Rethinking the Concept of Antemurale: Venetian Diplomacy in Respect of the Ottoman World (1573-1645)
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CONFERENZE 142 PIOTR CHMIEL RETHINKING THE CONCEPT OF ANTEMURALE: VENETIAN DIPLOMACY IN RESPECT OF THE OTTOMAN WORLD (1573-1645) Ü CONTENTS ACCADEMIA POLACCA DELLE SCIENZE BIBLIOTECA E CENTRO DI STUDI A ROMA CONFERENZE 142 PIOTR CHMIEL RETHINKING THE CONCEPT OF ANTEMURALE: VENETIAN DIPLOMACY IN RESPECT OF THE OTTOMAN WORLD (1573-1645) ROMA 2019 Pubblicato da Accademia Polacca delle Scienze Biblioteca e Centro di Studi a Roma vicolo Doria, 2 (Palazzo Doria) 00187 Roma tel. +39 066792170 e-mail: [email protected] www.rzym.pan.pl Pubblicazione finanziata dall’Accademia Polacca delle Scienze English text revised by: JESSICA TAYLOR-KUCIA Progetto grafico: ANNA WAWRZYNIAK MAOLONI ISSN 0239-8605 ISBN 978-83-63305-70-3 © Accademia Polacca delle Scienze Biblioteca e Centro di Studi a Roma Impaginazione e stampa: Dom Wydawniczy ELIPSA, Agencja Wydawniczo-Poligraficzna GIMPO ul. Inflancka 15/198, 00-189 Warszawa ul. Transportowców 11, 02-858 Warszawa tel. 22 635 03 01, tel. +48 501 076 031, e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER I VENETIAN DIPLOMACY AND ITS MODUS OPERANDI IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 25 CHAPTER II CHRISTIANITAS–EUROPE. THE IDEA OF THE BULWARK OF CHRISTENDOM IN THE LIGHT OF VENETIAN DIPLOMATIC WRITINGS 51 CHAPTER III NEWCOMERS. THE PERCEIVED OTHERNESS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 77 CHAPTER IV BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHRISTENDOM: STATES AND NATIONS. IMAGES OF PERSIA AND EASTERN CHRISTIANS CREATED IN VENETIAN DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS 105 CHAPTER V BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHRISTENDOM: INDIVIDUALS. THE WORK OF THE VENETIAN DIPLOMATIC SERVICE FOR REPRESENTATIVES OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLD IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 133 CONCLUSION 171 BIBLIOGRAPHY 183 INDEX 199 CONFERENZE 142 5 INTRODUCTION his book is built around a dual core of two main, parallel subjects. The first is an idea (the bulwark of Christendom, Latin: ‘antemurale Christianitatis’), and the second a struc- ture (the Venetian diplomatic service). At first glance there Tmight seem to be no obvious reason, either thematic or methodo- logical, to link them in one book. Further complexity is added by the third element of this composition, the context within which the two main subjects are analysed. This third element is the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, an objective situation that contributed to the emergence of a certain belief among participants of the political life in the period under study, the early modern age, and specifically 1573-1645. My aim in tackling these issues all together is to demon- strate the influence of the first-mentioned idea on the activity of the second-named structure in the period in question; and to examine how that structure construed the idea and contributed to its evolu- tion. Through the questions and findings formulated in this book I hope to shed new light on issues that have been already discussed in the humanities, such as the history of the idea of Europe and its divisions; ethnic, (proto-) national and religious identity in the early modern period; and the history of relations between the European world and the East / Orient, and more broadly the world of an Other. With all certainty the analysis presented here, which is based on the results of relatively limited research in Venetian archives and libraries, is too modest an achievement to make any significant impact on the CONFERENZE 142 7 INTRODUCTION course of the abovementioned discussions. I hope, however, that it may at least help to shed light on some aspects of these issues not yet explored. A further aim of the book is to contribute to the deve- lopment of knowledge on certain aspects of early modern Venetian diplomacy, especially by stressing the role of hitherto less appreciated actors in the foreign service of the Republic of Venice: consuls, and lower-ranking officials and other personnel of the Venetian mission in Constantinople. While neither Venetian diplomacy nor Ottoman expansion require further comment at this stage of the book, the idea of the bulwark of Christendom should probably be explained in more detail. The notion itself is taken from the language of political writings of the age. It surfaced in a range of different contexts, usually to indicate the role of a given state or its part in the defence of the whole Christian world of Europe against the progressing Ottoman expansion. It took the form of a concept, rhetorical figure, or metaphor in the diplomatic language characteristic for the correspondence which passed between early modern European rulers, in particular with the participation of the pope, and was developed further in later periods. In the nineteenth century, with the decline in importance of that part of Europe which had previously bordered the Ottoman Empire, the antemurale idea became a salient element of the identity discourse of many nations in the region, recalling the vital role once played by certain other countries in this area which no longer featured on the political map of the continent. The cases of Poland, Hungary, or Croatia may serve here as good examples of this phenomenon, i.e. of the reformulation of an earlier idea in the nineteenth-century context. In this book my interest is focused on the antemurale idea in the form visible in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, i.e. before the later revival of national ideas. The original concept of this project was to compare the functioning of the ‘bulwark of Christendom’ idea in the treatises, political writings and–as far as possible–the collective memory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Most Serene Republic of Venice. I assumed that the many similarities between these two states–their institutional orders, their locations on the fringes of Christendom, the relatively large numbers of Eastern Christians in their populations, and the certain ‘institutional lightness’1 of both states (which led to their collapse in an 1] The expression ‘institutional lightness [of ancient empires]’ (‘leggerezza istituzionale [degli CONFERENZE 142 imperi antichi]’) is drawn from L. Di Fiore, M. Meriggi, World History. Le nuove rotte della 8 INTRODUCTION age of domination of absolutist states)–might be also reflected in the political idea that inspired their relations with the Ottoman Empire, which was treated by both states as a menacing neighbour interested in furthering its expansion into Europe. For obvious reasons, such expansion would have affected in the first instance precisely these two states (as well as the Habsburg Empire and, after 1526, when the independent Crown of Hungary ceased to exist, Transylvania). However, there was also a fundamental difference between the Polish and Venetian realities. In the Polish case, the bulwark idea recurred frequently in the political discourse of the period, and was also revived many times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Venice, by contrast, the concept seems to have been formulated more weakly, and it did not develop into a mythologem of the modern Italian national discourse. Furthermore, unlike Polish historiography, in which the notion of antemurale has been analysed on many occasions,2 Venetian studies has not demonstrated particular interest in this concept. However, I soon realized that a comparative analysis of the idea of antemurale was far more complex than I had initially thought. There was no coherent presentation of the idea in any sources from storia, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2011, p. 123. It was used there to refer to a new concept of empires, introduced by S. Gruzinski and S. Subrahmanyan, which argued that early modern empires (bigger states) were platforms for social, cultural, and civilizational exchange rather than oppressive, centralized state organisms. This renders them different than modern absolutist states or nation states. Some elements of this concept can be retraced in S. Gruzinski, Les quatre parties du monde. Histoire d’une mondialisation, Paris: La Martinière, 2004, pp. 82-83 and 445. 2] Above all in the monographic works by J. Tazbir: Polskie przedmurze chrześcijańskiej Europy: mity a rzeczywistość historyczna [Poland as a bulwark of Christian Europe: myths and historical reality], Warszawa: Interpress, 1987; and his more revealing Polska przedmurzem Europy [Poland as the bulwark of Europe], Warszawa: Twój Styl, 2004; as well as his article ‘Od antemurale do przedmurza, dzieje terminu’ [From antemurale to bulwark, the history of a concept], Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce XXIX (1984), 167-184. Also: J. Urwanowicz, ‘Wokół ideologii przedmurza chrześcijaństwa w Rzeczypospolitej w drugiej połowie XVII w.’ [The bulwark of Christendom ideology and its context in the [Polish-Lithuanian] Commonwealth in the second half of the seventeenth century], ibidem, 185-200; J. Krzyżaniakowa, ‘Polska – Antemurale Christianitatis. Polityczne i ideologiczne podstawy kształtowania się idei’ [Poland – Antemurale Christianitatis. The political and ideological basis for the formation of the idea], [in:] K. Kaczmarek and J. Nikodem (red.), Docendo discimus: studia historyczne ofiarowane profesorowi Zbigniewowi Wielgoszowi w siedemdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin, Poznań: Instytut Historii UAM, 2000, pp. 295-313. Cf. also the interesting study by the Italian scholar S. Graciotti, ‘Polskie przedmurze we Włoszech w XVI i XVII wieku. O barokowej ewolucji pewnego mitu’ [The Polish bulwark in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the Baroque evolution of a myth], [in:] idem, Od Renesansu do Oświecenia, vol. 1, Warszawa: PIW, 1991, CONFERENZE 142 pp. 61-78. 9 INTRODUCTION the period