The old town centre of Duino in the early modern period

An enchanted drawing from the archives

Abstract

The paper describes the old centre of the fortified settlement of Duino/Devin based on an undated drawing from the archives. With the use of the dating procedure facilitating a fuller interpretation of the artistic presentation, the article reconstructs some characteristics and presents a few crucial moments in the history of Duino/Devin and San Giovanni di Duino/Štivan in the 16th and 17th century: wars, earthquakes, transfers of land property ownership, constructions,  population as well as social and legal developments. Duino is presented as a small yet very interesting settlement that played an important role in the then Karst in various regards. Based on research findings, the paper proposes a hypothesis of the drawing.