Original scientific paper
Dubrovnik’s Monetary Deposits in Foreign Countries Before the Fall of the Republic
Vinko Ivančević
Abstract
Of the considerable complex of monetary deposits at the disposal of Old Dubrovnik throughout its history in foreign countries, the author has restricted himself to surveying the deposits extant at the beginning of the 19th century, namely, in the time when the French had abolished the Republic of Dubrovnik. The origin of such monetary deposits, or, as the Old Dubrovnik citizens would call them, monti, varied, their owners being the State Treasury, hospitals, churches, monasteries, brotherhoods or private individuals. Some Dubrovnik people would use their deposits abroad to establish various foundations for humanitarian purposes to be made available to their countrymen.
The aforementioned deposits were kept variously in Vienna, Genoa, Florence, Ancona, Naples, Rome and Venice. From the very interest deriving from these deposits the Republic received at the moment of its fall an annual revenue of 63,224 Turkish piastres. This revenue constituted the highest item of the Republican budget, transcending even the revenues derived from the sales of salt, from excise for wines and gin, custom duties levied by the Levant consular offices and other revenues. From which is visible the monetary importance represented by those deposits in the economic life of the Dubrovnik Republic. However, these deposits had also played a most important political role in the history of the Republic of Dubrovnik. In this connection the author makes mention of an event occurring in 1770, when the amount of 250,000 ducats had to be collected towards eliminating the threat to Dubrovnik from a Russian fleet then operating in the Mediterranean waging war against the Turks under the command of Count Aleksej Orlov. The intention was to procure the money from the amounts deposited abroad. However, the Dubrovnik government availed itself of foreign deposits also for other purposes, such as paying tributes, purchasing oil, paying for studies at Padua, helping poor tradesmen, assisting girls being married, paying ransoms for slaves, supporting vicars, and for many other purposes, according to the testators’ wills.
Keywords
Dubrovnik Republic, monetary deposits; 19th century
Hrčak ID:
244821
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1976.
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