A summary inventory of the fonds Notaries of Vodnjan (1616/1826.1857/1945)

Abstract

The author presents the summary inventory of the fond The Notaries of Vodnjan (1616/1826.1857/1945), in custody of the State Archives in Pazin under the identification label HR-DAPA-9. The beginning of the description of the fond contains the description of the notaryship in the town of Vodnjan and Istria in general during all historical periods since 1945. A notary public is identified as a person who drafts and issues public documents, authenticates private documents, takes and stores valuable documents, objects and money to be given to other parties or competent authorities, conducts procedures defined by the law by order of courts or other public bodies. The beginning and development of notaryship in Istria progressed primarily under the influence of the neighbouring Italy. The office of the notary in the area of Vodnjan was regulated by various laws and regulations. This was due to the fact that until 1943 Istria under the rule of five different administrations, each of which brought new legislation and rules. The paper therefore brings brief descriptions of the notaryship, separately for the Venetian administration, First Austrian administration, French administration, Second Austrian administration and Italian administration in Istria. These descriptions also outline the most important laws and regulations which governed the notaryship of Vodnjan. The majority of the archives of the fond The Notaries of Vodnjan was transferred in the 1980’s from the Historical Archives in Rijeka (the present-day State Archives in Rijeka) as part of the archives of the Vodnjan Municipality created during the period from the Venetian administration until the end of the French administration (HR-DAPA-815) and the period of the Second Austrian administration (HR-DAPA43). The oldest preserved archives of the fond is the protocol of documents (Portacolo terzo…) created by the notary Zorzi Zaccaria from 1616. The archives of the fond have been preserved in fragments as only parts of the archives of some notaries were preserved. There are also notarial documents which do not belong to any unity as such unity has not been preserved. In the fond The Notaries of Vodnjan there are no preserved archives for the period from 1826 to 1857. The preserved archives consists of documents bound in books (protocols, minutaria), unbound documents (various notarial acts, wills) and, in the later period, directories and repertoria. The fond was arranged first arranged by notaries where every notary created one series. The series were then arranged chronologically, in accordance with the period of activity of the notary, from the earliest to the latest. Within the series, respecting the existing state, the original order of archives and the manner of conducting business and activities, the following subseries were singled out and formed: Documents between the living (the subseries contains protocols of documents, minutaria of documents and various transcripts of documents as well as documents preserved as loose sheets) and Wills (the subseries contains protocols of wills, minutaria of wills and transcripts of wills). The archives of the later notaries kept in the fond (from the Second Austrian administration onwards) is listed within the following subseries: Registry Aids (containing various indices and notarial registers and repertoria) and Notarial Records. The archives are written in the Latin alphabet, mostly in the Italian language, although there are some documents partly written in Latin. A list of notaries of Vodnjan, sorted in alphabetical order, is attached at the close of the paper