Paolo Santonino in Slovenia (1486 in 1487)

Reality and Mentality in a Travel Book from Late Gothic

Abstract

The author analyses and evaluates the travel diary of Paolo Santonino, the chancellor of the curia of Aquileian patriarchate who, in the years 1486 and 1487, accompanied the Aquileian visitor, bishop Pietro from Caorle on his visits through the territory of the patriarchate in Carniola and Lower Styria. Those travel diaries, written in Latin (beside these two there is also one of 1485 from the way through Carinthia), are the best historical source on life and material culture of Slovene places at the end of the Middle Ages, and due to diverse stressed points (characterization of inhabitants, their customs, dwellings, clothes, nutrition etc.) they deserve also a special place in the frame of European travel diary literature of that time. In his analysis, the author takes into consideration possibilities and limits of language usage of that time, and defines it methodologically.