Antun Vrancic (lat Antonius Verantius, hungarized name Antal Verancsics, born in Sibenik in 1504) studied in Padova, Vienna and Krakow. After spending almost 20 years as a secretary and diplomat at the court of Ivan Zapolja, he continued his career at the court of Ferdinand I Habsburg in 1549. As the king’s envoy he had a delicate task to negotiate with the Turks (he spent altogether 6 years as a diplomat in Turkey). Together with a Flamish diplomat Busbeck he discovered the Ankara plate (Monumentum ancyranum, held in the National Museum in Vienna), which is quite important for understanding the history of the Roman Empire, especially during the time of the Emperor Augustus. As a diplomat he travelled to France, Italy, Poland, England (on a diplomatic mission to the court of King Henry VIII), Turkey etc., and was exchanging letters with Erasmus of Rotterdam. In Krakow, Poland, he published two collections of poetry in the Latin language (“Elagiae” and “Otia”).

Portrait of Antun Vrancic by outstanding Croatian painter
Martin Rota Kolunic from Sibenik Antun Vrancic occupied the highest ecclesiastic and state positions, first as the Ostrogon Archbishop and the primate of Hungary, and then as the Cardinal (during the Pope Gregory XIII). He left us valuable testimonies written in the Latin language about the tragic life in the Croatian areas occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Already as a young person Vrancic wrote the biography of Petar Berislavic, a Croatian Ban. From about 4000 of his preserved letters one can see that he stressed to be a Croat. His collected works have been published in 12 volumes by the Hungarian Academy.

Antun Vrancic, that is, Antal Verancsics, is in Hungarian literature usually described as Hungarian, which is no surprise. The same for Faustus Verancsics, his very famous relative.

It is little known that the famous Venetian painter Tizian portrayed Frane Vrancic – father of Antun Vrancic.