Petar Hektorović

Who was Petar Hektorović?

Petar Hektorović was a Croatian writer.

Hektorović, also known as Pietro Ettoreo or Piero Hettoreo, was born and died in Stari Grad, Hvar. He was a poet and collector of Hvar's fishermen songs, and an important figure of the Renaissance period in Croatian literature, and he also wrote in Latin and in Italian, language in which he wrote his testament. His major work Fishing and Fishermen’s Talk, is a hybrid genre: simultaneously a travelogue, discourse in fishing, reflexive poem and poetic epistle to his friend Jeronim Bartučević. It is a treasure of Croatian maritime and zoological terminology, which has become incorporated in Croatian standard language. As hybrid as his major work, so was Hektorović's language: chiefly based on a local Čakavian dialect, but amalgamated with the idiom of Štokavian writing poets from Dubrovnik with whom Hektorović has remained in close contact during his lifetime.