Political Rhetoric of Francesco Maria Appendini on the Eve of Republic’s Fall

Sa？etak Piarist Francesco Maria Appendini (1768-1837) spent almost fifty years as a teacher at the Piarist/Scolope Collegium in Dubrovnik. His enthusiasm for Latin rhetoric was also recognised outside the classroom walls as he delivered sermons in church and in public. As member of the Patriotic Society (Società patriotica), which gathered young patricians interested in social reforms under the influence of the French Enlightenment and English Rationalism, he advocated for the reform of the Ragusan school system and for the education of the local children abroad, at certain Italian schools in particular. The seeds of this idea he found in the treatise Some Thoughts Concerning Education written by John Locke, which he tried to adjust to the specific circumstances in Dubrovnik. Unlike Locke, Appendini did not incline towards radical social changes, as he believed that patrician children were the only ones to inherit their fathers and assume power when the time came, and rescue the state from the crisis. His disposition towards English culture has earned Appendini a rightful position among the educated Ragusans who were known to learn English and acquire professional and literary books even though they did not always share his views. Thus Junije Resti, the satirist, rejected the proposal for the children to study abroad and mocked the habits of his fellow-citizens in blindly following foreign customs. Since Appendini and Resti knew each other well, upon the request of the latter’s widow Appendini wrote an extensive introduction to a collection of Resti’s satires, printed in Padua in 1816, in which he spoke highly of Resti’s life-long learning and continuous advancement in law, languages, philosophy and sciences, believing it to be the only right path towards true statesmanship. Similar views Appendini had stated some twenty years earlier, in June 1798, while addressing the highest representatives of the Ragusan state and Church during the funeral ceremony of Orsat Gozze, the last Ragusan rector who died on duty. Privileged to have been chosen to deliver the oration in rector’s honour, Appendini decided to ascribe all Gozze’s achievements to his profound learning and individual striving that brought him firm character and broad knowledge. Graced by the glory of his forefathers, who, “from the very foundation of the city”, worked to the benefit of Dubrovnik, Rector Orsat Gozze in Appendini’s eyes had become a symbol of a responsible statesman and rational man. These achievements he owed most directly to his study of the treatises on law, philosophy, theology