Fonds HR-DADU-17 - Procurae Cancellariae; Procure de Cancellaria (Powers of attorney registered at the Chancellery)

Zone d'identification

Cote

HR-DADU-17

Titre

Procurae Cancellariae; Procure de Cancellaria (Powers of attorney registered at the Chancellery)

Date(s)

  • 1470-1475, 1580-1815 (Création/Production)

Niveau de description

Fonds

Étendue matérielle et support

92 volumes; 4,8 linear metres; textual records

Zone du contexte

Nom du producteur

Histoire archivistique

Preserved interstate treaties and other documents from the 12th century provide enough data to show that the authorities would already at that time oversee the work of the public notary and the chancellery. 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. Nevertheless, the competencies of some of these administrative offices continued to overlap. Therefore, the books of this fonds, which were kept by the chancellors, cannot be strictly separated in their content from the books of the fonds Procurae Notariae (HR-DADU-11) which were kept by public notaries.

Source immédiate d'acquisition ou de transfert

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. The books 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 dislocated to the Sponza Palace in 1952, where it is still located today.

Zone du contenu et de la structure

Portée et contenu

The fonds contains books of various types of powers of attorney registered in the period from the 15th to the beginning of the 19th century, in which, in addition to citizens residing in the Dubrovnik Republic, citizens from other countries are also referenced either in a role of authorised proxies or principals. The topics of these documents are mainly related to the conduct of various types of business both in Dubrovnik and in other, foreign countries, mainly in the Ottoman Empire and in the countries of the Apennine Peninsula.


The fonds is very important for the reconstruction of the Jewish business network in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. There are many references to Jewish people in the fonds: some references relate to the Jews who lived in Dubrovnik at the time, while others relate to those from other countries. The data show that many of the powers of attorney that were registered at the Chancellery were written in various cities of the Ottoman Empire (Belgrade, Sarajevo) or Italy (Ancona, Venice). The main topics of these documents are the collection of debts, the conducting of business affairs, and the representation at in-court and out-of-court settlements of commercial disputes. To illustrate, the following is an example of a power of attorney signed by the principal and written in Hebrew letters. The document refers to a certain Jew by the name of Solomon Barelia from Belgrade who came to Dubrovnik in 1674 and, at the Chancellery, authorized Jakob Almoslino to collect debts for him in Dubrovnik, Ancona, Venice, and in other cities in Italy (vol. 59, ff. 194-195v). Principals would often give a so-called general power of attorney in which they would declare the people they authorised as their alter ego. It is important to point out that a significant number of Jewish women are also referenced to in this fonds, most often also in the function of principals or of those who gave a power of attorney to someone else. Judita Luzzena is one of the few women to appear as a proxy: her husband Samuel Luzzena declared her to be his alter ego in 1795 (vol. 82a, f. 173). References can be found in this fonds to some members of Dubrovnik Jewish families, such as Ambonetti, Campos, Cohen, Fermo, Levi Mandolfo, Luzzena, Maestro, Pappo, Pardo, Russo, Terni, Tolentino, Valenzin, Vitali; to some of their relatives who lived abroad; as well as to members of some other Jewish people from foreign countries, such as Barrafael, Bianchi, Della Tomba, Mucciaccio.

Évaluation, élimination et calendrier de conservation

Accroissements

Mode de classement

Zone des conditions d'accès et d'utilisation

Conditions d’accès

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).

Conditions de reproduction

Taking photographs and scanning are allowed, for a fee.

Langue des documents

  • italien
  • latin

Écriture des documents

  • latin

Notes de langue et graphie

Caractéristiques matérielle et contraintes techniques

Paper. The archival material is well preserved.

Instruments de recherche

Građa za generalni katalog Državnog arhiva u Dubrovniku, box 17, folder 5. Josip Gelčić,»Catalogus i. r. Archivii Ragusini.« Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini 22 (1910): 537-588.

Zone des sources complémentaires

Existence et lieu de conservation des originaux

State Archives in Dubrovnik

Existence et lieu de conservation des copies

The fonds has been completely transferred to microfilms, but the microfilms are not available to the users of archives.

Unités de description associées

Consilium Minus (HR-DADU-4), Diversa Notariae (HR-DADU-9), Procurae Notariae (HR-DADU-11), Tutores Notariae (HR-DADU-12.3), Diversa Cancellariae (HR-DADU-15)

Descriptions associées

Note de publication

Vesna Miović, Židovke u Dubrovačkoj Republici, (summary: Jewish Women in the Dubrovnik Republic) Zagreb-Dubrovnik: HAZU Zavod za povijesne znanosti, 2013. Vesna Miović, Židovski rodovi u Dubrovniku (1546-1940) (summary: Jewish Families of Dubrovnik (Ragusa), 1546-1940), Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Dubrovniku 2017.

Zone des notes

Note

Most registers contain alphabetical indexes according to the personal name of the principal, indicating also the page number on which the case begins.

Identifiant(s) alternatif(s)

Old reference code

Fonds of the Dubrovnik Republic and the territory of the former Republic under the French Administration, series 29

Mots-clés

Mots-clés - Sujets

Mots-clés - Lieux

Mots-clés - Noms

Mots-clés - Genre

Zone du contrôle de la description

Identifiant de la description

Identifiant du service d'archives

Règles et/ou conventions utilisées

Descriptions of fonds, series and sub-series are made according to the ISAD (G) standard (general international standard archival description).

Statut

Niveau de détail

Dates de production, de révision, de suppression

2021

Langue(s)

  • anglais

Écriture(s)

Sources

Note de l'archiviste

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

Zone des entrées

Sujets associés

Personnes et organismes associés

Genres associés

Lieux associés