Decisions made during the sessions of the Major Council, the Minor Council and the Senate were initially recorded in joint volumes entitled *Reformationes* (HR-DADU-1). Starting in 1415, the decisions of these three bodies were recorded in separate registers. Thus, the decisions of the Senate from that year onwards, until the fall of the Republic in 1808, can be found in the registers stored in this fonds.
Published
The fonds consists of the series *Acta Consilii Rogatorum* (HR-DADU-3.1) and *Secreta Rogatorum* (HR-DADU-3.2)
Paper. The archival material is well preserved.
The fonds has been linked to the archive since its inception. In times of the Dubrovnik Republic, the books of the fonds were stored in the Rector's Palace. They remained in the Rector’s Palace after the fall of the Republic (1808). In 1891, the archives were consolidated and became available to researchers. The archive in the Rector's Palace has been functioning as an independent institution since 1920 and it was moved to the Sponza Palace in 1952, where it is still located today.
Preserved interstate treaties and other documents from the 12th century offer evidence that the authorities oversaw the work of the public notary and the chancellery already at that time. Based on key provisions made during the 15th century, the central administration consisted of five offices located in the Rector's Palace. These were: The Public Notary (legal private affairs), the State Chancellery (legal public affairs), the Judicial Chancellery (criminal justice affairs), the Office of the State Secretary (legal state affairs) and the Slavic Chancellery, which would eventually be transformed into the Turkish Chancellery. The secretaries oversaw the process of taking minutes of the sessions of the Senate, the Minor Council, as well as of those of the Major Council. This fonds contains primarily minutes of the sessions of the Senate. In addition, secretaries would also compile the entire state correspondence as instructed by the Senate and the Minor Council. They also created diplomatic codes and deciphered diplomatic mail, issued state documents, such as certificates of the citizenship of the Dubrovnik Republic. According to the data, the influence of state secretaries increased substantially since the 17th century so that they could be considered as the main administrative officials of the Dubrovnik Republic.
Description prepared by Vesna Miović (Fonds, Series, Subseries)
Croatia [The Institute for Historical Sciences in Dubrovnik, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (CASA)]
Translation to English by Zrinka Friganović Sain
State Archives in Dubrovnik
The fonds has been completely transferred to microfilms, but the microfilms are not available to the users of archives.
The fonds is fully accessible to researchers in accordance with the Ordinance on the work in the reading room of the State Archives in Dubrovnik and the Law on Archival Materials and Archives NN 61/18 (*Pravilnik o radu u čitaonici Državnog arhiva u Dubrovniku* and *Zakon o arhivskom gradivu i arhivima NN 61/18*).
Taking photographs and scanning are allowed, for a fee.
Most volumes of this series have an incomplete and insufficiently reliable subject indexing.
Published
The series contains the decisions of the Senate (*Consilium Rogatorum*) from the early 15th to the early 19th century. At the beginning of the 14th century, this administrative body became a permanent authority that primarily made decisions on foreign policy of the Republic and was named the Senate during the 15th century. The Senate became the central body of the administrative power of the Dubrovnik Republic, with a very wide field of activities: from making domestic and foreign policies and dealing with issues regarding economy and trade, to making decisions relevant for the destiny of individual citizens. Senate decisions were applicable to a vast geographical area: Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and, to a lesser extent, Latin America. The Senate was chaired by the Rector whose mandate lasted a month. The Rector presided over both: the Minor Council and the Major Council.
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The series is very important for the research of the history of the Jewish people. The documents in the series include most of the key decisions made in the times of the Republic that clearly indicate the attitude of the Republic towards the Jews, as well as how this attitude has been changing throughout the history. Attempting to analyse this attitude, one can find data on the business of Jewish merchants in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, as well as on the private life of Jewish people in the Dubrovnik Republic. According to the data, the first records of the Jews can be found in the documents written ten years after the creation of the *Acta Consilii Rogatorum* series. Franchus Josepovich (Franius, Josep, Yosue), a Jew from an Albanian town of Vlora, addressed the Senate in 1426 because there was a danger that his goods would be confiscated in Dubrovnik (vol. 3, ff. 292, 292v). Early records of Jews include, for example, a reference to Abram, a messenger of the last Bosnian queen, Katarina (1477; vol. 23, f. 137). Another very significant, perhaps even the most significant document on Jews in this series, is the decision about the establishment of a ghetto, made on October 15, in 1546 (vol. 47, ff. 249v-150v). This specific document describes in detail residential and business premises of the ghetto, locking time of the ghetto doors and rental prices. Certain decisions, on the expansion of the ghetto, as well as on standards of living and business conditions outside the ghetto, had been made later, and continued to be made till the fall of the Republic in 1808. The documents in this series reference to many important figures of the Sephardic world. Some of them only passed through Dubrovnik and some lived in Dubrovnik and were members of the Dubrovnik Jewish community such as: Gracia Mendez and her representatives Abner Alfarin and Isac Ergas, physicians Amatus Lusitanus, Abraham and his son-in-law Joseph Salama, a poet Didacus Pyrrhus, a merchant Daniel Rodrigues (16th century), a rabbi Aron Cohen (17th century), and a merchant Raphael Cohen (18th century). Through the decisions of the Senate, we can follow the destiny of a merchant Isaac Jeshurun, accused of a ritual murder of a Dubrovnik girl (1622). There are many references to other Jews in the series, who most often were Sephardim, and the data found refer to various aspects of their lives. Among other things, the data provide information about trading, appointments of Dubrovnik Jews as Dubrovnik state brokers (*sensal*i), or extraordinary customs duties imposed upon the Jewish community in crisis situations such as plague epidemics. The data also reveal other important facts on treatment, rights and privileges of baptized Jewish women and men. The Senate would also give guarantees of free arrival, restricted residence, and free departure (*salvus conductus*) to Jewish merchant debtors. Some of these decisions were made based on petitions submitted to the Senate, being, therefore, a particularly interesting source for any research of the business and private lives of Dubrovnik Jews.
*Reformationes* (HR-DADU-1), *Consilium Maioris* (HR-DADU-2), *Consilium Minus* (HR-DADU-4), *Litterae et commisiones* (HR-DADU-8)
*Građa za generalni katalog Državnog arhiva u Dubrovniku*, box 3, folders 5 and 6. Josip Gelčić, »Catalogus i. r. Archivii Ragusini.« *Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini* 22 (1910): 537-588. *Repertorium Alphabeticum 1603-1808* (HR-DADU-3.1, vol. 211). *Index sive regestum Partium Consilii Rogatorum Reipublicae Ragusinae ab, a 1407. usque ad a. 1601*. (HR-DADU-14.1, vol. 26). *Index Alphabeticus partium Consilii Rogatorum* (HR-DADU-14.1, vol. 26a). *Istruzioni per i Magistrati per procedere a norma degli Statuti e delle antiche consuetudini* (HR-DADU-14.1, vol. 16).
Konstantin Vojnović, »O državnom ustrojstvu republike dubrovačke.« *Rad JAZU* 103 (1891): 24-67. Jorjo Tadić, *Jevreji u Dubrovniku do polovine XVII stoljeća* (résumé: La Communauté Juive de Dubrovnik), Sarajevo: La Benevolencia, 1937. Branislav Nedeljković, »“Dubrovačko veće umoljeno” (*Consilium Rogatorum*) do 1358. godine.« *Zbornik radova posvećen Albertu Vajsu*, Institut za pravnu istoriju, Beograd, 1966: 123-129. Miroslav Pantić, »Izbor dokumenata o dubrovačkim jevrejima od sredine XVII do kraja XVIII veka.« *Zbornik Jevrejskog istorijskog muzeja* 1 (1971): 341-402. Bariša Krekić, »The Role of the Jews in Dubrovnik (Thirteenth-Sixteenth Century).« *Viator* 4 (1973): 257-271. Bariša Krekić, »Gli Ebrei a Ragusa nel Cinquecento.«, in *Gli Ebrei e Venezia, secoli XIV-XVIII*, ed. Gaetano Cozzi. Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, 1987: 835-843. Ilija Mitić, *Dubrovačka država u međunarodnoj zajednici (od 1358. do 1815)* (summary: The Dubrovnik State in the International Community (from 1358 to 1815), Zagreb: JAZU - Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, 1988. Stjepan Ćosić, »Prinos poznavanju tajništva i arhiva Dubrovačke Republike.« (summary: Contribution to the knowledge of the Secretary office and archives in the Republic of Dubrovnik) *Arhivski vjesnik* 37 (1994): 123-145. Zdenka Janeković-Römer, *The Frame of Freedom. The nobility of Dubrovnik between the Middle Ages and Humanism*, Zagreb - Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Dubrovniku, 2015.
Published
Published
The series was created by a decree of the Minor Council in 1443, which stipulated keeping a record of undisclosed decisions of the Senate and the Minor Council in special volumes. The volumes consist of undisclosed state provisions that mainly concern the Ottomans, the Catholic Church, the sending of information about the Ottoman Empire to Christian countries, and the fate of those persons whom the authorities considered to be the enemies of the state.
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The series covers the period from the end of the 15th to the end of the 17th century and it offers only scarce data about the Jewish people. A reference to an unnamed Jewish physician who carried a state notarial document to Istanbul in 1660 (vol. 5, f. 13v) is probably the only record of Jews in this series.
*Reformationes* (HR-DADU-1), *Acta Consilii Maioris* (HR-DADU-2), *Consilium Minus* (HR-DADU-4.1)
*Građa za generalni katalog Državnog arhiva u Dubrovniku*, box 3, folder 7. Josip Gelčić, »Catalogus i. r. Archivii Ragusini.« *Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini* 22 (1910): 537-588.
Branislav Nedeljković, “Dubrovačko veće umoljeno” (*Consilium Rogatorum*) do 1358. godine. *Zbornik radova posvećen Albertu Vajsu*, Institut za pravnu istoriju, Beograd, 1966: 123-129. Bernard Stulli, »O pravnom režimu korištenja arhivske građe.« (zusammenfassung: Über die rechtliche regelung der benetzung von archivalien) *Arhivski vjesnik* 9 (1966): 137-237. Zdravko Šundrica, »Kako je nastala i kako je sačuvana bogata arhivska građa dubrovačkog Arhiva.«, in: *Tajna kutija dubrovačkog arhiva I*, ed. Vladimir Stipetić. Zagreb - Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Dubrovniku, 2008: 13-26.