival of the voluminous autographs of Crijević in the Vatican Library seems to have resulted in the scholarly neglect of the manuscript tradition of his works that developed in his native city from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. This manuscript tradition is studied in this essay with the aim of showing that for several centuries Crijević’s works were not only copied but that the text was also critically edited. Particular attention will be devoted to the labors of Ivan Marija Matijašević (1714-1791), who pioneered the systematic research on Crijević’s texts, as well as to those of Antun Agić (1753-1830), who prepared a manuscript edition of his poetry. Once identified and connected, Agić’s scattered manuscript papers provide an invaluable guide to the history of the reception of Crijević’s texts in Dubrovnik and beyond. The essay also identifies the hitherto unknown autograph letter Crijević sent to Prince Ferdinand of Naples and establishes that the manuscript dedicated to Paolo Orsini is similarly the poet’s autograph. The result of the research underpinning the essay is the list at its end, providing the most complete account so far of the surviving manuscripts of Crijević’s works. This research has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ), under the project number IP-2019-04-8566.