Europe (c.1400-1458)

18. Istria

Istria 117 61. Perhaps someone will ask whither I have banished Liburnia, through which a famous poet relates that Antenor traveled on his way to Italy.245 The boundaries of countries are unclear to a large extent and it is difficult to untangle modern problems, let alone solve ancient ones. Pliny said that Liburnia ended where Dalmatia began and that it contained Tragurium, a place well-known for its marble, and also the colony of Salona, which was 112 miles from Iadera, and that Iadera was 160 miles from Pola.246 From this, it transpires that the Liburnians dwelt between the Croatians and the Dalmatians. It is also possible that the Croatians—this people’s modern name—invaded the territory of the Liburnians. Let it suffice for me to have noted these points. If anyone wants more definite information, he should consult the ancient authors. Ptolemy lumped Liburnia and Dalmatia with Illyria and said that Illyria bordered on Pannonia in the north, upper Mysia in the east, Istria in the west, and Macedonia and the Adriatic coast in the south.247 18 ISTRIA 62. THE ANCIENTS assigned Istria to Italy. It contains Poreč, Pula, and Iustinopolis, which they call Capodistria.248 However, to include it with Italy is inappropriate, since it is separated from it by a gulf of the Adriatic and, like a peninsula, surrounded by sea where it joins the mainland. To its rear is a rocky and mountainous region, which the ancients called Albia. Pliny said that Istria was contiguous to Liburnia,249 which makes it clear that the Croatians replaced the Liburnians. They say that Istria was named from the Ister River, which was falsely believed to flow from the Danube into the Adriatic. Both Pomponius Mela and Nepos,250 who came 245. Virgil, Aeneid, 1. 244. 246. Pliny, Natural History, 3.140–41. 247. Ptolemy, Geography, 2.16.1. 248. Modern day Koper. 249. Pliny, Natural History, 3.129. 250. Pomponius Mela, Description of the World, 2.63; Nepos fr. 19 Marshall. 118 Istria from the vicinity of the Po, gave credence to this error. In fact, no river pours into the Adriatic from the Danube. They were misled by the story of the Argonauts, who were held by tradition to have sailed up the Ister [i.e., Danube] into Istria from the Black Sea. It is clear, however, that they sailed upstream from the Danube into the Sava and thence to the Nauportus River (which I suppose is what we call the Ljubljanica today), whose marshes Strabo calls Lugeum .251 Their ship arrived at the Adriatic after being carried on their shoulders through the mountains from the Nauportus. Today, the Istrians are Slavs, though the coastal cities use the Italian language and are fluent in both tongues. The better part of the country is the coastal region, which is subject to the rule of the Venetians; the House of Austria controls its interior. The people of Wallsee own the town of St. Veit an der Glan, which is situated on the Tisza River. From there to Aquileia is one thousand stades, according to Tuditanus, who conquered the Istrians.252 Tradition holds that the frontier of Italy is the Mursia River. I have learned of nothing noteworthy that was done in this land during our time, though the Austrians and Venetians were engaged in a serious dispute over their frontiers, and the subjects of each side came into conflict. I was once sent by the emperor to settle this quarrel, but, although I arranged a truce and set new boundaries, I was unable to eradicate the dispute root and branch.253 251. Strabo, Geography, 7.5.2. Lake Cerknica or Kirknitz in Slovenia. 252. Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus. See Pliny, Natural History, 3.19.129. 253. This probably refers to events c. 1450–51; see Marija Wakounig, “Una duplice dipendenza. I conti di Gorizia, Venezia e il Sacro Romano Impero (1350–1500),” in Da Ottone III a Massimiliano I: Gorizia e i conti di Gorizia nel medioevo, ed. Silvano Cavazza (Gorizia: Edizioni della Laguna, 2004). This squares with Aeneas’s mention of having recently returned from Istria in a letter of July 16, 1450; see Wolkan, Briefwechsel, vol. 67: 161. ...