IVAN GUNDULIC (1647)

Croatian poet and dramatist whose epic poem Osman (written 1626; first published 1826) was the outstanding achievement of the Renaissance flowering of art and literature that gave Dubrovnik the name of the South Slav Athens.

A prolific writer Gundulic also occupied governmental positions in the Dubrovnic city-republic.

Inspired in general by the Italian Renaissance and in particular by the Gerusalemme liberata of Torquato Tasso, Osman describes the defeat of the Ottoman sultan Osman II by the Poles at Chocim in Bessarabia (1621).

The work comprises 20 cantos; cantos 14 and 15 are no longer extant(?)