Map of the Venetian-Ottoman Border Demarcation in Part of Northern and Central Dalmatia, 1588/1589

Abstract

Among historical sources which allow a proposed reconstruction of the Venetian-Ottoman border demarcation on the northeast coastal and hinterland area of the Adriatic in the early modern period, old maps are especially prominent. As graphic depictions of spatial relations, they are a first-class historical source of geographical data. Such is the manuscript map by an unknown author which depicts the Venetia-Ottoman border demarcation in part of northern and central Dalmatia after the War of Cyprus. The map is housed in the Miscellanea – Materie miste e notabili fund at the State Archives in Venice and has not yet been the subject of scientific and expert research. To a lesser extent, because of its natural-geographic contents, and to a greater extent because of its depiction of settlements, fortifications, roads and especially borders, it is an important testimony to knowledge at the time of the topography of the coastal and hinterland parts of the Šibenik, Trogir and Split communes, as strategic parts of the Venetian Stato da Mar threatened by Ottoman military and looting forays and territorial incursions.