Notes on Trade in Today’s Bulgarian Parts of the Silistra Sanjak (according to Data from the Ledger of Benedetto Marino di Resti)

Authors:

Pages: 164-168
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/SITH1906

Abstract:

Benedetto Marino di Resti, who was born in 1555, was from Dubrovnik. He lived for 28 years in the city of Sofia, and from there he engaged in trade on the territory of almost all of today’s Bulgaria. A large amount of information about his commercial activity can be obtained from his account book, which has been preserved and is today kept in the Dubrovnik Archives. It covers the period from 1590 to 1605. According to the document, the settlements in Silistra Sanjak which were connected with the trade of Benedetto Marino di Resti, were Silistra, Baza (now Dobrich), Mesemvria (now Nessebar), the villages of Balchik (now Kranevo) and Karvenac (now Karvuna), Varna and the Varna villages of Kastritsa (now Vinitsa district) and Dolno Vlaho (probably the village of Dolishte), Provadia and the Provadia villages of Manastir and Voynitsi, and also the present-day town of Dolni Chiflik. From the document, we can also get information about the names of the people with whom Resty traded. The names of 13 people connected in one way or another with Provadia, 16 connected with Silistra and 1 from Mesemvria have been preserved. These and other data show that the book is an important written source for the study of trade and coin circulation in the Silistra sanjak in the late 16th and the early 17th century.

Keywords:

Silistra, Dubrovnik, trade.

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