PROTEGGERE I PRIVILEGI DELLO STRANIERO. I CONSOLI VENEZIANI NELL'IMPERO OTTOMANO TRA SEI E SETTECENTO

In recent years, the research questions of foreigners and of the commercial use of consuls has attracted renewed scholarly attention. This dissertation aims to continue the reflections of these works by focusing on rights and privileges of protected foreign subjects and consuls during the early modern period. By examining the status of Venetian subjects and consuls in early modern Ottoman society this dissertation underscores the processes of identification that determined the social inclusion or exclusion of individuals among the category of protected foreigners. The dissertation has three main goals. The first is to analyse the professional and social background of consuls in the Eastern Mediterranean between seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This point focuses on the ability of some individuals to enjoy some privileges, from which non-Muslim “locals” were excluded, by constituting social associations with the Republic of Venice. The second goal is to examine the reasons that motivated these individuals to seek a formal recognition of their status as consuls. This examination underscores the processes of appointment of consuls and the role of candidates on the configuration of consular systems. The last goal proposes an analysis of the role played by Venetian consuls in the diffusion of legal procedures of identification and registration, and it focuses on the use of legal and diplomatic resources in identification disputes. It particularly points out which were the documents and social practices that determined one’s membership and his registration in the Venetian nation in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, it analyses identification disputes dating from 1670 to 1715 between Venetian consuls and Ottomans officials by focusing on how the cross-cultural diplomatic negotiations of these disputes were channeled through the Ottoman petition system. The cases presented will provide important insights on the instability of belonging, in which the classification of individuals was determined by rigid fiscal and legal categories as well as by more fluid social relations. This dissertation aims, therefore, to offer a new consideration on the utility of consuls for the different social groups that benefitted from consular services dating from 1670 to 1715. Overall, it seeks to demonstrate that the consulates in the Ottoman Empire, interpreted in their social utility, must be considered as actors able of influencing jurisdictional practices and creating new norms through constant negotiations with institutions and with individual actors. This dissertation relies on documentation preserved at the Archivio di Stato di Venezia — in most cases, letters sent by the Venetian consuls to the bailo, the permanent ambassador in Istanbul. Usually contained petitionary reports, these consular letters rhetorically requested the restoration of justice, that is to say, either the enforcement of a legal resource or the redress of unjust identification committed by the local authorities. Decrees and letters written by different Venetian institution concerning consuls, trade and migration policy will be analysed to underscore the efficiency consuls had for the Venetian government. Finally, studying legal documents produced by consulate chancellery provide an important insight into the social life of the Venetian community in the Ottoman Empire. This research casts light upon institutional resources available to social actors to produce evidence of their own identity in a context of jurisdictional competition. But it will also show how the ability to enjoy some privileges, and not only some rights, through diplomatic negotiation decided the classification of people as foreigners or subjects.