Traù nello Stato veneziano: istituzioni, giustizia e società di una respublica dominata (1420-1463)

Dealing with the greater issue of ancien regime and late medieval statehood, this dissertation investigates the Venetian rule over the Dalmatian town of Trogir from the reconquest in 1420 to the begin of the Venetian-Turkish war in 1463. Its threefold line of inquiry encompasses: the political, juridical and institutional structures of the local respublica; the dialectics between rulers and subjects; the role of local and supralocal practices in the everyday life of the government. Initially, the analysis delves into the juridical order and judicial policy, in particular into rules structuring the local constitution and sorting jurisdictionally arbitrium duties among Trogir, the metropolis and the Venetian official. Then, while assessing the administration of justice, the second part dissects the work of the civil court, but it also considers the episcopal court, the alternative practices of disputes settlement and the Venetian system of appeals, presenting a lot of quintessential examples. Finally, in the last section this study shows the local institutional framework, territorial management and political society, with some additional hints on religious life, fiscal levies and military organization. Jurisdiction appears as the constituent element of the rule over a respublica empowered with a certain degree of libertates, although granted by Venice. State authority manifests both a vertical-hegemonical and a horizontal face, while keeping elements of a specific municipal and medieval imperialism: in the hierarchy of power the metropolis integrates an urban polity which, on the other hand, retains a strong juridical grip on its own district. Moreover, we can find the paradoxical laissez-faire dirigisme indicated as a distinctive feature of the Venetian Dominion: the State decides policies, whereas the local apparatus is in charge of complying through its own juridical and institutional tools. The general framework reflects models of rule applied also in the Venetian Stato da Terra, but with some differences, especially regarding a Dalmatian socio-institutional structure more akin to the metropolis’ equivalent. Subordination is imposed thanks to exceptions, unbalanced negotiations, fiscal imperialism, the determination of burdens and the judicial powers of the Venetian local official and central magistracies, but, despite its superior potestas, the State cannot act without restraints against local constitutional rules and must grant peace, security, equity and open ears to the subjects’ requests. Nonetheless, while respecting the communitarian milieu, Venetian institutions are concurrently capable of directly influencing its structures, codes, discourses and social, cultural and judicial practices, so long as novelties do not contradict long-held rights. At the socio-political level, Venice persistently aims for a balance between the nobility’s and the populus’ prerogatives: under the State authority the first preserves its own pre-eminence and its oligarchic control of the Commune, while the second gets granted new liberties and a new space of political participation. At the same time, the institutional and cultural apparatus gives opportunities for local actors to play fundamental social and political roles and to act like brokers in the empowering interactions between the metropolis and Trogir.