Lamenta de criminali post terraemotum (Criminal charges after the earthquake in 1667)
- HR-DADU-20-HR-DADU-20.3
- Series
- 1667-1811
Part of Lamenta criminalia; Lamenta de criminali (Criminal prosecutions)
The series contains registers of criminal cases recorded during the period of five years of the 15th and 16th centuries. Criminal cases mainly relate to physical violence, murder, verbal violence, and property crimes. Each case consists of a lawsuit filed by a private person or by the state (ex officio). Witnesses are listed in the case and, if necessary, their written testimonies are also added. It is a characteristic of the Dubrovnik Criminal Court that it rarely pronounced verdicts, most likely because most disputes were settled in conciliation of the warring parties. The mark "fatta" entered on the margins of the documents indicates that a judgment was pronounced. Some verdicts were written at the end of the case, and in most cases the verdicts were registered in special books kept in the fonds Criminalia (HR-DADU-23).
The series Lamenta de criminali post terraemotum is a first-rank source for researching everyday life of the Dubrovnik Jewish community in the broadest sense of the word. The archival material also provides an opportunity to analyse the relations of Dubrovnik Jews with both: their fellow citizens and the authorities of the Republic. In total, there are about 600 cases in which Jewish people are referenced to in the role of prosecutors, defendants, or witnesses, which is about 2% of the total number of cases recorded in this series. The members of eleven large Dubrovnik Jewish families dominate (Ambonetti, Campos, Fermo, Levi Mandolfo, Luzzena, Maestro, Pardo, Russo, Terni, Valenzin, Vitali). A catalogue of litigations belonging to this series related to Jews (1667-1805) was compiled in 2016. Disputes are presented in a precisely defined form with the following information: date of the lawsuit, name of the plaintiff, name of the defendant, type of crime, place and date of the crime, verdict, and archival signature.