Urban_Elites_of_Zadar_Dalmatia_and_the_V.pdf

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I libri di Viella

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Stephan Karl Sander-Faes

Urban Elites of Zadar

Dalmatia and the Venetian Commonwealth(1540-1569)

viella


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Copyright © 2013 - Viella s.r.l.Tutti i diritti riservati

Prima edizione: xxxxxxxx 2013ISBN 978-88-6728-###-#

Questo volume è stato pubblicato con il contributo del Dipartimento di StudiUmanistici dell’Università di Venezia nel quadro del progetto nazionale di ri-cerca PRIN 2009 dal titolo «Forme di statualità fra medio evo ed età moder-na. La dimensione mediterranea e il dominio sulla terraferma nel “modello”veneziano».

viella libreria editricevia delle Alpi, 32I-00198 ROMAtel. 06 84 17 758fax 06 85 35 39 60

www.viella.it


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Contents

Acknowledgements 7Abbreviations 8 Note on Names and Dates 10

Preface. New Perspectives for an Important Adriatic Center by Gherardo Ortalli and Bernd Roeck 11

Introduction 15

1. The Setting 271. Venice’s Maritime State (1358-1570) 272. Administration 33

3. Economy 354. The Adriatic Context 375. “Zara è metropoli et chiave” 406. Zadar under Venetian Rule (1409-1570) 42

2. Zadar’s Society: Geographical Distributionand Social and Occupational Fault Lines 641. Zadar as Communication Centre 642. Trans-Adriatic Networks in the Sixteenth Century 66

3. Procuratorial Networking 664. Economic, Legal, and Social Incentives 735. Secular and Ecclesiastical Elites 766. Intellectual Elites 827. Ecclesiastical Activities 88

3. Actors: Political, Ecclesiastical, and Economic Elites 1111. Political Elites: Venetians and the Local Nobility 1112. Ecclesiastical Elites: Convents, Hospitals, and Monasteries 1163. Economic Elites: Actors and Commodities 126


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Urban Elites of Zadar 6

4. Case Study: Zadar’s Interwar Property Markets 1431. Property Sales 1432. Planting Concessions/Land Grants 1503. Rental and Leasehold Contracts 156

5. Urban Elites and Everyday Life 1711. Zadar’s Urban Nobility 1712. Geographical and Social Mobility 1713. Material Culture 178

6. Urban Elite Groups and Zadar’s Urban Landscape 1891. Venetians 1902. Non-Noble Elites 1923. Croats and Jews 1944. The Cityscape 198

Conclusion 213

AppendixGlossary 221Units of Measurement 222List of Toponyms in Zadar’s Jurisdiction 223Maps 227Sample Transcripts 230

Bibliography 243Index 271


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Acknowledgements

As this manuscript goes to print, I am indebted to the contributions of a number of individuals and institutions. Everyone listed below has in some way assistedenormously in the research, writing, and improvement of this book. None is re-sponsible for any errors or inaccuracies, which are my personal responsibility.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Oliver J. Schmitt, Universityof Vienna, whose courses awakened my interest in the history of the western Bal-kans and of Venice’sStato da marin particular; Marko Trogrlić, University ofZadar, and the staff at the Croatian State Archive in Zadar (Državni arhiv u Zadru),whose help facilitated my research stay enormously; my two dissertation advisors,Karl Kaser and Harald Heppner, University of Graz, for all the support they havegiven me; and Bernd Roeck, University of Zurich, and Gherardo Ortalli, Univer-sity of Venice Ca’ Foscari, who helped in many ways to see me through the monthsof preparation of the manuscript.

I thank my colleagues and friends Rebecca Darley, University of Birming-ham, David Starr-Glass, University of Maryland/Empire State College, Sascha

Attia, University of Vienna, and Jose Cáceres Mardones, University of Zurich, forall their comments on and proof-reading of my manuscripts; my parents Karl andUrsula Sander and my grand-aunt Wilhelmine Bauer for their support throughoutthe years; and my parents-in-law Rosina and Helmut Faes for their interest andsupport.

Throughout this project, I have relied on the work of others and I sincerelyhope that I have represented their work accurately and duly acknowledged them inthe appropriate places. If I have failed anyone in this regard, I offer my unreservedapologies. For the past years, this book and the PhD thesis it is based on have been a constant companion. Even more enduring has been my partner-turned-wife,Dorothea Faes, to whom I am enormously indebted for all her care, patience, andsupport over the years and who now knows a lot about the Urban Elites of Zadararound the mid-sixteenth century. Dorothea, I hope you will enjoy the book and itis to you that it is dedicated.

Zurich, July 2012


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Abbreviations

DAZd ( Državni arhiv u Zadru) State Archive in ZadarBZ ( Bilježnici Zadra) manuscripts of Zadrani Notariesc. (carta) original pagination of archival materialf. ( folio) pagination applied to archival material by archivistss.p. ( sine pagina) without pagination

r (recto) right-hand page of a manuscriptv (verso) left-hand page of a manuscriptm.v. (more veneto) the Venetian calendar year starting on 1 Marchcap. (capitulum, capitolo) chaptertit. (titulus) titleLib. ( Liber ) bookRef. ( Reformationes) amendments

Published Sources

Commissiones Commissiones et Relationes Venetae: Mletačka iuputstva i izveštaji[Venetian Directives and Reports].Edited by Simeon Ljubić and Grga Novak. Zagreb:Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Art, 1876-1977.

Statuta Iadertina Zadarski statut sa svim reformacijama odnosno novimuredbama donesenima do godine 1563[Zadar’s Statutewith all Amendments and New Regulations Adopted by the Year 1563]. Edited by Josip Kolanović and MateKrižman. Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1997.


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9Abbreviations

Terminology Used

jurisdiction (Contado, county, distrikt ) the countryside or hinter-lands controlled by an urban centre

district (districtus, distrikt ) administrative subdivisions of Nin, Novigrad, and Vrana governed by castellans but subject to Zadar’s jurisdiction.

territory (ager publicus, Astareja) general term for public landsin the immediate vicinity of an urban centre


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Note on Names and Dates

Given the linguistic characteristics of Venice’sStato da marand the geo-graphical scope of this book in particular, the following method of naming indi-viduals and places has been chosen.

All names directly quoted from primary sources are spelled as they appear inthe notarial manuscripts. In all subsequent references the standardised Latin ver-sions of the names are used. I have added the standardised spelling for Venetiannames.

For consistency, I have used only present-day toponyms, i.e. Croatian namesin Dalmatia, Italian names on the Apennine peninsula, etc. Exceptions are placesgenerally familiar, e.g., Venice, Rome, etc. For places within Zadar’s jurisdiction,detailed maps and tables are provided in the Appendix that include their originalspelling in the primary sources, present-day Croatian toponyms, and if available,their Italian versions.

The Venetian year, which began in March, is referenced with the abbreviation“m.v.” (more veneto). Calendrical norms in the rest of the Adriatic are less clear;

unless indicated otherwise all dates are reproduced as they appear in the citedsources.


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Preface. New Perspectives for an Important Adriatic Center

The path of knowledge proposed by Stephan Sander-Faes in his thor-ough and well-documented study merits attention for a series of reasons, beginning with the selection of the title of the book and the reference toa Venetian Commonwealth. This is not merely a gure of speech but pro- poses a new interpretation of the Republic of St Mark as a reality marked by particular relationships and connections between Venice the metrop-olis and the many components of her composite state. Because of thesehighly-varied relationships Venice was able to acquire, institutionalise, andmaintain her positions in Italy and the Mediterranean over the long term:in the Terraferma and her maritime dominions, via informal colonies ofcitizens in foreign lands, formal delegations throughout the Mediterraneanand elsewhere, and in regions where Venetian prerogatives and de facto-dependence substituted direct control.

Sander-Faes authoritatively articulates this new interpretation of Vene-tian historiography and the characteristics of the fragmented and variedcomponents of Venice’s rule. His book offers an original, well-researched,

and at times surprising contribution. The history of theSerenissima andher commonwealth has always been and continues to be the object of anextensive and growing body of scholarship by a large number of scholarsfrom all over the world and from very different spheres. In addition tocertain well-studied regions and epochs there are others that, while notentirely neglected, offer ample room for further examination. Within thiscontext, Sander-Faes’ book is distinctive for the period under survey, in the perspective it offers, and in the articulation of the investigative methods itemploys.


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12 Gherardo Ortalli and Bernd Roeck

The years on which the book focuses constitute a period in which theheyday of the Most Serene Republic had passed. The rst two decadesof the sixteenth century mark a decisive shift in Venetian fortunes. Theignominious defeat by the troops of the League of Cambrai at Agnedelloin 1509 heralded a dramatic change to Venice’s position and her waningrole on the international chessboard. The ensuing decades witnessed theindisputable decline of theSerenissima. The area and period under surveyin this volume, which centres on Zara, is circumscribed by two traumaticevents in Venetian history. In 1540, after thirty years of continuous clasheswith the Ottoman Empire, con ict temporarily ceased. Venice’s separate peace imposed by Suleiman II the Magni cent brought about the loss ofimportant centres in the Aegean, the Peloponnese, and Dalmatia where,in Zara’s jurisdiction, the two strategic castles of Vrana and Nadin cameunder the control of the Ottomans.

If 1540 was the year of the unfavourable peace treaty with the MostSublime Porte 1569 marked the advent of renewed Ottoman-Venetian con-

ict., It began in 1570 and came to a close in 1573 with Venice’s loss ofthe large island kingdom of Cyprus. The great battle of Lepanto, fought inthe interim, had renewed hope, pride, and illusions, but did little to changereality or Ottoman attitudes. This was re ected in the comment made bythe Grand Vizier Sokullu Mehmed Pasha: Lepanto was to Cyprus what a beard trim was to the amputation of an arm. Venice’s time as a great powerhad ended and after an initial phase of shock and bewilderment, and con-scious of her limits, the Respublica acquiesced to the logic of military and political neutrality in order to survive.

Within this general context Sander-Faes’ book examines in depth thehistory of Venetian Zara. He positions the city as a centre of decisive importance for Venice’s commercial, maritime, and political interests in theAdriatic. Zara was the key to Venetian presence in the Adriatic, continu-ing a centuries-old interest, dating as far back as the expedition of DogePietro II Orseolo around the turn of the rst millennium. Control over thisimportant harbour town had long been troubled, especially due to the rivalinterests of the kingdom of Hungary. From the early fteenth century Ven-ice was able to settle the issue and Zara remained under Venetian controluntil the fall of the Republic in 1797.

The book’s focus rests rmly on the city of Zara, its inhabitants, andthe rhythms of everyday life. At the heart of the volume there are no great


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13Preface. New Perspectives for an Important Adriatic Center

events, victories, defeats, or international affairs. The historical contextuali-sation begins with the peace of Zara (1358), in which Venice was forced tocede her claims over Dalmatia to King Louis the Great of Hungary. ThenZara’s urban life in all its diverse expressions is fully illuminated, provid-ing the volume with robust substance that transcends the scope suggested by the title. There are the economic practices and networks that connectedZara’s urban elites with elites of other Adriatic cities, the detailed activities,variations of conjunctures, the lifestyle of the privileged strata, and the quietworkings of quotidian life. All the while Venice is regarded as the guaran-tor of security and stability for the inhabitants of Dalmatia during an era ofgrowing dependence of the peripheries on the fortunes of the centre.

The systematic study of more than 3,500 unpublished documentsopens important windows onto diverse social aspects: the secular and ec-clesiastical protagonists, relationships between Venetians and locals, fam-ily relationships, the presence of foreigners, marriage, immigration struc-tures, Jewish and Croat communities, the property market, the allocationof urban spaces, behavioural traits of the Dalmatian nobility, artisans,farmers, shepherds, and the role of transhumance. Its depth illuminates thesmallest events but never minimises perception of the complexities of thewhole system, as so often occurs in the treatment of micro-history. Andin the background is felt the weight of Ottoman proximity, which at oncegave rise to tensions and fears, and reinforced loyalty to Venice.

In sum, we can say frankly that Stephan Sander-Faes’ work is funda-mental in making Zara, among the Adriatic centers that made up part ofthe Venetian commonwealth, one of the best-understood societies in all itsdiverse characteristics in the tumultuous middle decades of the sixteenthcentury.

Gherardo Ortalli – Bernd Roeck


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Introduction

… thanks to a combination of painstaking diplomacy and good luck, Veni-ce was able to settle down to one of the longest periods of peace she couldremember – a period in which, in the words of one of her principal Frenchhistorians, ‘l’histoire des Vénetiens s’écoule sans être marquée par des évè-nements dignes d’occuper la postérité’.1

John Norwich, 1977-1982, Pierre Daru, 1821

Venice was not only one of the greatest cities of medieval and early modernEurope, it was also one of Europe’s most enduring republics, an expansiveempire and, from the fteenth century on, an imposing regional state.2

John Martin and Dennis Romano, 2000

Over the course of the sixteenth century, a period to which Pierre Daruand John Norwich ascribe the absence of “any events worthy of the atten-tion of posterity,”3 Venice stood at a crossroads.4 Her days as an expan-ding imperial state came to a close during the ten years between the Battleof Zonchio (1499) and the near-catastrophic War of the League of Cam- brai, culminating in the ignominious defeat at Agnadello (1509).5 Whilethe Battle of Zonchio marked the end of major acquisitions in the easternMediterranean, the War of the League of Cambrai brought about the cessa-tion of her designs on the Italian mainland. These changes coincided withfundamental strategic shifts of other imperial powers. The Republic of StMark found herself situated between the two self-styled universal monar-chies of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, hard pressed from Occidentand Orient alike.6 This perilous situation was compounded by the “impiousalliance” between the Sultan and the Most Catholic King.7 To survive inthis hostile environment Venice shifted from assertive policies of previouscenturies toward a more defensive stance. She devised new policies to de-fend her possessions and administer her far- ung territories that extendedfrom Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean to the gates of Milan in Lombar-

dy. Changes in Venetian society during the sixteenth century, though not


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visible on the surface, extended beyond matters of foreign policy. Whatcontemporaries described as the “ ight from the sea”8 amounted to nothing

less than a sea change in the most literal sense of the term: the shift from aMediterranean to a nascent Atlantic world economy and the encroachmentof French, English, and later Dutch merchants upon previously Venetian-controlled commerce in the Levant.9

In the wake of these developments, the writings of Marino Sanuto,Gasparo Contarini, and others10 celebrated the glories of the aristocraticrepublic and cemented what eventually became known as the “myth[s] ofVenice.”11 For centuries to come these myths de ned how historians appro-ached the history of the Republic of St Mark.12 Unresolved by this scholar-ship, however, was the problem John Martin and Dennis Romano termedthe “central paradox in Venetian history”: how to illuminate the intricaterealities of Venetian economic and social life, “which was constantly inmotion […] and needs further study and elaboration.”13 Recent decadeshave witnessed the decline of myth-centred historiography and the riseof more scienti c and varied approaches to Venice proper, including newinsights into her diverse, multicultural, and poly-confessional society.14 Byand large, however, this trend in the scholarship has not yet reached Veni-ce’s peripheral possessions in the eastern Mediterranean.15

The history of Venice’s maritime state along the shores of the Aegeanand Adriatic seas was mostly left to Greek,16 Yugoslav, and later Croatianscholars.17 Dalmatia’s eventful past was rst studied from an Italo-centric point of view by scholars like Vitaliano Brunelli, Angelo de Benvenuti, andGiuseppe Praga.18 The same events were studied by South Slavic scholarswho reached rather different conclusions, and in the aftermath of the Se-cond World War, most Yugoslav scholarship tended to anachronisticallyfocus on speci c ethnic groups.19 These selective interpretations and per-ceptions of Venetian history served the purposes of national movements inthe second half of the nineteenth century and nationalistic ends during the

rst half of the twentieth.20In the aftermath of the Second World War Venetian historiography

was largely characterised by two models. First, due to rapid decolonisationand Cold War rhetoric, theStato da marentered ideologically-charged di-scourse, most notably in the writings of Freddy Thiriet.21 Second, Ameri-can scholars Frederic Lane and William Bouwsma celebrated the ideals ofRenaissance republicanism, placing Venice within a long-standing westerntradition.22 In recent decades more diverse, nuanced approaches to medie-


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Introduction 17

val and early modern colonialism have emerged, emphasising continuities between the Mediterranean and Atlantic.23 For the Venetian maritime state

the works of Michel Balard, Alain Ducellier, and Chryssa Maltezou areseminal.24 In addition to its analysis of the intricacies of ecclesiastical andsecular institutions,25 this contemporary scholarship “has done away witha unilinear reading of Venice’s past,”26 paving the way for new approachesto Venice proper and her overseas possessions.

Yet with the focus of scholarly attention resting rmly on the lagoonmetropolis, there are few recent studies putting Venice’s Adriatic posses-sions in the spotlight. Aside from the relatively large number of editedsources and scholarly literature detailing the intertwined histories of theRepublic of St Mark and the Ottoman Empire, little attention has beengiven to the Adriatic during the decades after the War of the League of Co-gnac (1526-1530). With the notable exceptions of the Republic of Dubro-vnik 27 and theTriplex Con nium project initiated by Karl Kaser and DragoRoksandić in the mid-1990s,28 the history of early modern Dalmatian eco-nomic and social history has yet to attract renewed interest.29 In spite of theabundance of research possibilities in the various Dalmatian branches ofthe Croatian State Archive, most notably explored by Tomislav Raukar,30 little effort has gone into furthering our understanding of the complexitiesof everyday life along the Adriatic’s oriental littoral.31

In order to address these issues on a local level this book combines theinsights of existing scholarship with new analysis of contemporary docu-ments to offer a detailed picture of Zadar’s “urban elites.”32 The focus will beon the city known in the sixteenth century as Zara, the “metropoli et chiave”33 of Venice’s Adriatic dual province of Dalmatia and Albania,34 and Zadar’s jurisdiction encompassing the minor districts of Nin, Novigrad, and Vranaduring the three interwar decades from 1540 to the outbreak of the CyprusWar in 1570.35 These years mark the apogee of Muslim dominance and thecorresponding nadir of Christian naval power in the wider Mediterranean basin, whose repercussions could especially be felt along the frontiers of Ve-nice’s maritime state. Building on established scholarship on cities along theDalmatian coast,36 this book presents a tripartite framework that considersthe geographical locations, economic developments, and social relations ofthe various ecclesiastical and secular elites along the diffuse and ambiguous borders of the Republic of St Mark and the Ottoman Empire.

While there is no “consensus about how to characterize Venice’s ruleover both theTerrafermaand theStato da mar ,”37 the terminology used


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here is “respublica-cum-imperial power,” coined by Gherardo Ortalli,38 and its contemporary English translation, “commonwealth.”39 Within this

framework the administration of theStato da mar on the local level wasconcentrated in the hands of the Venetian governors, legates, and milita-ry commanders, but included the participation of Dalmatia’s indigenouselites. In exchange for their loyalty the inhabitants of the coastal citiesand hinterlands could continue living under Christian rule, even thoughin practice this often meant cross-border raids, enslavement by marau-ders from Ottoman lands, and the attempted subordination of Dalmatia’seconomic life under Venetian prerogatives. In combination, these factorsgradually marginalised and impoverished the coastal communities.40 The proximity of the neighbouring Ottoman Empire kept the local populacermly loyal to Venice but also increased insecurity in Zadar’s jurisdic-tion.41 This study examines how in these circumstances the urban elitesinteracted with each other, the Ottoman subjects, transhumance peoplesfrom across the frontiers, and Venetians. The latter group included gover-nors, legates, military personnel, artisans, merchants, and public of cials.Usually Venice’s representatives—many of whom where patricians oflower rank and wealth42 —found themselves in an environment striking-ly familiar to them.43 Moreover, they often were required to mitigate thecon icts between commoners and noblemen while rst and foremost re- presenting and safeguarding Venice’s overarching economic, military, po-litical, and strategic interests.44

The book is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1, entitled “The Set-ting,” serves a dual purpose. First, it seeks to provide an overview of themajor developments in Venice’s maritime state, emphasising its historywith Dalmatia between the beginning of the second Venetian dominion(1409-1420) and the outbreak of the Ottoman-Venetian war in 1537. Se-cond, it details the most important aspects of economic, legal, political,and social developments leading up to the period under survey. The objec-tive is to identify the underlying structural characteristics of Venice and hermaritime-mercantile enterprise in the Adriatic.

The approach to the various “Elite Citizens,” a term applied by JamesGrubb with respect to Venice proper,45 is three-fold. First, Chapter 2 iden-ti es the principal actors of Zadar’s society and their trans-Adriatic con-nections. The intellectual elites’46 activities are reconstructed by subjectinga mostly overlooked type of documentary source, procura contracts, toquantitative analysis of the economic, occupational, geographical, and so-


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Introduction 19

cial origins of contracting parties and the geographical destinations of theappointees. A total of 930 individual notarial contracts from 1540 to 1569

have been analysed and provide quantitative and qualitative data to supple-ment more traditional methods measuring “communication.”47 The docu-ments allow for a tentative categorisation of the motivations behind theseappointments (economic, legal, or social) and reveal useful distinctions forclassifying the contracting individuals (ecclesiastical versus secular, socialstratum, etc.).

The identi cation of the aristocratic elites and literate commoners es-sential for the functioning of Zadar’s society is at the core of Chapter 3.“Actors” discusses the various political, ecclesiastical, and economic elites:the Venetian and Dalmatian nobilities48 and members of the clergy, such asZadar’s archbishopric, Nin’s bishopric, the city’s monastic congregations,and other men and women of the cloth. For the nobility and their dealingswith the Church an analysis of testaments and codicils is provided. Additio-nal consideration is directed at how the city’s three main congregations—theBenedictines, Dominicans, and Franciscans—interacted with individuals of privileged descent.49 The commercially active elite consisted mostly of mer-chants, property owners, and spice traders. Based on selected examples, thevarious actors and commodities are analysed and discussed.

Chapter 4, “Zadar’s Interwar Property Markets,” examines the de-velopments of Zadar’s real estate transactions between 1540 and 1569.Existing scholarship usually emphasises a general downward direction ofZadar’s property markets after the Venetian reacquisition in 1409. Thisstudy calls into question that uniform downward trend. Following a briefintroduction based on Tomislav Raukar’s extensive work on late medievalDalmatia,50 the chapter analyses real estate transactions based on 1,772 no-tarial acts detailing real estate sales, concessions, and rental and leaseholdtransactions. The results, while appearing rather dense for the three deca-des between 1540 and 1569, can only be considered a tentative assessment.There is a near-total absence of comparative data for the decades beforeand after this 30-year period; conclusions consequently must be viewedcautiously.

The nal two chapters focus on society at the micro level. Chapter 5addresses the geographical and social mobility of Zadar’s foreigners, exa-mining how they integrated into noble circles. The city’s nobles preferredmarriage alliances with families of aristocratic descent from elsewhere inDalmatia, but also from farther away. 656 marriage-related contracts have


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been analysed51 in order to gain a better understanding of what Neven Bu-dak termed the “self-identity of the Dalmatian urban nobility” with regard

to their willingness to let their sons and daughters marry into other aristo-cratic circles.52 A brief glance at the material culture of the upper socialstratum concludes the section.53

The nal chapter discusses other elite groups—categorised by theirdescent, literacy level, or religious af liation—and their interactions withand integration into Zadar’s society around the mid-sixteenth century. The-se groups include Venetians, the city’s “elite citizens” (Grubb), and theCroat and Jewish communities, which were small but important. Chap-ter 6 rst discusses Venetians living in central Dalmatia, working withinor outside the administrative framework of Venice’s maritime state. Next,it examines the city’s elite ‘middle’ class, de ned as literate individuals ofnon-noble descent,54 like interpreters, jurists, and notaries. This is followed by an analysis of the Croats and Jews.55 In combination, the analysis de-monstrates that while in the mid-sixteenth century the legal and social ties between the western Balkan hinterlands and the coastal cities were weakerthan in earlier centuries, they did not cease altogether. The chapter endswith a look at Zadar’s urban landscape, speci cally its divisions, demogra- phical distribution, and use of space.

The six chapters of this book document life in the 30 years betweentwo Ottoman-Venetian wars as they were experienced by Zadar’s urbanelites. They investigate economic developments, geography, and socialrelations on three levels. The rst level examines the geographical rangeof Zadar’s society, covering both shores of the wider Adriatic basin andtheir hinterlands. The second level offers an economic case study of the ci-ty’s jurisdiction (Zadar proper and its subject territories and subdivisions).Finally, this study reaches the street level through an analysis of reports and notarial records concerning Venice’s governors, legates, and militarycommanders. The reports “provide a moving image,” and “notarial recordsfurnish the soundtrack of the city’s bustle, thus bringing the scene closer tolife than either set of sources would do on their own.”56

Even so, the fact that the present study is based on archival materialfrom the Croatian State Archive in Zadar and the editions by Simeon Ljubićand Grga Novak 57 means that its scope is con ned to certain areas of cen-tral Dalmatia.58 Future research into the activities and interactions of earlymodern urban elites along both shores of the Adriatic should make use

of the vast amounts of material preserved in the various other Dalmatian


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Introduction 21

archives.59 For too long the rich histories of both occidental and orientalshores have been subject to closely delimited and limiting interpretations

that arti cially divide a past linked, not separated, by the salty waters ofthe Adriatic. In this sense, this book constitutes the author’s contribution toovercoming centuries of separated historiographies.

Notes

1. Norwich, History of Venice, 459-460. The French passage is quoted after the origi-nal (Norwich gives an English translation) by Daru, Histoire de la république de Venise,4:118.

2. Martin and Romano, “Reconsidering Venice,” 1.3. Norwich, History of Venice, 460.4. Cessi,Storia della Repubblica di Venezia; Cessi, Repubblica di Venezia e il pro-

blema Adriatico; Concina,Venezia nell’età moderna; Cozzi, Knapton, and Scarabello, Repubblica di Venezia nell’età moderna; Crouzet-Pavan,Venice Triumphant ; Hocquet,Venise et la mer ; Lane,Venice; Nicol, Byzantium and Venice; Rösch,Venedig ; Franchini,Ortalli, and Toscano, eds.,Venise et la Méditerranée; Tenenti and Tucci, eds.,Storia diVenezia (12 vols.).

5. Gullino, “Frontiere navali,” 90-95; Gilbert, “Crisis of the League of Cambrai,” Fin-

lay, Venice Besieged .6. Introduced by von Ranke as early as 1857 and perpetuated by, among others, Brau-del,The Mediterranean, 1:476.

7. Garnier, L’alliance impie.8. In the words of Girolamo Priuli as quoted by Doumerc, “Dominio del mare,” 172.9. Doumerc, “Dominio del mare,” 167-178; Braudel,Civilization and Capitalism,

3:89-174; Wallerstein, Modern World System, 1:300-344.10. E.g., Sanuto,Vite; Sanuto, Diarii; Contarini, De magistratibus et republica Vene-

torum; Contarini,The Commonwealth and Government of Venice. On Contarini’s legacy,Gleason,Venice, Rome, and Reform; McPherson, “Lewkenor’s Venice.” On Venetian hu-manist writers, King,Venetian Humanism, esp. 118-150, 161-192, 315-449.

11. Finlay, “The Immortal Republic”; Grubb, “When Myths Lose Power”; Povolo,“Creation of Venetian Historiography”; Crouzet-Pavan,Venice Triumphant .

12. Grubb, “When Myths Lose Power,” 43-44.13. Martin and Romano, “Reconsidering Venice,” 21. See also the review of Martin

and Romano, eds.,Venice Reconsidered by Drechsler, “Venice Misappropriated.”14. E.g., Imhaus, Minoranze orientali a Venezia; Molà,Comunità dei Lucchesi a Ve-

nezia; van Gelder, Netherlandish Merchants in Early Modern Venice; Guzzetti,Veneziani- sche Vermächtnisse; Laven,Virgins of Venice, Möschter, Juden im venezianischen Treviso;Ravid, Jews of Venice; Sperling,Convents and the Body Politic in Renaissance Venice;Sperling and Wray, eds., Across the Religious Divide.

15. Ortalli, “Beyond the Coast,” 11; Mayhew,Contado di Zara, 24-25.


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Introduction 23

of Dubrovnik]; Janeković-Römer , Višegradski ugovor[The Visegrád Privilege]; Janeković-Römer , Rod i grad[Kinship and the City]; Kovačević,Trgovačke knjige brać Kabužić[Ac-count of Books of the Kabužić Brothers]; Krekić,Unequal Rivals; Krekić , Dubrovnik: A Mediterranean Urban Society; Mahnken, Dubrovački patricijat u XIV veku [The Patriciateof Dubrovnik in the 14th Century]; Miović, Židovski geto u Dubrovačkoj Republici[TheJewish Ghetto in the Republic of Dubrovnik]; Miović , Dubrovačka Republika u spisimaosmanskih sultana[The Republic of Dubrovnik in the Documents of Ottoman Sultans];Miović, Dubrovačka diplomacija u Istambulu [Dubrovnik’s Diplomacy in Istanbul]; Stuard,State of Deference, Voje, Poslovna uspešnost trgovcev v srednjeveskem Dubrovniku[Busi-ness Relations of Traders in Medieval Dubrovnik]; Voje and Kovačević, eds., Kreditnatrgovina u srednjovjekovnom Dubrovniku[The Medieval Credit Market in Dubrovnik].

28. Ivetić, ed.,Tolerance and Intolerance; Roksandić, ed.,Triplex Con nium;Roksandić , Ekohistorija. See also Slukan, Kartografski izvori za povijest Triplex Con n-

iuma[Cartographic Sources for the History of the Triplex Con nium], as well as their web presence for recent developments: “Triplex Con nium: Croatian Multiple Borderlands inEuro-Mediterranean Context,” accessed 11 June 2012, http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/pov/za-vod/triplex/homepagetc.htm.

29. As highlighted recently by, among others, O’Connell, Men of Empire, 1-15; Grba-vac, “Testamentary Bequests of Urban Noblewomen,” 67-68; Ortalli, “Beyond the Coast,”10; Schmitt, “Südosteuropa als Kommunikationsraum,” 77-78; Raukar, “Komunalnadruštva u Dalmaciji u XIV. stoljeću” [Commune Society in Dalmatia in the 14th Century],78; and the forewords by Roksandić and Ivetić in Mayhew,Contado di Zara, 7-9, 11-12.

30. Budak, ed., Raukarov zbornik[Raukar’s Collected Papers]; Raukar, ed.,Studije o Dalmaciji u srednjeg vijeku[Studies on Dalmatia in the Middle Ages]; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje[The Croatian Middle Ages]; Rauker and Budak, eds., Hrvatski povijest srednjeg vijeka, esp. 428-432.

31. Ortalli and Schmitt, eds., Balcani occidentali, Adriatico e Venezia. See alsoSchmitt, Korčula sous la domination de Venise; Schmitt, “Venezianische Horizonte”; Israeland Schmitt, eds.,Venezia e la Dalmazia, based upon a series of lectures given at the CentroTedesco di Studi Veneziani in 2010-2011 (forthcoming), and the SFB-Project “Visions ofCommunity,” which also comprises a sub-section on the late medieval Adriatic: “Society,Statehood and Religion in Late Medieval Dalmatia,” accessed 11 June 2012, http://sfb-viscom.univie.ac.at/home/project-groups/.

32. On the Adriatic Budak, “Urban élites in Dalmatia.” For a more general discussion,

see Ganchou, ed., Élites urbaines au Moyen Âge.33. In the words of Venice’s syndic Antonio Diedo, presented to the Senate in 1553.Commissiones, 3:17.

His co-syndic, Giovanni Battista Giustiniano, expressed a similar sentiment: “Zara,siccome è principal città di quella provintia, è medesimamente la chiave di Dalmatia.”Ibid., 3:35.

34. On Venetian Albania, see Ducellier, Façade maritime de l’Albanie; Schmitt,Ve-nezianisches Albanien; Schmitt,Skanderbeg ; Valentini, “Amministrazione veneta in Alba-nia”; Valentini, “Stabilmenti Veneti in Albania.”

35. E.g., see the 3 vols. of Foretić, ed., Prošlost Zadra[The Past of Zadar]. Vol. 1 cov-ers the city’s prehistory to late Antiquity, vol. 2 details the Middle Ages, and vol. 3, Raukar


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et al., Zadar pod mletačkom upravom[Zadar under the Venetian Administration], surveysthe second Venetian dominion (1409-1797). See also Raukar, Zadar u XV. stoljeću[Zadarin the 15th Century].

36. E.g., Brandt,Wyclifova hereza i socialni pokreti u Splitu[Wycliffe’s Heresy andSocial Movements in Split]; Kolanović,Šibenik u kasnome srednjem vijeku[Šibenik in theLate Middle Ages]; Kovačević, “La Serbie dans l’économie de Venise”; Pederin, “Appuntie notizie su Spalato nel Quattrocento”; Pederin, “Šibenik (Sebenico) nel basso medioevo”;Rismondo, Pomorski Split druge polovine XIV. st. [The Port of Split around the mid-14thCentury].

37. Martin and Romano, “Reconsidering Venice,” 10 (emphasis in the original).38. Ortalli, “Beyond the Coast,” 23 (emphasis in the original). The medieval and early

modern use of the termrespublica— and its translation “commonwealth”—offers us the ben-e t of avoiding anachronistically modern connotations of empire, republic, or “composite

state” in reference to the Republic of St Mark. Arespublicaof this type is the manifestation ofancient and medieval continuities that do not preclude the existence of a domestic, republicanregime and the pursuit of aggressive policies abroad. In addition, the term offers a pragmaticway to reunite the terminology used by Martin and Romano (republic, empire, regional state).See also Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies,” 48; Chittolini, “Cities, ‘City-States,’and Regional States,” 697-698; Chittolini, “The ‘Private,’ the ‘Public,’ the State.”

39. De ned by the Oxford English Dictionary as a “whole body of people constitutinga nation or state, the body politic.” This provides additional insights into the 16th-centuryEnglish use of the term. See “Commonwealth, n.”, in the Oxford English Dictionary online,accessed 28 May 2012, http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/37261.

40. Budak, “Urban élites in Dalmatia,” 186.41. Mayhew,Contado di Zara, 23-29; Panciera, “Frontiera Soranzo-Ferhat in Dalma-zia,”; Panciera, “Frontiera dalmata nel XVI secolo”; Traljić, “Tursko-mletačko granice u

Dalmaciji” [Turkish-Venetian Borders in Dalmatia].42. Cozzi, “Authority and the Law in Renaissance Venice,” 325-327; Doumerc, “Do-

minio del mare,” 167-168; O’Connell, Men of Empire, 57-74; Queller,Venetian Patriciate,51-112.

43. O’Connell, Men of Empire, 19; Jacoby, “Social evolution in Latin Greece”; Jaco- by, “Colonisation militaire vénetienne de la Crète”; Jacoby, “Encounter of Two Societies,”On Crete, the “exception to Venetian overseas rule” (O’Connell, Men of Empire, 12), seeMcKee,Uncommon Dominion.

44. Anderle, “Dalmatien in venezianischer Zeit”; Cozzi, “Politica del diritto,” 250-261; Krekić, “Developed Autonomy”; Novak-Sambrailo, “O autonomiji dalmatinskih ko-muna” [On the Autonomy of Dalmatian Communes]; Pederin, Mletačka uprava, privreda i politika[The Venetian Administration, Economy, and Politics], xvii.

45. Grubb, “Elite Citizens.”46. The term “intellectual elites” refers to educated, literate individuals of noble and

non-noble descent, as de ned by Budak, “Urban élites in Dalmatia,” 188. See also Chapters2 and 6.

47. Despite the unresolved problems with the term and the dynamic, temporary natureof “communication,” Venice’s maritime state offers a number of possibilities to combinedifferent sets of quantitative and qualitative data to more appropriately represent the direc-


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Introduction 25

tions, dynamics, and ows of exchange. These include the so-calledcontralittere(export/import licences), evidence of migratory movements, and the petitions by various cities(capitula, capitoli), and theSignoria’sresponses. Schmitt, “Südosteuropa als Kommunika-tionsraum,” 78-82; Saint-Guillain and Schmitt, “Die Ägäis als Kommunikationsraum,”217. On the other hand, Schmitt considers quantitative analysis of export licences of ut-most importance to the history of Adriatic trade. Schmitt, “L’apport des archives de Za-dar,” 49. See also Attia, “Handel und Wirtschaft der Stadt Trogir”; Kolanović, “Šibenik(contralittere)”; Raukar, “Jadransko gospodarski sustavi” [Adriatic Maritime Commerce].By contrast, O’Connell, Men of Empire, 97-118 (Chapter 5, “Negotiating Empire”), pointsto the importance of communication in Venice’s maritime state, using terms like “bargain-ing” (Ibid., 1), “three-way negotiation” (Ibid., 2), and “correspondence” (Ibid., 6). See alsoDursteler, “Bailo in Constantinople”; and Horodowich, “Gossiping Tongue.”

48. Only the coastal, urban nobility strongly resembled the Venetian patriciate. The

noble families from the hinterlands of the western Balkans mirrored more closely theirCroatian-Hungarian counterparts in their administrative functions, military roles, and fam-ily structures. Engel, Realm of St Stephen, 83-88, 119-122, 174-181. At least one recentstudy refers to forti ed places in Dalmatia’s hinterlands as belonging to “mostly Croatiannoble families.” Mayhew,Contado di Zara, 143.

49. In the late 1990s Budak described the Church as an “almost unexplored eld ofthe patricians’ activity.” Urban élites in Dalmatia,” 194-196. For a recent overview Šanjek,“Church and Christianity.”

50. Raukar, Zadar u XV. stoljeću, 151-196.51. Including matrimonial contracts and dowry quitclaims.52. Budak, “Urban élites in Dalmatia,” 196-197.53. The suitability of testaments and inventories for this task is well-established, especially given the absence of pictorial sources for sixteenth-century Dalmatia. Budak, “Ur-

ban élites in Dalmatia,” 197-199. See most recently, Benyovsky,Srednjovjekovni Trogir[Medieval Trogir]; Dokoza, Dinamika otočnog prostora[The Dynamics of an Island]; andMlacović,Građani plemići[Citizens and Nobles].

54. On literacy and literary production in Dalmatia, see vol. 2 of Hercigonja, ed., Po-vijest hrvatske književnosti[History of Croatian Literature]; Krekić, “Attitude of Fifteenth-Century Ragusans towards Literacy”; Krekić, “Latino-Slavic Cultural Symbiosis”; Met-zeltin, “Varietà italiane sulle coste dell’Adriatico orientale”; Graciotti, “Plurilingualismoletterario e pluriculturalismo”; and Šimunković, “Politica linguistica della Serenissima.”

55. The ubiquity of Jews in Venice’s maritime state was noted by Arbel, “Colonied’oltremare,” 974.56. McKee, “Women under Venetian Colonial Rule,” 35.57. Ljubić’s editions of these reports and directives, published asCommissiones et

relationes Venetaeand edited under the auspices of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciencesand Art from the 1860s, were continued from the 1960s onward by Novak as Mletačka iUputstva i izveštaji[Venetian Directives and Reports]. In addition, Ljubić edited 10 vols.of Listine o odnošajih izmedju južnoga slavenstva i Mletačka Republika[Dispatches on theRelationship between the South Slavic Peoples and the Venetian Republic], which containthe petitions by Venice’s subjects in Dalmatia. See also O’Connell, Men of Empire, 97-118;Schmitt, “Südosteuropa als Kommunikationsraum,” 93-100.


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58. Zadar’s statutes were codi ed in 1563 and published in Venice in 1564. Themodern edition by Kolanović and Križman, eds.,Statuta Iadertina sa svim reformacijamaodnosno novim uredbama donesenima do godine 1563[Zadar’s Statute with all Amend-ments and New Regulations adopted by the Year 1563], was published in 1997.

59. In general Kolanović, Pregled arhivskih fondova[Inventory of the Archival Col-lections], 1:881-884. See also Schmitt, “L’apport des archives de Zadar.”


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1. The Setting

1. Venice’s Maritime State (1358-1570)

The Republic of St Mark emerged as a major Adriatic power aroundthe turn of the rst millennium, and her success and wealth soon becamethe envy of her neighbours.1 Due to the events of the Fourth Crusade, thesubsequent conquest of Constantinople in 1204-05, and the establishmentof the Latin Empire, Venice ended up in control of vast expanses of theeastern Mediterranean.2 For the next century and a half the Republic of

St Mark enjoyed her position of pre-eminence and managed to hold herfoes at bay.3 Her rst overseas acquisitions along the eastern shores of theAdriatic, however, led to a severe setback in the mid-fourteenth century.In the wake of the Black Death an exhausted Venetian Republic faced anarray of enemies and in 1358 was forced to cede her Dalmatian territoriesto Louis I of Hungary. Signed in the Franciscan monastery of Zadar, thetreaty provided for the independence of Dubrovnik and placed the otherVenetian possessions under the suzerainty of the victorious king.4

The second adversary was Genoa, whom the Republic of St Mark hadalready fought in the rst half of the 1350s and whose attempts to achievecommercial supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean led to another wartwo decades later.5 The Genoese, well-established in the resurrected By-zantine Empire and in control of the lucrative Black Sea trade, renewed ho-stilities in 1379.6 Fighting initially arose over control of the tiny island ofTenedos (today Bozcaada, Bozdja-Ada)—strategic because of its locationat the southern entrance of the Dardanelles—and soon spread across vaststretches of the Mediterranean.7 In the ensuing war and in a strategic depar-ture from previous con icts, the Genoese eet advanced into the Adriatic.


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In an attempt to strangle Venice’s access to vital food and supplies it landedan expeditionary force near the town of Chioggia. In this most perilous

hour the Venetians were able to hold their ground, rally their forces, andght back by virtue of a statewide mobilisation of manpower, supplies, andmorale. The gruesome ght for Chioggia continued for almost a year. But by the summer of 1380 the mortal threat to Venice’s lifelines had receded,and the tide began to turn. Still, the war raged on until both parties wereexhausted. A nal settlement was negotiated in Turin in 1381. Unlike herGenoese rival whose society descended into fractional strife and interne-cine con ict, Venice was able to quickly reconstitute her economy and

nances. At this point the Republic of St Mark controlled only the largeisland of Crete and some minor footholds in the Aegean.8The decade after the peace of Turin witnessed two major events inthe history of the Adriatic. First, Venice re-emerged as a major power bytaking over Corfu and a number of minor possessions close by. She added Nafplio, the Cyclades, and the large island of Euboea to her maritime statearound 1390. The second development had an even greater impact on theeastern Mediterranean. As the Venetians renewed expansion the Ottomansadvanced deep into the Balkans, reached the elds of Kosovo, and defea-ted the Serbian host mustered against them.9 In the aftermath of the battlemany realms in southeastern Europe and the neighbouring Aegean felt theOttoman pressure mounting, requiring a reorientation of their foreign af-fairs. In addition, many communities and regions along both shores of theAdriatic became involved in the struggle for the crown of St Stephen.10

In combination, these events contributed to the expansion of Veniceinto areas previously out of her reach. In the last decade of the fourteenthcentury the Republic of St Mark acquired a number of cities along theAdriatic’s southeastern coast, securing the towns of Durrës, Lëzhe, Shko-dër, and Drisht. These acquisitions led to the organisation of the Venetian province of Albania after 1392,11 which would not have been possible wi-thout the convergence of these contemporaneous developments.12

The fteenth century began under even more promising auspices. AsTamerlane led his armies westward his forces met the Ottoman host out-side Ankara in 1402. He soundly defeated his enemy and took prisoner theirSultan, Bayezid I, who died in captivity shortly afterward. This plunged theOttoman realm into a tumultuous succession crisis that lasted for more thana decade.13 Against this background, Venice, for a time unperturbed by theOttomans, continued her expansion in the Adriatic and Aegean. The cities


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The Setting 29

of Bar, Budva, and Ulcinj were added to her Albanian province in 1405. Naupactus and Patras followed in 1408 and 1409. The next large territorial

acquisitions occurred in the same year, along the Adriatic’s eastern coasts.Half a century earlier Louis I of Hungary had driven the Venetians fromthe Dalmatian cities and forced them to recognise his claims, enlarging hisvast domains even further.14 Soon after his death in 1382, however, his realmdisintegrated in short order and descended into a long and bloody succes-sion con ict among the various contenders for the crown of St Stephen.15 This con ict had not been resolved by 1409, the year in which Ladislaus of Naples, the last male of the senior Angevin line and titular king of Hungarysince 1390, sold his hereditary claims to Dalmatia and his remaining Dalma-tian possessions to Venice for the sum of 100,000 ducats.16 The Republic ofSt Mark accepted, eager to reassert her in uence over the eastern shores ofthe Adriatic to provide additional security to her mercantile shipping. Thusthe major islands in the Kvarner Gulf, as well as the cities of Zadar and Nin, came under Venetian rule again.17 Over the following decades Veniceextended her hold over the Adriatic by acquiring Šibenik in 1412, followed by Pag, Vrana, Trogir, Split, Omiš, Kotor, and the islands of Brač, Vis, andKorčula in 1420. Hvar was added the following year. The Serbian clan ofthe Paštrovići, ruling between Budva and Bar, accepted Venetian suzeraintyin 1423.18 These developments coincided with Venice’s brief occupation ofThessaloniki and her expansion into the Italian mainland.19

The ensuing half-century until the rst long Ottoman-Venetian warcan be described as a period of consolidation of Venice’s previous gains,though these gains were not as numerous as before. Contemporaneously,other important events occurred that would shape the centuries to come.20 After the end of the Ottoman succession crisis following the battle of An-kara, Murad II consolidated the realm’s power and continued his prede-cessor’s expansive policies. His successor, Mehmed II, earned the epithet“the Conqueror”21 because on 29 May 1453 his troops breached the wallsof Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine Empire.22 The fall of“Christendom’s bulwark”23 and the subsequent relocation of the Ottomancapital from Edirne to Istanbul had a profound, if not long-lasting, impacton Christian rulers.24 The rst to bear the brunt of the Ottoman onslaughtwere the minor realms in the western Balkans and the successor states ofthe Byzantine Empire in Trebizond and the Peloponnese.25

The decade after the fall of Constantinople witnessed Ottoman expansion not only into the Aegean and Black Sea regions but also into the


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Balkans peninsula, where it subdued Serbia in 1459 and Bosnia in 1463,eventually reaching Albania.26 In the midst of the Ottoman-Venetian an-

tagonism (1463-1479) stood George Kastrioti Skanderbeg. At rst he op- posed both the Ottomans and Venetians. From the late 1440s onward hewas allied with the Republic of St Mark, and later with the Kingdom of Naples, commanding a loose alliance of local warlords defending their ho-melands.27 In addition to her losses in Albania, Venice lost Euboea in this

rst, long war. But she was able to expand her maritime state elsewhere.Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities Monemvasia in the Peloponnesewas acquired in 1464.28 And well into the second decade of the war theSenate managed to install Caterina Cornaro (Corner) as queen of Cyprus(1473), paving the way for the eventual formal acquisition of the largeisland kingdom in 1489.29

In the aftermath of the long Ottoman-Venetian war Venice was able toround off her possessions in Dalmatia by incorporating the large island ofKrk in the Kvarner Gulf in 1480 and Zakynthos two years later. In additionto these gains, Venice temporarily occupied positions in Apulia and theAegean.30

Peace between the Porte and the Republic of St Mark only lasted twodecades. War broke out anew before the end of the fteenth century. Thiscaused further Venetian territorial losses, but also minor gains.31 Apartfrom Methoni and Koroni in the southern Peloponnese, dubbed the “eyes”of Venice,32 the rst large-scale naval encounter with the Ottomans, the battle of Zonchio (1499, also known as battle of Sapienza or rst battle ofLepanto) ended in defeat. The next year Venice took over Kefalonia andneighbouring Ithaca, successfully replacing the lost ports in the Pelopon-nese with the Ionian islands. The war dragged on for another two yearswithout any other major events, and when the Sultan’s raiding parties re-ached Friuli via land routes the Senate was ready to sue for peace. After acentury of expansion the conclusion of the war left Venice in possessionof extensive territories, but also weakened and with a stained reputation.By attempting to take advantage of the situation Venice’s enemies, led byFrance and blessed by Pope Julius II, forged an alliance at Cambrai. Theensuing con ict almost destroyed the Republic of St Mark. But in the af -termath of her ignominious defeat at Agnadello (1509) the Venetians wereagain able to stem the tide and slowly fought back.33

By the early sixteenth century theStato da marreached its maximumterritorial extent, coinciding with relative peace and stability in the eastern


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The Setting 31

Mediterranean until the 1530s. In the meantime, decisive events occurredelsewhere. The Portuguese established direct maritime trade routes with

India by circumnavigating Africa. The Ottomans continued their expan-sion, most notably by conquering Syria and Egypt in 1516-17, the “decisi-ve event to their greatness.”34 Yet despite these developments the Sultan’sambitions focused on areas other than Venice’s maritime state35 before thelarger contest between Emperor Charles V and the French king François I(by virtue of the latter’s alliance with Sultan Suleiman) forced the Republicof St Mark to choose sides anew.36

The next two rounds of ghting between the Ottoman Empire andVenice—wars of so-called “Holy Leagues” (1537-1540 and 1570-1573)— resulted in signi cant losses to theStato da mar . In the rst con ict Venicelost the Battle of Preveza (28 September 1538), and with it Monemvasiaand Naupactus in the Peloponnese and some islands in the Aegean andIonian seas.37 Furthermore, while the Ottoman Empire reached its apogeeover the ensuing decades the Republic of Venice also lost the next war. De-spite Christendom’s victory off Lepanto on 7 October 1571 Venice couldneither save the island kingdom of Cyprus, her largest and richest overseasterritory, nor the Albanian cities of Bar and Ulcinj.38 In addition to theselosses, the borders close to Zadar were redrawn twice (in 1573 and 1576),eventually reducing the Venetian possessions in the city’s hinterlands tomere strip of land “miglia tre solamente lontani dalle Città.”39

Venice and her overseas expansion from the 1380s onward cannot beconsidered outside the context of the Ottoman Empire, especially after theend of the interregnum in the aftermath of the Battle of Ankara (1402).Both states quickly expanded into the power vacuum left by the moribundByzantine Empire and its weak Anatolian and southeast European neighbours. From the rst Ottoman-Venetian war over Thessaloniki in the 1420sthe growing menace of the Sultans’ armies became painfully visible—atleast to Venice’s subjects along the borders.40 Nevertheless, the long Otto-man-Venetian war between 1463 and 1479 was fought only once the two powers had gobbled up all buffer realms between them.41

Notwithstanding earlier developments, both Ottoman and Venetianexpansion increased signi cantly in the early decades of the fteenth cen-tury, taking advantage of developments elsewhere. In the aftermath of the peace of Turin the Ottomans advanced over land and relied heavily on themilitary. Venice extended her dominions via the Mediterranean and emplo-yed a combination of diplomatic and military tactics. While in some cases


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these overall strategic circumstances aided Venetian expansionism, the en-largement of her maritime possessions cannot be attributed to them ex-

clusively. In general, the Republic of St Mark pursued “extremely limitedterritorial ambitions,”42 preferring commercial over territorial expansion.By exerting considerable cultural, economic, religious, and social pressureVenice eventually recreated many aspects of her domestic society abroad.43 In some cases circumstance aided Venetian expansion—the extinction oflocal ruling dynasties for instance: Venice annexed Zakynthos in 1482 af-ter the local populace disposed of its ruler.44 A number of Aegean islands,on the other hand, were already under indirect Venetian rule and more ea-sily incorporated into her maritime state.45

By taking advantage of the confusing circumstances in the westernBalkans during the last quarter of the fourteenth century, the Republic ofSt Mark capitalised on the disintegration of the local and regional realms inAlbania, Bosnia, and Serbia.46 Several communities along the southeasterncoast of the Adriatic were acquired by military means,47 and some cameunder Venetian suzerainty via marriage or inheritance.48 By far the greatest prize was the large island of Cyprus, taken over by therespublicaafter de-claring Caterina Cornaro a “daughter of St Mark” and forcing her to abdi-cate in 1489. However, the Republic of St Mark did not incorporate at onceevery commune inviting Venetian dominion as a way to avoid conquest bythe Ottoman Empire. This is seen in the years leading up to 1409 when Ve-nice’s representatives managed to decrease the price for Ladislaus’ claimson Dalmatia by two-thirds.49

Under all circumstances the advantages and disadvantages were de-liberated in the Senate before any action was taken. The rationale for theacquisition of new dependencies was mainly economic and strategic. Po-tential acquisitions were considered for their commercial, diplomatic, andmilitary advantages. The consequences of occupying a city, its defensiveneeds once annexed, and possible integration within the long-distance tra-ding network were of prime interest to the Venetians. “Honour and pro t,”embodied by the state motto, were at the heart of any consideration.50 Whi-le some places immediately attracted Venice’s interest, others did not (butsome of these were incorporated later).51 In each case, once the decisionwas taken to expand therespublica’s commitments, formal treaties weredrawn up. Usually these treaties (capitoli) contained the legal basis forVenetian rule but reaf rmed most existing privileges and rights of the local population. However, while the new suzerain generally adopted the pre-


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The Setting 33

existing normative and social order, amendments were introduced to thevarious bodies of communal law. This provided for the smooth execution

of Venice’s power and successful administrative by her representatives.52

At times the costs of her imperial-mercantile ventures were assigned toindividual patricians by means of concessions or feudal investiture subjectto Venetian “protection.”53

Venetian expansion into mainland Italy and the eastern Mediterraneanfollowed similar patterns. Once a city had been put under Venetian suze-rainty the new authorities introduced amendments to the existing medievallegal systems.54 On a practical level, the means of acquisition employedin the Aegean Sea and Friuli were essentially identical. Administrative,economic, and scal differences were negligible, prompting Benjamin Ar - bel to conclude that Venetian rule was unidimensionally inclined towardsthe centre.55 Her representatives were invested with their new suzerainty by the local authorities, and in return therespublicaguaranteed (with pri-mary consideration of her own interests) most privileges and rights of thelocal elites and the established social order. On the organisational level,the widespread Venetian possessions formed a large entity in which, whe-rever possible, the hinterlands provided the agricultural basis for the coa-stal communities. Commercially, Corfu—from whose harbour the tradingconvoys spread out into the Mediterranean and beyond—was of utmostimportance.56 The enactment of additional legislation to cement Venetianrule was a routine practice after the assumption of administrative, econo-mic, and military control in theStato da mar .

2. Administration

Venice’s commercial and territorial expansion into mainland Italy andthe eastern Mediterranean after 1381 triggered a number of administrati-ve and institutional consequences. By the 1440s the nominal boundaries between theTerrafermaand the maritime state were drawn up, demar-cating the two entities as possessions northwest and southeast of Istria.57 Local or regional differences notwithstanding, the underlying structural principles of government applied throughout all her dependencies. Withinthe VenetianSignoria the territorial expansion resulted in the enlargementof existing of ces and the creation of new ones to accommodate economic,

scal, and legal developments. Over the fteenth century the power of the


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ruling patrician merchant elite of Venice became more and more con nedto a small circle of wealthy and politically in uential families. Contempo-

raneously, the need to provide public of ces for the increasing number ofimpoverished patricians grew larger. The newly acquired territories in theTerrafermaand her maritime state provided Venice with the opportunity toemploy her less-successful nobles. Around the turn of the sixteenth centu-ry a range of new of ces in the public administration was created. Theseserved the dual purpose of alleviating the situation of the poorer patriciansand preventing the most disillusioned nobles from becoming too rebel-lious. Thus the oligarchic rule of theSignoria was further cemented.58

TheStato da marconsisted of various sub-regions: the two large islan-ds of Crete and Cyprus; the dominions in the Aegean and the Peloponnese;the Ionian possessions; and the Adriatic components, organised in the dual province of Dalmatia and Albania. These entities were bound to Venice byseveral factors: defence against the Ottoman Empire, integration of locallegal institutions and nobles into the Venetian administration and economy,and the Church.

Occasional raids by bandits, corsairs, andor pirates threatened the se-curity of theStato da mar .59 Outlooks, manned watch posts, and forti edtowers along the coasts were commissioned to alarm the naval forces tofend off potential marauders.60 Most cities and towns under Venetian rulehad to muster one or more war galleys. However, the mainstay againstthese incursions was the light cavalry. From the fourteenth century onwardthese so-called stratioti —recruited mostly among Albanians and Greeks— were highly mobile and whose members over time integrated themselvesinto the societies of the territories they were defending.61

With the exception of the War of the League of Cambrai, however,the Ottoman Empire was by far the gravest threat to Venice’s security— and especially to her overseas possessions. This is particularly evident inthe sheer number of reports written by her overseas representatives, whichalmost exclusively describe external threats.62 Fearing situations analogousto the temporary territorial losses in theTerrafermaduring the War of theLeague of Cambrai, Venice invested increasing amounts of money, supplies, and personnel into gigantic forti cations throughout her possessionsabroad.63 For instance, between January of 1568 and July of 1569 Zadaralone received 27,000 ducats to be invested in the strengthening of the ci-ty’s defences.64 These forti cations were even bigger than before in order

to accommodate large numbers of the hinterlands’ population in the event


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The Setting 35

of an emergency.65 Usually manned by the local militia,6 in times of war,reinforcements of mercenaries became additional burdens on the cities.67

Venetian galleys were often manned with sailors and oarsmen—so-called galeotti of Albanian, Dalmatian, and Greek origin—adding further nan-cial strain to the overseas possessions.68

In addition to providing this substantial defensive buffer the maritimestate was important for Venice, and by extension the rest of Christendom, because of the information the overseas possessions and consulates pro-vided about the Ottoman Empire and its advances. At rst sign of mobi-lisation of the Sultan’s armies or eets the merchants and public of cialssent word to Venice. Once the information network picked up speed theSignoriafound itself ooded with news, true or false.69In religious matters the Republic of St Mark employed a policy ofrelative freedom of worship, partially because the majority of her subjectsin the Stato da mardid not adhere to Catholicism.70 The largest groupof non-Catholics was of Orthodox faith, —mostly Greeks—, though theirclergy was subject to the Catholic dioceses. The Venetian dominions werethe only territories in which the attempted reuni cation of western and ea-stern Christianity according to the Council of Florence (1439) was put intoeffect.71 In the Adriatic coastal cities the urban elites—the nobility and themore af uent commoners—were heavily in uenced by the neighbouringApennine peninsula. In the lower strata and among the population of thehinterlands, Albanian and Slavic culture prevailed.72 Despite this policy ofrelative freedom of worship, theSignoriawas forced at times to interveneto prevent too much religious zealotry on the part of the Catholic clergy.73

3. Economy

In the decades after the peace of Turin, Venice came to dominate therst “world economy” (Braudel), roughly circumscribed by Lisbon, Fez,

Damascus, Azov, and the Hanseatic city of Bruges.74 The major advantagesenjoyed by the Republic of St Mark in comparison with her Genoese rivalswere found in the coherence and resilience of her society. Civil unrest andfactional strife for domestic supremacy describe Genoa’s late medieval ex- perience. Conversely, such descriptions are much more rare in the VenetianRepublic. In addition, the latter had a second crucial commercial tool at

her disposal: a reliable, state-run convoy system.75

These so-calledmude


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had xed dates to call at the ports along their routes and sailed to the mostimportant harbours in the eastern and western Mediterranean and to the

centres of trade in southern England and Flanders.76

A combination of underlying maritime structures and improvementsover the course of the fteenth century enabled Venice to earn most of herriches via maritime commerce. Also, cogs and galleys increased steadilyin size and cargo volume. Medium-sized vessels were usually employed inregional transportation while improvements in the state-owned galleys, themainstay of Venice’s merchant and military marine power, guaranteed therespublica’s competitive edge.77 The nexus between Venice’s imperial en-terprise and political-territorial ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean isevident from the geographical extent of her long-distance trading network.The coastal cities of theStato da mardid not just provide safe harbours,supplies, fresh water, and food;78 places of supra-regional importance likeCrete, Cyprus, Zakynthos, and Zadar served as homeports for large numbers of local seafarers who constituted a readily-available reserve pool ofexperienced sailors eligible for conscription in wartime.79

One of the cornerstones of Venetian wealth and power was the salt trade,subject to continuous monopolisation efforts by the state since the MiddleAges. Already contributing to therespublica’s opulence during her “Impe-rial Age” (Chambers), Venice’s expansion into mainland Italy signi cantlyincreased the salt income over the late fourteenth and fteenth centuries.80 Economically and nancially Venice aimed for the self-suf ciency of her possessions and dependencies. If excess income was available, it was someti-mes sent to another dominion as a subsidy.81 From the War of Chioggia to theCyprus War, theStato da marwas highly pro table, offering secure ports ofcall, trading posts with familiar structures, and ample reservoirs of revenuesand manpower. The enormous sums of money offered to the Ottoman Em- pire after the losses of Euboea in 1470 (250,000 ducats) and Cyprus in 1573(an annual tribute of 100,000) testify to the economic importance of Venice’smaritime state.82 Thus Venetian imperial ambition paid off in that it generated“payments in excess of the cost,” until the end of the Cyprus War.83

Throughout the Renaissance the protagonists of Venice’s commercial-imperial endeavours were the city’s patricians, in whose hands the organi-zation of the government and the most lucrative trading ventures were con-centrated. The cargo bays of the state-owned galleys were auctioned off tothe highest bidder. This bidder became the patron of the vessel, obliged to

nance the journey in advance. But he was also able to choose his merchant


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The Setting 37

companions, usually consisting of close relatives. Eventually, this led to theaggregation of Venice’s mercantile capital, wealth, and political power in

the hands of a small number of patrician families, especially during the laterdecades of the fteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth. A domesticconsequence was that what had once been a broad-based aristocratic enterprise gave way to a de facto monopolisation of maritime commerce.84 Incombination with the more challenging foreign environment after the 1450s,these factors contributed to the decline of Venetian mercantile shipping. Eventhe reorganisation of the Arsenal in the rst decades of the sixteenth centu-ry85 could not prevent the slow, inexorable shift of the commercial centre ofgravity from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. This same period saw the endof an epoch in which Venice’s patricians acted as a uni ed body politic on behalf of their commercial interests and that of the state.86

By the dawn of the sixteenth century Venetian society and the state-run convoy system faced new realities. Yet despite the con icts and problems the domestic cohesion of the Republic of St Mark did not falter,even during the dif cult months in the aftermath of her ignominious defeatat Agnadello (1509). By the time the crisis accompanying the War of theLeague of Cambrai had passed, Venice had changed. No longer did mari-time trade exclusively dominate her fortunes, and the Mediterranean stea-dily lost ground as the prime source of Venice’s opulence. A combinationof geographical, political, and technical disadvantages contributed to thedemise of this region’s economic position and the increasing marginalisa-tion of Venice’s maritime state over the course of the sixteenth century.87 But theSignoriaaddressed the manifold changes in its environs with con-tinuous innovations. Though by the middle of the sixteenth century heronce-favoured trading position with the Ottoman Empire had eroded si-gni cantly, Venice was able to compensate for the decline of her maritimefortunes. The rise in the manufacturing of luxury goods and improvementsin her mainland possessions became increasingly important economic and political factors.

4. The Adriatic Context

The aftermath of the Chioggia War witnessed a renewed wave of Ve-netian expansion into the eastern Mediterranean. The Republic of St Mark

intervened in the Hungarian succession crisis to reestablish her author-


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ity over most Dalmatian and Albanian harbours from the late fourteenthcentury onward. This secured the vital shipping routes along the oriental

seaboard of the Adriatic.88

The jurisdictions of the absorbed cities includedthe smaller towns and villages on the mainland and most of the coastal is-lands. Venice’s Adriatic dominion covered most communities from Butrintin present-day southern Albania to the large islands in the Kvarner Gulf.89

Despite a number of super cial differences among the cities and townsalong the oriental littoral of the Adriatic, their underlying structures weresimilar. All of these communities exerted some jurisdiction over their sur-roundings, both on the mainland and the coastal islands. Many of the citieswere also sees of Catholic (arch-) bishoprics. Upon their (sometimes invol-untary) incorporation into theStato da mar , the coastal communes were re-organised according to Venetian interests and placed into the dual provinceof Dalmatia-Albania. Its nominal capital, the city of Zadar, commanded acomparably large hinterland and included the minor forti ed towns of Nadinand Vrana and the minor districts of Nin and Novigrad.90 After the initial purchase of the rights to Dalmatia in 1409, Venetian expansion progressedgradually; Šibenik was incorporated in 1412, Split was absorbed in 1420,Omiš followed two decades later, and with the takeover of Cres in the Kvar-ner Gulf in 1480 the reestablishment of Venetian rule was accomplished.91

These developments cannot be separated from Venetian rule else-where in the eastern Mediterranean. The maritime dimension of theStatoda marin its entirety must always be kept in mind. The driving force of themerchant aristocracy of the Rialto was the security of the vital navigationroutes along the eastern Adriatic coastline.92 Venice’s “extremely limitedterritorial ambitions” had no particular interest in continued expansion intothe hinterlands of the western Balkans.93 While the reestablishment of herauthority over the coastal areas of Dalmatia and Albania progressed with-out much trouble, from the 1410s onward a new opponent emerged fromthe hinterlands: the Ottomans.94 The low-lying hinterland of Zadar enabledfrequent cross-border raids that, after rst incursions into the district of Ninin the early 1430s, placed considerable strain on agricultural production.95 At the same time, the waning capabilities of Hungary-Croatia to defend thewestern Balkans against Ottoman advances led to inevitable con ict be-tween the Porte and Venice.96 The Adriatic remained at the periphery of theOttoman-Venetian con icts during most of the fteenth century. The coa-stal cities of Dalmatia were nonetheless important, especially consideringVenice’s supply lines and trade routes:97 “chi non conserva la città di Zara,”


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The Setting 39

wrote the city’s governor in the 1540s, Marc’Antonio da Mula, “perde nonsolamente un gran podere sul mare, ma tutto il dominio di questo colfo.”98

After the rst Ottoman-Venetian war over Thessaloniki in the 1420s,Mehmed II renewed the war in 1463 in an attempt to conquer and pacify parts of Albania. In September of 1468 his troops raided the jurisdictionsof Split, Šibenik, and Zadar. While the cities were not immediately threat-ened, the raids led to increased investments in their forti cations.99 Thesubsequent wars between the Ottoman Empire and Venice witnessed fur-ther reductions in the agriculturally important hinterlands of many Dalma-tians cities. Fighting was mainly concentrated around strategic positions,many of which were established during Hungarian rule.100 One of these,Klis, annexed by the Ottoman Empire in 1537, became the centre of re-gional administration for the eponymous district ( sanjak ) after the conclu-sion of the Cyprus War.101 Only through her maritime power was Veniceable to prevent all-out Ottoman assaults on the coastal cities.102

These con icts constituted an inescapable part of everyday life, thehardships of which were compounded by the ambiguous and ill-respected borders.103 In the aftermath of the Cyprus War, these borders were re-de-marcated, at times even without the presence of Venetian representatives.104 Given Venice’s primary interest in keeping the sea lanes open, those whowere most disadvantaged were the urban communities and their inhabi-tants. The local nobles lost the great part of their incomes deriving fromlanded property. And the rural population and their livestock either ed thehinterlands or were captured, re-settled somewhere across the borders, orsold into slavery.105 One of Zadar’s former captains, Zaccaria Vallaresso,wrote in 1527 that “ogni giorno Turchi sono su le porte de Zara”106 and thatcontinuous agriculture had become impossible without armed guards.107 Those who remained continued to cultivate their elds, causing additionalon-going friction between the inhabitants on both sides of the borders.108 Asthe borders moved closer to the city walls during the 1570s—almost withinshouting distance of the ramparts109 —many inhabitants chose to emigrateor move to the security of the forti ed urban centres.110 All these changeshad a profound impact on agricultural production within Zadar’s jurisdic-tion. While livestock farming prevailed on the coastal islands, many villa-ges were forced to abandon their elds, irrigation networks, and vineyards,resulting in the disruption of agriculture.111 By the mid-sixteenth centurythe only agricultural export left was wine, even though the cultivation ofgrapes was considerably more labour-intensive.112


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After the Cyprus War, Venice continued her policy of neutrality regar-ding the Ottoman Empire and enacted legislation to prevent her subjects

from settling too close to the borders.113

But these efforts and another roundof border revisions (1626) did not solve the underlying problems caused byinsuf cient arable land close to the Dalmatian cities. Another factor wasthe massive in ux of funds used for the enlargement of the forti cations,and consequently the expansion of their garrisons. This resulted in additio-nal costs to the scal chambers of Dalmatia’s cities. While the Venetianshad to import biscuits (biscotti), foodstuffs, grains, and hay, the Ottomanswere able to employ the much greater resources of the coastal hinterlands.114 Despite the considerable territorial contraction of theStato da maroverthe course of the sixteenth century, the maritime state became ever moredemanding in human and other resources, placing increasing pressure onVenice’s nances.115 Since these expenditures had to be nanced at least partially by the coastal communities themselves, surplus wealth was tran-sferred within theStato da mar , depriving the economically viable commu-nes of available capital.116

5. “Zara è metropoli et chiave”117

The territorial jurisdiction of Zadar was reconstituted by Venice in theyears after 1409. This jurisdiction encompassed the city proper and its suburban settlements (burgus, borgo, suburbs), part of the continental main-land including the forti ed towns of Nin and Novigrad, and a number ofcoastal islands. By the mid-sixteenth century, despite the territorial lossessustained in the Ottoman-Venetian war of 1537-1540, Zadar’s jurisdictioncomprised 37 islands and 85 minor villages.118 Moreover, despite the ad-ditional losses that resulted from the Cyprus War, the basic administrativestructures dating back to the Middle Ages were preserved.119

The natural borders of the mainland possessions were the Adriatic, theKrka (Cherca) river basin to the southeast, and the Velebit-Dinara mountainranges (Morlachia/Montagna della Morlacca) to the northeast.120 The geo- physical properties of Zadar’s jurisdiction consist mostly of karst, formingthe Bukovica plateau, an elevation averaging between 250 and 300 metresabove sea level. Below the southern slopes of the Velebit massif, betweenthe Bay of Karin and the river Krka, lies the at valley of Ravni kotari. The

coastal areas along the Velebitski kanal, composed mostly of limestone


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The Setting 41

and karst, belonged to Zadar’s medieval jurisdiction too. These conditionsimpacted habitation and land use, in combination with the availability of

fresh water and arable lands.121

Red soil (Terra rossa) was one of the de-ning characteristics of Zadar’s continental hinterlands. The lowest areassurrounded the town of Nin and its eponymous bay, which was—and stillis—used for the production of salt.

These differing qualities of the mainland territory formed the basis fortwo types of agriculture. Red soil was exploited for cultivation of Medi-terranean crops like grains, grapevines, and rye. The karst areas, with theirvegetation of low shrub (macchia), were used for animal husbandry, mo-stly by the transhumance peoples (seasonal shepherds).122 These structuralcharacteristics had shaped the lives and livelihoods of the inhabitants ofthe area since Antiquity. Fertile soil and fresh water meant that most settle-ments were concentrated in one area. As in other regions of the Mediterra-nean, many creeks were only seasonal; the longer and permanent streamswere used to power mills.123

While human settlements in Zadar’s hinterlands date back 5,000 ye-ars, the Romans were the rst to systematically change the landscape. Byturning the fertile areas into plantations of mostly grapes and olives, and byconstructing aqueducts and irrigation canals, they developed the existingvillages.124 In the Middle Ages there was a renewed use of Roman castles,roads, and villages around the Catholic bishoprics of Nin, Skradin, andZadar.125 It was only after Venice regained control of the area that a rst ca-dastre was compiled in 1420, surveying and enlarging the jurisdiction withthe incorporation of the minor districts of Nin, Novigrad, and Vrana.126

With the ensuing string of wars between the Ottoman Empire and Ve-nice the former’s marauders continuously exerted pressure on the coastalcommunities. At rst, these incursions were temporary, as was migration tothe perceived safety of the Dalmatian islands. As these raids occurred on amore regular basis127 the continuous Ottoman-induced insecurity effected si-gni cant changes. Large numbers of inhabitants were killed, robbed of theirlivestock, or sold into slavery. Many left the hinterlands, abandoning theirvillages and maintenance of the roads and irrigation systems.128 The placesthat were not abandoned—Nadin, Novigrad, Tinj, Vrana, and Zemunik— were reinforced, quickly repopulated, and adapted for military purposes.This further changed the cultural landscape of Zadar’s surroundings.129

The losses of Nadin and Vrana during the Ottoman-Venetian war from1537 to 1540 triggered a new wave of emigration, even though parts of the


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rural population chose to live under the Sultan’s rule.130 Under these cir-cumstances survival became the de ning factor of everyday life as agricul-

ture became all but impossible. This precarious situation in the rural hin-terlands of Zadar was further compounded by the outcome of the CyprusWar (1570-1573): The Venetians razed the suburban dwellings to makeway for new earthworks, forti cations, and ramparts.131 And two rounds of border demarcations during the 1570s left the Ottomans in control of mostof the agriculturally productive areas of Zadar’s jurisdiction. By the timethe new frontiers were agreed upon in 1576 only those settlements close toforti ed places or guard towers were still inhabited. Those who still enga-ged in agriculture did so within a couple hundred metres of the city walls,causing additional problems like erosion, loss of top soil, and an increasein real estate prices.132

6. Zadar under Venetian Rule (1409-1570)

Venetian rule from the late fourteenth century was, in principle, ba-sed on additions and amendments to existing administrative and legal in-stitutions. As Gaetano Cozzi and others have demonstrated, this was thecase for newly acquired possessions both in mainland Italy and the easternMediterranean.133 The medieval Byzantine organisation and adherence toOrthodoxy increased the complexities of Latin rule in the eastern Mediter-ranean.

In central Dalmatia the territory of Zadar’s jurisdiction had previously belonged to three subdivisions: the central and northeastern parts in thecounty of Luka, the area extending from Biograd na moru to the southe-ast toward Šibenik in Sidraga county, and the territory in between in thecounty of Nin.134 After 1409 the Venetians decided to keep these medievaldivisions and focused on amending the legal framework of their authori-ty.135 The main changes concerned the districts of Ljubač, Novigrad, andVrana. They were incorporated into the overall jurisdiction of Zadar, which by then also included Nin and its district. The subject territories were con-sidered to be state property under the control of Zadar’s scal chamber. Itsof cials publicly auctioned (incantum, incanto) their use to the highest bid-der to raise revenues.

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