The Defranceschi Archive
The Venetian Senate on the Cretan refugees at Poreč, 1671–1676

The Candia decrees

The Venetian Senate's own decrees on the Cretan refugees at Poreč and the hajduks at Medulin, 1671–1676 — transcribed here so they can be read without a library card.

Nobody should have to take this archive's word for it. Everything on the Seget page about the Candia refugees rests on a volume printed in 1904, which is long out of copyright and perfectly legal to reproduce — but which is findable only if you already know the journal, the series, the volume and the part. So it is reproduced here. These are the Senate's decisions as the Società istriana's editors abstracted them in 1904, in the original Italian, with a plain English rendering beside each one and the carta number so anyone can check the scan.

  • 60 families granted houses March 1672 — «la prima lista delle sessanta famiglie»
  • 19 of 23 arrived, of those who sailed embarked at Zante, landed at Parenzo, 13 August 1672
  • 25 still resident two years on the Senate's own list, 1674
  • 6 working the land by 1675 holding 145 campi, and still fed on ship's biscuit
  • 41 dwellings at Pola for the Caiducci 27 June 1671, with 1,000 ducats for Medulin's casali

What the two published accounts were each counting

T. G. Jackson says thirty-five families; Joksimović, from Camillo, says sixty. Both are right. Sixty is the size of the grant; the number who stayed fell away every year the Senate looked. Jackson wrote over the span 1669–1692, and thirty-five is simply a point on this curve.

Cretan families at Parenzo: sixty granted in 1672, twenty-five resident in 1674, six working the land in 1675, with Jackson's thirty-five falling inside the curve. 6035256 Jackson, 1887 — «thirty-five families», over 1669–1692 60 1672 granted 25 1674 resident 6 1675 on the land
  • 1672 · «oltre le sessanta già stabilite»
  • 1674 · «la nota delle venticinque famiglie»
  • 1675 · six families, 145 campi, still not fed

Two waves, one officer, and an order of precedence

The Captain of Raspo ran both resettlements out of one budget in one decade — and the Senate said, in the decree itself, which came first.

The Cretans

  1. Candia falls, 1669
  2. Sheltering at Zante and Corfu
  3. Houses built at Parenzo before they land
  4. Sixty families, and land round the town

The Caiducci of Risano

  1. Brought out of the Bocche di Cattaro
  2. Could not be settled separately
  3. Forty-one dwellings at Pola
  4. Repaired casali at MEDULIN

«assegni loro quelli di pubblica ragione rimasti dopo le concessioni fatte ai Cretensi» — assign them the public land left over after the concessions made to the Cretans

Provenance, and what transcription changed

Where this comes from, exactly. «Senato Rettori: cose dell'Istria», parte quarta, in «Atti e memorie della Società istriana di archeologia e storia patria», volume XX (1904), pages 1–45 — the Senate's registers 46 to 50, covering 1670–1676. The whole volume is a free PDF at Openstarts, Università degli Studi di Trieste. The c. number ending each entry is the carta of the original register, printed by the 1904 editors; it is their citation, not this archive's. What has been changed, and what has not. These pages were read by optical character recognition, which mangles the heavy abbreviation of chancery Italian — «Cap.ⁿᵒ», «Pod.à», «Mag.ᵗᵒ». Those abbreviations have been expanded and plain scanner damage repaired. No word has been added, removed or reordered, and where the scan is genuinely unclear the entry says so rather than guessing. The English is a working translation by this archive, offered as help, not as an edition. ⚠ The Venetian year. Venice began its year on 1 March, so a document dated January or February carries «m. v.» — more veneto. A decree dated «1671, gennaio 30 (m. v.)» is 30 January 1672 by ordinary reckoning. The dates below are given as the 1904 editors printed them, with the modern year in brackets where it differs — this is the single easiest way to be a year out on this episode.

The grant: sixty families, and houses built for them

Poreč had fallen to under a hundred people. The Republic did not take in refugees so much as refound a town with them.

1671, gennaio 30 (m. v.) — 30 January 1672 c. 270 t.
As printed, 1904Essendo pervenute al Senato nuove istanze di famiglie Cretensi, sopravvissute alla guerra passata, le quali chiedono di portarsi ad abitare le case già destinate loro in Parenzo, si raccomanda al Capitano di Raspo di sollecitare al più presto possibile la fabbricazione, già incominciata, delle case in quella città.
In English

New petitions having reached the Senate from Cretan families who survived the late war, asking to come and live in the houses already destined for them at Parenzo, the Captain of Raspo is urged to press on as fast as possible with the building, already begun, of the houses in that city.

The houses were allotted before the people arrived. This was a planned settlement, not an emergency.

1671, febbraio 5 (m. v.) — 5 February 1672 c. 271
As printed, 1904… Si loda poi la sua diligenza, per aver ridotto a coperto, in quindici giorni, diciassette case di quelle destinate alle famiglie Cretensi di Parenzo.
In English

…He is praised for his diligence in getting seventeen of the houses destined for the Cretan families of Parenzo under roof in fifteen days.

The same decree orders surplus seed-wheat milled into coarser grain to feed the Caiducci, and tells the Captain to choose their land so as not to injure the old inhabitants. Both settlements are being run out of one office, in one paragraph.

1672, marzo 3 Registro 47, c. 3
As printed, 1904In risposta a lettere 10 passato del Capitano di Raspo, che ha informato il Senato sulle case, che potrebbero essere disponibili in Parenzo per le famiglie Cretensi, oltre le sessanta già stabilite, gli si comunica, che fu commesso al Magistrato alle fortezze di spedirgli i materiali necessarii per condur a termine i tetti ed i pavimenti delle dette case. Si desidera sapere da lui i nomi delle famiglie, che andranno ad abitare le dieci case terminate, e gli si raccomanda di accordarne una per benemerenze speciali a Zuanne Papadopulo, quantunque esso non sia stato nominato nella prima lista delle sessanta famiglie.
In English

In reply to the Captain of Raspo's letters of the 10th of last month, informing the Senate of the houses that might be available at Parenzo for the Cretan families beyond the sixty already established, he is told that the Magistracy of the Fortresses has been ordered to send him the materials needed to finish the roofs and floors of the said houses. The Senate wishes to know from him the names of the families who will occupy the ten finished houses, and recommends that one be granted for special merit to Zuanne Papadopulo, although he was not named in the first list of the sixty families.

⭐⭐ The load-bearing entry. «Oltre le sessanta già stabilite» and «la prima lista delle sessanta famiglie» are the Senate's own words. Sixty is the size of the grant, stated twice, by the body that made it. And the roll of names existed — the Senate is asking for it here. It is not in the printed regest; it went back to Venice and is in the Senate filze at the Archivio di Stato.

1672, marzo 12 c. 12
As printed, 1904Avendo alcune famiglie cretensi presentato istanza per esser sostituite in luoco delle mancate dal numero delle sessanta, à quali fu destinato il Domicilio in Parenzo, si autorizza il Capitano di Raspo ad esaudirle, con obbligo però, che ivi stabiliscano la loro permanenza, decadendo altrimenti dal beneficio delle case e dei terreni, che verranno loro assegnati. Chiedendo poi essi Cretensi un tratto di terra per erigervi la loro chiesa, lo si incarica di scegliere il sito, che crederà più adeguato all'effetto. Quanto alle famiglie che si trovano a Corfù ed al Zante, ricevute le necessarie informazioni dal Provveditore Generale da Mar, si scriverà quanto verrà stabilito di risolvere sulle medesime.
In English

Some Cretan families having petitioned to be substituted for those missing from the number of the sixty, to whom domicile at Parenzo was assigned, the Captain of Raspo is authorised to grant it — on condition that they settle permanently there, forfeiting otherwise the benefit of the houses and lands assigned them. The said Cretans asking further for a tract of land on which to build their church, he is charged to choose the site he thinks most suitable. As for the families at Corfu and at Zante, once the Provveditore Generale da Mar has reported, what is resolved about them will be written.

Three things at once. Families were already dropping out of the sixty and being replaced; the community intended to stay and wanted its own church; and the rest of it was still scattered across Corfu and Zante, waiting.

1672, agosto 13 c. 103 t.
As printed, 1904Si è inteso con piacere da lettera 21 passato del Capitano di Raspo l'arrivo in Parenzo di diciannove famiglie Cretensi, delle ventitre imbarcatesi al Zante, la sua premura in assegnar loro case e terreni, e la diligenza di provvedere di abitazioni e beni anche le quattro famiglie non comprese nelle sessanta.
In English

It was heard with pleasure, from the Captain of Raspo's letter of the 21st of last month, of the arrival at Parenzo of nineteen Cretan families, of the twenty-three that embarked at Zante, of his care in assigning them houses and lands, and of his diligence in providing dwellings and goods also for the four families not included among the sixty.

Twenty-three sailed from Zante. Nineteen arrived. The regest does not say what became of the other four, and this archive will not guess.

⭐⭐⭐ The council: admitted, disputed, and settled by decree

This is the question in the title of Camillo De Franceschi's 1952 paper — the one document this archive has spent a month trying to obtain. The answer is one sentence of a volume printed in 1904.

1673, ottobre 26 c. 258
As printed, 1904Il Provveditore alla Sanità in Istria affitti le case dei Cretensi in Parenzo, che sono ancora libere, finché altre genti della loro terra non ne domandino l'investitura, ed impieghi il ricavato di essi affitti nel restauro delle case. — Si loda la destrezza colla quale è riuscito a conciliare le vertenze fra i cittadini di Parenzo ed i Cretensi nell'ammissione di questi a quel Consiglio, e si approva la terminazione da esso estesa in proposito.
In English

The Provveditore alla Sanità in Istria is to let out the houses of the Cretans at Parenzo which are still empty, until others of their own country ask to be invested with them, and to spend the rent on repairing the houses. — He is praised for the skill with which he succeeded in reconciling the disputes between the citizens of Parenzo and the Cretans over the admission of the latter to that Council, and the ruling he issued on the matter is approved.

⭐⭐⭐ The whole question, answered. The Cretans were admitted to the Council of Poreč. The citizens of Poreč fought it. A Venetian health commissioner reconciled the quarrel and issued a terminazione, which the Senate approved on 26 October 1673. What Camillo's fifty-eight pages will add is the names and the reasons; that it happened, and when, is here.

1674, agosto 8 c. 124
As printed, 1904Portatosi il Capitano di Raspo a Parenzo per riconoscervi i terreni liberi, lo si incarica di assegnare ai Cretensi, che hanno fissato la loro dimora in quella Città, la porzione, che ha trovato di pubblica ragione, estendendo nello stesso tempo una terminazione, nella quale dovrà imporre agli investiti di non allontanarsi per molto tempo da Parenzo, sotto pena di perdere ogni beneficio. Il Magistrato alle Biave gli spedirà quanto prima dieci migliaia di biscotto per venir in soccorso ai suddetti Cretensi.
In English

The Captain of Raspo having gone to Parenzo to identify the free lands, he is charged to assign to the Cretans who have fixed their dwelling in that city the portion he has found to be public, issuing at the same time a ruling forbidding the grantees to absent themselves from Parenzo for any length of time, on pain of losing every benefit. The Magistracy of the Grain will send him ten thousand of ship's biscuit with all speed for the relief of the said Cretans.

They were still being fed by the state nine years after Candia fell — and the Republic had to legislate to stop them leaving.

1674, novembre 10 c. 182
As printed, 1904… S'è pure inteso volentieri, che esso con le sue buone maniere abbia spronato gli abitanti di Maggio e Villanova ad offrire quasi volontariamente centoquarantacinque campi, e ad ammettere i Greci alla communione dei boschi per tagliar legne, e gli si raccomanda di eccitare altri popoli, specie della «Frata e Sbandati», a fare altrettanto, promettendo l'aggregazione di alcuna di quelle famiglie ai rispettivi consigli. — Dovrà infine esso Capitano dichiarar decaduta dal beneficio le quattro famiglie Cretensi allontanatesi da Parenzo.
In English

…It was also gladly heard that by his good manners he spurred the inhabitants of Maggio and Villanova to offer almost voluntarily one hundred and forty-five campi, and to admit the Greeks to the common woods to cut firewood; and he is urged to excite other peoples, especially of «Frata e Sbandati», to do the same, promising the aggregation of some of those families to the respective councils. — Finally the said Captain must declare forfeit the benefit of the four Cretan families who have left Parenzo.

Note the word «Greci». The Senate calls the same people Cretans and Greeks in the same breath, which is why the two names run together in every later account. And admission to a village council is being used here as an incentive — openly, as a thing the Republic could promise. Four more families had already gone.

1674, dicembre 1 c. 199 t.
As printed, 1904Si avverte il Podestà di Parenzo, che, prima di risolvere sulla parte presa in quel Consiglio circa all'espulsione di alcuni membri di esso, si sono commesse informazioni al Provveditore alla Sanità in Istria Gradenigo.
In English

The Podestà of Parenzo is warned that, before acting on the measure passed in that Council concerning the expulsion of some of its members, enquiries have been committed to Gradenigo, the Provveditore alla Sanità in Istria.

⚠ Thirteen months after the admission was settled, the Council of Poreč voted to expel members — and Venice froze it pending an investigation. The regest does not say the members were Cretans. This archive will not assert that they were. But it is the right question to put to Camillo's paper, which was written from that Council's own books.

The settlement shrinks: sixty, twenty-five, six

Two published accounts disagree — Jackson says thirty-five families, Joksimović (from Camillo) says sixty. The decrees show both can be right.

1674 c. 83
As printed, 1904… Gli si accusa ricevuta della nota delle venticinque famiglie Cretensi, che soggiornano a Parenzo, e gli si commette di far pubblicare un proclama, affinché gli assenti, dentro un termine limitato, vadano ad abitare le loro case, sotto pena della perdita delle medesime, e dei terreni, che loro spettano.
In English

…Receipt is acknowledged of the list of the twenty-five Cretan families residing at Parenzo, and he is charged to publish a proclamation requiring the absent ones, within a limited term, to go and live in their houses, on pain of losing them and the lands belonging to them.

Twenty-five, counted, in writing, two years after sixty were granted. The second roll the Senate received — and, like the first, not printed here.

1674, gennaio 5 (m. v.) — 5 January 1675 c. 225
As printed, 1904Si ordina al Capitano di Raspo, che ha concesso centoquarantacinque campi a sei famiglie Cretensi, abitanti in Parenzo, di sospender loro quind'innanzi la distribuzione mensile di biscotto.
In English

The Captain of Raspo, who has granted one hundred and forty-five campi to six Cretan families living at Parenzo, is ordered to suspend their monthly distribution of ship's biscuit from now on.

The 145 campi that Maggio and Villanova gave up go to six families.

1675, giugno 26 c. 88
As printed, 1904Le sei famiglie Cretensi abitanti in Parenzo, non ritraendo ancora dai centoquarantacinque campi loro assegnati il necessario sostentamento, e supplicando esse per un assegnamento di biscotto, si stabilisce di accordar loro ancora per un anno la chiesta contribuzione, invitando parimenti il Capitano di Raspo a comunicar loro tale deliberazione, ed ad eccitarli ad applicarsi alla cultura dei terreni, unico mezzo per potersi procurare di che vivere.
In English

The six Cretan families living at Parenzo still not drawing their necessary subsistence from the hundred and forty-five campi assigned them, and petitioning for an allowance of biscuit, it is resolved to grant the requested contribution for one year more, the Captain of Raspo being likewise asked to communicate this to them and to urge them to apply themselves to cultivating the land, the only means of getting a living.

Sixty granted in 1672. Twenty-five resident in 1674. Six on the land in 1675, and still not feeding themselves. T. G. Jackson's «thirty-five families», written in 1887 over the span 1669–1692, sits inside that curve. The two published numbers were never in conflict; they were taken at different moments, and nobody had put the moments in order.

⭐⭐⭐ And the land left over went to Medulin

The decree that ties the Candia story to the parish registers this archive is reading frame by frame.

1671, giugno 27 c. 91
As printed, 1904Incontrò la pubblica soddisfazione l'accoglienza fatta ai Caiducci di Risano dal Capitano di Raspo, il quale, non essendogli riuscito di collocarli separatamente, diede loro alloggio in quarantuna abitazioni di Pola fatte sollecitamente accomodare, e seppe dirigersi in modo da non disgustare i vecchi abitanti di quella città. Gli si spediscono mille ducati per le spese più necessarie e perché faccia fabbricar case nei punti più remoti della campagna, e renda abitabili diversi casali in Medolino, facendone riparare i coperti. — Per l'assegnazione dei terreni si porti sopra luogo coi capi, ed assegni loro quelli di pubblica ragione rimasti dopo le concessioni fatte ai Cretensi; di più si applichi a rivedere le investiture, e converta in beneficio dei Caiducci tutte quelle che, per mancanza alle condizioni prefisse, resteranno libere; li fornisca di istrumenti rurali e di animali per coltivare la terra, e dia loro una certa quantità di biscotto e di frumento, finché col lavoro non si procaccino il necessario per vivere. Ad incremento del culto faccia riparare una chiesa in città ed una ne faccia costruire in campagna, dove si manderà l'immagine della Beata Vergine da detti Caiducci richiesta. — Gli si raccomanda infine di continuare ad adoperarsi perché tutto prosegua con ordine, e non siano trascurati i Cretensi.
In English

Public satisfaction met the reception given to the Caiducci of Risano by the Captain of Raspo, who, having failed to settle them separately, lodged them in forty-one dwellings at Pola hurriedly made fit, and managed matters so as not to disgust the old inhabitants of that city. A thousand ducats are sent him for the most necessary expenses, and so that he may build houses in the remotest parts of the countryside, and make various casali at Medolino habitable by repairing their roofs. — For the allotment of lands let him go to the spot with their headmen, and assign them the public lands remaining after the concessions made to the Cretans; further, let him review the investitures and convert to the Caiducci's benefit all those that fall vacant through failure to meet the set conditions; let him furnish them with farm tools and animals to work the land, and give them a quantity of biscuit and wheat until by their labour they can get a living. For the increase of worship let him repair a church in the city and build one in the countryside, where the image of the Blessed Virgin requested by the said Caiducci will be sent. — Finally he is urged to continue so that all proceeds in order, and that the Cretans be not neglected.

⭐⭐⭐ One officer, one budget, one decade — and the Senate ranked them. The hajduks of Risano got the public land left over after the concessions made to the Cretans, and repaired casali at Medulin. The Candia resettlement and the settlement of the parish whose registers this archive is reading are not two stories. They are one order, and Poreč was served first. The last line is the one that stays with you: «and that the Cretans be not neglected».

The three refugees the Senate named

A regest abstracts; it names a private person only where the Senate had to rule on them personally. Three Cretans cleared that bar.

1672, marzo 3 c. 3
As printed, 1904… gli si raccomanda di accordarne una per benemerenze speciali a Zuanne Papadopulo, quantunque esso non sia stato nominato nella prima lista delle sessanta famiglie.
In English

Zuanne Papadopulo — granted a house for special merit, though not named in the first list of the sixty families.

The only one of the three given something rather than asking for it.

1675 c. 4
As printed, 1904… ed a quella di Pietro Achielli, nobile Cretese, che, desiderando trasferirsi a Parenzo, domanda una di quelle case, gli commette di adoperarsi in modo di accontentar tutti.
In English

Pietro Achielli, a Cretan noble, wishing to move to Parenzo, asks for one of those houses; the Captain is charged to contrive to satisfy everyone.

Three years after the grant, people were still trying to get in. The same decree carries nine Montenegrin families — thirty-four people in all — asking for land at the village of Peroi.

1675, marzo 9 c. 5 t.
As printed, 1904Essendo stata presentata al Senato una supplica di Teodosio Tirelli, nobile Cretense, che si trova cancelliere a Marostica, nella quale esso si duole di esser stato spogliato, per la sua assenza da Parenzo, della casa già assegnatagli, e dice, che si stanno prendendo le stesse misure contro suo fratello, cancelliere ad Este, si ordina al Capitano di Raspo di informarsi in proposito, tenendo intanto il tutto in sospeso.
In English

A petition having been presented to the Senate by Teodosio Tirelli, a Cretan noble, chancellor at Marostica, in which he complains of having been stripped, for his absence from Parenzo, of the house already assigned him, and says that the same is being done against his brother, chancellor at Este, the Captain of Raspo is ordered to enquire, holding everything in suspense meanwhile.

The rule against absence, biting. Two brothers out of Crete, both landed as chancellors in Veneto towns — Marostica and Este — and both losing their Poreč houses for not living in them. A refugee grant was not a gift; it was a residence obligation, and educated men who found work elsewhere forfeited it.

The nil, with its terms named

And the thing this archive was looking for is not here. The surname was searched through the whole of AMSI vol. XX (1904), pages 1–45, and the whole of vol. XVI (1900), pages 1–116, as Franceschi, Francesch, Franzeschi, de Franc and the pattern Fran?eschi to allow for scanner damage. Zero, in all five, in both volumes. That is published here because a nil that names its terms is worth something and a nil that does not is worth nothing. It is also weak: these are abstracts, and they name a private family only where the Senate ruled on that family by name — which is why exactly three Cretans appear above out of sixty households. The rolls that would settle it were asked for and received by the Senate in 1672 and 1674, and are in the Senate filze at the Archivio di Stato di Venezia. That, and not the 1952 offprint, is now the cheapest place left to look for a name.

Copyright

These texts are in the public domain. The volume was published at Parenzo in 1904 by the Società istriana di archeologia e storia patria; its editors are long dead and copyright has long expired. Reproduce them freely. The English renderings and the commentary are this archive's and are offered on the same terms — take them, correct them, use them. If you find an error in a transcription, it is an error; please say so and it will be fixed and credited.

What these decrees mean for this family is argued on the Seget page. The hunt that found them — and the 1952 paper that is still missing — is logged in what has been searched.