The present article investigates the interplay between the institutional framework of the Venetian Stato da mar and the commercial practices in the early modern Adriatic. Using the example of the city of Zadar, then known as Zadar and the capital of Venice’s dual province of Dalmatia-Albania, the following issues are discussed : In a first step the integration of the merchants into the social fabric of urban society is discussed, placing special emphasis upon the interactions between the judicial framwork as detailed in the city’s statutes and business practices. In the second part, a number of examples drawn from the protocol books of Zadar’s notaries, preserved in the Croatian State Archive in Zadar, is presented to illustrate the intricacies of commercial exchange in sixteenth-century Dalmatia.
"Contribution to the Examination of Dating of Notary Records in Service of the Chapter of Zadar During the Second Half of the 14th and the First Half of the 15th Century The author analyses the styles of dating of documents, i. e. records,