LUCIUS (LUCIO, LUČIĆ), GIOVANNI. - Founder of Croatian critical historiography, b. at Traù in Sept. 1604, d. at Rome on 11 Jan. 1679.
He studied at Rome and Padua, and wrote: Vita beati Ioannis episcopi Traguriensis (Rome 1657); but his most important work is De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae libri sex (Amsterdam 1666; 2nd ed. in I. G. Schwandtner, Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum, Dalmaticarum et Slavonicarum veteres ac genuini, III, Vienna 1748; the 3rd ed., ibid. 1758, is defective), which reproduces many archival documents and writings by the earliest and contemporary historians (in the appendix, the unpublished Historia Salonitana by the Spalatine Tommaso Arcidiacono). It deals with the period from the beginnings to 1420, and then briefly to 1480; it is also territorially limited, namely to old Croatia from Monte Gvozda to the Narenta, and to the Dalmatian cities and islands. Other important works: Memorie storiche di Tragurio ora detto Traù (Venice 1673), Inscriptiones Dalmaticae etc. (ibid. 1673).