ja_mageia

Marulićev trg, the next square to the south, is named after - and boasts a statue of - the Renaissance writer and father of Croatian literature Marko Maruliić (1450-1524), author of judita, the first narrative poem in the Croatian language. A reworking of the biblical tale of Judith, who killed the Assyrian general Holofernes, Marulic's poem was taken to be an allegory of Croatia's struggles agtainst the Turks. The square was controversially - some say tastelessly - modernized in the late 1990s, when the lawn was lowered and the statue surrounded by what look like rows of airport landing lights, illuminating the bard in a manner not entirely in keeping with the restrained nineteenth-century apartment houses on either side. The bottom end of Marulićev trg is occupied by the former University Library (Sveučilišna knjiznica), opened with much pomp in 1913 and now home to the state archives. Arguably Zagreb's finest Secession-era building, it mixes a staid Neoclassical facade with eccentric ornamental details, such as the globes held aloft by owls which adorn each corner of the flattened, tent-like cupola.

On the far side of the library, just across Mihanovićeva beside the railtracks, are the city's tranquil Botanical Gardens (Botaniči vrt;Tues-Sun 9am-7pm; free), with well-tended but modest plant collections fading into wilder areas of long grass and overgrown pathways. The novelist Miroslav Krleža, who used to sit here to write his diary during World War I, compared the gardens to a "boring second-rate cemetery" - it's nowhere near that bad, of course, although it's more a place for quiet relaxation than for botanical inspiration.