Ignjat Đurđević

Croatian poet

Ignjat Đurđević, also known as Ignazio Giorgi (February 1675 – 21 January 1737) was a Ragusan baroque poet and translator, best known for his long poem Uzdasi Mandaljene pokornice ("The Sighs of the Repentant Magdalene"). He wrote poetry in Latin, Italian, and Croatian.

Đurđević was born in Ragusa to Bernardo Giorgi and Teresa He did not belong to the House of Giorgi, but to a minor, recently ennobled family, the Giorgi di Bernardo. He was a member of the Great Council (1693), duke of Šipan Island (1695)c and Lovrijenac fortress' captain (1696). As a member of a rich and respectable family, he lived recklessly and often in debauchery. His love adventures cost him the position of the duke on Šipan. Because of his unrequited love towards a diklica (girl) from Dubrovnik and a libertine poem he wrote to her, Đurđević even had to leave the city for a while. In 1698, he joined the Jesuits in Rome, where he completed philosophy studies and worked as a teacher. His mother is from the Serbian Zlatarić family. In his book Macedonia, on page 78, Tihomir Đorđević states that the Zlatarićs came to Dubrovnik from Macedonia, referring to the well known Dubrovnik Catholic Serb, the linguist Pero Budmani. Đurđević once wrote that "Zlatarići are of Serbian origin", and Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski that they are from Mysis orte parentibus. Dragoljub Pavlović found a document in the Dubrovnik archives stating that the Zlatarićs came from Srebrenica in Bosnia. Đurđević mentioned several times in his legacy a Catholic manual in the "Serbian language" (lingua serviana), written in Cyrillic.