The archive of the Venetian administration at Ithaca

Abstract

The Greek state archives recently reopened the local archive at Ithaca. Its prolonged inaccessibility to researchers, and the unclassified and uncatalogued state of most of its records, has meant that sources from its large Venetian collection remain unstudied. This article describes the formation and development of the Ithacan archive during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This archive was established to serve the island’s governors and was functionally integrated with the Venetian administration of the island. A selection of primary documents presented here outlines the professionalization of public-record keeping at Ithaca and uncovers this local institution as the site of certain colonial technologies of power. This is further supplemented by a discussion of the provenance of the current “archive of the Venetian administration” through destructive events in the twentieth century, and an account of the present state of the records as a descriptive aid to researchers with a view to renewing interest in the collection.

Keywords:

• Venetian Empire
• colonial archive
• Ionian islands
• bureaucracy
• Greece under Venetian rule

Introduction

The historiography of the Greek lands under Venetian rule has reconstructed the place of Ithaca in the maritime empire from references in sources beyond the island, mainly from Cephalonia and Venice. The Venetians acquired Ithaca (Teachi, Thiachi) together with Cephalonia in 1500 and the smaller island was formally subordinated to its larger neighbour until 1797. The island’s governors were elected annually by the Cephalonian council, representing a key example of the participation of local elites in the administration of the Venetian colonies.¹ The documentary legacy of this administration comprises a large collection of records held at the Ithacan state archives. Yet the inadequacy of state funding to support the regular function of the archive over many years has meant that these sources have escaped citation in the work of historians of the region.² Together with the contemporary notarial registers, the administrative and judicial records of the Venetian period provide an exacting account of the social development of the island in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The recent reopening of the Ithacan archive finally promises to give historians access to this extensive primary evidence, but the incomplete classification of the records means their study requires an appreciation of the formation of the archive itself, and also of its later disordering through war and natural disaster in the twentieth century. Here it is argued that it is not merely the content of the governor’s records which sheds light on the function of colonial rule in Ithaca, but the form of their precise collation and organization into an official archive. To trace the formation of this local Venetian archive uncovers the development of a central component of the institution of a colonial governor exercising delegated power. Yet in reflection of the disinterest with which the Ionian historiography treats Ithaca, until now there have been no attempts to understand the nature of Venetian archival practice in the peculiar case of this island ruled not by appointees sent from Venice, but by local elites from neighbouring Cephalonia.³ This article presents new material from the Venetian-period collection at the Ithacan state archives which chronicles the development of the archive itself. This shows how the increasing bureaucratization and formalization of Venetian administrative practice through the seventeenth century imposed an ongoing responsibility on Ithacan governors to ensure that their successors would be served by the kind of exacting and ordered intelligence they would need in governing their jurisdiction. The evidence examined here exposes the archive not merely as a place of storage, but as the location of a series of administrative practices – of supervision, registration, collection, and organization – which were central to the progression towards a professional bureaucracy as a technology of government. To emphasize such practices here serves to show how a study of the archive itself, not merely the content of the documents held within, can contribute much to our understanding of the administration of small Venetian possessions.⁴ In the Ithacan case such a point is crucial, since the disorderly present state of the records makes their study impossible without being concerned with certain problems of classification. The second part of this article shall therefore survey these problems in the context of the history of the Ithacan archive after the end of Venetian rule, with a discussion of the incomplete attempts to classify the Venetian-period administrative documents.

Part I: the development of the archive of the Venetian governor of Ithaca

The first efforts towards the institution of serious archival practices at Ithaca followed the development of administrative practice in the Venetian administration of neighbouring Cephalonia and the model of the other larger colonial administrations (reggimenti).⁵ The loss of the earliest governors’ records renders it difficult to reconstruct Ithacan archival practice in the first century of Venetian rule, which instead requires the aid of the notarial records.⁶ The earliest records in the Ithacan state archive are found in one of the registers of the notary Nikolaos Paizis. There are two registers assigned to Paizis, respectively labelled 1636–41 and 1644–49. This dating presents several problems which exemplify the generally poor state of classification at the archive.⁷ One of these registers (currently labelled 1644–49) in fact contains the earliest acts, spanning 1603 to 1626.⁸ The misdating of this register likely owes to a note which records its deposit with the office of the governor (cancelleria) in 1644.⁹ This earliest notarial register, however, contains copies of even older acts which had been brought to Paizis to ensure the preservation of their contents and thus the protection of the legal interests of those concerned. The earliest of the copied acts dates to 1575, but most were executed in the last decade of the sixteenth century.¹⁰ That these copies are the oldest records at the Ithacan state archive reflects the significance of the notarial function in a period for which the administration itself has left no written legacy.¹¹

The survival of so few records from the sixteenth century indicates that losses were suffered during damage-inflicting events – likely in the early 1620s, as shall be shown below – but further betrays the poor standards of public record-keeping in the first century or so of Venetian rule. This is indeed indicated by the fact that the significant early register executed by Paizis was not deposited with the administration until 1644, when it was presented by his heir. The poor state of public records on Ithaca was not merely the unique problem of a distant administration ruled by negligent governors, but common even to the office of the Venetian provveditor in Cephalonia. The “considerable disorder” of records serving the Cephalonian administrators solicited the intervention of the then doge, Francesco Erizzo, in 1632, who demanded that the provveditor of Cephalonia order the organization of documents held by the cancelleria, and to establish formal archival practices.¹² The prevailing disorder threatened to obstruct the function of litigation, which depended on accurate records.¹³ Among the reforms were strict processes for the deposit and regulation of registers containing notarial acts.¹⁴ The discovery among the Ithacan documents of corresponding orders issued at Ithaca now shows us that the smaller island’s administrative procedure was not allowed to fall behind in the Cephalonian response to the doge’s demands. The provveditor sent his counsellor (consiglier) Zuanne Zorzi to Ithaca in October 1632, a few months after his name appears on the Cephalonian orders. Zorzi issued a set of orders which adapted the Cephalonian reforms to the Ithacan administration. These are found in two copies in addenda to the notarial registers of Anagnostis Raftopoulos and Nikolaos Paizis, with slight differences in expression and form.¹⁵ A later copy of the orders is found in fragments of the records of the Ithacan governor Giovanni Battista Metaxà (1671).¹⁶ The two originals from 1632 follow the substance of the Cephalonian orders through a Greek translation (albeit extremely Italicizing), while the 1671 copy is in Italian. Both the Greek text from the Paizis register and the later Metaxà copy are transcribed here (see Documents 1 and 2 below). The later translation allows close comparison with the Italian text of the Cephalonian model, which is followed closely despite modifications of form to allow the regulations to be compatible with the particular structure of the Ithacan administration.¹⁷ The Zorzi orders instruct notaries to ensure their registers are properly organized, and imposes an obligation for them to regularly deposit their acts with the governor.¹⁸ There must have been some expectation that registers would be deposited with the governor already by the early seventeenth century, but intervention was eventually required to correct the irregularity of deposits. The governor is furthermore himself instructed to maintain well-ordered registers in the public interest.¹⁹ The reforms are partly justified by reference to the barrier which poor scribal practice imposes before justice for the poor, who are deprived of their rights by the lack of documentary evidence in disputes.²⁰ Whatever the avowed noble motive, the issuing of the reforms in response to the doge’s intervention in Cephalonia makes it clear that their primary object was to ensure that administration was not impeded by improper bureaucratic practices.

The poor condition of public records at Ithaca must have posed a serious obstacle to the continuity of power, with new governors arriving on the island every year to assume the same jurisdiction and responsibilities, a challenge even for biannual rotations in the office of the Cephalonian provveditor.²¹ Such reforms as those issued by Zorzi represent the institution of thorough archival practices in the two islands, reflecting not merely the obligations of notaries, but also the expectations imposed by the higher Venetian officials on the office of the Ithacan governor. This would have been particularly significant for allowing effective Venetian supervision over Ithaca. Authority over the remote jurisdiction was conceded to the Cephalonian council, creating a need for precise, documented intelligence to which the Venetians could have access during the regular visits which they made to supervise the Ithacan governor.²² By the end of the sixteenth century, the southern Ionian islands had developed complex social relations, and their economies were expanding through lucrative trade networks.²³ Effective administration over such growing economies required proper technologies of knowledge, such as regular and rigorous record-keeping. Until now our evidence for the development of archival practices in the region has been restricted to the larger centres, such as Zante and Corfu.²⁴ The new evidence of the Ithacan reforms which is presented in this article is now able to attest that, even in a small colony like Ithaca, the Venetians showed an increasing interest in the regulation and improvement of archival practices from the early seventeenth century. It is possible to trace the implementation of the reforms issued by Zorzi through addenda in the notarial registers, such as the following from the register of notary Stefanis Alevras:²⁵

Adi 13 Ottobre 1695 presentato il presenente [sic] Protocolo da Stefanin Alevrà in esecutione del Proclama publico qual tiene carte scritte quatordeci n^o 14

{Domenico Corafan Governator e Capitanio

An especially important control on archival practice is represented by the compilation of regular inventories of official documents by office of the governor (cancelleria).²⁶ These were produced as a requirement of the transfer of power between a governor and his successor.²⁷ The inventories list all the governors’ records and notarial registers held by the cancelleria. Some are compiled with more care than others, with the dates (often imprecise), condition, and length of volumes described in the most detailed lists, whereas others merely contain the names of governors and notaries. The earliest such inventory is found in the records of Alessandro Diorzi (1654–56), reproduced here as Document 3.²⁸ The list confronts us with the small extent of public records inherited by a governor, despite the passage of a century and a half of Venetian rule. The records handed to Diorzi by the office of his predecessor extended only as far back as the governor Draco Crassan (1625) but encompassed the volumes of most of Crassan’s successors through to 1654.²⁹ Further, the list of notaries does not include any registers which were deposited before 1628.³⁰ Until the later deposit of two earlier notarial registers in 1639 and 1644, the cancelleria would not have had in its possession acts executed before 1620.³¹ This makes it likely that the oldest records were lost to an intensively destructive event not long before 1625. While allowing for natural disaster, another possibility is opened by some references in later notarial acts of the 1630s which cite the loss of older acts “during the time when the Turks sacked Ithaca”.³²

However the losses of the 1620s were incurred, this was not the last period when the documents suffered significant damage. The toll of at least one more destructive event is represented by the later disappearance of the early governors’ volumes which spanned the years 1625 to 1654. None of these have survived, excepting a fragment bearing the signatures of Thomaso Montessanto and his successor Florian Dalladecima (1639–1640) (these are now the earliest attributable records in the governors’ archive and the only ones which predate the large volume of Diorzi, 1654–1656).³³ The inventories allow us to trace the fate of these lost records, and to identify the moment when the archive suffered damage or losses of records. The curious disappearance and reappearance of several other names between various inventories must reflect either imprecise cataloguing or the poor physical state of the records themselves. Disorder on the shelves is also reflected by the fact that even when the compiler takes care to include the dates of the listed records, they rarely appear in a linear chronological order, and multiple volumes from the same governor or notary may even be listed on separate pages.³⁴ A system of ordering more precise than the basic division between notaries and governors is absent from the archival practices perceivable among the inventories. Some of the inventories offer further observation on the condition of the listed records. Many of the governors’ records are already described as damaged by the second earliest surviving inventory from 1668.³⁵ Several more volumes must have sustained damage in the decade following.³⁶ The inventory of 1695 further lists a large number of fragmented records (using the term filze in contrast to volume).³⁷ A number of these had still qualified to be listed as volumi in the preceding inventory of 1682, despite many being noted as lacking covers and bindings.³⁸ The gradual deterioration of the records over time must owe primarily to their improper storage and preservation. This slower process of decline would have been accelerated by isolated destructive events, which are attested by the marks of fire or flood damage. The fate of the earliest of the volumes that has survived until today reflects this precisely. The records of Alessandro Diorzi (1654–1656) are described in the 1695 inventory as “roto e mal condizionato” (broken and in poor condition).³⁹ Yet no such comment attaches to the same records in the 1679 or 1682 inventories, though other volumes are described there as “damaged”. Therefore at least one destructive event must have taken place between 1682 and 1695, likely flooding, given the signs of water damage on Diorzi’s records. Such isolated events, while causing partial damage to certain records, evidently destroyed others entirely. In this way some names disappear forever from the inventories. Most unfortunate is the loss of the entire series of early volumes 1625–1654, sometime between their last citation in the inventory of January 1703 and the next located inventory of November 1710.⁴⁰ While volumes in this series are described as being in poor condition in the 1703 inventory, the disappearance of all these old volumes by 1710 suggests they were not merely lost through incremental decay, but perished in some intervening destructive event sometime during those seven years. This might indeed reflect their physical arrangement in the archive, with the place occupied by the oldest volumes having sustained the most intense of the damage, however this was inflicted.⁴¹

Despite the intervention of destructive events, the collation of regular inventories together with the 1632 reforms reflects a significant improvement in archival practice, while at the same time revealing the deficiencies which remained. The obligation imposed on Ithacan governors to collate the inventories of public documents was one of several technologies of supervision employed by the higher Venetian authorities in order to manage the concession of such significant regional power to local elites in the form of the Ithacan governorship. Another of these was the regular visitation of the island by Venetian functionaries to perform functions not conceded to the governor.⁴² The supervision of the colonial administration required an endless negotiation which was never fully protected from failure. The higher officials were unceasingly drawn into controversies created by the maladministration of the Ithacan governorship by the Cephalonian electees.⁴³ Already by the end of the sixteenth century, the Cephalonian provveditor had recognized the Ithacan administration as an opportunity for corruption at the hands of those delegated to it.⁴⁴ Similarly, concern over the persistence of poor archival practices is expressed once again in 1658 by the consiglier Antonio Boldù in his report presented after the annual visit to Ithaca. The preamble to a series of orders made by Boldù associated the threat which Ithacan maladministration posed to the rule of law with the insufficiency of record-keeping by the governor, citing the barrier which the “loss of the majority of the most important records” imposed on litigants in legal proceedings.⁴⁵ This recalls precisely the same complaint made by the Cephalonian provveditor in 1632, showing the obstinance of certain deficient practices, despite attempts at reform.

In Ithaca, the stubborn resistance which saw poor practices continue long after the reforms might be partly explained by the fact that public records were for some time administered by the governor’s office itself, rather than assuming a separate existence with its own overseer.⁴⁶ Official record-keeping at Ithaca comes to be described as an “archive” in 1714, in a reference to the deposit of a notarial register “nell’Archivi di questa Cancelleria del Thiachi”.⁴⁷ Yet the Ithacan administrative “archive” was at first functionally inseparable from the cancelleria, reflecting the limited staff and resources of this smaller jurisdiction. Indeed the inventories represent the transfer of documents between one governor and his successor.⁴⁸ As the inventory of Diorzi shows, public documents were held and catalogued together with the governor’s military supplies (see the armaments listed in Document 3). The direct responsibility of the cancellieri for the archive appears to have been delegated to a professional sometime before 1755, with the appointment by the provveditor general da Mar of Demetrio Solomon to the role of publico Archivista in the governor’s staff.⁴⁹ The archivist assumed responsibility for custody over the public documents which were stored in a space (the Armer) within the governor’s residence (publico palazzo) (see Document 4). A series of entries from 1755 describes the investigations done by the archivist and the cancellier after it was discovered that the door between the kitchen and the archives had been forced open, allowing access to the room where the documents were held. The account of the damage done betrays another kind of risk to which the archive was exposed, in this case theft and vandalism. The cancellier reports: “I saw both the locks broken by the force used to open them, I also found several volumes with torn pages and the same volumes missing entire booklets, and others ripped apart and in a bad state.”⁵⁰ The outcome was simply “that the archivist must lock up [the Armer]”.⁵¹ It is possible that the archive was later moved to a more suitable space. A note in a notarial register from 1768 records the curious provenance of an orphaned register, which was discovered by the public archivist “in front of the door of the archive, but without record of who left it there”.⁵² This attests at least to the existence of a dedicated facility to store documents, apparently different from the one used in 1755, but it is unclear if this space had been removed from the governor’s residence.⁵³

The provision made in the eighteenth century to employ an archivist to manage a dedicated archive represents the increasing professionalization of record-keeping in the Ithacan administration. While in the previous century records were kept by the cancelleria, the move to a dedicated space was likely rendered indispensable by their accumulation over time. The hands of the archivists are revealed by renewed page numbering following the collation and binding of separate booklets (quinterni), and the emergence among many volumes of note-cards inscribed with the name of the relevant governor (curiously, these sometimes bear only the name of the cancellier). As the recently compiled list of Ithacan governors’ names shows, the consistent but increasingly thorough preservation of records after the 1660s into the next century also likely reflects the improvement in archival practice by the Venetian-period administrators.⁵⁴ The volumes of the last century of Venetian rule have generally been well preserved, and they are usually more comprehensive of the different kinds of documents which reflect the mixed jurisdiction and varied competences of the governor.⁵⁵ Nevertheless better bureaucratic practices were never fully able to prevent the persistent environmental risks of destructive flooding and fire. This is indeed reflected by the fragmentary nature of records over the last two decades of Venetian rule, with many such late records showing water damage and burns.⁵⁶ Whatever the state of the archive as a whole, the inventories importantly confirm that during the Venetian period itself, there must have been few unattributed records, given even the broken-down fragments (filze) are assigned to named governors. This belies the present state of the records, as shall now be explained.

Part II: towards the classification of the governor’s records

The successive Ithacan administrations after 1797 would have received the Venetian-period governors’ records in a condition far superior to that which greets us today. Indeed, the reliance by post-Venetian administrators on documents from the ancien régime (records of legal disputes in particular) is revealed by later addenda found in margins of documents from the last years before the fall of Venice. Loose leaves left within the Venetian volumes attest to the need of administrators late into the nineteenth century to consult the records for legally relevant information. The Second World War and the catastrophic earthquake of 1953 must have accelerated the decline of the Venetian collection during the twentieth century. During the war, the archive was evacuated from Vathy to the hill-top monastery at Kathara, a process which might have disrupted the organization of documents as much as it ensured their safety.⁵⁷ Whatever the order to which they were restored after the war, the earthquake of 1953 (which saw the destruction of the Venetian archive of Zante) caused the Ithacan documents to regress to the state from which they remain to be fully rescued today.⁵⁸ An insight into the condition of the Venetian documents as they were inherited after the earthquake is allowed by certain features of the general disorder in the Ithacan state archive, beyond the Venetian collection itself. The damage inflicted is indicated by correspondence relating to the discovery of the electoral register of 1803 (the so-called libro d’oro), which describes how the manuscript was recovered from the “loose mass of papers, crumpled by the earthquake of 53’, almost disintegrated by time and humidity”.⁵⁹ The present state of the archive reflects the asymmetrical concentration of efforts to restore order after the earthquake. The Ithacan archive holds several separate collections: administrative documents of the various historical regimes (from Venetian rule through several post-Venetian administrations, until the island’s incorporation into the Greek state), notarial registers, ecclesiastical records, maritime records, and others.⁶⁰ None of these collections is served by a published catalogue, and the archive as a whole is in a state of incomplete classification. While the notarial registers are relatively well organized, and the Venetian-period governors’ records have been partially processed at various stages, the documents resigned to the worst condition and disorder are in fact those from the decades after the fall of Venice in 1797. The increasing particularity of bureaucratic practice through the nineteenth century has left a collection of such magnitude – from the British protectorate (1817–1864) in particular – that the documents are in even greater disarray than the older series, having been separated only into the most rudimentary divisions. The collection of records of the administrations of the so-called Eikosaetia (the 20 years between the fall of Venetian rule and the establishment of the British protectorate, 1797–1817) must maintain at least the character of the disorder in which the records must have been found after 1953 (if not the physical chaos itself). This collection comprises several archival metres of unprocessed and mostly unbound documents currently held in 40 boxes which follow no chronological or thematic order.⁶¹

A significant further insight into the condition of the archive after the earthquake is supplied by a descriptive catalogue compiled by the former archivist Eleni Griva.⁶² This vague list of thematic groupings reveals the prevailing chaos among the records, and also the gulf between the then state of the Venetian records and their original organization. Several vague citations to administrative documents from before 1797 show that the more than 100 volumes of governors’ records which survive today must have been spread among records from later administrations.⁶³ This must have been a consequence of chaos wrought by the earthquake. The situation has since been greatly improved by interventions made by teams of researchers sent from the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών) during the 1980s until 2002.⁶⁴ Significant work led by Antonis Pardos on the Venetian documents assigned all of the large volumes to their respective governors, and made basic interventions for conservation during the process of moving the collection from the former facility to the current archive.⁶⁵ Still, such attempts had evidently been limited by inadequate time and resources, the pressure of which is shown by several problems of classification, and also the use of inappropriate media for conservation.⁶⁶ The present “archive of the Venetian administration” is split between 127 bound and assigned volumes (presently termed buste though the documents themselves describe them as volumi) and a large series of smaller fragments. The premature cessation of work on the Venetian collection in 2002 left this large quantity of fragments unclassified, comprising a series of loose folios or smaller bundles of records from governors whose volumes have decayed and fragmented. The fragments are of particular significance, for they cover a longer span of time than the volumes themselves (from 1638 until 1797, whereas the volumes begin in 1654 and just six survive from the last two decades of Venetian rule). The fragments were, therefore, invaluable aids in my recent compilation of the first extensive list of governors of Ithaca under Venetian rule, which may further serve as a provisional catalogue of the records, in anticipation of their complete classification.⁶⁷

This article has outlined the development of local archival practices in a small Venetian possession. The scholarship until now has focused on the history of archives in the main centres of Venetian colonial power (the reggimenti), but has shown little concern for whether their smaller dependencies were integrated into this network of colonial archives. The presentation of new documentary material here now allows us to trace the implementation of important reforms establishing archival practices in Ithaca, broadening the scope of evidence for Venetian colonial rule. An examination of the archive itself is particularly important for understanding the strategies of administration in such secondary dependencies as Ithaca. In places where power was subordinated to another regional jurisdiction, as with Ithaca’s relationship to Cephalonia, the economy of knowledge created by official record-keeping assumes a special significance as a form of supervision which allowed for effective control far from the centres of power, both those at Cephalonia and in Venice proper.⁶⁸ This article has, therefore, sought to highlight how the development of archival practices at Ithaca shared similar objectives with other technologies of power implemented by the colonial apparatus to supervise the delegated administration, such as the island’s annual visitation by the higher Venetian officials. Further work at the Ithacan archive will no doubt uncover more evidence of the development of such technologies.

Note on contributor

Kyriaco Nikias is Universitätsassistent (prae-doc) at the Institute for Roman Law and Ancient Legal History of the University of Vienna.

Acknowledgements

My work at the Ithacan archive has been made possible by the dependable assistance of its administrator, Mr Christos Miaritis. I am indebted to Machi Paizi-Apostolopoulou, Gerasimos Livitsanis, and Romina Tsakiri for having very carefully reviewed my transcriptions of the documents and for their generous and insightful advice. I also thank George Paxinos and Dimitris Prevezianos for having provided me with unpublished reports relating to the archive.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”. The other such example in the Ionian islands is Paxoi, though other cases of delegated rule existed through the empire. See the comparative survey in Arbel, “Venice’s Maritime Empire”, 149–50.

2. See discussion in Nikias, “Review of Petros Vlachos.”

3. Of particular significance is the fact that not merely the governor was a Cephalonian cittadino, but his chief aide and deputy too. See Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”. The classic literature on the Ionian archives is surveyed in Kolyva-Karaleka, “Les archives des Iles Ioniennes”; Nikiforou, “Σκιαγράφημα της ιστορίας”. In particular there has been excellent work on the destroyed archive of Zante: Kolyva-Karaleka, “Κατάλογος Ιστορικού Αρχείου Ζακύνθου - Α”; Kolyva-Karaleka, “Κατάλογος Ιστορικού Αρχείου Ζακύνθου - B”; Kolyva-Karaleka, “Το Ιστορικό Αρχείο Ζακύνθου”; Kolyva-Karaleka, “Il ‘Memorial di tuti libri di Camera di Zante’”. Most important for Ithaca is the case of Cephalonia: Moschonas, “Τοπικὸν Ἱστορικὸν Ἀρχεῖον Κεφαλληνίας (1970)”; Moschonas, “Τοπικό Ιστορικό Αρχείο Κεφαλονιάς (1977)”.

4. See n. 68.

5. On the reggimento, see Arbel, “Venice’s Maritime Empire”, 146ff.

6. See Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”.

7. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, Νοταριακό Αρχείο (herafter NA), regg. Nikolaos Paizis (labelled 1636–41, and 1644–49). The notarial registers are not catalogued. Further to the problems of dating the Paizis register discussed here are other indications of the incomplete classification of the series, such as the very large number of “unassigned” notarial fragments, one of which I was able to identify with Demetrio Galati, found cited in Venetian inventories with the last acts dated to 1679: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Domenico Corafan (1695–1696), ff. 252r–v (cited below as Inv. 1695); b. Gerolamo Dalladecima (1721–1722), f. 91r (cited below as Inv. 1721). The hitherto identified Venetian-period notaries have been listed in Zapanti, “Κεφαλονιά και Ιθάκη”.

8. Note the dating given by a functionary of the Venetian period: “Protocolo del quondam Nicolo Paisi principia dal 1603 e termina nel 1619”: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Gerolamo Dalladecima (1721–1722), f. 91r. The latest acts, however, extend to 1626: see ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Nikolaos Paizis (labelled 1644–49), f. 128r. The other volume (currently labelled 1636–41) is dated by the same functionary to 1636–41, and contains an addendum from its presentation to the cancelleria in 1632: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Nikolaos Paizis (labelled 1636–41), f. 60v. Further notarial acts were added until 1641.

9. “1644 μαρτιου 31 … Πρεζεντατο το παρον προτοκολο … του εβιεν[εστατου] Κουβερναδουρου Κρασα”: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Nikolaos Paizis (labelled 1644–9), f. 1r. The governor is Florio Crassan.

10. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Nikolaos Paizis (labelled 1644–49), f. 2v (=acts of 1593 and 1594 copied into the register in 1604/5 and 1605 respectively), f. 4v (=act of 1598, copied in 1603), f. 5r–v (=act of 1575 copied in 1605), f. 8r (=act of 1599 copied in 1607), f. 11v (=act of 1597 copied in 1607), f. 13v (=act of 1596 copied in 1603), f. 15r (=act of 1582 copied in 1609), f. 17r–v (=act of 1597 copied sometime after 1608), f. 33v (=act of 1597, likely copied in 1614), f. 57v (=act of 1595, likely copied in 1619). These acts are under preparation for publication. See also Callinicos, “Ἡ διαθήκη ἑνὸς Θιακοκερκυραίου τοῦ δεκάτου ἕκτου αἰώνα”; Nikias, “Review of Petros Vlachos”.

11. The earliest assignable governors’ records are fragments signed by Thomaso Montessanto and Florian Dalladecima (1639–1640): see discussion below and Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”.

12. “disordine considerabile”: Moschonas, “Τοπικὸν Ἱστορικὸν Ἀρχεῖον Κεφαλληνίας (1970)”, 486. The doge was responding to the 1632 relazione of Antonio Pisani, then provveditor general nelle tre isole di Levante: Moschonas, 461–2. See also, in the recently published compilation from Corfù, regulations on notarial registers made in 1663 in response to the “mala amministrazione della custodia de’ protocoli de’ nodari morti, che per ordinario veniva consegnata da custode a custode, senza alcuna sorte d’inventario, con patentissimo disordine”: Karapidakis, Διατάξεις Λειτουργίας του Συμβουλίου της Πολιτείας της Κέρκυρας, 1422–1797, 145–7. The context of this compilation is discussed in Nikias, “Review of N. Karapidakis (ed.), Διατάξεις Λειτουργίας του Συμβουλίου της Πολιτείας της Κέρκυρας, 1422–1797”.

13. “disordini che si sentono nei Giudizj Civili e Criminali, per mancamento di Scritture”: Moschonas, “Τοπικὸν Ἱστορικὸν Ἀρχεῖον Κεφαλληνίας (1970)”, 489.

14. Moschonas, 488–92; Zapanti, “Ο θεσμός των Πρωτονοταρίων”. Also see Saradi-Mendelovici, “A History of the Greek Notarial System”, 543.

15. ΕΛΙΑ, Νοταριακοί κώδικες Ιθάκης (herafter NKI), reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), ff. 1r–1v/1–2. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Nikolaos Paizis (labelled 1636–41), ff. 61r–61v.

16. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, [unprocessed fragments of Giovanni Battista Metaxà], ff. [933r–933v] = Document 2.

17. Compare Documents 1 and 2, and Moschonas, “Τοπικὸν Ἱστορικὸν Ἀρχεῖον Κεφαλληνίας (1970)”, 488–92.

18. Documents 1 and 2, articles 1 and 3. Cf. ΕΛΙΑ, NKI, reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), ff. 1r–1v/1–2.

19. Documents 1 and 2, article 2. Cf. ΕΛΙΑ, NKI, reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), f 1v/2.

20. Documents 1 and 2, article 4. Cf. ΕΛΙΑ, NKI, reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), f 1v/2.

21. The inefficacy of short terms served by the provveditori is discussed in Vlassi, “Governare i regni di Ulisse”.

22. See a discussion of the visits in Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”.

23. See Nikias, “Class and Society”; Zapanti, “Η Ιθάκη”; Zapanti, “Κεφαλονιά 1500–1571”.

24. See n. 3.

25. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Stefanis Alevras (1685–93), f. 15r.

26. The hitherto located inventories are in ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Alessandro Diorzi (1654–1656), ff. 672r–673r (hereafter Inv. 1654); b. Giovanni Battista Metaxà (1668–1671), ff. 47r–48r (hereafter Inv. 1668); b. Stamati Lusi (1679–1680), ff. 509r–512v (hereafter Inv. 1679); b. Thomaso Dalladecima (1682–1683), ff. 261r–263v (hereafter Inv. 1682); b. Domenico Corafan (1695–1696), ff. 248r–253r (hereafter Inv. 1695); b. Demetrio Volterra (1703–1704, i), [page numbering lost to damage] (herafter Inv. 1703); b. Alessandro Monferrato (1710–1711), Filze delle Prove e Vadie et l’Inventario delli Volumi…, ff. 1r–4v (hereafter Inv. 1710); b. Marchio Cologna (1716), ff. 556r–559r; b. Gerolamo Dalladecima (1721–1722), ff. 89r–93v (hereafter Inv. 1721). Cf. Pardos, Αρχείο βενετικής διοίκησης Λευκάδας, 14.

27. “in esecutione della Lettera Credenziale et ordine pubblico”: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Stamati Lusi (1679–1680), ff. 509r. The formula is standard. See also Moschonas, “Τοπικὸν Ἱστορικὸν Ἀρχεῖον Κεφαλληνίας (1970)”, 461 n 4, 486–7, 493. In Corfù a parallel requirement on cancellieri to pass inventories to their successors is cited in orders of the provveditor general da Mar in 1684: Karapidakis, Διατάξεις Λειτουργίας του Συμβουλίου της Πολιτείας της Κέρκυρας, 1422–1797, 201–3.

28. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Alessandro Diorzi (1654–1656), ff. 672r–673r.

29. The Diorzi inventory does not supply dates for the records, which must be supplied by comparison with other inventories, listed in n. 26.

30. The Zorzi reforms in any case indicate that the governors were not served by reliable deposits of notarial acts before 1632. The earliest notarial register held by the governors – following the dating given by the inventories, and noting my identification of earlier acts in the register of Nikolaos Paizis – appears to be that of Giorgi Jagnioti (1619–1628): see Inv. 1654, f. 672r. Dating supplied by Inv. 1679, f. 509r. Of course, 1628 is merely a terminus post quem. The early Paizis register, examined above, was deposited in 1644. See also following footnote.

31. The first register of Nikolaos Paizis (currently labelled 1636–1641) contains one act of 1612 (f. 10r) but otherwise acts executed after 1620. The only early acts survive in the second Paizis register (erroneously labelled 1644–1649), which was deposited in 1644 (see n. 8 and text), and the register of Anagnostis Raftopoulos, which was deposited in 1639: ΕΛΙΑ, NKI, reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), f. 2r/3 (“1639 ιουλιου 26 … εγο Κοστατης Ραυτοπουλος επρεζεταρεσα το προτοκολο του πατερα μου”). The latter contains many acts of the first two decades of the century, and one act of 1597 copied in 1622 at f. [107].

32. “ίχαμε και γραφί γενάμενη ιπό χιρός του μησέρ Ατόνη Μιχαλόπουλου νοταρίου και εχάθι το γκερό οπού εκούρευσαν ι Τούρκι το Θιάκι”: Zapanti, Βλασόπουλος, 40, see also 189, 263. I thank Gerasimos Livitsanis for alerting me to these. The damage of these raids is alluded to in the relazione of provveditor Francesco Boldù in 1622: Lunzi, Della condizione politica delle Isole Jonie sotto il dominio Veneto, 348–9.

33. Dating here follows later signatures of Montessanto and Dalladecima in the margins (1639–1640), though the main acts are unsigned and dated to 1639. For detail see the Supplementary Material in Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”.

34. See particularly Inv. 1721.

35. See Inv. 1682, compare also Inv. 1679.

36. See Inv. 1668.

37. Inv. 1695.

38. “senza fodre”: Inv. 1682, passim. Almost all of the governors’ records are listed “senza fodre” in Inv. 1654.

39. Inv. 1695, 250v.

40. Inv. 1703; Inv. 1710. Note the earlier surviving fragment, discussed above, and the exception of the records of Alvise Fasiol, which survived until at least 1721: Inv. 1721, f. 91r. The last identified inventory survives in a single fragment, a mere loose leaf among the pages of the volume of Nicolo Cladan (1725–1726, ii), and does not allow these volumes to be further traced.

41. This possibility was pointed out to me by Gerasimos Livitsanis in discussions about the plan of the palace.

42. See a discussion of the annual visits in Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca.”

43. See Nikias.

44. See the relazione of Basadonna (1590) in Tsiknakis, Εκθέσεις, 122–4. Further discussion in Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”.

45. “smarimento della maggior parte de’ scritture così importanti”: ΓΑΚ–Κεντρική Υπηρεσία, MS 229, f. 61r.

46. Cf. Moschonas, “Τοπικὸν Ἱστορικὸν Ἀρχεῖον Κεφαλληνίας (1970)”, 461.

47. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΝΑ, reg Theodoros Galatis, f. 1r(?), 10/16 November 1714.

48. Inv. 1668, f. 47r; Inv. 1695, f. 250r.

49. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Pietro Crassan (1756–1757, ii), ff. 289r–v.

50. “vidi tutte due le seradure rotte dal sforzo che si fece in aprirle, trovai pure diverssi volumi straziate le Carte, e mancanti quinterni intieri dalli Volumi medesimi, e altri Volumi lacerati, e mal condicionati”: See Document 4. Also note, already in the inventory of 1716, the description of the “Armero di questa Cancelleria con seradura vecchia, e mallamente conzada”: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Marchio Cologna (1716), f. 556r.

51. “Il che avuto ordinai il Archivista medemo di dover quello [i.e., l’Armer] serare”: see Document 4.

52. “Fu trovato da … Spiro Solomon Pubblico Archivista il presente Protocolo, avanti la Porta del Archivio ma non mi è noto da chi…”: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Andreas Katapodis, f. 342v.

53. The 1755 description of the Armer in Document 4 seems to indicate that it did not have an external door, which makes it likely that this later reference of 1768 describes a different space.

54. Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”.

55. This is perceivable through the preservation of a greater range of the constituent booklets (quinterni) which make up the volumes: libro estraordinario, registro di pubbliche lettere, libro di intromissioni, libro di citazioni, libro sentenze presenti, libro sentenze absenti, etc. Note however, the fragmentation of records 1780–1797, perhaps corresponding to damage to this series after 1797.

56. See the list and catalogue of the records in Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”, Appendix and Supplementary Material.

57. See comments by Antonis Pardos in Griva, Το Libro d’Oro της Ιθάκης, 25. Also note Chrysafis, “Λίγα λόγια για το Ιστορικό Αρχείο Ιθάκης”.

58. On the reconstruction of the archive at Zante, see Kolyva-Karaleka, “Κατάλογος Ιστορικού Αρχείου Ζακύνθου - Α”; Kolyva-Karaleka, “Il ‘Memorial di tuti libri di Camera di Zante’ (1498–1628). Problematica sulla ricostruzione dell’Archeiophylakeion di Zante”.

59. “Ηὗρα ἕνα παράρτημα τῶν ὀνομάτων σέ κακά χάλια, μόλις και τά διέκρινα σέ λυτά, μάζα χαρτιῶν, στραπαταρισμένα ἀπό τούς σεισμούς τοῦ 53, λυωμένα σχεδόν ἀπό τήν πολυκαιρίαν καί ὑγρασίαν.”: Griva, Το Libro d’Oro της Ιθάκης, 18, see also 11, 19 and 22–3.

60. Nikiforou, “Σκιαγράφημα της ιστορίας”, 173–5.

61. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, Αρχείο εικοσαετίας (1797–1817) [unclassified].

62. Eleni Griva, “The Historical Archive of Ithaca: Catalogue” (1990), edited by George Paxinos (herafter Griva Catalogue 1990). The catalogue was provided to me by Mr Paxinos. Griva is remembered for her publication of the rare Ithacan libro d’oro of 1803: Griva, Το Libro d’Oro της Ιθάκης. The catalogue can also be compared with those drafted by the Eθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, cited below at note 64.

63. ΦΟΡ. 7, Τοπική Διοίκηση, φάκ 20, 1671–1797, 1800–1864; ΦΟΡ. 11, Βενετικά έγγραφα, φάκ. 4, 1680–1850; ΦΟΡ. 12, Δικαστικά, φάκ 70, 1689–1866, Τοπική Διοίκηση, φακ. 6, 1794–1864, Incanti, φάκ. 1, 1792, Βενετικά έγγραφα, φάκ 1, 1720–1788; ΦΟΡ. 21, Δημόσιο Ταμείο, φάκ. 6, 1787–1863, Αστυνομία, φάκ. 8, 1791–1862, Δικαστικά, φάκ. 63, 1673–1865, Υγειονομείο–Ναυτιλιακά, φάκ. 15, 1784–1856, Βενετικά έγγραφα, φάκ. 2, 1681, 1785–1795: Griva Catalogue 1990. The organization refers to the “φοριαμοί” (metal filing cabinets) in which the documents were stored before the archive moved to its present premises; this was helpfully pointed out to me by the current archivist.

64. See an outline of the history of efforts to classify the records in the comments by Antonis Pardos in Griva, Το Libro d’Oro της Ιθάκης, 24–8. Also the following description by Griva: “Το 1981 έγινε η πρώτη … προσπάθεια καταγραφής των βιβλίων και αρχειακών εγγράφων της υπηρεσίας από ενδεκαμελή ομάδα φοιτητών Γ΄ έτους Πανεπιστήμιου Ιωάννινων με επικεφαλή τον υφηγητή της Έδρας Ιστορίας Νεότερων Χρόνων κ. Γεώργιο Πλουμίδη, βοηθούμενο από την σύζυγό του και επιμελήτρια του ιδίου πανεπιστήμιου κ. Φανή Μαυροειδή. Συντάχτηκε ο πρώτος κατάλογος που µαζί µε τα δελτία των ανωτέρω βρίσκεται στο Αρχείο.”: Eleni G. Griva, “Μικρή Αναδρομή. Παρουσίαση Αναγες [sic] και Προοπτικές Ιστορικού Αρχείου Ιθάκης” (1990), unpublished notes supplied to me by George Paxinos. Note also two reports made after the missions of the Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών in 1986, provided to me by Dimitris Prevezianos: Politis, “Έκθεση Πεπραγμένων Αποστολής Ταξινόμησης Ιστορικού Αρχείου Ιθάκης, Ιούλιος 1986”; Kamonachou, “Κατάλογος Του Ιστορικού Αρχείου Ιθάκης”. On these missions, see also Paizi-Apostolopoulou, “Tο Iστορικό Aρχείο της Iθάκης. Ένα οξύ πρόβλημα που ζητά άμεση λύση”; Paizi-Apostolopoulou, “Μπαίνει σε τάξη το Iστορικό Aρχείο”; Vlasopoulos, “Για το Ιστορικό Αρχείο”.

65. The governors’ records as they have been assigned by Pardos are listed in a description of Venetian-period holdings of the Ithacan archive published by the retired Cephalonian archivist and historian Stamatoula Zapanti in 2010: Zapanti, “Κεφαλονιά και Ιθάκη”.

66. Certain inaccuracies in classification were identified in the compilation of a list of governors and are discussed in Nikias, “The Governors of Venetian Ithaca”. My experience has been that the more volumes I have studied, the more the identifiable errors of dating and naming. As for the material used in the process of reshelving the volumes, the use of non-acid-free packaging card and cartridge or lined note paper is notable. The passage of several decades has left these showing significant yellowing.

67. See the list of governors in Nikias, Appendix and Supplementary Material.

68. See generally, the analysis in Stouraiti, “Colonial Encounters, Local Knowledge and the Making of the Cartographic Archive in the Venetian Peloponnese”; Anastasia Stouraiti, “Una storia della guerra: Pietro Garzoni e il suo archivio”. On the archive in Venice proper, see de Vivo, “Ordering the Archive in Early Modern Venice (1400–1650)”; de Vivo, “Heart of the State, Site of Tension”.

69. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, NA, reg. Nikolaos Paizis (labelled 1636–41), ff. 60v–61v. The Paizis version has been preferred given parts of the text in the Raftopoulos copy have been lost to damage: ΕΛΙΑ, NKI, reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), ff. 1r–2r. The texts exhibit few differences beyond expression, with substantive differences restricted to the placement of cited penalties (but not their nature). The Greek features numerous curious Italicisims following the Cephalonian prototype (in Italian): in Moschonas, “Τοπικὸν Ἱστορικὸν Ἀρχεῖον Κεφαλληνίας (1970)”, 489–92. (= herafter Ordini Erizzo). Possible emendations and comments on the text are given in the notes.

70. carta prima.

71. Reading assisted by reference to cited act identified on f. 9r/[duodeci]: “Μιχελης Ρουμανος”. See note below.

72. The act cited here as the first in the register is found on f. 9r/[duodeci], and is no longer the first in the register, with the first folios containing later acts, reflecting the disorderly binding of the papers.

73. Illegible; possibly prudenza?

74. Cf. Ordini Erizzo, article I.

75. ~approbati.

76. cartato.

77. ~ben ordinato, cf. ben regolato in article I in Document 2; and in Ordini Erizzo, article III.

78. schizzo.

79. scartafoglio.

80. The phi has been emended from a psi in the MS (the noun ὑπογραφή was likely intended, not the subjunctive ὑπογράψει).

81. The Paizis copy lacks the penalty found in the Raftopoulos copy: “ις πενα να μη αξιζι τιβοτις κανενα γραμμα […]”: ΕΛΙΑ, NKI, reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), f. 1r.

82. obbligato.

83. τῶν καιρῶν: cf. con ordine de’ tempi = Ordini Erizzo, article IV.

84. Cf. Ordini Erizzo, article IV.

85. ~presentare.

86. ~atti.

87. πάσης λογῆς.

88. consiglier.

89. regola.

90. atti.

91. regola.

92. *βάζει

93. Possibly emend for φιλτζα ~filza? But error for “στὴ φύλαξη” (vel sim) made likely by comparison with Italian version, which has conservarle in salvo: see article III in Document 2.

94. καιρό.

95. ~registrazione.

96. ~in pena, sotto pena.

97. See Ordini Erizzo, article VII. The same article here is split across two in the Raftopoulos copy (articles 4 and 5), as shown by the translation here: see Document 2; ΕΛΙΑ, NKI, reg. 1 (Anagnostis Raftopoulos), ff. 1v–2r.

98. ~partite.

99. Possibly emend for χαρτιά, given the article is concerned here with the physical form of the notarial acts; Italian text is of no aid here: see article V in Document 2.

100. ὑποστατικῶν.

101. strada?

102. ~in pena, sotto pena.

103. ~[ducati] applicati al fontego della communità di Cefalonia.

104. χρεοφειλέτη.

105. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, [unprocessed fragments of Giovanni Battista Metaxà], ff. [933r–v]. The translation is itself not dated but dating supplied by other entries.

106. Cf. Ordini Erizzo, article I.

107. Cf. Ordini Erizzo, article IV.

108. Cf. Ordini Erizzo, article VI.

109. Cf. Ordini Erizzo, article VII.

110. formaggi.

111. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Alessandro Diorzi (1654–56), ff. 672r–673v.

112. K^te transcribed as Carte passim

113. Probably Papa Micali Raftopulo, found in later inventories: ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Giovanni Battista Metaxà (1668–1671), f. 47r; b. Domenico Corafan (1695–1696), f. 252r.

114. atuale written over successore[?].

115. ΓΑΚ Ιθάκης, ΑΒΔ, b. Pietro Crassan (1756–1757, ii), ff. 289r–v. Damage to the folio has destroyed some of the text.

Appendix:

Documents

Document 1: Ordini Zorzi (Greek version, 1632)⁶⁹

Adi 8 Ottobre 1632

Presentato il presente protocollo di carte scritte numero sessanta fino à | quest’hora, et non scritte seguita fino ducento, e ottanta otto | senz’alcun vaccuo, nè nota all’ margine, comincia K. 1⁷⁰ 1626 × 12 Settembre instromento ha Michiel Rumano,⁷¹ et Gianni Calinico | da Nicolò Paisi Nodaro, col suo Privilegio di 12 Marzo 1626⁷² | fatagli dall’Illustrissimo Signor Carlo Malipiero Consiglier Vice Gerente alla visita di quest’Isola | colla confirmatione di altri Successori, et ciò in obedienza | degli ordini sopraciò instituiti dell’ Illustrissimo Signor Zuanne Zorzi Consiglier | Vice Gerente alla visita sudetta

Il qual voluto diligentissimente da Nostra [Signoria] Illustrissima hà approbato, et confirmato | il sudetto Nodaro con questa condizione però, che nell’essecut|tione[?] il suo Ministerio debba intiera, et puntualmente osservare, et esseguire gl’ infrascritti ordini, per servizio pubblico, et […]⁷³

{Zuane Zorzi Consiglier et Vice Gerente

Seguitano li | ordini

||^{f. 61r} ✝προτο.⁷⁴ οτι ολι ι νοδαρι, οπου θελουν γενι ι αμπροπαριστι⁷⁵ απο εμας και καπετανιο, | να ινε ομπλιγαδι να κρατουν προτοκολλο καρταδο⁷⁶ με τα νουμερα του, και με τον | πινακα του, και καλα ορδινιαζμενο⁷⁷; και να μι γραφι μιτε σε σκιτζο⁷⁸ μιτε σε | σκαρτζαφολιο⁷⁹ μιτε αλου, παρεξ στο αφτο προτοκολλο με τιν παραστασι, και ιπογραφι⁸⁰ | διον μαρτιρον σε πασα γραμμα.⁸¹

✝δεφτερο: οτι o καπιτανιος, οπου ιστουτο το πραγμα κανονε, να ινε ομπλιγαδος⁸² | να κρατι ενα προτοκολλο με τα νουμερα του, και καλα φτιαζμενο, με τιν ταξιν | τον κιερον,⁸³ δια να ιμπορεσι να κανι ις αφτο ος κατοθεν.

✝τριτο⁸⁴: Ολι ι νοδαρι ος ανοθε προβαδι να ινε στενεμενι να πρεζενταρουν⁸⁵ | στα χερια του αφτου καπετανιου κοπια καθολικι απο ολες τις γραφες, και | ατα⁸⁶ πασας λοις,⁸⁷ οπου θελουν κανι, δια να ιμπορι ο αφτος καπιτανιος, ι | ο κονζελιερις⁸⁸ του στο αφτο προτοκολο με ρεγολα⁸⁹ και με ταξιν τον κιερον | και νουμερα να ρεζιστραρι τες αφτες γραφες, και ατα,⁹⁰ και με τιν ιδια | ρεγουλα,⁹¹ και ταξι να τες βανι[?]⁹² στι φιλιζα[?],⁹³ δια να ιμπορουν σε πασα κιερο⁹⁴ | να ινε φιλαμενες, κι με εφκολοτιτα να εβρισκουντε ις οφελλο | τον επτοχον. Θελοντας ιμις οτι ο καπετανιος να εχι δια το ρεζι|στραριζμα⁹⁵ γαζετες πεντε σε πασα γραφι, και σε πασα διαθικι γαζετες | δεκα να του τις δινουν παραφτις ι νοδαρι, οπου θελουν του φερι τες | γραφες, ι οπιι να τις περνουν τες αφτες γαζετες απο τα μερι | σε πενα⁹⁶ τον αφτον νοδαρον να ινε στερεμενι απο το βαρος τους, και | σε αλες μεγαλιτερες τις δικιοσινις. μιν εχοντας υποσχομενι ι νοδαρι | σε πασα διο μινες να φερνουν τα προτοκολα τους στο καπετανιο να τα | μεταβλεπι, αν ινε καλα γενομενα τα πραγματα.

✝τεταρτο.⁹⁷ και επιδι τις φενετε, οτι περισι κανουν τους νοδαρου[ς] να | γραφουν γραφες σε καταστιχα χορια και γραφες εξου απο το προτοτολο, | τους ισεν[?] και παρτιδες⁹⁸ σε χαρια⁹⁹ μεγαλα, χορις καμια ταξι | και ακομα αγορες ποστατικον,¹⁰⁰ πραματιες κρασιονε, τιριον, σταφιδες ||^{f. 61v} γενιμα, μαλια, και αλο, ις τροπο οτι ι φτοχι ι παραπονεμενι μι μι|νουν[?] εμποδιζμενι να ιπουν τα δικιοματα τους, και τον προσιμοτερον | και […]μπλιασταδον[?] ινε κλιζμενι ι στρατα¹⁰¹ να ξαγορασουν, οπου τους | το δινι ο νομος, με μεγαλο τους βλαψιμο. Θελομε οτι κανενα | σκριτο, γραφι, παρτιδα χρει, αγορες πασας λογις, οπου θελουν | γενι το ερχομενο απο νοδαρους εξου απο το προτοκολο τους | ος ανοθε, να μην αξιζι τιποτις, μιτε να εχι καμια διναμη, | εβγενοντος απο δουκατα πεντε, και κατου. ις πενα¹⁰² τον νοδαρον | δουκατα 50 απλικαδα στο φοντεγο της κομουνιτας τις Κεφαλονιας¹⁰³ | oξου απο το χαμο[?] τον τορνεσιον του αγοραστι, χροφιλετι,¹⁰⁴ και | εκινου οπου εχι μια[?] αφτι[?], ι οπου πουλλι:

{Zuane Zorzi Consiglier Vice Gerente et sigilato con il mio bolo

Piero Ciciliano Nodaro di Cancelleria de mandato

Document 2: Later Italian translation of the Ordini Zorzi (1671)¹⁰⁵

Registro della Terminazione dell’Illustrissimo Signor Zuanne Zorzi Consiglier et Vice Gerente fù | nella Visita di quest᾽Isola del Theachi, che essiste nel Protocollo | del quondam Anagnosti Raftopulo Nodaro a carta prima e seconda avanti l’instromenti.

Ex Greco

          Noi etc.

[Primo]¹⁰⁶   Tutti li Nodari, che ellegeremo, et approbaremo insieme col Capitanio siano obli[gati] | di tener Protocollo numerato, Alfabetato, e ben regolato, n[on] | scrivendo nè in schizzo nè in scartafoglio nè altrove, [se] | non nel Protocollo vero, coll’ assistenza, et sottoscrizione di due | testimonii al meno, in pena de nullità d’ogni scrittura | et chè il Nodaro resti p[r]ivo dalla sua carica, e di pagar ducati 50 | il terzo al Capitanio et gli altri due terzi al fontigo di Ceffalonia.

Secondo Il  Capitanio debba tener un Protocollo ben numerato et alfabetato | col tempo, per scriver ut infra, et sè occorresse al Capitanio o | al suo Cancellier di stipular instromento debba farlo nel suo protocolo

Terzo¹⁰⁷   Che tutti li Nodari da mese in mese tutti gli Instromenti che facessero nel | loro Protocollo debbano portar copia auttenticata extratta da d[etto] | Protocollo nel poter del Capitanio per registrarle in un Protocollo suo | coll’ ordine de’ tempi, e poi conservarle in salvo, per custodir | leggitimo[?] in ogni tempo li trovino[?] per benefizio de poveri.

Volendo noi che li Nodari debbano ricever dalle parti cinque | gazzete per ogni Instromento di darle al Capitanio per le sue mercedi[?] et | gazzete dieci per ogni testamento, et poi in ogni due mesi di porta[r] | li protocolli nelle mani del Capitanio per osservar se sono le cose ben | fatte, in pena à cadaun Nodaro di decader dalla sua carica et di | pagar ducati 50 ut supra.

Quarto¹⁰⁸   Per levar ogni sorte di pregiudizio de poveri dalli Nodari sacerdoti, c[he] | in più tempi astringono con mille vie gl’ infermi di lascar | quello che non vogliono. Volemo, che alcun sacerdote non | debba ardir, sià chi si voglia d’essecitar la Notaria in | alcun conto, in pena che non debba valer tutto quello [che] | scri[ve]sser[o], e di pagar anco la sudetta pena.

||^{f. 933v} Quinto¹⁰⁹ Et poiche molti sono instromenti da Nodari in catastichi et fuori | del Protocollo, come partite per crediti, [u]vepasse[,] formagli[,]¹¹⁰ | ogli, lane, et compride de stabili, con danno di quelli che | non possono in ultimo fine di veder la loro raggione. Volemo | che alcuna scrittura non debba valer, nè debba farsi a | parte, eccetto da cinque ducati in giù, et non in altro | modo, sotto pena ut supra.

{Zuanne Zorzi Consiglier Vice Gerente

Piero Cicilian Nodaro di Cancelleria de mandato

Document 3: Inventory of documents conferred to governor Alessandro Diorzi by his predecessor Giorgio Peccator (1654)¹¹¹

Laus deo 1654 Adi 9 Maggio

Inventario di Tutte le Robbe–note[,] Libri[,] Moscheti | e Protocolli Consegnati à me – Alessandro Dior|zi Governator et Capitanio atualle di quest Isola et | sucessore del Spettabile Signor Giorgio Pecator come | segue – ciò e consegnatomi dal Signor Theodoro | Pecator suo Cancellier per l’absentia di detto suo | Capitanio et in primis

Doi Protocoli del quondam Nicolo Paissi, l’uno di Carte cento e | trenta, et l’altro carte cento e trenta doi con più | depenature in ambi e diverse carte tagliate in | mezzo –

Protocolo di Papa Giorgi Jagnioti, sono [?] carte cento e venti doi | con più dipenature in diverse carte.

Protocolo di Velissario Petala Carte ottanta nove.

Protocolo di Giorgio Vlasopulo Carte scrite cento e | vinti sei e bianche dodeci.

Protocolo di Anagnosti Caravia Carte¹¹² dodeci scritte –

Protocolo di Anagnosti Catapodi Carte trenta tre scritte

Prottocolo di Anagnosti Alevra Carte venti scritte –

Prottocolo di Anagosti Raftopulo Carte settanta due et | altre cento e diverse dentro discusite.

Prottocolo di Giorgo Galatti Carte trenta senza fodre e | non integro.

Prottocolo di Papa Mico¹¹³ Raftopulo Carte | disnove non intero.

Volume del Signor Dionisio Crasan in quiterni dodeci

Volume del Signor Gabriel Pecator in quiterni dieci senza | fodre.

||^{f. 672v} Volume del Signor Zorzi Corafan con quiterni quindeci doi | veluto[?]

Quinterni doi del del Signor Canulo[?] Metaxa

Volume del Signor Domenico Foscardi con una fodra | sola con quinterni quindeci.

Volume del Signor Lunardo Fuca con quinterni tredeci –

Volume del Signor Lunardo Cochino con quinterni quin|deci –

Volume del Signor Theodoro Lascari con quinterni dodeci | senza fodre –

Volume del Signor Lascari Metaxa con quinterni disdo|tto senza fodre

Volume del Signor Giacomo Metaxa con quinterni | dodeci parte discusiti senza fodre –

Volume del Signor Gregorio Traulo con quinterni disdotto | senza fodre.

Volume del Signor Gabriel Comi con quinterni-quindeci | senza fodre.

Volume del Signor Thomaso Montesanto con quinter|ni trenta doi senza fodre

Volume del Signor Nicolo Rosolimo con quinterni quinde|ci senza fodre.

Volume del Signor Piero Ciciliano con quinterni venti

Volume del Signor Draco Crasan con quinterti quindeci | con fodre –

Volume delli Signori Vicenzo Ciimera e Lorenzo Antippa | con quinterni venti quatro senza fodre.

Volume del Signor Florio Crasan con quinterni vinti sei | con fodre.

||^{f. 673r} Volume del Signor Alvise Fasiol con quinterni vinti doi co[n] | fodre.

Volume del Signor Giorgio Metaxa con quinterni quator|deci et fodre.

Volume del Signor Theodoro Cladan con quinterni trede[ci] | et fodre.

Volume del Signor Mattio Perlinghin con quinterni vinti | senza fodre.

Volume delli Signori Georgio Pecator et Giovanni Battista Metaxa | con quinterni dodieci

Quatro filze di lettere

Boli di Piombo mille cento e disdotto ciò e da Archibu|so e Moscheto

formine[?] cinquanta sei

Al’quanto copia da foro tagliato in pezzi dalli corzi[?] et mal | condizionatto dicendo il Signor Consiglier Pecator di haverlo | riceputo dal suo precesore nel modo cosegnato | al presente.

Moschetti novanta cinque li vinti sei senza sottoprati[?] | et li otto senza fogoni[?], et parte senza ser|pentine e senza bachette et tutti guasti rovi|natti

Doi barilli l’uno con le balle et l’altro uodo senza fon[…] | fiasche[?] cinquanta nove.

{Alessandro Diorzi Governator e Capitanio

{Thodoro Peccator Vice Capitanio

||^{|f. 673v} Spettabile e diletto nostro

Se […]al possesso della Caricha del Governo di Cape|tanato di cotest’ Isola in loco di Vostra spetabilita | il Spettabile D. Alesandro Diorzi eletto da questo | Spettabile Conseglio pero doverà lei consegnarli | l[’]atual possesso imediatamente della stessa con tutti li | Volumi[,] Libri e Scritture del Officio et di suo neccessarie[?] ar|me et ogni altro essistente et che li aspeta di | raggion publica come pure di Processi e querelle | fin’ hora seguite per essere pro seguiti giusto li | ordeni di sua Comesssione fino al stato di delibera|tione dandoci del esecutione aviso con sue lettere et | li racommandiamo

Datta Ceffalonia 6 Maggio 1654 St V^o

Domenico Michiel Proveditor

A tergo[:] Al Spettabile e diletto nostro il Signor Giorgo Pecator Governator e | Capitanio del Isola del Thiachi.

Illustrissimo et Eccelentissimo Signor mio Signor Patrone Colendissimo

In esecutione della lettera di Vostra Eccellenza Illustrissima de di 6 instante ho consegniato | la caricha del Capetanato di cotesto Casale al Spettabile Signor Alessandro | Diorzi mio atuale¹¹⁴ con havergli anco consegniato tutte | le robbe publiche, et Private, et col fine le Bacio le Vesti.

Thiachi li 9 Maggio 1654 S.V.

Di Vostra Eccellenza Illustrissima

Humilissimo Devotissimo et obbligatissimo Servitor

Thodoro Pecator Vice Capitanio

Document 4: Damage to the archive (1755)¹¹⁵

Adi 18 Zugno 1755 S.V.

Comparse in officio

D. Demetrio Solomon quondam Francesco[,] Archivista in questa Isola del | Thiachi qualle agravandossi espone come segue.

Fui destinato con terminazione del N.H. Signor Pasqual Cigogna fù Proveditor di | Ceffalonia conffermata dall’ Eccellentissimo Signor Proveditor General dal Mar, per | Archivista in questa Isola per custodire li publici Volumi | delle Precessori Signori Governatori, Protocoli da Nodari, et altre | publiche Carte. Mi furono tutte le dette Carte[,] Volumi, | Protocoli, et altro consegnate con publico Inventario | tutte esistenti in un Armer, per cui ho rilasciato | le solite ricepute al Cancellier dal Signor Governator di qual’ | tempo. Hò imediate (havuto l’impiego) farlo[?] far | seradure doppie nell’ Armer ove tutte le Carte sudette | esistevano, per armerle inchiaveate, e ben custodite, | esi[?] come il mio Domicilio s’attrova in questo Molo | di Vathi ove sogliono stanziare li Signori Governatori del luoco | cosi tenevo una buona parte di essi Volumi, e | Protocoli, acioche ogni uno si potesse servire con | facilità di quello, e quanto gli abisognava. Tenevo anco | la Chiave della publica Casa esistenta in Villa, per | maggior sicurezza delle publiche Carte. Doppo la | partenza del N.H. Signor Consiglier Vice Gerente Querini, che qui s’atrovava | nella sua Visita il passato Mese di Marzo, cui stanciava[?] in | esso publico Palazzo mi fù consegnata la Chiave della | Casa medema, quale hò ben serata, porte, balconi, non | mancandogli abore, che un scuro di un balcone, sendo | però gli occheti dal balcone sopra il Muro. Fui il | dì hieri avvisato, che la porta della Cucina era apperta | levate le bertoche, et occheti di essa, e che l’Armer sudetto over erano riposte le Carte fù apperto. Sopra ||^{f. 289v} talli notizie riccoro alla Giustizia, et[?] Insto, che ante | omnia sia da Ministero[?] di questo ufficio[?] fatta la visione | in detta Casa della rotura, se vi fosse mancanza di | Carte, ò altro, per poi passare alla formazione d[el] | Processo, contro qualli, che hanno havuto couraggio d[i] | praticare un simile delito; e con risserva di | dare qualli lumi[?], che potrò rinvenire affine.

Adi 18 Zugno 1755 S.V.

L’Illustrissimo Signor Governator e Capitanio osservata l’esposizione fatta da[l] D[.] | Demetrio, e volendo(si) publico Archivista, hà ordinat[o] | che ante omnia sia fatta la visione della rottura f[…] | nell’Armer ove erano riposti li publici Libri, Vol[umi] | et altro da Ministero di sua Cancelaria, risservando[…] | possia di passare agli noti ulteriori affine.

{Spiridion Anino Governator e Capitanio

Adi 19 Zugno detto

In esecuttione dell’esso sudetto conferittomi Io Nicolò Caran[dinò] | Cancellier in Villa Vathi scortato da Anagnosti Cacavà […] | […] anco Demetrio Solomon publico Archivis[ta] | et havuto l’ingresso entro la Casa pubblica [che] se[r]|viva di Aloggio alli Signori Governatori e trovai[?] per la Por[ta] | della scalla, che era serata con la chiave, et entre[…] | entro la Casa, trovai la porta della Cusina appe[rta] | e getata per Terra senza bertuche, et occheti […] | Inoltratomi entro la Casa vidi mancavo u[n] | scuro dal Balcone del Porticco. Passando possia nell[a] | Camera ove è l’Armer entro cui esistevano le ||^{f. 290r} Volumi de Governatori, vidi tutte due le seradure rotte | dal sforzo che si fece in aprirle, trovai pure | diverssi volumi straziate le Carte, e mancanti | quinterni intieri dalli Volumi medemi, e altri | Volumi lacerati, e mal condicionati.

Il che havuto ordinai il Archivista medemo di dover | quello serare.

Niccolò Carandinò Cancellier del | Thiachi