engleski

Perceptions of the Eastern Adriatic in the travel literature of the Early Modern period

Since ancient times, the Eastern Adriatic was the intersection of routes from different regions of Europe and one of the main sea links for trade with the East. Many officials, foreign travellers and authors of travel books left their written testimonies in form of manuscripts, various relations and travel books about visited area, people who lived there, their customs, professions, and other matters of interest. In creating the perception of the eastern Adriatic, special place certainly belongs to travel books for their interesting contents and the availability to the general public. Although, the introduction of printing made exchange of information widespread, and faster, and there were conditions for upgrading the knowledge of the observed area, the quality of information in them is not greatly improved. There were several reasons for that: the negative legacy from earlier periods, uncritical copying of information from the other authors, and the existence of ingrained distorted image, misconceptions and stereotypes. The aim of this paper is to refer to some aspects of perception of Eastern Adriatic and its population, as well as to indicate some wrong interpretations and stereotypes that are resulting from them. In this article are mainly used Italian travel books as they were most numerous among the travel books and contributed the most to enlargement of knowledge about Eastern Adriatic in Early Modern Age.

Eastern Adriatic, travel books, identities, stereotypes

Tabula 14 donosi radove prezentirane na međunarodnom znanstvenom skupu: “Past, Present, Future: Identity in Flux”, Pula 28-30 svibnja 2015.