For much of the 15th and 16th centuries, the Republic of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) experienced a bloom, reflected in economic, political (especially diplomatic), cultural, and other spheres. This small polity on the eastern Adriatic coast secured its relative autonomy and prosperity in the changing world through its expansive and extensive maritime activities and caravan trade with the interior of the Balkan peninsula, the organisation of its government institutions, administration, and public offices, and with skillful diplomacy. As in other societies, Dubrovnik’s was, in its everyday functioning, in various ways more or less tightly connected to diverse plant and animal species. These multiple relationships were, to some extent, the subject of research mainly by older-generation researchers, primarily oriented towards economic history; meanwhile, environmental historical analyses in the historiography of the Republic of Dubrovnik remain scarce. This master’s thesis deals with the relationships Dubrovnik’s state and society had with flora and fauna through an environmental-history perspective and identifies reciprocal impacts between them. The research is based on the analysis of unpublished archival sources from the State Archives in Dubrovnik – the session minutes of the Senate, Great and Small Councils, the highest institutions of government in the Republic of Dubrovnik –, the published statutes and collections of regulations, three narrative sources, the correspondence between Jakov Sorkočević and Ulisse Aldrovandi, and an extensive body of scholarly and scientific literature. On this basis, the master’s thesis offers a synthesis of knowledge and new insights into food plants and their meaning for the Republic of Dubrovnik, for example, regarding the state-led food provisioning system and agriculture on Dubrovnik’s territories. The research also includes some of the plants grown in Renaissance gardens and used by the people of Dubrovnik in various ways, as well as other flora. The master’s thesis provides a basis for assessing Dubrovnik’s demand for wood in shipbuilding and for other purposes, and its potential impacts on forests. I provide an extensive analysis of animals and plants used in textile production and Dubrovnik’s livestock husbandry. The thesis provides various animal species that were part of the everyday life of Dubrovnik’s inhabitants, for example, pets and hunting birds, as well as relationships between man and wild terrestrial and aquatic animals. Suggestions for the identification of some organisms recorded in the analysed sources that were probably incorrectly identified in earlier scholarly literature are also presented. The master’s thesis reveals an interplay of factors and perceptions that shaped Dubrovnik’s interactions with plants and animals, assesses the significance of different source types for the environmental history of plants and animals in the Republic of Dubrovnik, and provides a basis for further research, for example, a more detailed investigation of potential impacts of Dubrovnik’s society on the populations of different species.
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