There is a little corner of Venice that is forever Slav.
I’m devoting this blog to that corner, which is best known for its jewel-box of paintings by Vittore Carpaccio, the artist commissioned by the Slavs of Venice to depict their own saints in their own sacred place, the Scuola Dalmata dei Santi Giorgio e Trifone.
It’s a thousand years since Venice and the Slavs, known as the Schiavoni, were first drawn into a warm and symbiotic relationship by proximate geography and mutual interest. With the Ottomans encroaching ever further west and Mediterranean pirates increasingly audacious, Venice represented both a place and source of safety for the threatened Christian populations of the western Balkans. And Dalmatia in turn stood as Venice’s last line of defence against a Turkish domination of the Adriatic.
In 998 AD, the Dalmatian city-states appealed to Doge Pietro Orseolo for protection. The Venetian fleet swept in, hunting down and suppressing the pirates. Orseolo was welcomed as a liberator. He and his successors took the title ‘Duke of the Dalmatians’.
Domenico Tintoretto, ritratto dei dogi
Pietro Orseolo II ed Ottone Orseolo, Palazzo Ducale,
courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Over the next four hundred years, the whole Dalmatian coast became part of the Stato da Màr, the name given to la Serenissima’s overseas possessions. Trade relations flourished; so did the population of Schiavoni living in Venice.
In 1368, Perast – in modern Montenegro – was named Venice’s "FEDELISSIMA GONFALONIERA" – most faithful flagbearer. In peace-time, the Venetian war standard was held by the Captain of Perast. In times of war, that banner was hoisted on the navy’s flagship. Each year, twelve Perastini, chosen from the most valiant, swore to die rather than allow the Venetian flag to fall into enemy hands. More on this later.