Božić Božićević
Božić Božićević (Latin names Natal Natali, Nadal Nadali) was a Split-born poet and nobleman who lived around 1554 to about June 1644. He came from a Split–Brač noble family connected to Sutivan on Brač. The family name appeared in records as Natalis, Natali, Nadali, Božićević, and Božić.
In 1615 and 1637 he served as defensor (defender) and judge of the Brač commune for Sutivan. Parish records show he acted as a wedding witness in 1618 and as a godfather at a christening in 1629. In 1633 he rebuilt the family tomb and had an epitaph engraved with seven twelve-syllable lines that rhymed twice. He most likely died during the plague in June 1644.
Božićević wrote the long poem Istorija svetoga Ivana Zlatoustoga, a freer version of the 15th‑century Italian legend La historia di S. Giovanni Boccadoro. He translated the Italian original into double-rhymed twelve-syllable lines with a carry-over rhyme, giving the work a mix of Marulić-like style and his own traits. The poem has 372 lines, longer than the original 288.
Although created in the 17th century, the poem is stylistically and thematically closer to Marulić than to Baroque literature. In 1944 J. Aranza identified him as a poet and published Počinje istorija svetoga Ivana Zlatoustoga... based on a fragmentary 17th‑century manuscript now in Zagreb, showing Božićević as a contemporary of Marulić. Earlier copies known from Jakša Čedomil were published by Franjo Fancev in 1938, who dated them to the 15th or early 16th century.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:18 (CET).