Ljudevit Vuličević

Ljudevit Vuličević (Serbian Cyrillic: Људевит Вуличевић, Italian: Lodovico Vulicevic; Cavtat, 30 September 1839 – Naples, Kingdom of Italy, 27 July 1916), was a Serbian writer and patriot.

Ljudevit Vuličević was born out of wedlock on 30 September 1839 in Cavtat, at the time part of the Habsburg Empire. He was baptized Petar Jeronim but he became well known through his monastic name Ljudevit or Lodovico in Italian. He was raised by his Serbian Catholic mother Jelena Vuličević, whose name he later embraced. In 1854 he entered the Franciscan Order and completed his high school education in 1856 before taking orders in Pankrac, at the Venetian Monastery where he was ceremonially tonsured. In Venice, he studied philosophy and theology. He returned in Dubrovnik in 1862 as an educated parish priest, only to soon be at odds with the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Dubrovnik. For a while he worked as a missionary in Skadar, Albania. Vuličević's philosophical and religious essays and treatises were inspired by the idealism of Waldensian Church, to which he converted from Roman Catholicism.

He left for Trieste where he decided to convert by joining the Chiesa Evangelista Valdesa (Waldensian Evangelical Church), an Italian Protestant denomination. During his stay in Trieste, Vuličević took a part in early syndicalism in Italy and was a tutor for the young poet Aleksa Šantić.

In 1916 died in Naples as one of the noted ministers of the Chiesa Evangelista Valdesa and its original thinker. As he was highly respected and influential in his own country, the Serbian Government took charge of the funeral arrangements in Naples. He is considered to be one of the great masters of Serbian prose in the second half of the nineteenth century.

His tomb bears the following inscription as directed by himself:

Lodovico Vulicevicscrittore serbopredicatore dell Evangelonegli sviamenti del mondotrovo per la chiesa Valdeseil Cristo sua rendenzione

Translation:Serbian Author Lodovico Vuličević, Preacher of the Evangel, who,among the conflicting pathsof the world, found, throughthe Waldensian Church,Christ, his Redeemer.

• Una nuova tentazione pel Governo Italiano. Discorso di Lodovico Ab. Vulicevic, Pordenone, 1870.
• Slavi e Italiani: dal Juri al Quarnaro, Naples, 1871.
• Leggendo l'ecclesiaste: Fascicolo Primo, Naples, 1894.
• La religione del prete e il popolo, Trieste, 1871.
• Partiti e lotte in Dalmazia, Trieste, 1875)
• Partiti politici in Italia. Pensieri di Lodovico Vulicevic, Pordenone, 1869.
• Le tentazioni di Gesù, Taranto 1897.
• Le Chiese evangeliche. Che cosa sono? Che cosa vogliono?, Bari, 1907.