In the fold of Serenissima: Venetian Republic and the Croatian Adriatic

U radu se raščlambom temeljnih sastavnica koje se odnose na povijest hrvatskomletačkih veza i prožimanja nastoji ukazati na ključna događanja i značenje mletačke uprave nad pretežitim dijelom istočnojadranske obale, ali i na važnost koju su tijekom više stoljeća zajedničkoga opstojanja u istoj državi hrvatski krajevi imali za povijest Serenissime.During its long existence, the Republic of Venice occupied a highly important place in the historical development of the East Adriatic Coast. The centuries of the Venetian rule over the major portion of the Croatian coast determined, to a great extent, the basic components of the political, economic and cultural history of the peoples on both sides of the Adriatic. The administrative and political unity (integration of the Croatian coastline into the system of the Venetian trans-Adriatic acquisitions), economic relations (trade, shipping and seafaring), influences and interactions in the fields of culture and arts (the exchange of artists across the Adriatic) and human communication and migration (the centurieslong existence of a Croatian emigrant community in Venice and the simultaneous activity of numerous Venetians in urban communities of the East Adriatic) are the main determinants and the key to the understanding of the Croatian and the Venetian past. In this text, which does not aim at comprehensiveness, we succinctly analyze the basic components of the centuries-long Croatian-Venetian bonds and interactions. We then try to indicate the key events and the consequences of the Venetian rule over the majority of the Adriatic, as well as the importance that, over the centuries of co-existence in a common state, Croatian territories came to have for the history of Serenissima