To celebrate the 500th birthday of the Croatian writer Marin Držic the government of Croatia declared the year 2008 to the Year of Marin Držic. Many events took place this year and the city of Dubrovnik errected a life-size monument of him. On the pedestal an inscription says:
MARIN DRŽIC
(1508.-1567.)
On the 500th anniversary of his birth City of Dubrovnik
Marin Držic
"Marin Držic (also Marino Darza or Marino Darsa; 1508 – 2 May 1567) was a Croatian writer from Republic of Ragusa. He is considered to be one of the finest Renaissance playwrights and prose writers of Croatian literature.
Life
Born into a large and well to do family (with 6 sisters and 5 brothers) in Dubrovnik, Držic was trained and ordained as a priest — a calling very unsuitable for his rebel temperament. Marin's uncle was another famous author Džore Držic. Ordained in 1526, Držic was sent in 1538 to Siena in Tuscany to study the Church Canon Law, where his academic results were average. Thanks to his extroverted and warm personality, he is said to have captured the hearts of his fellow students and professors, and was elected to the position of Rector of the University. Losing interest in his studies, Marin returned to the Dubrovnik Republic in 1543.
Here he became an acquaintance of Austrian adventurer Christoph Rogendorf, then at odds with Vienna court. After a brief sojourn in Vienna, Držic came back to his native city. Other vagabond exploits followed: a connection with a group of Dubrovnik outlaws, a journey to Constantinople and a brief trip to Venice. After a career as an interpreter, scrivener and church musician, he even became a conspirator. Convinced that Dubrovnik was governed by a small circle of elitist aristocracy bent to tyranny, he tried to persuade in five letters (four of which survive) the powerful Medici family in Florence to help him overthrow the government in his home town; they did not respond. Marin died suddenly in Venice on 2 May 1567. He was buried in the Church of St. John and Paul.
Works
Držic's works cover many fields: lyric poetry, pastorals, political letters and pamphlets, and comedies. While his pastorals (Tirena, Venera i Adon and Plakir) are still highly regarded as masterful examples of the genre, the pastoral has, as artistic form, virtually vanished from the scene.
However, his comedies are among the best in European Renaissance literature. As with other great comedy writers like Lope de Vega, Ben Jonson or Molière, Držic's comedies are full of exuberant life and vitality, celebrating love, liberty and sincerity and mocking avarice, egoism and petty tyrants — both in the family and in the state."
Source and further information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_Držic