Nikola Modruški avant la lettre: Društveno podrijetlo, akademski put i počeci crkvene karijere (uz prilog o slučaju živog mrtvaca u Senju)
Nicholas of Modruš avant la lettre: His Social Background, Academic Path, and Early Ecclesiastical Career

Summary/Abstract: Studies on Nicholas of Modruš (ca. 1425-1480), a Croatian prelate, diplomat, and humanist author, have long neglected his life before his elevation to the Episcopal see of Modruš in 1461, presenting most of the information on this period incorrectly. Thus, according to a standard study by Miroslav Kurelac, Nicholas was born in the village of Grbalj near Kotor, earned his doctorate of philosophy at the humanist Scuola di Rialto in Venice, became the bishop of Senj in 1457, and was then involved with anti-Ottoman diplomacy as part of the official Hungarian legation to the Congress of Mantua in 1459, and as a papal legate to the Bosnian court in 1460. The present article brings each of these points under close scrutiny. Thus, rather than a native of Grbalj (or a patrician of Kotor, as has also been suggested), Nicholas is here shown as belonging to a rich citizen family of Kotor. He received his education within the scholastic milieu of Venice, and later in Padua, where, as it is argued, he probably earned his doctoral degree. The article establishes a new chronology of his early life. While previously the year of birth was determined very broadly as „before 1427,” the article argues on the basis of an oblique autobiographical reference that we should narrow it down to around 1425, which would also make his academic path a typical one: his academic cursus in Venice and Padua would have thus lasted from ca. 1445 until ca. 1455, when he started his ecclesiastical career. The article, finally, reconstructs his connections to the Venetian ecclesiastical and political elites, which were instrumental in his career and which seem to have been formed during his student days. The second part of the article considers Nicholas’ ecclesiastical career in Croatia, placing him in the context of intra-dynastic politics of the Frankapan family. It is argued that his career was actively promoted by the most influential of the Frankapans: Stephen, lord of Modruš. Indeed, his successive appointments to the abbey of St Lucia in Krk and the Bishopric of Senj, as well as the time he spent in Stephen’s retinue, all suggest that Nicholas was being actively prepared for the position of the bishop of Modruš and his chief collaborator, which he became in 1461. The article also considers Nicholas’ presence in Mantua in 1459-1460, showing that he was not officially a part of the Hungarian delegation, but probably also travelled there in Stephen’s retinue. On the other hand, it rejects the widely held assumption that Nicholas was a papal legate to Bosnia as early as 1460/61.

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