The Venetian Lettere Ducali from the Western European Section of the Historical Archive of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Fourteenth to Mid-Sixteenth Centuries (An Archaeographic Commentary)

Abstract

This study presents research on a set of Venetian lettere ducali of the 14th to mid-16th centuries and the preparation of their full-text publication. Due to their diplomatic and palaeographic characteristics, the lettere ducali stored in St. Petersburg are an example of well-developed chancery production, despite the chancery still being institutionalized at that point. The lettere ducali are among the most widespread varieties of the documents issued by the Venetian doges at that time. In this regard, the clarification of authenticity criteria and the attributive features of these letters is the most urgent purpose of the project, given that there is yet to be a systematic publication and sequential study of the lettere ducali of the 14–16th centuries. As regards the medieval and early modern chancery activity in the Venetian Republic, only the period up to the 13th century has been studied well enough; only minor sets of the authentic later lettere ducali have been published. The documents in question are from the manuscript collection of Likhachev (1862-1936), a Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, have never been published, and have gone almost unnoticed in the scholarly discourse. The publication of these documents will allow medievalists to study previously unknown sources. The extensive study of the diplomatic and palaeographic peculiarities of the letters, their description and visualization, their attribution and the transcription of the notes of the scribes will provide researchers with the tools for the historical criticism of this variety of documents. The preliminary outcomes of the research and a deep analysis of certain case studies found in the manuscripts are to be presented as scholarly articles in double-blind peer-reviewed journals and in conference proceedings