Šiško Menčetić

Šišmundo Menčetić Vlahović, known simply as Šiško Menčetić (pronounced [ʃîʃkɔ mɛ̂ntʃɛtitɕ]; Italian: Sigismondo Menze; 1457–1527) was a Croatian poet, chiefly creating his opus in the 15th century.

Menčetić was born in 1458 in Republic of Ragusa, part of the aristocratic family of Menčetić, in what is today the city of Dubrovnik (today's Croatia). He spend his youth rather in a ribald and dissolute way, his name is often mentioned in law documents of the Dubrovnik archive: he was charged in court due to incidents on city streets including the harassment of the women. He served as an official in the Dubrovnik government in various positions: as a twenty-year-old he entered the Ragusan Small Council, and twice (in 1521 and 1524), he was the Duke of the Republic of Ragusa. Menčetić married in 1497 when he was 40. He died, with two of his sons, on June 25, 1527, in a major epidemic of the plague.

Menčetić belongs to the first generation of Croatian lyrical poets, and most of his poems (512) have been preserved in Ranjina's Miscellany, in which he is the most represented poet.

As opposed to Džore Držić, Menčetić's opus contains longer lyrical narratives, and lyrical subject is more immediate, vigorous, lascivious and eroticized, and the topic of and the sensuality of reciprocated love is emphasized. The most distinguished role model is Francesco Petrarca, and that makes Menčetić, beside Džore Držić, the first Croatian Petrarchist. He belonged to Strambottists, which detach themselves from certain Petrarchan ideas: noticeable is the absence of Neoplatonisms, sensuality comes to be accentuated as the poets draw more close to vernacular forms (strambotto, rispetto), and sonnet is being abandoned. Most of the opus thematically inherits Petrarchism though - beauty and the pleasures of the poet's beloved are being described, but in several poems Menčetić diverges from classical Petrarchism celebrating the happiness of a lover whose pleas have been conceded.

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