During the intermittent administration of Dubrovnik by Byzantine Empire, which lasted until 1205, the use of heraldic symbols such as coat of arms was not in practice.

[2] With the Treaty of Zadar the Republic of Venice relinquished its claims on the eastern coast of the Adriatic in favour of Louis I and the Venetians left Dubrovnik for good.

[6] One of the rare (and possibly the only) trace of the arms description in written form is mentioned in a book about voting customs and regulations of the Republic called Copioso ristretto degli annali di Rausa by Jakov Lukarić (Giacomo Di Pietro Luccari) published in Venice 1605.

On page 155 of the book, while describing the electoral procedure, Lukarić mentions the ballot boxes with the arms of the Republic - four white bars on a red shield.

Vito Galzinski (who wrote on the heraldry of the Republic) considers that the author's intention was to emphasize the silver coating of the bars.

At that time there was no serious and systematic research of the history of the Ragusan coat of arms and it was widely believed that the colors were blue and red.