The Duvel-i Ecnebiye defter numbered 16/4"The Venice Ahdname defter"(Transcription and assesment)

The relations between the Ottoman Empire and Venice began at the end of the XIVth century and these relations were extremely close until the end of the XVIIIth century in the political, economic, social and cultural fields. These friendly relations between Venice, which acted as an intermediary in the East-West trade and the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the trade routes, turned into long lasting wars. The relations between the Ottoman Empire and Venice were regulated by these ahdnames signed after the change of a ruler or wars. By the end of the XVIIIth century, 30 ahdnames had been issued to Venice by the Ottoman Empire. These ahdnames which were given to Venice were not able to be carried out smoothly. Sometimes, certain problems arose between the subjects of these two states and sometimes the officers of the government abused their posts, and occasionally the activities of other government officers caused problems. These emerging problems are solved according to these ahdnames. While the provisions which were issued from Divan, related to these problems were registered in Muhimme Defters, later they began to be registered in the Duvel-i Ecnebiye Defters. The subject of our study is Duvel-i Ecnebiye Defteri numbered 16/4, in which the provisions regarding Venice were recorded. In this Defter, the provisions related to issues occured between 1699-1797 such as piracy, order, receivables, customs issues, the appointment of consuls and dragomans were registered. In this study, the aforementioned defter being described, the abstracts and the transcriptions of the full texts of its provisions are given, and conclusively, on the basis of these provisions the problems of Ottoman-Venice relations encountered at the beginning of the XVIIth century, will be detected. Keywords: The Ottoman Empire, Venice, ahdname, duvel-i ecnebiye defter.