...a more modern statue of Ivan Gundulić, in this case a bronze by Ivan Rendić, who championed Croatian nationalism and placed bronzes of its heroes in many public squares. The panels below Gundulić's statue depict scenes from his epic "Osmun."When this statue was unveiled in 1893 (Gundulić's 300th birthday), it exacerbated nationalistic rivalries between Croats and Serbs -- about 100 years before the Serbs would return to Dubrovnik with their mortars.Gundulić was from a long line of Dubrovnik nobility: both his father and son were rectors many times over. (Remember, rectors serve for only one month.) Gundulić himself would have been rector but he died at age 50 -- the youngest age that a man could serve. Remembered as a writer of Croatian Baroque epic poems rather than a politician, Gundulić was a champion of the counter-reformation and, no suprise, was trained by those premier counter-reformationist Jesuits whose church we see raising its cross high above Gundulić's statue in the distance.
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