Professione: Novelist and historian, secret agent
Luogo: Dalmatia
Autore: S. P. Novak;Francesco Semi

Giovan Francesco Biondi (1572 Hvar – 1644 Aubonne, Bern, Switzerland)

He was a writer and a diplomat, descending from a Dalmatian family he was born in Hvar Island in 1572.
When he was very young he moved to Padua and then to Venice, after having graduated in 1605. Here he became friend with important people like Sarpi, Galilei, Ghetaldi, de Dominis and Henry Watton. The last one was an English ambassador with whom he shared many literary and law interests; he also had a crucial role in Biondi’s life.
Biondi’s diplomat career started in Paris, where on behalf of St. Mark Republic he had some kind of task in order to persuade Henry IV to support Venice to withstand to the demands of Paul V.

But there were some problems in Venice and he had to go back to it.
He became interested in Sarpi’s works that took him strictly in contact with the contemporary protestant currents. With the help of Sir Watton he was afterward hired at  service in the court of King James I, where in a short he became Gentleman of Bedchamber and later Knight.

After a number of secret affairs and confidential meetings on behalf of the regency of James I, he married a Queen Anne’s lady-in-waiting. The marriage was the end of his diplomat career.
Biondi, besides having worked like a real secret agent, was also a popular novelist, within a decade he wrote a novels’ trilogy titled: l’Eromena (1624), La donzella desterrada (1627), il Coralbo (1632), where different characters were modelled on the author’s life experience.
For example the Illiric King Ormondo, main character of the first trilogy’s novel, offers freedom to the people of the kingdom, provided that they learn Illiric language and  they pass it on to their offspring; after adventures and love affairs, when he is old he goes back to the paradise island, which name is Faria (Hvar, Pharos in Greek).
It is also peculiar the story of Arabic prince Coralbo, a rebel towards his land’s traditions, who, when he is only thirteen, leaves home to travel the world.

Biondi’s novels were not appreciated by the critics of the time, however, later they were translated in several languages and they determined the author’s success,
English, French and German translations had a great fortune. But the trilogy wasn’t finished: Coralbo remained unfinished because Biondi started other works.

Between 1637 and 1644 was presented in Venice the “Istoria delle guerre d’Inghilterra fra le due case di Lancaster e di York” (Story of wars in England between the Houses of Lancaster and York), written by Sir Francis Byondy, in honour of the King Charles I and consequently translated in English and released in London.
Here Biondi introduced himself as citizens of the world to whom every nationalistic exaltation were alien, he showed a marked inclination for historical synthesis and he openly declared to be an absolute monarchy sympathizer. Because he was too bound to it, after the clashes between the King and the Parliament he was obliged to leave England and settled in one of his wife’s property, in Aubonne. Here, he lived the last part of his life

Biondi died in 1644, he himself left indications about what it had to be carved on the epitaph of his gravestone: a sentence where he declared to be happy of being one of the Illiric Kings’ descendants.