Tadic sent a written request to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration and the Minister of Culture, describing the introduction to the catalogue as "an offensive pamphlet" in which "works of art and their creators are evaluated by means of DNA analysis."
Tadic told reporters in Zagreb that the catalogue promoted a theory of the so-called Dalmatian nation, under which the Croats do not exist nor have ever existed in Dalmatia.
The introductory part of the catalogue, written by Renzo de Vidovich, a leader of Italian World War Two refugees from Dalmatia, claims that the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea are populated by Dalmatians.
"Only Italians, or at best Dalmatians, lived in Dalmatia, which in his opinion obviously was never a part of Croatia," Tadic wrote in his letter, adding that by extension the Croats living on the Adriatic coast never had their artists.
Tadic found particularly worrying the fact that the exhibition had been sponsored by the Italian Consulate in Split.
The exhibition has been staged in Rome, Trieste, Zadar and Split, and there are plans to put it on display in Paris. The exhibition was opened at Split's Archeological Museum on 18 November and was closed a couple of days before its scheduled closing date of 4 December.