Protecting a Dalmatian Town: Security Measures in Venetian Split (1480–1550)

From Firenze University Press Journal: Reti Medievali

Lena Sadovski, Institut für Mittelalterforschung der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften

Threats, crises, and catastrophes of varying types and scopes challenged the survival of towns throughout history. In his recent book on the “Politics of Catastrophe”, written in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Niall Ferguson rightly points out that the severity of an event, be it natural or man-made, and the watershed at which it becomes a disaster, a catastrophe or even a long-lasting crisis, depend to a large extent on the preconditions of the society hit by that certain event. Both external factors, such as the geographic location or the construction of houses, and internal factors, such as the stability of a society’s administration and the capacities of its leadership, are decisive. Thus, as Ferguson writes, “a catastrophe lays bare the societies and states that it strikes”. In my view, not just the results of and responses to the catastrophe do that but also the measures of precaution taken in anticipation of such critical events tell us a lot about the structures and working of a given society. Security is a well-studied topic in political, social, and historical science. The historiographical debate on security and protection in the medieval and early modern period has highlighted the importance of studying security as a multifaceted concept that encompasses various dimensions: in the first place, military security in view of external and internal threats such as wars and rebellions is a classic historiographical theme. Further subtopics are religious, spiritual or moral security, which is closely related to the protection of — or from — (religious) minorities, a topic that became ever more important during the age of confessionalization when a religious and confessional plurality was increasingly considered to be a challenge for security policy. Other aspects concern crime and policing, social security and welfare, a secure economy and employment protection, food security, legal security and the stability of the law, the representation and symbolism of security in archi-tecture and art, and, not least, security in the face of natural threats posed by weather, climate, disease, or fire. Analysing security in all its facets is thus a deeply interdisciplinary task.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/1593-2214/10025

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