Ludovico Pasquali

Ludovico Pasquali (c.1500–1551) was an Italian author, from Cattaro in the Albania Veneta (today Kotor, Montenegro).[1] In Serbian his name is Ljudevit Pasković.

Coat of arms of the Pasquali

Life

Pasquali was born and died in Kotor, the Venetian Cattaro, from an ancient Dalmatian family with roots in Florence. He was a friend, admirer and fellow countryman of Giovanni Bona Boliris. Pasquali studied in the University of Padova and -after being enslaved in Crete by the Turks- returned to his hometown where he spent all his remaining life promoting the culture of Renaissance Italy.

He was judged the best "poet" of Venetian Dalmatia during the 16th century.[2]

Pasquali wrote a 1549 collection of poems in Italian, Rime Volgari ("Popular Rhymes" – Italian was often called "volgare", with the meaning of "popular", well into the 16th century: it was thought to be the popular version of Latin). His volume in Latin Carmina ("Poems") was printed in 1551.

The Dalmatian Italian Pasquali is remembered by scholar Scotti as one of the most "Italians" of the Dalmatian poets: he never wrote in Serbo-Croatian, but only in Italian and sometimes in Latin.[3]

Works

• Rime volgari di m. Ludouico Paschale da catharo Dalmatino. Non piu date in luce., In Vinegia: appresso Steffano et Battista cognati al segno de S. Moise, 1549
• Ludovici Pascalis Iulii Camilli, Molsae, et aliorum illustrium poetarum carmina, ad illustriss. et doctiss. marchionem Auriae Bernardinum Bonifatium per Ludouicum Dulcium nunc primum in lucem aedita., Venetiis: apud Gabrielem Iolitum et fratres De Ferrariis, 1551

Nationalistic dispute

Also historians of Montenegrin and Croatian literature insert Pasquali into their own literatures: for Croats he is Ludvig Paskvalić and Paskalić, for Montenegrins he is Ludovik Paskojević and Pasković.
The preface of the anthology "Croatian Latinists" state : "Having to establish the name of the poet, we have opted for the version Paskvalić because it is favoured by the Latin form (Pascalis) and the Italian (Paschale, Pascale) one of his surname, as the author himself signed alternatively, form that his descendants changed into Pasquali in the XVIII century."
In September 1993 was published the work "Stara knjizevnost Boke" ("The Ancient Literature of the Bay of Kotor") in which the editors – the essayists Slobodan Prosperov Novak, Ivo Banac and Don Branko Sbutega – declared expressly that the aim of their work is that of returning to the Croatian literature the writers of the Bay of Kotor, and in other words of a piece of Montenegro, because those writers, for those Croatian historians, being Catholics, cannot be considered Montenegrins but Croats.

Notes

1. Ludovico Pasquali p.239 (in Italian)
2. Memorie spettante ad alcuni uomini illustri di Cattaro, by Francesco Maria Appendini (p. 33-38)
3. Giacomo Scotti on "Italian roots of Dalmatian culture" (in Italian)

Bibliografia

• Gliubich, Simeone. Dizionario biografico degli uomini illustri della Dalmazia Battara Librai. Zara,1856

See also

• Giovanni Bona Boliris
• Mariano Bolizza
• Dalmatian Italians
• Venetian Cattaro