On June 28 Gondola suggested that the Senate should send an ambassador to the King of Spain requesting him, in memory of their ancient fidelity to his predecessors, to place the Republic officially under his own protection, because although the Pope was friendly, he was old and in bad health, and if he were to die the Venetians might seize the opportunity to molest the city. This advice was followed, and in the treaty of alliance the little Republic received the joint protection of Christendom, a clause being inserted in it to the effect that “no acts of hostility are to be committed against Ragusa and its territory, the Pope for weighty reasons having so decreed.” Thus by her successful diplomacy Ragusa was under the ægis of seven different Powers—Spain, the Papacy, the Empire, Venice, Hungary, the Turks, and the Barbary Deys—whence its citizens earned the sobriquet of “Le Sette Bandiere” (the Seven Standards); and although subsequently they often were in difficulties with some of their protectors, they could always play the one off against the other. This was the secret of their long-continued independence.
FORTE SAN LORENZO
Although the Republic remained officially neutral in the war of Lepanto, numbers of Ragusan merchants and adventurers took advantage of it to make their own fortunes, many of them obtaining contracts for transporting troops, or hiring out their ships and crews. During the early part of the war Ragusan shipping suffered some damage, being plundered now by the Turks and now by the Christians, in spite of the treaty of protection; and as it was even feared that the city itself might be in danger, it was decided to strengthen the fortifications. An addition had been made to them in 1550-1558, when the large Forte San Giovanni was built; while the port was enlarged and improved with a new pier called the Diga delle Casse, constructed under the superintendence of Pasquale da Nola. In 1570 the Tower of Santa Margherita was begun by Sigismondo Hier;[471] and soon after Saporoso Matteucci, one of Piero Strozzi’s ablest pupils, was appointed commander of the garrison and director of fortifications. Santa Margherita was the last building erected from the foundations; subsequent additions were merely restorations, and the defences of the city have remained practically unaltered since that time.[472]
The following year the battle of Lepanto was fought, in which the Turkish fleet was completely defeated. From this moment the decline of the Ottoman power may be said to begin. It is asserted that Ragusan galleys were found on both sides in this fight. Afterwards the city became the meeting-place for the Christian and Turkish commanders to arrange for the exchange of prisoners and the preliminaries of peace. Numbers of illustrious foreigners from all countries filled the town, and according to Appendini, sixty noble Christian captives were exchanged for an equal number of Turkish officers. But the Republic’s equivocal attitude during the war caused trouble with the Sandjakbeg of the Herzegovina, who in 1572 made various raids into the territory, laying waste some districts and carrying off many captives. Turkish pirates landed at Meleda and massacred all the monks, save those who took refuge in the caves.[473] At last, in 1573, a general peace was concluded, much to the disgust of the Venetians, who saw that in spite of the victory over the Turks it was not properly followed up, and the enemy was allowed to recuperate. Ragusa, however, was delighted, for the peace removed her dangers from both quarters. But even this spell of quiet was destined to be short-lived, and now began a series of calamities culminating in the great earthquake of 1667, which brought about the gradual decline of the Republic.
The Reformation had some slight effect at Ragusa about this time, and during the archbishopric of Crisostomo Calvino (the name is a curious coincidence) some preachers were permitted to censure the loose morals of the clergy and even advocate changes in the statutes of the Church. But the movement was short-lived, and the Senate had the books of the Ragusan Matteo Flacco (born in 1520), who was suspected of heresy, burnt by the public executioner. After the death of Crisostomo in 1575 the Jesuits, who had made their first appearance in 1559 as missionaries, established themselves permanently and set up a college and a church. Thus all traces of Protestantism were stamped out.
A new disturbance was now caused by the Uskoks, a gang of Christian pirates. Originally these men were refugees from the lands occupied by the Turks. Many, as we have seen, settled at Ragusa and in other Dalmatian towns; but wherever they were they revenged themselves on the usurpers by raiding their territory, plundering their caravans, and keeping up a constant guerilla warfare on the frontiers. Clissa became their chief stronghold, whence they conducted operations against the Infidel; but when, in 1537, the Turks besieged and captured it, the Uskoks were forced to fly once more. The Emperor Ferdinand gave them a refuge at Segna (Zengg) in the Quarnero, a town protected on the land side by impassable mountains and forests. From Segna they continued their raids into Turkish territory, and also began operations by sea. The place soon became a refuge for outlaws of all nations, and the Uskoks ended by becoming as notorious pirates as the Narentans had been of old. They were always a trouble to the Ragusans, sometimes because they captured their galleys, and sometimes because by attacking the Turks they involved the Republic in difficulties with the Porte, who accused it of protecting the freebooters because they were Christians. In 1577 numbers of them were still hanging about in the Dalmatian mountains, and made raids as far as Trebinje, while others from Segna harried Turkish merchantmen. They professed to regard the Ragusans as vassals of the Sultan, and plundered their ships too; but the latter were able to give as hard knocks as they received, and in one encounter killed one of the Uskok leaders. Peace was restored through the mediation of Austria under whose protection the Uskoks were. But the Turks persisted in regarding the Ragusans as the accomplices of the pirates, and again the Sandjakbeg threatened to lay waste their territory. On the land side the Republic was vulnerable, while on the sea her shipping had suffered heavily in the Spanish wars. The incident ended in the Ragusans bribing the enemy into a more reasonable attitude.
In 1602 the inhabitants of the island of Lagosta revolted against Ragusan authority, because they complained that their ancient liberties guaranteed to them in the act of submission had been violated. The Ragusan count was driven out, and the islanders raised the banner of St. Mark and asked to be placed under Venetian protection. This was accorded, and a Venetian garrison landed on the island. Long negotiations ensued, and at last Lagosta was given back to Ragusa, but on very onerous conditions.[474]
In 1617-18 Ragusa was involved in the quarrels between Venice and Spain, which culminated in the famous Spanish conspiracy. The Venetians had been carrying on operations against the Uskoks since the end of the sixteenth century. The Provveditore Tiepolo took and destroyed Scrissa (on the site of the modern Carlopago) and hanged all the garrison. On his death he was succeeded in the command by Bembo, who, with a fleet of fifteen galleys and thirty long barques, manned by 800 soldiers, blockaded Trieste and Fiume, so as to bring pressure to bear on the Archduke of Austria. He also shut up 700 Uskoks in the harbour of Rogoznica. But on a stormy night they managed to escape, and Bembo, weary and disgusted, resigned his commission. His successor, Giustiniani, did some damage to the freebooters, and negotiations between Venice and Austria were commenced with a view to putting an end to their depredations. But nothing came of the discussions, and the Uskoks’ sack of Trebinje nearly involved Venice as well as Ragusa in a new Turkish war. In 1614 the Uskoks waylaid the Venetian Cristoforo Venier on his ship at Pago, murdered the officers and crew, and carried Venier himself to Segna, where they cut off his head and banqueted with it on the table, dipping their bread in his blood. Austria did nothing, and the pirates made fresh raids into Istria and the Venetian islands. The Venetians bombarded and captured Novi, and war broke out with Austria, which lasted until the Peace of Madrid in 1617. By this treaty Venice, Austria, and Spain bound themselves to remove the Uskoks to the interior of Croatia. A Venetian squadron sailed down the Adriatic, and with the pretext of capturing the Uskok galleys, anchored in the harbour of Gravosa, and blockaded Ragusa itself, which was defended by Marino Vodopić with a small body of Hungarian mercenaries. The Duke of Ossuna, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, undertook the protection of Spain’s old ally, and sent a squadron up the Adriatic with the object of attacking Venice and co-operating in the Bedmar conspiracy. The plot was discovered and the fleet failed in its main object, but it succeeded in forcing the Venetians to abandon Gravosa. This, however, caused the Turks to accuse the Ragusans of having allied themselves with Spain to the detriment of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time certain persons whispered accusations of double-dealing against the Ragusans in the Spanish court itself. Venice nursed a resentment against the Ragusans for having been on good terms with Spain at the time of the conspiracy, and indulged in a “policy of pin-pricks” towards the little Republic. The latter also suffered annoyances from the Pashas of Bosnia, who were always imposing extortionate duties on Ragusan goods, and arresting Ragusan merchants as they passed through the country. These turbulent viceroys had to be pacified with presents and heavy bribes. When in 1647 the war of Candia broke out between the Venetians and the Turks, Ragusa feared that she too would be involved in the conflict, and appealed to the Pope for protection. But this time she succeeded in maintaining a neutral attitude without being molested, the Sultan’s plan for concentrating his troops at Ragusa for an invasion of Dalmatia having been luckily abandoned.
During the quieter period after 1631 the Ragusans turned their attention once more to the development of their commerce, but they discovered that the conditions were entirely changed from what they were a hundred, or even fifty, years previously. The whole of the Atlantic and East Indian trade was divided between the English and the Dutch, and such of the Mediterranean trade as was not also in their hands was in those of the Venetians. The Ragusan merchant navy had been for the most part lost in the service of Spain or captured by pirates, and a large proportion of their seamen killed in battle or drowned. Their shipping was therefore reduced to little more than a few coasting vessels, and the Republic’s only resource was now the land trade with Bosnia and the Herzegovina. But that too was less brisk than it used to be, as the general trade of the Balkans was tending more and more to follow the Budapest, Belgrad, and Sofia highway to Constantinople instead of the Adriatic routes. Decadence was setting in throughout Dalmatia, and the halcyon days of the Republic of Ragusa had passed away. The Italian trade now consisted of little more than the transport of grain necessary for the feeding of the inhabitants, and the Italian colony was very small. Few families from Italy, or even from other parts of Dalmatia and the Herzegovina, came to settle at Ragusa as heretofore. The old families were declining in wealth and activity, while a few newer ones from the neighbourhood monopolised the little trade that survived. On the other hand, luxury increased, public and private festivities became more frequent and more magnificent, so as to hide the symptoms of decadence, and the old accumulations of wealth were gradually squandered away. The old social distinctions, however, were kept up with even greater strictness, and the hereditary nobility continued to remain absolutely separate from all meaner mortals. The arts, too, languished, and no more fine buildings arose. The decline of Ragusa bears a striking similarity to that of Venice.