Tommaso Stefini, Commerce and Justice: Ottoman and Venetian Courts in Istanbul during the Seventeenth Century
Tommaso Stefini’s Commerce and Justice: Ottoman and Venetian courts in Istanbul during the Seventeenth Century, completed as a PhD dissertation at Yale in 2021, is a model of comparative and connected histories that advance our understanding of how Venetians lived and worked at the heart of the Ottoman empire and how Venetian institutions functioned in this context. Based on impressive archival research in the Venetian and Ottoman archives, Stefini’s dissertation demonstrates how early modern merchants, seaman, and other residents of Istanbul who might claim a Venetian identity deployed the legal pluralism of this society to negotiate and resolve disputes over trade and property, and to register business transactions. We also learn a great deal about Ottoman subjects who did business with Venetians.
The administration of law and justice by the Venetian chancellery, Ottoman kadi, and the imperial court further illuminates the complex nature of the society of the Eastern Mediterranean in a critical period for Venetian-Ottoman relations. Stefini’s thoughtful and probing analysis of the legal norms and practices of this society demonstrates the importance of the Venetian chancellery not only to Venetians and other Europeans but to many Ottoman subjects (Christians, Jews, and some Muslims) as a commercial court of record and appeal. Stefini equally demonstrates how the imperial court intervened in Venetian disputes with Ottomans to preserve good relations with Venice. The result is a rich history of institutional coordination rather than conflict that significantly enriches our understanding of the Venetian empire in the seventeenth century.