Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/9xn31cp71y
Nikola Vitov Gozze in the Light of an Authenticated Business Contract from 1602
Rina Kralj-Brassard
orcid.org/0000-0003-0312-6875
; The Institute for Historical Sciences in Dubrovnik, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Abstract
The paper analyses the content of a business contract drafted by Nikola Vitov Gozze (Gučetić) in 1602, along with the circumstances underlying its creation and the characteristics of the social connections of the parties involved. Registered on
23 January 1610, the day before his death, the document is today kept in the State Archives in Dubrovnik. This business document, recorded almost as an idiograph, is an example of Gučetić's bilingual business expression in Croatian and Italian integrated in a single document.
The document was registered by notary Luka Primi at the request of Kate, daughter of the late Petar Spagnul. It was authenticated by Nikola's son Vito, in an unusual manner, at the door of the family home, testifying before the notary that the document was written in his father's handwriting and that his father Nikola confirmed the content of the document.
The contract between Kate, daughter of Petar Spagnul, and Nikola Gozze skilfully combined elements of two legal relationships: a bill of exchange of Paul Intriga in Kate's favour for the amount of 340 scudi, in which Nikola appears as the drawee, and
a contract for a commercial loan of 300 scudi with a yield of 6% per annum (eighteen scudi), in which Gozze, in addition to the intermediary role, also has that of a guarantor. The contract lasted at least eight years, from the moment the contract was drawn up in 1602 until its relatively late registration and authentication in 1610, and in all likelihood continued after Gozze's death.
Genealogical analysis has shown that family ties were hidden behind this business transaction, as Kata, daughter of the late Petar Spagnul, was a descendant of the nonnoble branch of the Gozze patrician family through the female line. Kata's mother,
with whom she shared the name, was an illegitimate daughter and only child of Marin Ivanov Gozze, uncle of Nikola Vitov Gozze.
The record of the very last, premortem business and legal act of Nikola Vitov Gozze sheds light, on the one hand, on a hitherto lesser-known dimension of his personality, and on the other hand, points to the value of business documents and the need to
investigate them as a source of knowledge beyond the (too) narrow framework of specialised economic or legal research.
Keywords
Nikola Vitov Gozze; Dubrovnik; business documents; social connections; 17th century
Hrčak ID:
337499
URI
Publication date:
5.11.2025.
Visits: 445 *