SPLIĆANI U MLETAČKIM PREKOMORSKIM PJEŠAČKIM POSTROJBAMA U 18. STOLJEĆU
THE DENIZENS OF SPLIT IN VENETIAN OVERSEAS INFANTRY UNITS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: During the Early Modern Period, mainly in the time of the Veneto-Ottoman wars in the seventeenth and the eighteenth century, the backbone of Venetian Trans-Adriatic armed forces were units called Fanti oltramarini and Croatia cavallo, whose soldiers were recruited primarily from the Venetian acquisitions stretching from Istria to Albania and Greece. In this article, the central topic of research relates to the part the denizens of Split played in the aforementioned military units during the eighteenth century. The article is based on the analysis of sources kept in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (archival series: Inquisitori sopra l’amministrazione dei pubblici ruoli), containing full lists of military complements of regiments and companies. Based on the extant data, personal data of the soldiers and their physical characteristics (age, stature, colour of hair) are analysed. Analysis of the documents shows that in quantitative sense the denizens of Split made one of the most numerous groups of Croatians within Venetian infantry and cavalry. The analysis also shows that the soldiers from Split served in the units mostly commanded by prominent military commanders, who were by their origin also coming from Dalmatia and Boka, and it is evident that those units (regiments and companies) were extremely mobile and collocated all around Venetian Italian and overseas acquisitions. In the end of the article, it is concluded that problematics of the part played by the Croats in Venetian military units, in this particular case of the denizens of Split, due to the rich sources at our disposal, still leaves enough space for future research and scholarly discussion. As an appendix to the article is given full list of hitherto discovered soldiers from Split in the infantry overseas units of the armed forces of Venetian Republic.

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