venice and its minorities 469
minute provisions were made for the preparation of the living quarters of
the merchants and the areas set aside for their merchandise, separating
the merchants from constantinople and asia from the Bosnians and alba-
nians because their customs were different. Finally, all ottomans who were
already in Venice or who were to come in the future, were to go and reside
in the fondaco, and anyone housing them elsewhere for any reason what-
soever, was subject to corporeal or financial punishment.52 thus, finally
the ottoman Muslims possessed a place of their own, as, according to the
papal nuncio, they had sought 50 years previously. the Venetian govern-
ment apparently intended to enforce their segregation, for in september
1623, it ordered all Venetians to evict ottomans dwelling in their houses
within two days, and in late december of that same year, warned 15 Vene-
tian innkeepers not to lodge any ottomans overnight, under penalty of
the galleys, banishment, or jail. as for facilities for prayers, according to
the latest study of the turks in Venice the fondaco also contained “a small
mosque, or rather room for prayer, on whose walls were written in red
paint short verses from the Koran, whose traces were still visible in the
middle of the 19th century.”53 it would appear that Muslims who died
in Venice were buried on the Lido, as were Protestants and Jews, but no
traces of a Muslim cemetery have been found.54
as the Venetian empire in the east increasingly passed into otto-
man hands, the number of ottomans, especially merchants from dalma-
tia and albania, coming to Venice also increased, because the Venetian
government protected them and encouraged their commercial activities.
However, as a result of the commercial decline in the Mediterranean
that affected both Venice and the ottoman empire, at the end of the
17th century the importance of the turks in Venice diminished, and the
presence of the asiatic turks almost completely disappeared. By the later
1700s, the Fondaco dei turchi was in very poor condition and required
52 see chambers and Pullan, eds., Venice, A Documentary History, pp. 350–52. Many
of these measures or similar ones had already been applied to the previously established
Jewish ghetto, although christians were allowed to enter the ghetto during daytime and
indeed had to if they wished to avail themselves of the Jewish pawnshops. see below,
and for much greater detail, B. ravid, “curfew time in the Ghetti of Venice,” in e. Kittell
and t. Madden, eds., Medieval and Renaissance Venice (Urbana/chicago, 1999), pp. 237–75,
photo-reproduced in B. ravid, Studies on the Jews of Venice, 1382–1797 (aldershot, Hants,
2003).
53 see Pedani, Venezia porta d’Oriente, p. 219.
54 Pedani, Venezia porta d’Oriente, p. 215.