Francesco Maria Appendini

Francesco Maria Appendini (November 4, 1768 – 1837) was an Italian Latin and Italian scholar, who studied Slavic languages in the Republic of Ragusa. The French invasion had enabled him from returning to Italy and he adopted Republic of Ragusa as his own country. He took upon himself to investigating its history and antiquities.

Appendini was born at Poirino, near Turin, in 1768. Poirino was then part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. He received his early education in his native country after which he went to Rome, where he entered the order of the Scolopj or Scholarum. The order (Christian Brotherhood) devoted itself to the education of students which work as teachers in the colleges and schools of Italy and of the neighbouring countries.

Having done his theological studies, Appendini moved to Ragusa (Dubrovnik) where he was appointed professor of rhetoric in the college of the Scolopj.

After several years of consulting the old documents and chronicles and the traditions of the region. He published in 1803, his "Notizie Istorico-Critiche Sulla Antichita, Storia, e Letteratura de' Ragusei" (published in two vols.) which is dedicated to the senate. It is considered by some to be his best work on the Republic of Ragusa which was for centuries like an advanced post of civilisation and which maintained its independence against the neighbouring Slavs, Ottomans and the Republic of Venice. Its flag was respected all over the Mediterranean, and the Republic preserved the regions traditions and cultivated the arts of Europe. It was situated on a narrow strip of land in Southern Dalmatia, now in modern Croatia. Its disappearance from the list of independent states was hardly noticed in the midst of the revolutionary events which had swept away most of the old republics of Europe.

In Appendini's first work he also investigates the history and antiquities of the Epidaurum or Epidaurus, the parent of Ragusa, which was destroyed by the Slavs in the 7th century. He enters into discussions concerning the ancient inhabitants of the Roman Provence of Dalmatia, their language and religion, the migrations of Thracians and Greeks to the coast of the Adriatic, and the wars of the Illyrians with the Roman Empire. He describes the site of Epidaurum and the extent of its territory, and presents several Roman inscriptions found among its ruins, near Cavtat. The sepulchre of P. Cornelius Dolabella, who was consul under Augustus and governor of Illyricum, and the remains of an aqueduct which were all in the same neighbourhood. Appendini then proceeds to account for the origins of modern Ragusa/Dubrovnik, who were refugees from Epidaurum and from Salona.

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