The map before us represents baroque walls of Split, representing the example of the construction of fortifications: Cornaro, Corner, Priuli, Bernardi and Contarini.
Marko Marulić was born in 1450.
The city of Split and Dalmatian islands were under the rule of the Venetian Republic with the Ottoman Empire governing the hinterland. Split, at that time, had 350 Dalmatian families and around twenty foreign ones and still managed to preserve its own language, not only within the families but in official pronouncements and literature, too.
In Marko’s family named Pečenić-Marulić there was no shortage of children: Alexandar, Ivan, Peter, Valerie, Simon and sisters Andriana and Bira together with Marko would sit gathered around their mother Dobrica. The meaning of the mother’s name, Dobrica, in English is goodness. And as her name implied, all the goodness of this world came together in her personality. She married Nicola when she was 17 and she dedicated her entire life to her children, she selflessly gave them all her love and all her time.
And while Nikola worked in the municipal services and was always away from home, Dobrica created a warm home. She was known to speak of the grandfather Marko, after whom Marko was named who knew with money and acquired great wealth. The rumours had it, though, that he was on the council which sold Dalmatia to Italy and that this was the source of his wealth, but those were only rumours...
In 1463, while fighting the Turcs, Marko's uncle Jure was killed, the husband of his father's cousin Perina. Only three days after that Perina's heart stopped, the grief she felt over her husband’s death was simply unbearable.
Death wrapped the Papalić palace in black. Marko was 13 years old when he withdrew into his room and wrote an epitaph to this love and a scream against the unnecessary death, unaware that these verses were a prelude to the works which are yet to come in three and a half decades bringing him the title of the father of Croatian literature.
In front of us is the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian - the unique living monument. Let us enter through the Brass gate into the palace, accross Peristyle, along the Diocletian Street leading us to the Papalić palace - the Split City Museum today.
