Cvijeta Zuzorić (Flora Zuzzeri) is a most vivid proof of how and how permanent and how powerful impact can a (long time gone) passion and (long time gone) beauty (both of body and mind) leave in time and space. It constantly reflects from one poetic mirror to another, till the moment it vanishes in the place of its eternally multiplied origin. The two of her portraits (whose authenticity is presently denied) reveal everything one is allowed to see on Cvijeta. The fascination thus has the support and imagination of the model, that is, of a person in a theatre in which a realistic biography opens up to imagination, all that in the service of presenting true nature of reality that created what with good reason one may call the Cvijeta Zuzorić phenomenon.

Let us remember the essential facts. Cvijeta Zuzorić was born in Dubrovnik in 1552. As a small child, she moved to Ancona with mother M?ra and father Frano, a merchant. There she married the Florentine aristocrat and merchant Bartolomeo Pescioni in 1570. He was appointed Florentine ambassador to the Dubrovnik Republic and she returned with him to her native Town that same year. In 1583 she was forced to leave (flee from) Dubrovnik. She died in Ancona on December 1st, 1648 and was buried in her fathers crypt in San Francisco ad alto Church. The place of her tomb is not known at present. She had five sisters (Nika, Lukrecija, Elizabeta, Katarina and Margarita) and four brothers (Petar and Nikola were priests and Vlaho and Bernard merchants). She is known to have written poetry and composed music. Nothing has (so far!) been found.

Her contemporaries such as Dominko Zlatarić, Miho Monaldi, Miho Bunić Babulinov, Marin Battitore, Cesare Simoneti da Fano, Gianbattista Boccabianca and Torquato Tasso (upon Julio Mostis request, although there is no reason to doubt that Tasso had met / known her in person) used to write poems for and dedicate their works to Cvijeta Zuzorić. Dinko Ranjina, among others, must have done the same. And so do the poets of nowadays.

Nikola Gučetić (Gozze) wrote two volumes about / for her: Dialogo della Bellezza detto Antos and Dialogo dAmore detto Antos, both published in Venice 1581. Cvijeta had by then been living in Dubrovnik for ten years. Her appearance changed him. After her, nothing remained the same. Her case was opened / created. What had by then been divinely beautiful became only beautiful what had been only beautiful, became mediocre what had been mediocre, became ugly in her presence what had been ugly, became unbearable ever since. What happened was a bankruptcy of the then beauty ... People developed odium against everything that could not be compared to her, but also an odium against her.

According to Wildes paradox, beauty suddenly becomes ugly. (Like many others) Cvijeta had to leave the Town in 1583. In 1584, Niko Gučetić (Gozze) published his Discorsi sopra le Metheore dAristotele in Venice. In its foreword, dated 15th July 1582, his wife M?ra, born Gundulić (Cvijetas collocutor from the mentioned Gučetićs work The Dialogues), defends her friend from slander, fiercely criticizing the hidebound Dubrovnik community. The authorities banned Gučetićs book. In the following year, 1585, he published another edition in Venice called Discorsi sopra le Metheore dAristotile. M?ras foreword was censored and shortened (the paragraph criticising those who attacked Cvijeta was omitted) and post-dated: the new date was 27th March 1585 (Cvijeta was in Ancona by then).