Summary

      Okvir slobode is a book that provides ample insight into Ragusan (Dubrovnik’s) patricians, from their real and invented roots to the social, political, ideological, economic, and spiritual characteristics that defined them in fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The history of the Ragusan Republic is the history of its patricians: the communal heritage and institutions replaced by an aristocratic republic, while its classical heritage was built into patrician ideology. In the analysis of these roots, myth was separated from reality and than both were used as historical facts. The privileged class could acquire legitimacy solely based upon their descent from ancient nobility, because in this way no newly rich men of common background could attain aristocratic status and political power. The Ragusan patricians believed itself to stem from four classical cultures: these of Epidaurus, Rome, Troy, and Salona. Their actual Slav and Roman origin was wrapped in a mythical story, which corroborated aristocratic ideology.

     By the fifteenth century Dubrovnik became an aristocratic republic ruled exclusively by a closed and hereditary patricians. Dubrovnik nobility was absolutely synonymous with political power. The rules that defined the Dubrovnik aristocratic elite were the strictest in all Europe. This tightly consolidated group managed to maintain and guard its leadership and social status until the fall of the Republic. Resistance to every kind of political and social change petrified Dubrovnik’s hierarchy and its administration. Ancient origin, freedom, and peace were the key notions of their ideology. The civic virtues that were demanded of noblemen subordinated the individual to the common good, the interests of the Republic and traditional values. Conservatism penetrated all the aspects of Dubrovnik public life, thus becoming the guiding principle of the ruling class and consequently, of each individual as well. Due to these interrelations, the story of Ragusan nobility can’t be reduced to the aristocracy only, but should necessarily embrace the broader social community and the individuals alike. The life of Dubrovnik nobles reflected politics, economy, social circumstances and the contemporary mentality – all of which contributed to their establishment in the Ragusan society. That is why the author, having traced the origins of Dubrovnik’s patricians, their ideology, political and administrative system, and relations with Venice and the Hungarian crown, sets out to describe the social relations and the mentality of Dubrovnik in the fifteenth century. The analysis sheds light on the relations and contacts within the nobility itself and its diverse communication patterns with other social strata. The author further draws attention to the patrician groups who were excluded from administration, that is those who were denied full patrician status. These were minors, women, priests, and members of religious orders. These chapters also deal with the understanding of youth in the Middle Ages, the role of women in the transmission of aristocratic status and in interclass communication and the domination of the State over the Church.

     Humanism emerged with the conception of nobility as a personal quality that had to be reconciled with the old aristocratic ideology. This was achieved by means of the ideology itself and a social pact that was a prominent characteristic of Dubrovnik society of the time. Harmony between the “good government” and its loyal people was primarily maintained by the general prosperity of the city, but it had an ideological background as well. The aristocratic establishment viewed Ragusan autonomy and peace as a result of a perfect institutional apparatus and devoted service of “the betters” – noblemen, who were born to privilege and political power. The other members of the community generally accepted the patrician monopolization of political leadership. The once equally distributed public welfare was now confined to the ruling class, whereas the participation of other groups was narrowed to subject loyalty. The author studied these particularities of the Ragusan society primarily in comparison with Dalmatian cities and then with Venice, Florence and a number of German towns governed by patricians.

     The book’s closing chapters are devoted to power codes’ expressed through ceremony, the meanings of family names and patrimonies, heraldry, written and oral aristocratic tradition, modes of dress, the decoration of houses, the cult of the dead, and other social status symbols. In her analysis of the profane and holy rituals performed in the service of the politics and state, the author points to the sophisticated ways and keen sense of detail with which the Ragusan government exhibited its ideological views to the public. This analysis is concerned with the state insignia, which also became a part of the aristocratic symbolism, for power. The republic and the patricians were one and the same. The republic’s ideology determined the nobility as a group destined to preserve its values and therefore occupied a privileged position in the political and social hierarchy. This fundamental belief ‘nourished the exclusive consciousness of the elite, and thus became a vehicle of domination by means of ceremonies, symbols, insignia and visual artistic messages.

     The fifteenth century marked the triumph of the Dubrovnik Republic and its patricians. An efficient administrative system was established, different from the medieval commune. The evolution of the government organization was supported by an ideological system unique in its complexity in the medieval and early modem history of Croatia. It was in this century that a blending of ideas occurred: the residues of the medieval transcendental views of the world were implanted in the political ideas of renaissance Dubrovnik. The system owed its long life to the rigidity of its norms, but it was the same rigidity that on the other hand induced the patricians’ downfall. Closely knit within their groups, the aristocracy kept the same norms and codes even after the outside world was utterly changed.

     Viewed methodologically, Okvir slobode can be defined in terms of historical anthropology not only in its selection of problems but also by giving particular attention to real people from the past. The author combines the critically evaluated sources from the Historical Archives of Dubrovnik with a highly personal standpoint and commentary. Of all the major issues of Dubrovnik’s history throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, she singles out the question of freedom, individuality, and spirituality. In order to answer these questions, she is concerned with art, philosophy, religiosity, politics, and ethics, that is, the general sensibility of the time reflected in social groups and ultimately in, each individual.