Marinus Barletius

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Marinus Barletius (Albanian Marin Barleti , Italian Marino Barlezio ; * around 1450 in Skutari , † after 1512 in Rome [?]) Was a Catholic priest , Venetian humanist and historian .

Life

Very little is known about the life of Marinus Barletius. He was probably born around the middle of the 15th century in Skutari, northern Albania, which had been under Venetian rule since 1396 . Whether his family originally came from Italy (the name Barletius is often associated with the Apulian port city of Barletta ), as most scholars believe, there is no unanimous opinion in research. The first date in the life of Barletius that can be determined with certainty is the year 1474. He reports in his works that he was an eyewitness when the Ottomans besieged Skadar for the first time unsuccessfully that year. When only four years later, in the spring of 1478, a second Turkish army - Sultan Mehmed II was in charge - advanced against Scutari, Barletius was back in his hometown. This time, as he reports, he also took part in the defensive battles himself. Despite great efforts and the mobilization of considerable forces, the Ottomans did not succeed in conquering Scutari in battle or in starving the city through a long siege and thus bringing it to its knees in the second attempt. According to the agreements of the peace treaty concluded between the Serenissima and the Sublime Porte of January 25, 1479, with which the so-called 2nd Venetian Turkish War (1463–1479) came to an end and the Albania Veneta came to an end, the city had to be in April 1479 evacuated by the Venetians and ceded to the Turks. The occupation was allowed to withdraw freely, the population was given the choice of staying in Scutari and living under new masters or leaving their homes with their belongings and moving to Venetian territory . The sources report that the entire population that had survived the long months of the siege chose the second option. Barletius was one of these emigrants.

Title page of Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarum principis (Rome: Bernardino dei Vitali [1510])

In 1484 Barletius appears as the owner of a banco on the Rialto in Venice, which the city had assigned to him for pension and supplies. In the years 1489 and 1495 he acted as a witness for doctorates obtained at the University of Padua. In his works Barletius always appears as Scodrensis sacerdos ( Eng . "Priest from Scutari"). However, it can be proven that he had not already been a priest in his Albanian homeland; on the contrary, he did not receive his ordination until 1494 in Italian exile, probably in Venice or Rome. For at least a few years he was pastor in Piovene, Vicentino . In Italy, Barletius frequented the circle around Petrus Angelus, a brother of the well-known Paulus Angelus , former Archbishop of Durazzo and as such one of the most important confidants and most loyal partisans of Georg Kastriota , known as Skanderbeg, in his fight against the Turks in the Balkans. It was probably the company in this circle in which many scholars and men of high standing besides Albania and Dalmatia frequented who had fled to Italy from the growing Turkish threat and gathered around the Angeli in their exile, from which Barletius the real Received impetus for his literary activity.

The Scutarian humanist bequeathed three historiographical works to posterity: He started in 1504 with De obsidione Scodrensi (printed in Venice by Bernardino dei Vitali ; German: “About the Siege of Skutari”), a small historical monograph consisting of three books. In it he reports as an eyewitness about the sieges of his hometown Skutari by the Ottomans in 1478/1479. The actual description of the siege is preceded in the first book by an overview of the early Ottoman history and the medieval Epirotic , ie Albanian, history.

Only a few years later (probably around 1510) Barletius' probably most famous work appeared in Rome (again printed in the Bernardino dei Vitali's office), his large, 13-book biography of Scanderbeg with the title Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarum principis (Eng. "History of the life and deeds of Skanderbeg, Prince of Epirus"). The book spread rapidly throughout the West and was reprinted many times, reissued and reprinted together with other Turkish scripts. Just a few years after its publication, the Historia was translated into the major European vernaculars (including German Augsburg 1533, Italian Venice 1554, French Paris 1576, Spanish Lisbon 1588, English London 1596). The vernacular translations themselves were often reissued, reprinted, adapted and made fruitful for a wide variety of literary genera. The resounding success of Barletius' Historia throughout Europe from the beginning made it the linchpin of the entire occidental Scanderbeg tradition and has had a lasting influence on it to this day. A hero who appears, acts and speaks fully dressed in antique style (especially Livius , Sallust and Plutarch's Vita Alexandri ), the Provenetian tendency of the author, which is clearly translucent in many places, and the numerous chronological and factual inaccuracies that can be found in the representation of the Historia can be identified, have led to the source value of the writing in serious doubt from the middle of the 19th century. The results of recent source research allow a much more positive picture. Wherever there is parallel transmission - for example in the form of Dalmatian or Italian archival material - the statements made by Barletius in his Historia are largely confirmed.

In the years after the publication of his Skanderbegvita, Barletius still worked on a third historical work, a small compendium with papal and imperial servants (ranging from Peter and Romulus and Remus to his own time). Barletius probably never lived to see the printing of the Compendium , which today is only available in the second edition, which has been greatly expanded by the editors (Rome: Vincentius Lucrinus 1555). The sections of the compendium that can be ascribed with certainty to the pen of Barletius go back to the year 1512. After that, trace is lost, the place and year of death are not known.

Works

  • De obsidione Scodrensi ad serenissimum Leonardum Lauretanum, aristocratiae Venetae principem. Contones variae a Meumethe Turcarum principe et ab aliis militiae praefectis artificiose compositae . Venice 1504 ( Google Books ).
    • In: Konrad Clauser (ed.): Laonici Chalcondylae Atheniensis de origine et rebus gestis Turcorum […] . Basel 1556, pp. 382-440 ( Google Books ).
    • In: Philipp Lonicerus (Ed.): Chronica Turcica . Vol. 3, Frankfurt a. M. 1578, fol. 231 r -271 r ( Google Books ).
    • Stefan Zathammer (Ed.): De obsidione Scodrensi. About the Siege of Scutari (=  The Neo-Latin Library . Volume 2 ). Vienna 2017 (critical edition with introduction, translation and comments).
  • Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi, Epirotarum principis . Rome [1510] ( Google Books ).
    • De vita, moribus ac rebus praecipue adversas Turcas gestis Georgii Castrioti, clarissimi Epirotarum principis, qui propter celeberrima facinora, Scanderbegus, hoc est Alexander Magnus, cognominatus fuit . Strasbourg 1537 ( Google Books ).
    • In: Philipp Lonicerus (Ed.): Chronica Turcica . Vol. 3, Frankfurt a. M. 1578, fol. 1 r -230 v ( Google Books ).
    • Vita et res praeclare gestae Christi athletae Georgii Castrioti, Epirotarum pinrcipis, qui propter heroicam virtutem suam a Turics Scander-Beg, id est Alexander Magnus, cognominatus est . Agram 1743 ( Google Books ).
  • Compendium vitarum summorum pontificum usque ad Marcellum II imperatorumque Romanorum ac icones eorum Constantinopolitanorumque omnium usque ad Carolum V nec non regum illustriumque consulum Romanorum . Venice 2 1555 ( Google Books ; no more copies of the first edition are available).

literature

  • Franz Babinger: Mehmed the Conqueror and his time. World striker at a turning point . Munich 1959.
  • Franz Babinger:  Barlezio, Marino. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 6:  Baratteri – Bartolozzi. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1964, pp. 405-407.
  • Peter Bartl: Barletius, Marinus . In: Mathias Bernath, Felix von Schroeder (Hrsg.): Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . tape 1 . Munich 1974, p. 138-139 ( ios-regensburg.de ).
  • Eric Cochrane: Historians and Historiography in Renaissance Italy . Chicago / London 1981, p. 330, 398 .
  • Robert Elsie: Dictionary of Albanian Literature . New York / Westport / London 1986, p. 11-12 .
  • Robert Elsie: History of Albanian Literature . tape 1 . New York 1995, p. 28-29 .
  • Robert Elsie: Albanian Literature. A short history . New York 2005, p. 33-34 .
  • Armin Hetzer: Albania. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 13, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01483-5 , Sp. 56-62.
  • David Hosaflook: Marin Barleti: The Siege of Shkodra. Albania's courageous stand against Ottoman conquest, 1478 . Tirana 2012.
  • Jozef IJsewijn: Companion to Neo-Latin Studies . 2nd Edition. tape 1 . Leiden 1990, p. 88-90 .
  • Lucia Nadin: Albania ritrovata. Recuperi di presenze albanesi nella cultura e nell'arte del cinquecento veneto . Tirana 2012.
  • Fan Stylian Noli: George Castrioti Scanderbeg (1405-1468) . Diss. (Boston) 1945, esp. Pp. 11-13 ( archive.org ).
  • Nouvelle biography universal . tape 4 . Paris 1853, Sp. 518 ( archive.org ).
  • Francesco Pall: Marino Barlezio. Uno storico umanista . In: Constantin Gheorghe Marinescu (ed.): Mélanges d'histoire générale . tape 2 . Klausenburg 1938, p. 135–318 ( archiviostudiadriatici.it - still fundamental).
  • Giuseppe Schirò: Storia della letteratura albanese . Milan 1959, p. 12 .
  • Oliver Jens Schmitt: The Venetian Albania (1392–1479) (=  Southeast European works . Volume 110 ). Munich 2001.
  • Oliver Jens Schmitt: Skanderbeg. The new Alexander in the Balkans . Regensburg 2009.
  • Kenneth M. Setton: The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571) . tape 2 . Philadelphia 1978.
  • Stefan Zathammer (Ed.): Marinus Barletius: De obsidione Scodrensi - About the Siege of Scutari (=  The Neo-Latin Library . Volume 2 ). Vienna 2007.
  • Stefan Zathammer:  Barletius, Marinus. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume XLII, Bautz ,.

Web links

Wikisource: Marinus Barletius  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Pall 1938, pp. 135-137; Babinger 1964, p. 405; Setton 1978, p. 73 and others
  2. ↑ From the Albanian side, this thesis is vehemently disputed. See Hosaflook 2012, p. Xxix, 11.
  3. ↑ Hist. 4, fol. 46 r .
  4. ↑ Hist. 6, fol. 74 v .
  5. ↑ Obs. Scodr. 3, fol. qiii v -qiv r .
  6. ↑ See Nadin 2012, pp. 99–129.
  7. ↑ Schmitt 2009, p. 340: "It is beyond doubt that the entire Skanderbeg tradition in the West and in the Balkans can be traced back to Barletius."
  8. ↑ See e.g. B. Babinger 1959, 63, 161-162; Setton 1978, pp. 72-73.
  9. ↑ See Schmitt 2009, pp. 340–341.
personal data
SURNAME Barletius, Marinus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barlezio, Marino (Italian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Humanist and historiographer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1450
PLACE OF BIRTH Scutari , Albania
DATE OF DEATH 1512 or 1513
Place of death uncertain: Rome , Italy