A New Document on the Establishment of the Archivio del Generalato in Zadar in 1624

Abstract

Regular visits by historians to archives always result in new discoveries related to various topics in the history of the eastern Adriatic in the early modern period. Similarly, recent research conducted in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia revealed an interesting document concerning one of the most important moments in the history of archival practices in early modern Dalmatia – the establishment of the Archivio del Generalato in Zadar in 1624. This paper provides a complete transcription of the aforementioned document, preceded by a brief introductory study which builds on a previously written text submitted for publication in the proceedings of the conference Škrinja povlastica: povijesno-filološke refleksije, in which the beginnings of the archive’s work are presented in more detail on the basis of this and other documents, in the context of early 17th-century archival practices. The introductory study, in addition to reviewing the current state of research on the establishment of the archive in contemporary Croatian historiography and archival science, provides a substantive evaluation of the significance of the presented document for this relatively well-known and researched topic, as well as a comparison with the known decision of the General Provveditor Francesco Molin (1623–1625), the founder of the archive, on which previous knowledge of this event has been based. The introduction presents the physical, linguistic, and graphic features of the document and elaborates on the egdotic approach chosen for the transcription of the text.¸In the final part of the introduction, the significance of the establishment of the Archivio del Generalato for the city of Zadar and the Venetian Province of Dalmatia and Albania is explained in the broader context of the relationship between the central Venetian authorities and their possessions across the entire Venetian Republic, as well as the significance of founding archives outside Venice itself as an important mechanism used for the aforementioned administrative purposes, reflecting the general changes and reforms in Venetian administration that took place at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. By presenting this newly discovered document for a well-known topic, the paper highlights the possibility of additional, hitherto unknown archival sources and the need for further research endeavours. As an appendix to the transcription, photographs of the original document are also provided in the paper.