On April 11, 1500 , in the Cecina River, Mikel Maruli (1453-1500), humanist, passed away. He was born in Constantinople, in the year that this city fell into the hands of the Ottomans. He was the son of an Arbëresh family from Morea, who would move to Ragusa and settle in Italy. He studied in Venice and Padua. As stratiot of Venice, he fought against the Ottomans, like many other Albanians. In Naples, he worked for the organization against the Turkish danger that threatened Italy and seems to have belonged to the circle of Skanderbeg’s son, Gjon, who would try to liberate Albania in 1481, when he made an expedition that proved fruitless. Poet and thinker, Mikel Maruli wrote various works in Latin, which were also published in France and Germany. His main themes were the liberation of the homeland (Morea), the free man, nature. One of his works, the poem “De principum institutiona” (“On the education of princes”), considered as a true leader the one who had particular knowledge. Mikel Maruli whipped the Paleologues of Byzantium, who did not defend Constantinople. He fought the medieval scholasticism and nurtured the advanced ideas of the time. His works have been reprinted over the centuries, until the 20th century. (In the photo: “Mikel Maruli”, painting by Sando Botticelli.)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1638-1639.
Photo: © https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikel_Maruli
Graphic processing: AHCF
