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Preface

I got to know the Adriatic when I was a seaman recruit on board the Galeb. The idea of studying its history goes back to the icy winter of 1984–1985 when I was at the Tivat boatyard in the Bay of Kotor. The following summer, sailing on the Galeb, I crossed the Ionian, the Aegean, the Marmara and the Bosphorus seas, and travelled further on into the Black Sea as far as Sevastopol and Costanța, Romania. I was little more than a boy, and it was my first Mediterranean experience. As in the verse of the Triestine poet Umberto Saba, it was better than university. It took decades of study and a long process of maturation before I went back to reflecting on the sea along whose coasts I had grown up.

The Adriatic, much like the Mediterranean, has many different meanings. It is certainly a historical region but it is also a place of contemplation on what the various civilizations and cultures along its coasts have been. The extensiveness of Mediterranean time dominates any historical reflection, which must be carried out on a long-term scale. Studying the Adriatic means adopting its pace and its diversities. Exploring its centuries and its shores involves a hermeneutic method that leads to a sense of belonging, of rapport with the sea. As I was reflecting on the Adriatic, Sergio Anselmi, whom I had the pleasure of meeting, was a strong reference point, as was Sante Graciotti, renowned Slavic scholar and Homo adriaticus. The Homo adriaticus is a forma mentis and a paradigm in the principle of cultural openness, and the Adriatic lends itself to precisely this approach. The Mediterranean is the sea of diversity. The Adriatic, despite its borders and conflicts, is the sea of convergences.

This book is the fruit of years of reading, archival research and comparison of a wide range of sources: archaeological sites, inscriptions on tombstones, mariegole volumes of confraternities, medieval chronicles, Venetian doges’ commissions, notary deeds from both coasts, ship logs, registers of births and deaths, reports by Venetian consuls and podestà, portolano port books, numerous nautical maps, land registers, specialist journals, municipal and provincial deeds, documents from Italian police registers, diplomatic summits and military commands. Besides these, my research involved history books from all the coastal countries, proceedings from international conferences on marine biology and the state of the sea, all kinds of tourist guides, historical and contemporary local newspapers. My great love for Roman archaeology also provided me with a certain familiarity with ancient landscapes.

I have travelled the east and west coasts on public transport; I have sailed among the islands, crossed the sea at night and flown over the sea on clear days. A Yugoslavian military manual on techniques and strategies of disembarkation on the Adriatic coasts proved to be very useful, as was the journal Cimbas on Picene seafaring.¹ For an understanding of its history, the journals of Italian regional history deputations and associations on the west coast are indispensable, as are the journals of research institutions on the east coast.² It was necessary to walk through the main churches, basilicas and cathedrals around the sea in which the epochs of the Adriatic are revealed in a concentration of art that is perhaps unique in the Mediterranean. In addition, there are the languages and dialects of the Adriatic with which, perhaps with the exception of Albanian, I have been familiar for years. And then literary works, forgotten documentaries and television programmes, and rare radio broadcasts (especially those dedicated to folklore along the coasts). Not all these sources are essential to a historical study, but it is a question of capturing, while it is still possible, the rapidly disappearing evidence of an Adriatic that changed so quickly in the late twentieth century.

The world of local perspectives is essential for understanding both the detail and the larger picture. The context of the coastal inhabitants remains, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean with the exception of the large ports, enclosed and self-referential but at the same time universal. Everyone has their own sliver of sea, their own Mediterranean, which is after all the essence of the Mediterranean. Studying the Adriatic has involved my returning to it. I owe much to my father, a true Homo adriaticus, who grew up amongst Chioggian, Dalmatian and Istrian fishermen, familiar with their languages. He taught me about the ancient practices of the sea and to love the Adriatic, which he looked out over every day and considered his home, his fatherland. The sea of my father.

This work turned out to be a more difficult and time-consuming task than expected. I am grateful to Ugo Berti for his helpfulness, his belief in the project and his patience with respect to my postponing the conclusion. And I owe a lot to my family, who have endured my absence for a long time. I am also grateful to Franco Luxardo and to Società Dalmata di Storia Patria, Venice, for supporting the English translation. The book is dedicated to the memory of my father.

Notes

1  1 Zapadna obala Jadrana i Tarantski zaliv (vojnogeografski priručnik) (Split: II Odeljenje komande IV armijske oblasti, Poverljivo, 1968). Cimbas. Rivista dell’Istituto di ricerca delle fonti per la storia della civiltà marinara Picena (1995–2013). I am grateful to Gabriele Cavezzi for the pdf version of the review.

2  2 Historical reviews dealing with the Adriatic area: Archivio storico pugliese, Bullettino Deputazione abruzzese di Storia patria, Atti e memorie Deputazione di Storia patria per le Marche, Proposte e ricerche, Atti e memorie Deputazione di Storia patria per le province di Romagna, Studi romagnoli, Atti e memorie Deputazione provinciale ferrarese di Storia patria, Archivio veneto, Studi veneziani, Memorie storiche forogiuliesi, Quaderni giuliani di storia, Atti e memorie Società istriana di archeologia e Storia patria, Acta Histriae, Histria, Atti Centro di ricerche storiche Rovigno, Annales Series historia et sociologia, Problemi sjevernog Jadrana, Jadranski zbornik, Historijski zbornik, Povijesni prilozi, Dubrovnik Annales, Radovi Zavoda za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zadru, Radovi Zavoda za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskoga fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Atti e memorie Società dalmata di Storia patria, Istorijski zapisi, Balcanica, Studime historike.