The Rhetoric of the Frontier of Christendom in the Diplomacy of Renaissance Ragusa (Dubrovnik)

Abstract

This article seeks to analyse the most important rhetorical strategy of Ragusan diplomacy, traditionally directed towards the Christian Europe: an endlessly repeated claim that Ragusa, situated on the frontier with the Orthodox “schismatics” and Muslim “infidels”, performs an important mission in the interest of Catholic and Christian religion. The first goal of this article is to reconstruct the historical development of this rhetoric, starting from its first appearance in the fourteenth century until its full articulation in the sixteenth. The second goal is to analyze the types of situations in which it was used and the purposes for which it served. The third goal is to put the Ragusan rhetoric in context, comparing it to the rhetoric of other Renaissance states situated on the frontier of religions, such as the Iberian kingdoms, Poland, and Hungary.