The Christian monumental historic-heroic epic Davidiad is the masterpiece of the prolific Croat Humanist Marko Marulić (Marcus Marulus, 1450-1524). The poem, comprising 6765 Latin hexameters, and divided into 14 books, was never published, and eventually even thought to be lost. Marulić 's autograph resurfaced in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Turin, although it had been heavily damaged during the huge fire in January 1904. For the present edition the author has collated the original manuscript in Turin, made additional corrections, adopting the suggestions of Veljko Gortan, and reduced his first edition (1957, Merida) to an absolutely necessary minimum. He has also enclosed a brief Vita Maruli, written by Marulić 's contemporary Latin poet of Split, Franjo Bož ič ević (Franciscus Natalis, 1469-1542).

Miroslav Marcovich taught at a number of universities, most recently that of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He has authored some twenty books and more than three hundred scholarly articles. In the last two decades of his life he prepared major critical editions of several patristic authors.