Camoenae Hungaricae 3(2006) - Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények

to the monarchies of Europe. 90 Even after retiring from professional politics and working
as a scholar in Bologna, he continued to worship his political ideals (order, happiness,
justice, obedience, etc.). He wanted to publish all the documents accumulated during his
diplomatic work after the Karlowitz peace treaty and the subsequent border survey in a
series of source publications. In his thinking, such a work would have facilitated communications
with the Muslims and expedited political, economic and diplomatic interactions
with them. 91 The title for the grandiose project was to be Acta executionis pacis and it
was preparatory to the publication of this work that Marsili ordered the documents into
volumes, separating it from other subjects, such as natural history. The first unit was to
be volume 16 (titled Acta pacis, consisting of the documents of the peace treaty), to be
later completed by the documents (vol. 55) of earlier efforts (1691) at peace and the
plans and various background materials prepared by Marsili himself prior to the peace
treaty (vol. 58). Among these latter documents we find the Progetto del possibile commercio
fra ambedue gl’imperii, 92 concerned with future ways of contact between the
Turkish and Habsburg regions (already well noted by the literature) as well as the Pro
construenda vallationis linea 93 which described the system of Roman fortifications in the
Syrmia region that was to be renovated to guard a region lacking natural defences. The
second and much larger part, the “true” Acta executionis pacis was to comprise the entire
documentation of the border negotiations in chronological order, complete with correspondences,
envoy instructions, maps and the summary reports dispatched to the Emperor
already published by Gherardi (vols. 59–66 and the miscellaneous vol. 70).
There is no doubt that the work would have been the most up-to-date in its day and
predated the great source publication of Jean Du Mont, the Corps universel diplomatique
du droit des gens which contained the documents of the Karlowitz peace treaty along
with innumerable other contemporary documents. (Marsili, by the way, knew Du Mont
personally and made certain documents available to him, so the idea of the Acta pacis
was at least partly realized this way.) 94 The originality of the project was not only in its
professional utility but also in its political intentions: as I pointed out earlier, Marsili felt
that good commercial ties, peace and trust with the Ottoman Empire was essential for the
modernisation of the Habsburg Empire and for the development of the Central European
region. That is why he made it his task to familiarise his potential readers with the negotiating
styles of the Muslims and the mechanisms of their political behaviour as thoroughly
as he could. He prefaced the project with a dedication addressed to the Pope as
the head of all Christendom and with a brief compendium detailing the history of the
90
Luigi Ferdinando MARSILI, Informazione sopra quanto gli è accaduto nell’affare della resa di Brissacco,
s. l., 1705. Detailed analysis: Renzo REGGIANI, La riabilitazione militare, in: Memorie intorno a Luigi
Ferdinando Marsili, ed. cit., 57–90.
91
In his autobiography, he makes an unequivocal reference to the well-ordered status of the documents of
the negotiations and the border survey: Autobiografia, 212.
92
BUB Ms 58, 35–58. For an analysis see GHERARDI 1980, op. cit., 275–292.
93
Ibid., 65–69.
94
On their well-known status: STOYE 1994, op. cit., 194–195.
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Camoenae Hungaricae 3(2006)