Original scientific paper
Croatian Sailors in Venice (XVth – XVIIIth Century)
Lovorka Čoralić
Abstract
The problematics of the emigration, presence and the lives of the Croatian sailors in Venice is a constituent part of the overall migration of Croats across the Adriatic during the period from the XVth to the XVIIth century. All the archive material clearly confirms that the sailors were a numerically powerful and, during a number of centuries, a continuously present part of the Croatian community and that they can be considered one of the most important factors contributing to the unity, the recognizability and identity of the Croatian emigrants. Based on original archival material from the Venice archive the article examines the fundamental elements of the history of the Croatian sailors in Venice. The author gives the temporal course of the emigration of the sailors, the mode they were recorded in the archival sources, their places of origin in Croatian regions and cities and their settlement within Venice. The paper analyses the basic networks of their everyday communication: the family, relations and friends as well as various forms of connection with other members of the Croatian emigrant community. Their religious life, their relationship to Venetian church institutions and spiritual figures as well as their participation in the Croatian confraternities of St George and Tripun are also described. Deviant behaviour through which the Croatian sailors made their presence in Venice felt is also addresssed on the basis of court records.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
12176
URI
Publication date:
19.10.2001.
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