Egidio Ivetic

For Fernand Braudel, the Mediterranean’s most famous biographer, the Adriatic was ‘perhaps the most unified of all the regions of the Mediterranean Sea’. But it still posed ‘all the problems implicit in the study of the whole Mediterranean.’ A Mediterranean within the Mediterranean. Egidio Ivetic tackles those problems head on in his long awaited History of the Adriatic. Following the model laid out by Braudel in his 1949 study of the Mediterranean, Ivetic explores the history of the Adriatic as a single historical space.

The most famous product of Adriatic history is Venice. ‘The Most Serene Republic’ dominated the Adriatic for centuries until it was ended by Napoleon in 1797. Even as it slid into obscurity as part of Austria and then a united Italy, the city of Venice has continued to fascinate. It is difficult to find a major art gallery in the western world without a painting (or many) of Venice, once part of an essential artistic pilgrimage. Countless histories, travelogues and, more recently, cookery books continue to celebrate the history and legacy of La Serenissima.

Interest in the Adriatic as a single historical region has been less prominent. Indeed, Ivetic’s book is the first English-language study to be published. While for many the Adriatic may be defined primarily by Venice and the city’s cultural influence and heritage, Ivetic sees it differently. His history emphasises the peripheral nature of the Adriatic and how its presence at the crossroads of various states and civilisations has shaped the people who have defined themselves in reference to the sea, rather than as citizens of a single state.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

Luka Ivan Jukic writes on Central and Eastern Europe.… (mehr)