Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.22586/pp.v44i69.1hze0d38
Dragoman Nikola Cambi and His 1569 Report on the Borders of Šibenik for Giovanni Battista Calbo
Iva Kurelac
Sažetak
The starting point of this research is an unpublished transcription of the 1569 manuscript report on the Šibenik borders (Informatione sopra i confina di Sebenico fatta per mano di Nicolo Cambio sotto illustrissimo Calbo 1569), written by the Venetian dragoman Nikola Cambi and preserved in the Diocesan Archive of Šibenik. Since Cambi and his work have not been studied in Croatian historiography, this paper examines his origins and activities as a Venetian dragoman in the latter half of the 1560s, based on archival and bibliographical sources. It then considers the context and reasons for Cambi’s involvement in the Venetian-Ottoman border negotiations concerning the districts of Zadar and Šibenik in 1569, during which he composed a report on the Šibenik borders and the thirty-three contested villages in the Šibenik hinterland. The paper also investigates the content and dating of this report. International scholarship reveals that Cambi had previously (1566-1568) established his reputation working for the Venetian government together with Michele Membré, one of the most influential Venetian dragomans. The two were employed as interpreters in disputes and in correspondence between high Venetian and Ottoman officials, and Cambi, together with Membré, served as translator of Ottoman Turkish in the production of the celebrated heart-shaped Hajji Ahmed World Map (1559-1568). By decision of the Senate dated March 19, 1569, Cambi entered the service of Giovanni Battista Calbo, then Count and Captain of Šibenik, and was assigned to the border of the Zadar district. In the summer of that same year, he also stayed in Šibenik, where – between the second half of June and July 21, 1569, as we have established – he composed for Calbo the report on the Šibenik borders that is the subject of this study. We have determined that Cambi prepared this report in the role of reporter-scribe, following oral instructions from the Šibenik nobleman, notary, and diplomat Petar Zavorović, the principal Venetian reporter, who had earlier drafted a concept for a report to the Venetian authorities (Informatione data al clarissimo misser Zuan Battista Calbo, deputato sopra li confini de Dalmatia sopra le XXXIII ville contentiose et ut ibi) on the situation in the thirty-three villages of the Šibenik hinterland then subject to a decades-long territorial dispute between the Venetians and the Ottomans. In writing that report, Zavorović also relied on Cambi’s Italian translation of an Ottoman Turkish document issued by Ćejvan-bey in 1568, which listed twenty-four Šibenik villages in Gornje Polje, Primošten, and Rogoznica. Through content analysis of Cambi’s and Zavorović’s reports, we have established that Cambi’s text represents an intermediate stage in the development of Zavorović’s more detailed report for Calbo (Instruttione piu particolare dele XXXIII ville de Sebenico contentiose et d’altri lochi 1569), preserved in the Archive of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU). Furthermore, a comparison of the two reports shows that Cambi’s contains only information on the borders of the disputed Šibenik villages, while Zavorović’s (transcription in the HAZU Archive) not only describes the situation in those thirty-three villages in detail but also provides accounts of Šibenik estates in the areas of Gornje Polje, Primošten, and Rogoznica. Zavorović’s report, moreover, uses medieval charters to argue for the historical affiliation of the disputed villages to the Šibenik district and, drawing partly on first-hand information gathered in the field, records the unlawful presence of the Morlachs, demonstrating that some of them were already permanently settled in certain contested Šibenik villages – something the Venetian authorities had not yet officially acknowledged. The comparison of Cambi’s and Zavorović’s reports also clarifies why, in the summer of 1569, several versions of the same report were produced for Giovanni Battista Calbo, the Venetian commissioner for Dalmatian borders; how these reports addressed the questions of the Šibenik (Venetian) and Ottoman boundaries as well as Morlach encroachments and settlement in the disputed villages; and what role they played in the ongoing Venetian-Ottoman territorial negotiations of the time.
Ključne riječi
Nikola Cambi; , Petar Zavorović; Giovanni Battista Calbo; dragoman; report; Šibenik district; Morlachs
Hrčak ID:
341970
URI
Datum izdavanja:
19.12.2025.
Posjeta: 543 *