Marino Coppo details the conditions demanded by the Aquileian patriarch [Raymond della Torre] for the lease of the cataloged rights in Istria [doc. 1280_IURA] to Venice for a period of twenty-nine years.
Sovra lo fato del Istria, credo ego, Marinus Coppo, inducere dominum patriarcham quod dabit omnia iura que habet a ponte de Sancto Iohanne inde per totam Istriam, videlicet temporalia, ad fictum a XXVIIII anno. Que iura data fuerunt in scriptis domino Marino Dauro et domino Petro Teupolo, volendo facere Venecia domino patriarche res infrascriptas:
[1] Inprimis petebat patriarcha libras DCCCC de grossis a Venecia.
[2] Item petebat quod Venecia ipsum deberet facere in civem suum.
[3] Item petebat quod Venecia faceret cridari per Istriam quod deberet currere sua moneta de Aquilegia et quod deberet currere per totam Istriam, sicut currit intus per Foroiulium.
[4] Item petebat MCXXXVIII amphoras vini, ultra illas que sibi dantur hodie, ad trahendum de Marchia Anconitana vel de Istria, in toto vel parte accipere ad suam voluntatem et portare in Foroiulium.
[5] Item petebat modia CCC de blava ad trahendum de Marchia vel Apulia vel de extra culfum Istrie et adducere in Foroiulium, si sibi videretur; et si sibi videretur, ipsa trahere de Foroiulio et portare in Istria vel in Dalmacia, in terris amicorum; et volebat habere bailiam de portando illa.
[6] Item petebat accipere de Istria vel de Marchia vel de Apulia C milliaria olei et conducere in Foroiulio.
[7] Item petebat quod Veneciaa non faceret sigillum de aliqua mercantia que exiret de Venecia a Tervisio ultra nec a Tergesto hinc, nisi ad Aquilegiam.
[8] Item petebat CC milites omni anno, si sibi essent necesarii, ad III menses ad suum auxilium a ponte Sancti Iohannis usque ad Sclusam et usque supra Taiamentum.
Et hec omnia intendit velle dominus patriarcha omni anno.
[9] Item petebat quod ille qui erit in Istria pro Venecia teneatur sibi facere satisfieri infra III menses totum illud quod sibi deficiebat de suis rationibus, que non recepit ita in isto tempore quomodo etiam in tempore domini patriarche Gregorii.
MoCCCIIIo, mense martii, indictione prima.
a) seq. a Trivisio inde nec de Tergesto hinc nisi canc. B.
Regarding the business of Istria, I, Marino Coppo, intend to persuade the lord patriarch to lease all the rights that he has from the bridge of San Giovanni di Duino through the whole of Istria for 29 years, namely the temporal jurisdictions, the rights that were given in writing to Lord Marino Dauro and Lord Pietro Tiepolo, in the case that Venice would be willing to do the following things for the lord patriarch:
[1] First, the patriarch asked 900 pounds of groats from Venice.
[2] Likewise, he asked to be granted Venetian citizenship.
[3] Likewise, he asked Venice to decree throughout Istria that his Aquileian coin must circulate and that it must be in circulation in all of Istria, just as it circulates throughout Friuli.
[4] Likewise, he asked for 1038 urns of wine, in addition to those that are presently given to him, to be imported from the March of Ancona or from Istria, to be received in full or in installments, according to his desire, and brought to Friuli.
[5] Likewise, he asked for 300 bushels of wheat to be imported, if he sees fit, from the March [of Anconca] or Apulia or from outside of the Gulf of Istria and brought to Friuli, or, if he sees fit, taken from Friuli and exported to Istria or Dalmatia, to friendly lands; and he wanted to have full legal authority to export that wheat.
[6] Likewise, he asked to receive from Istria or from the March or from Apulia a hundred thousandweights of oil and to bring them to Friuli.
[7] Likewise, he asked that Venice not issue seals for any merchandise going from Venice to beyond Treviso or from there to Trieste1, except for merchandise going to Aquileia.
[8] Likewise, he asked for 200 soldiers every year, if they should be necessary for him, to be available to him for three months and to aid him from the bridge of San Giovanni di Duino to Chiusaforte and as far as above the river Tagliamento.
And all of this the lord patriarch intends to receive every year.
[9] Likewise, he asked that the one who would be in Istria in the name of Venice be obliged to compensate within three months all that was missing from his incomes, what he did not receive this time the same way as it had been during the time of Patriarch Gregory [of Montelongo].
1303, the month of March, first indiction.
1) Originally written as a Tervisio ultra—a Tergesto hinc, referring to the territory to the east of Treviso and the west of Trieste, essentially corresponding to Friuli, a region traditionally demarcated by the rivers Timavo to the east and Livenza to the west.
The note authored by Marino Coppo at the behest of the Aquileian patriarch details the conditions asked in return for the lease of the cataloged rights in Istria for a period of twenty-nine years. The note explicitly mentions that the list of rights was given to Venetian ambassadors Marino Dauro and Pietro Tiepolo. These two ambassadors were dispatched to the court of the Aquileian patriarch Raymond della Torre on October 4, 1280, as revealed by their forma ambaxiate – edited here as doc. 1280_CD. Therefore, both the list of rights and the offer contained in Coppo’s note must be dated to the same period. This conclusion, however, leaves one seminal question unanswered: why is the date “MoCCCIIIo, mense martii, indictione prima” appended to the end of the note?
One logical conclusion would be that this Coppo’s note, together with the offer, was indeed originally presented only in March of 1303. This conclusion makes no sense. Namely, Venice had struck a deal with Patriarch Peter in 1300 whereby the jurisdiction over the Venetian territories in Istria was leased for an annual payment of 450 silver marks. Comparing the demands detailed in Coppo’s note, it would make no sense that Peter’s successor, Patriarch Ottobono, would concoct such an offer when Venice was at this point paying only 450 marks for the territories that interested them. Moreover, both Dauro and Tiepolo were explicitly instructed to procure the list of rights together with the offer of lease. It makes no sense that they would return only with the catalogue, but without the conditions for the lease. Thus, it is concluded that Coppo’s note was originally penned together with the catalog of rights and that the two documents form a logical whole. This is further corroborated by Marino Coppo’s prosopography, as the individual appears in sources primarily between 1260s and 1270s (see Banić, cited above, p. 81 for more details).
In 1303, when Patriarch Ottobono reopened negotiations with Venice regarding the jurisdictions in Istria, the old Raymond’s offer was simply put back on the table. At this point, in March of 1303, the Libri Commemorialium series was already initiated (sanctioned in 1291, effectively initiated in 1300; see, Riccardo Predelli (ed.), I libri commemoriali della Repubblica di Venezia: Regesti, vol. 1 (Venice 1876), pp. vi–ix, xi), so both the offer and the accompanying catalog of rights were copied in the register. This would explain the subsequently appended date to the offer that was originally presented in 1280 and subsequently (unsuccessfully) resurrected in 1303. Venice declined the offer in 1303 as it did in 1280; the rights over the subjected Istrian communities – Poreč, Umag, Novigrad, Sveti Lovreč, Motovun, Koper, Izola, Piran and Rovinj – continued to be leased based on the 1300 treaty in exchange for the annual sum of 450 silver marks.
The publication of the facsimile of B (Venice, Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Libri commemoriali, Commemorialium Liber I, fol. 31v) is granted free of charge by Archivio di Stato di Venezia by way of the “simplified procedure” of publishing archival facsimiles (La circolare della Direzione generale archivi n. 39 del 29 settembre 2017: procedura semplificata: pubblicazioni online che perseguano finalità scientifiche o pedagogiche, non beneficino di inserzioni pubblicitarie o commerciali e non siano soggette ad accesso a pagamento).
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