Nicholas of Modruš and His De Bellis Gothorum: Politics and National History in the Fifteenth-Century Adriatic LUKA Š POLJARI Ć , University of Zagreb This article analyzes the “De Bellis Gothorum,” a long neglected and misunderstood history of the ancient Goths written in 1472–73 by Nicholas of Modruš, the leading Croatian-Illyrian bishop at the papal curia. By placing the work in its proper context, this article reconstructs a previously unknown episode in the political history of the fifteenth-century Adriatic. It is argued that the “De Bellis Gothorum” was in fact a national history that was meant to provide a trans-Adriatic network of Croatian and Bosnian nobles and churchmen with support from Naples and the papacy for their border wars against the Ottomans and reestablishment of their national kingdom. INTRODUCTION IN THE SPRING of 1472, Nicholas, bishop of Modruš (ca. 1425–80), the most prominent among a small group of Croatian churchmen at the papal curia, was sent to Venice to assume command over papal galleys and lead them to the Aegean as part of the first major naval expedition against the Ottomans launched by the papacy in years. The Ottomans had under Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–46, 1451–81) already conquered almost all of the Christian states in the Balkans, before taking Negroponte, the chief Venetian base in the Aegean, in 1470. Growing fearful of an imminent invasion of Italy, the newly elected pope, Sixtus IV (r. 1471–84), and the Neapolitan king Ferrante (r. 1458–94), decided to send their fleets to help the Venetians stop the Ottoman expansion. During the buildup to this expedition, Nicholas of Modruš started writing his De Bellis Gothorum (On the wars of the Goths), This article has been a long time in the making. I owe thanks, first and foremost, to my dis- sertation supervisors, Niels Gaul, James Hankins, and Neven Jovanović, for their support and guidance at the beginning of my research on Nicholas of Modruš; to John Christopoulos, Diego Pirillo, David Rosenthal, and Peter Sposato, for commenting on the first drafts of the article; and, finally, to the anonymous referee, for helping me fine-tune my argument. Renaissance Quarterly 72 (2019): 457–91 © 2019 Renaissance Society of America. doi:10.1017/rqx.2019.2