Старији препис велике повеље цара Душана Дубровнику
The Older Copy of Emperor Dušan’s Great Charter to Dubrovnik

Summary/Abstract: The paper offers the first complete edition of the older copy of the long and elaborate charter issued to the city of Dubrovnik by the Serbian emperor Stefan Dušan on September 20, 1349. An analysis of the copy’s orthographic characteristics and handwriting confirms the earlier view that it was written by Give de Parmegano, Dubrovnik’s official Slavic scribe from 1348 to 1363. Following an earlier observation that a dorsal note on the copy was written by the same hand that wrote the original of the 1357 confirmation of Dušan’s charter issued by his son and successor Uroš, a thorough three-way orthographic and syntactic comparison established that Uroš’s confirmation was in fact written from Parmegano’s copy. Since it is known that Dušan kept an original of his 1349 document for himself, this raises questions regarding the archiving of documents in the Serbian imperial chancery. On the other hand, Uroš’s scribe demonstrates great confidence and capability in transforming the text of Parmegano’s copy into a confirmation charter, also supplementing it with a proem and the Serbian variant of the logos formula to give it the appearance of an imperial chrysobull. Finally, evidence provided by traces of sealing and a lengthy dorsal note in Italian indicate that the copy also saw extensive use after 1357, most probably in the 1370s and 1380s, when Dubrovnik sought and received confirmations of the privileges granted by Dušan from the various regional lords who rose to power after the disintegration of the Serbian Empire.

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