Venice and the Dalmatian Hinterland - Later Medieval Europe by Lena Sadovski Hardcover

About the Book

By studying the military, economic, and social dynamics of the Dalmatian hinterland and highlighting multilingual administrative exchanges across cultural and political borders, this book broadens our understanding of the Venetian maritime empire and of hinterlands in European history.

Book Synopsis

This volume offers a source-based analysis of the complex interactions between the Venetian administration of the coastal town Spalato (Split) and its hinterland under Venetian, Hungarian, and Ottoman rule. Employing a microhistorical approach, Sadovski studies the military importance, economic dynamics, and social changes in the Dalmatian hinterland in the later medieval period. This book also explores multilingualism, highlighting how Slavic languages as well as local laws and customs were integrated into the Venetian administration. In doing so, it broadens our understanding of the Venetian maritime empire and proposes a new way of thinking about hinterlands - in cultural, social, linguistic, and legal terms alongside economic and political aspects.

Review Quotes

"Lena Sadovski's book is an important contribution to the knowledge of Venetian administration and everyday life in the area of present-day central Dalmatia / southern Croatia. Its value lies not only in the use of previously unused archival sources and the reinterpretation of known sources, but also in its methodological innovation, which can serve as a guide for future research into medieval Dalmatia and Croatia." - Neven Budak, in: The Medieval Review (2025), p. 10.37

About the Author

Lena Sadovski, Ph.D. (2023), University of Vienna, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences working on the late medieval and early modern history of the Balkans, specifically Dalmatia and Bulgaria.