«Ad finem vincendi et habendi civitatem per viam obsidionis stricte et continuos stimulos». The siege of Trieste in 1368-69

Abstract

In 1368-69, Trieste sustained, by the Venetians, a siege that lasted for almost one year, at the end of which the city did not surrender due to hunger but following a battle in which the Austrian forces, that had come to help the people of Trieste, were defeated. The siege was reconstructed on the base of news – a great part from Venetian sources – that handed down the memory of these events and above all on the remains of an exchange of letters between the doge Andrea Contarini and the commander of the Venetian troops positioned under the wall of Trieste, Domenico Michel. This deals with a method that is not very customary, that supplies a large quantity of information regarding the conduction of a siege, but even the difficulties that the besieging armies encounter. The comparison between this unintentional source and the chronicles relevant to the event permit us to verify through what mechanisms of selection and through which processes of elaboration are identified and presented in the historical narrations of the elements to pass down to those which follow – in other words, to become history – and what significance is attributed to them. Finally, a brief treatment of the subject regarding the discussion that was started in Trieste between the Nineteenth and Twentieth century regarding these events which occurred such a long time ago, that, however, marked the start of the city belonging to the state in a Hapsburg scope rather than a Venetian one. In this way, we wanted to focus the attention on the fact that a community and its past is not something definite and for which the discussion can cease once and for all, but it can sustain different interpretations according to the cultural contingencies and sensibilities that time after time develop within the same. In the appendix of the present essay, the choice of sources relevant to the siege is presented.