Giulio Camillo Delminio (1479-1544), a famous but forgotton Renaissance thinker, was born from parents of Croatian origin. According to Frances A. Yates he was “one of those people whome their contemporaries regard with awe as having vast potentialities”. She wrote the monograph The Art of Memory (1966) devoted to Delminio. Giulio Camillo Delminio is most famous for his Theatre of Memory (or Memory Theatre), conceived as an encyclopaedic memory aid, and described in his book L’Idea del Theatro, published posthumously in 1550 in Venice. It consisted of of hundreds of images which were arranged on the tiers of an amphitheatre.

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His name Delminio reveals that his parents are from Delminium. The meaning of the name of Delminium in Latin is pasture for sheep, and the name of Dalmatia has been derived from it (see Catholic Encyclopedia – Dalmatia), also the name of Duvno. Many thanks to Mr. Ivo Dubravcic, Delft, for his first information about Giullio Delminio. Delminio’s parents of Croatian origin are mentioned in the book Between the Cross and the Crescent, A selection from the Dubravcic Collection (by Pietro Mastruzo & Rita Colognola), Leiden University Library, Leiden 2005, p. 33.