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Ragusans in the Infrantry of Venice (Fanti Oltramarini) in the Eighteenth Century
Lovorka Čoralić
orcid.org/0000-0002-9333-7221
; Hrvatski institut za povijest, Zagreb. Hrvatska
Sažetak
In the early modern period, notably during the Veneto-Ottoman wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the military units known as Fanti oltramarini and Croati a cavallo represented the backbone of the Venetian army forces across the Adriatic. The soldiers and officers recruited for these units chiefly originated from Istria down to Albania and Greece, but equally so from the lands in the Republic’s neighbourhood. The fact that a portion of soldiers was recruited from Dubrovnik―that is, from the territory of the Dubrovnik Republic, has led the author to investigate deeper into this subjectmatter. According to most recent results on the basis of the material filed at the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (fond Inquisitori sopra l’amministrazione dei pubblici ruoli), twenty-seven soldiers from Dubrovnik have been recorded in the Venetian eighteenth-century infantry, though until now no evidence on their service in the cavalry has been found. The regiments and companies in which the Ragusan soldiers served were usually under the command of the officers from Dalmatia and Boka, most commonly the members of patrician families which, for generations, provided Serenissima’s army with higher ranking officers. These units were stationed in the Venetian domains of the eastern Adriatic (Istria, Dalmatia, Boka), in Venice, as well as in the towns and forts throughout Veneto. On the basis of the available data, an average soldier from Dubrovnik in the Venetian military service of the eighteenth century was an infantryman aged 31, dark-haired, middle height, his military term―particularly during war and post-war periods―was known to extend up to ten years. In sum, an overall number of the Ragusan soldiers in Venetian military units was not considerable, especially if compared with the regions of Dalmatia (Zadar, Šibenik, Split and their inland) and Boka (Kotor and its district) which from the start of the fifteenth century had been incorporated into the Republic of St Marc. However, a correlation with the number of soldiers recruited from Croatian lands that were not under Venetian rule indicates that the portion of the Ragusans―especially in the first half of the eighteenth century―is worthy of research and scientific analysis. Indeed, future research will most likely add new names to the list of the Ragusan soldiers who served in the Venetian army, but one can hardly expect any radical departures from the results here described.
Ključne riječi
Dubrovnik; Republic of Venice; Fanti oltramarini; military history; 18th century
Hrčak ID:
137825
URI
Datum izdavanja:
14.4.2015.
Posjeta: 2.440 *