PretPal

Koper was the center of Venetian Istria during the late medieval and early modern ages. From 13 to 18 century, the head of the Koper comune was a so-called podestà (or praetor), a member of Venetian nobility, who also acted as the administrator of the entire Venetian Istria throughout the early modern period. His residence and the main administrative complex of the city was therefore actually called Pretorial Palace. In the eastern Adriatic, similar complexes as in Koper have developed only in Zadar and Kotor, but with some differences. In Zadar there were headquarters of the administration for the Venetian Dalmatia and Albania, but this regional administration was separated from the local one. In Kotor, on the other hand, the rector of the commune was also responsible for the Venetian Albania, but subordinated to his superior in Zadar. His administrative building was built away from the city centre and away from the cathedral complex, next to the city port. Similar complexes, seats of the Venetian regional structures, are found in Corfu and Crete (Heraklion). In none of the above mentioned towns Venetian domination was so prolonged or pronounced as in Koper, especially during the earlier period. At the same time, Koper was under the rule of the patriarchs of Aquileia until mid-13 century, while none of other later-to-be Venetian maritime regional centres was under the domination of great feudal lords.

After last thorough studies of the Pretorial Palace based on archival sources in early 1900s, for the last seven decades serious research of the communal palace was prevented by the inaccessibility of the Koper municipal archives. Their recent reopening (in Venice) offers an exceptional opportunity to place the Pretorial Palace on the map of important administrative buildings of the Venetian Republic.

During the proposed project, a group of art historians, historians, a classical philologist and a conservator, will discuss several issues regarding architectural and urban history:

(1) the location of the palace within the urban framework;
(2) the chronology of the building interventions, the original arrangement of interior spaces and their respective functions;
(3) the relations between public and private spaces;
(4) the impact of changing political circumstances and economic conditions on the building history of the palace;
(5) iconographical and spatial elements of the palace within the urban framework of the Platea Communis (now Tito Square);
(6) a comparative art historical analysis of the Pretorial Palace in a wider context.