Michael Tarchaniota Marullus

Michael Marullus Tarchaniota Μιχαήλ Μάρουλλος Ταρχανειώτης
Portrait of Michael Marullus by Sandro Botticelli in about 1496.
Born	1458 Constantinople or Despotate of the Morea
Died	10 April 1500 (aged 41-42) Tuscany, Central Italy
Occupation	Poet, Soldier, Humanist
Literary movement	Italian Renaissance
Spouse	Alessandra Scala (m. 1494–1500)

Michael Tarchaniota Marullus or Michael Marullus (Greek: Μιχαήλ Μάρουλλος Ταρχανειώτης, Italian: Michele Marullo Tarcaniota; c. 1458 – 10 April 1500) was a Greek Renaissance scholar, poet of Neolatin, humanist and soldier.

Michael Tarchaniota Marullus was born to a family of Greek ancestry. His biography is rather obscure, he was born in either Constantinople or near the site of ancient Sparta in the Despotate of the Morea on the Peloponnese. His father was known as Manoli Marulo (Μανώλης Μάρουλλος) and his mother was Euphrosyne Tarchaneiotissa (Ευφροσύνη Ταρχανειώτισσα). The name Tarchaniotes was borne by a noble Byzantine family and it probably derives from Tarchanion, a village of Thrake. Another Tarchaniotes, Ioannes, author of several literary works in Greek and Latin in the 16th century, was a relative of Marullus'.

Both of Marulo's parents were Greek exiles who had fled from Constantinople when it fell to the Turks in 1453, and Michael Marullus always proudly called himself a Greek.

Due to the Ottoman expansion in the 1460s, he fled with his parents to the Republic of Ragusa, where he spent his earliest years. From there, the family went further to Italy. He was educated in Italy, in Ancona, and also perhaps in Venice and Padua. Marullus travelled from city to city as a composer of Latin poetry and an ardent advocate of a crusade against the Ottoman Turks. In the 1470s he fought as a common Stratioti against Turks in the Crimea. In order to liberate his subjugated homeland from domination he was willing to take up arms himself and allied with the king of France when he planned to go on a crusade. In Italy he served under the cavalry capatain Nicholas Rolla, a Lacedemonian.
Through his poetry, Marullus got in contact with many influential people of his time, including popes, kings and members of the Medici family. In Florence in 1494, he married the learned Alessandra Scala (1475–1506), daughter of Bartolomeo Scala. On 10 April 1500 after visiting with the humanist Raffaello Maffei in Volterra, he was riding in full armour to join the armed forces against Cesare Borgia when he drowned with his horse in the river Cecina near Volterra.