130 Dubrovnik Annals 5 (2001) the cortex, maintaining the harmony of the of errors and misleading assumptions, it still body as a whole. Inspired by Harvey’s dis- represents an outstanding contribution to the covery of the nature of the circulation of understanding of the human body. blood, Baglivi envisaged a similar model of Stjepan ΔosiÊ the nervous system. According to him, the solid cerebral cortex relays impulses from the brain to the peripheral nervous structure, witnessing simultaneously the feedback mechanisms. Baglivi’s definition of stimu- Stijepo Obad, Sero Dokoza and Suzana lus anticipated Albrecht von Haller’s stud- MartinoviÊ, Juæne granice Dalmacije od ies on sensibility and irritability as specific XV. st. do danas (The Southern Borders of properties common to all living structures. Dalmatia from the Fifteenth Century to the Baglivi also points out the autonomous func- Present). Zadar: Dræavni arhiv u Zadru, tion of certain structures in the “energy” of 1999. Pages 104. vital motions. Each fiber is under the con- The most recent political situation re- trol of the central stimulators, but is also garding the definition of the border of the characterized by its own innate vital au- Republic of Croatia and the two of its neigh- tonomy. bours—Bosnia and Herzegovina and The motion of the heart and the role of Montenegro—stirred the general public in- the blood and other bodily fluids are essen- terest for the origin, historical development, tial for the vital functions but, like all the and shifts of the Croatian borderline in the other vital functions, are dependent on the south. Based mainly on the written and car- centrifugal and centripetal fibrillation of tographic evidence from the State Archives membraneous tissue. This is the basis of of Zadar, this book represents a considerable Baglivi’s interpretation of pathological dis- contribution to the aforementioned topic. orders. The vital properties of the fibra de- The book contains three sections: an in- termine the harmony among the complex troductory study, a presentation of the south- processes within the body. If the tone and ern borders of Dalmatia, illustrated with the the balance of the constant activities of the reproductions of historical maps and docu- fibers is disrupted, the body is exposed to ments, and a detailed analysis of the border- disorder and eventual death. “Inadequate land between the former Republic of tone, elasticity, or structure of the body’s Dubrovnik and the Bay of Kotor, Bosnia- solid parts in the balance disorder between Herzegovina, and Montenegro as shown on different solid parts or between the solid and the Austrian specialized maps from the 19th fluid parts of the body” are where Baglivi century. The introduction was written by seeks the origins of pathological processes. Stijepo Obad, while the documents and maps The development of all the disciplines were analyzed by Sero Dokoza and Suzana based on the application of scientific results MartinoviÊ. has been characterized by trial and error; Obad’s historical perspective provides medicine, therefore, is no exception. Al- insight into the origin and frequent shifts of though medical progress has shown that De the political but also administrative bounda- fibra motrice et morbosa, the fruit of ries in Dalmatia from the 15th century to the Baglivi’s observations, contained a number present day. As the historical, territorial, and Dubrovnik Annals 5 (2001) 131 political meaning of the notion of Dalmatia further, remaining within these borders un- has, over the centuries, been understood dif- til the end of the Venetian rule in 1797. The ferently, it should always be examined and municipalities of the Bay of Kotor repre- defined in the time context. In the Middle sented a separate unit of Dalmatia, also un- Ages, the ancient notion of Dalmatia became der Venetian domination. Experiencing but a synonym for the Croatian Kingdom, that a few shifts of borders over the centuries, is, primarily for its coastal area with well- the Republic of Dubrovnik managed to sur- developed cities. Although the region vive between these two components of Dal- stretching between the Rivers Zrmanja and matia. Cetina represented the heart of the Early Following the first Austrian rule (1797- medieval Croatian state, the political centre 1805) and the short French rule (1805-1814), th of Croatia in the 16 C. moved to the north. these three components—Dalmatia, Dubrov- Due to their ethnical and political attributes, nik and the Bay of Kotor—consolidated into the territories of Dalmatia, later occupied by the Austrian province of Dalmatia in 1816, the Venetians and the Ottomans, were to gain remaining an Austrian crownland until 1918. pure virtual importance in the Croatian na- The author traces the political and adminis- tional ideology. Despite the historical and trative boundaries of the southern Croatian ethnical arguments, it took Croatia almost region in the inter-war period, at the time of five hundred years to achieve sovereign ju- the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and risdiction over its entire territory at the mo- Slovenes (1918-1929), the Kingdom of Yu- ment when Europe was witnessing the re- goslavia (1929-1941), the Independent State definition and changes of the framework and of Croatia (1941-1945), as well as after the meaning of the notions of state boundaries World War II, concluding his survey with and sovereignty. the most recent Serbian and Montenegrin Obad focuses on the shifts of Dalmatian aggression and expansionism. boundaries from the beginning of the Amply illustrated and well-documented, Venetian domination. Having established its the second and the third section of the book rule in the coastal cities, Venice tended to are concerned with the shifts of borders in assign a new meaning to the notion of Dal- the south of Dalmatia, i.e., the Neretva re- matia, emphasizing its roots in the antiquity gion, Dubrovnik Republic, and the Bay of and its dominant Romance culture. The Kotor in respect of the Venetian territorial Serenissima was to use Dalmatia as a buffer expansion in the wars against the Turks in zone against the Croats, and later the Turks. the 17th and 18th centuries. The second sec- However, such a concept was doomed to fail tion starts with a description of the oldest after Venice’s territorial expansions in the and most stable border on the east Adriatic— Candian and Morean Wars (1671 and 1699) that of the Republic of Dubrovnik. Facsimi- because of the ethnical structure of the popu- les and partial translations of the charters lation. It was then that the territory as well from 1399, 1419, and 1426 have been pre- as the notion of the Venetian Dalmatia ex- sented, by which the Republic acquired tended beyond the coastal area into the main- Primorje and Konavle, exercising thus its land, comprising Obrovac, Knin, Vrlika, jurisdiction from Klek to Sutorina. The re- Sinj, Zadvarje, Vrgorac, and MetkoviÊ. In production of the map of the Republic of 1718 the Venetian Dalmatia extended even Dubrovnik, drawn by Nicolas Sanson in 132 Dubrovnik Annals 5 (2001) 1664, shows the shifting of the Venetian territory of the Bay of Kotor, from Sutorina borderlines in Herzegovina and Boka in the to SpiË, consolidated with the Zeta banate, course of the Morean War. The expansion so that the border of Dalmatia, that is, of the of the Venetian Dalmatia following the Trea- Dubrovnik region, coincided with the former ties of Karlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz south border of the Republic of Dubrovnik (1718) has been presented by the copies and towards Sutorina. It is interesting to note that fragmentary translation of the agreements on even then the two Turkish corridors, Klek the demarcation and the mapping performed and Sutorina, remained unaltered within the afterwards. That was the time when two nar- Mostar region. The frontiers of the Croatian row Turkish corridors were defined in the Banovina dating from 1939 also extended vicinity of Klek and in Sutorina, and which as far as Sutorina, excluding Boka, but com- separated the territory of the Dubrovnik Re- prising the territory of Klek. public from the Venetian Dalmatia and the The federal territorial concept of the Bay of Kotor. These Ottoman corridors were Yugoslavia after the World War II actually accurately drawn on the Venetian maps by represented a partial restoration of the pre- Lodovico Furlanetto in 1787 and Pietro Yugoslav borders. Dalmatia, within the Na- Santini in 1804. tional Republic of Croatia did not include By the first half of the 19th century, nu- the Bay of Kotor, for the latter became an merous maps of the Dubrovnik region, the integral part of Montenegro. In addition, the Bay of Kotor, and the bordering regions were corridors in Klek and Sutorina were recog- drawn, surpassing the former ones in both nized at first, being integrated into Bosnia- quality and detail. The defined borders of the Herzegovina (map on p. 66). For the reasons Austrian province of Dalmatia and the Bay unknown, Sutorina was soon to be stitched of Kotor remained stable well after the Ber- to Montenegro, while the Neum area has re- lin Congress and the Austro-Hungarian oc- mained part of Bosnia and Herzegovina to cupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878. the day, separating thus the Croatian terri- Dalmatia was to expand only in its tory in Dalmatia. southernmost part, from Budva to SpiË, The third section of the book includes where it bordered Montenegro. the analysis of the borderland based on the The maps of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Austrian specialized maps of the districts of Croats, and Slovenes (1918-1929) have been Dubrovnik and Kotor from the first half of borrowed from Ljubo Boban’s book the 19th century. Accurately plotted to scale, Hrvatske granice od 1918.-1993.