Dubrovnik / Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa was a maritime republic centred on the Adriatic port of Dubrovnik, today part of Croatia’s Dalmatian coast. It had formerly been ruled by Venice. It was Catholic but, for much of the period, it was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. This gave it protection from its powerful rival, Venice, as well as tax breaks and special trading rights in the Black Sea. It appears that trade between the Duchy of Tuscany and the Ottoman Empire passed through Ragusa. Between 1530 and 1540 Ragusa supplanted Venice in the Ottoman trade. In 1563 Ragusa established a colony at Gandaulim near Goa in India.
After the Expulsion, from around 1501, Ragusa was the main route used by Jewish refugees coming from Venice and Ancona in Italy and heading to Salonica and Skopje in the Ottoman Empire. They followed the overland trade route through the Balkans. In 1553 Dona Gracia de Nasi, arguably the leading Jewish figure of the age, docked at Ragusa with her galleys and was well-received. The city later became important in her trade with Italy. The Jews came under suspicion when Cyprus was lost by the Christians to the Turks in 1570.
In 1622 a Christian girl was found murdered in the home of a woman who appeared to have mental health issues. The woman confessed to the crime but said she had been enticed by Isaac Jeshurun who wanted the blood for Jewish rituals.
Ragusa was hit by a major earthquake in 1667. The Ottoman general Kara-Mustafa Pasha appears to have wanted to end their independence in 1677, but never got around to it.
In 1844 Sir John Gardner Wilkinson reported there were Spanish-speak Jews in Ragusa and Split, who are likely to be a remnant of the former population. Documents suggest the community comprised both western (Portuguese-speaking) and eastern (Ladino-speaking) Sephardim. Of course, Livorno in Tuscany became the major western Sephardic centre in the Mediterranean.
Sitting on the fault-line between the Christian and Muslim worlds, Ragusa appears to have been a centre of intrigue and spying.
The Jews of Ragusa have been studied in Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Mediterranean World After 1492, edited by A Meyuhas Ginio. The book says that in the late 16th Century the Jews of Ragusa had the same surnames as those of Venice, Ancona and Sofia, suggesting there were family trading networks. The book tells us that:
“The Jewish names more frequently mentioned in the texts are as follows: Semuel Maestro, Aron Coen, Daniel Campos, Israel, Josef, and Samuel Franco, Abraham Ferro, Salamum Luzena, Isaach Naamias, Rafael Penso, Salomon Leui, Issach Lima, Abram Pardo, Jacob Abenun, Salamon Oef, Mose Pappo, Abram Atias, Joseph Baruh,et cetera”
I suppose that Ragusa rather lost its significance when the Hot/Cold War between Spain/Hapsburgs and the Ottoman Empire was overtaken by the rise of France, Holland and England, and growing importance of the Tuscan port of Livorno, and decline of Venice.
There was a great earthquake in 1667. The picture to the right is a Dutch print of a Jewish man in Ragusa circa 1680.
The links below show Dubroknik synagogue. The second video is in French.
The National Archives in Dubrovnik may contain useful material.
Split
There is a booklet on the Jewish cemetery in Split: Efron, Zusja and Dusko Keckemet. Zidovsko Groblje u Splitu 1573-1973. (Split: Jewish Community of Split), 1973, 24.
Links
Publications & Sources