The Christian monumental historic-heroic epic Davidiad is the masterpiece of the prolific Croat Humanist Marko Marulic (Marcus Marulus, 1450-1524). The poem, comprising 6765 Latin hexameters, and divided into 14 books, was never published, and eventually even thought to be lost. Marulic's autograph resurfaced in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Turin, although it had been heavily damaged during the huge fire in January 1904. For the present edition the author has collated the original manuscript in Turin, made additional corrections, adopting the suggestions of Veljko Gortan, and reduced...

Judita is one of the most important Croatian literary works, an epic poem written by the "father of Croatian literature" Marko Marulic. Marulic's Judith has none of the decorative epithets typical of folk epics. Rather it is an epic poem notable for the Humanistic treatment of the subject and the author's Petrarchan descriptions of Judith's beauty. Thematically, the Judita deals with the story of the widow Judith who by her heroic act-the alleged treason, seduction and the murder of Assyrian general Holofernes-saves the city of Bethulia. It was no accident that Marulic chose the story of the...