L’ULTIMO ATTO DELLA SCUOLA VENEZIANA DEI GIOVANI DI LINGUA A COSTANTINOPOLI

The last diplomat sent to Constantinople by the Most Serene Republic was Francesco Vendramin (1796-1797). He was the witness of the last moments of the Venetian embassy in the Ottoman capital. In those days he had no money and, for this reason, he dismissed most members of his staff. He closed also the school for interpreters of Oriental languages, then attended by eight students. Three of them belonged to Latin families of Pera and came back home, one left for Izmir where he had been appointed pro-consul but the other four remained and waited. They had no money to come back to Venice and Vendramin felt to be responsible for them. On 12 October 1797 they sent him a letter complaining their situation. In 1799 the Habsburg diplomat Rathkeal took possession of the Venetian embassy. The Palazzo Venezia became the new Austrian embassy in Constantinople. He also took the place of Vendramin as far as the giovani di lingua were concerned. He sent two of them to Venice; another one was sent as imperial interpreter to Cattaro, together with his father who was the last teacher of the Venetian school. We had no information about the fourth but he was from Salonicco and it is probable that he too came back home. The other ones from Pera began to work for the French embassy. In this way the Venetian school for interpreters stopped to function. It had been created in 1551 and it was the first one of this kind in Europe. In the course of the centuries other countries copied the Republic and other schools for interpreters were created by France (1669), Habsburg Empire (1745), Poland (1766), Netherland (1773), Ottoman Empire (1821) and Great Britain (1877).