Božidar Vuković (,židarVuković , ; c. 1460 — c. 1539) was one of the first printers and editors of Serbian books in Montenegro. He founded the famous Vuković printing house in Venice. His printing house was operational in two periods. In first period 1519–21 three books were printed (Psalter, Liturgijar and Molitvenik or Zbornik). In the second period 1536–40 two books were printed (2nd edition of Molitvenik or Zbornik, and praznični Minej or Sabornik).
Biography
Early life
According to his own books, Vuković was born after 1460. In his 1519/20 Psalter, Vuković had signed himself as "Božidar Vuković of the Đurići, of Podgorica" (). He was most likely born in the town of Podgorica, where he did own a house and several parcels of land in its vicinity, as recorded even after his emigration to Western Europe when he grew up - the lands he owned were probably family heritage. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that his sister remained behind in Podgorica, probably in their family property. The origin of the Đurić family he belonged to is a bit more blurry, but it is possible that they hailed from the east, the Shkodër region, where it is known that Vuković also possessed some property, as well where he had very close living cousins.
Vuković and his family were subjects of the Republic of Venice, which had established a corpus of off-shore possessions along the Adriatic coastline – along its eastern reaches, the Venetian possessions cut deeper into the territory of the Balkan peninsula, engulfing eastern portions of Montenegro and northern parts of Albania. The Serbian Despotate had lost its last possession in the region with the fall of Medun to the Ottomans; the regional cities had found salvation in the patronage of the Venetian Republic, an important Mediterranean naval factor. The expansionism of the Ottoman Empire might have been the cause of Vuković's family's decision to seek shelter in the more safe and fortified home that Podgorica offered - or the reason might have been more practical; namely the expansion of trading services - his family was later frequently practicing trade in Venice.
As the Ottomans were pushing through even the last remains of the independent Christian feudal states in the Balkans, Božidar Vuković had migrated to Venice during the late 15th or early 16th century, along with his brother Nikola. Podgorica fell into Ottoman hands in 1474, during the Ottoman-Venetian War; there are indications that Vuković might have fled the Balkans in the refugee waves fleeing from the Ottomans, in particular after the fall of the Cetinje, the seat of Zeta, in 1496 and the subsequent flight of its last ruler Đurađ Crnojević to Venice across Budva.
Venice
When Montenegro (Zeta) fell to Ottoman occupation in 1496, Vuković fled with Crnojević to Venice, where he earned his living as a merchant. He joined the Eastern Orthodox Christian community and became a member of the Scuola dei Greci, enlisting as "Bozhidar of Veche, a Serb" after paying his fee, signing himself as such on every occasion. He later also became the chairman of the Brotherhood.
At the time, Venice was one of the centers of European printing, and there was a lack of Serbian liturgical books in the lands conquered by the Ottomans. Therefore, Vuković decided to use his personal earnings and open a printing press with Serbian letters in 1519 or 1520.
Vuković married a noblewoman of the Della Vecchia family, whose surname he added to his; he was known by this name in Italy. On some occasions, he used the title vojvoda ("duke", or "palladin"), given to him by Emperor Charles V in 1533. In accordance with his last wish, his body was carried back to his homeland and buried in the monastery of Starčeva Gorica in Lake Skadar. His son Vićentije Vuković inherited the press and continued doing the work that his father started. In 1597 the Serbian Venetian Printing Press passed into the hands of an Italian named Giorgio Rampazetto, who printed two important books of Stefan Paštrović – the Collection of Travelers and the earliest Serbian primer. In the 1570s Jerolim Zagurović, a native of Kotor, was active in Venice as a printer. The Vuković printing house would continue working for another century.