The harbour and wharfing accommodation were enlarged. Work of this kind had been partially accomplished in 1468 under the direction of the Florentine architect Niccolò di Pasquale;[452] further improvements were executed by Mastro Stazio in 1473, and in the following year dredging operations in the port were commenced. In 1475 the quays were enlarged, and warehouses for grain erected. The whole port was rebuilt on a larger scale between 1484 and 1500 by another Florentine, Pasquale di Michele. This same architect also planned the warehouses for goods coming from the interior. When the Republic received formal permission to trade with the Infidel the existing fondico was enlarged in 1432 and 1442. The discovery of the Cape route and the intrigues of the Venetians caused a temporary stagnation of Ragusan trade, but it soon revived, and on June 28, 1515, the Senate decreed “de providendo pro uno fontico spacioso in quo omnia mercimonia possint fonticari.”
Although internal industry never attained to the importance of the Republic’s foreign commerce, it was at this time fairly active. Manufacturers and traders together constituted (in 1514) no less than twenty-one guilds.[453] In 1348 the merchants formed themselves into the Guild of St. Anthony, which in the sixteenth century became so large that those of its members who dealt exclusively with the Eastern trade seceded from it and formed the Guild of St. Lazarus, or “Scuola dei Mercanti di Levante.” These two guilds comprised all the richest persons in the city, and came in time to constitute a separate privileged caste, whose members alone had the right to call themselves citizens, and were the inferiors of the nobles alone. The other lay guilds were: the Pentori, painters, with 19 members; the Callegari, or makers of leather slippers for the neighbouring Turkish provinces, with 146 members; the Pellizzai, or furriers, with 60 members; the Tessatori, or weavers of cloth, founded in 1491, after one Andrea Pantella of Florence had introduced the industry from Italy in 1416, and in 1514 it had 137 members. There were in addition many other guilds in other parts of the Republic’s territory, while a number of other industries, such as the goldsmiths, the tanners, the shipbuilders, the dyers, &c., were not represented by guilds at all.
Professor Gelcich quotes the opinions of a number of foreign writers on Ragusan trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Abate Denina wrote: “The Ragusans were ever a nation of merchants and traffickers, and are well satisfied to do what the Neapolitans have failed to do, monopolising the export trade of the Kingdom (of Naples), and visiting with their ships all parts of the Mediterranean.” Luca de Linda wrote: “The Ragusans have put on the sea a number of large vessels both for war and for traffic, and on them have travelled as far as the New World. Among other enterprises they served the Catholic King with many ships but a short time since in the expedition against the Gerbi, and with forty vessels in the conquest of Portugal.” Amalthæus in a letter to a friend advises him to settle at Ragusa, as there were in that city many opportunities of becoming rich by trade, for there was much active traffic with the West, and the most industrious nations of Europe, such as the French, the Spaniards, the English, the Flemings, and even the Germans had established colonies there.
The above-mentioned writer, Benedetto Ramberti, gives a curious description of Ragusa as it appeared to him in 1533. Being a Venetian his account is somewhat contemptuous and not altogether flattering. “It is well populated,” he writes, “and in a beautiful situation by the sea, on the Dalmatian mainland. It possesses a small harbour and a very small mole.... It is exposed to winds and earthquakes, and is exceedingly cold in winter. The women are not very handsome, and dress very badly, or rather they wear clothes which suit them ill. They have on their heads a long linen covering, which in the case of noblewomen is of white silk and shaped like a pyramid, and thin stockings turned down to their shins. They rarely leave the house, but are much at the window. The young girls are never seen. The women nearly all use the Slavonic language, but the men speak Italian as well.[454] In the city are many fountains of excellent water brought from the hills. About a mile from the gates is a spot called Gravosa, which is a row of houses a mile in length, well built and attractive, with gardens full of oranges, lemons, citrons, and fruit-trees of various kinds, beautifully adorned with fountains fed by aqueducts.... The sea here forms a pleasant harbour large enough to contain a hundred galleys with ease. The Ragusans are usually rich and avaricious, like most merchant folk. They all buy wine in retail, and timber according to certain ordinances of their own. Friends and relations seldom if ever dine together. They think only of making money, and they are so proud that they think there is no other nobility than their own,[455] but I do not say that of all, for I have known some who were very urbane and courteous. And they deserve, indeed, much praise, for being placed in a most narrow and rocky situation they have obtained access to every commodity by means of their own virtue and industry alone, in despite of nature.... They pay tribute to the Sultan, to whom they send orators (ambassadors) every year with 12,000 ducats. The city is not very strong, especially on the land side towards the mountains, and as it is not well provided with walls and fosses it could be defeated.”[456]
CHAPTER X
RAGUSA INDEPENDENT OF HUNGARY (1526-1667)
THE period between the establishment of the Turks in Bosnia and the fall of the Venetian Republic is one of great interest for the whole of Dalmatia. “In these events,” writes an anonymous author in the Annuario Dalmatico,[457] “every village has its part, almost every family its glorious record. And if on the one hand we still find the traces, I may almost say the smoking ruins, of the desolation wrought upon us by the Turkish armies; on the other we find many memories of the valour of the Dalmatians in the trophies of the families, in the rank of nobility obtained as a reward for incredible sacrifices, in the letters of commendation, even in certain religious festivals, and in a large part of those customs which time has rendered sacred to the heart of our people, and most of us observe scrupulously, without perhaps understanding their meaning.”
At the same time Turks and Christians through familiarity became less hostile, and did much business together. “Once the massacre was over the Turks spent much money, and thus after Castelnuovo had been captured, plundered, and 4000 Christians murdered, it became a source of great wealth to the Ragusans and to the people of Perasto. That is the reason why so many Jews from Spain settled on the Turkish shores of the Adriatic, especially at Castelnuovo.... Turkish customs spread among the Dalmatians, even as regards their clothes and their jewels and their harems. Stolivo and the Catena (Bocche di Cattaro) were regular slave marts; women led a retired life like those of the East.” Ragusa was especially affected by Turkish influence, owing to her semi-dependent position and her close intercourse with her powerful neighbour, and this led to many complications with Venice and other Christian States.