engleski

"Real Property of Wealthy Commoners. The Formation and Rise of Commoners Lineages in Trogir after 1420"

Separation of the wealthy commoners from the rest of their social class was one of the changes that occurred in the Dalmatian communes in the fifteenth century, following the establishment of the Venetian government. We know little on how this process enfolded in the town of Trogir. A necessary precondition for such a study was Mladen Andreis’ reconstruction of the genealogies of patrician families in Trogir that also provided a reliable key for identifying individuals who did not belong to aristocracy. These wealthy citizens, often recorded with the title Sir, included those who performed certain administrative functions (chancellors, notaries, translators and interpreters, teachers, doctors), then the nobles from the hinterland, who, fleeing from the Turks, settled in the city (Berislavić, Bućan), as well as artisans and merchants. Some of those artisans and merchants were registered as citizens of Trogir (cives), and some as residents (habitatores), and their origin is mostly impossible to determine. New commoner family clans were formed within this social class, especially among persons who were engaged in trade or business. They were imitating and competing with patricians, and this was reflected in their education, Church functions they performed and houses they bought in prominent places in the city. These houses were then adorned with luxurious architectural sculpture and their coats of arms in relief. These commoners remained excluded from membership in the Council and could not be appointed to the offices exclusively designated for the Council members. So this "illusion of power", which under Venetian rule still belonged to the patricians only, was often the only thing that separated the members of these newly formed family clans from the old ones. My study does not examine political and economic circumstances that have favored the forming of those commoner family clans. I restrict my analysis to the properties of this group in the city: a highly specific but nonetheless reliable indicator of changes in the society. This research is based on data from notarial and court records of the medieval commune of Trogir and the study of the Gothic residential architecture in the city. The first aspect of this analysis focuses on the location of their properties in the city. The study of the social topography of Trogir in the thirteenth and fourteenth century has shown that members of the patrician clans owned residential complexes near the main square or along the city walls. In the fifteenth century, wealthy commoners’ houses were located in the same areas and along the main longitudinal and transverse streets. Just like wealthy patricians, some among these commoners possessed a large number of houses and empty parcels that they rented out. An interesting example is that of George Sclavo, condottiere, who was wealthy enough to buy, from the Venetian government, the entire estate confiscated from Micatius Vitturi, a nobleman exiled in 1420. I end with an overview of the houses adorned with luxurious architectural sculpture. Their owners hired the finest craftsmen in Trogir, or even ordered window frames from the renowned Andrijić’s workshop on the island of Korčula

residential architecture, commoners lineages, Trogir

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