INTRODUCTION:

Chrysogonos existed as a name in Greece 2400 years ago. In fact, it still does today: seven Chrisogonoses are listed in the Athens telephone directory. In a dictionary of classical Greek, Chrysogonos is defined as "born or descended from gold, of the Persians," because they were descended from Perseus, son of Danae. At that time legends were indeed alive. Perseus, the father of all Persians, was conceived by Zeus, the father of all the gods, who poured golden rain over Danae. Danae was kept in prison to preserve her virginity, because of the prophecy that her father would be killed by his grandson. The prophecy came true with a little help from the promiscuous Zeus, and the Persians multiplied. According to family legend (1), after leaving Persia the Chrysogonos clan first settled on the Greek island of Naxos. Some moved to mainland Greece, Egypt, Rome, Salona, and other towns in Dalmatia, where they lived as professional musicians, politicians, and noblemen.

Today, the Grisogono family is one of the oldest families in Dalmatia and Croatia. For centuries they were active in all pursuits suitable for noblemen of their rank , including the arts of war, ruling and judging their subjects, writing, science, and music. There is no doubt that this family lived in Split for seven centuries, probably even in the same building known today as Grisogono Palace. Another branch of the family lived in Zadar from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. Members of the family have an uninterrupted lineage dating from 1290 both in Zadar and in Split.

The desire not to change their family name into its Croatian form – Krševan ­ must have been strong, since it withstood a millennium of inbreeding with Croats. Grisogono is now the family's common surname that evolved many centuries ago during the turbulent years when Dalmatian, a Romance language, was disappearing and Croatian rulers were fighting with Venice for the possession of the strategic towns in Dalmatia.

Educated members of the family used their Latin surname, Chrysogonus, when writing books or papers in Latin. The thirteenth century form of their name in Split and Zadar, Crisogonus, was roughly half-way between Chrysogonus and Grisogono.

How did they arrive in the town of Split and how did they survive there so many centuries? I cannot pretend that this informal essay contains any definitive answers. It is primarily intended for entertainment. I had fun searching for my family roots, and I also found out that several highlights from my family folklore can be brought into connection with historical events in Greece, Rome, Dalmatia, and Croatia – events that are part of the common cultural heritage of the Western world. I may have overblown the importance the Grisogono's had in such events, but all interesting details are indeed based on original documents, some of which are cited in the references.

"GOLDEN" ROOTS:

I The golden name

Chrysogonos means golden family, clan, or tribe in classical Greek. It can also mean golden origin, ancestry, descent, progeny, parentage, or lineage. For Greeks who lived two dozen centuries ago, it may have meant of Persian origin, because of the Perseus legend and "golden" origins of all Persians. I assume that the proud owner of such a name in old Greece felt it his duty to bequeath the name to his sons as one of his most cherished possessions. This would help explain repeated appearance of this same name at a time when family names had not yet been invented. We shall also see that the first Chrysogonoses from Greece and Rome were professional musicians. During the Greco-Roman period trades and skills were often regarded as valuable family possessions. Could it be that the name Chrysogonos was not only the sign of an ancient Persian origin or ancient nobility, but also a trademark for family members selling their skills as musicians?

The first Chrysogonos to appear on the historical scene is mentioned in a second- hand account by Plutarch's (2). This Chrysogonos was the champion flute-player at the Pythian games. He played a rowing-song to Alcibiades' oarsmen when Alcibiades set sail for Athens from the island of Samos in the spring of 408 B.C. It was a most memorable occasion. Alcibiades was returning as victor to his native Athens after many years of the Peloponnesian War. Athens was more than willing to forget the period when Alcibiades had been banished from his country and had fought with Sparta against Athens. In the words of Aristophanes, "they long for him, they hate him, they cannot do without him." Unfortunately, his most respected friend, the great Socrates, was no longer alive. Instead of becoming the king David of Greek history, Alcibiades was headed toward an untimely end, and there was no Socrates this time to save his life from the enemy. Chrysogonos, in the ungirt tunic and long flowing robes of his profession, was playing a funeral march for the most brilliant period in the history of Athens.

The second Chrysogonos preferred politics to playing the flute. He lived in the time (217 B.C.) of the titanic struggle between the Romans and the rest of the Mediterranean world led by Hannibal of Carthage. Chrysogonos was a devoted friend of King Philip of Macedonia (3). Philip did not pay attention to his advice and was defeated decisively by the Romans in 197 B.C. The Isthmian games started on schedule after the Olympian and Pythian games, and most Greeks rejoiced at being treated kindly by the Romans. Was it possible to rule over Romans, the rulers of the known world? The next Chrysogonos proved that this could be done, but he had to pay an extraordinary high price: his name was blackened by the Romans for all future generations.

Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus (Chrysogonus is the Latin form of the Greek "golden name") took his first two names from his benefactor, the Roman dictator Lucius Sulla, as was the custom of his time. From Cicero's account (4) we do not know how Chrysogonus came to be enslaved by Sulla in Egypt or how he later won his freedom and Sulla's friendship. However, we do find out in one of the Cicero's most brilliant speeches ( "In defense of Sextus Roscius of Ameria", delivered in 80 B.C.), that Chrysogonus became one of the most powerful men in Rome and that he was duly hated by the old guard. I shall not dwell on the arguments that Cicero marshalled against Chrysogonus as the "criminal behind the scene," for Cicero made no attempt to prove anything. To quote Cicero:

"His Roman house is crammed with vessels of Delian and Corinthian bronze, including the automatic cooker which he recently bought at such a high price that passers-by, hearing the auctioneer crying the sum, believed a whole estate was being sold. And the quantity of his embossed silver plate, embroidered coverlets, pictures, statues, and marble is beyond all computation. Or rather, it adds up precisely to the amount of plunder from many illustrious families, acquired in times of violence and pillage, which can be contained inside a single building!

"His vast household of slaves beggars description, and so does the variety of their skills. I say nothing about the ordinary trades of cook, baker, litter-bearer and so on. But he also disposes of a whole host of individuals whose task is merely the gratification of his mind and his ear. So numerous are these artists that the entire neighborhood rings incessantly with the racket of nocturnal debaucheries. In a way of life like his, gentlemen, the daily expenditure and extravagance and lavish entertainment that go on all the time are unbelievable. But when you have seen what a peculiar house he maintains, these excesses no longer seem so incredible after all – if you can call it a house, rather than a factory of vice or a rendezvous for innumerable kinds of misbehavior.

"And look at Chrysogonus himself, gentlemen. Take a glance at his curled and scented hair, as he flutters from one end of the Forum to the other, escorted by a retinue of citizens of Rome, formally arrayed in their Roman togas. Note how contemptuous he is of every single person in the whole world except his own self, clearly convinced that he is the only man who deserves to be called a human being at all, and the most successful and powerful individual on earth."

This last offense was probably the worst in the eyes of the Romans, who were thought to disgrace their togas if they appeared in the retinue of an ex-slave.

After another jump of almost two centuries – around A.D. 100 – we find a Chrysogonus in Juvenal's time (5), a famous singer and teacher of music in Rome. As politics was getting more and more dangerous under the despotic rule of Nero and Domitian, the proud owners of the "golden name", now settled in Rome, wisely decided to take on their original trade in music. There were drawbacks, however. Listen what Juvenal has to say in the sixth book of his satires: "Some women pay high prices to open the vent at an actor's crotch, while others won't let Chrysogonus sing." Romans thought that intercourse was detrimental to the voice of a singer. As a practical people they required their popular singers to fix a ring (fibula) into the prepuce to prevent intercourse. Apparently there was no shortage of Eve's daughters tempted by the forbidden fruit.

As the power center of the Roman empire slowly shifted to the east, so did the Chrysogonus lineage. With none of their acumen lost during past centuries they put their bets in politics on both sides: Roman and barbarian. In 260 A.D. barbarians sacked the very great and prosperous city of Nicomedia in Asia Minor, soon to become the imperial capital under Diocletian (284-305 A.D.). On that occasion they paid their respects to Chrysogonus, who had long since been urging them to go to Nicomedia (6). We would like to think that collaboration with barbarians was the exception rather than rule among the bearers of the "golden name."

After this worst Chrysogonus, it is only fair to mention his contemporary, Cornelia Salonina Chrysogonus, from Klazomene in Asia Minor, who became the wife of the Roman emperor Gallienus (A.D. 253-268). The father of Empress Salonina was from Salona, the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, which later became part of Croatia. The ruins of Roman Salona are only a few miles away from the present-day city of Split. In the third century Salona was a truly international city of Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, and descendants of the Dalmati, the Illyrian tribe who fought fiercely for several centuries before accepting Roman domination. Saloninus, the son of Salonina, did become Augustus as a boy, but he never had the occasion to rule the empire, since the whole family was killed in 268 AD

If some Chrysogono relatives of Empress Salonina were pillars of Salona's society, there were also others regarded as dangerous revolutionaries by the establishment. Saint Chrysogonus Dalmaticus is still celebrated today on November 24. He was the descendent of Roman knights and most probably a bishop of the persecuted Christian church in Salona. Emperor Diocletian sent him to Aquileia, where he died as a martyr in AD 289. Like Christ himself, Chrysogonus rejected an offer of worldly power befitting his noble origins and remained firm in his bold confession of his faith in Christ. As Diocletian ordered, he was beheaded and his body was thrown into the sea. Of the many churches built to celebrate Saint Chrysogonus, I shall mention the churches in Italy (in Rome and Trieste) and in Dalmatia, Croatia (in Šibenik and Zadar).

II A bit less than one thousand years passed...

A bit less than one thousand years passed, and members of the lineage appeared again, now as members of noble families in the Dalmatian towns of Split and Zadar. Both branches of the family claimed their origins from the noble Chrysogonuses of Salona. Zadar, which used to be the Roman town of Jadra, took pride in the cult of Saint Chrysogonus, the town's patron saint. Trading with the bones of Saints was big business in the Middle Ages, and Zadar undoubtedly paid a high price to transfer several bones of Saint Chrysogonus from Aquileia to Zadar in AD 649. The church of Saint Chrysogonus still stands today in the middle of old Zadar, where it is known as the church of Saint Krševan. The Chrysogonuses from Dalmatia were very proud to have the bones of their Saint back with them in Dalmatia, as can be seen from the inscription on the portal of the church door:

"Ad Honorem Dei Dni X^ti Salvatoris Santique Chrysogoni Jaderae Protectoris Murus Urbis Jaderae Fuit Inchoatus Die XII Adstante Novembris Indictionis Bis Senae Ordine Labentis Sub Annis X^ti Mille Duecentis Nonaginto Octo Plus Computi Legentis Existente 'Comite Leonardo Chrysogono.'"

Who was Comite (city rector, mayor) Leonardo Chrysogono ? The genealogy of the Chrysogonus family in Zadar is known from 1290, but many noble members of this family are recorded in Zadar even before 1250 (7). It was one of the most illustrious families of Zadar. Its name gradually changed from the Latin version Chrysogonus, to the Italian Grisogono. For example, Crisogonus Judex (1164), Chrisogonum Iudicem (1180, probably the same official), Coscia Crisogoni (1190), Bitizi Grisogonus (1194), Grdosa Grisogoni (1217), Mauri de Grisogono (1232), Bellossii Crisogonus (1238), Federicus Grissogoni de Grisogonis (1240), Victoris Petrico Grisogonus (1242), Dimitri Grisogonus (1243), and Dimine Senzadeu Grisogoni (1245) are all mentioned in the Codex Diplomaticus (7) as serving Zadar as judges and city rectors. The Codex Diplomaticus is the primary source for written Croatian history, but most of the documents did not survive as twelfth, or thirteenth-century originals, but as copies written several centuries later. We can assume that original form of the surname was later "corrected" by some transcribers. As the rest of Dalmatia, Zadar was under Venetian occupation from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, so that Italian form of the family name was gradually winning. In one original document from 1180 (#149 in Vol II of [7]) the change in the "golden name" is still minimal: Chrisogonum instead of Chrysogonus. This is also true for the above-mentioned inscription on the portal of Saint Krševan church, which was written in 1290. To avoid confusion we shall use the name Grisogono for the Chrysogonuses from Zadar and Split in the following text.

Saint Chrisogonus Dalmaticus, the patron saint of Zadar, did his best to protect the citizens from the crusaders on November 24, 1202. However, the crusaders' power was stronger, and Zadar was taken by storm in the name of Christ (8). This is how the crusaders repaid their debt to Venice, who wanted revenge for the defeat in the battle with Zadar in 1190. During the thirteenth century Zadar recovered, and the Grisogono palace was built in the very center of the old town, where it still stands as the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments. One century later Zadar designated Ivan de Grisogonis to rule over Split as grand-duke from 1363 to 1367, but today no Grisogonos live in Zadar any more.

The first mention of Grisogono noblemen from Split was in 1225, when one illustrious but hot-tempered Crisogonus was captured with several other noblemen from the town of Split by Domald, the ruler of the nearby fortress of Klis (8). Crisogonus was justly punished by God, who could no longer bear the arrogance of noblemen from Split, as Archdeacon Thomas testifies (8). What we can infer from the misfortune of Crisogonus is that the Grisogono noblemen had been settled in Split for many years before the time of the pious archdeacon (1200-1268). Martinus Crisogoni appears twice in the 1247 records (7) as the official examiner of the court in Split. Grisogonos from Split often went to live in Zadar and vice versa. For instance, Leonardus Chrisochono, mentioned in the Codex Diplomaticus VI as the city judge in the year 1290 (7), may have later become the city rector of Zadar; his name appears as Leonardo Chrysogono on the portal of the church door.

When Salona was destroyed by barbarians in 627, Roman survivors first dispersed to the nearby islands. After some time, several more daring families decided that Diocletian's palace could be defended against barbarians. This is how it came to pass that the city of Split was first established as a modest settlement inside the huge imperial palace (8). It reached the size of its mother city, Salona, only in the twentieth century – i.e., after 13 centuries. At the beginning of seventeenth century the majority of Split's 3000 inhabitants and most probably all of the 30 Grisogonos (9) still lived inside the palace. It still protected them from barbarians and infidels: Turks this time around.

By that time, Croatian kings were already a distant memory. Legend has it that the last one, Zvonimir, was killed by his own countrymen in 1089, but not before pronouncing the terrible curse: "Da Bogda ne imali više nikad kralja od vašega roda" (May God grant that you will never again have a king of your own blood). Indeed, a bewildering succession of Hungarian, Byzantine, and Venetian rulers followed, but Split maintained its autonomy as a city-state, not unlike Dubrovnik, until 1420. The members of Grisogono family in Split did not have to fight for the office of city rector (mayor) and judge. It was theirs by birthright. For instance, Leonardus (in 1290), his son Ivan, grandson Prvislav and great grandson Ivan de Grisogonis (in 1357) were all judges, while three sons of the last Ivan were all city rectors in Split: Andrea in 1392, Antonio in 1395 and Lorenzo in 1416 (1). Unfortunately, Lorenzo did not succeed in his efforts to maintain the autonomy of Split when he was the ambassador to the Hungarian emperor Sigismund (in 1417) and to the Republic of Venice (in 1420) and with him the old dignified tradition of city rectors came to an end. After Venice took over Split, some Grisogonos such as Lorenzo's sons Michele (in 1449) and Arnerio (in 1451) preferred to be the grand duke (Conte Grande) of the Croatian "humming-bird republic" of Poljica (250 km²), than the extended hand of Venice in Split.

The Turks were "ante portas" (at the city gates) soon enough. The northern entrance to the city, which is still called "Zlatna vrata" (Golden Gate), has seen incredible acts of bravery and sacrifice in the fighting against the Turks. Around 1570 Split was reduced to desperation and the immediate danger of being overrun by the enemy. Fortunately Lorenzo Grisogono, the great-great-great grandson of Lorenzo, was the city rector, the last as it happens. His valiant fighting turned the tide of an almost lost battle and earned him the title Knight of San Marco (1).

Several years later, in 1574, Lorenzo's comrades again saw events larger than life (8). A hermit famous for his pious life took a young girl as domestic help. The girl was beautiful, but extremely poor. Since she refused all his amorous advancements, the hermit wanted revenge. He brought her before a church-going crowd and accused her of being a witch who was responsible for the war and pestilence that was driving people daily to their graves. She was siezed to be burned at the stake that was hastily erected on the Peristyle next to Grisogono Palace. At that moment, Dr. Roland, the first known physician in Split, jumped in front of the girl and her captors. He was noble, diligent, and respected by everybody. His words succeeded in calming the people. He asked them to let the poor girl free, which they did. As the doctor spoke, he approached the flames too closely, and his long robes caught the flame. As a living torch he ran to the sea and even jumped in, but was dead when the people took him out.

The most notedn scientist of the family, Frederico Grisogono (1472-1538), was also known as Federicus De Chrysogonis (7,12). This rich aristocrat enjoyed intellectual life as well. He practiced astrology, astronomy, medicine, and politics in Padova, Zadar, and Venice with equal devotion and left us the first good mathematical theory of tides. True to his family heritage, he wrote a treatise on music, today the oldest such document in Croatia (12). He was also the first physician in Croatia whose works were published. Today we can much better appreciate his difficulties in fighting the pestilence with yogurt and with his expert knowledge of astrology.

Another Grisogono from Zadar, Giulio, was proclaimed a Knight of Malta in 1625 by Pope Urban VIII and awarded the White Cross of Malta (1). He had to pass a most careful scrutiny of his noble origins, but the outcome was that the pope officially proclaimed Grisogonos as the most ancient family in Dalmatia of Latin origin. The family was so proud of this achievement that the White Cross of Malta become part of their coat of arms, which included a unicorn as well. After more than three centuries the family was honored with another Knight of Malta, Dr. Otto Grisogono, who wrote the only book about this ancient family (1).

The succession of Grisogono knights, military commanders, governors of islands, and skippers is too long to enumerate. All of Dalmatia, except a narrow coastal strip where Grisogonos fought, was conquered by the Turks. To follow their accomplishments by means of original documents, one would have to be familiar with four different alphabets: Latin, glagolitic, gothic, and cyrillic and at least five different languages: Croatian, Italian, Latin, German, and Hungarian. We shall mention only one writer. Pietro Nutrizio Grisogono had a clear vision of the future development of his beloved Dalmatia. His book, Comments on the Present State of Dalmatia, published in Florence in 1775, was a sharp analysis of the economic problems facing Dalmatia under Venetian and Turkish occupation.

In the meantime, Split developed in starts and stops as the main trading port of Venice with mainland "Turks" (in reality Croats under Turkish occupation). This was both a blessing and curse for Split which suffered epidemics of the bubonic plague in 1360, 1420, 1526, 1572, 1607, 1731, 1763, 1764, and 1784 (8). One branch of Grisogono family used their Grisogono Fortress in the nearby Bay of Kaštela to escape the pestilence. This strategy increased their chances of survival in the face of an epidemic that would kill every second citizen. In spite of this, both the Split and Zadar branches of the family were close to extinction. However, my ancestor Dr. Lorenzo Grisogono (born in 1714) defended Split against the bubonic plague as the Prior of Lazaretto. He had five sons and eight daughters, whom he raised on the safe grounds of the Grisogono Fortress. Dr. Lorenzo was the great-great-great-grandson of Lorenzo Grisogono, the Knight of San Marco.

Dr. Lorenzo's great-grandson Michele (1849-1921) established the first musical quartet in Split. He was a judge in Split, as so many of his ancestors before him, but his love for music was so great that he could hardly wait to come home after working hours and play his violin. The children would have to get everything ready for dinner. He would enjoy playing his violin, while his wife always joined him by playing the piano. On his death bed he asked to feel his violin for one last time. Other descendants of Dr. Lorenzo, such as Michele's sons Lovro (my grandfather, who used Croatian version of the name Lorenzo) and Bernardin, and Tommaso's son Prvislav, inherited among themselves Grisogono's love for music and politics.

From 1290 onward, we have a complete record of the Grisogono family tree in Split and in Zadar. Many Grisogonos over the ages were rulers of Split, Zadar, Šibenik, the Republic of Poljica, and of other Dalmatian towns and islands. The Grisogono family in Split enjoyed a next door view of Diocletian's mausoleum (now the city's cathedral) from their own palace, built in the fourteenth century in the very heart of Diocletian's palace: the Peristyle. Diocletian's bones were long since removed from his mausoleum and replaced by the bones of his Christian victims as it was transformed into the Church of Saint Dujam (today regarded as the oldest cathedral building in continuous use in the whole world). A succession of Grisogonos have been living in their palace up to the present time. Among them there has always been a Grisogono who played and taught music. As a boy I listened to my aunt Irma Grisogono singing as Amor in "Orpheus" the opera by Gluck, performed during the Split Summer Festival that took place in open air in the imperial setting of the Peristyle. Later, I used to visit Grisogono Place to see my aunt Ena Grisogono, a teacher of music and lover of the Grisogono old culture and family history. Her reception room in the palace with two pianos and many oil paintings of old Grisogonos, which looked contemptuously upon intruders, was the last eighteenth-centery style cultural salon in Split, where art and cultural events were performed and enjoyed for their own sake. Today, when in the mood to listen to the music of the Split Summer Festival, I have a choice of visiting two other Grisogono relatives who have apartments in Grisogono Palace and who are both musicians and teachers of music! And I wonder, of course. Do present-day Grisogonos indeed have a golden name and a love for music in their genes that somehow was able to survive the abyss of years in which whole nations disappeared?

Chrysogonos means "golden origins" in classical Greek. "Golden origins" may have referred to the Persian ancestry of certain Greek families. This name appears many times during the classic period, starting with 408 B.C. in Greece. Of the last three Chrysogonos mentioned by classical authors in the third century, two are connected with Salona. Salona was the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, and had a mixed Roman, Illyrian, and Greek population. When Salona was destroyed in the seventh century by barbarians, it is likely that some families from Salona found shelter in the nearby Palace of Diocletian, which today is the old city nucleus of Split. In his Chronicles of Salona and Split Thomas Archidiaconus records the legends of how Salona's citizens scattered first to the islands and latter settled in towns such as Split and Zadar (8). From his Chronicles we know that even in the thirteenth century Split still had not lost the Latin character inherited from old Salona.

Today, it is completely impossible to bridge the gap of almost one thousand years separating the bearers of the "golden name" in the Greco-Roman period from the roots of the Grisogono family tree in Split and Zadar. One cannot exclude the possibility of Saint Chrysogonus being the "progenitor" of the Grisogonos in Dalmatia, because a first name given to a child born on November 24to celebrate the Saint may have been converted into a family name. Many clerics have assumed the Saint's name upon entering the priesthood. For example, Grisogoni, the cardinal and librarian of the Pope Calixto II, who lived in Rome in 1120 (7) was most likely unrelated to the Grisogonos of Split and Zadar. It is clear that the church and Benedictine monastery of Saint Chrysogonus in Zadar played a very important role in Zadar. The documents saved there are important sources of early Croatian history.

With all this taken into account, it is still fascinating to realize that the love of music is the common thread connecting the Chrysogonuses of ancient times with the medieval and present-day Grisogono family. My mother Sonja would start singing whenever she was in a good mood, even when she was in her 79-th year recovering after serious operation, and her older sister Irma is still teaching singing and educating opera singers in Split. It appears that somebody from above protected this family and their "musical genes" from extinction. Was it some old Greek God, the giver of original Golden Name, their Patron Saint Chrysogonus Dalmaticus, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, the protector of Croats in misfortune? When Serbian aggressors in the recent war were firing their cannons from the destroyer "Split", the cathedral of Saint Dujam and the seven-century old Palace Grisogono were barely missed, unlike the less fortunate cathedrals and beautiful old buildings in the Croatian towns of Dubrovnik, Šibenik, Zadar, Osijek, and the most unfortunate Vukovar. However, the youngest generation of Grisogonos in Split is as vigorous as ever, and it is up to them now to defend the old civilization and dig deeper in their family roots.

Here is the direct lineage for several branches of the Grisogono family. The persons mentioned in this story are underlined. Code numbers in parentheses are from the last version of the family tree prepared by Albert Grisogono of Germany. The youngest male Grisogonos living in Split (5 of them) are all descendants of Dr. Lorenzo (7 generations removed) and of judge Leonardo (22 generations removed). So are all of the living Grisogonos as far as I know. There are 11 larger branches of Dr. Lorenzo's descendants, out of which 7 branches extend to the present time. Grisogono family members will easily see that this genealogy is not always complete and accurate. They are kindly asked to contribute any missing information.