Johannes Lucius

Johannes Lucius
Ivan Lučić. De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae. Amsterdam, 1666. Trogir City Museum
Born	September 1604
Died	January 11, 1679
Nationality	Venetian
Other names	Ivan Lučić Giovanni Lucio
Occupation	historian
Notable work	De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae ("On the Kingdom of Dalmatia and Croatia")

Johannes Lucius (Croatian: Ivan Lučić; Italian: Giovanni Lucio; September, 1604 – January 11, 1679) was a Venetian Dalmatian historian, whose greatest work is De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae ("On the Kingdom of Dalmatia and Croatia"), which includes valuable historical sources, a bibliography and six historical maps.

Johannes was the son of Peter Lucius and Clara Difnico (Klara Divnić), born in Trogir, Venetian Dalmatia (now Croatia). After some schooling in his hometown, he went to Rome, where he spent two years, and then obtained his Ph.D. in ecclesiastical and civil law in the University of Padua. He returned to Trogir, and held various offices, but he returned to Rome in 1654. There he became a member of the Fraternity of Saint Jerome, and then its president. He participated in the work of many scientific academies of his age and wrote to scientists from Dalmatia, Italy and Europe.

He wrote a number of historical works in Italian and Latin. His greatest and most famous work is De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae (The Kingdom of Dalmatia and Croatia). The book was published after the war of Candia, a critical moment for the Republic of Venice. In his book Lucius pointed out the difference between the Romance and Slavic Dalmatia, the habits of the people and the cultural borderlines.

It was first printed in Amsterdam in 1666. This book provides an overview of both, the history of Dalmatia and history of Croatia, from the prehistory to the 15th century. While his predecessors and contemporaries used suppositions as much as facts, Lucius founded his estimates on genuine sources. At the end of the book, he included certain valuable historical sources and a bibliography with his comments. The book had six historical maps. One of maps, the historical map Illyricum hodiernum (today's Illyria) was dedicated by Joan Blaeu, Lucius' publisher to the Croatian ban Petar Zrinski. Since everyone was looking up to antiquity, the Zrinski believed their ancestors were Roman aristocrats. Lucius showed them that their roots reached back to the famous medieval dukes of Šubićs noble family from Bribir.