Tommaso STEFINI 153 OTTOMAN MERCHANTS IN DISPUTE WITH THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE AT THE END OF THE 16TH CENTURY: SOME GLANCES ON THE CONTESTED REGIME OF THE CAPITULATIONS INTRODUCTION I n the last thirty years, numerous scholars working on the Levant trade and the legal system of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern era focused on the capitulations (‘ahidnāmes).1 These were agreements between the Ottoman sultan and a foreign ruler that regulated bilateral political and commercial relations between the two states. Under the promise (‘ahd) of keeping peaceful relations, the sultans allowed the ruler’s subjects who applied to them to sojourn in the Ottoman Empire and conduct business without hindrances. They were essentially political Tommaso Stefini, Yale University, Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Council on Middle East Studies, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, P.O. Box 208206, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8206, USA. [email protected] 1 Abbreviations (all the archival sources are located in the Archivio di stato di Venezia): BAC: Bailo a Costantinopoli; CEP: Collegio-Esposizioni Principi; DC: Documenti Turchi; LST: Lettere e Scritture Turchesche; QC: Quarantia Criminal; SDC: Senato Dispacci-Costantinopoli; SDelC: Senato Deliberazioni-Costantinopoli; XSCS: Dieci Savi del Corpo del Senato. The recent bibliography on the ‘ahidnāmes is extensive; here I will provide only some important studies: Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-PolishDiplomatic Relations; Van den Boogert, TheCapitulations; de Groot,TheOttomanEmpire; id., “The Historical Development;” Veinstein, “Les marchands;” id., “Les capitulations;” Theunissen, “Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics;” Skilliter, WilliamHarborne; Kadı, Otto- manandDutchMerchants; Eldem, FrenchTrade; id., “Capitulations.” Turcica, 46, 2015, p. 153-176. doi: 10.2143/TURC.46.0.3087633 © 2015Turcica.Tousdroitsréservés. 997971.indb7971.indb 115353 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 154 TOMMASO STEFINI and juridical, while trade-related issues were relatively quite limited; they were granted to all the subjects of the beneficent ruler regardless of their occupations. The majority of the studies on the capitulations in the early modern era deal with Dutch, French, and British trade in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries, the legal status of Westerners in the Empire and the problems they faced with Ottoman subjects and authorities. Almost completely overlooked in these studies is the position of the Otto- man merchants trading in Western Europe within the same framework. This is due to two main reasons. Firstly, the commercial activities of Ottoman merchants in Western Europe are still one of the least studied topics in the historiography of the Mediterranean. Secondly, the majority of the studies on the ‘ahidnāmes still emphasize their unilateral nature, although we now have substantial data to state that, at least in the case of Venice and Poland, they were indeed bilateral agreements.2 The Republic of Venice, given its large Ottoman mercantile commu- nity and its intensive political relations with the Ottoman Empire, con- stitutes an excellent and almost unique context for studying the legal framework that enabled merchants from the sultan’s realm to trade with a Western European state in the early modern era. At least in the 16th and 17th centuries, no Western European state witnessed an intensive, long, and well documented presence of Ottoman merchants comparable to Venice’s. This is without doubt true for Ottoman Muslims, whose commercial ventures abroad were limited to Venice and few other cities. Most of the studies on Ottoman trade with Venice focused on a single religious and ethnic community and deal mainly with the exchanged goods, the problem of housing, the brokers, and shortly with the dangers that the merchants faced.3 Almost none of these studies deals with the Venetian capitulations, which allowed and regulated the activities of all these merchants in Venice, regardless of their religion and social status. The only notable exceptions are the pioneering studies by B. Arbel on two important commercial disputes between some prominent Ottoman Jews and Venetian subjects, which took place in the second half of the 16th century.4 By studying these cases in detail, he provided invaluable 2 For instance see Greene, CatholicPirates, p. 40-41; Panaite, “Trade.” 3 For instances see Kafadar, “A Death;” Dursteler, “Commerce;” Pedani Fabris, “Between Diplomacy and Trade;” Tiepolo, Tonetti ed., IGreci; Arbel, TradingNations; id., “Jews.” 4 Arbel, TradingNations, p. 95-144; id., “Maritime Trade.” 997971.indb7971.indb 115454 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 OTTOMAN MERCHANTS IN DISPUTE WITH THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE 155 insights on the intensive diplomacy, one of the chief features of the regime of the capitulations. A study of the frequent disputes between Ottoman merchants and Venetian subjects and authorities is particularly important for a better comprehension of the capitulatory regime. Analyzing such disputes allows a glance on the legal regime under which Ottoman merchants traded abroad. These disputes show us the legal ways pursued by aggrieved Otto- man merchants against Venetian subjects and authorities, the negotiation process, and the policy of high-ranking Ottomans towards these cases. Furthermore, these disputes show the actual attitude of the Ottoman authorities toward the commercial ventures of their subjects outside the Empire. Historians of the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire have generally downplayed the interest of the Ottoman authorities in the for- eign trade carried by their subjects. In this paper I will provide some insights on these issues by analyzing two important legal disputes between some Ottoman merchants and Venetian authorities which took place during the 1580s. The first case is a debt-related dispute between two prominent Ottoman Greek tax-farmers and merchants, and some Venetian merchants who were their creditors. The second case involves a pirate attack on a galley carrying numerous Bosnian Muslim traders back from Venice to the Empire. The choice of important disputes is unavoidable since only important cases involving large claims and preeminent protagonists produced enough archival sources that allow us to reconstruct them. I will outline the principal phases of the cases, focusing on four sub- jects: the legal institutions to which the aggrieved merchants turned, the complex process of litigation and settlement, the debate between the Venetian and the Ottoman authorities over the contents of the ‘ahidnāmes, and the attitude of the Ottoman authorities. Furthermore, in reconstructing the cases on the basis of contemporary accounts, I will make reference to normative texts, that is the capitulations and other legal documents issued by the Ottoman courts. In this way, I hope to shed some light on the nature of the legal framework that regulated the commercial ventures of Ottoman subjects in Venice. Undoubtedly, further studies of other important dis- putes between Ottoman merchants and Venetian authorities are necessary to reach more definitive conclusions about the issue. The reconstruction of the cases is based on mostly Venetian and some Ottoman primary sources kept in the State Archives of Venice. Among them, the most employed one is the letters (dispacci) sent to the Venetian 997971.indb7971.indb 115555 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 156 TOMMASO STEFINI government by the bailo, the permanent diplomatic representative of the Republic of Venice in Istanbul. This extremely important historical source provides unique information over legal procedures of redress employed by the aggrieved merchants and the negotiations between the plaintiff mer- chants, the Ottoman authorities, and the bailo. Among the Ottoman sources, the most frequently employed ones are imperial documents (nişān-ıhümāyūn) and letters to the Venetian government (nāme-ihümāyūn) issued by the Ottoman authorities over the disputes. They are important since they are the only source of information on the Ottoman authorities’ perception of the disputes. ZUAN AND MARINO SCARUOLI, TWO GREEK TAX-FARMERS IN DISPUTE WITH THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE DURING THE 1580S On 29 June 1581, the bailo Paolo Contarini reported to the Venetian Senate that the grand vizier Sinan Pasha had sent to his residence in Pera an envoy (çavuş) with a wealthy Orthodox Greek from Nauplion in the Peloponnese, Zuan Scaruoli.5 He was the tax farmer of the custom duties on valonia oaks in the whole Peloponnese and a trader of that merchan- dise with Venice.6 The envoy related to the bailo that Scaruoli had turned to the Imperial Divan (dīvān-ıhümāyūn) to complain that a ship loaded with valonia oaks, which he had sent to Venice in order to pay his debt with the Ottoman treasury, had been fraudulently confiscated by the Venetian merchant Giacomo Ragazzoni7 and other merchants, who had claimed that the former was indebted to them. He demanded compensa- tion from the bailo for the confiscated valonia oaks and the ship, since he claimed that they actually belonged to his son, Marino, tax farmer 5 In the Venetian sources his name is spelled as “Zuan” or “Gioan” (John in English), and in the Ottoman documents as “Iānūl.” 6 From a letter written by Scaruoli to his Venetian creditors on 15 December 1579, we learn that, on that date, he had been made tax-farmer, for three years, of salt production and the custom duties on valonia oaks in the whole peninsula, as well as tax collector in Patras, in return of a payment of 212,000