Pavao Ritter Vitezović
Pavao Ritter Vitezović (1652–1713) was born in Senj on the northern Adriatic coast to a Croatian mother and a father of German descent. A poet, historian, lexicographer, polyhistor, and developer of a new writing system, he was one of the most interesting figures in Croatian culture of the mid-17th to early 18th century. Literary critics and historians consider him to be the first Croatian professional writer of significance (Mihovil Kombol) and a forerunner of the Croatian national revival known as the Illyrian movement (Franjo Švelec).
Vitezović received his basic education in Senj and then entered a Jesuit gymnasium in Zagreb. Upon graduation, he did not further pursue formal studies but continued his education through association with the famous men of learning of the time, such as the Carniolan polyhistor J. V. Valvasor. In 1694 he was appointed manager of the first printing house in Zagreb and in the whole region. He died in Vienna.
His main poetic work was Odiljenje sigetsko (Taking Leave of Siget, first published in 1684), a series of elegiac conversations with and farewells to the heroes of the historic battle of Siget (1566). His other notable works include Kronika aliti spomen vsega svieta vikov (A Chronicle or Remembrance of the Eras of the Whole World, 1696), a chronology of historic events prior to 1690; Croatia rediviva (Croatia Revived, 1700), a historic account of Croatia's position and territories before Venetian and Turkish conquests; and Plorantis Croatiae saecula duo (Two Centuries of Croatia's Tears, 1703), a poetic chronicle in hexameter about the cruel suffering Croatia had endured over the preceding two hundred years.
Vitezović had a lifelong interest in the complex problem of Croatian orthography. In his treatise Orthographia Illyricana, he proposed a comprehensive orthographic reform. He envisioned a consistent monographemic system based on the use of diacritical characters, which would have been the first system applicable to both northern and southern Croatian dialects. Unfortunately, his treatise has been lost (we know of it through references in his other writings), but it is possible to argue that Ljudevit Gaj and his Illyrians carried through Vitezović's ideas.
In an attempt to institute a unified standard language for all Croats, Vitezović spent years compiling his Lexicon Latino-Illyricum, but he never published it. The two-volume Croatian-Latin part of the dictionary has been lost; the Latin-Croatian part, written at the turn of the 18th century, is held by the Metropolitana Library in Zagreb. Our edition of Vitezović's Lexicon consists of three volumes: a facsimile of the Latin-Croatian manuscript dictionary; a transcribed and critically edited first printing of the dictionary; and a reversed and critically edited Croatian-Latin dictionary.
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Lexicon Latino-Illyricum I.
Edited by: Bojan Marotti
Volume I, The Manuscript Facsimile
Afterword: Bojan Marotti -
Lexicon Latino-Illyricum II.
Edited by: Bojan Marotti
Volume II, The First Printed Edition
Introduction: Bojan Marotti
Critical reading and transcription: Zrnka Meštrović, Nada Vajs -
Lexicon Latino-Illyricum III.
Edited by: Dunja Brozović Rončević, Bojan Marotti
Volume III, Croatian-Latin Dictionary
Introduction: Zrnka Meštrović, Nada Vajs
Compiled by: Zrnka Meštrović, Nada Vajs -
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Kronika aliti spomen vsega svieta vikov
Edited by: Bojan Marotti
Edited by: Alojz Jembrih
Afterword: Alojz Jembrih
