GUNDULIC, IVAN (1588-1638), known also as Giovanni Gondola, Croatian poet, was born at Ragusa on Jan. 8, 1588. His father, Franco Gundulic, once the Ragusan envoy to Constanti nople and councillor of the republic, gave him an excellent educa tion. He studied the "humanities" with the Jesuit, Father Muzzi, and philosophy with Father Ricasoli. After that he studied Roman law and jurisprudence in general. He was member of the Lower Council and once served as the chief magistrate of the republic. He died on Dec. 8, 1638. He made many translations from contemporary Italian poets into Serbian. He is known to have written 18 works, of which II were dramas, mostly transla tions from the Italian, but of these only three have been fully pre served, others having perished during the great earthquake and fire in 1667. His greatest and justly celebrated work is an epic, entitled Osman, in 20 cantos. It is the first political epic on the Eastern Question, glorifying the victory of the Poles over Turks and Tatars in the campaign of 1621, and encouraging a league of the Christian nations, under the guidance of Vladislaus, the king of Poland, for the purpose of driving away the Turks from Europe. The i4th and 15th cantos are lost. It is generally believed that the Ragusan Government suppressed them out of consideration for the Sultan, the protector of the republic, those two cantos having been violently anti-Turkish.
Osman was printed for the first time in Ragusa in 1826, the two missing cantos being replaced by songs written by Pietro Sorgo (or Sorkochevic) . From this edition Francesco Appendini made an Italian translation (1827). The best editions are those of the South Slavonic Academy in Agram (1877) and the edition published in Semlin (1889) by S.'ovan Boshkovich. In the edition of 1844 (Agram) the last cantos, 14 and 15 were replaced by very fine compositions of the Serbo Croatian poet, Maiuranic. The complete works of Gundulic have been published in Agram, 1847, by V. Babukic and by the South Slavonic Academy of Agram in 1889.