This book discusses early-modern collective identities related to territory, language, cultural milieu, state, and alleged "ethnic" origins in the border and multilingual areas of Friuli and the County of Gorizia before the rise of nineteenth - century nationalisms. It analyzes the perception of the Other, especially "barbaric" peoples and the early-modern Slovenian-speaking population, from the viewpoint of patriotisms of various types. These aspects greatly and in various ways influenced the perception of "others," which raises questions of linguistic and alleged "ethnic" otherness. Due to the multilingual environment of the border area studied, these topics display a very complex image. The volume is based on the analysis of an extensive number of early-modern historiographic works.