Povijesni prilozi, Vol. 26 No. 33, 2007.
Original scientific paper
The Albanian family Ginni in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century histories of Dalmatia and Istria: a contribution to the study of communications along the East Adriatic Coast
Lovorka Čoralić
orcid.org/0000-0002-9333-7221
; Hrvatski institut za povijest
Abstract
Families who originated in regions outside the East Adriatic Coast played an important
role in the history of this region. Yet we know little about them and the relevant
data are often scattered in studies of other topics or in diverse archival sources. This
essay discusses the history of such a family, the Ginnis, who originated in northern
Albania and who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, contributed significantly
to the social and military history of Eastern Adriatic. This essay uses the secondary
literature and the archival sources (from the State Archives in Zadar and the
State Archives in Venice) to chronologically reconstruct the lives and the careers of
the Ginni family members. The study focuses on the seventeenth century as the period
when the largest number of the family members is recorded in the Istrian and
Dalmatian sources. As officers in the Venetian navy, they played prominent roles as
commanders (captains; governors or guvernaduri) of navy formations (barche armate),
controlling sea routes in North Adriatic and fought against the uskoks of Senj.
The study concludes with the observation that the hitherto little known Ginnis were
an important Albanian family of the Early Modern era, whose members played significant
roles in the history of East Adriatic. Appendices to this article contain transcriptions
of testaments of the Venetian guvernadur Ivan (1636) and Ivan Jerolim
Ginni (1672), kept in the State Archives in Zadar.
Keywords
Venetian Republic; Dalmatia; Albania; Istria; early modern era; military history; family history; wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire
Hrčak ID:
18754
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2007.
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