GRAD SENJ U EUROPSKOJ KARTOGRAFIJI 16. I 17. ST.
THE CITY SENJ IN THE CARTOGRAPHY FROM THE 16th AND 17th CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: This essay is a contribution to the "Oeco-history" of Senj. This "subaspect of economic and social history researches the natural preconditions of historical events. Landmapes and, in general, illustrations are indispensable and very important sources, as they pretend on geographically preciseness and detailness. Zengg/Senj as an urbane center, situated at the Adriatic-seacoste can be traced on some of the oldest geographical maps dating from the later 16. and the earlier 17. century, represented in the Cartographical collection of the Croatian State Archive. Besides landmapes, important sources are also sketches of the architectonic "stock" (e.g. civil buildings, family-houses, fortresses, walls) and explaining legends, as well as the reports of military engineers on the architectonical status and their proposals for reconstruction. The cited cartographical sources compared with the results of researches in the narrative archivals of the "Kriegsarchiv" (the Court-War-Council's Archiv in Vienna and Graz, als well as the complementary sources of the Slovenian State Archive in Ljubljana) show that it was the crude karst-landscape of Senj as well as its ras climate, which additionally to the vicinty of the (invisible) border-line to the Turkish territories of Bosna blocked the development of traffic, contacts with continental Croatia and the other Inneraustrian provinces. However, Senj which throughout the 16. and the 17. century had to concentrate all its forces on its defension and the protection of its back area, and therefore faced a certain "militarisation", in the sense of subording all other needs to military discipline, did not forfeit its urban image and reputation as an ancient urban center. The autoress faced the need to draw attention on the fact, that the cartographical sources of the historical period in question, which represents the most early cartographical tradition, cannot claim the same high degree of objectiveness as modern cartography. But in comparison to the utmost abstract and symbolic "language" of modern landmapes, these ancient Renaissance-sources offer us a lot of concrete details and, therefor, allow various interpretations. Thus it is indispensable to combine the cartographical researches with archival sources.

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