A historical region corresponding to the Adriatic coastal strip of the Balkan Peninsula, from the Quarnero to the Drin Gulf. It consists of a continental sector of varying width (minimum 5–10 km in the north; maximum 100 km in the center) and a garland of islands, islets, and rocks (about a thousand) that face it as far as Ragusa. The coast, mostly high and rocky, is indented by frequent and typical inlets (channels and valleys), which branch out and are protected toward the open sea by the islands that run parallel to it, sometimes in multiple rows. The nearby mountain ridge (Bebie and Dinaric Alps), rising to 2,000 m, clearly isolates, even in terms of climate and flora, the elevated Dinaric hinterland from the Dalmatian coast and archipelago, whose Mediterranean character is further highlighted by the prevailing cultivation of olive trees, vines, fruit trees (almonds, figs), and, locally, citrus fruits. Despite its karstic nature, Dalmatia has only 3% of unproductive territory, with a predominance of pastures (46%), woods and “macchia” (30%), and more than a quarter of intensive cultivation.
Natural Dalmatia covers about 18,000 km², with just over 80% of dry land; but its regional unity was lost in the new arrangement of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, within which it is included. Its ethnic-linguistic physiognomy has changed over time; at the end of the last century, the Italian element (predominantly urban) probably still numbered 75–80 thousand. The Treaty of Rapallo (1920) left Italy with Zara and Lagosta (in addition to Cherso and Lussino, included in Istria); the agreement of May 18, 1941, recognized Italy’s possession of the entire central Dalmatia and the Cattaro region (5,242 km² with 325,000 inhabitants), as well as the islands of Veglia and Arbe, annexed to the province of Fiume. With the Paris diktat (Feb. 11, 1947), however, the entire region passed to Yugoslavia, including Zara, where the predominance of the Italian element was incontestable.
The largest inhabited centers of Dalmatia are all coastal; the most populous today is Split, in central Dalmatia; none others exceed 20,000 inhabitants.
**
---
### II. HISTORY.
In the Metal Age, Dalmatia was inhabited by the Illyrians, who by the 3rd century BC had formed two principalities (one of which, that of the Dalmati, gave its name to the country), and by the Liburnians, who lived especially on the islands. The southern zone had many Syracusan colonies and frequent exchanges with Apulia. The Roman conquest, begun at the end of the 3rd century BC, was rather protracted and concluded in AD 9 with the subjugation of the entire country and the establishment of Illyricum, in which many cities flourished, foremost among them Salona. Diocletian was born here, and near Salona he built his great palace.
After the fall of the Western Empire and the ephemeral reign of Julius Nepos (476–80), Dalmatia, already entirely Christian, was included in the kingdom of Odoacer, then in that of Theodoric and the Ostrogoths. With the restoration begun in the East by Justinian, the Byzantines firmly established themselves in the region, which enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity until about 614, when it began to be plagued by Avar-Slav incursions and subjected to frequent devastations. Only narrow coastal strips, the cities of Zara, Traù, and Budua, built on peninsulas, and all the islands offered effective resistance to the invaders and preserved their Latin character. But toward the end of the reign of Heraclius (641), peaceful relations were established between the Byzantines and the Slavs, and only then could Dalmatia politically stabilize and reorganize its religious life under the pontificate of John IV (a native of Dalmatia).
Little is known about Dalmatia in the 7th century; it is certain that the region continued to depend on the Exarch of Ravenna until it formed a *thema*, i.e., a government of its own, headed by a strategos. In the early years of the 9th century, the Franks attempted to seize the region; but their failures led Charlemagne to recognize, in the Peace of 812, Byzantine rule. This, however, continued to decline, and was no longer able to defend its cities and provinces from the piracy of Croatian and Nerentan corsairs. Thus, various maritime cities began to provide for their own needs. As early as the 10th century, communes arose in Veglia, Arbe, Ossero, Zara, Traù, Split, Ragusa, and Castro, governed by tribunes, priors, consuls, and judges. The bishop, elected by the clergy and people, did not hold temporal power, but exercised an important function in communal life. The Cassinese Benedictine monasteries, which rapidly spread in the region, also exerted considerable influence over the population, increasingly orienting it toward Rome. At the same time, various coastal cities formed alliances, against common enemies, with Venice, which was already becoming strong and powerful at sea. Thus, at the end of the same century, invited by the Dalmati themselves, Doge Pietro II Orseolo placed himself at the head of a formidable fleet, defeated the Croats and Nerentans, and, after receiving homage and promises of loyalty, assumed the title of Duke of Dalmatia (1000).
In 1060, the papal legate Mainard, abbot of Pomposa, arrived in Dalmatia to promulgate and apply the constitutions of the Lateran Easter Synod of the previous year, and took the opportunity to restore to the Church of Split jurisdiction over the territories of ancient Roman Dalmatia, then largely held by the Croats. In the last years of the following century (1199), during the pontificate of Innocent III, a council was held in the region that took the name of the Dalmatian Council: it was attended by John, chaplain of the pope, and Simon, his deacon, legates of the Holy See, assisted by Archbishop Diocleus and his six suffragan bishops; various abuses were condemned, such as simony, clerical marriage, and the violation of the secrecy of confession, and the Catholic doctrine was restored in all its purity.
For about three centuries, from the 12th to the early 15th, Venice contended with the kings of Hungary for possession of Dalmatia, and for a long time the region remained divided into two zones of influence: the northern, from the Quarnero to Zara Vecchia, for Venice; the southern, from Zara Vecchia to Almissa, for the Hungarian kingdoms. But in 1409, the Republic of St. Mark, by paying 100,000 ducats, obtained from Ladislaus, king of Naples and Hungary, the cession of all rights to Dalmatia, which soon became one of its favorite provinces. In the 15th century, the region underwent administrative reorganization. The commune no longer existed; the cities were each governed by a Venetian nobleman, with the title of count or captain; craftsmanship and the popular classes, organized into “universities of people and citizens,” gained importance, agriculture progressed, and the arts and industries developed, so that even the small cities were adorned with magnificent monuments, like the cities on the other side of the Adriatic and throughout Italy.
But this prosperity, which coincides with the Renaissance period, is repeatedly interrupted and compromised by the seven wars that Venice had to wage in Dalmatia from 1468 to 1718—that is, over a span of two and a half centuries, with intervals of varying length between one war and the next. With the freedom and independence of the region and of the dominant city at stake, the fate of all Christian Europe was in the balance, and the popes naturally did not remain indifferent to this formidable struggle. They lavished every kind of assistance upon the defenders of the faith and civilization.
At first the Turks gained the upper hand and managed to occupy some parts of the region; but beginning in the 17th century, Dalmatian-Venetian victories followed one another almost without interruption, so that not only was the lost territory recovered but it was even expanded. In 1671, after the Peace of Candia, the Nani line marked off the so-called old acquisition; in 1700, after the Peace of Carlowitz, the Grimani line, including the districts of Tenin, Signo, and Dernis, marked off the new acquisition; and finally, in 1720, after the Peace of Passarowitz, the Mocenigo line, adding the territory of Imoschi, marked off the newest acquisition. Thus the regional unity and the authority of the “Provveditore Generale di Dalmazia e Albania” were fully restored.
Yet even in victory, these Venetian-Dalmatian-Turkish wars deeply disrupted the economic life of the region and also caused major ethnic upheavals: the Latin element declined, Slavs from the hinterland were admitted into the cities, and in the countryside there was a constant ebb and flow of Croatian, Serbian, and Morlach refugees. Venice and the Dalmatians themselves worked diligently, by every means at their disposal, to repair the damage, especially in the most recently acquired lands; but they did not have the time to complete the work they had begun, for the storm of the French Revolution soon swept over Venice itself, threatening it with total ruin.
Facing this grave danger to the Dominant city, Christian in its entirety, Dalmatia was included in the kingdom of Odoacer, then in that of Theodoric and the Ostrogoths. With the Justinian restoration begun in the East, the Byzantines firmly established themselves in the region, which then enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity; twelve thousand Dalmatians crossed the Adriatic to defend II. But their zeal and loyalty proved futile. By the Treaty of Campoformio (1797), the Austrian monarchy replaced Venice in Dalmatia as in Istria and northeastern Italy; but this lasted only briefly, for Napoleon’s victories soon reunited Dalmatia and Istria with the Kingdom of Italy (1806–1809). During these few years Dalmatia was governed by the Venetian provveditore Vincenzo Dandolo, who introduced many improvements, opened new roads and schools, and pursued a wise and enlightened social and economic policy.
In 1810 Dalmatia was annexed to the “Illyrian Provinces,” in which the small Republic of Ragusa also disappeared; but at the beginning of 1814, after Napoleon’s defeat and downfall, the entire region returned to Austrian subjection. From then on it had no representative body or provincial estates like the other ancient Austrian domains; only a few districts and cities retained a few of the rights and privileges they had enjoyed under Venetian rule. Several decades of flat politics followed. In the momentous years 1848–49 the Dalmato-Italians took an active part in the Italian revolution: Niccolò Tommasco of Sebenico held a leading role in the government and defense of Venice; Dalmatian legionaries distinguished themselves for acts of valor during the siege of Rome and in the dogged resistance on the Venetian lagoon.
In the years that followed, two political movements, armed against each other, began to take clear shape in the region: the Italian autonomy or irredentist movement and the pro-Serbian annexationist movement. The government in Vienna for a time watched how things would develop; then, beginning in October 1865, it inaugurated its pro-Serbian policy and systematically began to persecute the Dalmato-Italians. Nevertheless, these Italians still managed to retain their positions in the Diet, on the Imperial Council, and in the municipal councils until 1870; but from that year they began to lose ground, and despite the heroic efforts of Antonio Bajamonti, the recognized leader of the national movement, they were gradually reduced to near political nonexistence. Finally, in 1909 a ministerial administrative decree banned the use of the Italian language in state offices.
In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, the national struggle came to a halt; but four years later, in October 1918, it resumed with the victory of the Entente. On the 31st of that month, the Hon. Ziliotto, president of the municipal council of Zara, with a group of armed townspeople, took possession of the town hall; and on November 15 he arrived in Sebenico, and on the 19th in Zara, where Admiral Enrico Millo took up his post as the effective Italian governor of the zone occupied under the Treaty of London (Zara and the islands of Lagosta and Cazza). Later (April 1941), after the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Italy occupied some other parts of Dalmatia but was then obliged to withdraw them at the end of the Second World War. Today, under the new political and administrative divisions of Yugoslavia, Dalmatia no longer exists as a distinct entity. Instead, there are three banovinas: Primorje, with Split as its capital; Savska, with Zagreb as its capital; and Zetska, with Cettigne as its capital.
Traianea), at Burnum (praetorium), at Doclea (basilica). Of particular note is Diocletian’s palace, from which Split originated, remarkable for its organic, clear design, its powerful and animated fully Roman architecture, and the notable integrity of its remains. Within it, characteristic aspects of Dalmatian decorative sculpture also appear, vividly pictorial and inspired by the East. In D., too, thanks to relations with Attica, the two fundamental tendencies of Roman sculpture coexist.
As for the minor arts, the glass industry (Aenona, Iadera) deserves mention.
Salona has precious remains of Christian buildings: noteworthy is the variety of basilica types (rectangular hall, three-aisled, cruciform, uncovered), the two-celled mausolea with high battlements, the mosaic floors, and the elegance of the marble furnishings.
The early Middle Ages preserve the Roman attention to central plans in many small churches of varied appearance (S. Donato in Zara, the Trinity in Split, S. Croce in Nona); characteristic is the small dome over the central nave of some others (S. Lorenzo in Zara). In the 1200s and 1300s, often through the work of Benedictine monks, a broad series of polished-stone works emerged, blending Apulian, Lombard, and Lucchese modes—both in structures (Zara cathedral) and in rather lavish decorations. In sculpture, some Byzantine influences are notable, whether direct or via Venice.
Gothic art arrived with the advent of the Serenissima and has many examples, especially of a decorative nature, in religious and civil buildings. The Renaissance, initially somewhat crude (the Rectors’ Palace in Ragusa), became measured and solid especially through the work of Giorgio Orsini (Sebenico cathedral), who had established himself through personal, exuberant early works, as well as those of Andrea Alessi and Niccolò Fiorentino (the Orsini chapel in the cathedral of Traù, which echoes the vault of the Split temple). Noble are the works of military architecture, which also bear the mark of Sammicheli (Zara gate). Orsini and Luciano da Laurana brought richness and originality of first-rank architecture to the peninsula.
Orsini, impetuous yet elegant, left his mark on the vigorous sculpture of his time (notable is Giovanni Dalmata); Zara masters clothed their painting in Tuscan styles; the minor arts are distinctly Venetian. The influence of great Venetian Renaissance painters is frequent; Andrea da Zara (Schiavone) stands out for his decisive colors, while others echo Venetian styles gravely.
In the 1600s and 1700s, architectural activity was reduced; Ragusa is the city richest in works from this period, generally of Roman character, while sculpture and painting remain Venetian. After Austrian occupation, no major works appeared, though notable construction activity took place in various cities (Split, Zara). The sculptor Ivan Meštrović is the sole great voice of modern art, which for painting produced some appreciated 19th-century figures. Among illustrious figures in other fields, Niccolò Tommaseo is to be remembered. — See pl. LXXVIII.