Marinus Becichemus Scodrensis

A 1942 standing portrait of Marin Beçikemi at the L'Aula Magna hall, in Palazzo del Bo. Marino Becichemo or Marin Beçikemi (c. 1468 – 1526) was an Albanian scholar and orator who was a prominent humanist in the cities of Brescia and later Padua in the Republic of Venice in the early 16th century. He maintained a humanist school and was a professor in the University of Padua. He wrote commentaries about classical Latin literature and was well known for his orations in the region of Venice.

Early life Beçikemi came from an Albanian family in Scutari (Shkodër), then part of the Venetian possessions in Albania. He was probably born in 1468. Many of the biographical details about his family come from several orations and letters he wrote including a panegyric which he wrote in 1503 and directed to the Venetian senate as a laudation for the resettlement of 2,000 Albanian refugees from Shkodra in Italy after the fall of the city to the Ottomans. His grandfather Pietro was, together with Stefano Ionina, an Albanian ambassador serving in Venice. His grandfather and his brother's grandfather had died in the defense of Drisht against Stefan Balšić (1429) His father, Marino, was a secretary of the Republic of Venice at the Ottoman court for about thirty years. The only information about his mother comes from Apostolo Zeno who writes that she was Bianca Pagnano, daughter of Guglielmo Pagnano who hailed from a Milanese merchant family active in Venetian Dalmatia. Beçikemi's father, his brothers, his uncle Stefan and many other relatives fought in the siege of Shkodra in 1478–79. In 1477, he had been sent to nearby Dulcigno just before the beginning of the siege. In total, 26 members out of 30 of his family died in the siege of Shkodra – including his father.

Published works Castigationes ad Apuleium, Victorinum et Ciceronis opus de Oratore etc. necnon praeceptiones de componenda epistola, funebrique et nuptiali oratione (1495) Praelectio in C Plinium … (1503) Panegyricus serenissimo principi Leonardo Lauretano (1504) Variarum observationum Collectanea (27 August 1504) Observationum collectanea in primum Historiae naturali librum (1504–1506)