I. D. Travin. Ad quelibet incrementa parati: The Letter of the Doge of the Republic of Genoa
Antoniotto Adorno to Amadeo of Savoy from the collection of N. P. Likhachev // Petersburg
Historical Journal, no. 4, 2025, pp. 222–234.

DOI: 10.51255/2311–603X_2025_4_222

Abstract:

This paper is an introduction to scientific discourse and an analysis of a small letter from
Antoniotto Adorno, Doge of the Republic of Genoa, to Amadeo of Savoy, Lord of Piedmont and titular Prince of Achaea, which is dated back to 1391. The document comes from the collection of the famous historian and paleographer Nikolay Likhachev and is currently stored in the Western European Section of the Archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of History (Russian Academy of Sciences), where it is part of a small corpus related to the history of the Ligurian region of Italy. The letter is a sheet of thin paper with a clearly visible watermark and traces of a red wax seal. An analysis of the document’s appearance and diplomatic features allows me to conclude that the letter belongs to a special type of private correspondence of secular rulers, which began to enter into circulation in Europe just at the end of the 14th — beginning of the 15th centuries. The content of the message is quite laconic — Antoniotto Adorno informs Amadeo of Savoy that he is ready for any development of events, however, the essence of these events remains a mystery due to the lack of access to other parts of the correspondence. In this article, on the basis of the historical context, I put forward a hypothesis that the topic of the rulers’ correspondence was the potential assistance that Genoa could provide to Amadeo in his attempt to gain de facto control over Achaea. At the same time, the document is also a letter of credence from an envoy named Bertino Prohanna, who had to deliver Antoniotto Adorno’s answer to Amadeo of Savoy.

Key words: Genoa, Piedmont, Achaea, Morea, Antoniotto Adorno, Amedeo of Savoy, Nikolay Likhachev, Eduard Fischer von Röslerstamm, Manzoni-Borghesi.

Author:

Travin, Ivan Dmitrievich — junior research fellow, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, Russia).
E-mail: itravin94@yandex.ru

References:

Airaldi, G. Genova e la Liguria nel Medioevo. Genova, 2007.

Arrighi, G. The Long Twentieth Century. London; New York, Verso, 2010. 432 p.

Buffo, P. Savoia-Acaia, Amedeo di. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 91. Roma, 2018. URL: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/savoia-acaia-amedeo-di_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (дата обращения: 04.07.2025).

Cappelli, A. Cronologia, cronografia e calendario perpetuo: dal principio dell’Era Cristiana ai giorni nostri. Milano, Ulrico Hoepli, 1930. 566 p.

Cappelli, A. Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane. Milano, 1998.

Chirkova, A. V. Gramota Marino Fal’era iz sobraniya N. P. Lihacheva: k voprosu o diplomatike
venetsianskikh lettere ducali [Marino Falier’s Charter from the Collection of N. P. Likhachev: on the Issue of the Diplomatics of Venetian Lettere Ducali. In Russ.]. In Srednie veka. 2019. Iss. 80 (3), pp. 90–113.

Chirkova, A. V. Poslaniya papy Aleksandra III (1159–1181) iz arkhiva Genuezskoi respubliki v sobranii RNB [Letters of Pope Alexander III (1159–1181) from the Archives of the Republic of Genoa in the Collection of the Russian National Library. In Russ.]. In Vspomogatel’nye istoricheskie discipliny. 2010. Iss. 31, pp. 131–158.

Chirkova, A. V. Zapadnoevropeiskaya diplomatika Srednikh vekov i Rannego Novogo vremeni [Western European Diplomatics of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. In Russ.]. Saint Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriya publ., 2019. 89 p.

Del Centina, A. Abel’s surviving manuscripts including one recently found in London. In Historia
Mathematica. 2006. Vol. 33, iss. 2, pp. 224–233.

Epshtein, S. Genuya i genueztsy: 958–1528 [Epstein Steven. Genoa and the Genoese, 958–1528. In Russ.]. Saint Petersburg, European University in St. Petersburg press, 2022. 575 p.

Kedar, B. Z. Mercanti in crisi a Genova e Venezia nel ‘300. Roma, Jouvence, 1981. 353 p.

Klimanov, L. G. N. P. Likhachev “v poiskakh zhelannykh zven’ev velikoi diplomaticheskoi vystavki”
[N. P. Likhachev “in Search of the Desired Links of the Great Diplomatic Exhibition”. In Russ.]. In “Zvuchat lish’ pis’mena…”: K 150-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya akademika Nikolaya Petrovicha Likhacheva: katalog vystavki. Saint Petersburg, 2012. P. 36–48.

Orestre, G. Adorno, Antoniotto. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 1. Roma, 1960. URL: https://www. treccani.it/enciclopedia/antoniotto-adorno_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/ (дата обращения: 04.07.2025). Petti Balbi, G. Simon Boccanegra e la Genova del ‘300. Napoli, 1995.

Setton, K. M. Catalan Domination of Athens 1311–1380. London, Variorum, 1975. 323 p.

Stella, G. Annales Genuenses. Bologna, Zanichelli, 1975. 447 p.

Similar Posts

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — V. I. Bezruchenko. THE EXPULSION OF THE SERBS FROM SARAJEVO IN 1992–1995

The subject of the article is the fate of the Serb community in Sarajevo during the 1992–1995 civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The article is based on documents from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the archives of the Centre for the Study of War, War Crimes and the Search for Missing Persons in Republika Srpska, as well as documents and materials from the International Independent Commission to Investigate the Plight of Serbs in Sarajevo 1992–1995. The Serb community in Sarajevo, which has existed for centuries, became the target of terror by armed groups and the Democratic Action Party of the President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, A. Izetbegovic. A. Izetbegovic’s regime carried out the ethnic cleansing of Sarajevo, as a result of which the pre-war Serb community virtually disappeared.

|

PHJ №1 (45) 2025 — M. S. Krutova. L. P. ZHUKOVSKAYA’S WORKS ON PALEOGRAPHY IN HER PERSONAL COLLECTION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF MANUSCRIPTS OF THE RUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY

The article provides a comprehensive overview of the works on paleography contained in the personal archive fund of L. P. Zhukovskaya. The collection encompasses both published and unpublished works, materials related to their composition, as well as correspondence and biographical and official documents. It is evident that L. P. Zhukovskaya devoted significant attention to the paleographic characteristics of handwritten books. However, it is noteworthy that she demonstrated particular interest in the dating, attribution of scribal handwriting, the nature of the writing material and the artistic features of these manuscripts. The study of paleographic features of the handwritten source was a reliable foundation for conclusions about the textual andlinguistic characteristics of book monuments.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — A. V. Apanasenok. IN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE “BLUE SNAKE”: THE PROBLEM OF TOBACCO SMOKING ON THE PAGES OF OLD BELIEVER MAGAZINES OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

The present paper is devoted to an examination of the history of the anti-smoking campaign that emerged in Russia in the pages of thick Old Believer magazines between 1906 and 1916. It is demonstrated that following the Russian Old Believers’ attainment of fundamental civil liberties in 1905, their customary anti-smoking rhetoric transitioned from the intra-confessional domain to the national stage. The active fight against tobacco use in the territory of the Russian Empire was intended to become a kind of calling card of the Old Believer communities in the process of their integration into the public life of the country. The paper examines the various arguments against smoking that were advanced by Old Believer monthly magazines, as well as the proposed ways to limit the impact of tobacco on Russian society. The study concludes that the expressed ideas had little chance of widespread dissemination and mass support in the context of the growing crisis in Russian society. Nevertheless, they represented a noteworthy landmark in the evolution of the national “anti-smoking discourse”.

|

PHJ № 4 (48) 2025 — V. A. Berdinskikh. PROBLEMS OF HISTORY IN THE STALIN ERA AS A SUBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC REFLECTION. BOOK REVIEW: TIKHONOV V. V. THE USEFUL PAST: HISTORY IN THE STALINIST USSR. MOSCOW: NOVOE LITERATURNOE OBOZRENIE, 2024. 367 P.

The article examines the main problems of the book of the Moscow historian V. V. Tikhonov, devoted to the problems of interaction between Soviet historians and the authorities in the era of Stalinism. The book is written in the genre of scientific essay. The transformation of the ideology of Stalinism and the complex of relations between the authorities and the scientific and historical community are the focus of the author’s attention. An attempt to understand how the “historiographic vertical of power” works is clearly a success for V. V. Tikhonov. He posed important and relevant questions of the place and role of historians in historical politics.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — I. V. Zykin. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE WINTER WAR OF 1939–1940 FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOVIET PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY

One of the tasks of industrialisation in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and early 1940s was the development of the pulp and paper industry due to low production volumes and dependence on imported equipment and technologies. Despite the establishment of joint ventures, research institutes, and machine-building enterprises, it was not possible to overcome the quantitative and technological lag behind the countries of Europe and North America — the leaders of the pulp and paper industry. The article analyses the potential of pulp and paper enterprises on the Karelian isthmus at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s and the consequences of the Soviet-Finnish War for the pulp and paper industry of the USSR. At the end of the 19 th century — in the 1930s, a large complex for the deep processing of wood was built on the Karelian isthmus. Advanced technologies were used in the production of pulp and cardboard, which were not available in the Soviet Union. However, Soviet specialists paid little attention to Finland’s experience, preferring Germany, Sweden and the USA, where, in addition to technology, mechanical engineering was being developed. The accession of the Karelian isthmus to the Soviet Union after the Winter War of 1939–1940 became an important factor in the development of the pulp and paper industry. The work carried out between April 1940 and May 1941 showed the importance of coordinating the efforts of party-state, planning and economic bodies, concentrating human and technological potential in the restoration of enterprises and the development of their capacities, maintaining dependence on energy imports, control and measuring equipment for pulp cooking and the return of evacuated equipment. An advanced complex for deep processing of wood appeared in the Soviet Union, which significantly changed the spatial and technological development of the pulp and paper industry. The beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Finland’s attack on the side of Germany led to the evacuation of enterprises and the temporary loss of territories.

|

PHJ №1 (45) 2025 — D. A. Barinov, E. A. Rostovtsev. GRADUATES OF THE FACULTY OF HISTORY AND PHILOLOGY OF ST. PETERSBURG UNIVERSITY AT THE TURN OF THE 19TH–20TH CENTURIES: COLLECTIVE PORTRAIT AND CAREER PROSPECTS

Throughout the imperial period, St. Petersburg University functioned not only as the largest scientific and educational center in the country, but also as a training ground for the political and cultural elite, thus serving as the most significant source for the formation of the domestic intelligentsia. This study examines the role of the historical and philological faculty of the capital’s university in the formation of the national elite. The primary research method employed by the authors involved the compilation of a collective biography of бfaculty graduates, encompassing an analysis of their career trajectories, social compositions, and other relevant factors. A sample of issues from the turn of the 19th–20th centuries (1895–1904) was taken for analysis. The analysis revealed that the further professional paths of graduates developed in three main ways: a bureaucratic career, a career as a teacher in gymnasiums and colleges, and a scientific career, usually associated with work in higher education or the Academy of Sciences. Concurrently, the proportion of teachers and scientists among the graduate population increased, while the proportion of bureaucrats decreased. However, many individuals who opted for careers in the government apparatus did not forsake scientific studies, continuing to publish works, compilations, or organise expeditions. The article also provides comparisons with analogous indicators for other faculties, including law, physics, mathematics, and oriental languages. One of the objectives assigned to the article was to identify the connections that students established during their studies and that influenced the trajectory of their future careers. A thorough analysis of biographies revealed that these connections played a pivotal role in the development of academic and political careers, where the ties of student friendship could prove to be a significant asset.