The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571, Vol. 2 9780871691279

Table of contents :
Frontmatter (page N/A)
1 Venice and the Latin Failure to Halt the Ottoman Advance in Greece (1402-1431) (page 1)
2 Martin V and Eugenius IV, Constance and Ferrara-Florence, Opposition to Muraad II (page 39)
3 The Crusade of Varna and its Aftermath (1444-1453) (page 82)
4 The Siege and Fall of Constantinople (1453) (page 108)
5 Perils and Problems after the Fall of Constantinople (1453-1455) (page 138)
6 Calixtus III and the Siege of Belgrade, Mehmed II and Albania (1455-1458) (page 161)
7 Pius II, the Congress of Mantua, and the Turkish Conquest of the Morea (1458-1461) (page 196)
8 Pius II, the Crusade, and the Venetian War against the Turks (page 231)
9 Paul II, Venice, and the Fall of Negroponte (1464-1471) (page 271)
10 Sixtus IV and the Turkish Occupation of Otranto (1471-1480) (page 314)
11 Pierre d'Aubusson and the First Siege of Rhodes (1480) (page 346)
12 Sixtus IV and the Recovery of Otranto (1480-1484) (page 364)
13 Innocent VIII, Jem Sultan, and the Crusade (1484-1490) (page 381)
14 Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, Charles VIII and Ferrante I (1490-1494) (page 417)
15 Alexander VI and Charles VIII, the French Expedition into Italy (1494-1495) (page 448)
16 The French in Naples, the League of Venice, and Papal Problems (1495-1498) (page 483)
17 The Diplomatic Revolution: France and Spain, the Papacy and Venice (1498-1503) (page 508)
Index (page 543)

Citation preview

THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT (1204-1571)

MEMOIRS OF THE

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY Held at Philadelphia For Promoting Useful Knowledge Volume I

Il

THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT (1204-1571) Volume II

The Fifteenth Century

KENNETH M. SETTON

THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY Independence Square : Philadelphia 1978

Reprinted 1997 with a grant from the Delmas Foundation.

Copyright © 1978 by The American Philosophical Society

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-25476 International Standard Book Number 0-87169-127-2 US ISSN 0065-9738

iv

PREFACE This volume, like its predecessor, is largely terranean was drawing to a close. The Turkish concerned with the relationship of the papacy to empire was beginning’. Orthodox Christianity and to Islam. The subject Mehmed II’s new capital ceased to be the city is alive with difficulties, and carries one in several of Constantine, although Europeans continued directions. Amid the complexities of the fifteenth — to call it Constantinople. In its Ottoman context century, however, Ihave tried to maintainaclear I have called it Istanbul. Mehmed’s seizure of the perspective by viewing the scene from the Italian city began his remarkable career of conquest, standpoint, that of Venice as well as that of the extending over thirty years in time and thou-

Holy See. They were both much concerned, sands of square miles of territory. He did not

though in different ways, with the gradual rise of always win. He was put to flight at Belgrade in the Ottoman Turks, as we have seen in the first 1456, and his reign ended with the temporary volume. During the Quattrocento, the great failure of the Turks at Rhodes in 1480 and with

Italian century, Christendom suffered at Otto- their short-lived success at Otranto in 1480man hands a series of military and political 1481. Fortunately for Italy, Mehmed’s reign

defeats, which left an ineffaceable mark upon _ fell within the period of the so-called peace of the mentality and the fortunes of those who Lodi (1454-1494), when the Italians managed

dwelt in eastern and southern Europe. The somewhat to mitigate their predilection for effects of those events are still apparent to this warfare and self-destruction. A new era, and a day. The first half of the Quattrocento provided tragic one, began with the expedition of Charles the sad setting for Graeco-Latin strife in the VIII into Italy (1494-1495), the consequences Morea and for the Christian defeat at Varna, of which will loom large in the next volume.

after which nothing could prevent the fall of Major events in Europe had their impact on Constantinople to the young sultan Mehmed IJ. the Levant, and the reverse was equally true. The half-century before Mehmed’s triumph The fifteenth century found Venice the leading on the Bosporus had been a time of tribulation power in Italy and still possessed of a so-called for the papacy. The debilitation caused by the empire which dated back to the Fourth Crusade. Great Schism was prolonged by the advocates of It soon became clear, however, that she was no Conciliarism. Division within the Church was a match for the Turks. Her inability to hold

reflection of that which prevailed in secular Thessalonica in 1430 portended her loss of

society. The Spains and Germany were rent by Negroponte in 1470, which came at the midpoint

political discord. Serious problems required in a terrible sixteen years’ war with the Porte settlement in the Netherlands and in Burgundy. (1463-1479). The close of the century found England and France were caught up in the her again at war with the Porte, in 1499-1502, Hundred Years’ War until 1453, at which time a_ when she lost Lepanto, Modon, Navarino, and boy was king of Hungary and Bohemia. In the Coron. The decline of Venice was beginning.

latter kingdom the Hussites were as strong as She did hold Crete into the seventeenth ever, and years of warfare lay ahead. For genera- century—and when she lost it, it was to tions the Italian states had been in ruinous con-_ the Turks. flict with one another. There was in fact war in

Italy when Constantinople fell, and four months §=———__—_ after the fall Aeneas Sylvius wrote his friend 1 Rudolf Wolkan, ed., Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Leonardo de’ Benvoglienti, then the Sienese Piccolomini, in the Fontes rerum austriacarum, 1. Abt., envoy to Venice, that the Europeans were them- vol 65 (Vienna, 191 8), Ep. 153, pp. 279, 281, dated 25 selves preparing the way for Turkish conquest. Maumetho viam omnes preparamus. . . . Fuerunt Itali The era of Italian dominance in the Medi- rerum domini, nunc Turchorum inchoatur imperium,”

. . eptember, 1453: “Omnes Turchi procuratores sumus, Vv

Throughout the fifteenth century some re- tion below Pius’s tomb in S. Andrea della Valle in

markable figures trod the crowded stage of Rome still recalls his dedication to the crusade history. In the annals of the Osmanlis Mehmed and his joy in the caput S. Andreae .. . ex

II has no rival. The Byzantine emperors Peloponeso advectum, just as the epitaph on

Manuel II, John VIII, and Constantine XI _ Pollaiuolo’s monument to Innocent in S. Peter’s played notable if disheartening roles. Of the still recalls the lancea quae Christ hausit latus a western emperors Sigismund was given the most Baiazete Turcarum tyranno dono missa. The entry of

important part to play, and Frederick III the each relicinto Rome was accompanied by excited longest and the most wretched. Popes Martin V, crowds and various manifestations of perfervid Eugenius IV, Calixtus III, Pius II, SixtusIV,and devotion. (alas) Alexander VI stand out in the papal Such was the mentality of the age, but what did procession, as they do in the following pages, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander bearing in this century larger mundane than VI, think of such religiosity? This volume ends spiritual burdens. Some of the most interesting with the history of the Borgias and the machinaand stalwart characters in the complex drama __ tions of Alexander’s pontificate. Oddly enough, that lies before us wore neither a crown nor a_ when it is all said and done, he was more of a tiara— Bessarion and Isidore of Kiev, Ciriaco of crusader than Nicholas V. I have tried to let the Ancona and Lodovico Trevisan, John Hunyadi, sources speak for themselves, often by para-

Giovanni da Capistrano, and Scanderbeg, phrase when not by direct quotation, for those Vettore Capello and Pierre d’Aubusson, and_ who lived and wrote in the past are best able to finally Hunyadi’s son Matthias Corvinus, who describe the political events, the military endid ascend a throne, to be sure, and Mehmed’s_ counters, the intellectual struggles, the social son Jem Sultan, who did not. In the Italian problems, and the economic conditions of their background, too, there come before us the time. Like us, they led their lives in day-to-day Medici in Florence, the Sforzeschi in Milan, detail. If I seem not to have eschewed detail, I the Estensi in Ferrara, the Malatesti in Rimini, have sought to be selective. Indeed, when I and the Gonzagas in Mantua, some of which consider the mountains of notes and of tranfamilies will be as conspicuous in the third scripts of archival documents I have made dur-

volume as in this one. ing these last twenty years, I almost marvel at my

However inadequately, I have tried en passant moderation. If I have dealt at length with events to assess the more immediate effects of Ottoman and personalities, it is because I regard them as rule in the Balkans as well as to deal with the important. If Mohammed had been killed in a

perennial preachment of the crusade and the fall from his camel on the eve of the Hegira, I almost perennial mismanagement of crusading have no doubt that the whole history of eastern funds. What contemporaries called a crusade, a Europe and the Mediterranean would have been sancta expeditio, I have also called acrusade. The different from the seventh century to the canonists’ definitions of a crusade, like the legists’ twentieth. disquisitions on an embassy, seem often to have little to do with the world of Realpolitek, the world It has not been possible to equip this volume as it was, which is the world I have tried to depict. and its two companions with the detailed maps

Year after year the peoples of Europe had the which some readers may wish or require. I can crusade dinned in their ears, as preachers never only refer them to the standard atlases which are tired of dilating on the Turkish peril. Some of easy of access in most libraries. I have also had the humanists served as publicists of the crusade, to abandon the hope I once entertained of pro-

and the printing press was employed in anti- viding these volumes with illustrations— por-

Turkish propaganda. traits of persons of note as well as prints of

When in 1460 Thomas Palaeologus, despot of churches, palaces, fortresses, and certain sites the Morea, fled before the Turks, he broughtthe that figure prominently in the text—but the head of S. Andrew with him to Italy. Pius II wide scope of the work made selection baffling, regarded the reception of the sacred relic at the and the cost of suitable reproductions was the Vatican in 1462 as almost the chief event in his final deterrent.

reign, just as thirty years later Innocent VIII In the Preface to the first volume I have

looked upon his receipt of the iron head of the expressed my indebtedness to my old friend and Holy Lance, a gift of Sultan Bayazid II, as_ colleague Dr. Harry W. Hazard. I am glad again perhaps the chief event in his reign. The inscrip- to acknowledge the assistance I have derived vi

through the years from his criticism and con- and Malta, Modena and Milan, Siena and cern. Once more he has most generously made Florence. To the Vatican and Venice I have an index for me, thus lightening immeasurably made almost annual archival pilgrimages for the task of getting this volume through the more than twenty years. press. My secretary Mrs. Jean T. Carver pre- My wife has read the typescript and the galleys pared the typescript, read the proofs, and _ with painstaking attention. I shall not seek to helped me in ways too numerous to mention. contrive an adequate expression of my indebtedMy assistant Dr. Susan Babbitt has checked the ness to her. I must, however, once more record typescript and the proofs, and located books and my deep sense of obligation to the American journals that I could never have found. I wish Philosophical Society and to The Institute for there were some way to repay my predecessors, Advanced Study.

some long whose footsteps echoI wish, K. M.Sa through thedead, notes in thedistant following pages. too, there were some way to render the full The Institute for Advanced Study extent of my thanks to the archivists and their Princeton, N. J. assistants at the Vatican and in Venice, Mantua’ 1 March, 1978

Vii

CONTENTS 1. Venice and the Latin Failure to Halt the Ottoman Advance in Greece

(1402-1431) 0c ce eee eee e eee eee ene e ene 1

2. Martin V and Eugenius IV, Constance and Ferrara-Florence,

Opposition to Murad IL .... 2... eee eect eee ee eee = 39

3. The Crusade of Varna and its Aftermath (1444-1453) ........... 82

4. The Siege and Fall of Constantinople (1453) ..................... 108 5. Perils and Problems after the Fall of Constantinople (1453-1455) . 138

6. Calixtus III and the Siege of Belgrade, Mehmed II and Albania

(1455-1458) 2. ee eee eee tees eteeeeceees 16]

7. Pius II, the Congress of Mantua, and the Turkish Conquest of the

Morea (1458-1461) 20... cc cee eee ee eee eee eeeeee 196

8. Pius II, the Crusade, and the Venetian War against the Turks..... 231

9. Paul II, Venice, and the Fall of Negroponte (1464-1471) ......... 271 10. Sixtus IV and the Turkish Occupation of Otranto (1471-1480) ... 314

11. Pierre d’Aubusson and the First Siege of Rhodes (1480) .......... 346

12. Sixtus IV and the Recovery of Otranto (1480—1484).............. 364 13. Innocent VIII, Jem Sultan, and the Crusade (1484-1490) ........ 381 14. Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, Charles VIII and Ferrante I

(1490-1494) 2... ccc ccc eee e eect ceeeccccs ALT

15. Alexander VI and Charles VIII, the French Expedition into Italy

(1494-1495) 20 ccc cece cette eee e eee eeecccee 448

16. The French in Naples, the League of Venice, and Papal Problems

(1495-1498) 2... ccc eect e eee eee e tence cess 483

17. The Diplomatic Revolution: France and Spain, the Papacy and

Venice (1498-1503) 2.0.0... cee eee e eee eeeeeeee 508 Index 12... ccc cee eee cece e eee e cece eseeceenvcese 9A

1X

1. VENICE AND THE LATIN FAILURE TO HALT THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE IN GREECE (1402-1431) B* THE BEGINNING of the fifteenth such rare variants as crosata and croseria— century the popes had been preaching occurs in the sources, but less frequently than crusades for about three hundred years. The one might think. A crusade was a sancta crusade was in a sense an armed pilgrimage, expeditio or, as we have just said, a passagium

the original purpose of which was not merely generale. Indeed in papal documents after to visit the scenes of Christ’s earthly existence 1462 the word cruciata often denotes the but to wrest them from the Moslems and to papal revenues from the alum mines at Tolfa hold them forever. In the earlier middle ages which, as we shall see, were supposed to be the hazardous journey to the Holy Land, the reserved for the crusade against the Turks. “pilgrimage” (peregrinatio), had become almost In the Spains, Portugal, and the later king-

a social ritual for those of such piety and dom of Naples the word cruzada came to

knowledge, courage and money as to undertake mean not only a crusade but also a finanit. When from the end of the eleventh century cial levy for use against the Moors, or the the pilgrims (peregrini) carried arms, and were money raised by the sale of indulgences, or organized into armies, they began to take the finally even the right to eat meat, eggs, and cross in ecclesiastical ceremonies, binding them- dairy products during Lent, the last indult selves by a solemn oath to make their way to being still granted for a proper consideration the Holy Sepulcher and to fight the holy war _ by papal bulas de cruzada in the present century. against the infidels beyond the sea. They grad- From the early thirteenth century “crusaders” ually became known as “crusaders” (cruce signati). who had changed their minds about the “JeruThe popes and church councils declared their salem journey” (the iter Hierosolymitanum) could privileges, which were similar to but exceeded commute or redeem their vows by paying in

those of pilgrims. The canon lawyers and the cash or otherwise an appropriate sum which

councils defined their obligations. could be used for the hire of mercenaries to

Princes, nobles, and the high clergy always assist in the Lord’s doing. Tithes and twentieths took the cross when their own desires or public had long been levied for the crusade, and the pressure caused them to join or promise to join funds had sometimes been expended against

a crusading expedition. They were too con- the western opponents of the Holy See—

spicuous to do otherwise. On the other hand _ the Albigensians in southern France, the Hohen-

large numbers of “crusaders” were hardened staufen in Germany and Italy, the Catalans

mercenaries and lowly adventurers. It is doubt- in Spain and Sicily, and various others who -ful whether many of them ever formally took readily come to mind. Boniface VIII had even

the cross. Year after year crusades were launched a crusade. against the Colonna family preached. Expeditions were often organized, and their supporters. as we have seen in the first volume, without The popes alone could declare a military Jerusalem in mind. Despite the papal indul- enterprise a crusade. They alone, or those they gences, with the full remission of the par- authorized, could commission preachers of the ticipants’ sins, these expeditions were well crusade and collectors of crusading imposts. named passagia generalia, containing as they did Although with the passage of time the princes

a motley crowd of pious “pilgrims” and fugi- looked upon the crusade with less and less

tives from justice. Under the aegis of the enthusiasm, especially after the disaster at Holy See, however, the Crusade had quickly Nicopolis (in 1396), the popes remained dedi-

become a sacred concept, useful long after cated to the idea of the just war against the Jerusalem was irrecoverably lost to Christendom. infidel menace to the Christian commonwealth.

It provided the canonical and institutional As some princes and certain intellectuals came

means (one hoped) of saving Byzantium and _ to regard the crusade as a military and religious the Balkans, Hungary, Rhodes, the Morea, and anachronism, the legendary Godfrey of Bouillon

Turkish conquest. imagination. :

the Greek islands from the onward surge of became an ever greater hero in the popular

The general term “crusade”—cruciata with When the earthly Jerusalem seemed unattainl

2 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT able by force of arms, popular preachers saw year after Ankara, Timur withdrew his hordes the victory of the Antichrist at hand. Prophets from Asia Minor to Samarkand, after which he with the apocalyptic gift foretold the assembly died at Otrar in February, 1405, planning an

of the world’s peoples at Jerusalem, which expedition to China. The defeated Bayazid,

would truly become the heavenly city, the scene who had been taken prisoner at Ankara, had

of the ultimate triumph of the godly in the already passed from the scene, having suc-

second coming of Christ. The Church began at cumbed to the hardships of captivity in March, Jerusalem. It would return to Jerusalem, the 1403. His sons Suleiman, Musa, and Mehmed beginning of the end (the eschaton) of history. fought among themselves for the coveted sucThe crusading ideal would thus live on for cession, until the elimination of Suleiman (1411) centuries in the dark recesses of the mind, and Musa (1413) finally left Mehmed I undisbecome a powerful element in Christian escha- puted ruler of the Ottoman empire, with tology, and emerge in strange prophecies from many problems to solve both in Europe and the later middle ages to the nineteenth century. in Asia Minor.’ During the eight years of The last chapter of our third volume will deal

with prophecies of Turkish doom. rs . Crusade has meant different things to differ- _. In January or February, 1403, Suleiman made peace

. I hitimes. 1 with the Byzantine Hospitallers ofofRhodes, ent people1 atdiff. ditterent n this volume, venice, empire, Genoa, andthe Chios, and the duchy Naxos, as in its predecessor, it means (concretely) members of a liga Christiana. For the treaty see G. M. an authorized expedition against the Moslems or Thomas and R. Predelli, eds., Diplomatarium veneto-leabstractl one of the maior foreign lici vantinum (1300-1454), II (Venice, 1899), no. 159, pp. 290-—

e th 1p S ol th Jo | fe t P Find 93; N. Iorga, in the Bulletin historique de (Académie rou-

0 € Troly vce, 1e., € papal errort lo . n maine, II (Bucharest, 1914), 26-29; idem, Geschichte des

an answer to the so-called eastern question. — osmanischen Reiches, 1 (Gotha, 1908), 328-30; and especially Until the papacy of Eugenius IV little could George T. Dennis, “The Byzantine-Turkish Treaty of 1403,” be done at the Curia Romana to advance the Orientalia Christiana pertodica, XXXITI (1967), 72—88. On 12

“es : August, 1411, the Venetians negotiated a treaty of peace

christian cause “ofan he Ks whose ie with Musa (Thomas and Predelli, Dipl., H, no. 164, pp. 302increasea rapidly trom 21, when ura 4; Predelli, Regesti det Commemoriali, III [1883], bk. x, no. ascended the Ottoman throne. The popes had 137, p. 354).

no money. For a survey of Ottoman history in the first half of the The years of the Great Schism (1378-1417) fifteenth century, see Paul Wittek, “De la Défaite

the frerorm f th ‘liarist t d’Ankara a la prise de Constantinople,” Revue des études measures O € CONCHIAaTIStS a islamiques, XII (1938), 1-34; on the titles and legal rela-

Constance (1414-1418), the renewal of the tionships of Bayazid’s three sons after the battle of Ankara, Hundred Years’ War, and the religious disaf- cf. Wittek, “Zu einigen friihosmanischen Urkunden,” Wiener

fection in England and Bohemia had apparently Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, LIV (1957), 244 ff.;

reduced the income of the Holy See by the year LV (1959), 126-38; and LVI (1960), 276-84; and in general,

£ its 1 idem, Das Fiirstentum Mentesche: Studie zur Geschichte 1430 to less than one-third. of its £former leve kleinasiens im 13. -15. Jh., Istanbul, 1934, pp. 88 ff.West(Is(see below, Chapter 2, note 21). Pope Martin tanbuler Mitteilungen, no. 2). Bayazid had had five sons, all

V (1417-1431) could play little part in the of whom were present at Ankara (cf. Marie-Mathilde history of the anti-Turkish movements of his Alexandrescu-Dersca, La Campagne de Timur en Anatolte

tjIme, Tj the L had hed the Ott [1402], Bucharest, 1942, pp. 74-77), Mustafa disappeared Aimur the Lame had crushe le O- in the battle although an impostor later appeared claiming

man sultan Bayazid I at Ankara in July, to be he (1415-1422), and Isa was soon eliminated in the 1402, while the papacy was still caught in the _ fratricidal strife which followed Bayazid’s defeat, captivity,

Schism. The Turks recovered from: their , he Alban; SouthSlavs SI urkishdefeat, attacksane upondeat. the Albanians andithe the South

however, before the popes could regain their during these years may be followed in the rich collection power and prestige, if indeed they ever did, for of Sime Ljubic, Listine [Documents] 0 odnoSajih izmedju after the Schism they were hamstrung by the juznoga slavenstva i mletathe republike, vols. V, VII, in the Councils. The Greeks and the Venetians were Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridionalium, vols. V,

the sole western beneficiaries of Ankara. and XII, Zagreb, 1875, 1882, although we shall notice such at-

heirbenents b fi hortlived tacks only in later and more decisive periods. Note also their were shortiived. J. Gelcich and L. Thalloczy, eds., Diplomatarium relationum reipublicae ragusanae cum regno Hungariae [abbr. Diplomatarium

There can be little doubt that the victory of —ragusanum J, Budapest, 1887, nos. 148—49, pp. 225, 226, and Timur the Lame over Sultan Bayazid at Ankara cf. nos. 163-70, 173, 175, 180, et alibt. The chief collection

1 d the life of the Greek ‘re for of Venetian archival documents relating to the Albanians protonge € te 0 € vreek empire fOr a (and ranging more widely than its title would suggest) is to

half century. Almost every historian of Byzan- be found in Giuseppe Valentini, ed., Acta Albaniae veneta tium emphasizes the obvious fact. During the saeculorum XIV et XV, 20 vols. (thus far), Palermo, Milan,

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 3 Mehmed’s sultanate (1413-1421), peaceful rela- sent as acts of the sagest statesmanship Theodore’s

tions were maintained between the Ottoman pusillanimous efforts to sell the great castles and Byzantine empires, one severely shaken of Acrocorinth, Kalavryta, and Mistra to the by the disaster of Ankara and the civil wars Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes (1397-1400). that followed it, the other worn away by genera- ‘Theodore in fact tried to sell the entire despotate

tions of failure, internal decay, and the harsh to the Knights. The emperor did not himself

attrition of poverty. appear in Mistra to deliver his tedious oration Nevertheless, the Emperor Manuel II Palae- (which is of some historical value), but had the ologus could hardly leave the Bosporus with- monk Isidore do so, probably in the fall of 1409.

out fear of the Turks, and only in March, Isidore read half of it, and a certain Gaza 1415, did he appear in the Morea to place his (Pagns) the other half, to a gathering that

second son, Theodore [II], on the throne of the must have had remarkable stamina.* The pass“despotate” vacated by the death of Theodore I, ing years were to provide the monk Isidore with Manuel's brother, eight years before (1407). Some an extraordinary career. He will figure promitime after his brother’s death Manuel had com- _nently in later chapters of this volume, and a posed a lengthy oration in his honor, embellishing footnote concerning him seems appropriate Theodore’s undistinguished career with a wealth before we meet him again.° of classical allusions,” and even attempting torepre- }9——————

3 Laonicus Chalcocondylas, bk. 1 (Bonn, pp. 97—98; ed.

————__-— E. Darké, I [Budapest, 1922], 90-92), and bk. rv (Bonn,

Rome, and Munich, 1967-74 (and still in progress). p. 206). The people of Mistra refused to accept the rule of Fifteenth-century documents begin in Valentini’s third vol- the Knights, who did, however, secure both Corinth and ume; the latest volume I have seen is the twentieth, Kalavryta, which they held until June, 1404, when they which ends with documents dated in December, 1450. Along receded these places to Theodore I (cf. Chronicon breve,

with this work goes the slender volume of Ignatius ad ann. 6912 [1404], appended to Ducas, Hist. byzantina

Parrino, Acta Albaniae Vaticana res Albaniae saeculorum XIV et [Bonn, p. 517], and especially R. J. Loenertz, in Revue des

XV atque cruciatam spectantia, I (Citta del Vaticano, 1971; études byzantines, 1, 186-96, and “La Chronique bréve Studi e testi, no. 266), with regesta and texts of documents moréote de 1423,” Mélanges Eugéne Tisserant, I [Citta del ranging from 1328/30 to 1482, but largely from the reign of | Vaticano, 1964], 426-27 [Studi e testi, no. 232)).

Calixtus III in the mid-fifteenth century. The account in the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, Chronicon maitus, 2 Sp. P. Lampros, Palaiolégeia kai Peloponnesiaké, 111 1, 16 (Bonn, pp. 63-64; ed. J. B. Papadopoulos, I [Leipzig, (Athens, 1926), 11-119. Geo. Sphrantzes, Chronicon minus 1935], 68-69; ed. Grecu [1966], pp. 202, 204), as to the (PG 156, 1025C), makes brief mention of an earlier visit efforts of the Greek bishop of Mistra to make peace bewhich Manuel had made to the Morea, apparently toward __ tween the irate inhabitants of Mistra and the Knights when

the end of 1407 or in 1408. A better text of Sphrantzes the latter sought to take over the city (although accepted has become available in Vasile Grecu, ed., Georgios Sphrantzes: by D. A. Zakythinos, Le Despotat grec de Morée, 1 [Paris,

Memorii (1401-1477), in anexad Pseudo-Phrantzes: Macarie 1932], 159-60) should be rejected as a perversion of the Melissenos, Cronica (1258-1481), Bucharest, 1966, p.4.Grecu _ facts, as shown by R. J. Loenertz, “Autour du Chronicon provides a Rumanian translation for his editions of both _maius attribué a Georges Phrantzes,” Miscellanea G. Mercatz, the genuine Chronicon minus and the “forged” Chronicon III (Citta del Vaticano, 1946), pp. 290-93 (Studi e testi,

maius (of 1575-1577) by Macarius Melissenus, whose true _ no. 123).

name was actually Melissurgus, on which see below, note 4 Wm. Miller, Latins in the Levant, London, 1908, p. 377, 99, and Volume I of this work, Chapter 13, note 206. On incorrectly assumes that Manuel read the oration himself on

the present occasion Manuel arrived at Cenchreae, near the occasion of his visit to the Morea in 1415. See Corinth on the Gulf of Aegina, on 29-30 March, 1415; for Lampros, Pal. kai Pel., HI, introd., pp. 1-2, and esp. D. A. the date see R. J. Loenertz, “Pour Histoire du Pélopon- _Zakythinos, “Manuel II Palaeologus and Cardinal Isidore in nése au XIV® siécle,” Revue des études byzantines, 1 (1943), the Peloponnesus” [in Greek], Mélanges offerts a Octave et

156-57, and J. W. Barker, “On the Chronology of the Melpo Merlier, HI (Athens, 1957), 45-69, with refs. AlActivities of Manuel II Palaeologus in the Peloponnesus in though according to its descriptive title the oration was 1415,” Byz. Zeitschr., LV (1962), 42-43, 47. Cf. Giuseppe pnOeis Emtdnunoavros eis Hedomdvyvnaov tov Bactr€éus,

Schiro, “Manuele II Paleologo incorona Carlo Tocco despota this was not the case. It should also be noted that the di Gianina,” Byzantion, XXIX—XXX (1959-60), 210-11,217 | Gaza in question could not have been Theodore Gaza (who

ff., with some of whose assertions Barker correctly takes | was born about 1400), as assumed by Lampros.

issue. Manuel wrote the Venetian Signoria from the 5 Isidore first emerges in the light of history as a very Hexamilion on 26 June (1415), as shown by the reply of | young man in the year 1403. His career until the Council

the Senate, dated 23 July (Arch. di Stato di Venezia, of Basel has been the subject of much doubt and some

Misti, Reg. 52, fol. 48” [50%]); the text of the letter has controversy. Zakythinos has maintained (against Cardinal been published by Lampros, Pal. kai Pel., III, 127-28, and Giovanni Mercati and Fr. Vitalien Laurent) that Isidore

“registered” in Freddy Thiriet, ed., Régestes des délibérations | was himself the metropolitan of Monemvasia from 1412du Sénat de Venise concernant la Romanie, U1 (Paris and The 1413 until about 1430, when he was apparently obliged to

Hague, 1959), no. 1583, p. 136, and in Franz Délger give up the see, possibly as a result of his violent contest and Peter Wirth, eds., Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des ost- with the metropolitan of Corinth and because of the romischen Reiches, pt. 5 (Munich and Berlin, 1965), no. antipathy of the Patriarch Joseph II (Zakythinos, Mé-

3351, p. 102. langes Merlier, WI [1957], 64-69). There are too many

4 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT For some reason, presumably the tense Turk- was read. But now in 1415, when he did ish situation, Manuel had been unable to come _ come, the emperor immediately began work on

to the Morea himself to do honor to his_ the “six-mile” wall, the Hexamilion, across the

brother’s memory at the time the funeral oration Isthmus of Corinth. He threw up the rampart, arguments from silence and rationalizations of the slender Surnom du patriarche de Constantinople, Grégoire III (d. facts on both sides for either one to present a case with 1459),” Revue des études byzantines, XIV (1956), 201-5. On absolute certainty, but Zakythinos has clearly not demolished 26 July (1452) the doge of Venice informed the duke of Mercati’s views concerning Isidore’s early career: Mercati, Crete of Isidore’s new charge (lorga, ROL, VIII [1900-1, Scritti dIsidoro il Cardinale Ruteno e codici a lui appartenuti repr. 1964], 85-86). che si conservano nella Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome, Isidore was in Constantinople when the city fell to the 1926 (Studi e testi, no. 46), corrected his own earlier, Turks, and barely escaped with his life, as we shall see later

erroneous views expressed in “Lettere di un Isidoro, on. He was untiringly active under four pontificates, and arcivescovo di Monembasia e non di Kiew,” Bessarione, there are dozens of documents relating to him in the XXXII (1916), 200-7, on which note V. Laurent, “Isidore Vatican Archives. In an undated document of 1455, for de Kiev et la métropole de Monembasie,” Revue des études example, Isidore, cardinal bishop of Sabina, was granted

byzantines, XVII (1959), 150-57. by Calixtus III “quedam domus sita iuxta ecclesiam beate Isidpre served as advocate of the metropolitical see of Marie in Via lata de Urbe” (Reg. Vat. 439, fols. 140° 141°). Monemvasia in 1429, in a jurisdictional dispute with the On 1 May, 1456, he received canonries in the churches metropolitan of Corinth («¢f. K. M. Setton, in Speculum, of Nicosia and Paphos (Nicosien. et Paphen.) as well as the XXV [1950], 525-26, note). As the “venerabilis Isidorus, archdeaconry of Nicosia (Reg. Vat. 444, fols. 262'-263', by abbas monasterii S. Demetrii,” he was a member of the mod. stamped enumeration), and on 17 September of the Byzantine embassy to the Council of Basel in 1434— following year (1457) he was assigned full rights to the 1435, seeking to arrange an oecumenical assembly to dis- Euboeote village of Prino, which was under the jurisdiction cuss church union, preferably in Constantinople (J. D. of the patriarchal church of Negroponte (Reg. Vat. 449, Mansi, ed., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplis- fols. 216’-217%, by mod. stamped enumeration, an intersima collectio, XXI1X [Venice, 1788, repr. Paris, 1904], cols. esting document). On 5 September, 1458, he was appointed 93C, 97D, 125C, 127A, and 446C). In 1436-1437 he became archbishop of Corfu (Reg. Vat. 468, fol. 25), and shortly

the Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev, and was very active on thereafter, on 9 November, he was granted the church of

behalf of church union at the Council of Ferrara-Florence S. Agatha in Rome (ibid., fol. 320, by mod. stamped in 1438-1439, on which see Georg Hofmann and M._ enumeration). Candal, eds., Isidorus Arch. Kioviensis et totius Russiae: In 1461 Isidore suffered a stroke of apoplexy, but could Sermones inter Concilium Florentinum conscripti,in the Concilium _ still participate in the elaborate ceremonies attending the re-

Florentinum, Documenta et scriptores, ser. A, vol. X, fasc. 1 ception into Rome of the head of the Apostle S. Andrew in

(Rome, 1971). April, 1462 (Pius II, Commentari, bk. vin, trans. Florence

Already employed by Pope Eugenius IV as legatus de A.Gragg, Smith College Studies in History, XXXV [1951], 536-

latere “in the provinces of Lithuania, Livonia, and all 37; ed. Frankfurt, 1614, p. 200, lines 27 ff.; and cf. O. Russia” before being raised to the cardinalate (Arch. Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici, ad ann. 1462, nos. 1-5, vol. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 6, fol. 46", by modern XIX [1693], pp. 111-12). Isidore died in Rome on Wednesstamped enumeration), Isidore stood seventh in the list of | day, 27 April, 1463, according to the Acta Consistorialia seventeen new cardinals created by Eugenius on 18 De- (1439-1486), in Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXI, tom. 52,

cember, 1439 (according to the first entry in the Acta fol. 64°: “Obitus d. Cardinalis Ruteni: Anno a nativitate Consistorialia [1439-1486], in the Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Domini MCCCCLXIII, die vero Mercurii XXVII mensis Arm. XXXI, tom. 52, fol. 48", and cf. Conrad Eubel, ed., | Aprilis, reverendissimus in Christo pater dominus Cardinalis

Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, I1 [1914, repr. 1960], Rutenus appellatus Ysidorus Rome diem suum clausit ex7-8). His relations with the Venetian Senate became very tremum. Eius anima in pace requiescat.” The year of his close, and on 15 June, 1443, he was granted honorary death is given incorrectly as 1462 in Eubel, Hierarchia citizenship by the Republic, being admitted on the twentieth —_catholica, I, 8. On Isidore, see in general Mercati’s mono- |

of the month to the Grand Council by a vote of 637 to 19, | graph, cited above, Scritts d’ Isidoro al Cardinale Ruteno with eight neutral ballots cast (orga, “Notes et extraits,” in (1926); Adolf W. Ziegler, Die Union des Konzils von Florenz Revue de U'Orient latin [abbr. ROL], VII [1899-1900, repr. in der russischen Kirche, Wurzburg, 1938, pp. 56 ff.; “Vier

1964], 104, 105, 106). bisher nicht ver6ffentlichte griechische Briefe Isidors von Isidore’s influence in the Curia Romana increased steadily, Kijev,” Byz. Zeitschr., XLIV (1951), 570-77; and “Die

and he was appointed successor to the deceased Latin restlichen vier unver6ffentlichten Briefe Isidors von

Patriarch of Constantinople, Giovanni Contarini, on 24 Jan- _ Kijev,” Orientalia Christiana periodica, XVIII (1952), 135-42;

uary, 1452, but with his rights and revenues limited to G. Hofmann, “Quellen zu Isidor von Kiew als Kardinal Crete, Negroponte, and other Venetian possessions (Arch. und Patriarch,” ibid., pp. 143-57; and the sketch of his Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 398, fol. 56; N. Iorga, Notes et career in Joseph Gill, Personalities of the Council of Florence, extraits pour servir @ Vhistoire des croisades, 11 [Paris, 1899], Oxford, 1964, pp. 65-78, as well as the notices concerning

461-62). Full appointment to the Latin patriarchate was not him in Gill's book on The Council of Florence, Cambridge,

made, because Gregory III (improperly called “Mammas”?), 1959. On the fifth centenary of Isidore’s death the then Catholic patriarch of the Greek rite, was still living, Basilian Fathers in Rome brought out a volume of essays on which see Georg Hofmann, “Papst Kalixt III und die dedicated to his memory, Miscellanea in honorem Cardinalis Frage der Kircheneinheit im Osten,” in the Miscellanea Isidori (1463-1963), in the Analecta Ordinis S. Basiltt Magni, Giovanni Mercati, III (Citta del Vaticano, 1946), 218-21 IV [X], fascs. 1—4 (1963), which contains, however, little or

(Studi e testi, no. 123), and cf. V. Laurent, “Le Vrai nothing pertinent to the present work.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 5 said to have had 153 defense towers, along fight for or defend any cause but their own. the line, still discernible today, which the The Turks were, however, as constant a worry Peloponnesians had fortified against Xerxes, the to the Venetians as they were to the ByzanEmperor Valerian against the Goths, and Jus- tines. Venetian documents mention them again tinian against the Bulgars, the Huns, and the and again. An interesting letter in one of the Slavs. Manuel’s builders in fact discovered an _ files of the Senate (Deliberaziont miste) warns inscription commemorating Justinian’s con- Antonio Acciajuoli, the duke of Athens, “that struction of the Isthmian wall some eight and he should preserve and keep well his fortifica-

a half centuries before.® tions, and not place his trust in the promises

Although the Byzantines might be thus in- of the Turks, to whom good faith cannot be duced to ponder the long continuity of their ascribed. . . . But considering the fact that the history, the find was no augury of better times. Turk himself is very wise and well informed Behind the wall they built against the Turks concerning our places over there, it seems to they soon alienated their only possible ally, the us most important for the security of our Venetians, although it must be admitted that places and even of our dominion not to disthe statesmen of the Serenissima would rarely regard him. . . .”’ The Venetians knew better

—_ than anyone else the value of the advice they 6N. A. Bees, Die griechisch-christlichen Inschriften des Sent to Athens, for Turkish raids were already Peloponnes, Athens, 1941, no. 1, pp. 1, 4 (in the Corpus der depopulating the nearby island of Negroponte, griechisch-christlichen Inschriften von Hellas, 1,1: Isthmos- One of the chief centers of Venetian enterKorinthos). The Hexamilion made a great impression: rise in the Levant.®

Chalcocondylas, bk. rv (Bonn, pp. 183-84, 215; ed. Darko, Pp °

I, 172-73); Chronicon breve, ad ann. 1415 (Bonn. p. 517); On the whole the merchants of the lagoon

Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1026BC; ed. Grecu, p. were probably good neighbors. After, the fall of

6); and of. Pseudo-Sphrantzes, I, 24 [33], 26 [35] (Bonn, Boudonitza the Florentine duchy of Athens pp. 96, 107-8; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 99-100, 111-12, with ~~ and Thebes was especially vulnerable to Turkish

corrected date in second passage; ed. Grecu [1966], pp. k andthe V ‘an Si ; d . 234, 236, 246), on which see Loenertz, in the Miscellanea G. attack, and t le eneulan Isnoria agreed to assist

Mercati, II (1946), 288-89, with refs.; Mazaris, in Fr. Duke Antonio Acciajuoli against the common Boissonade, Anecdota graeca, III (Paris, 1831), 177-79; enemy, to allow him to buy “munitions” Loenertz, “Chronicon breve . . . e codice Vaticano graeco (le cosse de la munition) from Negroponte XXVIII (1958), 209, and idem, “Epitre de Manuel II and to let the Athenians and Thebans send

162,” in ’Evetnpis ths ‘Etatpeias Bulavtwav Xrovder, : :

Paléologue aux moines David et Damien (1416),” in Silloge animals and property there for safekeeping in bizantina in onore di S. G. Mercati, Rome, 1957, pp. 297-304 an emergency.? Antonio was also allowed to (Manuel’s letter discusses the importance of the wall for the §—=———————

defense of the peninsula, the opposition of certain Greek 7 Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Misti, Reg. 51, fol. 4", publ. archontes to the building of it, etc.). Cf. Edw. W. Bodnar, in C. N. Sathas, Documents inédits relatifs a histoire de la “The Isthmian Fortifications in Oracular Prophecy,” Amer- __Gréce, 9 vols., Paris, 1880-90, repr. Athens, 1972, III, no. ican Journal of Archaeology, LX (1960), 165-71, and see esp. 649, p. 101, dated 7 March, 1415. On Venetian precautions Loenertz, “La Chronique bréve moréote de 1423,” Mélanges _ taken against the “prave machinationes et voluntates ipsorum

Eugéne Tisserant, 11, 429-32. Turchorum” in the Adriatic and the Aegean, cf. the resoluThe Hexamilion is the chief subject of a work written in tions of the Senate of 26 March, 1415, from the Misti, Reg. 1430 by Cardinal Isidore to a despoina of Mistra, evidently 51, fols. 15’-16', published in Sime Ljubic, ed., Listine

Cleopa Malatesta. This work, which relates to a prophecy [Documents] 0 odnoSajth izmedju juznoga slavenstva 1 mletacke concerning the Hexamilion, is contained in Vatican MS. _ republike, VII (1882), 196-200 (in the Monumenta spectantia

gr. 1852, fols. 105-6, on which see Mercati, Scritti historiam slavorum meridionalium, vol. XH). A document d’ Isidoro il Cardinale, pp. 34-36, and for the text see dated 30 August, 1415, in Sen. Secreta, Reg. 6, fol. 67" [68"], in

Zakythinos, Mélanges Merlier, Ul (1957), 60-63. Sp. Ljubi, op. cit., pp. 209-11, shows how dangerous had P. Lampros, “The Walls of the Isthmus of Corinth” [in become the raids of a Turkish army, “qui, vagans in Greek], Néos ‘EAAnvopvijpowr, II (1905), esp. pp. 444-69, _ partibus occidentis, fines Hungarie et IIlirie sevis incursionideals at length with the sources for Manuel II’s building _ bus populatur,” making clear the extent of Ottoman recovery

of the Hexamilion (according to Mazaris in twenty-five from the defeat of Ankara and the subsequent strife days, apparently from 8 April to 2 May), and also pub- among the sons of Sultan Bayazid. lishes, ibid., pp. 475-76, the prophecy which Isidore inter- § Misti, Reg. 51, fols. 94'-95" [97'-98"]; Sathas, III, no. preted for Cleopa Malatesta. (Lampros mistakenly dates this 679, pp. 125-27, dated 4 February, 1416 (Ven. style 1415); prophecy between 1446 and 1449, after Constantine [XI] cf. in general Marino Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi di Venezia, in

Dragases’ rebuilding of the wall in 1443 and its destruction L. A. Muratori, ed., RISS, XXII (Milan, 1733), cols.

by the Turks in 1446, on which see below.) On Manuel’s 895C, 896, 898E.

journey to the Morea in 1415 and the building of the ®Doc. of 7 March, 1415, cited in note 7 (Sathas, III, Hexamilion, see also John W. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus no. 649, pp. 100-2), and republished, like many other such (1391-1425): A Study in Late Byzantine Statesmanship, New Venetian texts, in Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, VII, no.

Brunswick, N.J., 1969, pp. 301-18. 1948, pp. 185-88.

6 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT transport grain from Negroponte, provided it of Hungary and electus rex Romanorum, had was not required locally.’ There was certainly been at odds over their conflicting interests in need for such co-operation, of which there was Dalmatia. Their enmity was generally regarded never enough among the Latin states in the as an obstacle to organizing a crusade against Levant. To participants in the events of the ttme the Turks. The Emperor Manuel II offered on

it was doubtless not as clear as it is to the several occasions to act as mediator in their historian, with his retrospective knowledge, disputes. On 30 August, 1415, the Senate adthat the very survival of these states was to dressed an encyclical “with anger and indigna-

depend on their being willing and able to make tion” (zram et indignationem concepimus) to the common cause with one another against the kings of France, England, and Aragon, the duke

Turks. of Austria, the count of Savoy, the duke of After his accession Sultan Mehmed I had_ Bavaria, count palatine of the Rhine, and the received a Byzantine embassy with exceptional apostolic vicar in Avignon, protesting Sigiscourtesy, probably in late July, 1413, confirming mund’s hideous “calumny” that Venice had a treaty he had already made with the Emperor acted in collusion with a Turkish army, qui Manuel, to whom he surrendered various for- vagans in partibus Occidentis fines Hungarie et Illirie

tresses on the Black Sea, as well as certain sevis incursionibus populatur. Sigismund had writtowns and castles in Thessaly and the Propontis, ten to various kings and princes, making this acknowledging that he had secured his paternal entirely unwarranted accusation against Venice,

inheritance with Byzantine aid and acclaiming and acting as though the Turk were some Manuel as a father, to whom he would always’ wholly new and unforeseen enemy who was show a filial obedience. Mehmed had also attacking Hungary for the first time! received at his table envoys from _ Serbia,

Vlachia, Bulgaria, and Ianina, and those sent ————— by the Despot Theodore II of Mistra and _ Bibl. Correr, Venice), vol. I, fol. 259: “A di 20 zugno li Prince Centurione Zaccaria of Achaea. inform- ‘!U*%Ch! prexeno lixola de Negroponte et mesela a sacho-

. ll of his desire to liv t ith mane: Esendo signor de Turchi uno nominato Charaman,

Ins - 1 0 IS Cesire to € al peace Ww el fece una grandissima armada per mare et per terra, el them. Mehmed, however, apparently enter- qual armo 6 galie conpide et 18 fuste et molte palandarie, tained no such desire for peace with the el qual ando a uno castello per terra dito la Boginniza Venetians, whose island of Negroponte the [Boudonitza ], el qual lui ’hebe per tratado. Da poi la note Turks pillaged in June, 1414. Although the ando a lasalto alixola de Negroponte et prexela et meno via

ks failed failedin; fort t ize the citv the andcity u™elluili 800 anime, et quelli Turks an effort to seize feceno amazare, et dache poiel el non fecepuote metermenare il fuogovia, in castle of Carystus, they did effect the sur- molti luogi de lixola. Et questo fu uno grandisimo danno render of Boudonitza, near Thermopylae, a Venetiani et a tuta la Crestianita.” Although Valier was thus terminating the Latin history of the famous well informed on some topics, including the present one, ‘at hich the Pallavicini and th this MS. is quite as noteworthy for its droll and macabre Margravia € over whic € Pallavicini anc i miniatures as for its historical content. Zorzi had ruled for more than two centuries. Note also Sathas, III, nos. 1022-23, pp. 429-31, docs. For years the Venetians and Sigismund, king dated September, 1436, the first confirming Marchesotto Zorzi (or Giorgi) in the barony of Carystus, after the

TO | death of his father Niccolo IT, lord of Carystus (1406-1436) '? Misti, Reg. 51, fol. 8%; Sathas, II, no. 650, p. 103, doc. and apparently titular margrave of Boudonitza from some

dated 9 March, 1415. time after 1416, and the second confirming Niccolo III

Ducas, Hist. byzant., chap. 20 (Bonn, pp. 97-98); Doélger —Zorzi in the castellany of Pteleum. and Wirth, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden, pt. 5 (1965), no. 3334, The father of the last-named was Jacopo I, the margrave

p. 98. It would be wrong, however, to regard Mehmed I ousted by the Turks in 1414, who seems to have ceded to as friendly to Byzantium, as Manuel makes clear in his _ his uncle (Niccolé IJ) the title to Boudonitza some time after

letter to the monks David and Damian in 1416 (ed. 1416 in return for the less exalted but attainable castellany Loenertz, in the Silloge bizantina in onore di S. G. of Pteleum. (Both Carystus and Pteleum were held as Mercati, pp. 303-4). Since the text of Ducas in the Bonn fiefs from the Venetian state.) The Zorzi had acquired corpus is very good, and is furnished with the valuable notes Boudonitza through the marriage of Guglielma de’ Palof Ismael Bullialdus, I have usually not added references _lavicini with Niccolo I Zorzi about 1335. After the fall of

to the edition of Vasile Grecu, Ducas: Istoria turco- the castle to the Turks the branch of the family in Carystus

bizantina (1341-1462), Bucharest, 1958, who gives page held the title (cf. Predelli, Regestt det Commemoriali, IV [1896],

references to the Bonn edition. bk. xin, no. 17, p. 210), until the Turkish occupation of the 2 Misti, Reg. 51, fol. 447 [46°]; Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi di _ whole island of Negroponte in 1470 (cf. Sanudo, op. cit., col.

Venezia, in RISS, XXII, col. 890DE, and cf. cols. 911-12; 1043A; Iorga, ROL, IV [1896, repr. 1964], 561, and V Andrea Navagero, Storia veneziana, in RISS, XXUI (Milan, _[1897, repr. 1964], 173, 195-96, et alibi; Ch. Hopf, Chron1733), cols. 1080DE-—1081AB. See also Amadio Valier, — iques gréco-romanes inédites ou peu connues, Berlin, 1873, geneal.

Cronica di Venezia, 2 vols., Codd. Cicogna, nos. 3630-31 tables, p. 478, with errors; Miller, Latins in the Levant, (MS. of later sixteenth-century, formerly nos. 296-97,imthe pp. 374-75).

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 7 The Senate called Sigismund to witness that abundantly clear that only by force could the after the Christian defeat at Nicopolis (in Turks be restrained from depredation. When on 1396) the Venetians had rescued him, victus 2 April, 1416, Pietro Loredan received his fugatusque . . . errabundus et pavens, from the commission as-“captain-general of the Gulf,” very jaws of the enemy, and their galleys he was instructed to assemble a fleet of some had landed him safely in Dalmatia. The duke dozen galleys, and proceed straightway to Gallip-

of Burgundy and many another French lord oli. With rare unanimity the Senate ordered could attest to the fact. The king of Poland, him to attack the Turks if the usual efforts who had tried to adjust the differences between to make peace with Sultan Mehmed had failed.

Sigismund and Venice, was well aware of the Although Antonio Acciajuoli, the Florentine generous offers the Senate had made to render duke of Athens, was said to be “with the assistance against the Turks, ad subversionem Turk,” the duchy was to be spared if Antonio status et exterminium Teucrorum. Every year Venice was abiding by the terms of his peace with

expended large sums to prevent the audacity the officials of Negroponte.” of the Turks from achieving a mastery of the Galleys had been armed in Candia, Nauplia, seas. The Venetian-held island of Negroponte Negroponte, and the Archipelago, as well as was subject to daily attack by the Turks, who in Venice and elsewhere. On 29 May (1416) had slaughtered an “incredible multitude” of _Loredan won a resounding victory over a large Venetian citizens and subjects, nam inter illos et ‘Turkish armada off the Gallipoli peninsula. nos eternum bellum maxima tnequaltate crudescit. We have a long account of the battle in a

The Turks were a terrible menace to all letter written to the Signoria by Loredan,

Christians who dwelt between the Black Sea who was wounded in action, describing how and the Adriatic. The Venetians knew it well the encounter began when the Venetians tried and, incedentes per vestigia progenitorum nostror'um, to put ashore at “la punta di Gallipoli” they stood ready always to join the Christian to get water which they needed badly, how princes in an expedition which would destroy many Turkish ships were captured and who took the Ottoman state and the very name of Turk.” them, and so on. A number of Genoese, The Venetians had, it is true, negotiated Catalans, Sicilians, Provengaux, and Cretans had with the Ottoman government general treaties fought on the Turkish side; most of them were (in 1403, 1406, and 1411) which had included killed in the battle, according to Loredan, an understanding with respect to both Negro- and those who fell into his hands were promptly ponte and Boudonitza,* but it had become put to death. The captain-general emphasizes at great length that the battle began with a

13 Sen, Secreta, Reg. 6, fol. 67" [68°]; Ljubié, Listine, VI, curkish attack upon his vesse’s, and according

209-11; lorga, ROL, IV, 550, and Notes et extraits, I, 235. to im u e veneuan fleet ad won the great

On 10 September (1415) the Senate informed a delegation victory with almost pacific intentions. One sees from the Council of Constance “quod sumus certissimi toti. = ——————

mundo notorium fore et etiam suis paternitatibus et © Sen. Secreta, Reg. 6, fols. 93°-94" [94”’-95"]; Iorga, sapientiis [i.e., the envoys of the Council] clarissimum esse ROL, V, 562-63; Notes et extraits, 1, 247-48; Thiriet, quod inter alios Christicolas semper fuimus et sumus om-__ Regéstes, I, no. 1610, p. 143, the commission to Loredan, nium infidelium et potissime Teucrorum persecutores as- who was to patrol the northern Aegean from Negroponte sidui, et debeat . . . serenissimus dominus dux [the Doge _ .to Gallipoli: “Et ubicumque poteris offendere et damnificare

Tommaso Mocenigo] cum illis verbis que sue Serenitati Turchos tam in terra quam in mari debeas illud audacter videbuntur sustinere honorem nostri dominii et declarare _facere tam veniendo de Galipoli versus Nigropontem quam antiquam guerram et inimiciciam que continue fuit inter stando in partibus illis et aliter quocumque poteris, non nos et dictos Turchos. . . .” (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 6, fol. ponendo tamen galeas nec homines earum ad periculum, 68° [69°], with further reference to Sigismund and the excepto quod nolumus quod inferas damnum aliquod super deplorable fact “quod etiam scripserat per orbem dis- ducamine [the duchy of Athens] in casu quo loca ducaminis

famando nostrum dominium”). Cf., above, note 7. que sunt cum Turcho stent in pace et benivolentia cum There had been Turkish raids into Bosnia, Hungary, and nostra insula Nigropontis” (doc. cit., fol. 947 [95"]). The

Croatia in 1398, into Carniola in 1408 and 1411, and into vote in the Senate was: De parte 113, de non 0, non sinceri 2. Carniola, Styria, and lower Austria in 1415, after which the At the same time as Loredan received these instructions the Friulani never felt safe (Pio Paschini, “Primi Timori d’un’in- | Senate undertook to send an envoy to the Turks to make vasione turca in Friuli,” Memorie storiche forogiuliest, VIII peace if satisfactory terms could be arranged (see the docu-

[1912], 65-73). ments [including parts of Loredan’s commission] dated 2 4Cf. Thomas and Predelli, Diplomatarium veneto-le- April, 1416, in Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, VIII [1970],

vantnum, II, nos. 159, 162, 164, pp. 290 ff. From 1413 to nos. 2,013-16, pp. 13-25). The truncation of many of 1416 Manuel II addressed several appeals and admonitions _Valentini’s texts, as that of Loredan’s commission (ibid., no.

to Venice against the Turks (Délger and Wirth, Regesten, 2016), makes them awkward to use and sometimes even pt. 5, nos. 3335, 3338, 3348, 3352, 3354-55, pp. 99-103). misleading.

8 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT clearly from this letter the restraint which the The sultan recognized Venetian suzerainty over everlasting caution of the Serenissima imposed _ thirty-eight castles and places identified by name,

upon her commanders. Despite Loredan’s including (among others) Candia, Santorin, orders to attack, he must not suffer loss through Astypalaea, Amorgos, Tenos, Mykonos, Andros,

defeat. Even in victory it must be clear that Negroponte, Pteleum, Nauplia, Argos, Modon, he had not risked the honor and resources Coron, Corfu, Lepanto, Durazzo, Scutari, and of the Republic in a doubtful engagement. Zara, together with “all those which raise the One must be sure of winning before making banner of S. Mark.”!”

an attack. Withdrawing to Tenedos, whence he ; ; had sailed a few days before, Loredan found The Turk would of course still bear watching,

. and he was well watched, as was everything else “of whom the greater will beempire well again,” a 8 Many hunae espart commercial in the Levant. that only 340 of his men had been wounded, that related to the well-being of the Venetian

and only a dozen had lost their lives, “of whom . ; a part were drowned, and may God grant them dreds of documents in the rich series of Senato

pardon.” Misti and Secreti,’® preserved today in the The uncertain relations, whether of war or Venetian Archives on ¢ he Cam po dei Frari, which led Loredan to send such a care- vouch for the unremitting vigilance exercised Fuleace. 1explanation : over eastern, byignoria theof Venice.” “most ducal to the homeaffairs government lasted Si Sy Theserene Senate passed resolu-

another three years. In November, 1419, ©.and . , fines, hfor tions relating to taxes, excises, duties, owever, Sultan Mehmed I swore to a treaty , ; , external relations and foreign exchange, with the Venetians by Allah, the maker of heaventhe use of state galleys, protection of fisheries, the pur-

and earth; the Prophet Mohammed; the seven chase of sugar. the sale of wine and meat copies of the Koran (li sette Mussaffi); the 124,000 Bars tne an , prophets, of whom the first was Adam and the the export of grain, and dozens of other matters ..by relating tosouls the economic life of.Venetian colonies last Mohammed; and finally the of his. . randfather and his father. A settlement was ‘ the Morea and the various islands. Members

;eclared ; ; of noble families, docile at home, of problems relating to by thenecessity captives NaPeer ;. could not escape the discipline of the Signoria taken by the Turks from Negroponte and by by going abroad, for when they put their own

the Venetians at Gallipoli, to the independent °” BONS , YP

position of the.Venetian Naxos, and "Th d Predelli, Diplomatarium, . omasduchy an ofredelli, Diplomatarium, II, no.1 179 » pp. to the mutual rights of each of the contracting 318 19. of Predelli, Regesti dei Commemoriali, IV, bk. x1,

parties to trade in the other’s territories. jo, 25, p. 16, and Valier, Cron., Cod. Cicogna, no. 3631, fol. 263, who dates the peace on 26 September. Venice

—_— agreed to pay the sultan an annual tribute of one hundred 6 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 6, fol. 107° [108"]; Iorga, ROL, 1V, ducats for Lepanto and two hundred for Alessio, Drivasto, 566-67; Notes et extraits, 1, 251-52; Thiriet, Régestes, 11, and Scutari. The picturesque words of the sultan’s oath are

no. 1622, p. 145, a letter of the Senate to Loredan, from the preamble common to such treaties, the same

dated 5 July, 1416: “Cum maxima animi iocunditate formula occurring in the famous treaty of 25 January, 1479,

literas vestras datas Tenedi die secundo mensis Junii elapsi_ which ended almost seventeen years of war between Venice

recepimus continentes felicem victoriam per vos obtentam and the Porte (on which see, below, p. 328, and cf. contra exercitum maritimum perfidorum Teucrorum. ...” Franz Babinger, Maometto il Conquistatore e il suo tempo, Loredan’s letter of 2 June is given by Sanudo, Vite de’ duchti ‘Turin, 1957, p. 550); the formula also occurs in the Turco-

dt Venexa, in RISS, XXII, cols. 901-9, on which note Venetian treaties of September, 1430 (Thomas and Predelli, orga, loce. citt. Amadio Valier, Cron., in Cod. Cicogna, no. Dzpl., I, no. 182, p. 343), February, 1446 (see, below, 3631, fols. 261-62, incorrectly dates the battle of Gallipoli Chapter 3, note 51), September, 1451 (Dipl., H, no. 209,

onOn30 June. p. 382), and April, 1454 (Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS ; the general background, note Sathas, III, nos. 671—. XXII, col. 1154AB). The sultan cautioned Duke Antonio

72, pp. 118-20, docs. dated 30-31 August, 1415, and no. Acciajuoli of Athens, who had become a Turkish tribu679, pp. 125-27, dated 4 February, 1416 (Ven. style 1415), tary, to keep the peace which he had solemnly sworn with in which it is stated that the Turks had taken 1,500 captives Venice or suffer the consequences (Thomas and Predelli, from the island of Negroponte, and that the inhabitants Dipl., Il, no. 173, p. 320; Predelli, Regesti, IV, bk. x1, no. had just petitioned the Signoria for the right to become 26, p. 16): Although the Signoria had instructed its governtributaries of the Turks, which the Senate categorically ment in Negroponte to assist Antonio, the latter appears to rejected, quia hoc numquam consentiremus! (Misti, Reg. 51, fol. have given offense to the Venetian colony, possibly at the

94 [97], doc. cited above in note 8). On the Venetian direction of the Turks, who now commanded him to desist victory at Gallipoli, of. Jos. von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte (cf. Sathas, III, no. 743, p. 90, dated 5 January, 1419 des osmanischen Reiches, I ([Buda ]pest, 1827, repr. Graz, 1963), | [Ven. style 1418], from the Misti, Reg. 52, fols. 141-142).

368-70; N. lIorga (Jorga), Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, {I 8 In referring to these two series, I have commonly pre-

(Gotha, 1908), 371-72; Wm. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du _‘ ferred the Italian form Misti to Mixta and the Latin form

Levant, trans. Furcy Raynaud, II (repr. 1967), 277. Secreta to Secreti.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 9 self-interest ahead of the common good, repri- ment of one colonial physician by another, mand was swift and the penalty might be heavy. the recruitment of bowmen and the purchase This was certainly the case when ambition of arms for defense, the salaries of officials or avarice manifested itself in the Levant. Thus in the islands, the terms and restrictions of in 1412-1413 Giovanni (Zanachi) Querini, their tenures, and hundreds of other details. soon after his appointment as rector of Tenos We can follow the construction of walls, a well, and Mykonos (in 1411), purchased the island and a windmill at Corfu, and the reconstrucof “Stampalia,” the ancient Astypalaea, between tion of the mole in the harbor of Modon; the Naxos and Rhodes. He assumed the title assignment of the revenues of the Latin archCount of Stampalia, and proceeded to populate _ bishopric of Corfu to the repair of the cathedral

his new fief, which had been deserted for church, que minatur ruinam, and to the purchase more than seventy years, by removing families of various ecclesiastical necessities; the limita-

from Tenos and Mykonos to his own island tion on the number of Greek priests to be

in vessels belonging to the Republic, “quod allowed in Negroponte as well as the imposts esset causa destructionis et depopulationis laid on the Jews of Negroponte, Corfu, and ipsarum nostrarum insularum.” The Senate elsewhere, and the services required of them; would not allow a citizen, however, to provide and, for a last example, the authorization to for the security and enrichment of his own the bailie and councillors of Negroponte to possessions at the expense of the state, and spend 125 hyperperi (already spent) for the

imposed on Querini a fine of two hundred entertainment of the Emperor Manuel I

ducats for each person thus removed and not Palaeologus when he landed at Negroponte immediately returned to the twin islands with early in the year 1415.9 Upon the emperor’s

all his property.” arrival in the Morea, however, the Signoria Leaving aside in the present context the hand-__ was careful to replace its Greek mercenaries at

some, wooden-bound volumes of the Senatus Coron and Modon with Latin soldiers for Secreta, we may note in the Misti (also hand- whom the imperial presence and _ personality some volumes and wooden-bound) the replace- would have no natural appeal,’* and after the construction of the Hexamilion the Vene-

——— tians declined to contribute to the expense of Misti, Reg. 49 [March, 1411-June, 1413], fol. 180°; maintaining watch and ward on the long wall. Sathas, IIT, no. 552, pp. 4—5, dated 18 May, 1413. On the They stated quite truly that, as Manuel knew,

complicated history of the Querini of Stampalia (and «e . Amorgos, which a later Giovanni Querini purchased in they were constantly under multe et intol-

1446), see R. J. Loenertz, “Les Querini, comtes d’ Asty- lerabiles expense . . . in diversis partibus et

_ » an esp. es uerim, comtes stypalee e 1 1

paige, 1at3— 1087 Oneonta Christiana periodica, XXX (969), locis,” owing to the treacherous attacks of the

seigneurs d’ Amorgos, M13 146. 1537" ibid. XXXII Turks upon their Possessions and the costly

(1966), 372-93, with corrections of the genealogical tables necessity of maintaining armed galleys for the

in Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 489, and of various notices defense of Negroponte.”

concerning the Querini in Hopfs other works. Note also Negroponte inevitably looms large in these Giuseppe Gerola, J] Monumenti medioevalt delle tredici Sporadi, documents, and Negropontine documents were

Bergamo, 1914-15, pp. 258-64, who gives an inscription themselves important. On 26 January, 1417, dated 30 March, 1413, commemorating the recolonization . . of Stampalia by “Count” Giovanni: “Johannes Quirinus the Venetian Senate passed a resolution to the

comes Astineai qui eo primus duxit accolas anno effect that, MCCCCXIII die XXX marcii translationis Sancti Quirini.”

Astinea (new town) is apparently a play on the name = ~~ Astipalia (Astypalaia, old town). 20 Misti, Reg. 51, fol. 18% [20%]; Sathas, III, no. 660, p. 110, The island of Stampalia had been sacked and depopu-_ dated 24 April, 1415. lated before 1341 by the Turks of the emirate of Aydin 71 Misti, Reg. 51, fol. 33° [35"]; Sathas, III, no. 664, p. 113, under the well-known Umur Pasha (on which see Cristo- dated 11 June, 1415 (misdated, loc. cit., by a typographical foro de’ Buondelmonti, Liber insularum Archipelagi [written error).

in 1420], ed. G. R. L. von Sinner, Leipzig and Berlin, 2 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 6, fols. 84Y-85" [85"-86"], dated 8 1824, p. 78, and cf. Paul Lemerle, L’ Emirat d’ Aydin, February, 1416 (Ven. style 1415), esp. fol. 85" [86"]; Paris, 1957, pp. 123-25). Stampalia was still uninhabited Valentini, Acta. Albaniae veneta, VIII (1970), no. 2,007, when the Capuan pilgrim Niccolé da Martoni landed there pp. 8-10, where the text is incomplete; Lampros, Palatoin July, 1394 (ROL, HI [1895, repr. 1964], 581-82): légeia kai Peloponnesiakd, U1, 129-31, esp. p. 131; and gf. “, . . applicuimus prope insulam que dicitur Stampalea,que Iorga, ROL, IV, 558, and Notes et extraits, I, 243; Thiriet, girat milearia XXX et alias fuit habitata, sed destructa Régestes, II, no. 1599, p. 140; Dolger and Wirth, Regesten,

a Turchis est inhabitabilis, vero apparet ibi castrum cum pt. 5, no. 3354, pp. 102-3; Zakythinos, Despotat grec de m{o Jeniis, et sunt in dicta insula animalia silvestria. . . .” Morée, l, 169; Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, pp. 315-16.

10 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT since the chancellors of our bailie at Negro- Throughout this period the Venetian bailie

ponte . . . prepare many notarial acts for which they jin Constantinople, Fantino Viaro, had been

nal asked such I wills, notices or eee cecan kept so busy running back and forth between sales, and other pubic instruments, and have tormu- his house in the Venetian compound and the laries [protocolli] of these wills, charters, and in- imperial palace (and dealing als ‘th th

struments, as notaries do, in which they keep copies te P bl nich ie SO Wl e un-

which are considered in proper form—but [since] Pp easant problems WIC the citizens and submany of the chancellors keep their formularies on Jects of the Republic were then facing on the paper [in bombinico], so that in the process of time, Bosporus) that he had not been able to look to at the chancery of Negroponte, registers are found the badly needed repairs in the domus baiulatus, torn and worn out because of the fragility of the which was going to wrack and ruin for want of paper document, which results many times in the attention. The Senate had authorized Fantino to

greatest loss and damage to citizens there, spend one hundred ducats on the bailie’s house, the motion was made and carried “that hence- and now on 25 July, 1417, made the same sum

forth all chancellors should keep on parchment avarabie to his SUCCESSOR Giovanni Diedo to put

the formularies in which they will record [copies the house in order. of ] wills, notices, conditions of possession, and It was well for the bailies to make sure of a other such acts in the Venetian style, just as Of over their heads. ‘They were going to be in

all the notaries do here at Venice.’ Constantinople for a long time. Although John The records were carefully kept almost every- VIII, imperator iuvenis, and Theodore HU, where in the far-flung Venetian domain. Those despotus, had taken peasants and other persons relating to the Morea show that troubled land

to have been a constant concern to the sage §————

councillors who were daily to be seen entering in Sathas, I, no. 49, p. 67, dated 25 July), and tried at and leaving the palace on the Bacino di S$ the same time to stop the war (Sathas, I, nos. 50 and ff.). Marco. In March. 1416. the E M ; Owing to his fear of the Palaeologi, Centurione Zaccaria #1 March, ~? the Emperor Manuel had appealed to Genoa (his family was of Genoese origin), II left the Morea, whither his eldest son and which had been very disquieting to the Venetians, who co-emperor John VIII came some months later warned the Palaeologi of the possible introduction of the to join young Theodore II and assist him to Genoese into the affairs of the Morea and prescribed _ peace with Centurione as the best means of preventing it— rule the so-called despotate. The two brothers although if Centurione was disposed, as was reported, “to were soon engaged In VIgOrous warfare against place control of the principality in the hands of the

Centurione Zaccaria, the Latin prince of Achaea. Genoese,” the Venetians wished to occupy Navarino (ZonkThey also invaded Venetian territories, and an-__ !on) and two other places for the protection of Modon and swered a protest of the Signoria with the promise ©°T" and would favor acquisition by the Palaeologi tOher M 6 of as much of the rest of the principality as they could take spare ner oreote Possessions, et tamquam — (Sathas, I, no. 44, pp. 52-60, dated 31 March, 1416, and

propria conservarent,” which disarmed the ¢. no. 45, pp. 60-62).

Venetian castellans of Coron and Modon into 5 Misti, Reg. 52, fol. 37", dated 25 July, 1417: “Cum making no provision for the defense of Vene- _ @lias concessum fuerit nobili viro Ser Fantino Viaro, baiulo

tian subjects areas (in 1417): “but nostro Constantinopolis, posse expendere in aptatione et J . in" those reparatione domus baiulatus Constantinopolis que erat the men-at-arms of the aforesaid lords, the usque tunc in pessimo termino usque ad summam ducaemperor and despot, caring no whit for their torum C de pecunia nostri communis, et ipse Ser Fantinus promise, have been responsible for many wrongs per alias multas diversas occupationes quas habuerit non and losses. robberies and acts of incendiarism Pottetit facere fieri dictam reparationem itaque dicta domus

“na e eCOd oron Modan.A0con adhucagainst stat in valdeetpeiori perruitura, modum nisi In theth regions reparetur presto termino esset penitus vaditquod pars quod

our subjects and followers, treating them as if concedatur viro nobili Ser Iohanni Diedo, baiulo nostro they were public and manifest enemies. . . .”24 Constantinopolis, possendi facere dictam reparationem et

expensas ducatorumC. . . .” _3 That the Venetians were encountering serious difficulties Misti, Reg. 51, fol. 184” [187%]; Sathas, III, no. 709, in Constantinople, where they were always unpopular,

pp. 153-54, dated 1417 (Ven. style 1416). appears from a letter of the Senate to the Emperor 24 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 6, fol. 154°; Sathas, I, no. 48, Manuel II, dated 11 March, 1418 (bid., fol. 80%): “Quod

pp- 65-66, resolution of the Venetian Senate, dated 25 July, —_ scribatur domino Imperatori Constantinopolis in hac forma:

1417, instructing the bailie in Constantinople to seek in- Per literas baiuli nostri Constantinopolis quas nuperime

demnity for the damage done. Cf. Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, — suscepimus, fuimus informati quod cives, subditi, et fideles in RISS, XXII, col. 916. Venice now made provision for _ nostri in civitate Constantinopolis existentes male videntur et

the defense of Modon and Coron (Misti, Reg. 52, fol. 35°, peius tractantur et eisdem multe iniurie et novitates inin Iorga, Notes et extraits, 1 [Paris, 1899], 267, resolution feruntur non solum reales sed personales . . . ,” and ¢f., dated 19 July, and Sen. Secreta, Reg. 6, fol. 154’, also ibid., fol. 111.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 1] captive in Venetian territory, and seized their sixteen years of age.*° Thomas was only a goods and animals, such was life in the Morea. boy at the time, but he soon proved to be There is no need to cite a dozen texts to il- restless. For some forty years the history of the lustrate the fact. Byzantine policy may have been Byzantine despotate was to be marked by

short-sighted, but the desire to expel alien Thomas’s efforts, often inept, to expel the intruders from the ancient homeland must have weaker Latin lords from the Morea and to ward

been very strong. The Albanians in the Greek off the Turks. Despite the truce arranged by “despotate” were hard to control, and the Vene- John VIII before his departure, Venice contian protests against their depredations were tinued to have trouble. Although the peace was largely in vain. Nevertheless, the Byzantines pretty well maintained in 1420, the Despot were anxious to maintain peace with the Re- Theodore II renewed his attacks upon Cenpublic. Two years before this, in July, 1415, the turione Zaccaria early in the following year, Signoria had given a very cautious answer to and his ill-disciplined forces were soon guilty the Emperor Manuel’s request that the Venetian again of violent trespass on Venetian territory.

governors of Coron, Modon, and Nauplia On 8 May, 1421, the Venetian Senate decided should help defend the recently built Hexa- ‘to send Benedetto Emo (Aymo) as envoy and milion against the Turks in times of emer- __bailie to Constantinople. gency.”’ As time went on, however, the Hexa- Emo’s first instructions were to stop off in the milion, expensive to build, proved expensive also Morea and make a formal (but courteous) pro-

to keep up, and Greek serfs were found to be test to the Despot Theodore: fleeing from the despotate to Venet tan [eT You are to explain to his Excellency that again and ritory to escape the general levy for its main- again we have written letters, and likewise our tenance, to which the Signoria declined to ¢astellans of Coron and Modon have sent mesmake any contribution in June, 1418, because sengers and written letters to his Excellency, deevery year, winter and summer alike, the Vene-_manding that, since many losses have been inflicted

tians bore exceptional costs in their ceaseless by his people upon our subjects of. Coron and opposition to the Turks “for the universal Modon, he be prepared to make restitution for these good and well-being of all Christendom, with- losses to our aforesaid subjects. Out tng issistance of any other ruler or govern- The despot’s troops had sacked four villages in yo ; the district of Modon, looting everything to such In August, 1417, John VIII's wife, the Russian ay extent that the poor inhabitants had lost princess Anna, died, and he withdrew from the “even their shirts” (usque ad camisiam). ‘The ReMorea the following summer.” Before leaving, public viewed this attack with grave concern, however, he concluded .a truce with Prince “hecause we hold the territories of Modon and Centurione Zaccaria. John was now replaced by — Goron no less dear than Venice.” The envoy was

a younger brother, Thomas, who was accom- tq make it clear to Theodore that the Venepanied to the Morea by the future diplomat tians would not tolerate such conditions and and historian George Sphrantzes, who was then uid carry the expression of their indignation and their insistence upon restitution to the most TT serene lord emperor of Constantinople—for :Ol. : cf ahd ‘ fols. 95°-97", doc. dated 11 June, 1418, and whatever good that would do, because envoys

27 Sathas, III, no. 668, p. 116, dated 23 July, 1415; Dolger from both the despot and the emperor had aland Wirth, Regesten, pt. 5, no. 3351, p. 102. Actually, the ready complained in Venice that the castellans Venetians had no intention of defending the faraway of Coron and Modon had supplied the despot’s Hexamilion against the Turks (D. A. Zakythinos, Despotat enemies with arms, artillery, and even a galiot, grec de Morée, 1 [1932], 168-69), and refused directly on 8 quod non est verum, for it was the Republic’s February, 1416, to contribute to the defense of the Hexa- . er . we milion because of the “many and intolerable expenses” with intention to maintain a strict neutrality in these which the Republic was constantly faced in warding off

Turkish attacks, especially in Negroponte (Lampros, = ————_ Palarologere Peloponnesiakd, III [1926], 130-31, and ¢. 30Pseudo-Sphrantzes, Sphrantzes, Chron. minus *s 3 38) _ (Be ed. Gree 8); os, inkai Neos Hellenomn., 11 [1905], 461-67). I, (26—27 onn, p. > P.ed. 28 Sathas, III, no. 731, pp. 17480, diated 1] june, 1418; Grecu [1966], p. 248); cf. Ducas, chap. 20 (Bonn, p. 98),

ene Uae Asi a dr , ho.ca 2, ,cen . 26-32, where it isand inco ete. . G.nM ; ., p- 8). 1960, vol. IT), p. 79a.

29 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1027 C: ed. Grecu, _ schaften und Kimste, vol. 86 (Leipzig, 1868, repr. New York,

12 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT wars in the Morea. For whatever reason Emo’s | said that the ancient seers and astrologers had instructions were canceled, but the original form forecast that the city would fall in this very

of his commission is still preserved in the year on the day and at the hour of the final

register, and bears witness to the Senate’s utter attack (which came on 24 August). At the critical

lack of confidence in Palaeologian rule in the moment, however, there appeared the figure of

Morea." a woman clad. _.inbattlements purple, walking along the of the outer wall. The Turks saw

he enatey for porn Greeks and tins ‘her. Darkness and a storm descended upon of via th I ty b defen. n sinet the them. Fear and trembling entered their hearts. strike, was the e ot ey vk Sh oath c They fled awe-struck in breathless haste, and

B dnan® Fe to ° 4 a d ¢ oT the siege was over. Once again the Virgin had

M “a “? cede d hi “p th uv h y IL and saved her city.” Be this as it may, it was apparent

, ura 1 succeede rs aa er came ch aad to all Europe that a new day had dawned in

Cgan one chat ve to rue. - 7 “ost hou t Graeco-Turkish relations, and the significance “be vement the lat con leenzh ent wi Dur to the Greek world of Mehmed I’s death had aba “he I. t Omne ta a he et cen a hel already been well understood in the Morea.

We © 7s the co 4 t se tah, rr ; Oe ell The Despot Theodore was now willing to Ine at ong hy con th h "Ide, a ¢ hin e make peace, for a time at least, with Prince

a 4. en ler y ab. VEIT s oh ers © Fficiclly Centurione of Achaea. In late February, 1423, an ved a er John | > W Y 1491 D bit Y the Venetian government authorized the castelvwisel as wh, vkich _, J ities. hn a ted lans of Coron and Modon to arrange the details

che we y vd M et cee ho. Je n dtc he th of a one-year truce between Theodore and the ye Be er d ustata, oti nto M ° ae © Centurione, in which Carlo I Tocco, duke of son en On, aaa ton i ura ee" Leucadia (Santa Maura), count palatine of cession to the Uttoman throne. it was a ba Cephalonia and Zante, and despot of Ianina mistake. In retaliation the angry young sultan,

having dispatched -Mustafa, laid siege to Con- ~~ ha C De C -sopolk oa th

stantinople with a large, well-equipped army John Cananus, De Consiantinopo oppugnatapp. (in457the . Bonn corpus, following the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, (from 10 June to 6 September, 1422); it was 79), who dates the siege from 10 June to 24 August. Cf. Lyubi¢é, Listine, VIII (1886), 188. The pagan historian

—_——_——— Zosimus in the fifth century tells a similar story to the

31 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 11’-12¥ [12’-13"]; Sathas, effect that a vision of Athena Promachos, ranging the I, no. 75, pp. 109-12; Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, X, walls of the Acropolis, frightened the Visigoth Alaric into no. 2,479, pp. 285-90. Although Sathas gives no indication sparing Athens although he ravaged the rest of Greece of the fact, the notation “Revocata” is written in the mar- (bk. v, 6, ed. Mendelssohn, pp. 222-23, and cf. K. M. Setton, gin of folio 11% of Emo’s first commission. The Senate Athens in the Middle Ages, London, 1975, 1, p. 179). The apparently believed it useless for another envoy to wait Venetians and Genoese were caught in the cross-fire between

upon the Despot Theodore II. On 23 May (1421) Murad II and the pretender Mustafa, who called himself a

Emo was directed merely to gather information from the son of Bayazid and so Murad’s uncle (cf. lorga, ROL, V, castellans of Coron and Modon, and (without going to 117-18, doc. dated 2 February, 1422, et alibi, and on the see the despot) to seek satisfaction directly from the several Mustafas who appear in the documents and the emperor in Constantinople (ibid., Reg. 8, fol. 13% [14%]): chroniclers, see zbid., p. 193, note 1). As of 26 August, 1422, “Cum castellani Coroni et Mothoni multotiens et modo _ the Venetian Senate was still uncertain whether Murad had noviter per suas literas scripserint nostro dominio de multis © made peace with the Byzantines or was still engaged in

novitatibus et damnis factis et datis fidelibus et subditis the siege (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 67 ff. [68 ff.]; Sathas, nostris dictorum locorum per subditos domini Despoti I, 120-21; Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 1854, p. 197). Misistre et bonum sit pro honore nostri dominii providere As we might expect, the Byzantine historians describe the superinde, vadit pars quod committatur viro nobili Ser Turkish siege of Constantinople in 1422: Sphrantzes, Chron. Benedicto Aymo ituro baiulo nostro Constantinopolis minus (PG 156, 1029C-—1030A; ed. Grecu, p. 14), who supquod quando erit in partibus locorum nostrorum predic- plies dates (8 June—6 September) at variance with those torum debeat se informare a castellanis predictis de omni- given by Cananus, and cf. Pseudo-Sphrantzes, I, 30 [39]

bus et singulis damnis et novitatibus factis et datis (Bonn, pp. 116-17; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 120; ed. Grecu, ipsis nostris fidelibus novis et veteribus, et quando erit pp. 254, 256); Chalcocondylas, bk. v (Bonn, pp. 231-34); in Constantinopoli debeat cum nostris literis credulitatis, Ducas, chap. 28 (Bonn, pp. 183-88); cf. lorga, ROL, V, quas sibi fecimus exhiberi, comparere ad presentiam domini 124-26, 137-38; Notes et extraits, 1, 323-25, 336-37,

Imperatoris et exponere querellam de omnibus et singulis Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1 (1908), 379-81; Dolger and Wirth,

damnis predictis et procurare satisfationem omnium Regesten, pt. 5, nos. 3390-93, pp. 108-9; Hopf, in Ersch ipsorum damnorum cum illis verbis et modis que et qui and Gruber, eds., Allgemeine Encyklopadie, vol. 86 (repr. II),

continentur in commissione pridie sibi facta, captain hoc p. 8lb; and esp. Barker, Manuel I Palaeologus (1969),

consilio. De parte 93. De non 3. Non sinceri 1.” pp. 354-66, on the background and duration of the siege.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 13 (Arta), was also to be included.*® The Venetians government looked askance at accepting the had been trying hard for some time to introduce Hexamilion, which Theodore had offered to

order into the Morea. Almost a year before, on give up to the Republic, for of course he 2 April, 1422, the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo’ wished to retain Corinth. Even the more ad-

had issued a commission, with the usual sena- venturous members of the Senate would accept torial authorization, to Delfino Venier as Vene- the Hexamilion only if Venice might also re-

tian ambassador and provveditore to Modon, ceive, as necessary to its defense, a strip of Coron, and the Morea, whereby he was to territory one or two miles wide, along its inner investigate fully the damages and disturbances (south) side, and they would undertake to keep

caused to Venetian subjects and possessions up the wall and its fortifications only if the

by the Despot Theodore’s people. Armed with costs might be borne locally, |

the information thus obtained, Venier was to and to remove all cause for altercation, it may be go to the despot’s court and remonstrate with stated that our Signoria will pay one half the afore-

his Excellency—with the courtesy and gid expense for that part of the country which

firmness appropriate to an envoy of the Repub- _ belongs to our Signoria, and the lord despot should

lic—requesting full restitution for the losses pay the other half for his part of the said country, thus far sustained and the assurance of their notwithstanding the fact that the lord despot’s ter-

cessation for the future. Venier was to per- fitory is much better and more populous [than form various other duties and, if possible, to ours ]. exert his best efforts with the despot and his According to the proposal of 22 July, the envoy rivals, to effect a badly needed truce in the Wenier was to try to persuade Prince’ Cen-

Morea. ; ; turione Zaccaria to surrender the title, lands, On 22 July, 1422, further instructions were and castles of the principality of Achaea to prepared for Venier as envoy to the three Venice for their preservation against the Turks. Moreote princes. A number of senators were Centurione would retain his baronial rights over

now willing to extend Venetian authority inthe jhe Jands he held by inheritance from his Morea, although the government had previously parents, for which he should do homage and

refused certain offers of territory from the cweay fealty to the Republic. Venier was to go Despot Theodore, who might well express sur- next to the court of Carlo Tocco, and try to prise at this apparent change in Venetian induce him to give up Glarentza and his other policy: “. . . You are to reply that his Ex- jossessions in the Moreote principality, for cellency need not wonder about this, because nich the Signoria would pay 3,000 to 4,000 our Signoria is not ambitious nor eager to ex- ducats. Carlo Tocco had purchased Glarentza tend our dominion, but is content with the bound- in 1421 from an Italian freebooter named aries which the Almighty has given us. . . .” Ojliverio Franco, who had seized it from CenThe concessions which Venice would be seeking turjone in 1 418, when he had also forced the

from all three princes were motivated solely prince to give him a daughter in marriage. by fear lest the continuance of the conditions But if Carlo Tocco would not sell these places,

which then existed in the peninsula should the envoy was to seek an oath of fealty from

lead to its acquisition by the Turks. Despite him.35 I]luminating as this document may be, it marked differences of opinion in the Senate, Venetian policy was now as always to pick and choose among possible landed possessions. The _ gen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 63'-64' [64"-65*], doc. dated 22 July, 1422; Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XI, no. 2,610,

pp. XXILL where _ fi"ulti” dol P.. \ ne18 snow pe 33 Sen, Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 91'-92" [92'-93"], resolu. die XXII [not XX ol. les" - Pnere a brie

tions dated 24 and 33 February, 1423 Ven syle 1422), Summary In Thiriet, Reégestes, Il, no. 1849, p. 196. This Sathas, I, nos. 83-84, pp. 127-29; Valentini, Acta Albaniae resolution was submitted to the Senate for four successive veneta, XI (1971), nos. 2685, 2690, pp. 195, 200-2; and votes, as follow (fol. 64" (65")):

of. Thiriet, Régestes, II, nos. 1871, 1873, pp. 200-1; De parte 63 66 64 67 Miller, Latins in the Levant, pp. 384-86; Zakythinos, De non 47 48 59 47 Despotat grec de Morée, 1, 180-86, 188, 191-92. Non sinceri 94 90 17 90 34 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 47 [48]; Thiriet, Régestes, II,

no. 1840, p. 194. When submitted to the Senate, the terms Since a majority of affirmative votes was not secured, and of Venier’s commission excited much discussion and pro- _ the successive items of the resolution lack the characteristic

voked some fifteen different votes. crosses (+) commonly placed in the left-hand margin to

14 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT was never officially sent to Venier, because the important city of Patras, which they had enough votes could not be secured by the mili- already administered for some years (1408tant party in the Senate to win its approval. 1413), by leasing it from Archbishop Stefano Another and much briefer set of instructions, Zaccaria under an arrangement whereby they however, was also prepared on the same day (22 had paid him an annual rent of 1,000 ducats.*”

July), and these comprise the mandate which Stefano, brother of Prince Centurione, had was sent to Venier, directing him to examine preferred the happy prospect of three years the Hexamilion and try to assess the cost of its at the University of Padua to the worrisome maintenance both in time of peace and in that of responsibilities of Patras, which was always sub-

war. He was also to investigate the resources ject to Turkish attack. Patras had been restored of the country and the probable cost of its to Stefano in 1413, when he had found himself

defense.*° This was all that Venier was _hard pressed by his brother Centurione as well authorized to do in the Morea, and doubtless as by the Turks and the Greek despot of the all he did—except for advocating peace wherever Morea, and so in 1417 he had renewed the

he went. previous agreement with the Venetians. In the It is clear that the more daring members of Curia Romana, however, Stefano’s attempt to the Venetian Senate were now ready to divide solve his problems looked too much like the the strife-torn Morea with the Greeks, willing to alienation of ecclesiastical property. The pope assume the obvious risks for the likely ad- had exercised a special surveillance over the see

vantages, but they could not persuade quite of Patras since the first years of the Latin

enough of their fellows to support their pro- conquest, and in the summer of 1419 the archposals. They had also wanted to get control of bishop was required to take back his onerous charge.*® Three years later he was apparently

, . ... trying to interest the Hospitallers of Rhodes denote items in a given resolution approved by a majority in the Morea, but on 10 May. 1422. the master

vote, it is more than doubtful whether this long mandate Oo 2 0 y> ? las ©

was ever sent to Venier. Indeed, a subsequent resolution of the Hospital sent an envoy to the archbishop sent as instructions to Venier, dated 22 October, 1422 (Sen. (and also to the Despot Theodore and Prince Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 79-80" [80’-81']; Valentini, deta Centurione) to explain that Turkish activity in Albaniae veneta, XI, no. 2,639, pp. 152-53), suggests that this the eastern Aegean rendered impossible the

mandate was inassumed fact notthat sentitto him, although “4M ffairs. Rhod have apparently was, following theall in-historians rders invoOrder's vement jin1Moreote altairs. odes complete and improper publication of the document by WaS in constant danger, and so were Chios Sathas, I, no. 78, pp. 115-19, inc. “Cum nobilis vir ser and Mytilene.*? If the Zaccaria brothers could

Delphinus Venerio. . . . Unfortunately the materials pub- not get along with each other, they managed lished in C. N. Sathas, Documents inédits relatifs a Uhistoire still less well with the despot. who attacked de la Gréce au moyen-Gge, are sometimes misleading. Where . pot, W several documents relating to a particular problem or epi- the archiepiscopal see of Patras with the samc

sode exist in the Venetian registers, Sathas may omit alacrity that he employed against the Latin

some quite as important as those he supplies. Sometimes a principality. There were good reasons then for given text is incompletely published. He did not transcribe jhe Venetian anxiety to secure Patras. which these documents himself (and obviously did not supervise find clear! y d in the 1 ° d their selection very closely), but relied on paid copyists, W© nd clearly expressed in the long mandate

who could hardly be expected to serve his readers as prepared on 22 July for the envoy Delfino

well as Sathas might have done himself. Venier.*°

(according to Amadio Valier, Cron., Cod. Hoe, ne Venetian plans were usually far-reaching. In-

3051, fol. 275: “Anchora in questo tempo el dispoti de la ts ructions to envoys of the Republic commonly Morea volse donare la Morea ala Signoria de Venetia, et la Signoria non la volse acetare.” On the marriage of Oliverio reflected an effort to anticipate every eventu-

Franco to Centurione’s daughter, note Hopf, Chron. ality and to extract from a given situation gréco-romanes, geneal. tables, p. 502, and on his occupa- every advantage. Venier’s inquiries and cautious tion of Glarentza, cf. Sathas, III, no. 731, p. 177, lines 32-33, dated 11 June,’ 1418. See also Hopf, in Ersch and —_—

Gruber, eds., Allgemeine Encyklopadie, vol. 86 (repr. II), p. 37 Ernst Gerland, Lateinisches Erzbistum Patras, Leipzig, 79; Zakythinos, Despotat grec, 1, 193-95; Ant. Rubidi Lluch, 1903, pp. 162-71, doc. dated 20 August, 1408, and ef. ibid., Los Navarros en Grecia y el ducado catalan de Atenas, Bar- pp. 55 ff., with a full indication of the sources and his-

celona, 1887, pp. 420-21 (in the Memorias de la Real _ torical background.

Academia de Buenas Letras, vol. IV). 38 Gerland, pp. 9 ff., 62-63; Miller, Latins in the Levant,

36 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 62” [63°], resolution dated pp. 363-64. In March, 1421, Archbishop Stefano was try22 July, 1422 (but a separate action from the preceding), ing to negotiate the sale of Zonklon (Navarino) to the publ. by Sathas, I, 115, inc. “Per literas vestras. ...” Venetian Signoria (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 3° [4"]).

Cf. Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII, cols. 942D, 943, 39 Gerland, pp. 63, 171-73. 962C, with reference to the wealth of the Morea, on which 4° See Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 63” [64%]; Sathas, I, no.

see also, below, p. 209. 78, p. 117.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 15 efforts to make peace at first found no favor Tocco, Centurione Zaccaria, and ‘Tommaso with the Despot Theodore. When the news ofthe Mocenigo, the doge of Venice.** Mocenigo Turkish threat to Constantinople reached the was given credit for arranging the truce which, Morea, however, the despot became frightened, the pope had been informed, was to last for

and quickly negotiated a six months’ truce a year and two months.*

with both Prince Centurione and Archbishop Truces were rarely adhered to at this period in Stefano Zaccaria.*! Pope Martin V, having the Morea, and some confusion attends their learned of this development, wrote immedi- history. In December, 1422, the envoys of the ately to the Emperor Manuel, on 5 July, 1422, Moreote princes assembled in Venice, accomexpressing the hope that the latter would add __ panied by Riccardo de Glemona, the chancellor .his imperial authority to the papal exhortation of Modon. The militant members of the Senate to Theodore to preserve the peace “which he has_ saw no prospect of realizing their desires, the recently made with our venerable brother Ste- feasibility.of which they had wanted Venier to fano, archbishop of Patras,” whose see had been investigate. They had to be satisfied therefore suffering severely from attacks, not by the with a one-year truce which the envoys generally neighboring Turks but by Theodore. The pope agreed to in late February, 1423,* but they hoped that this peace might be lasting. He found-neither their conferences with the represtated further that he had cautioned the arch- sentatives of the contracting parties nor subsebishop against any infringement of its terms, quent events in the Morea very reassuring. The and forbidden him recourse to arms without the following September we find the Senate urging special permission of the Holy See, “lest by maintenance of the truce upon Carlo Tocco, the this means his church, which is our particular Despot Theodore, and Centurione Zaccaria.” care, should suffer some injury.” The pope had also requested Theodore to maintain the peace 8 Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 5: to Theoand asked him not immediately to wage war dore, fols. 170’-172' (also in Arm. XXXIX, tom. 6, fol. in retaliation for any grievance, real or fancied, 84); to Stefano, fols. 172"-173" (also ibid., tom. 6, fols. which he might have against the archbishop, 106-107"); to Carlo Tocco, “dispoto de la Camna” but to send envoys and letters to Rome, where li.e., Ianina!], fol. 174° (bid., tom. 6, fol. 86°); to Cent justi Id be d d ‘sh t turione, fols. 175'—176' (ibid., tom. 6, fol. 88°); and to prompt Jusuce wou ¢ cone an punishmen Tommaso Mocenigo, fol. 176 (ibid., tom. 6, fols. 84¥—85"), meted out to any person guilty of offense an refs. being to the foliation by mod. stamped enumera-

against him.” tion. (Undated copies of two or three of these letters may century volume of Martin V’s briefs.)

are also extant, all dated 3 July, 1422—to the “4 Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 5, fol. 176°: Despot Theodore, Archbishop Stefano, Carlo «+. | | placuit valde nobis quod nuper audivimus tua opera

——_—_—_————_- atque interventu inducias factas esse usque ad annum unum *! Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 79’—80* [80’-81'], doc. dated et menses duos inter dilectos filios nobiles viros despotum

22 October, 1422, published by Sathas, I, no. 80, pp. Achaie ex parte una et principem Achaie, despotum de la 123-24 (with the date 27 October); Valentini, Acta Albaniae anna, ac venerabilem fratrem nostrum archiepiscopum veneta, XI, no. 2,639, pp. 152-53, in answer to a letter Patracensem ex parte altera, quarum beneficio induciarum dated 10 September from Venier in the Morea. Cf. Hopf, Patracensis ecclesia hoc tempore poterit ab assiduis labori-

in Ersch and Gruber, Encyél., vol. 86 (repr. II), p. 81a. bus et belli cladibus respirare.” #2 Martin V’s letter of 5 July, 1422, to Manuel II may be * Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. found in Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 5 90*%-92" [91-93%], published in Sathas, I, nos. 82-84, [Martini V brevia, tom. IT], fols. 167"—168" (fols. 173.-174" pp. 125-29; Thiriet, Régestes, II, nos. 1868, 1870-71, by mod. stamped enumeration), “datum Rome apud S. Mar- _ 1873, pp. 199-201, docs. dated 4, 18, 24, and 28 February, cum, III non. Iulii, anno quinto.” This letter is published 1423 (Ven. style 1422). Cf. Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, with a somewhat different text by Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., XXII, col. 973D; Hopf, in Ersch and Gruber, Allgemeine ad ann. 1422, no. 3, vol. XVIII (1694), p. 41, who does not, Encyklopadie, vol. 86 (repr. II), p. 81a; lorga, Gesch. d. however, give the date, which was lacking in‘the register he osman. Reiches, 1, 399. The “forma treugue” is given in the employed (Arm. XXXIX, tom. 6, fol. 17, later fol. 31, now Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 92% [93°], publ. by Sathas, I, fol. 51 by mod. stamped enumeration, the fly-leaf to which no. 84, pp. 128-29. register bears the interesting annotation: “Codex hic lauda- “6 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 123" [124°]; Sathas, I, no. 91, tur a Raynaldo, Annal. Eccl., ad A. 1422, n. 3 et alibi,” writ- pp. 151-52; Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 1904, p. 209 (and note

ten in what appears to ve an eighteenth-century hand). Al- no. 1901), doc. dated 1 September, 1423. The Despot though tom. 5 in Arm. XXXIX is a seventeenth-century Theodore’s envoy had come to Venice with an insufficient register (and so considerably later than the copies of Mar- mandate. At the end of the month (30 September, 1423) tin’s briefs contained in tom. 6), it is especially valuable as John VIII Palaeologus confirmed a five years’ peace between preserving the dates of his letters (cf., below, p. 42, note 9).See Byzantium and Venice which had been negotiated in the

the following note, and cf. Parrino, Acta Albaniae Vaticana, doge’s palace on 25 July (Sathas, I, no. 92, p. 153, and I (1971), nos. 6-9, pp. 6-8, who does not date Martin’s Thomas and Predelli, Dipl. veneto-levantinum, U, no. 178, p.

letter of 5 July to Manuel more closely than “1422.” 341).

16 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Even the invasion of the Morea by the for- at least two months’ advance notification to the midable Turkish commander Turakhan Beg Venetian castellans of Coron and Modon. Tocco could not draw these self-seeking opportunists therefore promptly sent envoys to the Venetian together.*” The Venetians tried to be just and Senate, whose spokesmen wearily replied that reasonable, as shown for example by the fair- the Signoria had of course been distressed to

ness of their position in a jurisdictional dis- . learn that the truce (arranged by Delfino

pute with Centurione.* The latter, who was the Venier) had been taken so lightly, but now least secure among the greater personages in there seemed nothing more to be said. If Tocco

the Morea, was also the least wise. On 30 could make profitable provision for his own

December, 1423, the Venetian Senate notified state (presumably by attacking the Greeks), the castellans of Coron and Modon that Theo- Venice would have no objection, and would be dore was accusing Centurione of having broken quite content to watch the augmentation of his the truce, thus incurring an alleged penalty of power and well-being.*? | 5,000 ducats according to the terms of the agree- The Venetians were having their own difment.*? There was always trouble in the Morea. _ ficulties with the obstreperous Theodore, whose On 8 January, 1424, Archbishop Stefano Zac- attacks upon Coron and Modon had _ been caria died, and the Senate wrote Pope Martin continuous for some months. On 17 April, 1424, V, requesting the appointment of a Venetian to the new doge, Francesco Foscari, and the Senate

the see of Patras, which lay in the territory resolved to present their complaint directly to of the schismatic Greeks and was always ex- the “old emperor,” Manuel, as well as to his posed to the attacks of the infidel Turks.*° lieutenant (locum tenens) in Constantinople, The Curia Romana turned down the request, where there had also been attacks upon Venehowever, and the pope appointed Pandolfo tians. (The “young emperor,” John VIII, was at Malatesta, Theodore’s brother-in-law, the new this time in Italy, and Constantine was the archbishop. It was meant to be a gracious imperial lieutenant.) The Venetian bailie was digesture toward the Palaeologi, although they rected to request the punishment of the ofpaid little or no attention to their relation- fenders, especially one “Johannes Turchus,” as ship to the Malatesti.*' Pandolfo went into the an example to others. The Byzantine governMorea immediately, but proved no more able ment should see to it that such acts of violence than his predecessor to cope with the problems to subjects of the Republic ceased both in

of Patras. Constantinople and in the Morea. There must Although there was no end to the bickering be no repetitions. Otherwise the Venetians

and battling in the Morea, there must soon be_ would take such firm measures as to make their

an end to the space which we can allot to displeasure unmistakably clear to the Greeks. the subject. In June, 1424, Theodore II sud- Their captain-general of the sea was ordered denly descended on Centurione, took him cap- =—_____

: . , ys o arlo Tocco,

tive, and again plundered Venetian territory.” 53 Misti, Reg. 55, fol. 41° [42°]; Sathas, III, no. 844, pp. 267— Carlo Tocco was, quite understandably, con- 68; Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XII (1971), no. 2,936, pp.

cerned by this flagrant violation of the truce, oa we hariet, Regestes, I» "to ee, P: ot Gated i duly, which should not have been broken without magnificus dominus despotus Arte: “Quod cum dominus

despotus Grecorum convenerit treuguis factis inter eum et — dictum dominum suum per medium nostri ambassiatoris 47 Turakhan Beg had entered the Morea on 21-22 May, _ et etiam aliis treuguis postea inter eos factis, placeat nostro

1423, on a terrifying razzia, laying waste the countryside dominio committere nostris castellanis Coroni et Mothoni and attacking Mistra, Leondari, Gardiki,and Tabia,onwhich quod ponant concordium inter eos, etc., respondemus quod

see below, p. 38, and for the sources, note 118. certe nostro dominio displicet audire quod treugue facte 48 Sathas, I, no. 93, pp. 154-55; Thiriet, Régestes, I1, primo per nostrum ambasiatorem nobilem virum Ser Del-

no. 1906, p. 210, dated 11 October, 1423. finum Venerio et similiter alie postea facte prout dicunt * Sathas, I, no. 98, pp. 159-60; cf. Thiriet, HI, no. nullam habuerint firmitatem. Et considerantes illud quod

1916, p. 212. de novo secutum est, quod dominus despotus Grecorum

© Sathas, I, no. 99, pp. 160-61; Thiriet, Régestes, II, ceperit principem, non videtur nostro dominio aliud dicere no. 1921, p. 213, dated 10 February, 1424 (Ven. style 1423), super hoc quia non esset cum honore nostri dominii and ¢f. no. 100; Iorga ROL, V (1897, repr. 1964), 167, ulterius aliquid querere super hac causa. Sed si domino

docs. dated 26 April, 1424. suo videtur aliquam provisionem facere pro bono et utile 51 Cf. Hopf, in Ersch and Gruber, Encykl., vol. 86 (repr. et augmento sui status potest facere prout eidem placet, II), p. 82b; Gerland, Lateinisches Erzbistum Patras, pp. quia de omni re que redundabit ad bonum et utile et ad

64-65. augmentum sui status nostrum dominium *2 Hopf, II, 82-83. contentum.” , remanebit

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 17 into the area of Constantinople, and reparations The times were troublous, and lesser barons were demanded of the Byzantine government in the Morea had to take cover. The campaign

for the damages thus far sustained. of Turakhan Beg in the spring and summer of

The threatening stance of the Venetians 1423 had frightened every petty dynast in the apparently made little impression in either peninsula. In late February and early March, Constantinople or Mistra, although the Greeks 1425, some 25,000 Turks invaded the Morea

knew the Venetians too well to mistake for again, taking more than 1,260 prisoners

weakness the civility with which their protests from Venetian territory and about 6,000 Greeks were always made. Three months later, on 16 and Albanians, who were to be sold into slavery.®

July (1424), the Senate instructed the Venetian The Catalan family of the Caupenas turned

bailie in Constantinople to appear before the for protection to Venice, the chief Latin

“old emperor,” if he was in condition to receive power in Greece. On 6 March, 1425, the Senate

him (Manuel had suffered astrokeon 1 October, acted favorably on a petition from Alioto 1422), or before his lieutenant, to make clear II, lord of Aegina, and his brother Arnau, that Theodore’s unending depredations in the “at present governor of Piada,” who with their Morea were absolutely insupportable. He dealt Catalan and other adherents “have been of

with Venetian subjects as though there were service in the preservation of Argos and war between the Republic and the Greeks. Now Nauplia in emergencies against the Greeks and

the bailie was to state that he was making Albanians as well as against the Turks both by Venice’s last remonstrance to the Byzantine Aeaaraarn before retaliating with an armed II, no. 1919, p. 212. (No entries were made in this register offensive. on 13 January.) On the ninth the Senate limited John’s living allowance to eight ducats a day since too many people TTT were apparently passing themselves off as members of the *4 Misti, Reg. 55, fol. 17” [18”]. The Byzantines were to imperial entourage (Misti, Reg. 54, fol. 169", and cf. ROL, take care: “. . . quod ille Johannes Turchus et alii qui’ V, 152): “. . . Vadit pars . . . quod melius parabitur teminferunt novitates, iniurias, et violentias nostratibus sub- pore debito et modo suo si providebitur sibi de peccunia stineant penam et supplicium suorum delictorum ut aliis neccessaria et habili pro expensis, quod ducale dominium transeat in exemplum et quod eis placeat tam utilibus habeat libertatem limitandi et dari faciendi pro expensis et efficacissimis provisionibus mandare et ordinare quod _ dicti domini Imperatoris et familie sue id quod sibi vide-

tales novitates, violentie, et iniurie omnino cessent et damna__—ibitur non transeundo summam ducatorum octo in die

data per dominum despotum Misistre reficiantur et emen- donec stabit Venetiis” (by a vote of 142 to 3, with one

dentur et quod de cetero non fiant nec inferantur: neutral ballot).

que si facient, nobis summe placebunt. Si autem non facient, John was still in Venice on 17-27 January (see below, nostra diuturna tolerancia nos docet et inducit ut ad pro- note 81). The Venetians lodged him at the Benedictine visionem debitam et amplissimam transeamus sic quod sine abbey of S. Giorgio Maggiore (Predelli, Regestt det Com-

dubio ipsi sencient nos maximam et inextimabilem memoriali, IV, bk. x1, no. 136, p. 52; Iorga, ROL, V, 155; displicentiam habuisse et animos nostros multum esse Notes et extraits, 1, 354). From Venice John went to Milan; turbatos. Et cum his et allis verbis que tibi videbuntur he left there on 9 February, and was at Lodi on 17 debeas solicitare quod suprascripta nostra intentio habeat March (ROL, V, 162-63; Notes et extraits, 1, 361-62). He was

effectum, stando ibi per quatuor dies, quibus transactis back in Milan on 3 May (Délger and Wirth, Regesten, pt. postmodum habita vel non habita sua responsione debeas _ 5, no. 3417, p. 112; Lampros, Pal. kai Pel., III, 353), and ascendere in galeam et ire ad reperiendum capitaneum left some time thereafter for Hungary, where he conferred nostrum generalem maris. . . .” Iorga has published a _ with the Emperor Sigismund (on his itinerary see Gill, CounFrench summary of this document (ROL, V [1897, cil of Florence, pp. 38-39, and Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, repr. 1964], 166-67; Notes et extraits, 1, 365-66), as has pp. 377-79). John arrived back on the Bosporus on or about

Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 1930, p. 215. 1 November, 1424, where he presumably received Filippo

55 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 162" [163"]; Valentini, Acta Maria Visconti’s letter of the sixteenth (ROL, V, 178-79; Albaniae veneta, XII, no. 2,940, pp. 115-17, summarized Notes et extraits, 1, 377-78).

by lorga, ROL, V, 171-72; Notes et extraits, 1 (1899), Contrary to the impression of Barker, Manuel II Palaeo370-71, and cf. Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 1948, p. 219. logus, pp. 381-82, that the Venetians reserved the title of

The imperial locum tenens was at this time the young Emperor for Manuel (cf. Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. Constantine [XI], whose brother John VIII was in Italy, 136% [137%], serenissimus dominus Imperator Constantinopolis seeking aid against the Turks. John is said to have-arrived senior), and withheld the title from his son and co-ruler John in Venice on 15 December, 1423 (Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad VIII, the Senate regularly called John emperor: serenisann. 1423, no. 26, vol. XVIII [1694], p. 62a), and so had = simus dominus Imperator ...iunior (ibid., fol. 138% [139%]) been there for some time when on 8 January, 1424, the and serenissimus dominus Imperator Constantinopolis (ibid., fols. Venetian Senate agreed to make him a Joan of 1,500 ducats 136° [1377], 138% [139%], and 139° [140°], letter of the Senate

“ante recessum suum ab hinc” (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, to their resident notary in Milan, Francesco della Siega,

fol. 138% [139¥]). This loan was, incidentally, made on the dated 17 January, 1424 [Ven. style 1423]). eighth, not the thirteenth as stated by both Iorga, ROL, V, 5° Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII, col. 978E; cf. 152-53; Notes et extraits, 1, 351-52, and Thiriet, Régestes, . lorga, ROL, V, 190, 192; Notes et extraits, 1, 389, 391.

18 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT land and by sea. . . .” Being uncommitted to bastard son and successor of Alioto II in the any other suzerain power or person, and being little seigniory. Although they sought the shelter moved (they said) by affection for and loyalty to of Venetian power and prestige, the Caupenas Venice, Alioto and his son Antonello together (like almost everyone else in the Morea) were with his brother Arnau humbly asked the Serene _ given to fighting among themselves. Owing to

Signoria to accept them and their heirs “as their contentiousness, Venice was to acquire the good and true friends of the friends, and as_ island of Aegina a generation later. enemies of the enemies, of the aforesaid illus- Nothing could keep peace in the Morea, trious ducal Signoria. . . .” The Caupenas also neither Venetian diplomacy nor the Turkish proposed that, if their house should die out. menace. In 1426-1427 Theodore II of Mistra (manchando 1 dicti signort e suo heriedi), Aegina, found himself embroiled with Carlo Tocco. The

Piada, and their other possessions should pass _latter’s purchase of Glarentza from Oliverio

into Venetian hands.*? Franco a half-dozen years before had given At this ttme Duke Antonio Acciajuoli was him a center for military operations in the

worrying about his stud farm, and on 6 Novem-_ peninsula, from which he had extended his ber, 1425, the Venetian Senate voted to allow sway southward over much of ancient Elis to him to transfer his horses and other animals the river Alpheus and Mount Pholoe. At first to Negroponte “in the event of sudden danger” ‘Theodore, having all he could handle in his (pro casibus novitatum ). The Senate declined his troubles with the Venetians and Centurione’s

request for a license to build two galiots, Navarrese (the remnants of Pedro Bordo de

however, and rejected a protest Antonio had San Superano’s old “Company”), was inclined

made with respect to the terms under which to recognize for the time being Tocco’s

Venice had taken the Caupenas under her wing: dominion of the territory he had overrun, Concerning the affair of the lord of Aegina, in whose seers "dD him primary an enemy of Cenisland the said lord Antonio [Acciajuoli] says that turione. During the late fall and early winter the wife of the lord of Aegina has her rights, of 1426, however, Tocco watched the Albanietc., we reply that should the situation arise that the Ms bringing their flocks and herds down from said lady has reason to press for her rights in the the highlands to the Elian plain, where they island, the lord Antonio must be certain that our were accustomed to pasture their animals Signoria will always do what is in accord with law during the cold season. By mid-winter, his

and justice.°° forces probably being short of food, Tocco be-

The “said lady” was Antonio Acciajuoli’s adopted 84” rounding up a great many of the Albanians

daughter, who had married Antonello, the horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs. The Albanians

were subjects of the Byzantine despotate, and so Theodore perforce went to war with Tocco. The

7 Sathas, III, no. 858, pp. 281-82; lorga, ROL, V, 191; Situation was sufficiently grave to cause the reThiriet, Régestes, II, no. 1973, p. 224; and cf. K. M. Setton, turn of the Emperor John VIII to the Morea

Los, Galalanes en Grecia, oer ase 49"), PP. re 16 to take command of an offensive against ‘Tocco, pp. 178-79, Thitiet, Régestes, II, no. 2007, p. 239. According whose city of ciarentza ne Prompt praced to Hopf, in Ersch and .Gruber’s Encyhklopadie, vol. 86 (repr. under siege. yzantine ships patrolle c Il), pp. 141b—142a, an adopted daughter of Antonio coast, trying to cut off the promontory of Acciajuoli married Antonello, the bastard son of Alioto Il, Glarentza from Tocco’s island domain of which seems to be the case (cf. Chalcocondylas, bk. Cephalonia and Zante. Tocco, however, put Iv [Bonn, p. 215; ed. Darké, I (1922), 202]). A later text refers together a fleet from the islands and from to Antonello as “filius naturalis domini Aleoti, qui natus fuit . a . ex una villana” (Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Senato Mar, Epirus; he was also joined by some ships, Reg. 1, fol. 12", doc. dated 17 January, 1441). The senatorial resolution of 6 November, 1425, however, suggests § ———————

that the “said lady” was married to Alioto himself: “. . . dicit 59 John VIII had expected a break with Carlo Tocco for dictus dominus Antonius [de Azaiolis] uxorem dictt domini Le- | some time, and had been arming ships and galleys against

gene ius habere. . . .” The genealogical table of the Cau- him from the early spring of 1426, as Tocco’s ambassador penas in Hopf’s Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 475, requires some informed the Venetian Senate on 3 June (lorga, ROL, V, rectification for the first members of the family who became 322; Notes et extraits, 1, 422). There is a brief sketch lords of Aegina, and the Venetian Senate itself was not of Venetian difficulties with and the Senate’s policy toward always fully informed concerning the family relationships the Albanians, especially in the Morea in the first half of

of the island dynasts as when on 12 June, 1461, we the fifteenth century, in Alain Ducellier, “Les Albanais

find Antonello’s uncle Arnau being identified as his brother! —__dans les colonies vénitiennes au XV° siécle,” Studi veneziant, (Mar, Reg. 7, fol. 21°). X (1968), 47-64.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 19 presumably merchantmen, from Marseille; and standing concerns the Venetians now added

over this motley armada he placed his bastard a short-lived but most important episode son Turno. John VIII gave the command of his_ in their history. Sultan Murad II, having failed

naval forces to one Leontarius. The battle in his summer-time siege of Constantinople in

took place among the “prickly isles’ of 1422, transferred his army and his ambition

Echinades (the Curzolari, where the famous to Thessalonica, the second city of the Byzantine

battle of Lepanto was later fought), and empire, which was in great danger of falling to Tocco’s fleet was badly defeated, many of his a serious assault. The walls of the city had not ships being captured. The Greeks took more been kept up, and its ruler, the Despot Andronithan one hundred and fifty prisoners, including cus Palaeologus, an ailing younger son of the one of Tocco’s nephews; many of the Latins were aged Manuel II, lacked both the means to hire killed, and Turno barely escaped from the fray soldiers and the ships to bring provisions into with his life.®° It was the last victory to be won the city. He saw only one way to save Thes-

by the Byzantine navy. salonica from the barbarians. He would give it _ The Turks were on all the roads and passes toe “Venetian Senate was in a more ad-

in the Balkan peninsula as well as on all the Venturous mood than it had been for some years. seaways of the Aegean. The Venetians were The cautious and conservative doge, Tommaso constantly worried about their command posts Mocenigo, had died on 4 April, 1423, and on and trading centers 1n Albania, at D uraZ7Z9 the evening of the fifteenth Francesco Foscari (Durrés), Scutarl (Shkodér), Alessio (Lezhe), was elected his successor. Foscari was leader

Drivasto (Drisht), Budua (Budva), Dulcigno of the war party (still a minority in the

(Ulcinj), and Antivari (Bar). There is an abun- Senate), which feared the advance of the Turk dance of documents concerning the defense pore than a temporary suspension of trade in of these places against the et urks and pro- the Levant.” It was under a new doge, then, Turkish Albanian chieftains.“ To these long- that the Senate considered the Despot An-

eT dronicus’s remarkable offer on 7 July, 1423. 6 The battle and the events which led up to it are Andronicus had first informed the colonial described in an anonymous Greek panegyric on Manuel II government of Negroponte of his willingness to

and John VIL (in a fifteenth-century MS. in the Bibl. tirn the city over to the Republic to secure its Apost. Vaticana, Cod. pal. gr. 226, fols. 110'—-111", pub- . lished by Lampros, Pal. kai Pel., I11 [1926], introd., pp. salvation from the Turks. On 2 June the of26-31, 195-97, on which cf. Zakythinos, Despotat grec de ficials of Negroponte had forwarded copies of

Morée, 1, 200-201). The admiral Leontarius of this en- the despot’s letters by armed brigantine to counter is presumably Demetrius Lascaris Leontarius (Leon- Venice. Andronicus was gravely concerned taris), well-known Byzantine soldier and diplomat, who died about “la extrema condition della terra de 29-94 (Bonn, pp. 118-21, 133-34, 139 ff.); Sphrantzes, Salonichi per la assedion de Turchi,” and in

on 6 September, 1431, on whom see Ducas, chaps. oa . 55 .

Chron. minus (PG 156, 1028; ed. Grecu, p. 10); Pseudo- his own name and that of the people of Sphrantzes, I, 28-29 [37-38] (Bonn, pp. 111 ff.; ed. Papa- Thessalonica he offered the city to the Venedopoulos, I, 115 ff.; ed Grecu, pp- 250 ff.); F. Miklosich tian Signoria, asking only that it should be aevi, III (Vienna, 1865, repr. 1968), 162, 172, 185; Iorga, 80Verned “according to its usages and statutes; Notes et extraits, I, 44, 49, 66, cited by Lampros, Pal. that the Orthodox metropolitan of Thessalonica kai Pel., I (1912), introd., pp. 47, 213-14; Hopf, in Ersch be confirmed in his ecclesiastical charge;® and Gruber, Encykl., vol. 86 (repr. II), p. 54b; Iorga,

and J. Muller, eds., Acta et diplomata graeca medi “ . . ”

Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 374, 376. On the Echinades, §=———--———

cf. John Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Greece, Lon- ® Cf. Heinrich Kretschmayr, Geschichte von Venedig, I1

don, 1854, pp. 89-90, 120b. (Gotha, 1920, repr. Aalen, 1964), 277-78, 331 ff., 354-56,

5! For the period 1421-1428 alone, cf. lorga, ROL, V, 634, on Venice and the occupation of Thessalonica. 111-13, 120-21, 126, 130-31, 135, 139-41, etc.; ibid., pp. The Venetian political background, as well as the naval

330-31, 335, 374-76, 382, 385. The Venetians were, how- _ operations of Venetian commanders in the Aegean throughever, quite capable of purchasing Turkish assistance against out this period, is explored in the old but excellent article

their own enemies in Albania (cf. Ljubi¢, Listine, VIII of Camillo Manfroni, “La Marina veneziana alla difesa di [1886], 3, 5-6, docs. of the year 1419). Various relevant Salonicco (1423—1430),” Nuovo Archivio veneto, XX (new ser.,

documents of this period may be found in Gelcich and X, 1910), 5-68. Thalléczy, Diplomatarium ragusanum (1887), esp. pp. 300 ff., §§ The Greek archbishop of Thessalonica proved a good

319, and see Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 28” ff. [29 ff.], | friend to the Venetians, who appropriated fifty ducats on 35° [367], 50 [51], 51% ff. [52° ff.], et abi in this register 16 July, 1424, to send gifts to him (Misti, Reg. 55, fol. (1421-1424), as well as Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, 42° [43°]): “Quia per provisores nostros Salonichi multum

vols. X ff., passim. fuit persuasum dominio nostro quod mittantur et presen-

20 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT that the Greek inhabitants should retain their Three weeks after the Senate voted to accept local rights of jurisdiction, be able to come Thessalonica if the Emperor Manuel would give and go as they chose, and have full disposi- his consent thereto, the Doge Francesco Foscari tion of their goods and properties; and, finally, issued to Santo Venier and Niccolo Giorgi that Venice should guarantee the proper de- (Zorzi), who had been appointed provveditori fense of the city against all aggressors, including to receive Thessalonica, detailed instructions as

the Turks. The Senate promptly instructed the to their procedure. Their commission is dated bailie in Constantinople to wait upon the Em- 27 July, 1423. Venier and Giorgi were to go to peror Manuel, if he was well enough to re- Negroponte, where they should receive some ceive him. The bailie was to inform the imperial further word from the Despot Andronicus, to government of the despot’s offer, which Venice whom the Senate had written of Venetian was prepared to accept if it was agreeable to willingness to accept Thessalonica on the terms

Manuel. The Venetian officials in Negroponte, he had outlined. In the event of a still

the duke of Naxos, the podesta and captain favorable reply from the despot, the provvedi-

of Nauplia, and the commissioner of Tenos tori were to continue with their projected

and Mykonos were to arm galleys and hold journey to Thessalonica, where they would give them in readiness to execute the Signoria’s the despot the most solemn assurance that the command, when it should come, to occupy Venetians would abide by the conditions under Thessalonica in the name of the Serenissima.** which he had stated he would relinquish the threatened city to the superior power of Venice, tentur aliqua dona reverendo domino Archiepiscopo Salonichi, ct quod “s tis parati dictam civitatem ac-

qui est fidelissimus nostri dominii, vadit pars quod possint cipere. ...

expendi usque ducati quinquaginta pro mittendo presen- Having taken over the city from the despot, tatum dicto Archiepiscopo in illis rebus que dominio nostro with all due formality, Venier and Giorgi were

mistakenly says five hundred ducats. . . : 64 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 110% ff. [111% ff.], dated 7 §arrison MW order, taking the necessary funds

videbuntnr Cf een ees II, no. 1947, p. 219, who tg provide for its defense and set the hilltop July, 1423, published in Sathas, Docs. inédits, I (1880, repr. from the citys revenues. They were also 1IT11972), no. 86, pp. 133-39; Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, mediately to send letters to the colonial gov-

XI, no. 2,765, pp. 265-75; and ¢f. in general Amadio ernment at Negroponte which would straightValier, Cron., Cod. Cicogna, no. 3631, fol. 277; Hopf, in way forward them by brigantine to Venice.

Ersch andMiller, Gruber, vol. 86 (repr. II), one pp.oO82a, Thprovve f £ thitor) dj or 87-88: Wm. LatinsEncykl., in the Levant (1908), pp. ereaiter the two (it 394-95; lorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1 (1908), 399 ff.; was to be Giorgi) was to go, when the time Const. D. Mertzios, Mvnpeta Maxedoruxis ‘loropias, seemed opportune, as an envoy to the Turks,

Thessaloniki, 1947, pp. 34-36 (Maxedovexn BiBrLobjKn,

vol. 7); and Paul Lemerle, “La Domination vénitienne a =————— Thessalonique,” in the Miscellanea Giovanni Galbiati, III civitatem accepimus ab illo qui erat verus dominus civitatis (Milan, 1951), 219-25 (Fontes Ambrosiani, vol. XX VII). predicte quam intromissionem non fecimus in vilipendium Most of the chroniclers notice the Venetian acquisition domini . . . [Turchi]” (ibid., fol. 150% [151*]), which is quite

of Thessalonica: Ducas, chap. 29 (Bonn, pp. 197-98); a different matter. This document makes no reference to Chalcocondylas, bk. tv (Bonn, pp. 205-6); and, of course, any purchase of Thessalonica, for there was none. The from the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, I, 17 (Bonn, p. 64; ed. text may also be found in Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, Papadopoulos, I, 69), and I, 31 [40] (Bonn, p. 122; ed. XII, no. 2,887, p. 55. Papadopoulos, I, 125; ed. Grecu, p. 260), comes the famous Actually the statement of the Pseudo-Sphranizes, I, 31, statement that Andronicus sold the city to Venice for that Andronicus sold Thessalonica to the Venetians for 50,000 ducats: éo0fev [1@ Seonétn Kip ‘Avdpovixm] 50,000 ducats was apparently copied from the sixteenthmodjoo Thy Seccadrovikny ry tov ‘Ever@v yepovoia century chronicle attributed to “Dorotheus of Monemvasia,” Su xpvoivovs xtadas mevTjKovTa. On the Venetian 68a prwpia xiduddes wevnvTa (Biblion hisiorikon, repr. 1743, chroniclers, cf. lorga, ROL, V, 141, note 2, and Hopf, II, p. 406, cited by R. J. Loenertz, Miscellanea Giovanni 87a, note 1. While it has often been assumed that Andro- Mercati, III [1946], 304, 306-7, in Studi e testi, no. 123, nicus did sell the city to the Venetians, Mertzios, Mnemeia, on which, however, see below, note 99), merely an indipp. 30-34, and Lemerle, Miscell. Galbiati, II, 222, quite cation of the fact that the Pseudo-Sphrantzes’ Chron. matus rightly dispute the assumption on the grounds that “il n’est is a late sixteenth-century compilation (from the 1570's). nulle part question de vente dans les documents jusqu'ici Here is also the evidence which Mertzios, Mnemeia, p. connus.” Cf. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, pp. 373-74, 34, needed to explain away the embarrassing text of the note. Although Iorga, ROL, V, 165, and Notes et extraits, Chron. maius, which he believed to be the authentic I, 364, summarizes the instructions given by the Senate to work of Sphrantzes. One is astonished to find Jean Tsaras, the Venetian captain-general of the sea on 17 April, 1424 “La Fin d’Andronic Paléologue, dernier despote de Thes(Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 150—151* [151-152"]}), to the salonique,” Revue des études sud-est européennes, III (1965),

effect that “. .. Venise a acheté la ville 4 son vrai 419-32, referring on almost every page to Andronicus’s seigneur,” the document actually reads “. . . quia dictam _ sale of Thessalonica to the Venetians.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 21 “to state and explain that the illustrious lord The Emperor Manuel II did give his con-

despot of Saloniki has given to our Signoria sent, with whatever searchings of heart, to the the city of Saloniki, which for the love of God Venetian occupation of Thessalonica, where we have accepted. ...”’ The envoy was to Venier and Giorgi arrived in September, 1423. emphasize the friendship which had commonly A Turkish army of 5,000 men was laying siege existed between Venice and the Porte, express to the city, which is said to have had at this time the hope of its uninterrupted continuance, and a population of from 25,000 to 40,000 persons,

seek the safety of the roads for merchants. beset by famine and terrified at the prospect of The Senate had instructed the bailie in Con- capture by the barbarians. The Venetian fleet stantinople, some time before this, to enter into brought them both food and freedom. Soon a formal peace with the Turk, but no one knew the lion banner of the Evangelist was flying

yet in Venice whether this had been done. If from the acropolis. Later, presumably in

the envoy in question, however, knew that the February, 1424, Giorgi went to the Turkish bailie had not been able to conclude such a_ capital at Adrianople to try to fulfill the difficult peace with the Turk, he was to try to do so_ mission with which the home government had when he waited on him to explain the Venetian entrusted him and his colleague Venier. He

occupation of Thessalonica. This was an un- failed, of course, and as he was on his way

enviable assignment, as Giorgi was to find it. back to Thessalonica, Murad placed him under ‘The envoy was also to try to arrange peace arrest. What is surprising is that there should between the Turk and the Byzantine emperor, have been surprise in Venice when the news of because the Signoria loved them both as brothers Giorgi’s arrest arrived in early April in letters and friends. Reverting now to the despot, the =—________ doge’s commission to Venier and Giorgi pro- transcribed the Venetian authorization “ut ad omnem vided detailed instructions as to what to do in vestram requisitionem vobis mittere debeant ballistarios

; . . quinquaginta” (fol. 116° [117")).

the ae io das desp ots a ving changed a ‘The stradioti were usually recruited from the Morea,

mind. the espot required an income to live Albania, and Dalmatia. The term comes from the ancient on, the provveditori might promise him an an-_ Greek stratiotes, meaning “soldier” (in modern Greek nual pension of from 20,000 to 40,000 aspers, “wanderer, passer-by, itinerant peddler”); it may have sugto be paid from the revenues of Thessalonica. gested the word strata, “street,” the mounted mercenary If everything went well with their mission, being a frequent sight on the highways in the fifteenth Venier and Giorgi might direct the colonial «Cyttural Criteria for Western Borrowings from Byzantine government of Crete to send them fifty bal- Greek,” in the Homenaje a Antonio Tovar, Madrid, 1972,

. . - e . . century (see H. and R. Kahane and A. Pietrangeli,

listarii, if necessary for the defense of Thes- p. 212). oo salonica, and they might hire a hundred Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII (1733), cols. 970CD, d stradioti. Vlach h 974BC, who says much the same thing as the Cron. mounte straatott, acns, or any other MeT- Zoncaruola, cited by Iorga, ROL, V, 141-42, note, and ¢f.

cenaries at the rate of two ducats a month § Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 400; Lemerle, Miscellanea G. per man, for four or six months, as should Galbiati, U1, 222. Mertzios, Mnemeia, pp. 39-44. Manuel seem advisable. The provveditori were supplied II’s consent to the Venetian occupation of Thessalonica with the necessary funds for their mission and 5 directly stated in the sno Michie’ wh by the Doge

‘thpresents ts for thefosultan. amo wih hichsucceeded rancesco Foscari FantinoasMichiel, when. theof latter wit » among Pietro to Loredan captain-general the were various bolts of cloth of Venetian, sea. Michiel was instructed, if he found himself in conFlorentine, and Veronese manufacture. The tact with the sultan, “quod dicto Turcho sive illis qui ad important enterprise on which they now em- dictam praticam mitterentur dicere et exponere debeas barked d in the Senate b t quod per nobilem virum Nicolaum Georgio militem, amar e was approve In ; € senate by a VO € bassiatorem nostrum quem ad presentiam sue Excellentie of eighty-six to eight, with ten uncommitted misimus, dici et exponi fecimus quod illustris dominus

ballots returned.© despotus Salonichi dedit nostro dominio civitatem Salonichi, quam nostra dominatio ob reverentiam Dei etiam de as-

To sensu serenissimit domini Imperatoris accepit et acceptavit, et Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 114¥—118" [115”-119"]; quia sentiebamus quod dictus dominus despotus, si dictam

Sathas, I, no. 89, pp. 141-50; Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. civitatem non accepissemus, illam volebat in manibus aliorum 1898, pp. 207-8; and cf. Mertzios, Mnemeia, pp. 36-39, who Christianorum non amicorum sue Excellentie ponere, ob also gives a poor facsimile reproduction of the document _hanc causam fuimus contenti illam potius habere quam ad

with no indication of its previous publication by Sathas. manus aliorum perveniret, quia sumus dispositi cum sua The facsimile (pl. DD’) shows Mertzios, p. 38, to be wrong Excellentia amicabiliter vivere et vicinare ...” (Sen. in stating that Venier and Giorgi might ask the govern- Secreta, Reg. 9, fol. 6” [7°]). This text also makes clear ment of Crete to send them 500 ballistari, and shows that — that the Venetians did not purchase Thessalonica “for 50,000 the copyist employed by Sathas, I, 146, has quite correctly ducats.”

22 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT from the colonial government of Corfu (dated The Senate had already provided for the

31 March).* armament of two more galleys and the election

The Senate hastened to replace the impris- of a captain of the Gulf, who should have oned Giorgi by naming another provveditore command of five or six galleys for the proas a colleague for the harassed Venier, and tection (custodia) of the Adriatic. He would serve soon decided to replace the latter also. Jacopo under Pietro Loredan, then captain-general of Trevisan and Fantino Michiel were appointed, the sea. Loredan himself was to proceed to but declined the charge, and presumably paid Thessalonica with all other available galleys. the fine customarily involved in such refusals; If he found Murad II in the area, he was to thereupon in May (1424) Bernardo Loredanwas_ do his best to secure Giorgi’s release (as appointed with the title of duke (of Thes- Venier was also being instructed to do), trying salonica), and Jacopo Dandolo with that of to purchase peace by the offer of an annual captain, showing the importance which the Si-_ tribute of 1,000 to 2,000 ducats, to be paid gnoria attached to its new possession. In the de introitibus Salonichi. If Loredan found, howmeantime the Senate had instructed Venier that ever, that the sultan had put Thessalonica Giorgi’s release must be sought; Sultan Murad under siege or that the sultan was not in the might be promised an annual tribute of 1,000 area, he was to sail for Gallipoli and attack to 2,000 ducats, to be paid from the revenues the Turks. He must try to prevent the passage of Thessalonica; and some 5,000 ducats mightbe of Turkish forces back and forth across the distributed among the sultan’s chief pashas to Dardanelles. He might also find it worthwhile to

enlist their aid in securing the desired peace stir up trouble for Murad in Europe and es-

with the Porte. At the same time Venice pecially in Asia Minor among the Turkish wished to receive the villages (casalia) around princes who were fearful of and hostile to the Thessalonica and the castle on the nearby height spectacular rise of Ottoman power.® of Kortiach (modern Khortiatis).©

——_ Before Bernardo Loredan’s election as duke, Jacopo 87 Misti, Reg. 55, fol. 15" [167], “MCCCCXXIIII, die XII_ ‘Trevisan, Sr., had declined the charge, and before Jacopo Aprilis:” “Cum pridie per litteras specialium personarum Dandolo’s acceptance of the captaincy of Thessalonica, habitas de Corphoy habuerimus nobilem virum Ser Nico- it had been refused by Fantino Michiel, Sr., Francesco laum Georgio militem ambassiatorem nostrum, qui ivitad Bembo, Marco Dandolo, Bartolommeo Morosini, and

presentiam Turchi, a dicto Turcho discordem recessisse Andrea Contarini!

et modo nuper per litteras regiminis nostri Corphoy datas 6° Misti, Reg. 55, fol. 15" [16°], and Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8,

ultimo mensis Martii habuerimus dictum regimen per- fols. 150'—151" [151'-152'], with summaries in Iorga, sensisse per viam Ianine quod dum dictus Ser Nicolaus ROL, V, 163-66, and Notes et extraits, 1, 362-65, docs. dated

Georgio miles recessisset a dicto Turcho et reverteretur 12 and 17 April, 1424: “. . . Facta autem provisione

Salonicum, dictus Turchus eundem in itinere retineri fecit, |necessaria ad bonam custodiam et conservationem civitatis

et pro honore et fama nostri dominii neccessarium sit Salonichi si Turchus vel gentes sue essent contra dictam providere. . . .” Cf. Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 150°-151" — civitatem, in dimittendo ad custodiam dicte civitatis unam [151%-152"], doc. dated 17 April, 1424; Valentini, Acta vel duas galeas sicut vobis melius videbitur, volumus quod Albaniae veneta, XII, nos. 2,885 and 2,887, pp. 49-50, 51 cum residuo dictarum galearum ire debeatis quam celerius ff; Iorga, ROL, V, 164, and Notes et extraits, 1, 362-63; _poteritis intra strictum Romanie. Et st Turchus vel gentes Mertzios, Mnemeia, p. 45; Thiriet, Régestes, I1, no. 1929, sue non essent contra Salonichum, si ibi non foret necesse

p.68 214. ° dimittere galeam aliquam, volumus quod cum omnibus Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 156" [157], 158’-160"{159*°- _ nostris galeis intra dictum strictum ire debeatis ad damna,

161°]; Sathas, I, nos. 101-8, pp. 163-70, dated 21 May and _sruinam, et destructionem gentium et locorum dicti Turchi 28 June, 1424; Iorga, ROL, V, 168, docs. dated 19-25 a marina, ubi illos damnificare poteritis per omnes modos May, 1424, on the election of Bernardo Loredan and _ et vias vobis possibiles et ad obviandum quod per passus Jacopo Dandolo, and ¢f. pp. 169, 170, and Notes et extraits, Gallipolis et alios passus dicti strictus nemo transire possit I, 367, and cf. pp. 368, 369; Thiriet, Régestes, 11, nos. de Gretiain Turchiam et de Turchia in Gretiam . . . (Sen.

1933-35 ff., pp. 216 ff. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 150% [151%]). Ceterum relinquimus in

The record of the meeting of the Senate on 19 May _ libertate vestra tenendi praticam tam cum domino Theologi (1424) illustrates how the duke and captain of Thessalonica [Ephesus] et Palatie [Miletus] quam cum Caramano et aliis

were chosen (Misti, Reg. 55, fol. 24° [25']): “Volunt dominis de inde pro inducendo eos ad damna et novitates [Sapientes Consilii, etc.] quod eligi debeant per scruptintum contra dominum Turchorum predictum . . .” (ibid., fol. in isto Consilio [Rogatorum, i.e., the Senate] duo solemnes 151" [152°]).

nobiles quorum alter, scilicet ille qui plures_ballotas Pietro Loredan arrived at Gallipoli on 14 June (ROL, habuerit transeundo medietatem Consilii, habeat titulum V, 175); dated a letter there on 1 July (bid., p. 171); duche et secundus habeat titulum capitanei. ...”’ They and was still there, Niccolo Giorgi (Zorzi) being still in were to serve for two years and as much longer as it took danger, on the nineteenth (ibid., pp. 172-73). Loredan their successors to reach Thessalonica. The posts paid described his operations against the Turks at Gallipoli in 1,000 gold ducats in salary, but were obviously perilous. a letter which reached Venice on 12 September (given

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 23 Venice thus began her costly seven years’ oc- A few months later (on 2-4 April, 1425), cupation of Thessalonica (1423-1430), but her when Fantino Michiel replaced Loredan as

sons got little for their money and their captain-general, he was instructed to go to

trouble. Recent scholarship has even robbed Thessalonica, after attending to certain matters them of the credit for having built the famous at Coron, Modon, and Negroponte, and assure White Tower, which still stands on the shore as__ the archbishop and notables of Thessalonica of a sentinel of the past.”° Sathas, orga, Mertzios, Venetian determination to hold on to the city. Thiriet, Valentini, and others have published nu- Michiel was to try to secure Turkish recognition merous documents relating to the Venetian regime of his government’s occupation on the same in Thessalonica. The Senate made it abundantly terms as the Despot Andronicus had held the

clear “to the Turk and to all the world . . . that city. The sultan might retain his former rights we hold dear the city of Saloniki, and we do not to the salt flats of Thessalonica, provided the intend to give it up. . . .”7! On 30 October, trade routes were allowed to remain open; he 1424, the Senate passed a motion to send pro- would also receive the annual tribute of 100,000 visions, money, and one hundred and fifty to two aspers which Andronicus had paid the Porte. hundred foot soldiers to Thessalonicain answer ‘Turks in Thessalonica, however, would have no to an appeal from the city, then said to be in right to be judged only by a Moslem qadi or an “extreme condition and necessity.” It had kad: (as under the despot). The old customsbecome only too clear that there was not the offices were to be re-established at the city gates. slightest hope of reaching an agreement with Michiel might promise the grand vizir, Ibrahim the Turks. Venice was at war. On 13 January, Pasha, 15,000 to 20,000 aspers a year, to be sure 1425, the Senate voted to elect another captain- of a powerful friend at the Turkish court, and

general of the sea and to equip a fleet of distribute another 150,000 in gifts to Ibrahim

twenty-five galleys.” and other officials of the Porte. He was also to secure the release, if he could, of some 1,500

in the Cron. Zancaruola, fol. 360%, Venetian MS., quoted by Venetian subjects taken prisoner 10 the Turkish lorga, ROL, V, 175-76). Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, invasion of the Morea the preceding March. An XXH, cols. 975E—976, summarizes Loredan’s letter also, but effort was to be made to negotiate the renewal mistakenly says that he arrived at Nauplia in the Morea on off the last treaty between Venice and the Porte

14 June, whereas (according to the Cron. Zancaruola) (1419), with certain modifications, and even to

Loredan wrote, “Nuy zomzesimo ha Garipoli adi XIIII back £ he M Niccolé Zorzi th zugno. . . .” (The material found in Iorga’s article in the get back tor the rargrave NNICCOlO LOTZ1 the

Revue de VOrient latin [ROL], V, 163-76, may also be fortress of Boudonitza (which the Turks had found without change in his Notes et extraits, 1 [1899], held since 1414).” 362-75, and summaries of various relevant documents are

given in Thiriet, Régestes, II, nos. 1929 ff., pp. 214 ff.). —_—_— 70M. Kiel, “A Note on the Exact Date of Construction sarium sit providere de potenti armata pro honore nostri of the White Tower of Thessaloniki,” Balkan Studies, XIV dominii et pro bona executione agendorum nostrorum,

(1973), 352-57. The tower was built in 1535-1536, during vadit pars quod in nomine Jesu Christi et in bona the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. gratia eligi debeat unus capitaneus generalis maris galearum 7! Misti, Reg. 55, fol. 15° [16°], doc. cited above, dated 12 _ vigintiquinque. . . .” Putting twenty-five galleys to sea in-

April, 1424, and rather incorrectly quoted by Iorga, ROL, volved a huge expense. There is a summary of the docuV, 164: “. . . Et ut appareat dicto Turcho et toti mundo ment in Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 1965, p. 223. quod retentio dicti ambassiatoris [Nicolai Georgio] fuerit et 74Sen. Secreta, Reg. 9, fols. 5'-8" [6'-9°]; Valentini, sit nostro dominio gravis et molesta et quod habeamus Acta Albaniae veneta, XII, no. 2,958, pp. 135-47 (incomplete), caram civitatem Salonichi et non intendimus illam dere- Michiel’s commission as captain-general of the sea, dated 2 linquere et etiam, si possibile erit, devenire possimus ad April, 1425, with summaries in lorga, ROL, V, 192-96; pacem cum dicto Turcho. . . .” lIorga’s faulty transcrip- Notes et extraits, 1, 391-95; Mertzios, Mnemeia, pp. 66-67;

tion of the latter part of this text is preserved in the and Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 1980, pp. 225-26: “. . . Et

Notes et extraits, I, 363. In the tedium of copying docu- sumpta plena informatione volumus quod esse debeas cum ments I fear that we all make errors, large or small. I note domino Archiepiscopo et cum illis nobilibus et fidelibus that Valentini, whose later volumes appeared as the present nostris de inde de quibus bonum numerum facias conwork was being finished, omits the “etiam” in this passage -vocari et eis declarari quod dominatio nostra diligens

(Acta Albaniae veneta, XII [1971], no. 2,885, p. 50). bonum et comodum dicte civitatis et disposita eos tenere 7 Iorga, ROL, V, 178, and cf. pp. 180, 182, 183, 190, et conservare sub nostro dominio te misit ad dictas

and Notes et extraits, 1, 377, and cf. pp. 379, 381, 382, and 389. partes cum potenti armata nostra pro deffensione dicte 73 Misti, Reg. 55, fol. 80° [81'], doc. dated 13 January, civitatis et ad inpugnationem et ruinam volentium illam 1425 (Ven. style 1424): “Cum propter guerram quam _ opprimere, hortando eos ad bonam fidelitatem erga nostrum

habemus cum Turcho et pro securitate et defensione dominium cum illis pertinentibus verbis que tue sapientie

civitatis nostre Salonichi et aliarum terrarum et locorum videbuntur . . .” (fol. 5¥ [6¥]). If Michiel found, upon arnostrorum Levantis et pro aliis agendis nostris neces- riving at Thessalonica, that the Turkish pretender Mustafa

24 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Although the Greeks in Thessalonica were reached the Senate that he had taken the “turris not ungrateful to the Venetians, they could Cassandrie” as well as the seaport of Platamona not regard their new masters with unalloyed across the bay, and was negotiating with the happiness. The Despot Andronicus, after turn- Turks: 20,000 aspers a year had been promised ing the city over to the Venetians, is said to to the redoubtable Turakhan Beg in addition have gone to Mantineia with his son John, to the 20,000 which Michiel had been author“because of the mildness of the air.” According _ ized to offer the grand vizir, Ibrahim Pasha.” to Sphrantzes, however, Andronicus became a The Turkish siege of Thessalonica had been monk under the name Acacius, taking up resi- well maintained by land. The Venetians used dence in the monastery of the Pantokrator in the sea lanes, but were always hard pressed

Constantinople, where he died and was buried to import sufficient quantities of food. A near his father (in March, 1429).” In June, number of severe attacks upon the city were

1425, the Greek inhabitants sent an embassy to — successfully repulsed. The gates were locked,

Venice with a lengthy petition, urging that and few merchants ventured out upon the

the peninsula of Cassandra be fortified and the dangerous roads. At last, in April, 1426, it walls of the city itself strengthened against appeared that Michiel had negotiated a truce the Turks (subjects of rather frequent occur- with Khalil Beg, the governor (subashi) of Galrence in the documents), and containing some _lipoli, whereby Venetian dominion was recoginteresting information about local conditions in nized over Thessalonica, which was to pay the Thessalonica. We learn the names of some sixty Porte an annual tribute of 100,000 aspers. The Greek stipendiaries of the Republic, most of Turks were also to have the salt works. Financial whom are ranked as nobles, as well as the fact disputes among Turks might be settled by a that gentlemen, presumably Latins (cavalieri),in kadi, who would have no other jurisdiction.

the suites of the duke and captain had been’ Both sides were to restore fugitives. The city making themselves obnoxious to the citizens by gates were to remain open, and merchants might

their disregard of the rights and customs of the go to and fro as they had done “in the time city. The Doge Francesco Foscari and the Senate

tried to satisfy the Greek envoys’ requests .——W¥— (on 7-23 July),” and Michiel’s reports soon pats quod ipsis capitulis respondeatur. . . .” The three

ambassadors were Calojanni Radino, Thomas Chrysoloras oo (Crussulora, Chrussolora, Grusulora), and George Jalca and other dissident Turks were “prospering” and likely to (Mu@AKas). They presented twenty-one separate requests

be successful in their opposition to Murad, he was to reach (recorded in the Venetian dialect), to which the Senate an understanding with them. Otherwise he was to try to returned answers (in Latin); the record of concessions made make peace with Murad: “In isto casu apparet nobis quod was then incorporated in a ducal privilege, which was duly debeas sequi modum pacis cum Turcho et permittimus sealed and dated 23 July (“datum in nostro ducali palatio

in libertate tua querendi dictam pacem.. .” (fol. 6% die XXIII mensis Iulii, MCCCCXXV, indictione tertia”). [7"}). “Ceterum mandamus tibi quatenus perveniendo ad_ Cf. Hopf, II, 88b; Iorga, ROL, V, 199-200; Lemerle, pacem ut prefertur debeas solicitare et procurare, reducere Miscellanea G. Galbiati, WI, 222—23; Thiriet, Régestes, II, et includere nobilem virum Nicolaum Georgio militem cum no. 1995, p. 229; and esp. Mertzios, Mnemeia, pp. 46-61,

loco Bondinicie in pace predicta . . .” (fol. 8” [9°]). who gives a facsimile reproduction of the document as well 5 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1034D; ed. Grecu, as a detailed analysis of its contents. p. 26); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, I, 31 [40]; II, 3 (Bonn, pp. 122, 77 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 9, fol. 36°[37"], letter of the Senate 134; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 125, 137; ed. Grecu, pp. 260, to Michiel, dated 3 September, 1425, summarized in Iorga, 272, 274). Chalcocondylas, bk. tv (Bonn, pp. 205-6), sug- ROL, V, 208, and Notes et extraits, I, 408, and cf. ROL, V, gests that Andronicus died in the Morea, and for other 202, an excerpt from the Cron. Zancaruola, describing stories concerning Andronicus’s life and death after the Michiel’s capture of Cassandra and Platamona (“Platanea”), Venetian occupation of Thessalonica, see Mertzios, Mnemeia, which also appears in Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, pp. 95-97. In an unconvincing article (¢f., above, note 64) XXII, cols. 979D—980. Cf. the summaries of documents in J. Tsaras, “La Fin d’ Andronic Paléologue,” Revue des Mertzios, Mnemeia, pp. 62—63, from the Sen. Secreta, Reg. études sud-est européennes, I11, 432, comes to the conclusion 9, fols. 24%, 36%, 39% [25’, 37°, 40°], dated 23 July and

that “aprés la vente de la ville de Thessalonique aux (as just noted) 3 September, 1425: “. . . Continent etiam Vénitiens” Andronicus went to Mantineia, where he _ litere vestre predicte [Michiel’s letters to the Signoria dated

remained until his death. at Cassandrea, the ancient Potidaea, on 12 and 22 June

76 Misti, .Reg. 55, fols. 139'-142” [140'-143"], and 2 July] praticam pacis quam habuistis cum Turicham“MCCCCXXV, die septimo Iulii:’ “Cum ad presentiam bey et Bazarino [the latter being unknown] pro quibus nostri dominii accesserint tres spectabiles ambassiatores omnibus vestram sapientiam, diligentiam, et solicitudinem civitatis nostre Salonichi . . . et pro parte universitatis merito commendantes fidelitati vestre . . . respondemus civitatis predicte [i.e., the “municipal corporation”] por- quod multum etiam nobis placuit audire tractatum dicte rexerint quedam capitula ad que cum maxima reverentia et _ pacis quam libenter videremus ad perfectionem [Valentini,

humili supplicatione petant responsionem nostram, vadit Acta Albaniae veneta, XII, no. 3,002, p. 188, incorrectly

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 25 of the lord despot.””® Since the Porte would duke of the Archipelago (1418-1437), and his

5 po ;

not give up the peninsula of Cassandra and the _ brothers, lords of various islands in the Aegean, castle on Mount Kortiach, obviously not relaxing were to be included in the peace with the Turks.

its intention ultimately to seize Thessalonica, If such a peace still proved unobtainable,

Michiel’s negotiations had little immediate ef- Mocenigo was to attack the Turkish ships at fect, and hostilities continued between the two Gallipoli, even within the straits, but there rival powers, the presage of a vast struggle seemed to be some hope of peace, because which was to entrain the full strength of both Jacopo Gattilusio, lord of Lesbos (1409-1428),

later on in the century. “who is a friend of the said Turk,” was inIn the meantime, on 4 December, 1425, terested in helping to remove the causes of

Venice had finally joined Florence ina ten-year friction.*’ In August, 1426, the old despot of

alliance to halt the aggressions of Filippo Maria _

Visconti, the duke of Milan. Filippo Maria’s — gen. Secreta, Reg. 9, fols. 1417-142" [139'-140°],

conquests in the Romagna and Tuscany were Mocenigo’s commission dated 7 July, 1426, published in to go to Florence, those in Lombardy to Venice. Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, X11, no. 3,058, pp. 254-60, On 11 July, 1426, the new allies were joined and summarized in lorga, ROL, V, 324-25, and Notes et by Amadeo VIII of Savoy, who had also found extraits, 1, 424-25. By a slip of the pen Torga wrongly the Milanese dangerous neighbors.’ Like Gian — Gattilusio, an error which he repeats in Gesch. d. osman. Galeazzo before him, Filippo Maria now seems _ Reiches, 1, 403. Cf. Hopf, II, 150-51; Wm. Miller, Essays to have thought of making contact with the om” the Latin Orient, Cambridge, 1921, pp. 324-26; and Turks. lorga has published the first draft of esp. Geo. T. Dennis, “The Short Chronicle of Lesbos,” in 8 P! the nrst Cralt Ol 4 resbiaka, V (1965), 19-21 (pagination of offprint). In letter to one Federigo de Pettis, whom Filippo September, 1426, Mocenigo received further orders with Maria was planning to send to Sultan Murad; reference to the hoped-for peace (ROL, V, 328-29, 330; in this letter, dated at Milan on 24 July, 1426, Notes et extraits, 1, 428-29, 430). Filippo Maria refers to the. “desired destruction aan October, 20. theexpedition Senate was against sull contemplating 99 - ungarian alliance for a joint the Turksa of the trembling Venetian sheep’ (optata de- (cen "Secreta, Reg. 9, fols. 176"—177" [174*-175"], and of

. , 91: identifies the “lord of Mytilene” (Lesbos) as Francesco

Structio tremularum ovium venetarum).°° It is not fol. 178° [176"]; lorga, ROL, V, 334-35; Notes et extraits, 1,

clear that the Milanese envoy was ever sent to 434-35). Venice and the Emperor Sigismund, who was the Porte, but the Venetians were bent onending also king of Hungary, had long been at odds, as we have hostilities with the Turks if they could find some “tn: now: however, aac tg. of Savoy, whom isis way to do so and still keep Thessalonica. reconciliation between them, at Sigismund’s request. ElaboIn July (1426) a new Venetian admiral, An- rate plans for a Hungarian-Venetian alliance had already drea Mocenigo, “captain-general of the Gulf,” been formulated a year before, in October, 1425, but

. . mund had created duke in , was trying to effect a

was directed by the Senate to resume negotia- °thing had come of them (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 9,

tions with the sultan’s emissaries, not insisting fols. 45°—46" [46"—47"]; orga, ROL, V, 210-11; Notes et t Is time upon retention of Cassandra and the toward each other during these years continued to hamper castrum vocatum Cortiati,” “which castle the _ the efforts of both powers against the Turks.

his t; : . , extraits, 1, 409-10). The hostility of Hungary and Venice

said [Sultan] Murad Beg has been unwilli At the time of his mission to Venice, in December,

Nemes and J(cf. 1424 (f.note ab55), 55),thethyoung to allow to remain tos."5us.” Gi nni :1423, , and January, above, Giovanni II Crispo, Emperor John VIII had offered his services as mediator between Sigismund and the Signoria to help effect a

as formal peace. The Senate assured him “quod dominatio reads ‘prosecutionem’ ] deductam et speramus quod illam nostra semper fuit inclinata et prompta ad pacem et duxeritis ad complementum. -.. Et ultra promissionem bonam concordiam cum omnibus et precipue cum ipso factam Turichambey de aspris vigintimilibus annuatim de serenissimo domino Rege Romanorum et Hungarie.” introitibus Salonichi, que nobis placuit et placet, solicitetis Venice had tried constantly, through numerous envoys etiam cum Bassa [Ibrahim Pasha, the grand vizir] quod and embassies, to make peace with Sigismund, according ad conclusionem dicte pacis pervenire possitis, cui Basse to the Senate, “sed ipso domino Rege semper se retrahente etiam promittere possitis annuatim illud quod in vestra ad illam [pacem] nunquam potuimus pervenire, propter

commissione continetur .. .” (fol. 36” [37°]). quam causam nos vigilantes ad conservationem et bonum , Sen. Secreta, Reg. 9, fol. 109” [107"], doc. dated 20 status nostri devenimus ad confederationem et ligam cum April, 1426, published in Iorga, ROL, V, 317-18; Notes illustri domino duce Milani . . ., et in uno capitulo dicte

et extraits, 1, 416-18; Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XII, _ lige continetur quod aliqua partium non possit ad tractatum

no. gs PP Thiriet,Mnemeia, Régestes,pp. ” no. 2018,Romanorum concordii etetpacis devenire dicto domino Rege pp. oo —35; andidcf.Men Mertzios, 67-68. Hungarie sinecum consensu et voluntate . Cf. Kretschmayr, Gesch. v. Venedig, 11, 336-37. alterius partis... .” Thus they would have to wait for ’ Iorga, ROL, V, 326-27; Notes et extraits, 1, 426-27, on Filippo Maria Visconti’s assent before Venice could which see Manfroni, “La Marina veneziana alla difesa di authorize John to try to negotiate a peace with Sigismund

Salonicco,” Nuovo Archivio veneto, XX, 37-38. (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 136° [137"], doc. dated 30

26 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Serbia, Stephen Lazarevi¢, offered through his the city. A report of 8 December, describing adopted son and nephew George Brankovi¢ to _ these events, shows that the picturesque countrymediate with the Turks, to which the Venetians side around Thessalonica was swarming with

replied gratefully and courteously, acknowl- the sultan’s troops.® edging that possession of Thessalonica had cost Venetian efforts to make peace were as unthem much in money and effort, but asserting ceasing as they proved unavailing. War might be that they could not abandon the city. In anexciting and profitable game to the Turks, but

September and October the Turks of another it was a grim, costly business as far as the pretender named Mustafa, who also claimed to merchants of Venice were concerned. In be a son of Bayazid, and was stationed in November, 1426, Andrea Mocenigo succeeded, Thessalonica as an ally of the Venetians, made through the efforts of the Venetian notary large-scale and rather ill-advised sorties from John de Bonisio, in securing Sultan Murad’s general acceptance (on the twenty-eighth of the

——_—_— month) of the terms of the projected treaty of December, 1423; lorga, ROL, V, 151-52; Notes et extraits, the preceding April, which Mocenigo’s predeces-

I, 350-51; Thiriet, Regestes, II, no. 1915, pp. 211-12). ss sor ~Fantino Michiel had negotiated. Venice

rr;....

On 15asJanuary, 1424,intentions. John VIII hadmeantime renewedpromise his in-now ‘sedan| annua tributtl£ute 150.000 quiries to the Senate’s In the 0?

Filippo Maria’s response had come but, as the Senate aspers; she still claimed the peninsula of Caswrote their notary Francesco della Siega in Milan on sandra, but was willing to drop the matter of the seventeenth, “dicta responsio videtur nobis ambigua” Mount Kortiach. The other terms remained the (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 139° [140"]). Pending further 4146 except that Venice would distribute rather clarification of the Milanese position, however, which della i he P d ‘d Siega was asked to obtain, the Senate was willing to pro- greater argesse at the Forte an provi € more ceed. On the same day the Senate voted (de parte 127, in annual incomes for the sultan’s chief funcde non 0, non sinceri 0) “quod hortamur multum suam tionaries. On 24 July, 1427, the Doge Francesco Serenitatem [dominum Imperatorem Constantinopolis Foscarj issued an ambassadorial commission to

iuniorem, as John VIII is called in these texts] quod Benedetto Emo. h ful that he might secure

perseveret et sequatur suum bonum propositum in eundo 0 0, Hoperu . 8 c

in Hungariam ad presentiam serenissimi domini Roma- the Porte’s official ratification of the agree-

norum Regis pro bona et votiva executione eorum que ment.® sua Serenitas ... die Sabati [15 January] nobis exposuit . . .” (Reg. cited, fol. 138% [139%], resolution of the —=——————— . Senate dated 17 January, 1424 [Ven. style 1423]; lorga, 83 Jorga, ROL, V, 337-39; Notes et extraits, 1, 437-39, doc.

ROL, V, 153-54; Notes et extraits, I, 352-53; Thiriet, dated 8 December, 1426. On Mustafa, cf. Mertzios,

Régestes, 11, no. 1920, p. 213). Mnemeia, pp. 48, note, and 63-64. Fantino Michiel’s

At this session (on the seventeenth) the Senate also commission as captain-general of the sea, dated 2 April,

passed the following resolution: “Ad id autem quod requirit 1425, had contained the following instructions (Sen. Secreta, [imperator iunior] quod mittamus galeas nostras ad partes Reg. 9, fol. 5” [6%]): “Et quia rectores nostri Salonichi . . . Constantinopolis pro conforto civium et subditorum suorum nostro dominio scripserunt applicuisse in Salonicho quen-

et conservatione sui imperii, respondeatur quod, sicut sue dam Mustafa Turchum qui dicitur fuisse filius quondam Excellentie notum est, nos sumus missuri de brevi nostrum _ Baysit [Bayazid]: Si ita invenies esse veritatem propter generalem capitaneum [Pietro Loredan] cum armata potenti, informationem quam habebis a rectoribus nostris predictis

et si dicta armata non erit nobis necessaria in aliis et videres eundem habere sequellam aliorum Turchorum partibus, nos mittemus illam versus partes Romanie et dictarum partium, debeatis tu et rectores nostri predicti eundo dictam nostram armatam versus dictas partes, nos cum illis modis et viis qui et que vobis utiles videbuntur,

faciemus dictam armatam ascendere usque Constanti- mediante favore dicti Mustafe, providere ad damna et nopolim pro conforto illarum partium et subditorum ruinam dicti Turchi in illis partibus, sicut vobis melus

suorum et pro bono et conservatione pacifici status imperii _videbitur,” etc. Cf. Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XII, no. sui predicti” (tbid.). There is a careless transcription of this 2,958, p. 136. passage in Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XII, no. 2,840, p. 4. 84Sen. Secreta, Reg. 10 [1426-1428], fol. 65% [69%];

On John VIII’s venture into Italy and Hungary (he Sathas, I, no. 117, pp. 182-86; Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. returned to Constantinople on 1 November, 1424), see 2066, p. 245. Apparently a Byzantine envoy to the Porte, Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, pp. 375-79. I have excluded _ objecting to the Turkish peace with Venice, gave Murad the

from the text an account of the various efforts to recon- idea—after he had virtually accepted all the terms—that cile Sigismund with the Venetians, because they ended in’ the Porte should not make peace as long as Venetian failure, and Sigismund finally made a separate peace with ships rode at anchor off Gallipoli (lorga, ROL, V, 341). On the Turks, blaming the Venetians for the alleged necessity 28 February, 1427 (Ven. style 1426), the Senate decided to

of his doing so (see below, p. 28a and note 90). send an ambassador to the Porte, “quoniam, sicut refert 82 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 9, fol. 165” [163%], doc. dated 2 prudens vir Johannes de Bonisio notarius noster rediens a September, 1426, summarized in Iorga, ROL, V, 329-30, _presentia Morati Bey domini Teucrorum et sicut scribit and Notes et extraits, 1, 429-30. Brankovié succeeded capitaneus generalis Culphi [Andrea Mocenigo], videtur Stephen as despot of Serbia in July, 1427 (lorga, Gesch. quod idem Moratus inter cetera destiterit ratificare pacem,

d. osman. Reiches, 1, 394). quia vellet quod mitteremus nostrum solemnem ambaxi-

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 27 Conditions in beleaguered Thessalonica con- was not to mention these larger sums, for obstantly worsened. The inhabitants were gradu- vious reasons.*” Dandolo had no opportunity to

ally losing confidence in the Venetians’ ability speak of the larger sums. In fact the news to handle the Turkish problem. The shortage-of finally reached Venice that when poor Dandolo

food had made the winter of 1426-1427 along was ushered into the sultan’s presence, exnightmare for the Republic’s administrators in plained his mission, and presented his gifts, the city.> Months dragged on, and no treaty was Murad asked him: “Have you authority to give

made. The mounting Greek offensive in the me the land of Saloniki?” Dandolo acknowlMorea worried the Senate. Emo was replaced edged that he had no such authority; he was in August, 1428, by Jacopo Dandolo, who was _ dismissed, presently arrested, and on the sultan’s also unable to secure Murad’s final and formal _ orders confined to prison, never to be released.** ratification of the illusory peace.*® Dandolo had This was too much even for Venetian patience,

been empowered, nevertheless, to increase the and on 29 March, 1429, the Senate approved tribute to 300,000 aspers as well as to distribute a public declaration of war against the Porte, 10,000 to 15,000 ducats in gifts and to promise and decreed that three more light galleys annual pensions amounting to another 2,000 to should be armed in Venice and one in Zara. Of the chief officials of the Porte. For the peace- the three Cretan galleys in his fleet the captainable possession of Thessalonica, Cassandra, the general Mocenigo was to be instructed to choose

saltworks, and the neighboring lands and vil- the two strongest and add to their armaments lages Venice would pay even more, making an_ by stripping the third; this last galley was especial pecuniary allowance for the saltworks, to be replaced by a new one which the colonial but peace must be confirmed also with respect government of Crete was to arm.®*?

to Venetian possessions in Albania. Unless

Murad showed, however, a sincere disposition to ~~ ____ ae cae

yield to all the Venetian requests, Dandolo Sen. Secreta, Reg. 10, fols. 173¥—175', “die ultimo

Augusti,” Dandolo’s commission alluded to in the preceding

note; summaries of the document may be found in lorga,

-_-__ ROL, V, 380-81, and Notes et extraits, 1, 480-81; Mertzios, atorem ad presentiam suam ad confirmandum dictam Mnemeia, pp. 70-71; and Thiriet, Régestes, HI, no. 2111, pacem, et consideratis conditionibus temporis presentis ac pp. 253-54. novitatibus in quibus sumus cum duce Milani [Filippo 88 Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII, cols. 1004E— Maria Visconti, with whom the Venetians were also trying 1005A. Dandolo died in his Turkish prison (ibid., col. to settle their differences] et aliis multis negotiis occur- 1006B). On 13 August, 1429, his son Gerardo informed rentibus multum faciat pro factis nostris habere pacem the Senate that Dandolo (still alive and still in prison) had

cum dicto Morato” (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 10, fol. 26” [30%}).. been condemned by the sultan to pay 4,000 ducats because

After Giovanni Giorgio and Tommaso Michiel declined to of the losses inflicted on the Turks by “our people” at accept the appointment as ambassador (on 6 March), Thessalonica: “. . . quod per dictos Teucros condemnatus Benedetto Emo (Aymo) was chosen on 2 April, and agreed — est ad solvendum pro damnis per nostros de Salonicho to go to the Ottoman court (ibid., and cf. Iorga, ROL, V, _ ipsis Teucris illatis ducatorum quatuor milia et ob hoc car349, 351, 362, and Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XIII __ ceribus miserabiliter est inclusus” (Misti, Reg. 57, fol. [1972], no. 3,097, p. 14). Emo was an old hand at 144” [148¥], and cf. lorga, ROL, VI [1898, repr. 1964], 63). Levantine affairs, having been the Republic’s bailie in 8 Misti, Reg. 57, fols. 86’—87" [90°—91"], “MCCCCXXVIIII, Constantinople a half dozen years before (¢f. Ljubi¢é, die XXVIIII Martii:” “Cum propter nova que senciuntur Listine, VIII [1886], 116-17, doc. dated 10 October, 1421). de partibus Romanie de mala intentione Turchorum et I assume this is the same Benedetto Emo who in 1429 propter retentionem viri nobilis Ser Jacobi Dandulo, qui

was the captain of Zara (ibid., 1X [1890], 37, 43). fuerat noster orator ad dominum Teucrorum, non sit Cf. Iorga, ROL, V, 336, 343, 346, 350, 353; Mertzios, amplius de pace sperandum, et proinde oporteat facere

Mnemeia, pp. 64—65. The shortage of food in Thessalonica bonam provisionem tam pro honore nostri dominii quam

persisted until the Turkish occupation of the city. pro salute, custodia et defensione terrarum et locorum *6 Misti, Reg. 57, fol. 29° [31°]; Valentini, Acta Albaniae nostrorum partium aliarum quibus iminet magnum pericu-

veneta, XIII, no. 3,168, pp. 81-82, resolution of the Senate lum nisi cito provideatur, vadit pars quod in nomine to send an ambassador to Murad, dated 17 August, 1428, Dei de presenti armari debeant in Venetiis galee tres with the note that “electus ambaxiator Ser Jacobus Dandulo — subtiles quanto celerius sit possibile per illum modum maior et acceptavit,” and cf. lorga, ROL, V, 379, doc. qui deliberabitur per Collegium .. ., et insuper etiam dated 31 August. The Greeks then held Patras under siege armari debeat una alia galea in Iadra. . . . Et ex nunc (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 10, fols. 172%-173% [176%-177°], docs. declaretur quod simus in guerra cum Turchis. . . .

dated 31 August). According to Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in “Insuper scribatur et mandetur viro nobili Ser Andree RISS, XXII, col. 1002E, Dandolo was elected ambassador Mocenigo, capitaneo generali maris, quod ex tribus galeis to the Porte on 7 August, an obvious scribal or typo- Crete secum existentibus debeat eligere et apud se tenere graphical error. His commission is dated the thirty-first illas duas que sibi meliores videbuntur . . . , et de alia (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 10, fols. 173%-175" [177°-179"]; tercia accipiat illos homines, arma, et res que sibi videbuntur Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XIII, no. 3,173, pp. 94-100). oportune ad ponendum illas duas bene in ordine ita quod

28 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT While the sounds of saws and hammers and against the infringement of their rights to leave

the shouts of workmen and sailors were heard the city and sell their goods as they chose, along the docks at the arsenal in Venice, since the Senate refused to relax the wartime members of the Senate continued to debate restrictions which had been imposed, lest the the many aspects of the Turkish problem from movement of people and property from the city

Durazzo and Alessio to Modon and Coron, result in its fall to the Turks: “. . . eadem Negroponte and Thessalonica. The Emperor [civitas] subito veniret ad manus perfidorum Sigismund had made a three years’ peace with Teuchrorum.” The Greeks wanted some positive

the Turks (in 1428), alleging that the Vene- action taken with respect to the always critical tians had virtually forced him into it by their state of the city’s grain supply, the still un-

hostility toward Hungary, a charge which the fortified condition of Cassandra, and the miserDoge Francesco Foscari indignantly denied in able plight of those refugees who wanted to a letter of 29 June, 1429, to Pope Martin V, return to the city, but whose houses had been recalling the Republic’s services to eastern or were being ruined in their absence. To all Christendom and their current war with the these requests the Senate gave reassuring anTurks. They had in truth been at war with swers. The envoys complained that the walls of the Turks for six years, ever since their ac- ‘Thessalonica itself were almost ready to fall ceptance of Thessalonica from the Despot down, especially on the sea side, and the Senate

Andronicus, which had proved a most un- promised to have them repaired every year.

satisfactory business. The Senate was informed that some of their On 14 July, 1429, the Senate gave formal soldiers were unreliable (even communicating

replies to a detailed petition presented by an with the Turks), and that certain officials, embassy representing the Greek population of especially the rectors’ chancellors, were guilty of Thessalonica, showing that the inhabitants had constant extortion. The envoys requested the re-

become disenchanted with Venetian rule as the newed confirmation of the privileges of the years had passed. The Greek envoys protested Orthodox archbishop, the right of asylum in the ancient church of S. Sophia, and a greater

—_—__——. respect for their churches and monasteries on

sint bene armate et in puncto, et quod illam terciam the part of the soldiers, who apparently em-

cum hominibus et rebus restantibus mittat in Candidam ad ployed them as barracks, and introduced prostidisarmandum. Scribatur quoque regimini nostro Crete quod . . . “14: de presenti provideat armare et armet unam aliam galeam tutes into the historic and holy buildings. The loco illius que venire debet ad disarmandum. .. .” This CNVOYS wanted also a general recognition of document is summarized in lorga, ROL, V, 388, and Notes ecclesiastical courts. To these and to three or et cxtraits, 1, 488, and in Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 2127, P. 258; four other requests relating to ecclesiastical

it is parti and somewhat careles ni ntini, :

Acta Mlbanian en a XL no. 3.208, eo ted ST. wen affairs the Senate Gave affirmative or Symipa"Sen. Secreta, Reg. 11, fols. 16°17 [17°-18"], with a thetic replies, but declined to recognize the archsummary in lorga, ROL, VI (1898, repr. 1964), 54-55: bishop’s jurisdiction over laymen.”!

“Quod summo pontifici scribatur in forma infrascripta [the Senate had to approve the text of the doge’s §=——————

letter]: Sensimus, beatissime pater, ego meaque com- 9! Misti, Reg. 57, fols. 129°-132" [133'-136"], munitas, vestre Sanctitatis filii devotissimi, serenissimum “MCCCCXXVIIII, die XIITI luli:” “Quod respondeatur

dominum Sigismundum Romanorum et Hungarie regem ad capitula porrecta pro parte communitatis nostre in detractionem honoris nostri et ad conflandum contra Salonichi in hac forma,” etc.; there are thirty-one articles nos odium nonnulla scripsisse Beatitudini vestre ac _ in the petition, on which cf. lorga, ROL, VI, 58-59; Notes quibusdam principibus Christianis, presertim quod cum sua __ et extraits, 1, 495-97; Lemerle, Miscellanea G. Galbjati, III,

Serenitate concordiam habere recusaverimus quodque ob 224-25; and Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 2149, p. 263. From

eam causam treuguas triennales cum ‘Teucris con-_ this long petition, of which the requests are given in clusit. . . .” Cf. lorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 395-96. Venetian and the Senate’s answers in Latin, it may be well

In September and October, 1429, Gaspar Schlick, the to print the answers to the twelfth and thirteenth articles

chancellor of Bohemia, was trying to arrange an anti- _ relating to ecclesiastical affairs (fol. 130° [134¥]): Turkish entente between Sigismund and Venice (ROL, VI, “Respondemus quod non videtur nobis conveniens neque

66-67; Notes et extraits, I, 504-5), with small chance of iustum quod seculares subiaceant foro ecclesiastico, et

success. On Sigismund’s embassies to the Tatars, Greeks of | propterea volumus quod clerici subiaceant foro et iudicio Constantinople and Trebizond, the Genoese at Caffa, and domini archiepiscopi Salonicensis et seculares subiaceant

other possible anti-Turkish allies in the East, as well as his foro et iudicio seculari. Sed ad factum ecclesie Sancte relations with the Turks (and his attempts to form an Sophie respondemus quod sumus contenti quod franchisia eastern: alliance against them), see Wolfgang Freiherr dicte ecclesie observetur, et ita mandabimus quod obStromer von Reichenbach, “K6énig Siegmunds Gesandte in _ servabitur. Et volumus etiam quod ecclesie et monasteria den Orient,” in the Festschrift fiir Hermann Heimpel, 11 debeant gaudere omnibus introitibus et redditibus tam a

(Gottingen, 1972), 591-609. mari quam a terra et etiam illis quos habent in Cas-

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 29 The Venetians never made adequate provi- too obvious that the future did not hold the sion for the defense of Thessalonica against slightest prospect of diminished expenditure. the Turks. They had certainly expended large Andrea Suriano, a member of the war party, sums, as they constantly reminded the Greek _ stated in a most interesting speech in the Senate envoys, but they were always apprehensive of on 3 January, 1430, that Venice must prepare

the sultan’s refusal to recognize their title to a really powerful armada to force Murad into the city, and they had some reason to doubt their an acceptance of peace. For years money had ability to hold so important a place so close to been spent, and the Republic had achieved the Turkish capital of Adrianople. They always little or nothing. It was necessary to strike one found it difficult, therefore, to know whether great blow against the Turk, a decisive blow

they were spending too much or too little. to reduce the vast costs of holding ThesThe Venetians naturally looked around for salonica, “so that the Turk may either be re-

alliés whom they might oppose to the Gran duced to peace with our Signoria or be so Turco, finding the most likely in the prince damaged that he fears our power, and we are of Caramania, Ibrahim Beg (1423-1464), who not forever caught in these continuous exwas, it so happened, a brother-in-law of Sultan _penses.” Suriano stated that Venice had spent Murad. He was known as the “Gran Caramano,” on an average more than 60,000 ducats every but he feared his brother-in-law no less than year to maintain the city against the Turks. He the Venetians did. In August, 1429, we find introduced the resolution to arm a dozen galleys Venice trying to arrange an alliance with Ibra- and two large ships; of the galleys, seven were him Beg, to help achieve which they enlisted to be armed in Venice, three in Crete, and one

the good offices of King Janus of Cyprus, each in Zara and Sebenico.* Such an armada

who was reputed to maintain a “bona amicicia

cum magno Caramano.”” If the Venetians spent }=———————

too little on the defense of Thessalonica, they — ™ Misti, Reg. 57, fol. 179 [183], “MCCCCXXVIIII, die

had still spent a good deal. and it was onl tertio Januarii:” “Cum per reditum viri nobilis Ser Andree

P 8 , y Mocenigo, capitanei nostri generalis maris, videatur non —————— potuisse sequi pacem inter nostrum dominium et dominum sandra, et ita mandabimus quod dicti rectores debeant Teucrorum nec sperandum sit de pace ob nequiciam et

observare. Ad factum aptandi monasteria que ruine tradita__perfidiam ipsius Turchi, et neccessarium ac honor nostri sunt, respondemus quod pro presenti propter novitates dominii sit providere hostiliter contra Teucros et ad conguerre non est modus ad aptandum dicta monasteria, servationem navigiorum fidelium et subditorum nostrorum

sed cessatis istis novitatibus poterit postea provideri navigantium ad partes Romanie: . .. [in margin: Ser aptationi eorum prout videbitur fore opportunum. Ad Andreas Suriano:] Cum propter guerram quam habemus factum autem stipendiariorum qui habitant ecclesias et cum Turcho et pro securitate nostrorum civium et monasteria et destruunt ea, et in eis ducunt meretrices mercatorum navigantium per strictum neccessarium sit proet ibidem committunt multas inhonestates, respondemus_ videre de potenti armata que sit causa reducendi hunc quod nobis summe displicet audire tales novitates et in- dominum Turchorum, inimicum nostrum, ad bonam pacem honestates, sed mandabimus rectoribus nostris Salonichi cum nostro dominio attento maxime quod postquam quod debeant providere sub illis gravibus penis que sibi dominium civitatis Salonichi habuimus computato uno anno

videbuntur quod dicte novitates et inhonestates cessent.”. cum alio expendite fuerunt ultra ducatorum sexaginta Mertzios, Mnemeia, pp. 72-86, has analyzed the whole’ milia in anno, que expensa continua corrodit nostrum document in detail and given a facsimile reproduction dominium, et non videtur quod aliquid fiat, nec aliquid

of92 Sen. theSecreta, text. magnificum demonstratur per quod detur causa huic Reg. 11, fols. 29’-3 1" [30"—32"]; Valentini, | Turcho timendi nostrum dominium [Valentini, Acta Albaniae

Acta Albaniae veneta, XIII, nos. 3,257-—60, pp. 179-85; lorga, _veneta, XIV (1972), no. 3,305, p. 9, reads ‘nomen dominii’ ]

ROL, Vi, 64-66; Notes et extraits, I, 502-4; Thiriet, aut veniendi nobiscum ad bonam pacem, ideoque neccesRégestes, II, no. 2160, p. 266, docs. dated 30-31 August, sarium sit uno ictu facere quod fiendum est ut ipse 1429. The Senate’s purpose was “ut refrenari valeat ipsius Turchus aut reducatur ad pacem cum nostro dominio aut Teucri rabies pro universali bono et sue Serenitatis [the ita damnizetur quod expavescat potentiam nostram et nos king of Cyprus] et nostro ac totius Christianitatis,” and continue non stemus in istis continuis expensis, vadit pars the Venetians hoped that an alliance with Ibrahim Beg quod in nomine Jesu Christi ad executionem predictorum might lead “ad ipsius Teucri damna et exterminium” armari debeant galee XII et due naves magne nostri

(Reg. cit., fol. 30° [317)). communis, quarum galearum septem armentur hic Venetiis,

King Janus had recently been captured by Egyptian tres in Creta, una in Jadra, et una in Sibinico.. .” forces in the Mamluk invasion of Cyprus (during the [de parte 32, de non 5, non sincerus 1, but Suriano’s summer of 1426); after eight months’ imprisonment in proposals all lack the cross in the left-hand margin of Cairo he was ransomed, and returned to Cyprus in May, _ the register, which indicates they were not accepted by the 1427. Depressed in spirit, weakened in health, and at the Senate, and were not put into effect]. The text is summa-

end of his resources, Janus could give Venice nothing rized in lorga, ROL, VI, 70, and Notes et extraits, I,

but information concerning his “friend” the Gran Caramano _ 508, and in Thiriet, Régestes, I1, no. 2175, p. 269, incorrectly

(cf. below, p. 45b, and Sir Geo. Hill, History of Cyprus, If dated 1429. Cf. Manfroni, “La Marina veneziana,” Nuovo

[Cambridge, 1948], 493-94). Archivio veneto, XX, 59-61.

30 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT was hardly large enough to serve the purpose Venice had other important possessions in the Suriano had in mind. Nevertheless, he could not Levant and other problems to worry about. secure the passage of his motion in the Senate. Durazzo, Scutari, and Antivari, Lepanto and A great blow was soon struck. It relieved Nauplia, Modon, Coron, and above all NegroVenice of the heavy expense of which Suriano ponte must not fall into Turkish hands. Still complained, but it was the Turk who struck mistress of the Aegean, Venice nurtured less the blow. Thessalonica was stormed’ on 29 anxiety about Crete and the Archipelago. As March, 1430, after a three-day assault, under for Thessalonica, few cities in the Levant have the watchful eyes of Sultan Murad himself. a more interesting history. Although subjected Most of the Venetians escaped in three galleys to a cruel sack upon its occupation by the Turks, they had in the harbor, but some important Thessalonica remained an important place. The personages were captured. Sanudo says that the surviving inhabitants were allowed to rebuild Republic had expended more than 700,000 ducats on the city, which would be almost —————— twice the sum named by Suriano in the Senate.*! — maris, scribatur in hac forma: Propter casum amissionis

: uam vobis dedimus circa factum pacis tractande cum

In any event the issue of Thessalonica was now Civitatis Saronic sicut considerare potestis, commissio definitely resolved, and the sage statesmen of Turcho non habet nec potest habere locum in illa forma the Republic gave no thought to the reconquest quam vobis fecimus. Nichilominus quia omnibus consideratis

of the city. Indeed, a month after they had vellemus devenire ad pacem cum Turcho, si possibile lost Thessalonica they informed their captain- foret, cum modis congruis et honestis, mandamus vobis general of the sea, now Silvestro Morosini, C™ Posi™s consillis Rogatorum et Additionis [the Senate that they were willing to cede their rights to the and the Giunta] quod si videbitis aliquem modum et viam

; y 5 ’ § per quam cum honore nostro veniri posset ad aliquam media que vestre sapientie videbuntur. Et ut —— informatus sitis de nostra convenientiora intentione et de conditionibus city for an honorable peace with the Porte.® praticam pacis, ad illam veniatis per illa meliora et

** Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII, cols. 1007E-—1008; cum quibus habere vellemus pacem cum dicto Turcho,

Amadio Valier, Cron., Cod. Cicogna, no. 3631, fols. 302-3, vobis dicimus et declaramus quod veniatis ad pacem 304; Ducas, chap. 29 (Bonn, pp. 198-201). John Anagnostes, _ predictam cum his modis et conditionibus, videlicet:

De Thessalonicensi excidio narratio, 13 (Bonn, with the “Primo quod si idem Turchus volet quod renuntiemus Pseudo-Sphrantzes and Cananus, p. 507), dates the Turkish omni juri et actioni quod et quam aliquo modo haberemus occupation of Thessalonica on 29 March, 1430, as does the — in dominio civitatis Salonichi et quod numquam nos im-

Cron. Morosint (on which cf. Lemerle, Muscellanea G. pediamus de recuperando et habendo ipsam civitatem, Galbiati, 11, 225). Some of the Venetian chronicles give the sumus contenti in casu quo aliter fieri non posset quod date inaccurately as 13 March (¢f. Iorga, ROL, VI, 73, hoc capitulum sibi promittatis in eo solum quod eidem note 1; Notes et extratts, 1, 511, note 1; and, zbid., II, 266,272). Turcho spectare posset. Verum debeatis procurare in

Chief among the Venetian captives were Leonardo pratica dicti capituli, si possibile est, quod viri nobiles

Gradenigo and Lorenzo Contarini (Sanudo, loc. cit., and Ser Leonardus Gradonico et Laurentius Contareno, filius Iorga, ROL, VI, 78, 79, and Notes et extraits, I, 516-17, viri nobilis Ser Pauli Contareno, olim duche Salonichi,

docs. dated 29 April, 1430). As late as 3 March the et alii cives et fideles nostri qui fuerunt capti a Teucris Senate was still instructing their new captain-general of the __ pristine libertati restituantur. Quando autem hoc obtinere

sea, Silvestro Morosini, to try to arrange peace through non possetis, concludatis ipsum capitulum, ut superius Byzantine mediation on the same general terms as the un- _—_continetur.”

fortunate Jacopo Dandolo had been directed to present to The Venetians were then held to pay the Porte an annual Murad (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 11, esp. fols. 86’-87" [87’-88"]; tribute of one hundred ducats for the castle of Lepanto lorga, ROL, VI, 76-77, Morosini’s commission from the (pro castro Nepanti) and two hundred ducats for Scutari, doge upon election to the captaincy-general). On the Turk- Alessio, and Drivasto. Now, however, they wanted the tribute

ish capture of Thessaionica, see Mertzios, Mnemeia, pp. reduced, “quia locus Drivasti non est amplius sub nostro 88-93, with a (Greek) translation and text of the pertinent dominio.” (Drivasto had been lost in 1419, on which see passage in the Cron. Morosint. The chroniclers give dif- Iorga, ROL, IV, 609, note, and Notes et extratts, I, 294, ferent figures for the costs of the seven-year Venetian note.) But if the sultan was prepared to guarantee the occupation of Thessalonica—the Cron. Morosini putting the — security of Venetian possessions in Albania, the captaincost at 740,000 ducats, “and I, Antonio Morosini, witnessed general Morosini might promise the Porte a tribute of up

this and have written with my own hand, and this is the — to five hundred ducats a year (doc. cit., fol. 101" [102°]). truth,” while the Cron. Zancaruola gives the figure as And, as usual in treaties with the Turks, the Senate wanted 502,000, and other chronicles put it at 300,000 and 200,000, freedom of trade and passage throughout the Ottoman for all of which see Mertzios, op. cit., pp. 98-99, who empire. Cf. the summaries’ of Morosini’s instructions in seems to have missed Suriano’s speech in the Senate (see orga, ROL, VI, 79-80; Notes et extraits, 1, 517-18; Thiriet, preceding note), the most important evidence of all. Régestes, I1, no. 2192, p. 273. Sen. Secreta, Reg. 11, fols. 101'-102" [102™-103°]; The fall of Thessalonica was known in Venice by 27 Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XIV, no. 3,355, pp. 64-68; April (1430), and caused the Senate promptly to take Iorga, ROL, VI, 79~80, doc. dated 29 April, 1430: “Quod _ steps for the safety of Zara, Sebenico, and Corfu (Misti, viro nobili Ser Silvestro Mauroceno, capitaneo generali Reg. 57, fol. 209% [213”]).

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 3] their lives as best they could, and the Greek while of becoming a monk and relinquishing fugitives were allowed to return to their homes. the rule of the Morea to Constantine, changed Turkish rule lasted in Thessalonica for almost his mind when the latter arrived in the peninsula five centuries, until October, 1912, when the in December, 1427, with their imperial brother

Greeks recovered the city and added it to the John VIII, who had approved the proposed growing dominion of the new Hellenic king- transfer of power. It was now that the diplomat

dom.” and historian George Sphrantzes returned to the Shortly after the withdrawal of Murad II’s

Morea in the service of the Palaeologi,”

troops from the siege of Constantinople in early . September, 1422, the old Emperor Manuel had Sphrantzes, chron. manus (PG De vk ee precns, ffered (on 1 October), affairs Boao ye in ee November, eee eae Or eon sulte ; ’a: stroke in September, 1427,and leftall Constantinople and of state had to be left in the hands of his arrived in the Morea with Constantine on 26 December son and co-ruler, John VIII, although the Vene- (the year 6936 of the Byzantine era ran from 1 September, tian documents suggest that from time to time, 1427 through 31 August, 1428); and ¢f. P seuco-Sparantzes, as his health permitted, Manuel still received C | (Bonn, pp. 125-24; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 126-27; ed.

. .s recu, p. 262); Chalcocondylas, bk. 1v (Bonn, p. 206). There

foreign envoys and made decisions. In July, jg a sympathetic sketch of John VIII’s career in Giil, 1425, Manuel died, and was buried in the capital Personalities of the Council of Florence (1964), pp. 104-24.

in the monastery of the Pantokrator. Six sons 99 Sphrantzes, loc. cit., and ¢f. Pseudo-Sphrantizes, H, l survived him, the last tragic actors in the Greek (Bonn, p. 124, lines 3-4; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 127, line 1; theaters of Byzantium and the Morea. Besides ed. Grecu, 262, lines 18-20). is an Important ° source for thep.Byzantine world Sphrantzes in the fifteenth century. the Emperor John VIII and the Despot Theo- Quite understandably, therefore, his “memoirs” have redore II, there were Thomas, then in the Morea; ceived much attention in recent years. Formerly called Constantine [XI] “Dragases,” ruler of Anchialus, “Phrantzes,” his name is now known to be Sphrantzes (see

Volume I, Chapter 13, note 206, of the present work). The Mesembria, and some other places the (sixteenth-century) Black F ; . . orm Sphrantzes appears in theon oldest

Sea; Andronicus, onetime despot of Thessa- MS. of the Chronicon minus (Bibl. Apost. Vaticana, Cod. lonica; and Demetrius, who was still without an Ottobon. gr. 260) and also in the title of the printed assigned share in the imperial heritage.*” Of text in PG 156, 1025-26, 1025A, although the name is these Constantine, who was born in February given thereafter as “Phrantzes” (zbid., 1031B, 1058D). For . ; > the MSS. and various editions of the Chron. minus, see

1405, destined to Sphrantzes: catch the world’s attenVasi ; .: in “ . asile was Grecu, Georgios Memoru (1401-1477),

tion as the last emperor and the last defender gnexd Pseudo-Phranizes (cited above, note 2), pp. XIV—xvII.

of Constantinople against barbarian attackers, While there now appears to be no doubt that Sphrantzes a true martyr to the cause of Greek inde- wrote the memoir called Chronicon minus (ed. Jan Franz, pendence. It is at this time that Constantine 50 ware Angelo Mats Classic 15 80 IX [Rome, 1837],

his Pp first believes conspicuoushim appearance on the So epeeof 7 08: 025-80), no one any longer madePp to be the author the} Chronicon maius (ed.

stage. Imm. Bekker in the Bonn Corpus, 1838, repr. in PG 156, The Despot Theodore, having thought for a cols. 637-1022, the first two books being also available

in the better edition of J. B. Papadopoulos, I, Leipzig:

——_———— Teubner, 1935, and all four books in the [best] edition of

* On Thessalonica, see in general A. E. Vacalopoulos V. Grecu, Bucharest, 1966). MSS. of the Chron. maius range [Bakalopoulos], A History of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth and nineteenth 1963, and on Venetian-held Crete (historical sources and centuries (Papadopoulos, I, pp. x—xv). Working with the bibliography), about which I shall have little occasion to constant errors and peculiarities in the text, Papadopoulos speak in this volume, see M. I. Manussacas, “L’Isola di doubted whether Sphrantzes could have been the author of Creta sotto 11 dominio veneziano: Problemi e ricerche,” in the Chron. maius, to which one refers as the work of the Agostino Pertusi, ed., Venezia e il Levante fino al secolo XV, “Pseudo-Sphrantzes” (or less accurately the “Pseudo-

2 vols., Florence, 1973-74, I-2, 473-514. Phrantzes’”).

7 Ducas, chap. 23 (Bonn, p. 134); Chalcocondylas, bk. Fr. R. J. Loenertz, “Autour du Chronicon maius attribué iv (Bonn, p. 205; ed. E. Darko, I, 192); Pseudo- a Georges Phrantzés,” Miscellanea G. Mercati, III (Citta del Sphrantzes, I, 31 [40] (Bonn, pp. 121-22; ed. Papadopoulos, Vaticano, 1946), 273-311 (in Studi e testi, no. 123), I, 124-25; ed. Grecu, p. 260), on which note R. J. Loenertz, first proved decisively that Sphrantzes could not have in the Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, III (1946), 287-88 written the Chronicon maius, and makes it clear that tHe (Studi e testi, no. 123), and the chronicle attributed to Chron. maius is the work of Macarius Melissenus, late Dorotheus of Monemvasia in Loenertz, ibid., p. 304. sixteenth-century metropolitan of Monemvasia, who has beSphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1031CD; ed. Grecu, p. 18), | come well known as a forger. Papadopoulos had already notes the death of Manuel II without giving the customary _ perceived the fact (¢f. St. Binon, “L’Histoire et la légende catalogue of his sons. Cf. Hopf, II, 81-82; lorga, Gesch. d. de deux chrysobulles d’Andronic II en faveur de Monemosman. Reiches, 1, 383-84; Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, basie: Macaire ou Phrantzés?” Echos d’Orient, XXXVII

pp. 383-85. [1938], 274-304). The form “Phrantzes” occurs in all

32 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT especially attached to Constantine. Although lived happily with her,” according to ChalcoJohn Eugenicus had addressed a long and _ condylas. If the disappointed Constantine was wearisome oration to Theodore in commenda-_ to have lands in the Morea, they would have tion of his noble decision to enter a monastery,’ to be conquered for him. Theodore had already the despot yielded to the alleged entreaties of annexed most of Centurione’s so-called princithe local aristocracy, and continued his rule in pality to the despotate of Mistra, but Carlo Mistra. Having hitherto got on badly with his Tocco still held Glarentza, the “capital of Elis,”

Italian wife, Cleopa Malatesta, Theodore now to which John VIII now laid siege again. became reconciled with her, “and henceforth Carlo, badly defeated in the battle of the

Echinades the preceding year, decided to give

MSS. of the Ch h k up Glarentza,and his other possessions in the

of the Chron. maius (more than adoubt score areon known), area A marriage was between his an -error which shed some its genuineness. . ,arranged :

The compiler of the Chron. maius follows Nicephorus _ MIECE. Maddalena de’ ‘Tocchi, daughter of LeoGregoras up to 1360 and Chalcocondylas to 1402, butsome- nardo II of Zante, and Constantine, to whom times repeats the latter’s mistakes and even fails to under- Carlo now ceded as a dowry both Glarentza stand him; according to Loenertz, the compiler also em- and the rest of his fortified places in the Morea ploys the sixteenth-century chronicle attributed to “Dorotheus er 5} . 3 ¢ roy Mopé On 1M of Monemvasia.” Since Sphrantzes died about 1477-1478, (00a 07 Kat elxeV Els TOV opéeav). On ays he obviously did not use Dorotheus in the expansion of 1428, Sphrantzes occupied the castle of Glahis memoir (Chron. minus) into the general Turco-Byzantine rentza in Constantine’s name, and other officers

history which passed under hs name me Chron.Elizabet were dispatched maius. In anhas interesting article, however, . - os to take over the other places.’ Zachariadou, “An Italian Source of the Pseudo-Dorotheus At the beginning of J uly the three brothers for the History of the Ottomans” [in Greek], TeAozovynotwka, encamped before P atras, whither Maddalena

V (1962), 46-59, esp. pp. 47-48, has noted that the half- was brought. She married Constantine 1n the dozen passages which Loenertz, op. cit, pp. 296-309, Greek camp amid preparations for a siege of thought originated in the Pseudo-Dorotheus were actually the city, changing her name in Byzantine drawn from the Ecthesis chronica of about 1517. Obviously fashi to Theod A ‘n the harsh Sphrantzes could not have used a work produced in or about asmuion tO : co ora. ( ; pawn 1p € Nal's 1517, and Miss Zachariadou’s discovery only reinforces game of politics, she died some seventeen Loenertz’s argument. Cf. also her study of The Chronicle months later.) By this time the brothers were of the Turkish Sultans [Cod. Barberini graecus 111] and its quarreling among themselves, and Theodore Halian Original [wpérv7o] [in Greek], Thessaloniki, 1960, pp. was quite sure he did not want to become Although the Pseudo-Sphrantzes or rather Macarius 4 monk. Working at cross purposes, they could

Melissenus, Chronicon maius, IV, 23 (Bonn, p. 453; ed. not take Patras, a papal fief then held (as Grecu, p. 590), ends with the statement that old age and we have seen) by Archbishop Pandolfo Mala-

extreme infirmity have prevented the author from covering testa, Theodore’s brother-in-law, but they did every aspect of his subject properly, and dates his conclusion succeed in capturing three fortified villages 29 March, 1478 (A.M. 6986), he has evidently forgotten . Pp 5 . & his references to the Turkish occupation of Zante and (KaoTEAAOTIOVAG) and exacting from the inCephalonia (in 1479), the siege of Rhodes (1480), the taking habitants of Patras the promise of an annual of Otrarito (1480), and the death of Mehmed II in May, tribute of five hundred gold pieces for Con1481, all this in book 1, chap. 23 (Bonn, pp. 94-95; ed. stantine. The campaign was over. John VIII

Papadopoulos, 98; but ed.most Grecu, p. 234). distra. df Mi C . too k hi Melissenus was a giftedI,stylist, of his sources eparte or onstantine 1S

(when imagination did not provide them) have yet to be bride to Glarentza; they occupied the old identified, and his work must be used with the utmost Villehardouin castle of Chloumoutsi. When a Se eO6) his as we have opserved above (vol eae.but 13,Melissurgus. little later John VIII to return home, note , his name was not Melissenus, ; s decided . He sought to glorify his family by assuming one of the Constantine joined him for some days at more distinguished names in Byzantine history (¢f. Chron. Mistra. Now four of the brothers were together,

maius, 11, 2 [Bonn, p. 132, lines 6-7, and p. 134, lines for Thomas was also-in the Morea, and in 3-4; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 134, line 11, and p. 137, lines October (1428) they all went to Corinth, where 1-2; ed. Grecu, p. 270, lines 8—9, and p. 272, line 6, and John took ship for Constantinople. Theodore

note 1, lines 25—26]). On Macarius’s family, see J. K. h d Mi - Th ‘ed Casiotes, Makarios, Theodoros and Nikephoros, the Meltssenot C 1en returned to Mistra; Nhomas accompamie

(Melissourgoi), 16th and 17th Centuries [in Greek], Thes- him as far as Kalavryta. Constantine went to saloniki, 1966. 10° John Eugenicus’s oration awpos tov dSeandrny Kup | —§=£————— @cddwpov tov Tlopgupoyévyvnrov was published by Lampros, 101 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1033D-—1034A; ed.

Pal. kai Pel., 1 (1912), 67-111, from Eugenicus’s autograph Grecu, p. 24); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 1-2 (Bonn, p. 128; MS. in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Cod. gr. 2075, fols. ed. Papadopoulos, I, 130-31; ed. Grecu, p. 266); Chalco-

199°—226. condylas, bk. rv (Bonn, pp. 239-40).

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 33 Vostitza, which Theodore had ceded to him Early in March, 1429, Constantine Dragases together with a number of other castles in resumed the siege of Patras, and on Palm Sunthe western part of the Morea extending all day his forces took their positions before the the way down south to Androusa, Nesi, and _ city gates. Some days later, after the celebration Kalamata. The faithful Sphrantzes took over of Holy Saturday (26 March, 1429) a sudden

the various castles in the name of his master sortie of the Patrenses from the “Jews’ gate” Constantine, whose vigorous presence was soon caught the Greek commanders in idle conversa-

felt everywhere in the Morea and seemed to tion in Constantine’s tent. In the skirmish betoken the beginning of a new era in Greek which followed, Constantine had his horse shot

affairs.’ from under him by an arrow. The attackers In the meantime, during June and July, 1428, pressed on to kill or capture him, but Sphrantzes

Archbishop Pandolfo Malatesta had been in stood by in defense of his master until the Venice, seeking aid for the threatened see and latter could extricate himself from the fallen city of Patras. The Senate, however, which had horse and escape on foot. Sphrantzes was himwarned the pope of the likelihood of the city’s self wounded, however, and taken prisoner, los-

falling into the hands of either the Greeks or ing his favorite horse in the fray. Chained

the Turks, was little disposed to intervene at and tossed into a dark dungeon in an abandoned this late and critical juncture of affairs. The granary, poor Sphrantzes spent a month conVenetians declared their affection for the great tending with ants, weevils, and mice. At length house of Malatesta, for Pandolfo’s father and © on S. George’s day (23 April), having prayed

sister. They granted him permission to purchase to his patron, the deliverer of captives, munitions in Venice for export to Patras, but Sphrantzes had his chains struck off, and his they saw no point in sending an envoy to the jailers explained that the miserable food they Greek government in the Morea, although they had been giving him was all they had. A day or held themselves ready to treat with the Greeks two later they asked him to communicate with

if the latter took the initiative.’™ Constantine about his release, and said he might

make preliminary arrangements for the sur-

—— render of Patras, provided Constantine would

’ » +Seudo- rantzes, , onn, . _ » ed. : :

04. 96h. Prende’Sohen minus ee 5 (Be 1034; O50 53° PP withdraw to Glarentza and wait until the end of Papadopoulos, I, 131-36; Grecu, pp. 966-270, with im. May. If Archbishop Pandolfo, who was seeking

provements in the text). Before his departure from the aid in Italy, had not returned by that time,

Morea John VIII confirmed the Platonic philosopher Geo. | Constantine would receive the surrender of the Gemistus Pletho in his possession of the manorial villages of city. The terms were agreed upon, and SphranBrysis and Phanarion by a chrysobull dated October, 1428 i765, more dead than alive, according to his own Pel., 111 [1926], 331-33). Pletho had been granted Phanarion @CCOUNt, Was greeted with Joy and relief by by Theodore the preceding November (ibid., IV [1930], 104- Constantine, who loaded him with gifts of hand5), and in September, 1433, Theodore was to guarantee the some clothes and other things. They returned succession of Pletho’s sons to these properties, Demetrius to Glarentza, waiting for May to pass. 104

[A.M. 6937, of the seventh indiction] (Lampros, Pal. kai : . .

Gemistus to Phanarion and Andronicus Gemistus to Brysis, at the request of their father, who is highly praised in| =—§=———————

the preamble to the document (an argyrobull, ibid., diplomacy to prevent the Greeks from taking Patras, which IV, 106-9). For the general history of these grants, see —_ was of course unavailing (lorga, ROL, V, 379-80, 385, 387;

Lampros, in the Neos Hellenomn., II (1905), 457-60. of., ibid., V1, 67, 73). Knowing that Constantine was not to Maddalena de’ Tocchi was the sister of Carlo II Tocco, be dissuaded from his designs upon Patras, the Venetians despot of Arta, etc. (1429-1448), on which cf. the genealog- _ spent little time and money on the effort. ical tables in Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, pp. 530, 536. Mad- 104 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1036, 1039; ed.

dalena-Theodora was buried, like Cleopa Malatesta four Grecu, pp. 30, 32, 36 ff.); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 3-4, 6 years later, in the Katholikon of the monastery of the (Bonn, pp. 137—39, 144-46; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 140-42, Zoodotes at Mistra, identified as the church of Hagta 147-49; ed. Grecu, pp. 280 ff., 288, 290), who adds to the Sophia, which apparently served as the palace chapel. Many __ fine clothes which Sphrantzes received from Constantine graves have been excavated here, but none has yielded any _ the further gift of 3,000 gold pieces.

evidence relating either to Theodora or to Cleopa. In the During this period the Palaeologi were clearly paying narthex of the Pantanassa at Mistra there is another more attention to the conquest of territory than to the grave sometimes identified as that of Theodora, but again governance of their possessions in the Morea, and even

without convincing evidence. a Greek magnate thought that conditions in the so-

103 Sathas, I, nos. 119-22, pp. 188-90, from Sen. Secreta, called “despotate” bodied ill for the safety of his property.

Reg. 10, fols. 152%—153', 156", 157% [156%-157', 160%, 161%], By a safe-conduct issued in the name of the Doge Fran-

docs. dated 14 June and 9-10 July, 1428. The Venetian —_ cesco Foscari, and dated 18 July, 1429, the Senate allowed

Senate, nevertheless, did try for a while by means of one Manoli Magaducha to deposit all or part of his

34 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Within a few days a messenger reached ation to the sultan. At Naupactus he fell in Glarentza from Sultan Murad II, forbidding with two Turkish envoys, one sent by the sultan Constantine to molest Patras since the city paid and the other by Turakhan Beg, to warn Con-

tribute to the Porte. Nevertheless, on 1 June stantine not to take over the city of Patras. (1429), since Pandolfo Malatesta had still not Soon Pandolfo Malatesta himself put into

returned from Italy, Constantine moved against Naupactus on a Catalan ship, having already the city. At the same time his brother Thomas heard of the Greek occupation of his city. He

was besieging nearby Chalandritza, the chief asked Sphrantzes to delay his northward stronghold left to Centurione Zaccaria. The journey for a day or so in order that they brothers joined forces for a show of strength might confer with each other. The Greek which helped them both to achieve their ob- diplomat and the Latin archbishop sat down jectives, although Sphrantzes feared they might together, Arcades ambo, each trying to learn the come to blows. On Sunday, 5 June, Constantine other’s intentions, with no success. Pandolfo,

was given the keys to the city of Patras in however, gave the Turkish envoys letters for the ancient church of S. Andrew amid the the sultan and Turakhan Beg, as Sphrantzes rejoicing of the populace. The streets were knew, and the latter would not rest until he strewn with flowers, and there was a holiday could learn their contents. He engaged the mood as the Patrenses passed again under ‘Turks in a drinking bout, and got almost as Greek rule for the first time since the Latin drunk as they did, but he managed to extract conquest in 1205. But the troops of Pandolfo their letters, which he read, copied, and reMalatesta still held the citadel and the archi- sealed. Thereafter Sphrantzes went on to the episcopal palace near it, refusing to surrender. Byzantine capital, where he was assigned Marcus

Although they shot at the merrymakers from Palaeologus Iagrus as a fellow envoy to the the high battlements of the citadel, they did Porte. Marcus proved less a help than a hinlittle damage, and on 6 June Constantine re- drance, and the two were told when they first arceived the homage of the citizenry in the church rived at the Ottoman court that Patras must of S. Nicholas. Sphrantzes was appointed gov- _ be restored to the Latins. But the wily Sphrantzes

ernor of Patras.!% told Ibrahim Pasha, the grand vizir, that he Sphrantzes had a mission to perform, how- dared not take back such a reply to the despot; ever, before he could take up his new office. he asked that a Turkish envoy might return

On 8 June he departed for Naupactus (Lepanto) with him to the Morea to inform the despot of on his way to Constantinople to report to the the sultan’s decision. There was nothing like emperor on the occupation of Patras,andthence prolonging the matter by an exchange of emto Adrianople to explain and justify the situ- bassies. In the following September (1429)

a Sphrantzes was on the road again, going this movable goods in Coron because of the insecurity of time to Trikkala or Larissa to see ‘Turakhan conditions in the despotate (Misti, Reg. 57, fol. 1077 Beg, with whom, he informs us, he “finally

[111"], apparently dated 31 May, 1429), “cum per literas straightened out the business about Patras.”! viri nobilis Ser Zanoti Calbo, castellani Coroni et Mothoni, Sphrantzes had done very well indeed, and informatt simus quod quidam Manoli Magaducha dictus po ndolfo Malatesta had already despaired of Protostratora, subditus domini dispoti Musistre, videns a ; y Pp malum dominium quod fit per Grecos, deliberaverit de- TCQalNung the city. On 18 October, 1429, the positare in loco nostro Coroni totum aut partem sui Venetian Senate passed the following resolu-

haveris requisiveritque quod sibi fiat salvusconductus ut tion, a brief but graphic chapter in the possit mittere ad ipsum locum nostrum vel ponere in eo history of Patras: suum havere vel partem ipsius. . . .” . ' Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1039D-1041B), Since the reverend father, the lord [arch ]bishop of where in col. 1040D the dates 4—5 January are an absurd Patras, has recently proposed to our government that,

error, which is corrected to 4—5 June in the better text of if ye wish, he is ready to put in our hands the

V. Grecu, ed., Georgios Sphrantzes, Memorii (1966), p. 42; 1: . . .

Pseudo-Sphrantzes, 11, 7-8 (Bonn, pp. 146-48: ed. Papa- castle of Patras, which is still held in his name, and to dopoulos, I, 149-52; ed. Grecu, pp. 290, 292). The §——————— church of S. Nicholas, near the citadel, was destroyed in 106 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1041B—1042C; ed. 1811 by the explosion of a powder magazine. Famous as_ Grecu, pp. 44, 46): “. .. Kai Thy wept tHs Tlétpas one of the Franciscan centers in Greece, it appears often Sovdeav tedreiws StapOwoa” (opp. citt., col. 1042C; p. 46, in documents relating to the Latin dominion (see Gerland, _ line 32, reading S5ovAerév for SovAeiav, which appears in both

Lateinisches Erzbistum Patras [1903], p. 117, note 1). editions, but makes less sense); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 8-9 Sphrantzes says that he became governor of Patras in (Bonn, pp. 150-54; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 152—56; ed. Grecu, September, 1430 (Chron. minus, ed. Grecu, p. 50, lines 1-2). — pp. 292 ff.).

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 35 secure from the supreme pontiff [Martin V] permis- agree to the marriage of his elder daughter sion to recover the city from the hands of the Greeks Caterina to Thomas, who thus became his heir, and to hold it under our dominion, the motion is and after the wedding was celebrated at Mistra carried that he be answered in appropriate words that jy January, 1430," nothing remained to Cenit does not seem best to us, for good and proper tyrione but the empty title of prince and the

reasons, to become involved in this affair. barony of Arcadia (Kyparissia), the latter being

There were no dissenting votes.' an inheritance from his father. Centurione was Pandolfo’s garrison was still holding the castle a direct descendant of Benedetto I Zaccaria,

of Patras, which was not surrendered to Con- who had married a sister of the Byzantine stantine until May, 1430, when its defenders had Emperor Michael VIII, as weil as of the famous

been weakened by famine and the plague.'’® Martino Zaccaria, onetime lord of Chios, who Chalcocondylas says that Martin V sent ten gal- __was killed before Smyrna in January, 1345. He leys (Tpinpets) to try to regain the city. However was the last important member of his house, but

many galleys there may have been, they were in after years his bastard son, Giovanni Asan, manned by Catalans, who made no attempt to who was passed over in the settlement with retake Patras, but on 17 July (1430) seized Thomas, was briefly to reclaim the title of prince Glarentza, which they held for a while and then and plunge the Morea into turmoil (in 1454), sold back to Constantine, according to Chalco- as we shall have occasion in due time to note. condylas for 5,000 gold pieces and according In August, 1430, Thomas received the title of to the Pseudo-Sphrantzes for 12,000. Fearing despot from his brother John VIII. Two years that.Glarentza might again fall into Latin hands _ later Centurione died, and Thomas took over the from which he should not so easily recover it, barony of Arcadia. In March, 1432, Constantine Constantine is said to have destroyed the walls accepted Thomas’s castle town of Kalavryta in

of the city, famous in the annals of Frankish exchange for Glarentza, where Thomas now Greece for some historic meetings of the old took up his residence with Caterina. If Con-

high court of Achaea.!® stantine had destroyed the city walls, as the

In the meantime Thomas Palaeologus had be- Pseudo-Sphrantzes says, ‘Thomas may now have

sieged Chalandritza all through the summer of restored them. It was about this time also that 1429. In September he had finally forced Prince the Teutonic Knights lost their important fief of Centurione into a settlement which assured the Mostenitza and its dependent lands to the Palaeologi eventual possession of the sparse re- Greeks."** The Venetians still held Modon and mains of the old Franco-Navarrese principality Coron, Argos and Nauplia. The rest of the of Achaea. The prince had been obliged to Morea belonged to the Palaeologi. Theodore II, Constantine, and Thomas shared somewhat un-

107 Sathas, I, no. 124, p. 191; Valentini, Acta Albaniae easily the broad lands and bright honors of the veneta, XIII, no. 3,277, pp. 198-99, from Sen. Secreta, despotate. They had won out in the long struggle

Reg. 11, fol. 40” [41°]. with the Latins, but what would be the issue of - Sphrantzes Chron minus (PC i o 1043A; “ prec, their struggle p. with the Turks? Here their natural .Papadopoulos, ; Pseudorantzes, , onn, ed. : . : I, 67 58: ed. Grecu, p. 298); Chalco- ay might nave Deen the Venetians, with whom

condylas, bk. v (Bonn, pp. 240-41). The mid-fifteenth cy cle not get along very well, as we have

century Byzantine rhetorician John Docianus (Aoxetavés) observed, despite the fact there was little real lauds the acquisition of Patras in an encomium of Con- conflict of interest between the Venetians and stantine (Hope Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 251; Lampros, Pal. the Greek despots. Their failure to co-operate “109 Chalcocondylas, bk. v (Bonn, p. 241); Sphrantzes, had proved costly to them both, and the worst Chron. minus (PG 156, 1043A; ed. Grecu, p. 48); Pseudo- was yet to come.

Sphrantzes, II, 9 (Bonn, p. 156; ed. Papadopoulos, I, The stately registers of the Senato Secreti, 158; ed. Grecu, p. 298). Cf. Hopf, in Ersch and Gruber,

Encykl., vol. 86 (repr. II), p. 85; Gerland, Latein. Erzbistum TT Patras, pp. 66-67; Miller, Latins in the Levant, pp. 388-91; 110 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1042C; ed. Grecu, Zakythinos, Despotat grec de Morée, I, 207-9. In December, _ p. 48, lines 5-7).

1430, an ambassador of Constantine was in Venice to "1 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1043B; ed. Grecu,

effect some kind of rapprochement with the Signoria, but __p. 48, lines 34—35); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 9 (Bonn, pp. the brief entry in the Misti, Reg. 58, fol. 18%, sheds little 154, 156; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 156, 158; ed. Grecu, pp. 296, light on his mission. Archbishop Pandolfo Malatesta died 298, 300); Chalcocondylas, bk. v (Bonn, p. 242); Hopf, II,

on 17 April, 1441, in his native Pesaro, where he was 86, and on the family relationships of Centurione Zaccaria, buried (Cronaca riminese, in L. A. Muratori, ed., RISS, XV _— Chron. gréco-romanes, geneal. tables, pp. 471, 502, 536;

[Milan, 1729], col. 939C). Zakythinos, Despotat grec de Morée, I, 210.

36 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Misti (to 1440), and Mar in the Venetian Past policy had doubtless been based upon the State Archives are full of letters to the _ difficulty of recovering either stolen property or

harassed castellans of Modon and Coron its value by any due process of law at the

throughout the fifteenth century. The distance despot’s court. The castellans of Modon and between the two stations was only about fifteen Coron obviously believed that only reprisals miles, some five hours’ ride for a mounted would encourage the officials at Mistra to exertroop. Although undoubtedly more heavily cise sufficient surveillance over their unruly wooded in those days than today, the road ran subjects to see that such infractions of the

over barren hills. It was a lonely route, and peace did not occur in the first place, and

danger kept pace with every step of those who — yet justice would have obliged every informed took it. The Greeks attacked Venetian territory Venetian to agree that such surveillance was quite often; Turkish raids were less frequent but, almost impossible along lonely roads, in secluded

when they came, were more severe. Expensive valleys, and on mountain passes in various gifts to Turakhan Beg seemed about the only parts of the Morea. There is a self-righteous means of preventing such raids. The Venetians tone to many Venetian documents (common to were themselves doubtless not without some re-_ the style of every chancery whose registers sponsibility for their troubles with the Greeks. might be opened for inspection), but the VeneOn one occasion an envoy of the Despot Theo- _ tians unquestionably did make better neighbors

dore complained to the Senate that the castel- than the despot’s Greeks and Albanians. By lans of Modon and Coron confiscated the money and large the Venetians had a good record

and goods of his subjects for the pettiest throughout the Levant. On 18-20 June, 1427, thefts. If a Moreote Albanian or Greek subject for example, the Senate finally rejected on the of the despot stole an ass, a pack animal, or second ballot, by a vote of forty-seven to forty,

a horse, the castellans should seek proper the petition of one Alvise Michiel to embark redress of the grievance. In such a case there upon a career of semi-privateering against the was no reason to confiscate the property of Turks and other enemies of the Republic.'* other subjects of the despot. The complaint Under the circumstances one might well have probably sounds more reasonable to us than it expected an affirmative vote on Michiel’s prodid to the Venetians. The machinery of justice _ posal. moved very slowly then (especially Theodore’s justice), and reprisal was almost universally €M- domino bonam vicinantiam et bonum tractamentum locis

ployed as the only effective means of recover- et subditis nostris, ut dictum est, vos abstineatis pro

ing the value of stolen goods and discouraging —huiusmodi causis levibus surreptionis unius asini vel unius

the repetition of such assaults upon the property qui et similium ipsos sequestros de cetero facere, sed (and the persons) of one’s own citizens and Gebeatis amicabiliter requirere satisfactionem damni, quam subjects. In the present instance, however, the ¢& subveniatis per viam iuris uti noveritis iustum esse. . . .” Venetian Senate agreed with the despot’s re- The despot’s envoy appeared before the Senate 14-16 monstrance, and directed the castellans to cease July, ree. There is a misleading French summary of this such retaliation and hi acta Satisfaction of me I, 497-98: “Les volés devraient tout d’ abord demander €Sspo S Bove nimenn » a Cas SO- ong as ; € satisfaction. Le sénat décide de délibérer sur ce point, qu’ i maintained a neighborly attitude in more im- approuve en principe (volvatur).” The document makes it

. . poteritis, tunc damna passo provideatis ott . + ocument in Iorga, , , —60, an otes et extraits,

portant respects."’? clear that it was the castellans who were to request

satisfaction of the Greek government in the Morea, not — “les volés;” the Senate reached a definite decision; and 112 Misti, Reg. 57, fol. 133" [137°], “MCCCCXXVIIII, volvatur means to turn the page, the resolution being

die XIIII Iulii:’ “. . . Vadit pars quod ipsis nostris continued on fol. 133” [137%]! There are some hasty sum-

castellanis [Mothoni et Coroni] scribatur in hac forma: . . . _maries of documents in Iorga’s articles in the ROL and in quia . . . orator [domini dispoti Amoree] nobis exposuit the Notes et extraits, but on the whole one can only admire

quod pro omni levi re, viz., si occurrit quod per suos both his industry and his accuracy. surripiatur de territorio nostro unus asinus sive sommerius 113 Misti, Reg. 56, fols. 103’-104" [105%-106"], and cf. aut unus equus et similia, vos ad requisitionem damnificati Iorga, ROL, V, 360; Notes et extraiis, I, 460; Thiriet, sequestrari facitis denarios subditorum ipsius domini qui Régestes, II, no. 2058, p. 243. Michiel proposed to arm a reperiuntur esse in manibus subditorum nostrorum government galley at his own expense: “. . . mi offerisso locorum vobis commissorum cum magno interesseetdamno de armar una galia a tute mie spexe a danno e deeorum quorum sunt denarii taliter sequestrati super quo —struxion de Moratbei [Murad II], turcho inimigo de la amicabiliter et instanter per nos provideri requisivit cum vostra Signoria e de chi altri la vostra Signoria mi comdispositio domini sui sit quod novitates predicte cessent’ mitexe. . . .” The vote on the second ballot was: De parte omnino. Volumus vobisque mandamus quod faciente ipso 40, de non 47, non sinceri 4.

VENICE AND THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE 37 It was the Turks who created the major In the treaties which Venice had made at problem which Venice faced in the Levant. As Adrianople with Mehmed I in November, 1419,

long as the Porte remained a great military and thereafter with Murad II in September, force, neither Venice, the papacy, nor any other 1430, she had included Giovanni II Crispo,

western power ever found an answer to the duke of Naxos, and his brothers, who held “eastern question.” The chief historical irony certain fiefs in the “Archipelago” (Egeopelaof Levantine history in more modern times is gus).1!5 Although in these treaties the sultans of course that the eastern question remained to had recognized the independence of the Crispi harass the chancelleries of Europe (and Russia) as subjects of Venice (in la obediencia de when Turkish military might declined so mark- Veniexia), and exempted them from “tribute and edly in the eighteenth century, and the Christian servitude,” fear of the Turk was vastly increased

statesmen who had been so exercised for cen- after the fall of Thessalonica. Already in July, turies to destroy the Ottoman empire now 1426, when the Venetians were hard pressed in schemed to keep it alive, lest their competitors the Thermaic Gulf, the Senate had voted to allow move into the important areas which the Turks Giovanni (and his brother Niccolé) to effect a could easily have been made to vacate. But “concord with the Turks as best he can for the this is a subject which lies quite beyond the preservation of his state, provided he does not scope of this work; we deal with a period of _ bind himself to give them shelter, neither to their ever-increasing Turkish strength when not only ships nor to their forces. . . .” Pietro Zeno, the Balkan but even the Italian peninsula it- lord of Andros, was granted the same consideraself was in danger of invasion. Turkish attacks tion with the same proviso.!"6 upon Venetian territories are too numerous to Giovanni hastened to make peace with Murad, mention, especially upon the Republic’s outposts after which he abandoned the practice he had in Albania. No Venetian stronghold in the Le- hitherto pursued of lighting beacons (quedam vant was secure from such attacks. On 22 April, signalia cum igne) to warn the Venetian author1428, for example, an armed brigantine arrived ities on Negroponte every time Turkish galleys

in Venice from Modon with news of a great or fuste were sighted off the shores of his Turkish naval assault upon Negroponte. The island duchy. Presently he was assisting the

Turkish fleet was large, variously reported as Turks in one way or another (what else could he containing from forty to sixty-five galleys and do?) “to the loss of our subjects on the aforefuste. Some seven hundred Venetian subjects said island.” On 3 March, 1430, six months

were said to have been captured and carried before the Venetian peace with Murad, the off into slavery. The torch had been set to Senate voted to write Giovanni, demanding vineyards and olive groves, causing severe that he stop thus aiding and abetting the Turks losses. The Turks disembarked next at Coron in their attacks upon Negroponte. Indeed, if and Modon, where they repeated the horrors of he wished to preserve his “neighborliness and their earlier visitation at Negroponte. Now they fraternity” with Venice, he must resume the

were said to be offshore at Glarentza, pre-

paring to do even worse on their return voyage. dj , ; a dere d

This was part of Sultan armata Murad’s repayment an MS Nostris a ovo honor sitet ey pro dominio be . .allsulncientl pro honore nostri domini bona to Venice for the attempted occupation of executione agendorum nostrorum, vadit pars . . .” [etc.], Thessalonica. According to Sanudo, fifteen gal- _ provision being made for the election of a captain-general

leys were armed in the arsenal at Venice, and of the sea and two supracomiti ad Culphum, while the immediately dispatched “to go and find the said colonial government of Crete was to be directed to elect two

. 9114 ore supracomitt them with two to NegroTurkish armada. ponte. The and date send of this document andgalleys Sanudo’s date for the arrival of the brigantine from Modon with the news of

TT the Turkish attack are the same (22 April, 1428). Cf. lorga, 414 Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII (1733), col. 999DE, ROL, V, 371; Notes et extraits, 1, 471; Thiriet, Régestes,

whose account differs slightly from the contemporary re- II, no. 2084, p. 248. ports neted in Iorga, ROL, V, 371, note 1. The Turkish "5 Thomas and Predelli, Dipl. veneto-levantinum, II, nos. attack left its impress upon the Venetian documents also 172, 182, pp. 319, 345; Predelli, Regesti dei Commemoriali, (Misti, Reg. 56, fol. 182" [184™], “MCCCCXXVIII, die IV, bk. x1, no. 25, p. 16, and bk. xu, no. 140, p. 164.

XXII Aprilis in consilio C.”): “Cum propter nova que 18 Sathas, I, no. 116, p. 179; Thiriet, Régestes, Il, no. nuper habentur de potenti armata Turchi, que nuper 2026, p. 236. When Giovanni Crispo’s only galley burned, descendit ad partes insule Nigropontis, pro defensione et the Senate replaced it with another, requiring him to pay conservatione dicte insule et civitatis nostre Salonichi et for it over a period of five years (Sathas, III, no. 890, aliarum terrarum et locorum nostrorum Levantis et proaliis _p. 304).

38 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT wholesome practice of lighting the beacons to first appearance. in history.1!® The Hexamilion warn of the approach of the Turks.’ But he was partially rebuilt, but he came back in 1431, doubtless did not dare to do so, and asno more demolishing it again.”° Thenceforth, for almost warning fires were lighted along his shores, the four centuries the presence of the Turk was to lights burned longer into the night in the ducal _ be the dominant political fact in the Morea. For palace in Venice, where the Senate gathered another thirty years the Greeks were to exercise

almost daily to decide upon their next move some effort, to be sure, to maintain the sem-

against the Turks. blance if not the substance of independence,

In the meantime the Moreote Greeks had been and indeed under Constantine Dragases Palaefaring less well than the Venetians in Negro- ologus they were to make more than one effort ponte. The ambitions of the Palaeologi in the — to throw off fear of the Turk and even seek to distant peninsula had excited, for some years, extend their dominion northward into con-

the hostile attention of the pashas who gathered _ tinental Greece. The advantage lay increasingly at the sultan’s palace set amid the poplar trees’ with the Turks, however, as their pace of conat Adrianople. Fight years after the erection of | quest quickened, and success was in almost conthe Hexamilion, the Turkish warrior Turakhan _ stant attendance upon their arms. Beg, son of the well-known pasha Yigit Beg, had

destroyed it on 21—22 May, 1423, after which 956) and Chron. 5 4 31114931 (B 518 he made the terrible raid into the Morea to 256) and Chron. breve, ad ann. 6931 [1423] (Bonn, p. 518),

. which dates the defeat of the Albanians on 5 June.

which we have already alluded. He ravaged the — sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII, cols. 970B, 975B, 978E,

land, and attacked the cities of Mistra, Leondari, says that from the year 1424 the Byzantine government Gardiki, and Tabia.!!8 This was Turakhan Beg’s paid the Porte an annual tribute of 100,000 hyperpyri for the Morea. There seems to be a reference to Turakhan’s

—_ razzia in J. A. C. Buchon, Nouvelles Recherches historiques, 17 Misti, Reg. 57, fol. 200" [204%]; Sathas, III, no. 960, II (Paris, 1845), Florence: doc. Liv, p. 272, and see R. J.

p. 372; Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XIV, no. 3,330, p. 43; Loenertz, “La Chronique bréve moréote de 1423,” Mélanges

Thiriet, Régestes, II, no. 2184, p. 271. Eugene Tisserant, If (Citta del Vaticano, 1964), 434-35 (Studi 118 An undated Venetian report of late May or early June, _e testi, no. 232).

1423, fixes the date of Turakhan Beg’s assault upon the 19 Cf. Franz Babinger, “Turakhan-Beg,” in the EncycloHexamilion (lorga, ROL, V, 136; Notes et extratis, I, 335): paedia of Islam, 1V (1924-34), 876-78. Turakhan Beg is now

“, . . videlicet quod die XXI mensis Maii exercitus Teu- known to have been the son of the pasha Yigit Beg, who crorum, cuius est capitaneus quidam Turacham-bey, cum captured Usktib (Skoplje) in January, 1392, apparently decem M. equitibus, se presentavit ad muros Eximilli et while he was governor of part of Bosnia; the grand vizir

repertis illis destitutis omni custodia et defensione ... Ishak Beg was also a son of Yigit Beg, and so the

dicti Teucri sine aliquo strepitu intraverunt, incipientes brother of Turakhan. Cf. Gli§a Elezovic, Turski spomenici statim ruinare et destruere dictos muros .. . ,” etc. Tabia uu Skoplju [Turkish Remains in Skoplje], Skoplje, 1927 (cited (or Dabia) had already been sacked five years before by by Babinger), and N. lorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1 the Navarrese under Prince Centurione Zaccaria in the war (1908), 382-83. with the Palaeologi (Chron. breve, ad ann. 6926 [1418], 120 Chalcocondylas, bk. vi (Bonn, p. 283), and ¢f. Iorga, appended to Ducas, Hist. byzantina [Bonn, p. 517]). On the — Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 409; Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 9

history of Tabia, note Sp. P. Lampros, in the Byz. Zeitschr., (Bonn, p. 157, lines 18—20; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 159,

VII (1898), 311-15, and in Greek in Lampros’ Mexrai lines 9-12; ed. Grecu, p. 300, lines 25-27), who refers to

Ledides, Athens, 1905, pp. 448—56. the plague in Patras, which the Chron. breve, ad ann.

Although Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1030BC; ed. 6939 [1431] (Bonn, p. 518), identifies as the ninth pestilence Grecu, p. 16), gives only a brief notice of the destruction since the Black Death in 1348, there having been visitations

of the Hexamilion, he says that “Turakhan ... killed of the plague in 1348, 1361-2, 1373-4, 1381-2, 1391-2, many of the Albanitae;” Chalcocondylas, bk. v (Bonn, pp. 1398-9, 1409-10, 1417-8, 1422-3, and 1431, all in the 238-39; ed. Darko, II-1, 16-17), also describes Turakhan’s Morea (ef. Sp. P. Lampros and K. I. Amantos, eds., defeat of the Albanians who attacked him as he was with- Bpayéa Xpovixa, Athens, 1932-33, pp. 36, 46-47, and esp. drawing from the Morea. Cf. Pseudo-Sphrantzes, I, 31 [40] _ Loenertz, “La Chronique bréve moréote,” Mélanges Eugéne (Bonn, pp. 117-18; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 121; ed. Grecu, = Tisserant, IH, 415-36).

2. MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV, CONSTANCE AND FERRARAFLORENCE, OPPOSITION TO MURAD II QO‘ MONDAY, 5 NOVEMBER, 1414, the Leaving Constance in May, 1418, Martin spent Council of Constance opened with a pro- some time in Geneva, Milan, Mantua, Ferrara, cession and a solemn high mass in the cathedral and finally in Florence, where the hostility of overlooking the western shores of the Bodensee. Braccio da Montone, a soldier of fortune who Its purpose was to end forty years of schismatic was all-powerful in Umbria, obliged him to strife, effect the suppression of heresy, and bring remain for almost two years. Until he made a about reform of the Church “in head and _ short-lived peace with Braccio, and the Neapol-

members.” Quite as notable as the Fourth itan troops of Joanna II had been cleared out

Lateran Council of 1215, it was an assembly of of Rome, Martin. had to delay his return to the

momentous importance. After three years of city. He finally made a memorable entrance

work and wrangling, setting aside the threecom- into Rome at the end of September, 1420. As peting popes (John XXIII, Gregory XII, and he began the decade of his rule and residence

Benedict XIII) and suppressing some of the in and about Rome (he died on 20 February, hostilities which divided them, twenty-three 1431), Martin had too many Italian and European cardinals and the thirty “co-electors” representing problems to worry about, to allow him much

the five “nations” at Constance entered the time or money for the affairs of the East. Few conclave in the Kaufhaus or Merchants’ Hall popes have begun their reigns with so much to during the evening of 8 November, 1417. In do and with so many obstacles in the way. The

the early morning hours of the eleventh (it years at Avignon and the Great Schism had

was S. Martin’s day) Oddone Colonna, cardinal wrought havoc both in the Church and in Rome.

deacon of S. Giorgio in Velabro, emerged as_ Martin had to begin rebuilding a city from the

pope. He took the name Martin V.’ lawless shambles into which Rome had declined, ee restoring the dilapidated and impoverished 1 Martin V described his election, which took place “hora churches, reforming the College of Cardinals

in a letter to the officials and citizens of Viterbo an oe . .

quasi decima” (between three and four AM. in November); and attending to the local clergy, regaining the Corneto (Augustin Theiner, ed., Codex diplomaticus domini recognition of papal suzerainty in the states of temporalis Sanctae Sedis, 3 vols., Rome, 1861-62, repr. —-————— Frankfurt am Main, 1964, III, doc. no. ctu, pp. 219-20, Wolfgang Miller, eds., Das Konzil von Konstanz: Beitrige dated 11 November, and cf. Ludwig von Pastor, Geschichte zu seiner Geschichte und Theologie, Freiburg im Breisgau,

der Papste, | [repr. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1955], 219, note). 1964; and Theodor Mayer, ed., Die Welt zur Zeit des The chief collections of sources for the Council of Constance Konstanzer Konzils, Constance and Stuttgart, 1965 (in the

are those of Hermann von der Hardt, ed., Magnum Vortrage und Forschungen des Konstanzer Arbeitskreises

oecumenicum Constantiense concilium [with alterations of fiir mittelalterliche Geschichte, vol. IX). On Martin V’s

title in successive volumes], 6 vols., Frankfurt and election, note K. A. Fink in Franzen and Miiller, Konzil Leipzig, 1697-1700, with a seventh (index) volume by _ v. Konstanz, pp. 138-51; on the expenses incurred at his Georg C. Bohnstedt, Berlin, 1742; J. D. Mansi, ed., election and coronation and during the first months of his

Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, vols. pontificate, see Fink, “Zum Finanzwesen des Konstanzer XXVII-XXVIII (Venice, 1784-85, repr. Paris, 1903); and = Konzils,” in the Festschrift fiir Hermann Heimpel, UI Heinrich Finke, ed., Acta concilii Constanciensis, 4 vols., (G6ttingen, 1972), 727—51. Selections from three important

Munster in W., 1896-1928. literary sources relating to the Council have been translated On the history and background of the Council, see into English by the late Louise Ropes Loomis, The Council

especially H. Finke, Forschungen und Quellen zur Geschichte of Constance, eds. J. H. Mundy and K. M. Woody, New des Konstanzer Konzils, Paderborn, 1889; Chas.-Jos. York and London, 1961 (Records of Civilization, Columbia Hefele, Jos. Hergenroether, H. Leclercq, et al., Histoire University, no. LXIII)—i.e., selections from the Chronicle des conciles d’apres les documents originaux, 11 vols. in of Ulrich von Richental, a burgher of Constance, the diary

21 parts, Paris, 1907-1952, VII, pt. 1 (1916), whose of Cardinal Guillaume Fillastre, and the “Journal” of Jacopo treatment of Constance is largely concerned with the Cerretano. A summary of Cerretano’s journal is now avail-

condemnation of the heretical doctrines of John Wyclif and able in P. Glorieux, Le Concile de Constance au jour le jour,

the executions of John Hus and Jerome of Prague, with Tournai, 1964. The texts of the most important decrees and

almost no attention to the Greek missions to Constance canons of the Council [and in fact of all twenty-one (op. cit., pp. 215, 504-5); Noél Valois, La France et le oecumenical councils from Nicaea in 325 to the Second Grand Schisme d’Occident, 4 vols., Paris, 1896—1902, Vatican Council in 1962-1965] may be found.in the repr. Hildesheim, 1967, IV, 262—436, who also has little Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, eds. Jos. Alberigo interest in the Greeks at Constance; August Franzen and et al., 3rd ed., Bologna, 1973, pp. 403-51.

39

40 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT the Church, and frustrating the conciliarists at A Byzantine mission to the Council of the Council of Pavia-Siena (1423—1424).? It was Constance, headed by the influential diplomat necessary to combat the anti-papal sentiment Nicholas Eudaimonoioannes, had been present and legislation in Aragon-Catalonia, France, at Constance since March, 1416.2 The Greeks England, Germany, and elsewhere, the pope’s had declined, however, to discuss church union severest struggles being with King Alfonso V_ until schism had been eliminated from the Latin

of Aragon and Count Jean d’Armagnac. Even Church. It has indeed been suggested that to if the pope had not had so much to do in Italy, some extent Martin V owed his election to the Europe was in no position and no mood to Greeks, who did not conceal’ their impatience support an anti-Turkish crusade. The English with the slow pace of the conciliar proceedings. were fighting the French, the Spaniards were Martin was especially taken with the unionist fighting the Moors, and the Germans were assurances of Eudaimonoioannes, and on 6

fighting the Hussites. April, 1418, before the dissolution of the Council, he had written the six sons of the

. . Emperor Manuel II, expressing the bitterness Theiner, Codex diplomaticus, II, nos. CLII—CCXLVI, of heart which the devastation of the Greek

pp. 220-301, publishes more than ninety documents rld had d hi d ti h of

relating to the pope’s problems in Italy. On the struggle wo nad Causec Mit, and granting each oO to reassert papal control over the cities of Rome and the princes the right of Marrying (should any Bologna, the March of Ancona, Umbria and the Romagna, choose to do so) women of the Latin faith, the Patrimonium S. Petri in Tuscia, and the duchy of provided the latter were allowed to remain in Spoleto, especially against the enterprising condottiere ,)]] possession of their faith and in obedience Braccio da Montone, see Peter Partner, The Papal State he “ R . lis Ecclesia.” under Martin V: The Administration and Government of to the ‘sancta Komana et universalis Ecclesia. the Temporal Power in the Early Fifteenth Century, London, 1958, esp. pp. 42—94, and on the background of events in = =§©=————————

the first two decades of the century, note Karl Dieterle, 5 Before the opening of the Council, John XXIII was said to “Die Stellung Neapels und der grossen italienischen be eagertosee every effort expended to effect the union of the Kommunen zum Konstanzer Konzil,’ Romische Quartal- churches. He also hoped to see a crusade organized when schrift, XXIX (1915), 3-21, 45-72 (with some attention to the Council had done its work, in which connection King

the Turkish peril, pp. 56-58), whose study seems to be Sigismund wrote Henry IV of England some time after

unfinished. For Martin’s correspondence from 1418 (or 12 March, 1412, “[speravimus] quod ecclesia Greca reconrather almost entirely from 1421) to 1430, see K. A. Fink, _ siliaretur et reuniretur Romane ecclesie sacrosancte, quoniam

“Die politische Korrespondenz Martins V. nach den_ et sanctissimus dominus noster dominus Johannes papa Brevenregistern,” Quellen und Forschungen aus italien- vicesimus tertius libenter videret quod passagium fieret ad ischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, XXVI (1935-36), 172-244. terram sanctam post concilii celebrationem” (Finke, Acta On the Council of Pavia-Siena, see Hefele and Leclercq, conciliit Constanciensis, I [1896], 91).

Hist. des conciles, VII-1 (1916), 610—45; Noél Valois, Le The University of Paris wanted the Greeks to send Pape et le concile, 2 vols., Paris, 1909, I, 1-93; and ‘“solempnes ambasiatores” to the Council, to which John especially Walter Brandmuller, Das Konzil von Pavia- XXIII readily agreed (Acta, I, 156), and for which Siena, 1423 -1424, 2 vols., Minster, 1968-74, of which the Sigismund constantly pressed, because ecclesiastical union

second volume contains the (Latin) texts of conciliar was going to be the prelude to a great crusade (zbid., I, decrees, papal letters, sermons, and the “protocol” or 233-37, 391-401)—“eo ferventiores etiam ceteri principes proceedings of the Council by Guillermo Agramunt. catholici redderentur,” as Sigismund wrote the Emperor After another break with Martin V, Braccio da Montone Manuel II in May or June, 1411, “ad succurrendum vobis lost the bloody battle of L’Aquila (on 2 June, 1424), was eoque libentius et cum maiori sinceritatis zelo contra Turcos severely wounded, and died on 5 June (see the detailed study —_ vos utique adiuvarent” (I, 394). Although a crusade would

of Roberto Valentini, “Lo Stato di Braccio e la guerra be almost impossible without the co-operation of Venice, aquilana nella politica di Martino V [1421-1424],” Archivio | Sigismund’s hatred of the Republic was such that in the della R. Societa romana di storia patria, LILI [1929], spring of 1412 he offered Manuel his assistance to enable the 223-379, with thirty-four documents from the Vatican Greeks to recover Modon and Coron (I, 398). Quite clearly, Archives, and cf. Partner, op. cit., pp. 74-79). Martin was whatever result the negotium unionis might achieve, it was thus rid of his most obstreperous enemy in Italy. The not going to be a crusade. If the enmity between Venice defense of L’Aquila against Braccio was celebrated in a and Sigismund was not enough to prevent the launching vernacular epic, written shortly after his death (ed. R. of an anti-Turkish expedition, the renewal of warfare beValentini, Cantari sulla guerra aquilana di Braccio, di tween France and England (in 1415) certainly was. anonimo contemporaneo, Fonti per la Storia d'Italia, Rome, *Georg Hofmann, ed., Epistolae pontificiae ad Concilium 1935), in which he and his followers were assailed as “worse _Florentinum spectantes, 3 pts., Rome, 1940-46, I, doc. no. 2,

than the Saracens,” myno che Sarracyny (ibid., Cant. vil, pp. 4-5 (Concilium Florentinum, Documenta et scriptores, 15, p. 136). Martin V is very sympathetically presented as _ ser. A, vol. I); Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1418, no. 17, vol.

fighting for the liberty of the Aquilani as well as for the XVIII (Cologne, 1694), pp. 10-11: “Martinus, etc., dilectis freedom of the Church (e.g., zbid., Cant. v, 35 ff., pp. 105 ff.). _filiis nobilibus viris, Ioanni, ‘Theodoro, Andronico, Constantino,

Florence, under the Albizzi, generally resisted Martin’s Demetrio, et Thomae, filiis carissimi in Christo filii Manuelis

efforts. imperatoris Constantinopolitani illustris, salutem,” etc.

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 4] And thus the way was prepared for the unhappy At the same time, perhaps, Pope Martin marriages of Sophia of Montferrat to John VIII addressed an encyclical to all grades of the and of Cleopa Malatesta to Theodore II, the Catholic clergy (from Florence on 12 July, 1420),

despot of Mistra. extolling the crusade against the Turks and The Greek envoys to Constance may have depicting its spiritual rewards, for the especial received insufficiently precise instructions. Very benefit of Sigismund, king of the Romans and likely, however, they went beyond the terms of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, and Croatia.’ of their commission. They clearly created the The following month, on 21 August, he notified impression that, when the western schism had __ the archbishops and clergy of the three German ended, the larger division of Christendom would _ electoral provinces of Cologne, Mainz, and ‘Trier

also cease. When the integrity of the Holy See that he had appointed Pedro Fonseca, the had been restored, the Byzantine Church would Portuguese cardinal deacon of S. Angelo, as

submit to the papacy. The delegates of the papal legate to Byzantium. The Emperor University of Cologne wrote home from Con- Manuel and the Patriarch Joseph IJ had re-

stance in late March, 1416, that quested the legation. Declaring that the papal the ambassadors of Manuel, the emperor of Con- ee was Soy a trun, assessed f. ach ° tthe stantinople, have just arrived here, dilating on the three provinces 0, gol ors or t c CXdistress which [the Greeks] are suffering at the PCMSes of Fonseca’s MISSION, pro reductione

hands of the Turks and seeking the assistance of Grecorum ... ad unitatem et obedientiam Christ’s faithful, giving [us all] the assurance that .. . Romane Ecclesie.”*

with the mediation of our king [Sigismund] it may well come about that the Greeks themselves will * Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1420, no. 26, vol. XVIII, conform to the Roman Church in their rites and pp. 30-31, “datum Florentie, IV Idus Iulii, [pontificatus

articles of faith. nostri] anno III.” On 6 March, 1418, the Venetians had or sent an embassy to the newly elected pope at Constance

Although the Greeks had always insisted upon tg encourage his efforts to make peace between them and the acceptance of church union by an oecumen- the Emperor Sigismund and to inform his Holiness in some ical council, officials at the Curia remained detail of the Republic’s needs and expectations in Greece,

hopeful of progress, as negotiations with Dalmatia, and elsewhere (Ljubi¢c, Listine, VII [1882],

Constantin Ep Ot: 1d d 8 1419 q 243-55, 257, 258-59, 265-66, 268 ff.) opte conunue uring an 8 Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 353 [Martinus V de

1420. According to Sylvester Syropoulos, Martin Curia, anno III-IV, liber III], fols. 19°, 21", and cf. fols. Vv granted the crusading indulgence to Latin 21'-22', partially given in Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann.

Catholics who would go into the tle 108 Topontificatus hr rane pp.nostri 31-32, datum “1 . Morea orentie and al. Septembris, anno IIT,” bY once k t “We cevene the Hexamvion age and now published in full by Hofmann, Epistolae pontificiae

the ue € also says that no Latins chose ad Concilium Florentinum spectantes [hereafter cited as to do so. Epistolae pontificiae], pt. 1, nos. 11-13, pp. 7-10. The

————- diocese of Liége was also assessed 4,000 florins to help pay (Martin’s letter names the six imperial brothers inthe order for Fonseca’s proposed mission to Constantinople (zbid.,

of their birth.) Martin was also attentive to Polish, pt. 1, no. 14, p. 11). An interesting register in the Vatican Russian, and Lithuanian affairs (zbid., nos. 18-20, pp.11—12, Archives (Reg. Vat. 347), containing selections from the

and cf. O. Halecki, “La Pologne et l’empire byzantin,” correspondence of several popes (especially of Urban VI) Byzantion, VIL [1932], 52-54). On the Byzantine missions _ gives a list of all the cardinals as of late November, 1420 to the Council of Constance, note also Franz Délger and (fol. 1", unnumbered), the name of “Petrus Sancti Angeli” Peter Wirth, eds., Regesten der Katserurkunden des being scratched out with the notation “mortuus” when he ostromischen Reiches, pt. 5 (Munich and Berlin, 1965), died at Vicovaro on 21 August, 1422. Pedro Fonseca had esp. nos. 3345, 3354-55, 3369, 3372, 3374, pp. 100 ff. been made a cardinal by Benedict XIII on 14 December, 5 Edm. Marténe and Urs. Durand, eds., Thesaurus novus 1412 (Conrad Eubel, WHierarchia catholica medi aevi, anecdotorum, II (Paris, 1717, repr. New York, 1968), col. 1 [1913, repr. 1960], 30, and II, 5). 1661. The letter is dated “on the morrow of the Annunciation Fonseca’s appointment to the Byzantine legation is dated

of the Blessed Mary” [25 March, 1416]. 27 March, 1420 (Eubel, II, 5, note 11). Relevant letters of °Vitalien Laurent, ed. and trans., Les “Mémoires” du Martin V are to be found in Reg. Vat. 353, fols. 9'~11Y, Grand Ecclésiarque de UEglise de Constantinople Sylvestre 23'-24", addressed: “Dilecto filio Petro Sancti Angeli Syropoulos sur le concile de Florence (1438-1439), Rome, diacono Sancte Romane Ecclesie cardinali in Constan-

1971, sect. II, chaps. 5-6, pp. 104, 106, 108 (Conc. tinopolitano imperio et nonnullis aliis partibus apostolice

Florentinum, Documenta et scriptores, ser. B, vol. IX). sedis legato.” The first is dated at Florence on 10 April, 1420 Laurent’s long-awaited edition of Syropoulus, needlesstosay, (“datum Florentie IIII Idus Aprilis, pontificatus nostri anno

renders obsolete the work of Robert Creyghton, ed. and _ tertio”), and the second on 26 August, 1420 (“datum trans., Vera historia unionis non verae inter graecos et Florentie VII Kal. Septembris, pont. nostri anno tertio”). latinos sive Concilii Florentinit exactissima narratio, graecé Martin was much more concerned, however, about the scripta per Sylvestrum Sguropulum ... , The Hague, 1660. affairs of Pedro de Luna “contra prefatum perdicionis

42 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT During the great Turkish perilin the summer to the palace of Blachernae on the sixteenth, of 1422, when Sultan Murad II laid siege to Antonio was received by Manuel, to whom he

Constantinople, the Curia Romana bestirred presented his letters of credence. He was

itself on the Greeks’ behalf. Pope Martin V wrote scheduled to set forth in detail the purpose of

the Emperor Manuel from Rome on 8 October his mission on 3 October, but by that time (1422) that he had addressed appeals to the Manuel had suffered a paralytic stroke, which Hospitallers, Venetians, Genoese, and Duke caused him to lose both the power of speech and Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan to send aid to the use of his limbs.'° Two weeks later (on the the beleaguered city, indicating also that the fifteenth) Antonio was granted a private audi-

surest road to safety from the Turks as well ence with the “young emperor” John VIII, to as from the dangers of schism lay through whom he presented nine arguments, observa-

reunion with the Roman Church. Martin had _ tions, or “conclusions” relating to the hoped-for already nominated the Minorite friar Antonio union of the churches. John said that Antonio da Massa as apostolic nuncio to Constantinople might expect his answer within a few days. On

(on 15 June, 1422) to lay the groundwork for 19 October the Patriarch Joseph II received the general council which (Martin apparently Antonio into the presence of the Holy Synod, believed) was going to declare the union of the probably in Hagia Sophia, and received him

churches.?® again the following day in the Church of S. Fra Antonio da Massa arrived at Galata with Stephen, where Antonio once more advanced

a half-dozen fellow Franciscans on 10 September, _ his nine “conclusions” before a public gathering

a mere four days after the conclusion of the of bishops, monks, priests, and laymen both Turkish siege. Conducted by the Venetian bailie Greek and Latin. Like the emperor, the patriarch

——-—____ promised his response “within a few days.”"

filium Petrum de Luna, Benedictum XIII in eius dudum As befitted an apostolic nuncio, Fra Antonio

obediencia nuncupatum, hereticum et scismaticum” (fol. 9°), made his prima conclusio a statement of Pope

than aboutprimary conditions in the Consequently, although Martin’ desire helm}tor des; ¢ . ato Fonseca’s mission wasLevant. supposed to be “pro artin s overwhelming union,

reductione Grecorum et Orientalium” (ibid., fols. 203", Celebrate this paschal feast of union, communion, 204”), by the letter of 10 April Martin sent him to Spain and peace . . . together with you Greeks.” His

“ad prosternendam audaciam temerariam ac damnatam second “conclusion” was that evils without

perfidiam ipsorum Petri de Luna ac fautorum -.. et Humber had come about as a result of the sequacium ipsius hereticorum ac Benedict; schismaticorum. . . .”4ItNehjGreeks Th kshad hadsuffere suffered or; IOSSES was well for Fonseca to try to deal with after SC7#SM. grievous

all, it was Benedict who had given him the red hat. Cf. of dominion, wealth, and population. They were Raynaldus, ad ann. 1420, no. 2, where the date “pontificatus even then being crushed by the enemies of the nostri anno II” is a typographical error for “anno III.” cross. Unless the schism was brought to an end, his return from Spain, Fonseca found that conditions . the Tatars and Turks would lord it over them inUpon Constantinople made a formal legation no longer appropri- € SW © ate. The Greeks wanted a council, and someone of less all; they would have to renounce the gospel of exalted rank than a cardinal would have to try toarrangethe Christ and become the slaves of Mohammed. hundred preliminary details with them. By September, 1421, As his third point Antonio insisted upon the clear Fonseca’s eastern mission had once more been postponed, and categorical assurances made to Martin V

and a papal letter now identifies him as legate in Naples, the by the Domini friar Theod Ch b “kingdom of Sicily” (Reg. Vat. 353, fols. 249°-251", y the Vominican Iriar codore UNrysoberses, “datum Rome apud Sanctam Mariam Maiorem undecimo 4 Greek convert to Catholicism and bishop of Kal. Octobris, pontificatus nostri anno quarto”). Cf. ibid. Olena in the Morea,” and by the lord Nicholas fols. 268'—-274’, 275-276", docs. also dated 21 September,

1421. On the whole the extant letters of Martin are of only —§ —————————

secondary importance for the history of eastern affairs. According to Sphrantzes, Chron. minus, 1x, 2, in PG ® Hofmann, ed., Epistolae pontificiae, 1, nos. 15-17, 156, 1030A, and ed. Grecu (1966), p. 14, “on the sixth day of pp. 11-14. Martin V’s letter of 8 October, 1422 (inc. “Iam the month of September in the year 6931 [i.e., 1422, Murad] pridem audiebamus”), is published by Hofmann, zbid.,no.17, left the City . . . without having accomplished anything.”

pp. 12-14, from the text of Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad He also dates Manuel’s stroke to 1 October (1422). ann. 1422, no. 2. The letter may be found in the Arch. " Relatio de ambaxiata facta ad Graecos, in J. D. Mansi, Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 5, fols. 168’-170", by ed., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, mod. stamped enumeration. It bears the date “datum Rome XXVIII (Venice, 1785, repr. Paris, 1903), cols. 1063-64. apud S. Marcum XVIII Idus [sic!] Octobris, anno quinto,” ” According to Jacopo Cerretano, Liber gestorum, ed. which is lacking in Arm. XXXIX, tom. 6, fols. 50-51", the —_‘ Finke, Acta, II (1923), 266, 268, Andreas Lascary Goslawicki,

text transcribed by Raynaldus (see above, Chapter 1, bishop of Poznan (cf. C. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, 1 (1913, note 42). Another undated copy of this brief may be found _ repr. 1960], 408), spoke approvingly of “Frater Theodorus in Arm. XXXIX, tom. 4, fols. 120'-122*’, by mod. stamped _ ordinis Predicatorum in greco et sacris scripturis eruditus”

enumeration. in a sermon given in the cathedral of Constance “on

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 43 Eudaimonoioannes, the Byzantine envoy to _ the savage war of the Turks and because of their the Curia Romana, “that it was the wish of the passage from Asia to Greece.” And in Conmost reverend patriarch of Constantinople and _ stantinople there was still no sign of preparation

of the most serene emperor of the Greeks for the council. Obviously the legate could not [Romani | to effect and secure without deceit come under these circumstances.

or guile the most sacred union of the Greek with Antonio’s sixth point concerned himself. The

the Latin Church in that faith which the Holy pope had sent him as nuntius apostolicus to Roman Church holds and in obedience to the help pave the way for a council with full Greek

said Church of Rome.” representation, for the sad experience of Lyon

In his fourth observation Antonio dwelt on must not be repeated. In his so-called eighth Martin’s prompt appointment of Cardinal Pedro “conclusion” Antonio promised the assistance

Fonseca as papal legate to Constantinople of the kings of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal

because of Chrysoberges’ and Eudaimonoioannes’ if the Greeks embraced the union with sincerity

“promissa tam mirifica.” Fonseca’s arrival on of word and deed. Glib and _ self-assured,

the Bosporus had, to be sure, been delayed by Antonio did not make a very favorable imprescertain needs of the Church in Spain, whither sion upon the Greeks. His nine points possess he had gone, however, with the knowledge and no little historical interest for us, but they are approval of Eudaimonoioannes. Fonseca’s ap- repetitious and poorly developed. It is most

pointment had not come at a good time for unlikely that they were prepared in the papal

a voyage to Greece (TO6TE yap ovK HY Kaipos chancery or the Camera. The Greek version was emiTnoetos Tou mhéeww mpos THY ‘EAAaS6a). presumably hammered out in the Catholic

Furthermore, the necessary arrangements had convents of Galata.

not yet been made for holding the proposed With rigid courtesy the Patriarch Joseph II

council in Constantinople, and the Greeks had answered Antonio da Massa’s nine contentions,

made it clear that there could be no union’ one by one and at some length. He denied

without the council. Unfortunately a grave absolutely that Eudaimonoioannes’ commission illness had also detained Fonseca in Spain. But ‘had ever included any assurance that the Greek

when he was getting ready for the voyage to Church would submit to the disciplinary or Greece (says Antonio in his quinta conclusio) theological dictates of the Church of Rome. If Theodore Chrysoberges and many other per- Eudaimonoioannes ever gave the pope the sons had written that no assembly of Greek assurances which Antonio had just recounted, prelates was possible at the time “because of it was plain and simple calumny (ovKogartia aoapyns) of the Greek patriarchate and the Wednesday, 13 December, in the year 1415” [which date cpuren. es eed, every , - to th vos Ro of tre fell on a Friday, but no matter]. A letter of King Ladislas ure oO onstantinople to u at 0 ome, the of Poland, dated 29 August, 1415, recommends to the patriarch declared, had always insisted upon the Council in the highest terms “dominus frater Theodorus necessity of a truly oecumenical council to deal Constantinopolitanus vicarius generalis societatis ordinis with the thorny problem of church union. Such . . Predicatorum, vir catholicusperitus et devotus,inprout sua opera a councilydeomatibus would not be an asse manifeste ostendunt, greco, tartarico oormbly / pro forma et latino, ex litteris multorum principum christiane fidei to confirm the objectives of the Latin Church. nobis multipliciter commendatus . . .” (Finke, Acta, UI Disappointed by the patriarch’s response, An-

[1926], 281). tonio was certainly taken aback by that of the

There were three brothers Chrysoberges, all converts to emperor.” Andreas. The first was not active in the unionist negotiations = ~~~ of their time; Theodore and Andreas were, on which see ‘8 On Antonio da Massa’s mission to Constantinople, with especially R. J. Loenertz, “Les Dominicains byzantins the Greek and Latin texts of the pope’s “nine articles,” Théodore et André Chrysobergés et les négociations pour see Vitalien Laurent, “Les Préliminaires du concile de union des Eglises grecque et latine de 1415 a 1430,” Florence: Les Neuf Articles du pape Martin V et la réponse Catholicism and all Dominicans, Maximus, Theodore, and

Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1X (1939), 5-61. Theodore _ inédite du patriarche de Constantinople Joseph II (Octobre

died in or shortly before 1429 (ibid., p. 47), and Andreas 1422),” in the Revue des études byzantines, XX (1962), about 1451, at which time he had been archbishop of Nicosia 5-60, with refs. Note also Syropoulos, Mémoires, I1, 10-11,

in Cyprus for about four years (ibid., p. 8, and C. Eubel, ed. Laurent (1971), p. 112; Joseph Gill, The Council of Hierarchia catholica, 11 [1914, repr. 1960], 202). Note also Florence, Cambridge, 1959, pp. 31-36, and Personalities of

M. H. Laurent, “L’Activité d’André Chrysobergés, O. P., the Council of Florence, Oxford, 1964, pp. 233-35; and sous le pontificat de Martin V (1418-1431),” Echos J. W. Barker, Manuel IIT Palaeologus, New Brunswick, @Onrent, XXXIV (1935), 414-38, and esp. Jean Darrouzés, N.J., 1969, pp. 327-29. Antonio da Massa presented a report

in the Arch. FF. Praed., XX1¥ (1951), 301-5. of his mission to the Council of Siena on 8 November, 1423.

44 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT On Saturday, 14 November (1422), after tions. Some seven months or more after the further discussion with his advisers, John VIII conclusion of the Council of Constance, which replied to Pope Martin’s proposals. Although he was dissolved on 22 April, 1418, a Venetian had been informed, as John wrote the pope, ambassador was directed to remind Martin that that Nicholas Eudaimonoioannes and Bishop _ granting bishoprics and prelacies in commendam

Theodore of Olena had declared (at the Curia was a pernicious practice which should be Romana) that the Byzantine government wanted halted. The Republic had long observed the to see ecclesiastical union achieved secundum results in its possessions in Greece and the Ecclesiam Romanam, John denied that he or his islands. If bishops did not reside in their sees father had ever given Nicholas and Theodore and make clear the error of schism and provide authority to make any such statement. He had instruction in the Latin faith, the schism would always intended that the question of church soon embrace everyone in the Latin Levant (and

union should be dealt with by a general the Venetian hold upon Coron, Modon, Negrocouncil to be held in the hallowed tradition of ponte, and the islands would become more the sancta septem universalia concilia. The council difficult to maintain). It often happened that,

must be held at Constantinople, for John could owing to the absence of bishops and other not leave his capital in the then foreseeable prelates, Catholics died and were buried with future. All the Greek patriarchs and bishops Greek rites. Others were baptized by Greek must be in attendance at the council, for which _ priests. His Holiness must not allow the continu-

the papacy must pay the expenses. The imperial ance of this tragic neglect, but must strive to

treasury was exhausted. John wished that the see that Christianity increased rather than

council might meet immediately (hodie), but it decreased in the lands overseas. was unfortunately not possible, propter guerras The Venetians were more worried about the infidelium, to bring together the bishops either expansion of the Turks, however, than about

from Asia Minor or from Europe. When peace the extension of schismatic rites in their had been re-established, and some stability territories. As usual, the Italian states were introduced into imperial affairs, John would lacking in enthusiasm for a crusade, but in notify the pope promptly, and then the first March, 1423, Martin V sent the ever-ready steps might be taken toward assembling the Antonio da Massa to Venice, appealing for aid council. In the meantime he asked Martin for to be sent to the Bosporus “to rescue and defend an armed force to help defend his territories, the city of Constantinople, lest it should fall into

and requested the promulgation of a bull of the hands of the infidel Turks.” Fra Antonio

excommunicatio generalis, terribilis et insolubilis could inform the Senate in detail concerning against Latins who collaborated with the Turks conditions in the Byzantine capital, and he or who failed to help the Greeks defend them- evoked a good response from the Venetians. selves. Martin should send to Constantinople They expressed high praise for Martin’s concern a cardinal with full authority to act, atthe same with Byzantine affairs, which they urged him time presumably as he sent the men-at-arms, and __ not to relax, so that the Christian world might the unionis opus might begin from the very day of the cardinal’s arrival on the Bosporus." 45 Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Sen. Secreta, Reg. 7, fol. 50°, Although Martin V seems not to have been dated 29 November, 1418, from the commission issued in the offended at the emperor’s rather brusque reply, name of the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo to Lorenzo Bragadin, he was impeded in his desire to assist the Greeks who was being sent as the Venetian ambassador to Martin V:

by lack of funds. But Curia Romana In facto autem commendarum funtet et insulis dantur et . . the . specialiter deregarded episcopatibus existentibus in que locis the Greeks as schismatics, and the schism had postris partium Grecie similiter debeas iustificare rationes et political and social as well as religious implica- causam nostri dominii et precipue quia si episcopi earum ibi non residebunt, qui convincant sci{fs]ma Grecorum et

—_—_———— instruant in recta fide catolica, illud sci[s}ma in tantum 14Georg Hofmann, ed., Orientalium documenta minora, multiplicabitur quod omnes deinde fient Greci. Nam

Rome, 1953, doc. no. 1, pp. 3-4 (Concilium Florentunum, multociens occursum est quod propter absentiam episcoporum Documenta et scriptores, ser. A, vol. III, fasc. 3); Délger, et aliorum non facientium residentiam in prelaturis suis multi Regesten der Kaiserurkunden, pt. 5, no. 3406, pp. 110-11, catolici mortui sunt qui habuerunt sacramenta greca et sepulti with refs.; Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1422, nos. 1-15, more Grecorum et multi pueri orti defectu prelatorum more vol. XVII (1694), pp. 40—45a. (Raynaldus is, as usual, well greco fuerunt batizati quod sua Beatitudo non debet velle informed, but he makes the error here [no. 5] of assuming _consentire per aliquam viam mundi cuius debet esse maxima

that Manuel II died of his stroke, as certain other older et precipua cura ut Christianitas augeatur et non minuatur writers have done.) per tales modos.”

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 45 know the supreme pontiff was ever on guard. unexpected disaster fell upon the Latin kingdom They believed that the Turkish menace might be of Cyprus. Having ravaged parts of the island removed, for some time at least, by a flotilla of in August, 1425, the Mamluks of Egypt returned ten well-armed galleys which should act in the following July, defeated and captured King unison with those of John VIII. Speedy action Janus, killed his brother Prince Henry of Galilee, was essential. A legate could be put in command took the capital city of Nicosia, and looted the of the ten galleys, of which the Venetians would island far and wide. For eight months Janus was supply three at their own expense, provided that kept in captivity in Cairo (until April, 1427), and other Christian states would supply the re- during this period the woeful affairs of Cyprus mainder. There can be no question either of distressed both the Curia and the Italian states."° papal or of Venetian sincerity in these expressed But there were other distractions in Italy, the

desires to assist the Greeks in Constantinople, _

but it was no easy matter to recruit galleys from Tshéques avant la chute de Constantinople,” Byzantino-

other western powers.’® slavica, XIV [1953], 158-225, and Antonin Salaé, “Con-

Actually Martin already had his hands full. des stantinople et Prague en 1452: Pourpariers en vue gune : . union Eglises,”’ Rozpravy Ceskoslovenské ademie It was the era of the Hussite crusades: Vid, LXVIIL [1958], L-til, aith texts [and facsimiles]

Bohemia was ablaze . with religious revolt; oF the important documents).

Czech valor crowned with victory every Hussite F, M. Barto’, “A Delegate of the Hussite Church to Concampaign against the Catholics.‘7 And now _ stantinople in 1451-1452,” Byzantinoslavica, XXIV (1963), 28792, and XXV (1964), 69-74, has tried to show that the mys-

TT terious Constantine Anglicus was the Czech Hussite diplomat 16 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 8, fol. 98" [99"], dated 31 March, 1423; Matthew of Hnatnice, who became known as Matthew Giuseppe Valentini, ed., Acta Albaniae veneta saeculorum English, owing to his connection with the Wycliffites. XIV et XV, XI (1971), no. 2,708, pp. 218-19, summarized in BartoS believes that he received the name Constantine, N. lorga, Notes et extraits pour servir a Uhistotre des “unknownin Bohemia,” when he was received into the Greek

croisades au XV® siécle, 6 vols., Paris and Bucharest, church. A number of Czech scholars have tried to identify 1899-1916, I, 332-33, and cf. pp. 336-37, 352-53, reprinted Constantine Anglicus. Their efforts have been more ingenious

from Revue de UOrient latin (abbr. ROL), V (1897, repr. than convincing.

1964), 133-34, 137-38, 153-54; F. Thiriet, Régestes des 8 Sir Geo. Hill, A History of Cyprus, II (Cambridge,

délibérations du Sénat de Venise concernant la Romanie, 1948),471-—95. Nevertheless, on 9 December, 1425, Martin V II (1959), no. 1876, p. 201. Documents relating to Antonio — granted the Venetians a license to trade with the Egyptians.

da Massa may be found in the Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. The customary prohibition of dealing in such articles of

Vat. 354 [Martini V de Curia, anno IV-VI, liber IV], contraband as arms, metals, timber, etc., was imposed, of

fols. 90¥-91", 190°. course, but was often evaded (cf. R. Predelli, Regesti det

17For a succinct account, see F. G. Heymann, “The Commemoriali, 1V [1896], bk. x1, no. 199, pp. 66-67). The Crusades against the Hussites,” in K. M. Setton and archival copy of the pope’s licentia to trade with Egypt may H. W. Hazard, eds., A History of the Crusades, HI (1975), be found in Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 356 [Martini 586-646; and at longer length, Heymann, John Zizka and V Bullar. secret. tom. VI}, fols. 11%-12", “datum Rome the Hussite Revolution, Princeton, 1955. The Czechs and the apud Sanctos Apostolos, V Idus Decembris, pontificatus Greeks, in their common antipathy to Rome, were inevitably nostri anno nono.” On the Cypriote disaster of July, 1426,

drawn together in consultation. Although John Hus had — see the contemporary report in Gelcich and Thalléczy, declared in 1404 that “Greci sunt extra ecclesiam Romanam, Diplomatarium ragusanum (1887), no. 203, p. 321, dated 12 extra quam nemo Salvatur, quia non recipiunt papam cum December, 1426, and cf. pp. 323-24, 325.

cardinalibus” (Opuscula, I1, 113), his break with the Curia In a letter, the preamble to which obviously rehearses Romana led him and the later Hussites to take a more King Janus’s own account of the Egyptian invasion of conciliatory attitude toward the Greeks. The evasiveness and Cyprus, Martin V’s successor Eugenius IV granted Janus intransigence of the Curia in dealing with the Hussites, an assessment on all ecclesiastical benefices in the Spanish especially after the apparent union of the Roman and _ kingdoms, France, England, and Viennois, to help relieve Byzantine Churches (as declared at Florence in July, 1439), his distress and that of his subjects, observing “quod led to a Czech mission to Constantinople at the turn of the | soldanus Babilonie cum magna infidelium comitiva regnum

years 1451-1452, when the envoy, one “Constantine tuum Cypri manu armata violenter invasit, necnon terras Platris Anglicus,” was received into the Greek Church by dicti regni spoliavit et devastavit nonnullosque utriusque Gennadius (George Scholarius) and the anti-unionists. sexus fideles eiusdem regni incolas gladio crudeliter interemit:

Anglicus assailed the pope in a public discourse, and necnon te eorum nequitie fortiter resistentem cum magna received a letter signed by seven anti-unionist dignitaries _ fidelium multitudine captivavit captumque abduxit et tandem (including Gennadius and Sylvester Syropoulos, the historian _pro tua liberatione a te maximas pecuniarum quantitates

of the Council of Ferrara-Florence), addressed to the exegit pro qua partim exsolvenda magnam partem introituum Czechs, inviting their adhesion to the Orthodox Church. _ regni tui diversis creditoribus pignori obligare ac quosdam Anglicus and certain of the Utraquists in Prague presumably ex _tuis subditis pro parte restante obsides in captivitate looked upon his mission as the beginning of another “union,” dimittere miserabiliter coactus fuisti . . .” (Arch. Segr. this time an unlikely alignment of the anti-Roman Hussites Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 6, fol. 199). Eugenius also had and the anti-Roman Greeks (see the knowledgeable but dis- _ to protect Janus from the usurers who sought to profit from cursive study of M. Paulova, “L’Empire byzantin et les his misfortune (zbid., fols. 199%—201’).

46 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT northern and central states being much dis- to promote the crusade or to relieve the Turkish turbed by the war which Duke Filippo Maria was _ pressure on Constantinople. He was as likely to

fighting with the Florentines (1422-1428) and ponder the broken fortunes of King Janus and

finally with the Venetians (1426-1428). The the humiliation of the Latin Christians in latter carried off the palm of victory, and much Cyprus as to worry about the well-being of the increased their strength on land by pushing their Greeks and the future of the Palaeologi. westward frontier beyond Brescia and Bergamo.

Well might the pope rejoice when peace was In the middle ages as in modern times the made on 19 April, 1428.'° Despite the troubles jure of the East drew many Europeans as of these years, the pope had pursued plans for travelers and even residents into the Levant. a council which might re-unite the Greek and Often piety or curiosity attracted them to Latin Churches. ‘The Greek Dominican Andreas religious or historical sites, and natural beauty Chrysoberges, Theodore’s brother, had been captivated the merchant as well as the poet. But

active as an envoy between Rome and Con- there were dark sides to life in the Levant. The stantinople from June, 1426, and in 1430 modern historian, who dwells on the inconstancy Martin V reached an agreement with the and self-seeking of the Greeks in the fifteenth Byzantine’ court whereby the: Emperor John century, must also take account of the undoubted VIII, the Patriarch Joseph II, and the other cruelty of the Turks and the cynical greed of three patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Latin Christians who made what they could of Alexandria with their attendant high clergy immoral opportunities in distant lands, anxious should come “to some coastal city of Calabria as__ to profit in ways they would never have tolerated

far [north] as Ancona, which the emperor of at home, where such practices would have enthe Greeks shall choose.” The Holy See would tailed obloquy and penalties. There was no Turk

pay the expenses for the four heavy galleys so lecherous that the Christian slave trader

required to bring to Italy a Greek delegation would not sell him a beautiful girl or a handsome

of up to 700 members. It would also pay for boy. As the captives of many eastern nations the maintenance of two light galleys and 300 were assembled in the Genoese marts at Caffa crossbowmen for the defense of Constantinople and elsewhere, healthy youngsters and strong men

during the emperor’s absence. If by some brought a good price. The aged and infirm mischance, quod absit, union should not be were not salable; physicians’ services and

achieved, the Greeks were nevertheless to be medicines were expensive; and thousands of conveyed back to the Bosporus “at the expense persons were left to die (and encouraged of the Latin Church.’”! This was the agreement, thereto) by traders who regarded them merely and from 1430 the Greeks always insisted upon as undesirable items on the debit side of the the fulfillment of its terms. Martin was certainly ledger. The papacy was the conscience of willing to do so, and more, but during the last Europe. More than one conclave was marred years of his reign he could do little or nothing by simony in the fifteenth century, and the

ee Curia was not without its sly politicians. The 7 Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 5, fols. papacy was still the conscience of Europe,

331¥-334", by mod. stamped enumeration; Raynaldus, however, and it spoke out against those aspects Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1428, nos. 2-4, vol. XVIII (1694), of the slave trade which were offensive to the PP. 08 0s P en ey Regesti det Commemoriali, IV, bk. fifteenth century. Slavery as such was part of the 20 Hofman, Pe pistolae pontificiae, I, nos. 23-25, pp. 17-19; SCial fabric of the age, accepted by almost everyLoenertz, “Les Dominicains byzantins Théodore et André ONC. There were few propagandists for abolition. Chrysobergés,” Arch. FF. Praedicatorum, 1X (1939), 49 ff. On 3 June, 1425, Martin V declared anathema " Epistolae pontificiae, 1, no. 26, p. 20, and ¢f. nos. 66, those miscreants who sold their fellow Christians

75, pp. 67, 75-76. The offer Martin V made to the Greeks to the Moslems. who often made them abjure was generous, for at this very time (1429-1430) a commission : . , of cardinals asked him to reduce the overgrown staff of their faith, treated them harshly, and employed clerks in the Camera Apostolica to its erstwhile number of | them for immoral purposes.”

four, “which was sufficient when the Camera had more than Christian captives already in Turkish and three times [its present income!],” . . . qui sufficiebat cum Egyptian hands were naturally a problem

camera in triplo plus habundabat . . . (Johannes Haller, ed.,

Concilium Basiliense, 1 [1896, repr. 1971], 168, on which work =—§ ————————

see below, note 37). I owe this reference to Dr. Peter Partner. 2 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1425, no. 19, vol. XVHI Allusion has already been made to this text atthe beginning (1694), pp. 79b-80a, “datum Rome apud SS. Apostolos,

of Chapter 1. tertio non. Iun., [pontif. nostri] anno VIII.”

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 47 which concerned the Holy See, for they often “in medio Christianitatis barbaros ipsis barbaris exchanged the worst miseries of their lot for crudeliores,” but the Genoese government could conversion to Islam (and the assumed loss of supply the proofs of his innocence, and asked salvation). Many such converts to Islam were to the pope to send him the necessary bulls. The be found among Serbian and Balkan slaves government also wrote the young King Henry and captives in the Ottoman empire. There were VI on Vernazza’s behalf, declaring that his Cypriote and other former Christians in Egypt. calumniators had taken advantage of his vulnerOn 19 February, 1429, Martin V proclaimed an _ ability as a foreigner to level false charges indulgence with full remission of sins for those against him, and asking the king’s intervention who, contrite in heart and by confession, should “for God, for justice, and for truth.”?4 It is have made themselves worthy by ransoming’or _ pleasant to note that Vernazza was rescued from otherwise redeeming such captives from the his predicament, and was subsequently employed torment to body and peril to soul which captivity (in March, 1431) by the Genoese on another

had brought them.” mission of mercy and diplomacy to Tunis, where

One wonders of course what effect papal he was again to secure the release of captives, pronouncements had upon slave traders. Al- and to introduce some order into the Genoese though ransoming Christian captives from the colony there, pending the arrival of a new infideis had long been recognized as a good consul who was being sent from Genoa.”° work, we must not fail to mention at this point Popes might come and go, but the problems the unusual efforts of one Pietro da Vernazza, faced by the Curia tended to remain the same. a Genoese, who almost came to grief in the self- Consistent policies were easily pursued from one

sacrificing pursuit of a noble enterprise. On reign to the next. After Martin V we find his 12 March, 1428, the Genoese government wrote successor, Eugenius IV, in communication with

Martin V of the singular example of Christian the Genoese government on the question of charity provided by Vernazza, who had long slavery in the Levant. On 13 February, 1434, before abandoned the petty pomp and circum- the Genoese wrote Eugenius, acknowledging stantial comforts of life to aid the poor to the the reverent receipt of a papal letter, informing fullest extent of his own slender resources. them that they were being held up to opprobrium Learning that there were many Christians held for shipping Christian slaves from their Black captive in the kingdom of Tunis, Vernazza had Sea port of Caffa to Egypt and other infidel made his way into the Libyan desert where the _ states. The government strenuously denied the king of Tunis was then encamped, ransomed charge, claiming that Caffa had in fact become as many captives as he could, and repaired to a “pillar of the Christian faith.” Colonial officials the Holy See, where he had obtained bulls of in Caffa were bound by treaties with neighboring indulgence. Collecting more money, he sailed lords not to export slaves outside the Black Sea back to Africa, where again he ransomed many __ region except on Genoese vessels which put into

Genoese captives. Moved by the sufferings ofthe the port of Caffa itself. Here before their enslaved of every nation, he returned to Rome embarkation the slaves were counted, and a and obtained a new set of indulgences. Soon he _ special tax (vectigal) levied on them. Then the undertook a voyage to England, “that is, to the bishop, accompanied both by religious and by far corner of the North, . . . in order that he laymen, came aboard the vessel on which they

might collect in that most wealthy island as were to be exported. He called to each slave much money as would suffice forthe redemption in turn, asking to what nation he belonged,

of so many unfortunate captives.” Poor Vernazza, whether he was a Christian, and (if not) whether

who had impoverished himself to help others, —_

had been charged in England with employing 24 Arch. di Stato di Genova, Litterae comunis Janue, Reg. forged bulls, had been imprisoned, and might 3/1779 (1427-1431), nos. 184, 191, fols. 73, 76, summarized have lost his life but for the intervention of in lorga, ROL, V, 369-70, and Notes et extraits, I, 469-70. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, who had had _0%22 October (1428, the Genoese government wrote agai confidence in his innocence. Vernazza had Clemente on Vernazza’s behalf (Litterae, ibid., nos. 307-8, found, like many a man before and after him, _ fols. 124-25; ROL, V, 382-83), and on 23 November thanked Humphrey of Gloucester for the protection he afforded rs73Genoese citizens (Litterae, ibid., no. 324, fol. 131; ROL, Raynaldus, ad ann. 1429, no. 21, vol. XVIII, pp. V, 383). 75b—76a (sic, by error in pagination), “datum Rome apud > Iorga, ROL, VI (1898, repr. 1964), 100, and Notes et SS. Apostolos, XI Kal. Martii, [pontif. nostri] anno XII.” extraits, I, 538.

48 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT he did not wish to adopt the Christian faith. manifested by Mehmed II the Conqueror in his Any slave thus converted was removed from the constant campaigns). Christians were allowed to

vessel and sold on land to a Christian purchaser. continue in their faith and preserve most of

This procedure, the Genoese government their local customs and practices with little piously informed the pope, resulted in con- hindrance or oppression so long as they paid versions. But for such treaties as those which _ the poll-tax or kharaj levied on non-Moslems (the

controlled the slave trade in Caffa, it was said, raya). In addition every landholder paid a tax, one would have seen ships loading slaves from according to the number of his sheep, goats, Trebizond, Tana, Vosporo, Phasis, and other cattle, and oxen, and a tithe was levied upon ports on the Euxine for transport to Egypt. The every harvest. The animus with which modern

Genoese therefore deserved praise rather than Balkan peoples recall the long period of

censure, and the government reminded the pope Ottoman hegemony is partly the consequence

that these statements could easily be verified, of the corruption of Turkish officialdom in because Caffa was a frequent port of call.” the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the age of the conquest there was a good deal of By March, 1431, when Gabriele Condulmer, integrity at the sultan’s court although in the

cardinal-priest of S. Clemente, succeeded Martin chapters which follow we shall note some apallV as Pope Eugenius IV, the Turks had extended ing examples of cruelty, especially on the part

their sway throughout much of the Balkans. of Mehmed II and his chief officers.?” In many During the fifteenth century, however, they areas, nevertheless, the native populations subprobably did not bear as heavily upon the native jected by the Turks may not have found them Christian peoples as has commonly been assumed much worse than their previous masters.

(except, as we shall see, for the brutality As Bulgarian, Serbian, and Byzantine re-

sistance was beaten down, the Turks are alleged

2 orga, ROL, VI, 128, and Notes et exiraits, 1, 566. ‘© have taken over (or imitated) ‘lly th, Byzantine The Genoese assertions are borne out by the provisions institutions, retaining especially the military composed in Genoa for a treaty between the Republic and fiefs. From the end of the fourteenth century the soldan of Egypt (ibid., 1, 533-36, doc. dated 1-3 the Ottoman government had been establishing vebruary, eb On me srave trade, sre m general Charles great fiefs which were conferred upon the erlinden, “Esclaves du Sud-Est de !Est en beys or begs of the border, margraves.of. proven Espagne orientale a laet fin dueuropéen moyen age,” Revue historique i.

du Sud-Est européen, XIX (1942), 371-406. As Caffa on the faith, in whose families they became hereditary, Black Sea was a center of the Genoese slave trade, so Tana and in Bosnia, southern Serbia, Macedonia, and

on the Sea of Azov supplied quantities of slaves to Thessaly such feudal families were to remain in Venetian merchants (cf. Verlinden, La Colonie vénitienne possession of large estates almost until our own

de centre deStudi la traite des esclaves XIV° et au dav. h the Turksdestroye dest d a large du Tana, XV° siécle,” in onore di GinoauLuzzatto, 11 début [Milan, ay.Alth thoug € turks Se Pppro1950], 1-25). See also the excellent article by Verlinden,

“La Créte, débouché et plaque tournante de la traite des = ~_____ esclaves aux XIV® et XV® siécles,” Studi in onore di 7 D. Angelov, “Certains Aspects de la conquéte des peuples Amintore Fanfani, 111 (Milan, 1962), 591-669, and note Helga _ balkaniques par les Turcs,” Byzantinoslavica, XVII (1956),

Kopstein, Zur Sklaveret im ausgehenden Byzanz, Berlin, 220-75, has described the undeniable destructiveness of the 1966, esp. pp. 87 ff. (Berliner byzantinistische Arbeiten, Turkish invasions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

no. 34). with a sense of almost personal outrage. The Genoese were among the most conspicuous slave *° Cf. Franz Babinger, Maometto il Conquistatore e il suo

dealers of the fifteenth century, handling for the trade tempo, Turin, 1957, pp. 56~57 and 29: “. . . but the history Tatars, Russians, and Circassians from the Caucasus; Greeks, of these fiefs can be placed in a clearer light only when the

Bulgarians, Serbs, and Albanians from the Balkans; and oldest Ottoman tax records are accessible, and studies are Arabs, Moors, and a few blacks from North Africa. See made of the fiefs in Rumelian territory.” It is easily possible Domenico Gioffré, Il Mercato degli schiavi a Genova nel secolo to exaggerate the extent to which the Porte borrowed from XV, Genoa, 1971, whose work makes clear (esp. pp. 39 ff., | Byzantium at the time of the capture of Constantinople and 126) that Christians were indeed held as slaves, especially if to draw specious parallels between the Byzantine and the their conversion occurred after their captivity. Slaves were Ottoman empires (cf, ibid., pp. 171-72), but on the Turkish employed in commerce, industry, and agriculture as well as _—témar (fief), in some respects like the Byzantine pronoia,

in domestic service, concubinage, and prostitution. In Genoa’ ¢f. the suggestive but rather diffuse article of J. Deny,

females brought a much better price than males; they Encyclopaedia of Islam, IV (1924-34), 767-76. In the

usually cost from about 70-80 lire to about 250 or so. On ‘Turkish National Archives are registers which go back to the the whole 150-160 lire was a high price, but the cost of slaves | time of Mehmed the Conqueror, and at least one important rose in the last two decades of the century. The Genoese _ register of the fiefs going back to his father’s time (1431sold slaves for export, the Catalans being among their best 1432), on which see the interesting article of Halil Inalcik,

customers. “Timariotes chrétiens en Albanie au XV¢° siécle d’aprés un

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 49 registre de timars ottoman,” Mitteilungen des Oster- of a Greek state than as the establishment of a Byzantinereichischen Staatsarchivs, 1V (Vienna, 1951), 118-38. As Turkish empire, which alone could meet the needs of an

indicated by the title, the register dating from 1431-1432 epoch which had seen the dissolution of the Greek, relates to Albania: After the Turkish victory on the river Latin, and Slavic states throughout the Balkan peninsula. Viyosa (Vijosé) in the fall of 1385 ¢f N. Iorga, Geschichte Under the Ottomans a new Pax Romana was eventually

des osmanischen Reiches, 1 [Gotha, 1908], 255, 261), the to extend from the Danube to the Nile and from the Christian lords of Albania apparently recognized the Adriatic to the Euphrates (¢f., ibid., II, 196-97, et passim). suzerainty of the sultan, and some of them were enrolled as__ Iorga was less interested in the history of the Turkish fief-holding vassals (timariotes), becoming sipahis (cavalry- people than in what he conceived to be the historic men) in the Ottoman service. In some cases their sons were mission of the Ottoman empire, which fulfilled (in collec-

educated (as hostages) at the Ottoman court, and their tive fashion) for the peoples of the Balkans and the families tended gradually to be islamized. Although fiefs whole Levant the same functions as the absolute monarchies

(timars) might be granted to a Christian, the latter’s were discharging in western Europe. Cf. in general Maria involvement in the Ottoman feudal nexus often resulted in M. Alexandrescu-Dersca, “N. Iorga, historien de |’empire conversion to Islam. Inalcik later published this document ottoman,” Balcania, VI (Bucharest, 1943), 101-22, and D. M.

in Turkish, Hicri 835 tarihli stret-i defter-i Sancak-i Pippidi [lorga’s son-in-law], ed., Nicolas Iorga, Vhomme et Arvanid [Copy of the Register for A.H. 835 for the Sanjak Uceuvre, Bucharest, 1972, esp. pp. 175-86. of Albania], Ankara, 1954, with a number of plates of pages Iorga emphasized that the catastrophe of 1453 merely of the MS., full indices, and a detailed map of Albania in destroyed in the Greek areas the dynasty of the Palaeologi

1431 (=a.H. 835). and the pre-eminence of the archontic class, but that ByzanThe further publication of Ottoman documentary records _ tine civilization as such survived in the Ottoman state,

will elucidate many doubtful points in the institutional which means the whole social fabric of Orthodox

history of the Turkish empire. Ottoman “feudalism” appears Christianity, Graeco-Roman law, Greek literature, and by and large to have been a continuation of the Anatolian various fundamental political and economic institutions. He Seljuk (“Selchtikid”) system, itself allegedly preserving older denied that the Ottoman Turks introduced basic changes

Turkish traditions as well as borrowing from Byzantine, into the life of the Balkans and most of the Levant, Arab, and Persian practices. The question, however, of “ainsi que le prétend un nationalisme turc d’origine Byzantine influence upon Ottoman institutions remains trés récente,” as he states in the preface to his book nebulous and controversial; modern Turkish scholars usually on Byzance aprés Byzance, Bucharest, 1935, in which he deprecate or try to minimize it, insisting upon the antediluvian explored the survival of Byzantine civilization and especharacter of Turkish traditions. Considering that Anatolia and cially Byzantine political ideals in the Balkans, from the

Rumelia, former Byzantine territories, became inasensethe mid-fifteenth to about the close of the eighteenth century “homelands” of the Osmanilis, it would seem a priori difficult when he would date the “passage du byzantinisme au to escape the conclusion that there must have been a good deal _nationalisme” (zbid., p. 243).

of such influence, but up to now the problem of the Byzantine Although the bibliography is far too extensive for serious

impact upon Ottoman ideas and institutions has usually consideration here, we may note that the Anatolian and been discussed with more subjective rationalization than Rumelian backgrounds are explored in Speros Vryonis, objective documentation. On the question of feudalism, see Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asta Minor and the illuminating study of Mehmed Fuad KOprilti, Alcune the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Osservaziont intorno all' influenza delle istituziont bizantine Fifteenth Century, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, sulle istituztont ottomane, Rome: Istituto per POriente, 1953, 1971, and Franz Babinger, Beitraége zur Frithgeschichte der pp. 6-12, 64—89, who denies altogether “la pretesainfluenza Tiirkenherrschaft in Rumelien (14.-15. Jahrhundert), Munich,

bizantina” (p. 86), believing that “possiamo affermare 1944 (Siidosteuropdische Arbeiten, no. 34). The instrucdecisamente che il sistema ottomano dei timar non fu preso _ tive article by Halil Inalcik, “Ottoman Methods of Conda Bisanzio, né anteriormente, né posteriormente alla quest,” Studia Islamica, II (1954), 103-29, deals chiefly conquista di Costantinopoli, ma rientrava nell’eredita tra- with the fifteenth century. Various aspects of Ottoman mandata dai Selgiuchidi d’Anatolia” (p. 89). The common domination in the Balkans and elsewhere are illustrated Turkish word for fief (timar) is apparently of Persian origin; by P. Karlin-Hayter, “La Politique religieuse des conthe Greek work vuzdptov is said not to occur before the quérants ottomans dans un texte hagiographique (a. 1437),” sixteenth century; the Turkish word for feudatory orcavalry- Byzantion, XXXV (1965), 353-58; J. Kabrda, “Les Probman (stpaht) is also of Persian origin (K6épriilii, op. cit., lémes de létude de histoire de la Bulgarie a l’époque pp. 86-87, note, and cf. Serif Bagstav, Ordo Portae, de la domination turque,” Byzantinoslavica, XV (1954), Budapest, 1947, pp. 29-35). There were three general grades 173-208, and “Les Sources turques relatives a l'histoire of Ottoman fiefs (hass, zi‘amet, and timar, ranging from _ de la domination ottomane en Slovaquie,” Archiv orientalni,

highest to lowest); for these and various other kinds of XXIV (1956), 568-80, who ranges over several centuries; Ottoman fiefs, see H. A. R. Gibb and Harold Bowen, Omer Litfi Barkan, “Les Déportations comme méthode Islamic Society and the West, I-1 (London, 1950, repr. 1963), de peuplement et de colonisation dans l’empire ottoman,”

pp. 39-56, 69-70, 144-60, 235-58, and cf. pt. 2 (1957, Revue de la Faculté des Sciences Economiques de Univer-

repr. 1965), pp. | ff., the whole forming an instructive _ sité d’Istanbul, XI (1949-50), 67-131, apparently unfinished;

presentation of Ottoman feudalism. Barkan, “Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de It may not be amiss to take notice of the thesis which recensement dans l’empire ottoman aux XV® et XVI®

underlies the Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, 5 vols., siécles,” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient,

Gotha, 1908-1913, of the great Rumanian historian, I, pt. 1 (1957), 9-36, and cf, ibid., pt. 3 (1958), Nicolas (Neculai) Ilorga (1871-1940), who was sometimes 329~—33; Bernard Lewis, “Studies in the Ottoman Archives” intoxicated by the grandeur of his own historical concepts, _ [on Palestine in the sixteenth century], Bulletin of the School

but whose work is always illuminating. Iorga saw the Otto- of Oriental and African Studies, XVI (1954), 469-501; man conquest of Constantinople less as the destruction H.-J. Kissling, “Militarisch-Politische Problematiken zur

50 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT portion of the ruling families in the territories had been crowned Emperor in Rome by Eugenius which they conquered, and left the Serbs, Bulgars, a few days before (on 31 May).** Venice also

Greeks, and others without leadership at the appropriated 10,000 ducats as a subsidy for highest level, they usually respected the urban Sigismund, taking measures on 1 July to raise dwellers’ and small landholders’ rights to private the money for him.*? Despite the various property. The near obliteration of the ruling expenses accruing because of Sigismund’s corfamilies in most areas caused a cultural but not onation journey, the Senate sent 2,000 ducats to an economic stagnation. Indeed, the wide extent the pope to help him meet the heavy costs of of Ottoman rule in the Balkans and Asia Minor, maintaining the imperial guest, who had arrived the pax Ottomanica, eventually brought political at Viterbo and gone on to Rome with four stability in a. new order of social stratification, hundred horse. The Senate then paid another with the pashas, begs, and members of the 2,000 to those who had arranged the truce and military class (‘askeri), administrators and intel- general agreements with the impecunious Sigislectuals, merchants and artisans all resting onthe mund,®* whose need for money (as Europe had

firm foundation of a peasantry (Aéylii takimi) observed for almost fifty years) was exceeded protected from external invasion. Troublesome only by his love of it.

groups were removed from one part of the While the Venetians were thus preoccupied, empire to another by deportation (siirgun). life in Greece was being disrupted. by the petty Peace made possible the agricultural surplus lordlings within as well as by the Turks from which bound the village to the town, whereinthe without. In the early summer of 1435, after the

fifteenth century at least goods were freely death of the half-Florentine Duke Antonio |

exchanged, although as in the Byzantine empire Acciajuoli of Athens, his Greek wife (whom there might be embargoes on the export of food-

stuffs. Merchants accumulated capitalinanopen ———— 7 market. Conditions were far from ideal, and the personal mediation of Pope Eugenius IV.” Cf., ibid., Turkish rule might be oppressive, but food was nos. 192, 195. Two years later, on 31 August, 1435, 8 © OPPIcssive, 00C Ws Sigismund and Venice negotiated a ten years’ alliance against grown, cloth was woven, houses were built, Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan (ibid., bk. xm, no. 1,

money was made, and life went on. pp. 201-2, and cf. nos. 25-26).

The accession of Eugenius lV had little effect Despite Timur the Lame’s defeat of Sultan Bayazid I at on the Levant. The same risks and fears and Ankara in 1402 and the subsequent strife among the latter’s

dangers . d f continued Th h S0ns; byyear. 1415 Turks raids into year alter rougthe Carniola andwere Styria,carrying threatening their the patriarchate of much of 1431-1432, however, the Venetians Aquileia. In 1420 the Venetians took over Friuli, and the were distracted from both Turkish and Greek ad- Turkish peril had come close to home (see Pio Paschini, vances on the continent and in the Morea by the “Primi tmori d'un’ invasione turca in Friuli,’ Memorie storiche forogiuliest, VIII [Udine, 1912], 65-73). threatening attitude of the Genoese, who were 31 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1433, no. 14, vol.

preparing for a full-scale war against their old XVIII (1694), pp. 113-14; Joseph [von] Aschbach, Geschichte rivals.22 The Venetians could find no allies, Kaiser Sigmund’s, 4 vols., Hamburg: Perthes, 1838-45, repr.

but at last on 4 June, 1433, they finally con- Aalen, 1964, IV, 114 ff. . ; cluded a five years’ truce with Sigismund,®° wh 32 Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Misti, Reg. 58, fol. 216” y Sigismund,” WNO wWGCCCXXXIIL, die primo Iulii”); “Cum captum et

——_— deliberatum sit per istud consilium dandi ducatorum Tiirkenfrage im 15. Jahrhundert,” in Bohemia: Jahrbuch decem M. serenissimo domino Imperatori, et sit providendes Collegium Carolinum, V (Munich, 1964), 108-36, and dum de recuperando illos cum quam minori gravedine “Die tiirkische geographische Nomenklatur auf dem Balkan __fieri possit . . . ,” etc., details following for a duty on all als Erkenntnismittel fiir die Sidosteuropaforschung,” merchandise imported into Venice. Zeitschrift fiir Balkanologie, 11 (Wiesbaden, 1965), 126-42; 33 Misti, Reg. 58, fol. 224% (““MCCCCXXXIII, die tercio and Kemal Karpat, An Inquiry into the Social Foundations of | Augusti”): “Cum iam diu stipendiariis nostris solutum non

Nationalism in the Ottoman State: From Social Estates to fuerit, et hoc quia imposita non fuit impositio aliqua, et Classes, From Millets to Nations, Princeton, N.J., 1973 (Center sit neccessarium ad hoc providere quia quotidie congruunof International Studies, no. 39), with extensive citation of _ tur, sit insuper etiam providendum habendi denarios pro

the recent bibliography. ambaxiata mittenda Bononiam ad serenissimum dominum

®lorga, ROL, VI, 108-15, and Notes et extraits, 1, | Imperatorem pro associando suam Maiestatem per territoria 546-53; F. Thiriet, Régestes des délibérations du Sénat de domini Marchionis et nostra et faciendo ei expensas ac

Venise concernant la Romanie, \11 (Paris and The Hague, _ etiam dare summo Pontifici ducatorum duos mille pro parte

1961), nos. 2227, 2229, 2232, 2237, 2241-42, 2249-50, nos tangente pro expensis factis predicto domino Imperaetc., 2405, pp. 10 ff., 50, on the Venetians’ difficulties tori de mense ITulii et alios ducatorum duos mille pro with the Genoese, who then lay under Milanese domination. dando illis qui procurarunt conclusionem treuguarum 30R. Predelli, Regesti dei Commemoriali, IV (1896), bk. prout captum est per hoc consilium, nam summus Pontixu, nos. 189-90, p. 177; the truce was arranged “with fex accepit illos quos miseramus. . . .”

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 51 the Pseudo-Sphrantzes identifies as “Maria in others might have preferred Greek to Melissena”) tried to secure-the duchy of Athens Latin rule, but actually it could have made little

and Thebes for herself and her kinsman, the difference in their way of life, for by now the Athenian George Chalcocondylas. The latter is “Turks were everywhere and disposed of all described by his son, the historian Laonicus, as__ things.

one of the chief figures in the ancient city. The The diplomat George Sphrantzes, who was a widowed duchess sent Chalcocondylas to the participant in the events which followed the Ottoman court well equipped with funds to death of Antonio I of Athens, gives a different persuade Sultan Murad II to recognize their account from that of Chalcocondylas, who had authority over the hitherto Latin duchy. After doubtless received his information from his Chalcocondylas’s departure from Athens, how- father. Sphrantzes does not mention the joint ever, the Florentine party lured the duchess’ effort of the widowed duchess and the Chalfrom the security of the Acropolis, where they cocondylae to seize control of the duchy although installed as duke the late Antonio’s young cousin — he was probably well acquainted with conditions

and adopted heir, Nerio II, driving the in Athens, having been sent there by his master, Chalcocondylae and their supporters from the Constantine Dragases, then one of the despots

citadel. The Florentine party then arranged of the Morea, on an embassy to Antonio the

Nerio’s marriage with the enterprising widow, year before the latter’s death. In Sphrantzes’ installed themselves on the Acropolis, expelled account of what now transpired we find one the Chalcocondylae from the city, and drew in’ more effort of Constantine Dragases to build

the reins of government. In the meantime up the Moreote domain and to extend the

George Chalcocondylas himself had arrived at political cause of Hellenism.® Here is the fuller the sultan’s court, where he was imprisoned, and__ version of this account, given in the so-called despite his offer to the Porte of 30,000 gold Pseudo-Sphrantzes’ Chronicon maius (the much-

pieces for the duchy, he was ordered to give expanded version of Sphrantzes’ Chronicon

up all claim to Attica and Boeotia. He had minus, prepared by the “forger” Macarius already heard, moreover, that the sultan had Melissurgus alias Melissenus in the 1570’s),

sent an army to occupy Boeotia and take over which as usual contains apparently irresponsible the city of Thebes. He now managed to escape changes as well as some interesting information

from the Turkish court to Byzantium, where not to be found in the shorter text, although he took ship for the Morea, but the crews of of course the question arises as to Melissurgus’s

vessels belonging to the Florentine party in sources:

Athehs boarded the one on which he was travel At the beginning of the summer of the year (of ing. Chalcocondylas was seized, put in fetters, Creation) 6943 [1435] there died the ruler of Athens and sent back to Sultan Murad, who merely and Thebes, the aforesaid lord Antonio de’ Acciajuoli

pardoned and released him, bearing him no ill Comnenus, and by request of his widow Maria will for his unceremonious and unauthorized Melissena, daughter of Leo Melissenus, first cousin departure. Chalcocondylas, however, was asked of Nicephorus Melissenus, . . . I was sent with a

for the 30,000 gold pieces, which he said he sworn argyrobull and many soldiers to take over could no longer pay, and the land he had Athens and Thebes, for which I should give her

aspired to was ravaged by the Ottoman forces another place in the Peloponnesus, in the region of in Thessaly.** The Greeks in this region as —=———— nepos civitatem Athenarum, et denique ex matrimonio TT secuto in pace et concordia remanserunt.” The Signoria’s *“ Laonicus Chalcocondylas, bk. vi (Bonn, pp. 320-22); officials in Negroponte were to try to secure recognition

ed. E. Darko, II-1 (1923), 93-94. The Venetian govern- by Nerio II and his newly acquired wife of Venetian ment instructed its officials in Negroponte not to interfere suzerainty over the Athenian duchy, which the Duke whether Athens was occupied by the Turks or by the Antonio had acknowledged in his lifetime. (The docuheirs of the late Duke Antonio Acciajuoli (cf. C. N. Sathas, ment here referred to, of October, 1435, exists only in ed., Documents inédits relatifs a Vhistoire de la Gréce au moyen the rubric, the scribe lamenting that it had not been

age, 9 vols., Paris, 1880-90, repr. Athens, 1972, I, no. 131, copied in the folio and might be lost, “ut multe alie p. 199, dated October, 1435). That Antonio’s widow [was que [sic] scribere non potui,” but it seems to have been she really a “Maria Melissena”?] actually married Nerio I] merely repetitious of the second document cited, that of 5

appears from Sathas, III, no. 1020, pp. 427-28, dated 5 September, 1435.) September, 1435, to the bailie and captain of Negroponte 35 Sphrantzes, Chronicon minus (PG 156, 1044A-—1045A,

(f. Thiriet, Régestes, 111, no. 2396, p. 48): “Scripsistis nobis and ed. Vasile Grecu, Georgios Sphrantzes, Memorii [1401 quod post mortem magnifici domini Antonii de Azaiolis 1477), in anexd Pseudo-Phrantzes: Macarie Melissenos, Cronica

eius uxor introivit castrum [the Acropolis], et eius [1258-1481], Bucharest, 1966, pp. 50, 52, 54).

52 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Laconia, near which she had properties from her Before his elevation to the papacy Eugenius paternal inheritance and dowry, which were the [VY had become well known in Italy as the lands, cities, and villages herewith listed— Astron, “cardinal of Siena.” Able and austere, he S. Peter, S. John, Platamonas, Meligon, Proasteion, was elected on 3 March, 1431, and crowned on

Leonidas, Reontas, and Sitanas. And soaI nephew . , : theKyparissia, eleventh of the month. A Venetian,

should give her place near ofwith suchhersize and eC XIIa good d d friend of the th sort as should seemabest to me andthese accord 2 regory » and friend or

wish and preference. But Turakhan got the start of Florentines, Eugenius found a ready-made me and invested Thebes, which he captured after Cnemy In Filippo Maria Visconti, the duke of some days. I returned from the Isthmus with nothing Mulan, who was always an opponent of Venice

accomplished, for such were my instructions, and and was again at war with Florence. Filippo arrived at Stylaria, where my lord the despot Maria invaded the states of the-Church, and was [Constantine Dragases] then was, waiting for the soon supporting every anti-papal activity at the Venetian merchantmen in order to go to the city Council of Basel, where statesmen, scholars, and

lof Constantinople]. Alas for my failure! schemers, men of vision, orators, and short-

h We got on board the Venetian ships, and when we sighted opportunists were gathering to reform ad reached Euboea [Euripos, Negroponte], my lord he Church ke their £ decided to send me to Turakhan, who was still at the Church or make their ortunes. Eugenius s Thebes, in order to explain to him the negotiations early years as pope were as difficult as Martin’s. with respect to Athens. When I was ushered into he world fell to pieces around him. Expelled his presence, he received me with expressed delight, from Rome by a popular revolution (on 29 May,

and assured me with an oath: 1434), he fled to Florence, where like Martin he

“If I had known about this before leaving home to resided in the Dominican convent of S. Maria come here, I could have gladly done what you ask Novella. The conciliarists at Basel were apbecause of my love for the despot and my knowledge proaching the height of their influence. From of you, for I have done this without any command 1434 to [437 they prepared long and detailed from the great lord [the sultan]; therefore if I were documents on plans for a western subvention

only at home, I could find many excuses [for the £ the Greek b £ 700 b hich Greek occupation of Athens], but now I have no of the PEEK embassy O members, WhC

excuse.” should include both the emperor and the Having shown me much kindness and honor, he Patriarch of Constantinople, to come westward

brought his sons to greet me, and recommended and discuss church union in an oecumenical them to me and to my lord. One of them is now council. To the ambitious fathers assembled at a famous and powerful commander [ayfpys, ob- Basel this meant of course their own council.*” viously Omar Beg]. And so I took my leave of them, returning unsuccessful. Since the people in Euboea, §——————— anticipating trouble, had reluctantly raised the bridge __ Berlin, 1958, I, 391; K. M. Setton, Catalan Domination of on 29 August, we spent that night among the rocks Athens, 1311-1388, Cambridge, Mass., 1948, and 2nd ed., outside by the bridge. We suffered many hardships London, 1975, pp. 202-6. The passages referring to the

that night both from cold and hunger and the Melisseni and their properties are lacking in Sphrantzes, harshness of the rocks, as well as from fear of being added by Macarius Melissurgus-Melissenus, who as robbers and Turakhan’s troops. The horses we had usual glorifies the family of the Melisseni (see above,

borrowed df trom hethecity [of Thebes? ] Chapter 1, note 99). _ _ city Lo ebesr | were strange to 37 Cf. J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima

us, which became a by-word for trouble at a later time collectio, XXYX (Venice, 1788, repr. Paris, 1904), cols. 92-

among those who were then with me. In any event 9g, 121-37. As was to be expected, the conciliarists we got on board ship the next morning, and on 23 quickly met papal opposition to their plans for dealing with September of the year (of Creation) 6944 [still 1435] the Greeks (ibid., cols. 171D ff., 285-313, 322C ff., 445D

we arrived at Constantinople.*® ff., et alibi, and note cols. 617E-618, 627-29, 649-50,

651-65; also vol. XXX [1792, repr. 1904], cols. 848D-—849, ———— 871 ff., 890, 922-23, 934 ff, 965D-966, 1033 ff., 36 Pseudo-Sphrantzes, Chron. maius, II, 10—11 (Bonn, pp. 1094D ff., 1121-22, 1136C ff.; and vol. XXXI [1798,

159-61; ed. J. B. Papadopoulos, I [Leipzig, 1935], 160-62; repr. 1906], cols. 197 ff., 248-72). Martin V had died on ed. Grecu [1966], pp. 302, 304). Since the new annus 20 February, 1431, and Eugenius I'V was elected at Rome on mundi began in September, the parts of both the years 3 March (cf. Eugenius’s announcement of Martin’s death 6943 and 6944 to which reference is made fell in the year and his own election in Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. A.D. 1435. An argyrobull is a document with a silver seal. 359, fols. 59Y-60', letter dated at Rome on 12 March, On the historical background, cf. Wm. Miller, Latins in the = 1431).

Levant, London, 1908, pp. 404-6; D. G. Kampouroglous, Besides the materials assembled for the history of the The Chalkokondylai [in Greek], Athens, 1926, pp. 32-34, Council of Basel in Mansi’s collection, reference should be 94 ff.; D. A. Zakythinos, Le Despotat grec de Morée, 2 made to the Monumenta conciliorum generalium secult decimi vols., Paris and Athens, 1932-53, repr. London, 1975, 1, — quinti. . . . Concilium Basileense . .. , 3 [actually 4] vols., 204-13; Gyula Moravesik, Byzantinoturcica, 2 vols., 2nd ed., | Vienna and Basel, 1857—1932, which contains the histories

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 53 To have drawn the Greeks to Basel and got between Constantinople and Basel. In the end credit for an act of union would have enhanced the Greeks were dismayed by the conciliarists’ the conciliarists’ prestige immensely. But the apparent drift toward schism. If the majority Greeks found the Council more difficult to deal in the Council would not work with the pope with and less reliable than the pope, who was’ except on their own impossible terms, and the unreliable only when he dealt with the concili- Latin Church was itself divided, how could they

arists. Until the year 1436 the conciliarists ever achieve union with the Greek Church? In

had made few mistakes, and Eugenius had made _ the past, Byzantine emperors and patriarchs had

many, but their success made many of them always dealt with the popes on unionist issues. reckless, and the pope had learned caution from John VIII and the Patriarch Joseph II could not his setbacks. The Council finally became divided conceive of an oecumenical success without the into two fiercely inimical factions over the ques- presence of the Roman pontiff. tion whether union must be discussed at Basel, When a minority in the Council at Basel, who at Avignon, orin Savoy, or whether the members regarded themselves as the sanior pars, were

might remove to an Italian city to meet with driven by the intransigence and hostility of their the Greeks, who steadfastly refused in any event more numerous colleagues to make peace with to go to Basel, Avignon, or Savoy, the places the Curia Romana, and were also joined by

upon which the majority finally and foolishly the Greek envoys to Basel, they all found insisted.** Several embassies were exchanged Eugenius in a conciliatory mood, as he had

been for the past two years. In May, 1437, the of the Council by the conciliarists John of Ragusa and envoys and t he rep resentatlves of the conciliar John of Segovia, and also to the work of the late Johannes minority waited upon him at Bologna, whither Haller (1865-1947) et al., eds., Concilium Basiliense: Studien und he had moved with the Curia the preceding Quellen zur Geschichte des Concils von Basel, 8 vols., Basel, year. He agreed fully to abide by the agreement 1896—1936, which contains letters, tracts, memorials, ex- which the Greeks had negotiated with Martin V pense accounts, day-to-day records (protocollt) of events and 1430 d this th Tari Basel had proceedings, diplomatic correspondence, and the sources re- In t% (an IS the concillarists at Dasel ha lating to the Basler embassy to Constantinople in 1437 to consistently declined to do). Much encouraged, fix the site of the unionist council at Avignon or Basel Eugenius acted with great dispatch. He arranged (vol. NL See Pp. 5 ape). con of the Council of Basel lease of fourof Venetian t the eighteenth general session of for thetheCouncil Basel,galleys, ; of which

held on 26 June, 1434, the assembled fathers renewed the ne appointed his nephew pte Condulmer decree of the fifth session of the Council of Constance (of Me captain-general on 6 July (1437), to convey 6 April, 1415, for which see von der Hardt, Magnum the Greek delegation of 700 members from

oecumenicum Constantiense concilium, 1V [1698-99], 98a; Constantinople to Italy. Florence had been dis-

Gesta, in Finke, Acta, II, 28), declaring that a general coun- sessi f the C ‘1 which to be “t

cil derived its authority directly from Christ, and was supe- ons Oo € Vounch, which was to ; € tansrior to all persons of whatsoever rank or dignity, includ- ferred from Basel, and the Florentines were ing the pope, in matters concerning the faith, the extir- willing to provide the Greeks with both money pation of heresy, and the reform of the Church, on which = and transport. Filippo Maria Visconti was note Hefele and Leclercq, Hist. des conciles, VII, pt. 2 (Paris, forever opposed to the Florentines. however

1916), 849 ff., and Mansi, XXIX, col. 91CD. In the fall of t both is E a "Charlee 1439 the Dominican Juan de Torquemada assailed the 4! oth the mperor Sigismund and Charles

Basler allegation of conciliar supremacy over the pope, inhis VII of France objected to the removal of the Oratio synodalis de primatu, ed. Emmanuel Candal, Rome, Council to Italy (for it would clearly lead to 1954 (Concilium Florentinum, Documenta et scriptores, “schism.” as it did). It was therefore decided

ser. B, vol.the TV, fasc. 2).the that the new location would 38 During years that Council of Basel was of at .the onoCouncil e wvounch’ woubc its height, its members were in close and amicable con- designated only upon the arrival of the Greeks tact with the Emperor John VIII and the Patriarch “ad partes Italie.”*? Eugenius soon announced,

Joseph II (Hofmann, Orientalium documenta minora [1953], nos. 3-5, 8-19, pp. 6-10, 12-25, dated from October, — ————————

1433, to March, 1436). The conciliarists refused to hold the — pp. 26-28, dated 11 February, 1437). They also rejected unionist council in a locus maritimus easy of access to the Avignon asa site for the council (no. 26, p. 30). Cf. Délger, Greeks, as Martin V had agreed to do (and the hard- _Regesten, pt. 5, nos. 3437-40, 3443-52, 3454, 3466, pp. 116 pressed Eugenius said that he was even willing for it to be __ff., and Thiriet, Régestes, III, nos. 2418 (an appeal of the

held in Constantinople, on which see, ibid., no. 8, pp. conciliarists at Basel for Venetian co-operation to convey 12—13). Some place on or near the Adriatic was neces- John VIII westward, dated 28 June, 1436), 2435, 2445, sary for Joseph II, qui est senex et continua infirmitate 2461-62, 2472-73, pp. 53 ff. gravatus (no. 14, p. 20). The emperor and the patriarch 39 Epistolae pontificiae, 1, nos. 66-86, pp. 64-88, esp.

categorically refused to go as far as Basel (nos. 22-23, pp. 67, 69, 71-72, 75-77, 83; Hefele and Leclercq,

54 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT however, that Ferrara was to be the site of the grew with each passing year of Eugenius’s Council, for which he issued a salvus conductus pontificate. For four centuries Trevisan has been generalis on 17 September (1437),4° with the wrongly known as Lodovico Scarampo, and is so intention conceivably of seeking the occasion of called by Pastor and other modern historians.

transferring it to Florence, where he felt at Some word concerning Lodovico’s career up to home among the Medici, whose money and _ the year 1440 seems in order, because we shall banking facilities he doubtless assumed he was find him very active in the affairs of the Curia

going eventually to need. for many years. Under Calixtus III he will be

a conspicuous figure in the Levant (in 1456While the contending orators at Basel disputed 1458) as commander of a papal fleet sent on

the location of the forthcoming council of a crusade against the Turks.

union, Eugenius could see a steady improvement Lodovico was born in Venice in November,

in his affairs in Italy. After his arrival in 1401, the son of a physician named Biagio

Florence in June, 1434, the pope had remained ‘Trevisan. Having himself studied medicine as there for some time, on good terms with the wellas the liberal arts at Padua, Lodovico became

Albizzeschi at first and then with the Medici. physician to Cardinal Gabriele Condulmer He showed little inclination to leave, although shortly before the latter’s election as pope. meanwhile his doughty legate Giovanni Vitel- Lodovico was made a papal chamberlain

leschi restored order in Rome and the states of (cubicularius), and appears to have abandoned the Church. Vitelleschi was titular patriarch of the practice of medicine, from which clerics Alexandria, archbishop of Florence, and a_ were debarred by canon law. He was now emcardinal from August, 1437; more condottiere barked on a distinguished ecclesiastical career, than cleric, he fell from power in the early becoming a canon of Padua before April, 1435. spring of 1440, and was rather mysteriously put Although his advancement was not particularly to death. He was replaced as legate in command _ rapid at first, it was certainly steady. He was of the papal troops by Lodovico Trevisan, the appointed bishop of Traut (modern Trogir) on patriarch of Aquileia, and here was indeed a_ 24 October, 1435, but remained papal chamberremarkable man, whose wealth and influence lain and administered his see through a local vicar. On 6 August, 1437, he became the archHist. des conciles, VII-2 (1916), 939-40. On the tangled bishop of Florence,” being by this time one of relations of Eugenius IV, the Greeks, and the conciliarists the most influential figures at the papal court. at Basel, see, ibid., VIU-2, 673-74, 684, 688-89, 697, 699, Interested 1n classical antiquities, Lodovico was 705. 13”. voseph and csp. pp. 87° Florence, and__ the friend of Niccolo Niccoli, Francesco Barbaro, bridge, 1959, pp. 46-84. Although the conciliarists at and Ciriaco of Ancona. An adept politician, he Basel also sent galleys to Constantinople to convey the was also close to Co simo de’ Medici. Through Greeks westward, John VIII refused to embark in them, these years the Curia Romana was, for the most and accepted the papal galleys, because Basel had not kept part, established in Florence where, as we have

Im less deta, JOSE lik, é ouncil O orenceé, am- 1 st1C7

faith him as to the site of the unionist coun!) noted, Eugenius IVex lived at thevestra convent.of. S. et inwinaluis QUampluUrimIS non ODservatumMm parte

(Orientalium documenta minora, no. 25, pp. 99-30, dated 25 Maria Novella. In Sep tember, 1437, Lodovico October, 1437). went on a papal mission to his native Venice,

1 Epistolae pontificiae, 1, no. 87, pp. 89-90, in which the tO deal (among other matters) with the location pope expresses the hope “quod per operam Altissimi, cuius of the forthcoming unionist council. The Venecausa agitur, concilium Basiliense transferetur de proximo ad tians had preferred Bologna or some other civitatem Ferrariensem pro tractanda in €o et occidentalis et or” Jace in the papal states as a site for the council entalis ecclesiarum unitate, pro reformatione universalis ecclesie, . . oe Christiane fideiaugmento et pace fidelium. . . ."TheCoun- OF indeed some city in the Veneto for the honor cil of Basel was finally and formally “translated” to Ferrara and advantages which would have accrued to by the bull Pridem ex tustis promulgated from Bologna on the Republic. But they were content to accept

30 December, 1437, its work to be resumed, according J odovico’s explanation of the reasons for the to the bull, on the following 8 January (zbid., I, no. 108, ; pp. 110-12), when in fact the first Ferrarese session was POPS preference for Ferrara, and they would held (Gill, Council of Florence, pp. 94-95). Eugenius arrived =———————

in the city toward the end of the month, at which time 41. On 11 August (1437) the Venetian Senate wrote Lodo(on 24 January) the recalcitrant conciliarists at Basel de- __vico to congratulate him upon his promotion from the see clared him suspended from office and deprived of all of Traut to that of Florence (Arch. di Stato di Venezia, spiritual and temporal authority (John of Segovia, Historia Sen. Secreta, Reg. 14 [1436-1439], fol. 50’). gestorum generalis synodi Basiliensis, x11, 7, in the Monumenta ‘42 Marino Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi di Venezia, in L. A. conciliorum generalium secult decimi quinti, III [1886], 25-30). | Muratori, ed., RISS, XXII (Milan, 1733), col. 1043B.

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 55 show their acquiescence in the pope’s decision by gave up the archbishopric of Florence. By a themselves requesting safe-conduct for those bull of 11 January, 1440, the Patriarch Lodovico attending the council from their neighbor, the was next appointed papal treasurer, camerarius.* Marquis Niccolo III d’Este. As they reminded He distinguished himself as a commander of the Lodovico, they had willingly allowed his Holiness papal troops in the battle of Anghiari on the to arm his galleys in Venice as well as recruit upper Arno (on 29 June, 1440), when the pope’s crossbowmen in Venetian territories to reinforce Florentine allies defeated a Milanese army of the defenses of Constantinople during John invasion under the condottiere Niccolo Piccinino

VIII’s absence from the Bosporus.” and that of the anti-Medicean Florentine exiles

When Eugenius IV appointed “monsignor under Rinaldo degli Albizzi. The Venetians were Lodovico Trevisano” to the patriarchate of of course delighted by “this happy news of the Aquileia (on 19 December, 1439),** the latter victory obtained against Niccold Piccinino.”* In

es recognition of his signal services to the Holy See, 43 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 14, fol. 55°, dated 10 September, Lodovico was made a cardinal on | July, 1440, 1437: “. . . Respondeatur [reverendo patri domino archi- with the title of S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Not episcopo Florentino] . . . quod, ut novit Beatitudo sua, nos yet forty years of age he had achieved a great ut veri et devotissimi filii Sanctitatis sue et dispositi ad reputation in Ital Th fter h k ea que grata forent Beatitudini sue fuimus contenti ei com- putatlon it Atay. ere eT he was KNOWN as placere quod armaret hic eas galeas quas armari fecit ac the cardinal of Aquileia,” as he is usually called quod de terris nostris ballistarios haberet ad eius stipendia =§=————————

mittendos ad custodiam civitatis Constantinopolitane. . . . sixteenth century, Lodovico has been restored to the family

Et fuit nostra intentio, quaemadmodum Sanctitati sue de- of Trevisan by Pio Paschini, “La Famiglia di Lodovico clarari fecimus, quod concilium celebraretur in Bononia vel cardinal camerlengo,” in L’Arcadia, V (1926), 91 ff.; “Da

aliis terris Sancte Ecclesie aut in terris nostris, nam si Medico a patriarca d’Aquileia, camerlengo e cardinale di in terris nostris celebraretur, Beatitudo sua ample cognoscit 5S. Romana Chiesa,” Memorie storiche forogiuliest, XXIII (1927),

honores et commoda que nostre reipublice pervenissent. 1-56; “Lodovico cardinale camerlengo e i suoi maneggi Sed nunc intellectis causis que Beatitudinem suam moverunt _ sino alla morte di Eugenio IV (1447),” ibtd., XXIV (1928),

ad celebrandum concilium suprascriptum in civitate Ferrarie 39-72, and XXVI (1930), 27-74; and “Prelati e curiali di dispositi ob filialem reverentiam et sinceritatem nostram Casa Scarampi,” Rivista di Alessandria, XLV (1936), 362-66. ad omnia commoda sue Beatitudini contenti remanemus, For Lodovico’s career in general I have depended on Pasquod in dicta civitate Ferrarie celebretur predictum con- chini’s biography of Lodovico Cardinal Camerlengo (+1465), cilium ac si celebraretur in terris nostris, et parati sumus Rome, 1939, in Lateranum, new ser., V-1, Facultas Theologica pro Beatitudine sua a . . . domino marchione petere sal-- Pontificii Athenaei Lateranensis. Ernesto Pontieri, Alfonso vumconductum, ut requirit Sanctitas sua.” On Lodovico’s il Magnanimo, re di Napoli (1435-1458), Naples, 1975, pp. mission, cf. also, ibid., fols. 57’-58" and ff., 79, 83", 84°, 94, 269-70, 323, 362, still calls Trevisan “Scarampo.”

93", 94°-95, ef alibi, and Sanudo, Vite de’duchi, in RISS, Whatever lies behind the erroneous assignment of the

XXII, col. 1043B. surname Scarampo to Lodovico, he had close relations with

“4 Andrea Navagero, Storia veneziana, in RISS, XXIII various members of this family; cf. the letter of Pius II (1733), col. 1105, another indication that Lodovico was a to Lodovico, dated 9 August, 1460 (Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Trevisan and not a member of the family of Scarampo- Arm. XXXIX, tom. 9, fol. 136%): “Audivimus que nomine Mezzarota (on which see below, in this note). Eugenius tuo retulit nobis dilectus filius Nicolaus Scarampo, scutifer had already sent an envoy to Venice to sound out the Senate _tuus, super negotiis terrarum abbatie Montiscasini. . . .”

on their acceptance of a certain Venetian, obviously Lodo- Cf., ibid., fol. 137". Lodovico Trevisan in fact made this vico, for papal nomination to the lucrative patriarchate Niccolo and Lodovico Scarampo his heirs, having brought

of Aquileia. Motions to assure Lodovico an annual them up almost from boyhood, although Paul II did not income of 4,000 ducats, however, and to assign him recognize Trevisan’s facultas testamenti, and claimed most of

Aquileia, S. Vito, and S. Daniele in temporalibus et his vast possessions for the crusade (after his death on 22 spirittualibus were defeated in the Senate on 14 December, March, 1465), thus depriving the Scarampi of their 1439 (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15, fols. 2-3"), but after Lodo- legacy but leaving them nonetheless considerable property, vico’s victory at Anghiari over the condottiere Niccolo Pic- on which see Paschini, Lodovico Card. Camerlengo, pp. cinino (which we shall note in a moment) and his eleva- 208-10. Since it was well known that Lodovico had left tion to the cardinalate, the Senate was ready to add some- most of his estate to the Scarampi, a fact widely pubwhat to his territorial jurisdictions and to offer him 5,000 _licized by Paul II’s intervention, it was natural for later ducats a year (ibid., fol. 77, docs. dated 10 and 29 April, writers to assume that he must have belonged to this 1441). But by this time Lodovico’s emissary to the Senate _ family.

proved so demanding that “vadit pars quod in futurum non * Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 382 [Eugenii IV possit poni per aliquem in isto consilio de dando pecunias, Officior. tom. IT), fol. 111°, paying especial tribute to Lodoloca, aut aliquid aliud ultra ea que capta sunt et oblata vico’s experiencia in agendis rebus. Cf., ibid., fols. 144”—145°.

nisi istud consilium congregatum fuerit numero C .. .” *° Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15, fol. 28%, doc. dated 3 July, 1440. (fol. 79°, and ¢f. fol. 86’), and on 21 September, 1441, On the political importance of Anghiari to Eugenius IV, the Senate informed Lodovico directly of the limits of their see Gill, The Council of Florence, pp. 320-21.

offer when he was himself in Venice (fol. 97°, and ef. “7 Cf. Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15,

fols. 112%, 113", 115). fol. 33", doc. dated 8 August, 1440, and, zbid., fols. 42, Known incorrectly as a Scarampo from about the mid- 43', 77, 79°, 86°, 97°, et alibi.

56 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT in the Vatican registers. If Cardinal Vitelleschi When Prince Centurione Zaccaria died in fell from power with the suddenness of Sejanus, 1432, the last remnants of the old Frankish Lodovico had all the pride and love of luxury _ principality of Achaea disappeared, and the proof Lucullus, becoming known in fact as the tection of the Morea against the Turks devolved

“cardinale Lucullo.”* upon the Palaeologian despots. Through the remaining years of Greek independence these

*° Cf. Paschini, Lodovico Cardinal Camerlengo, pp. 7-51, were, as is well known, Theodore II and Con103, 115-16, 136, 208 ff.; on Lodovico’s command of the Stantine, — Thomas and Demetrius, brothers papal troops, see Predelli, Regesti dei Commemoriali, 1V Of the reigning emperor John VIII. The only

(1896), bk. xu, no. 66, p. 226, dated 21 March, 1440, one of them who showed much ability was and nos. 147-48, 156, and ¢f. Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Constantine, known as Dragases after his

Vat. 382, fols. 162”’-163%, dated 1a September, and . fols. 204"—206°. mother Helena, daughter of 1442, Constantine

Various chronological data relating to Cardinal Lodo- Dejanovic (of the Serbian house of Dragas, vico’s career may be found in a slender but most im- which ruled in eastern Macedonia).*® Despite portant register in the Vatican Archives (Arm. XXXI, tom. the signal successes achieved by the Turks in 52), to which Ludwig von Pastor called attention many years the fourth decade of the century, Constantine ago (Hist. Popes, 1, 392-93, and Gesch. d. Papste, I [repr. .

1955], 815-16). Since in fact numerous chronological Was to try to bring together both the Morea and data will be found to depend on this volume for almost continental Greece under the unified rule of the half a century, I think that some description, of it at this Moreote despotate. Before John VIII had de-

point will be worthwhile. parted for Italy on 27 November, 1437, to

The original lettering the of spine the volume has attend the Council of Ferrara-Florence (he been preserved (the on back theoforiginal binding being :. glued into the present inner cover), identifying it as Littere arrived In Venice on 8 February, 1438), Sacri Collegii Federico 3. Imperatore: Quietantie varia: Bulla Constantine had left the Morea for ConEugenit pro Camerae clericis: 2611: De officio et potestate stantinople to serve as regent during his Camerarit S. Collegui: Computa et res spectantes ad Sacrum imperial brother’s absence,*° and from the shores Collegium. Despite the various titles, the volume actually contains detailed notes relating to the Consistory from 1439 =§=———————-

to 1486 (fols. 48"-104", by mod. stamped enumeration; et consensu admisit et constituit me Ieronimum Iunium fols. 15'-71” by an earlier numbering), and may be re- decretorum doctorem, canonicum Florentinum, in clericum garded as one of the earliest in the valuable series of _ ipsius Sacri Collegii, et iuravi in manibus ipsius reverendissimi Acta Consistorialia. The (first) writer identifies himself as domini Gulielmi secundum constitutiones ipsius Sacri Jacobus Radulphi, “. . . et sic michi Jacobo Radulphi, Collegii in presentia domini Gabrielis Rovira, alterius clerici, clerico dicti collegii, retullit idem dominus . . .” (fol. 53", de quibus rogatus fuit dominus Johannes Fortini, notarius and cf. 57"). This Jacobus wrote also some Ephemerides camere apostolice.” Cf., ibid., fol. 71. Such glimpses behind sacri consistorit, which were used by Domin. Georgius in his _ scenes in the Curia are always interesting.

Vita Nicolai V, Rome, 1742, but Arm. XXXI, tom. 52, is not The first entry in this register of Acta Consistorialia is the work to which Georgius alludes (¢f. Pastor, Hist. Popes, also important as marking the first appearance of the Greeks

I, 393). Pastor believed the Acta “to have been extracted Isidore “of Kiev’ and Bessarion of Nicaea as cardinals,

from a larger register,” which is possible. They form, how- both of whom were long to serve the Latin cause in the East

ever, a week-to-week report of both secret and public (fol. 48"): “Anno incarnationis dominice MCCCCXXXIX, consistories (note the partly marginal addition of 13 October, die Sabbati XVIII mensis Decembris, pontificatus domini 1469, to an entry dated 13 November, 1467, on fol. 69"), | Eugenii anno nono: Sanctissimus dominus noster divina proviespecially the cardinals’ participation in the communia et dentia [Eugenius] papa quartus Florentie assumpsit [MS. assupminuta servitia, of which the camerarius or treasurer of the msit!] ad cardinalatum XVII dominos cardinales, videlicet:” Sacred College kept record, commonly passing the informa- [seventh in the list stands “dominum Isidorum, archiepition on to the clerks of the College, who kept the “acta” pre- scopum Russensem,” and eighth “dominum Bissarionem,

served in this register. archiepiscopum Nicenum.”] It was a historic consistory at

At the beginning of the year 1468 appears the note (Arm. which these elevations to the cardinalate were announced, XXXI, tom. 52, fol. 70°): “Mutatur annus MCCCCLXVIII§, but the notice in the Acta is at least deficient to the expontificatus S. D. N. domini Pauli anno quarto, inceptus per tent that in 1439 the eighteenth of December fell on Frime Ieronimum Iunium die XXVI. Aprilis—ex libro domini day, not Saturday. Selections from the register (Arm. XXXI, Gabrielis Rovira clerici collegii” (the first entry for this year, tom. 52), beginning with 22 January, 1440, are given in is dated 10 January). Junius was elected one of the twoclerks Conrad Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medit aevi, II (1914,

of the Sacred College on Saturday, 23 April, as he records repr. 1960), 26 ff. himself in the register (fol. 70%): “Creatio mei Ieronimi #9 Constantine Dejanovic was killed in the battle of Rovine Iunii in clericum Collegii reverendorum dominorum car- in May, 1395, when Mircea the Elder of Wallachia, assisted

dinalium: Die sabati XXIII. Aprilis, anno et pontificatu§ by the Hungarians, tried in vain to halt the Turkish quibus supra [1468], reverendissimus in Christo pater et advance into the Dobruja and over the Danube (ef. dominus, dominus Gulielmus, episcopus Ostiensis cardinalis G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, Oxford, 1956, Rothomagensis [Guillaume d’Estouteville], Sacri Collegii pp. 489-90, and Iorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 275 ff.). reverendissimorum in Christo patrum dominorum S.S.R.E. °° According to Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1045D—

cardinalium camerarius de ipsorum omnium voluntate 1046A; ed. Grecu, p. 56), Constantine left Patras on 5 Sep-

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 57 of the Bosporus he could see from month to Hungary during the preceding summer.” The month the northward extension of Turkish king of Poland was accused of giving aid and

arms. counsel to the Turks. An extremely important This was a very depressing period for Balkan letter, however, of one Jodocus de Helpruna Christendom. Before the Council of Ferrara- written from Vienna on 11 September, 1438,

Florence had assembled, the Emperor Sigismund to an official of the Council of Basel describes died in December, 1437. He was succeeded by the recent Turkish attacks upon Siebenburgen

the Hapsburg Albert [II] of Austria, his (Transylvania) and the “Wurzland:” the sultan

daughter Elizabeth’s husband, who now became himself had led the expedition, and carried off king of Hungary and Bohemia. In March, 1438, 80,000 persons into slavery, not counting the Albert was also elected to the imperial throne many priests and others who were killed. The (or, to be more precise, was elected king of the city of Muhlenbach (modern Sebes) in Transyl-

Romans), beginning that almost continuous’ vania was entirely destroyed, and the territory succession of Hapsburg rulers which was to last roundabout thoroughly pillaged. The Turks as long as the Holy Roman Empire. Sultan had had about a thousand camels bearing their Murad II took advantage of Sigismund’s death — tents and other equipment. The sultan was said to

to launch attacks upon Transylvania and have employed as his guide none other than Hungary. We are well informed concerning Vlad II Dracul, the voivode of Wallachia, an the events of 1438.° Gustav Beckmann’s_ imperial vassal, upon whom Albert had in fact careful edition of the Deutsche Reichstagsakten depended for the defense of the eastern of this year contains the most detailed reports marches.**

of a wide range of imperial problems and Among those carried off by the Turks at this affairs. Here documents are givenin abundance time was George of Siebenbturgen, whose capdepicting the rival claims of Eugenius IV and _ tivity lasted about twenty years (1438-1458), but the conciliarists at Basel, details relating to who returned to write the valuable record of his

church union and the forthcoming Council of long residence among the Turks. His account Ferrara, the views of German princes and cities, was to have a wide circulation in both Latin and ambassadors’ instructions and their speeches German.” In the following year (1439) the sultan

replete with biblical and classical allusions, notarial instruments, proposed reforms and 53 Beckmann, op. cit., no. 370, p. 729; cf. Ladislas’s retaxes, military preparations, and even an ex- joinder to the pope, dated in February, 1439 (bid., no. change of letters between the Byzantine Emperor $75, p. 747); and note A. Sokotowski and J. Szujski, eds., John VIII and the German electors.*” Actually Codex epistolaris saecult decimi quinti, I, pt. 1 (Cracow, there are surprisingly few references tothe Turks 1876, repr. New York and London, 1965), nos. xciv—

in this material. although in late “7? "2 © PP: 88 ff. (Monumenta > _ torica resNovember, gestas Poloniae illustrantia, tom. medi II). aevi his:

1438, Albert II in a letter to the pope (denounc- 54 Beckmann, op. cit., no. 283, p. 525; note also, ibid., ing King Ladislas III of Poland) does dwell on no. 399, p. 839; cf. Iorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, I,

the fearful depredations of the Turks in 419-20, and Aurel Decei, “Deux Documents turcs concernant les expéditions des sultans Bayazid I** et Murad

II dans les pays roumains,” Revue roumaine d'histoire, Oo XIII-3 (1974), 395-413, esp. pp. 403 ff. Muhlenbach tember (1437), went to Negroponte, and thence to Con- (Sebes) was not “entirely destroyed,” as Jodocus says stantinople, where he arrived on the twenty-fourth (cf. (Mulenbach civitas totaliter est destructa), on which note Radu

Pseudo-Sphranizes, II, 12, ed. Bonn, pp. 162-63; ed. J.B. Florescu and R. T. McNally, Dracula: A Biography of Papadopoulos, I [Leipzig, 1935], 164; ed. Grecu, p. 306), Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476), New York, 1973, pp. 34 and which is in general accord with the information supplied 188, note 13. The Turks invaded Siebenbiirgen in 1395by the Venetian government to the pope (Iorga, ROL, VI, 1396, 1420-1421, 1432, 1434, 1438, 1440, 1442, and fre389, doc. dated 22 October, 1437). On the circumstances quently thereafter (Gustav Giindisch, “Die Tirkeneinfalle and chronology of John VIII’s voyage to Venice, see in Siebenbiirgen bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts,” lorga, ROL, VI, 391-92, note; 398-99, note; and Gill, Jahrbiicher fiir Geschichte Osteuropas, 11 [1937], 393-412,

Council of Florence, pp. 88-90, 98. and Gundisch, “Siebenburgen in der Turkenabwehr,

*'Cf. in general the Venetian Sen. Secreta, Reg. 14, 1395-1526,” Revue roumaine d'histoire, XII1-3, 415-43). fols. 109 ff., 149” ff., and von Aschbach, Gesch. Katser 55 After his escape from the Turks, George of Sieben-

Sigmuna’s, IV, 396 ff. burgen (or Georgius de Hungaria) joined the Dominican

*? G. Beckmann, ed., Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Konig Order. He wrote a well-known work entitled Tractatus Albrecht II., pt. 1, Gottingen, 1957, nos. 121, 128, pp. 184, de moribus, condicionibus et nequicia Turcorum, which first 195 (Deutsche Reichstagsakten, XIII), dated at Veniceon 25 appeared in Rome in 1480, although the authorship of the February, 1438, and at Frankfurt between 11 and 19 March _ work long remained rather foggy. George died in Rome at

of the same year. the age of eighty on 3 July, 1502. He was buried near

58 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT led another great offensive, this time into In the meantime the Council of Ferrara-

Serbia; captured Semendria (Smederevo), the Florence had met, with remarkable results. capital of the Balkan despotate, in August after According to George Sphrantzes, Manuel II had a three months’ siege; and reduced to servitude once told his son John VIII that the Turks lived all but the province of Novo Brdo in southern — in constant fear of a Graeco-Latin alliance, which Serbia, which held out for two more years. Novo — they knew could only bode ill for them. When-

Brdo was rich in gold and silver mines, and ever John had need, therefore, of putting fear one of the largest cities in the Balkans. At the in the infidels’ hearts (6Tav Exys xpeiav tie end of October (1439) Albert II died unex- goBnoat tovs dceBeis), he should entertain the pectedly; competitors struggled for his dangerous proposal for a council to effect the union of the crowns, and the Turks availed themselves of the churches. But since Manuel could see no hope

ensuing anarchy. The roads of the northern of the Greeks’ ever finding spiritual peace and Balkans were full of refugees, harried andlooted understanding with the Latins, John should

by Turkish soldiers. From April, 1440, Murad’s _ never risk the parlous venture into actual union, forces laid siege to Alba Greca (Belgrade), atthe for it would prove impossible, and “I fear lest

confluence of the Sava with the Danube, and an even worse schism may result—and then devastated the country over a wide area. The look! we have left ourselves uncovered to the stalwart garrison at Belgrade held out, however, infidels’ [attacks].”°7 Whether or not this was and in September Murad was obliged to raise the good advice, we need not try to say. At all siege. By now Albert had been succeeded as king events it was not the spirit in which John and of the Romans by his distant cousin Frederick the Greek delegation had come to Italy,°* and III [IV] of Hapsburg, who was to be the last (as manya schoolboy knows or used to know) the emperor crowned in Rome (in 1452). During union of the churches was in fact proclaimed, his long and dreary reign of more than half a and with rare unanimity.°® century Frederick built up the fortunes of his house, but never distinguished himself by his and Lhotsky, “Kaiser Friedrich III.: Sein Leben und seine

efforts against the Turks. Personlichkeit” [reprinted from the Kaiserresidenz Wiener Neustadt}, in his Aufsdtze und Vortrége, 5 vols., Munich,

————_————— 1970-76, II, 119-63. Fra Angelico in the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva 7 Sphrantzes, Chronicon minus, in the Patrologia graeca

“cum maxima populi frequentia per triduum,” although the [PG], vol. 156, cols. 1046D-—1047A; Vasile Grecu, ed., site of his interment is no longer identifiable. See J. A. B. Georgios Sphrantzes, Memorii (1401-1477), in anexd PseudoPalmer, “Fr. Georgius de Hungaria, O. P. ... ,” Bulletin Phrantzes: Macarie Melissenos, Cronica (1258-1481), Bucha-

of the John Rylands Library, XXXIV (Manchester, 1951), rest, 1966, Mem., xxi, 5-6, p. 58; and cf. Pseudo-

44-68. Sphrantzes (“Phrantzes”), Chron. maius, II, 13 (Bonn, 56 lorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 417-20, 422-25; pp. 178-79; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 177-78; ed. Grecu, Babinger, Maometto il Conquistatore (1957), pp. 40-44, 618. p. 320). This text is often referred to (cf. Gill, Council of

Novo Brdo was occupied by the Turks in 1441, re- Florence, p. 30; Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, pp. 329-30; covered by the Serbs, and reoccupied by the forces of V. Laurent, in Revue des études byzantines, XX, 14).

Mehmed II on 1 June, 1455. On the Turkish exploita- 8 In actual fact Syropoulos, Mémoires, IX, 15, ed. Laurent tion of the mines, see Nicoara Beldiceanu, Les Actes des (1971), p. 448, represents John VIII as telling the Greek premiers sultans . . . , I: Actes de Mehmed II et de Bayezid delegation at Florence that his father Manuel had favored ll... , Paris, 1960, docs. 3-6, pp. 68-73, with refs., and church union, and worked toward it. Since Manuel was not vol. II: Réglements miniers, 1390-1512, Paris, 1964, pp. able to bring it about, however, he had bequeathed the 53-55, 85-87, 103, 148 ff., 161 ff., and docs. 9, 10, 16, task to John for fulfilment: “Ot« év@ace Se€ ideiv

19, esp. 20, 22, 25, and 26-28. tavTny [rTnv Evwow] TeTeXeopévynv, 50 Kai ETTAYKE pot Many of Frederick HII’s activities both as king of the iva rekeew@ow airhny, Kai Eott TO Epyov Exeivov Kai as

Romans and as emperor may be followed, almost from day am’ Exeivov mpatTw TovTo Kai abros.”

to day, in Joseph Chmel, Regesta chronologico-diplomatica °°'The major sources for the Council of FerraraFriderict IV. Romanorum regis (imperatoris HI.), Vienna, Florence have become fully available only during the last 1838, repr. Hildesheim, 1962. Among the almost 9,000 generation, in excellent editions prepared by Frs. Georg documents summarized by Chmel (largely dealing, to be Hofmann, Emmanuel Candal, Joseph Gill, Bernard Schultze, sure, with the internal affairs of the empire) there are Vitalien Laurent, and others, in the Concilium Florentinum, surprisingly few concerned with the Turkish peril, the most Documenta et scriptores, published by the Pontifical Inimportant being nos. 2232, 3009, 3175, 3356, 3369, 3535, stitute of Oriental Studies, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, 3689, 3699, 3781, 3857, 4490, 4739, 5031, 6177, 6336, 6431, Rome. Reference is made to the individual volumes where

7468, 8001, and cf. nos. 3706, 3711, 3721, 4542. the need to do so occurs. The old work, however, of Frederick was always far less concerned with the Turken- Eugenio Cecconi, Studi storict sul concilio di Firenze, I, frage than with the aggrandizement of his family. On his Florence, 1869, with some 200 documents, still remains very reign, see the various essays and bibliographies by Alphons _ useful.

Lhotsky, Hermann Wiesflecker, Hanna Dornik-Eger, et al., Of the abundant secondary literature relating to the Friedrich LI., Kaiserresidenz Wiener Neustadt, Vienna, 1966, Council, mention should be made of the following: Georg

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 59 After being sumptuously entertained in Venice, to give the kings and princes of Europe an which he had reached with the Greek delegation opportunity to send their delegates to the on 8 February, 1438, the Emperor John VIII Council. The condottiere Niccolo Piccinino, in went on to Ferrara, where the Council had been Milanese employ, seized Bologna in late May in session since 8 January. He arrived on 4 (1438), and July and August brought the plague March in a driving rain. The Patriarch Joseph II, to Ferrara. There were rumors that a massive aged and ailing, entered the city four days later. Turkish attack upon Constantinople was imAccording to a papal letter of 9 April (when the pending. A few states sent representatives to Council became “oecumenical” with the advent Ferrara, but in the Pragmatic Sanction of of the Greeks),“ the Holy See had already Bourges (in July) Charles VII, while leaning expended 80,000 ducats on the Greeks’ behalf toward Basel, made France neutral in the conbesides the then current cost of 5,000 ducats a_ tinuing conflict between the pope and the month for their support and forthe maintenance conciliarists. Ihe German electors persisted in of the 300 crossbowmen and the two light the expression of a favorable attitude toward galleys which the pope had added to the defense Basel, but they too adopted a neutral stance.

of Constantinople.” The doctrine of purgatory was debated in private

Although he was paying the piper, Eugenius' meetings in June and July (1438) without reachIV found it hard to call the tune. The Latins ing a satisfactory settlement of opposing views. reluctantly agreed to a four months’ postpone- The Ferrarese fathers began the formal discusment of any serious discussion of the chief sions of their dogmatic differences as late as differences which divided the two Churches (the 8 October with the thorny question of the Latin procession of the Holy Spirit, the use ofleavened addition of the filioque clause to the Nicene or of unleavened bread [ta &{vpa] in com-_ creed. The controversy dragged on, with displays munion, the Latin doctrine of purgatory, and of ingenuity and learning, through fourteen or the perennial question of papal supremacy), fifteen sessions (until 13—14 December), by which time the colossal financial burden of

—______ supporting the Council had already turned Hofmann, “Die Konzilsarbeit in Ferrara,” Orientalia Chris- Eugenius’s eyes toward Florence, where the tiana periodica, III (1937), 110-40, 403-55; “Die Konzilsar- Medici were waiting to receive the pope and the beit in Florenz,” wid., IV (1938), 157-88, 372-422; and = Curia, the emperor and the patriarch, the con-

Papato, patriarcato —1439): Teologi e delidi divi and hej atten . d d ants, beraziontconciliarismo, del concilio di Firenze, Rome,(1438 1940; also V. tending divines, their notaries Chiaroni, Lo Scisma greco e il concilio di Firenze, Florence, and the hangers-on who flocked to councils. 1938; Jean Décarreaux, Les Grecs au concile de union Ferrare-Florence (1438-1439), Paris, 1970, which brings toe =———~—————

gether articles published in the Revue des études italiennes, 63 Louis Petit and Georg Hofmann, eds., with an introduc1961-67; Ivan N. Ostroumoff, The History of the Council of tion by Jos. Gill, De purgatorio disputationes in concilio Florence, trans. Basil Popoff, Boston, 1971; and Stephan Florentino habitae, Rome, 1969 (Conc. Florent., Docc. et Mosl, Das theologische Problem des 17. okumenischen Konzils _ scripp., ser. A, vol. VIII, fasc. 2). The title of this work von Ferrara-Florenz-Rom (1438 —1445), Innsbruck, 1974 (Stu- can be misleading; the debates on purgatory were held dien und Arbeiten der Theologischen Facultat, Universitat in Ferrara. On the doctrinal differences between the Greek

Innsbruck), which is concerned, so to speak, with the and Latin Churches, note Fantino Vallaresso, Venetian aggtornamento of the work of the Council. A good deal of _ bishop of Crete (d. 18 May, 1443), Libellus de ordine relevant bibliography is collected in Angelo Mercati, “Il generalium conciliorum et unione Florentina, ed. Bernard Decreto d’unione del 6 luglio 1439 nell’Archivio Segreto Schultze, Rome, 1944, pp. 20 ff. (Conc. Florent., Docc. et Vaticano,” Orient. Christ. pertodica, XI (1945), 5-44. For scripp., ser. B, vol. IH, fasc. 2). general accounts of the proceedings and conflicts at Ferrara- *t Hefele and Leclercq, Hist. des conciles, VUI-2, 967-87; Florence, see especially Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence, Gill, Council of Florence, pp. 117-25, 145-69. On the pro-

Cambridge, 1959, with a French translation by M. Jossua, posed transfer of the Council to Florence for financial Tournai, 1964; Personalities of the Council of Florence, reasons, see Gill, ibid., pp. 174-76. An unknown member Oxford, 1964; and Constance et Bale-Florence, Paris, 1965, of the Council of Basel, when it still seemed possible

pp. 119 ff. (Histoire des conciles oecuméniques, vol. 9). to attract the Greeks to a site of the conciliarists’ 6° Georg Hofmann, ed., Fragmenta protocolli, diaria choice, had estimated that the costs of their transport, privata, sermones, Rome, 1951, no. I, pp. 3-6 (Conc. maintenance, and various miscellanea, plus the necessary Florent., Docc. et scripp., ser. A, vol. III, fasc. 2). reinforcements to the defense of Constantinople would S!'Ten sessions of the Council had been held before amount to about 186,000 to 200,000 ducats if their par-

the enrollment of the Greeks (cf. the Fragmenia protocollt, ticipation in the Council lasted for about a year. The no. 10, p. 24, dated 3 April, 1438, and cf. pp. 29-30). known expenditures which Eugenius had to meet and the ® Iorga, Notes et extraits, Il, 351-52, citing the Arch. known sources and assumed amounts of his income, all Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 370, fols. 211-12; Epistolae the data being quite incomplete, are explored in an pontificiae, II (1944), no. 150, p. 48; cf. Gill, Council of article by Gill, “The Cost of the Council of Florence,”

Florence, pp. 108-9, 174-75, 299-300. Orientalia Christiana periodica, XXII (1956), 299-318.

60 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT After the Council was transferred from Ferrara theological debates with the Latins, eight public to Florence by papal decree (dated 10 January, sessions were devoted to discussions concerning 1439), its members met from February, 1439, the procession of the Holy Spirit (from 2 to 24

to April, 1442, although John VIII and the March, 1439). Giovanni di Montenero, the

Greek ‘delegation left the banks of the Arno _ provincial of the Dominicans in Lombardy, in late August, 1439, and returned to Con- certainly seemed in the opinion of all the Latins stantinople by way of Venice. The Council and most of the Greeks, including Bessarion, brought profit as well as prestige to the Floren- Isidore of Kiev, and George Scholarius (until tines, and so quite appropriately the Signoria after his return home), to have swamped by his

met some of the costs of transporting the learning and the acuity of his reasoning the Greeks from Ferrara to Florence and maintain- stubborn repetitiveness of Marcus Eugenicus,

ing them after their arrival. Despite the re- the Greek metropolitan of Ephesus and the luctance of the Greeks to participate in formal Kopugaios of the Greek theological chorus.® Many of the Greeks had a ready command of 6 Epistolae pontificiae, 1, no. 160, pp. 60-61, the reason the theological clichés formulated in more than given for the translatio concilii being the pollution of the three centuries of unionist disputation, but this air in Ferrara (and of course the plague might return with was not enough. They feared the Latin employ-

the spring) and the greater convenience and healthful- ment of the syllogism, and distrusted the

ness of Florence (for Eugenius could not acknowledge holasti lat; f . that without the financial backing of the Medici the Council] 5C/!0 astic solution oO theological problems. The

could hardly go on). debates at Florence made manifest once more "Cf. lorga, Notes et extraits, II, 33, a text interesting the superiority of the western university training enough to cite (from the Florentine series of “Uscita,” Over the rather haphazard study of Scripture Reg. 268, fol. 35, and very similar to numerous entries in and tristic lit t “nth 3 hool the accounts of the Camera Apostolica for this period): “Adi patris C ilerature in € Monastic SCHOOIS XVIII di maggio [1439]. A Chosimo di Giovanni de’Medici of Constantinople. After more than two months

e Llorenzo e ciaschuno di loro, in tutto. Per ispese per of confusion and altercation among themselves, loro fatte del mese di febraio prossimo passato, per chamino although most of the uninformed Greek clergy € per vivere de’ Greci, della venuta loro della citta di were probably not entirely sure of what they Ferrara alla citta di Firenze, fiorini mille dugiento di do; h did ; fF he ] Chamera, e per le spese fatte a detti Greci nella citta di WET€ Going, they did in e ect accept the longFirenze, per primo e sechondo mese, chomincato adi XV del controverted filioque clause. Bessarion had mese di febraio prossimo passato, a ratione di fiorini already urged them to do so, in all sincerity, in

1,700 “ Chamera “per caschun meses tutto noon:sette, a longsoldi Oratiodieci dogmatica quatromile secento di Chamera, a fiorini . 69 which he delivered on auro pro cento, 4,945 di sconto,—fiorini 4,600 di Camera 13 and 14 April, 1439." In a tense and eloquent

[the last words are erased ]. ——_ “Alloro detti e a ciaschuno, in tutto fiorini per le °7 The Latin doctrine of the twofold procession of the

spese per loro facte nella citta di Firenze a detti Greci, per Holy Spirit was the chief stumbling block to the Greeks’ lo vivere per terzo mese, inchomincato adi XV d’aprile reunion with the Latin Church. Hefele and Leclercq, Hist. prossimo passato, a ratione chome di sopra, fiorini mille des conciles, VII-2, 988-95, have most unaccountably conseicento [sic] di Chamera, e fiorini sette, soldi dieciauro pro fused Giovanni di Montenero with the Basel conciliarist

cento, di sconto, 1,827, grossi [?] due, soldi due, denari John of Ragusa, as noted by Gill, Council of Florence,

quattro, — 1,700 di Camera [last words erased]. Confessati pp. 194-226, who has given us an excellent summary of per detto Chosimo. Pagha netti fiorini 6,300 di Chamera.” _ the debate and of its immediate aftermath. On Montenero

The papal, Florentine, and other financial accounts and his confréres, see G. Meersseman, “Les Dominicains would seem to belie, to some extent at least, the charge often présents au concile de Ferrare-Florence jusqu’au deécret repeated by Syropoulos, George Scholarius (Gennadius), d’union pour les Grecs (6 juillet 1439),” Archivum Fratrum John Eugenicus, Amiroutzes, and others that the Latins Praedicatorum, 1X (1939), 62-75. Until the Latins dropped sought, more or less, to starve the Greeks into acceptance the filioque clause from the creed and gave up the use of

of a decree of union (cf. Jos. Gill, “The ‘Acts’ and the unleavened bread (the azyma) in the mass (let alone the Memoirs of Syropoulos as History,” Orientalia Christiana different Latin views and practices as to baptism, the

periodica, XIV [1948], 331-340). eucharist, and purgatory), Marcus Eugenicus could not

Some idea of the financial importance of the Medici to consider ecclesiastical reunion as doctrinally tenable. He is Eugenius IV, the Greeks, and the Council of Florence may — the subject of two recent monographs (N. P. Basileiades, be got from the Epistolae pontificiae, 1 (1940), no. 68, Marcus Eugenicus and the Union of the Churches [in Greek], pp. 70—71; II (1944), nos. 138, 194, 221, pp. 32-33, 86, Athens, 1972, and C. N. Tsirpanlis, Mark Eugenicus and 120-21; III (1946), no. 246, p. 23, and from the Acta the Council of Florence, Thessaloniki, 1974). Marcus Eugenicus camerae apostolicae (1950), nos. 59, 60, 69, 71, 72, etc., | was withal a valiant as well as a learned man. pp. 48-49, 50 ff., 59, 61, 63, 67-68, 69, 76-77, 78-80, 88 Cf. Syropoulos, Mémoires, X, 28-29, ed. Laurent (1971), 83-84, 90-91, 99, 101, 102-3, 106, 109. The Medici con- __ pp. 516-20. tinued as papal bankers throughout Eugenius’s reign (¢f. B. 6° Emmanuel Candal, ed., [Bessarionis Nicaeni) Oratio Krekic, Dubrovnik [Raguse] et le Levant au moyen age, Paris dogmatica de unione, Rome, 1958, pp. 10-15 and ff. (Conc.

and The Hague, 1961, no. 1097, pp. 346-47). Florent., Docc. et scripp., ser. B, vol. VII, fasc. 1).

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 61 discourse George Scholarius, then a judge and_ churches was announced on the forenoon of a layman, implored his fellow Greeks to accept 6 July, 1439, in a long session over which union with the Latin Church. Indeed, he said that Eugenius himself presided in the cathedral Latin learning had demonstrated they could do of S. Reparata, now S. Maria del Fiore, where so in all conscience. The Latins would helpthem a huge crowd had gathered to witness the defend Constantinople against the Turks, who colorful ceremony. Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini (it was said) had already laid siege to the city read the Latin text of the decree; Bessarion, or would soon be doing so.” Isidore of Kiev the Greek; and both Eugenius and John VIII was no less strong an advocate of union, urging with their respective clergies made _ public the reverend fathers at the Council to have done acknowledgment of their assent. It was a with their contentiousness, for they could find memorable day, a Monday. All the shops in nothing more that might assist them in the vast Florence were closed, just as though it were theological heritage which their forebears had Sunday. It was a proud day indeed for the

left.” Florentines, who knew that history was being The last obstacles to union or at least to the made in their city.” declaration of union were removed during the month of June, 1439. The differences relating The church councils of the fifteenth century to the eucharist, purgatory, and papal supremacy all required extensive advance planning. They were resolved by the Greeks’ giving way to caused the descent upon Pisa or Pavia, Siena or compromise, fatigue, and ignorance, and by the Florence, Constance or Basel, of hundreds and Latins’ contenting themselves with some measure (in some cases) even of thousands of persons, of ambiguity and by not making too rigid issues many of whom required appropriate housing

of them.” On 5 July the higher clergy of both and all of whom required food. Inevitably Churches signed the Greek and Latin texts of lodgings became scarce, and the costs rose the decree of union (writtenin parallelcolumns). despite the imposition of ceilings on rents. The Greeks, however, were not unanimous in Foodstuffs became more expensive. Exchange their subscription. As Gregory the Protosyn- rates fluctuated to the usual advantage of the cellus, who represented Philotheus, the patriarch bankers. Merchants and artisans prospered from

of Alexandria, wrote the latter shortly after- the concentration of customers, but they were wards, all the Greek prelates had accepted the also impeded by the financial stringency which union except two, “[Marcus Eugenicus,] the resulted from the fact that ecclesiastical revenues metropolitan of Ephesus, who is certainly a were rarely equal to current expenses or at any

learned man, and the completely ignorant Bishop [Isaias ] of Stauropolis, for whom nothing —=————

makes sense” (metropolita Effesinus, homo certe “ The decree or bull of union of 6 July, 1439, may be eruditus, vir ad omnino literarumecclesiarum found in A. Theiner and F. Miklosich, eds., Monumenta . ageet Stauropolitanus, 73 . pectantia untonem graecae et romanae, Vienna,

nescius, cut nihil constat). Although ignorant, 1879, pp. 46-56, and in G. Hofmann, ed., Documenta

Isaias was presumably not stupid; he had quietly concilu Florentint de untone orientalium, 1: De untone Graeslipped away, and doubtless saved himself much corum .. . ,Rome, 1935 (Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana,

embarrassment later on. The union of the Textus et documenta, ser. theologica, no. 18). Hofmann’s

text is better. The original still exists in the Biblioteca

——_—_——_— Medicea-Laurenziana, in the Cassetta Cesarini, no. 1, which Geo. Scholarius, “De pace deque adiuvanda patria is now “on exhibition under glass,” as Hofmann notes in adhortatio,” in Jos. Gill, ed., Orationes Georgi Scholar in the Epistolae pontificiae, Il (1944), pp. vii—viu. Cf. Délger, concilio Florentino habitae, Rome, 1964, esp. pp. 12-18 (Conc. Regesten, pt. 5, no. 3486, p. 126. According to the Acta Florent., Docc. et scripp., ser. B, vol. VIII, fasc. 1). Cf., graeca, ed. Gill, II, 471-72, the Greeks (and Latins) signed

ibid., pp. 40 ff., 62 ff. five more copies of the decree on 20 and 21 July (1439);

™"G. Hofmann and Em. Candal, eds., Isidorus arch. Syropoulos, Mémoires, X, 25, ed. Laurent (1971), pp. 510,

Kioviensis et tottus Russiae, Sermones inter concilium Florentinum 512, says that the pope wanted five copies, but the Curia

conscripti, Rome, 1971, pp. 54-80, esp. p. 70, Isidore’s settled for four. Actually hundreds of copies were pre“Exhortatoria oratio ad concilium” (Conc. Florent., Docc. et pared and distributed unsigned or with signatures added

scripp., ser. A, vol. X, fasc. 1). for the record. On 2 August, 1439, Francesco Condulmer, ” Cf. Hofmann’s essay on Papato, conciliarismo, patriarcato, the cardinalis camerarius, ordered the payment of nineteen

Rome, 1940. florins to the notary Arnoldo “pro trecentis decem copiis 8G. Hofmann, ed., Orientalium documenta minora, Rome, __decreti sanctissime unionis Grecorum factis pro mittendo ad 1953, no. 34, p. 44 (Conc. Florentinum, Docc. et scripp., nonnullas mundi partes” (Acta camerae apostolicae [1950], no.

ser. A, vol. III, fasc. 3). The original Greek text of this 82, p. 71). Hofmann, Epp. pontificiae, U, pp. vi—1x, has letter breaks off in the middle; the Latin version, which identified eighteen copies with subscriptions, autograph or

seems to be contemporary, is complete. otherwise.

62 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT rate they were rarely available when needed to _ tained largely at his own expense, a fact which,

pay bills. As one stood on a street corner, a_ if true (and it was not), would have endeared social panorama of the times passed before his him to Pope Eugenius IV, who was constantly eyes. The councils attracted pimps and pros- pressed for. money. Papal income had declined titutes as well as those who sought benefices, markedly since the period of the Great Schism, privileges, or the resolution of legal or admin- and now the conciliarists at Basel were impeding

istrative problems at the Curia. the flow of funds to the Curia Romana. Many Most of the texts relating to the Council of of the larger accounts settled by the papal

Ferrara-Florence are of a formal nature, show- treasurers during the years 1437-1439 repreing the participants in full dress, more rarely sent the repayment of funds disbursed for the en déshabillé. The minor records, however, are Holy See by the Florentine bankers Cosimo often as interesting, if not so important, as the and Lorenzo de’ Medici.” theological and other arguments which finally Among the Florentine expenditures on behalf led to the solemn decree embodying the best of the Greeks are two items published by lorga efforts of the assembled intelligence of Chris- on which he makes no comment, but to which

tendom. we must call attention here:

Sylvester Syropoulos, for example, relates m [31 July, 1439:] A Francescho di Ghuccio, maziere his account of the Council how, in April, 145 8, de Singnori, grossi quaranta, per ispese per lu Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini invited Bessarion, fatte e che ara affare di mandare a Prato e a Pistoia George Gemistus Pletho, and George Amiroutzes_— e¢ innantri luoghi chollo ’nperadore de Greci e cho

to dine with him for the discussion of philo- messere Agnolo Acciaiuoli.” sophical problems.” If this is an attractive [30 September, 1439:] A Francescho di Ghuccio, picture, we may contrast with it Syropoulos’s maziere, per resto di spese per lui fatte innandare description of Amiroutzes during the eleventh 4 Prato e a Pistoia, chome ser Angnolo Acciaiuoli, session at Ferrara (on 18 November, 1438), when quamdo achonpangno lo ‘nperadore de’ Greci,

he stood with a companion in a far corner, 8'SS! quattordict p.

*...e-

facing the intractable Marcus Eugenicus, but —=—-———— out of sight of the concillar fathers, surrepti- a lorga, Notes ei extraits, U (Paris, 1900), 1-20 (to the tiously jeering and making funny faces at the year 1440). orga has published here many orders (manEphesian to distract him from the defense of Stato di Roma, Mandata, Regs. 828-30). Fr. Hofmann has

. . . ata) on the papal treasury (preserved in the Arch. di

Orthodoxy.” followed the payment of these orders in the accounts of Almost eighty years ago Iorga published in the | papal income and expenditure (Arch. Segr. Vaticano,

second series of his Notes et extraits dozens of inrottus et exitus, Regs 402, ae 400, 308, 3) nis

financial accounts relating to Greek affairs from ments already: available FA lorga have been republished the early 1430's, paid by the Camera Apostolica together with a number which the latter had missed. for the expenses of Greek ambassadors and of The Metropolitan Isidore had left Moscow with more other officials and agents “going into Greece on than a hundred persons in his suite on 8 September, the business of our lord, the pope, and of the 1/437. On his journey to Riga and thence through a dozen

Church.” Drafts were drawn in. .favor of shipGerman cities, Trent, to Ferrara, which he entered on 18 August, 1438, seeand JanPadua Krajcar, “Metropolitan owners and landlords, copyists and couriers. Isidore’s Journey [KhoZenie] to the Council of FlorThe benches necessary for public disputation ence . . . ,” Orientalia Christiana periodica, XXXVIII (1972), in the church of S. Francesco in Ferrara cost 367-87. Isidore arrived back in Moscow on 19 September,

. 1440. In this connection see also Krajcar’s study of “Simeon

three florins. One day paper cost the treasury of Suzdal’s Account of the Council of Florence.” ibid., ten florins, and on another more than 80 florins XXXIX (1973), 103-30. Simeon’s account, which survives were spent on Malmsey, confections, spices, and in three recensions, is historically worthless, but became wax for the Russian ambassadors, who were _ politically influential in Russia as an anti-Latin tract.

: . 78 lorga, Notes et extraits, 11, 34, from the “Uscita,”

heade rod We may taping that move was spent Reg. 269, fol. 49’, not in Hofmann. The Greek Acts of the on Malmsey than on confections. In any event activities of the Emperor John, mention no events between Isidore, soon to become the “Ruthenian cardinal,” 21 July and 13 August, and so contain no reference to rode into Ferrara in an entourage (it iS said) ot this trip to Prato and Pistoia (Jos. Gill, ed., Quae supersunt 400 horsemen. whom he is stated to have main- actorum graecorum Concili Florentint, Conc. Florent., Docc.

, Council of Florence, which give some information on the , et scripp., ser. B, vol. V, fascs. 1-1 [Rome, 1953], HJ, 471-72).

TO 79 longa, Notes et extraits, II, 34, from the “Uscita,” Reg. V, 3, ed. Laurent (1971), p. 258. 270, fol. 38, not in Hofmann. The sign p. I take to mean 675 Syropoulos, Thid., Mémoires, V1, 42, p. 338. di picciolt.

MART

_phese entriescleare , IN V AND EUGENIUS IV Guetio. a groats were nid on 1) On 31 July, — O 63

other ; to P erce ; i, findi 7 nl

penses »_Mm mace-bearet of the Sic e Francesco di di Tacos twenty-seventh da Pistoia and rred by him in g conto for ex- hour oF di Latino de’ nhs et 1439, I, Giovanni Greeks and with paces with the emperor ¢ and of Peretola, saw little before, in tie myself, at the

following 30 S ngelo Acciaju oli or of the Messer Angelo oming along the r public square

groats, the a, september, Francesc 1. 2) On the servants.22 He v di Jacopo 3 the roae from Prato

. ncurred 1 . or the not nocked se . of the ch . the emperor when he o and.Pistoia cong and i what he NP ° him and askedat B that it was : oindcaajuell t afaticul Ge Greeks. accom indtpanied mv of th he an active Havi ‘.ynted inquirin the, .if prior if .was . Having k I com g. He ansv he did at Ferrar iguing partCi aken such estoia from Pistoi aand In the . empero and Pvered Ne. me: not eae behindbei himis dus et VIII oun Pistoia TOF Constantinople whe in the suitetoof the usiness last d 4: , allthat Was assi ehis Girdle ofur OuLad wanted ;sion ing 22 ay of ssigned to sui go seeI atoJuly), heehad gone oO hour 1si is late f ybythe Signori * and to Pr conciliar the hour suite the Si y at Prato,” Who andwith Pistoi n But an €xc tor us tosignoria. Andecause b went hi a. whyhediisur-tirisetired and get to Flor These im?: In whwas y didgo: he >the Up in tk sick, as youk ence to eat,*4 are atc chu > you know, I »* and we can re On which, as ondition was he? I replied to hin untl this evenin wanted to put him

he had i alance owed him f o received 14 Peretola, and k vent up to the door oli with some

with Angelo A in going to Prat expenses doi opened, I went veral times. Seein urch of

textcontained swer. Our info ,iasiniormation a matter of fa house “Messer, 5 ct,should j; bem:ade , atI am; home

al eca M uscr you tha : t ple a lord now part of the Bi agliabecchiana i re from the fo t there is nothing: ou but I must

the oldBibliot Bibli in aniguing intrigui comes would give th quateve to recel one. If our manfrom ; d ityou the utmos so great

I .e — ibli := in e or :ur.walls at om Warn ;1.4.

‘ 39). The t fols. 108” ior Nazionale Centrale cle Se eae eee house.” e except beds and notes oratic anuscript is a misc . Cl VI, num of Messe a either to th ‘oe have the intenti even acipe recifor,maki ands various 1 etters, that s rdo, of Antonio items, including * ser Riccardo, oF fo or yourtohouse, ut cons! , son 195paper andfolio r mating wine cueing friends, I was not be mposed pos small 1 white in vellum, 1 . Written gj going re toshould this priest.” ed upon

; ions. and ellany of | ser Ricciard e house of nuion

iovanni de’isPiwrt written ins fhegives incivitthe of tt date (1 one Gi s, and m, it1conta

mid-fifteen f mentary i . Lampros is title of; items . teenthptoritman and y isisinaccu notes that F and

years in the ; a Pigli, who ke nN the hand of vonaneren of the are | ee for 1439) both in hi of liter 1 century a ny and does not } rate, but his hat Ferrato’s bri The text wit ary and historical int a beehive tes which f indude the * ferences eiv is also very slight

memorand whichpr were a erest.®° the e: published efrom he ven above“Usci to the e ,” ndum concerecording pens Signoria’s Florentine

of wh prepared by Gi rned is a es on the payments f ne “Uscita,” his ware was probably the rn iovannithe as aaccount record re-edited by Seiton, in S (oXX Pistoia and PThe the emperor's reer. How ost exciti ,in Speculum, rato. text wéex;

read and diiscussed many later event of de’f Pigli gi gives of the emper n, XXXIIT, F was Giing generations . 4 gli some Ors day in 225-26. P : ollowing

one cann iovanni’s of Pighi places of buri notes on memb eretola, Giovanni

oe detfull say, but this mem great experience ® Angelo i acc, 110 ff.). ers of his family and their tion of day inay (and a dL of Antonio LA diFlorenti Donato Acciajuoli j rmemorancum quaint d gives . . 1435) cciajuoli, 1 was a se

John V y 11) the lif ) eScrip- Antoni ’ and a first Hy orentine d cond

est of Flo and and Pall nia in 1433 edici, and

Joan alt mie nenorthwest at Peretola, about a the Emperor Sennexiled ae ilettoesCephaloni c was a foll of Dukes Athens iles three Albizzi lower of theNelo. Medici and

. nuenta . 5, Berh ques - 1 out

oo rence:™ of Florence Chas. tla had forced C when Rinaldo degli

Cf. the I ; noscritti ou connue Hopf, Chroni Osmo de’ Medici 1, 1900) dell in “nye Domi evant, Lond » p- 476; Wm . es inédites X®(Forl rt 134 det mapeu “ays the L n, 1873 gréco-romanes inédi

analyzed. I am gratef . where the conte biblioteche d'Italia omination of Athens, 1 ae P- 400; K eee The Latins

me get dacomplete eful to microfilm Dr. Ce ntsor of assistin the MS , esser 205, 208). C ., Cf. 1-1388 K. M. Setton, Cataloe f th Agnol as}ano da; Bisticci on,Lond 1975 81toThis sare Olschki fpp. 5. are vita di M Vespasia , rev. ed.,

Relazione was fi of MS. g vol. IV gnolo icci,italiano Comm f Gio was first ipublish ;the , pt. (184 oli, in. the Archivi dell , ;i .Ciouaan Peret F tro Ferrat §1OSs diplom : .Acciaiuoli, 9-61 (wh 3entario rico dell’imperad vanni de’Pigli da ed by Pietro F Angelo’s di 3), pp. 33 rchivio storico italiano, fto nel 14 aun 1 srrato, episode) . es, Vesere: much 1S made of from which it«didCostantinopoli fa otaviag intorno of this epi aticbut activiti i 2 pros, “Mia hué with a G gna, 1867) 83 A ap. xxx, ed. Plinti © Machiavelli cw nothing

’ , l~y turn + .?ens,Fl1 rescoe ~ frorentin s the C (1439

ey IlepeToX -? TooKavyns,” ta NEPA Twavvov , reektov translati ; At the D . linio Carli I 1, 1927), storie25. é, E6@vod0 7D THs ‘E Il 1i0n byoly the Girdl H ; uomo in Prat (Florence, YtRKNS ’ 1S, AeAti ~ aXatoro oO may still , ), 997-29 351-57. Bei Tatptas THs *TOPLKHS ATLOV TS Kat Io 2nhoyon Donatel ill be tl aaf : . bein b NS offopeni the 1e fby : eft ello and Mi neseen Pulpit still faulty It gEAAgSo subsequently furni s, VI, Ins (Ath i with aisle t ichelozzo °

sn on en, 180," Reierencer othe Enger Shape ofthe Holy Cid ens, 1926), 327 39 never oyera Kat GillhSwT as dates 29 Ap a) of 417, the10Poor neath appear crovmouané, THT (Athens, 0 apparently saw une Grock Acts (Pratitie) of the Council —29, where »peradica €d., Acta and of Flor e Christ. XIV. 414, wna par 1439 (Jos. ? 313 4,ril 315, 345). . Gill, in Orient.

€ ” print d it i . arentl . in th e ,

64 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT He thanked me profusely, and agreed to bring him and had me kneel at the feet of the emperor. He to our house, saying: “I do not want you to go to expressed thanks through his interpreter for the any expense beyond the use of your house. The honor which I had done him in receiving him into

Commune is paying his way.” my house, and having made me the offer that, if I

He went back toward Prato, where he met the should ever get to his country, he would do me the emperor on the road, and brought him straight to honor, etc., he took my name, how it was said, where our house. He appeared with forty to fifty knights, he had stayed, and had note made of these things. in good order, and with his many barons, lords, and __ I answered his Majesty something that occurred to me,

gentlemen. And because he had lost the use of his and having kissed his foot, I withdrew from his' legs, he came right into our hall on horseback, presence. The horsemen were already in the saddle, without anyone’s seeing him dismount except hisown and most of the barons mounted, in the meadow, gentlemen and servants. I had had prepared for him when everybody left the hall, except for a few. The the bed of the chamber to the left of the entrance emperor’s horse was led into the hall, the door was into the hall with the bedding which was there,a green _ shut, he mounted his horse, and they took the road to coverlet and a pair of white sheets. But the emperor, Florence along the Arno. Afterwards in commemoraas I understood, did not want to go into the bedroom; tion of these events, we had his arms painted over instead he had a sort of couch made on two benches _ the door of the hall, as may still be seen.

with a little mattress and with a rug, by the door of the hall to the left of the passageway in, under The Patriarch Joseph II had departed this life the arbor, and there he slept until his people produced jy an odor of Latin sanctity on 10 June, 1439; someting for him to eat. When food was provided, he was buried in Florence, in S. Maria Novella, e had a small table placed before his couch. I found here hi b ‘Ib hn VIII lef him some white table cloths, and then he ate alone; where his tomb may still be seen. Jo n ert the others, his barons and lords, [ate] under the arbor Florence on 26 August and, with a brief Stop at both outside and inside, like a soldiers’ mess. And the Bologna, returned to Venice on 6 September. rest, the servants, after the lords had eaten, had their Here he encountered numerous delays, includ-

own dinner in the same place. And note, the first ing a fire in the Arsenal, and so he took the food the emperor ate was a salad of purslain and opportunity to indulge his passion for hunting parsley, with some onions, which he himself wished to by a two days’ jaunt into the region of Padua.

clean. After that there were chickens and pigeons, He seems, therefore, to have recovered “the boiled, and then chickens and pigeons quartered and use of his legs.” ‘The imperial party set sail for fried in the frying pan with lard. As the dishes came, home on 19 October, and by way of Pola, Corfu,

they were all placed before him, and he took what he Mod C N dL h

wanted, and sent them along to the others. His last odon, oron, Negroponte, and Lemnos they dish was eggs thrown on hot bricks where the other made their way to the D ardanelles, where the

things were cooked. And they set them before himin ‘Turkish governor of Gallipoli sent John a coura bowl with many spices; I cannot imagine how they teous greeting. In the early morning hours of

were done, but such is the fact. ] February, 1440, the Despot Constantine Messer Angelo and I, with his servants, went todine Dragases, accompanied by Genoese and Vene-

at the house of Antonio, son of Messer Ricciardo, tians as well as by many archonies, boarded a where the. latter's wife had cooked for us the galley and went out to meet him.* John had been chickens and pigeons which had been sent there atthe absent from the capital for twenty-six months. expense of the aforesaid gentleman, the mace-bearer yj. effort seemed to have been worthwhile. On

of the Signoria. Next, when we felt he had dined .

d 7rested October, 1439, Eugenius IV had and enough, we left for my house, andaddressed we - or . tc a found the emperor playing backgammon [giuchare a bull to all Christians, soliciting financial aid pro

tavole| with one of his barons. Some of his people tuitione et custodia ipsius civitatis Constantistood watching; others were going for a walk in the nopolitane.” Two days later, practicing what he garden; and others were sleeping throughout the bed preached, Eugenius arranged through the chambers, very much at home. Messer Angelo and Medici bank in Florence to send 12,000 florins Ciriaco of Ancona, a man most learned in Greek and to the imperial court for the defense of ConLatin, and I stood there all day in the hall, the - stantinople.®” emperor always playing backgammon and _ joking

with his people.” 86 Syropoulos, Mémoires, XI, 4, 12-23, ed. Laurent, pp.

In the evening, at the twenty-third hour [about 594-44, and of. Thiriet, Régestes, III, nos. 2507, 2510-13, 8:00 P.M. in July], or perhaps later, Messer Angelo pp. 76-78. asked me to go into the garden with the gentlemen, 87 Epistolae pontificiae, 11, nos. 220-21, esp. pp. 119-21. The 12,000 florins were “pro solutione ibidem [in Con-

ee85 This stantinopoli] fienda certis balistariis ad custodiam dicte charming picture of the Emperor John VIII is at civitatis pro certo tempore deputandis.” Cf. in general variance with the rather harsh and prejudiced account we Raymond de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici

have of him in Syropoulos’s Memoirs. Bank, 1397-1494, New York, 1966, pp. 124, 194, 212-13, 217.

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 65 The Greek acceptance of the filioqgue clause in Constantinople.” John was in favor of union;

meant a good deal to Eugenius and the Curia. it was militarily advisable. The pope’s crossThe conciliarists at Basel had lost prestige in bowmen were still walking the walls of his the pope’s success. Union with Rome was now capital. When in early May, 1440, Metrophanes, affirmed by Armenian envoys (on 22 November, the metropolitan of Cyzicus, became patriarch

1439)8* and thereafter by the Copts in Egypt of Constantinople, he wrote the Greek com(on 4 February, 1442).°° Despite the astonishing munity at Modon (on 10 June) that “what the outcome of his unionist efforts, however, Latins now say about the procession of the Holy Eugenius still faced disquieting uncertainties. Spirit was and is the word and doctrine of our own France and Germany continued their “neu- _ blessed saints and teachers.” Furthermore, he astrality,’ and seemed still to lean toward the sured them, their rites and the “symbol” of their conciliarists at Basel, who elected Amadeo VIII faith remained absolutely unchanged, @s kat of Savoy as Pope Felix V (on 5 November, mpozepov, ovdév 76 civodov éEvadrdrAdEavtes.”?

1439).°° Eugenius also had to face for some time The Patriarch Metrophanes [II] persisted in the unabated hostility of Filippo Maria Visconti his unionist activities, as did his successor of Milan and Alfonso V of Aragon-Naples; Gregory the Protosyncellus, but the monks, most although he finally managed a modus vivendi with of the clergy, and the masses of people would both of them, the latter’s price being his recogni- have none of it. The historian Ducas relates that

tion as king of Naples (on 14 June, 1443).* when the Greek delegation to Florence had Although Eugenius IV’s position in Italy disembarked from the galleys (on 1 February, gradually improved, his expectations of union 1440), the inhabitants of the capital went down with the Greeks proved disappointing. He had to the docks to welcome them: “How did your been informed that, as the imperial party made efforts fare? How did the synod go? Did we its way back to the Bosporus through “Modon, win our cause?” The clergy answered, “We have Coron, Negroponte, and the Peloponnesus,” sold our faith overseas, we have exchanged piety the Greeks had accepted news of the union “with for impiety, we have forsaken the purity of the great alacrity.” Cristoforo Garatone, his nuncio ‘sacrifice,’ and become azymitai!”** If Ducas’s to Constantinople, whom he had made bishop account is not to be taken literally, it is ben of Coron, had apparently written him to this ¢rovato. Bessarion and Isidore of Kiev were made

effect. Now, however, as Eugenius wrote cardinals in December, 1439, which rendered Garatone from Florence on 25 August, 1440, them suspect in Greek eyes. Besides, Bessarion Marcus Eugenicus, “ille Ephesinus,” was spewing forth his poison, “and yet if the emperor had }=—W\—W—— agreed that he should be punished as befitted =” Epistolae pontificiae, III, no. 243, pp. 17-21. On Garahis offense, . . . you would have had far fewer tone, who had served as chancellor of the bailie in the dversaries.” The emperor had so far neglected ou" Venetorum in Constantinopoli G. M. Thomas and daversarles e empero ld sO Tar Nesiec R. Predelli, Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum, II [1899, repr. to publish the decree of union, as he should 1965], no. 178, p. 341, doc. dated 30 September, 1423), have done, if he had been properly mindful of _ see the excellent study of Luigi Pesce, “Cristoforo Garatone his duty. This had caused doubt and confusion trevigiano, nunzio di Eugenio IV,” Rivista di storia della

Chiesa in Italia, XXVIII (1974), 23-93. As a consequence of

at least a half dozen years’ residence on the Bosporus

————— (1423-—1428/29), Garatone had acquired an excellent knowl8 Epistolae pontificiae, I1, no. 224, pp. 123-38; Gill, edge of Greek and an important collection of Greek MSS.,

Council of Florence, pp. 306-8; note also G. Hofmann, et al., especially of classical authors. He served the Holy See long eds., Ortentalium documenta minora, Rome, 1953, nos. 29-31, and well. Eugenius employed him on six missions to Con-

35, pp. 32-36, 45. stantinople—in 1433, 1434, 1435, 1436, and 1437, after °° Epistolae pontificiae, III, no. 258, pp. 45-65; Gill, which he returned to Italy with the Greek conciliar dele-

Council of Florence, pp. 325-26; and on the background, _ gation early in 1438, and then went back with the Greeks see Hofmann, Orientalium documenta minora, nos. 39, 41, 43, (as papal nuncio) on their homeward voyage in 1439-1440.

pp. 53 ff. Garatone was also sent on a mission to Basel in 1435, and

*° If he did not repent (and he did not), Felix V, who is _ was assigned the task of papal collector in Crete in 1444. He called “Amadeus antichristus,” was to be condemned and __ wenton fourcrusading missions to Hungary— in 1442, 1443,

punished with all his adherents as a schismatic, blasphemer, 1446, and 1448, when he was present at the battle of heretic, and traitor (Epistolae pontificiae, II, nos. 238-39, Kossovo (17-19 October, 1448), where he was killed. On

pp. 4-13, dated 23 March and 27 May, 1440). the pope’s letter of 25 August, 1440, cf. Pesce, op. cit.,

5t Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1443, nos. 1-5 and ff., pp. 78-79. vol. XVIII (Cologne, 1694), pp. 273-75 and ff.; Pio %° Orientalium documenta minora, no. 36, pp. 45-47; Gill,

Paschini, “Lodovico cardinale camerlengo e i suoi maneggi Council of Florence, pp. 350-51. )

sino alla morte di Eugenio IV (1447),” Memorie storiche 4 Ducas, Hist. byzantina, chap. 31 (Bonn, pp. 215-16), and

forogiuliesit, XXIV (1928), 62-63. ed. Grecu (1958), pp. 269, 271.

66 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT went to live in Italy, and Isidore traveled Every day through the last years of his life

interminably and ubiquitously, George Schol- John VIII had to raise his tired eyes above the arius, the most learned Greek layman of his time, theological strife and ecclesiastical slander that

had subscribed to the union at Florence, but filled his capital, and watch the movement of a few years after his return home, he became ‘Turkish troops beneath his very walls as well as

an anti-unionist, following in the hallowed on the more distant horizons. From 1440 on, footsteps of his old friend and teacher Marcus the intrepid John Hunyadi, voivode or ruler of

Eugenicus. Indeed, Scholarius, under his mo- Transylvania, won a number of much-heralded nastic name Gennadlius, became the first patriarch victories over the Turks, and inspired both of Constantinople after the fall of the city tothe central Europeans and Greeks with the resolve Turks, at which point (as far as the Greeks were to try to halt the Ottoman advance. The Venetian concerned) the union had ceased to exist.” Senate observed his success with silent approval. For the time being, however, they intended to

——————— keep out of the fray, as they told Niccolo da ** On Isidore of Kiev, see above, Chapter I, note 5; on §_ Severino, who had come to the lagoon as envoy

Bessarion, who is the subject of a large literature, see Ki i Polan H rv.2? Th

Ludwig Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist or Li aes of dy a “ane unga . h c

und Staatsmann, 3 vols., Paderborn, 1923-42, repr. Aalen =; epuodlic nad a rea y pal a Cavy price, they and Paderborn, 1967. Mohler, I, 56—191 and ff., has dealt informed the disappointed Niccolo (on 17 at length with the Council of Ferrara-Florence and its after: December, 1440), in blood and gold, defending

math. “ Cennadius Scholar 4 the Christian faith against the Turks. UnC. J. G. Turner, “Scorge-Gennadius Scholarius anc’ fortunately Venice had been obliged to carry on

the of Florence,” The Journal of was Theological Studies, j le byy flerse’, h if d had newUnion ser., XVIII (1967), 83-103. Gennadius born the unequa struggie an abcen

about 1403. He had learned Latin well at a fairly early age, forced into making peace with the Turk. That and was quite at home in Thomist theology before the peace had been—and was being—scrupulously Council of Ferrara-Florence. He defended Aristotle against ~(Gbhcserved by both sides. Venice could not break

the Platonist George Gemistus Pletho. Scholarius is a proper ‘t without i rri dishonor d courtin

name, not a title. See Turner, “The Career of George- 1 With , Incurring shonor an 5 Gennadius Scholarius,” Byzantion, XXXIX (1969-70), 420- disaster. “But in the process of time matters 55. The events of 1438-1439 at Ferrara and Florence might be so arranged that we could do what we have impact century upon pro- (¢f. and ante activities want, and have done in the past, for the wellinto had the an present Ihorunionist Sevéenko, “Intellectual . 2998

Repercussions of the Council of Florence,” Church History, being of Christendom. XXIV [1955], 291-323). The religious fortunes of the Greeks in Italy from Venice to the Terra d’Otranto, —_———_____—_.

Sicily, and Malta over a period of some eight centuries are — Controversies among the Greeks at Venice toward the End of

explored in more than fifty articles in La Chiesa greca in the Fifteenth Century” [in Greek], Thesaurismata, VIII Italia dal? VIII al XVI secolo: Atti del convegno storico inter- (Venice, 1971), 115-87, with several (Venetian) documents

ecclesiale [held at Bari from 30 April to 4 May, 1969], 3 concerning Plousiadenus. vols., Padua, 1972-73 (Italia sacra: Studi e documenti di 87 After the death of Albert II, king of the Romans and

storia ecclesiastica, vols. 20-22). of Hungary, Ladislas III of Poland was elected king of When the Orthodox clergy returned home, they had a Hungary on 6 March, 1440, as he informed Eugenius IV

good deal of explaining to do, and public repentance was — on the following day (Codex epistolaris, I-1 [1876, repr.

presumably in order for a score or more of Greek ec- 1965], no. cx1, pp. 119-21). The Turco-Hungarian wars

clesiastics who had signed the Florentine decree of union. during Ladislas’s brief reign (1440-1444), especially the Cf. N. G. Polites, “The Repentance of Sylvester Syropoulos” Turkish siege of Belgrade in 1440 and the Hungarian

fin Greek], ‘Evernpis ‘Eratpeias Bulavtwev Xaovdov, “long campaign” in 1443 (f. above, note 54, and below, XXXIX-XL (1972-73), 386-402, who identifies the textof note 134), are the subject of an old but still very useful one “repentance” (metanoia) as that of the memorialist article by Alfons Huber, “Die Kriege zwischen Ungarn und Sylvester Syropoulos, who had signed the decree “unwill- den Tiirken, 1440-1443,” Archiv fiir ésterreichische Geingly with his hand and not his heart” (@#AA@ Kat — schichte, LXVIII (1886), 159-207. Venetian documents &kwv wvréypapa €v 7 Exeioe ovvTePevTt Spw XeEtpt relating to the plans and activities of the European

Kat OV yv@pEN). powers contra Teucros hostes crucis during the years 1443-

In after years John Joseph Plousiadenus (1429?-1500), 1444 are now conveniently available in Valentini, Acta

Greek bishop of Modon (from 1492), defended the union Albaniae veneta, XVUII (1974), who covers a much wider of Florence both among the Greeks on his native island of — area than the title of his work would seem to indicate.

Crete and among the Greek refugees in Italy. On his Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15 [1439-1442], fols. 56-57" career, see especially M. Manoussakas, “Recherches sur la [57¥—58"]; Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XVI (1972), no.

vie de Jean Plousiadénos (Joseph de Méthone) . . . ,”Revue 3,945, pp. 130-31: “. .. Ad factum Teucrorum dici-

des études byzantines, XVII (1959), 28-51; Manuel Candal, mus, .. . ut notorium est toti orbi, quod pro Christiana

“La ‘Apologia’ del Plusiadeno a favor del Concilio de fide longissimo tempore cum multa nostra gravedine et

Florencia,” Orientalia Christiana periodica, XXI (1955), 36-57; expensa ac nostrorum civium et subditorum clade et efand Fane Mavroeidi-Ploumidi, “Documents Relating to the —fusione sanguinis guerram Teucro fecimus sine alicuius

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 67 The coming months, as the Senate soon Romana in Florence. The Senate seemed taken learned, increased the danger to which Hungary aback to learn of the extent of the danger in was exposed. Conditions were no less desperate Hungary, and took note of the provisions which elsewhere. Bosnian and Byzantine envoys ap- the emperor considered essential “for repressing peared in Venice (in February, 1442) to warn the madness and evil disposition of the Turk.” the Senate of the despair which existed in these The whole matter was certainly of the highest

quarters. The king of Bosnia requested per- importance; the Senate must take counsel;

mission to transfer his movable property into Torcello should go on to Hungary, thereafter to Venetian territory if the situation worsened, and Eugenius; “and afterwards let him come back to to come himself with his family into the domain us.” The Senate would then be better able to of the Republic, “and he offers us that kingdom decide what Venice could do, for Torcello himto rule in our own name, openly or secretly as_ self would be in a better position to report at we choose, and [in the meantime} he would have _ first hand on conditions in Hungary and on the

arms and other materials of war from our pope’s intentions. In the meantime, the Senate towns.” The Senate declared that the Bosnian piously concluded, “we shall always be of that envoy could return home and state that sincere disposition, which we have ever main-

we are entirely willing that his serene Highness ina ov doing orang that seems ne

should feel free to send his property and also ate Inobis convenientia} tor the good of the personally to seek refuge with his family in this our city Christian religion and the increase of our sacred

[of Venice] or in any other of our cities which he may _ faith. |

prefer, . . . and we shall be prepared, as often as his Eugenius IV now appointed Giuliano Cesarini, Highness may wish, to furnish him with our safe- cardinal-priest of S. Sabina, called ‘the cardinal conducts, letters patent, and all those guarantees of S. Angelo, as papal legate to the kingdoms [cautiones] which his Highness may find desirable. ... of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland (on 22 As for the offer of the kingdom of Bosnia, the February, 1442). He was to receive his share of the

Senate solemnly expressed heartfelt thanks, phe a trom the cay of _ departure from ne realizing (they said) that it proceeded from his ~UT14 Wich was sul at florence, to the day MO Highness’s esteem for Venice and from his faith as neck Ia vesarin left Florence on 14 March.

in the Republic, but the Senate thought it better week later he was in Venice, where he ex-

that he retain the kingdom. They fervently P. ained his mission to the Doge Francesco

hoped that he could do so, “and from now on Foscari, who transmitted the information to the we are willing that he should be entirely free Senate. Cesarini spoke of the pope’s desire for to export from this our city [of Venice] the munitions he needs, and have them taken into ® Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15, fol. 112% [113%], docs. dated 21 his kingdom, in order that he may be able to February, 1442 (Ven. style 1441). Cf. Délger, Regesten, pt. 5, no.

defend his aforesaid kingdom and maintain his 3494, p. 128; Thiriet, Regestes, HI, no. 2568, p. 92. The

dominion.” Doge Francesco Foscari had received the two envoys th tiume th €£envoy C separately on 20 inthe theSenate Collegio, . €At same trom ConstanandFebruary, reported on presumably their missions to on the

tinople, of whom we shall see more presently, following day. Giuseppe Valentini, “La Crociata da Eugenio described to the doge the “mala conditio regni IV a Callisto III (dai documenti d’archivio di Venezia),” Hungarie et Christianitatis ac mala dispositio 47hivum historiae pontificiae, X11 (1974), 91-123, esp. pp. 95—

Teucri.” The envoy. one Zanachio or John 110, has prepared a most useful regesto of Venetian

Torceio, 1] 1a; dth hi documents relating to the crusade from February, 1442, explalne the measures which John jg August, 1458. He has also published the two documents VIII believed must be taken to safeguard in question (of 21 February, 1442) in his Acta Albaniae

Hungary. Torcello said that he was going from veneta, XVII (1973), nos. 4,002—3, pp. 174-77. Venice to Hungary and thereafter to the Curia In August, 1442, Fra Jacopo de Primaditiis, a Franciscan, was in Venice as an envoy of John VIII, seeking three armed galleys, que ad custodiam ipsius civitatis [Constantinopolis |

——_—_——— stent pro hac hyeme. Since Fra Jacopo was also going to subsidio vel favore, et tandem videntes nos solos esse Florence to appeal to Eugenius for aid, the Senate post-

quasi coacte devenimus cum ipso Teucro ad pacem que per _poned any decision until they could learn “what he shall utramque partem peroptime extitit observata, cui cum have received from his Holiness” (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15, honore et sine nostro multo preiudicio et damno con- fol. 135% [136"]). Cf. Délger, Regesten, pt. 5, no. 3495, p. 128; travenire ad presens non possemus. Sed in processu Thiriet, Régestes, III, no. 2588, p. 96. temporis res taliter dirigi possent quod possemus pro 10 Hofmann, Fragmenta protocolli, diaria privata, sermones, salute Christianitatis facere de his que optamus et per pp. 44-45; Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXI, tom. 52,

elapsum fecimus.” fol. 16, ed. Eubel, Hierarchia, 11 (1914, repr. 1960), 27, no. 29.

68 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT political stability in Italy, and said that he was revenues and those of the Church,” in order to going as legate to Hungary to try to make _ keep him available for the papal service at all peace “inter regem Polonie [Ladislas] et reginam _times.'°> Now Eugenius was, going to need Hungarie [Elizabeth ],” and to take such steps as_ Torcello. On 8 May, 1443, he appointed he could for the safety of their fellow Christians Francesco Condulmer, cardinal-priest of S.

and for the obstruction of the Turks. The Clemente, as apostolic legate in Greece. In the

Senate bade him Godspeed, and hoped that he _ bull of nomination Eugenius stated that, since could allay the discords which beset the turbulent his chief desire (to see the Greeks and “orilords and barons of the realm.’*' Shortly there- entales populi” united with Rome) had been after another Bosnian delegation arrived on the so happily fulfilled, he now wanted most of all lagoon to ask the Senate to send an ambassador to see the East freed from the foul tyranny of to Sultan Murad II, but despite the sengularis the Turks. God was showing the clearest signs benivolentia which the Venetians entertained for of his clemency, “for last year in Hungary, the king of Bosnia, whom they would assist in’ Poland, and Wallachia a small army of the all possible ways, such an embassy seemed im-_ [Christian] faithful defeated a huge multitude practicable, “considering that the emperor of the _ of infidels in repeated engagements, [and] not

Turks has now gone with his army toward withouta vast slaughter of the infidels. . . . We Hungary, and that our ambassador could not are also striving, to the extent of our resources, reach him without the greatest danger because of the upheavals of war, the perils of the journey, and a . ” . 103 F'histolae pontificiae, 11, no. 206, pp. 97-98, and note the suspicion of the Hungarians. so Seeking Iorga, Notes et extraits, 11, 365-66. Torcello is referred to in a more secure base for operations, the king of this document as a “young lord from Crete” (domicellus Bosnia had proposed the exchange of a Venetian —_Cretensis). He was probably not very young, because in 1433

fortress town in Dalmatia for one of his own he had served as consul for the Catalans and Sicilians in cities in Bosnia. To this proposal, however, the Constantinople (Const. Marinescu, “Contribution a lhistoire Senate replied that Venice was bound bv the des relations économiques entre l’empire byzantin, la Sicile c Pp ; Yy et le royaume de Naples de 1419 a 1453,” Studi bizantini e most solemn undertakings not to alienate her _ necellenici, V [1939], 211-12, 217). Some thirty years later Dalmatian possessions, non dare nec alienare Torcello was quite old (in hac sua senecta), and had lost unquam illas (civitates | alicui ullo modo, but the king everything mn the fall oO Constantinop’e to the Turks. ve

could rest assured if he soughtemperor. refuge in Be served as faith tuny as nepassed nae} Popeby ane me . . oethat yzantine By aVenice special “grace” the any Venetian stronghold in Dalmatia or else- Venetian Senate on 27 August, 1467, Torcello, his sons, where, he would be as safe and secure as in and legitimate descendants were granted the right to hold any place of his own.!"2 Since it was doubt on the office and fiefs on the island of Crete (Arch. di Stato di

latter score which had led the king to make his Venezia, Senato Mar, Reg. 8, fol. 138%): . blypresumably found smallnobilium assurancenostrorum Constat peramplo testimonio notabilium request,hhe egregium militemcomplurium dominum Johannem to rest upon in this response. Torcellum, fidelem civem nostrum Cretensem, continue ab The imperial envoy John Torcello was as well ineunte etate fideliter et honorifice se gessisse in rebus known at the Curia Romana as in Constantinople. dominii nostri studiosissime in vigilando amplitudini et

About th or £ before this berore (on 20 .dignitati status nostri ubique et presertim temporeConquo ou ree four years erat in serviciis quondam serenissimi Imperatoris August, 1439) Eugenius had made him a stantinopolis, et imprimis quando classis nostra bello member of the papal household (famiglia) with — genuensi prefecto quondam nobile viro Ser Silvestro all the honors and privileges thereto appertain- Mauroceno ivit contra civitatem Pere, cuius opera dicta

ing. He also grante d Torcello an “annual classis in summa necessitate sua habuit subventionem ion” of 400 “from our P2mis, 2*migerorum et pecuniarum, et ipsemetnostro, ducebat provision oO Id§9florins quoddam tractatum dande ipsius civitatis dominio quod fuit detectum cum maximo damno, viz., ultra

—_— ducatorum duo milia et periculo vite ipsius dicti Johannis, 101 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15, fol. 116" [117°], doc. dated 26 et ut senciat aliquod premium fidei et laboris suorum in

March, 1442. The text may be found in Aug. Cieszkowski, hac sua senecta, amissis presertim omnibus facultatibus suis ed., Fontes rerum polonicarum e tabulario reipublicae venetae, in casu Constantinopolis, et vivere possit cum filiis suis

ser. I, fasc. 2 (Poznan, 1890), no. xxvu, pp. 61-62. On sub umbra nostri dominii, vadit pars quod auctoritate the purposes of Cesarini’s mission, see Domenico Cac- — huius consilii ipse dictus Johannes cum suis filiis et legitime

camo, “Eugenio IV e la crociata di Varna,” Archivio descendentibus participare possit de officiis et beneficiis della Societa romana di storia patria, LXXIX (3rd ser., X, Crete, sicuti plerisque aliis concessum fuit per gratiam,

Rome, 1956), 45-46. consulentibus et suadentibus sic dictis omnibus nobilibus

102 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15, fol. 117° [118]; Valentini, nostris. De parte 89, de non 9, non sinceri 8.” The motion Acta Albaniae veneta, XVII (1973), no. 4,015, pp. 186-88, was passed, and a scribal note adds: “'Pars] facta in litteris

doc. dated 5 April, 1442. die ultimo August.”

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 69 to build a fleet so that this sacred task may be While John Hunyadi stood out as the antibrought to a successful conclusion, in accord Turkish champion in the north, Constantine with our heart’s desire, by Catholic power both Dragases began to play a similar role among the on land and at sea.”!®4 Francesco Condulmer was Greeks. On 1 March, 1443, Constantine received

the pope’s nephew, vice-chancellor of the from his brother John VIII the city of Selymbria Church; he was put in command of the fleet, on the Sea of Marmara. Sphrantzes informs which was to correlate its movements with those us that he was himself sent there as governor.

of the army, to which Cesarini would be Early in the following summer, however, an attached as the crusading legate in central emissary arrived in Constantinople, sent from

Europe.’ the Morea by the Despot Theodore II, offering On 6 July (1443) Eugenius wrote John VIII to exchange the Moreote despotate for Selymbria.

that he had been glad to see John Torcello, Regarding himself as the heir apparent to the “nuntius tuus,” who had presented him with

an imperial letter. Upon his return to Con- —————— stantinople, Torcello would inform the emperor Broquiére for the guidance of Philip the Good of what was being accomplished “in materia ex- Burgundy. According to Torcello, the Grand Turk could

dition: lassis ad T »» put into the field about 100,000 hommes de cheval. Some

pecitionis et app aratus Classis a Versus * CUCTOS. 20,000 of them were mercenaries, apparently always on call

Although acting as John VIII's envoy, Torcello to arms, of whom 10,000 were well armed, the rest being was apparently still serving as a papal agent, and _ without arms except for shields, swords, and bows and three days later (on 9 July) Eugenius, recalling arrows. The Turk also had 10,000 gens de pié, who lacked his lovalty and devotion at the time of the @™™5 ©*¢ePt for swords and bows and arrows; some of

y . y £ . these had shields also, but others did not. Such was the total

negouations — or umon at Ferrara-F lorence, force which the Turk could muster—“c’est cy toute la

made him a “papal knight” (miles apostolicus). He _ puissance du Grant Turc”—break it, subdue it, and in less directed Torcello, who is described as a “citizen than a month Christendom could conquer “la saincte Terre

of Constantinople,” to swear an oath of fealty to 4 Promission.” ,

Condulmer in the usual fashion.!°* And, to be To defeat the Turk, according to Torcello, one would ; . - need 80,000 combatants, and the best approach to Ottosure, Condulmer might well find him useful 1 man territory would be through Hungary by way of the the East. Torcello had attracted some attention Danube. The Christian forces should be assembled in three at the Council in Florence by his plans for q armies, of which the largest (of 50,000 men) would cross

crusade. 1° the river at Vidin, andshould a second army (of 20,000 men) cross at Belgrade. The Christians had more than ample manpower: [Not counting Hungarians, Poles, and TT others,] the ruler of Serbia, “qui est tributaire au Turc,” 104 Fpistolae pontificiae, III, no. 264, esp. pp. 78-79, and could provide 40,000 combatans a cheval; the Albanians, note the Codex epistolaris, I-1, nos. cxvi, Cxx, and cxxm1, 20,000 horse; the Greeks in the Morea, another 15,000; and

pp. 127 ff. The last text is a letter dated 27 April, 1443, 50,000 Christian subjects of the Turk would rise in revolt in which Ladislas states that the pope had promised him once the crusaders appeared on the scene to assist them. thirty-eight galleys for service against the Turks, and he The army which crossed the Danube at Vidin would head expected twelve galleys from the Venetians, ten from the for Adrianople, “le principal si¢ége du Turc,” a distance king of Aragon, six, from the duke of Burgundy, eight _ of fifteen days for mounted men, etc., etc. And Torcello from the duke of Milan, and two from the master of could cap his exposition with the assurance to the conciliar Rhodes (bid., p. 137). Rhetoric was replacing reality. fathers at Florence that “en tenant ceste manieére, le 105 Fpistolae pontificiae, III, nos. 265-66, pp. 80-84, esp. Turc seroit perdu et tres-brief.” For Torcello’s text and de p. 81, dated 28 May and 13 June, 1443. The Curia was la Broquiére’s comment on it, see Chas. Schefer, ed., Le then at Siena. Cf. Thiriet, Régestes, III, nos. 2607-8, p. 102. Voyage d’Outremer de Bertrandon de la Broquiére, Paris, 1892,

106 Fpistolae pontificiae, III, nos. 267-68, pp. 84-85. For pp. 263-74. De la Broquiére is not uncritical of Torcello’s “Ebrcellus,” read “Torcellus” (¢f. lorga, Notes et extraits, II, | views, concluding with the observation “quant a la conqueste

397-98, and Ddolger, Regesten, pt. 5, no. 3504, p. 129). de la Terre Saincte de quoy Messire Jehan Torzelo met At the same time Torcello, orator serenissimit d. imperatoris en son advis qui se feroit ung mois par apprez, il me Grecorum, received 100 gold florins from the Camera “pro samble que la chose n’est pas si legiére a faire, au moins sua subventione” (Iorga, II, 22, and Hofmann, Acta camerae_ par terre comme le dit Messire Jehan .. .” (2bid., pp. apostolicae, no. 143, p. 110, dated 9 July, 1443). On 27 273-74). In fact, any talk about recovering the Holy Land November, 1444, the Camera reimbursed the Medici bank was nonsense. thirty gold florins for payment made to Torcello, now For further notices concerning Torcello, see Franz Badescribed as orator apostolicus pro factis sanctissimi domini binger, “‘Bajezid Osman’ (Calixtus Ottomanus), ein

nostri pape (Notes et extraits, IH, 23). Vorlaufer und Gegenspieler Dschem-Sultans,” in Aufsatze

107 On Monday, 16 March, 1439, between the sixth and und Abhandlungen xur Geschichte Stidosteuropas und der

seventh sessions of the Council at Florence, Torcello, Levante, I (Munich, 1962), 305-8 [reprinted from La

“chevallier, serviteur et chambellan, comme il dit, de l'em- Nouvelle Clio, III Brussels, 1951], and “Veneto-kretische pereur de Constantinoble,” had advanced plans foracrusade Geistesstrebungen um die Mitte des XV. Jahrhunderts,” which were later assessed by the traveler Bertrandon de la Byzantinische Zeitschrift, LVII (1964), 73-75.

70 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT imperial throne, for he was older than Con-_ the walls has been restored, and the fatal Isthmus stantine, Theodore thus undertook to secure his again fortified with turreted ramparts, he will then right to the succession. The exchange was - lead his. forces through the Megarid and all Achaea. effected. Constantine, who was in the capital He has recently received the city of Thebes in at the time. returned to the Morea in October surrender, and will attack with separate detachments

aa . -. of troops Livadia, sacred Daulia at the foot of Mount idence in Selymbria in December.' The two or cng call free dete Pon oahte fone the harhaien Presider y -T. of God will free them honorably from the barbarians.

Theodore withdrew from Mistra to take up his p d the city of Delphi. and with the aid brothers had got along very badly in the Morea, But in the meantime after I had arrived at Euripean

but now Constantine held chief sway in the Chalcis,!° the renowned city of Euboea, to sail the peninsula, and the internal strife which had been more safely to your royal city, on 26 February I dissipating Greek strength was largely ter- boarded a Euripean trireme under the command of minated. The third brother Thomas occupied Maffio Molin, a Venetian noble, and we have begun to

an inferior position. The unstable Demetrius 4!!—his purpose being to free the Aegean of the had been rendered hors de combat as a result of oublesome Catalans and pirates, mine to explore an ill-advised revolt against John VIII during sacred Delos along the way and the other Cyclades

the summer of 1442 .,scattered through the sea, and then from Chios to take care to come to Constantinople more safely on

Encouraged by Hunyadi’s successes, Con- 4 royal ship of your own. . . .1”° stantine Dragases soon made his presence felt in continental Greece as well as in the Morea.

In February, 1444, he launched an attack which _ oe

brought him wide recognition north of the “Y Ciriaco writes, “. . . cum Euripeam Chalcidiam insig. . nem Euboeae civitatem advenissem. . . .” Eurtpea is a Latin Isthmus of Corinth. A letter written to J ohn Vil adjective derived from the Greek Eipimos (Evnpos), by the famous antiquarian and scholar Ciriaco meaning strait or channel, and denoting especially the chande’ Pizzicolli of Ancona informs us of the _ nel between Boeotia and Euboea. From Evripes come the situation as it existed early in this year when ™odern names Egripo and, by prefixing the final “n” of the Constantine was embarking on his ambitious Greek article in popular pronunciation to the proper name, j Ing — Negroponte (eis tov Eipuzrop, eis ton Evripon ). program of expansion. Ciriaco wrote his inter- 110 Francesco Pall, “Ciriaco d’Ancona e la crociata contro i esting letter on shipboard at Oreos in northern Turchi,” Bulletin historique de UAcadémie roumaine, XX Euboea about the beginning of March, 1444: (Bucharest, 1938); 60-61 (Latin text), and ¢f. pp. 24-25;

Oskar Halecki, The Crusade of Varna, New York, 1943, p. 84

. . . When I had got to the Achaean or Pelopon- (with the same text). This letter, written by Ciriaco from nesian city of Patras, I immediately wrote to your Oreos in Euboea some time after 26 February, 1444, has most illustrious brother Constantine, and on this been regarded by most scholars as the first installment of very subject [of an expedition against the Turks] Iset 4 long letter finally sent to John VIII on 24 June after

forth what seemed important. And when I had gone winiaco had reached Pera. ;

from there to Corinth, we learned from Demetrius ctually, however, the letter from Oreos is apparently the Asanes, his lieutenant, that he had recently gathered of the group addressed to John VIII. It seems best to large forces from everywhere in the Peloponnesus, identify these six texts, long cited as a single letter to the and was coming with his worthy brother Thomas emperor, in.connection with the present reference to the from Lacedaemonian or Spartan Mistra with the first of them (the others are employed below in their army to the Isthmus. When the long bulwark of chronological order). The second (Pall, op. cit., pp. 61-62)

a. , first in a series of six texts, and appears to be the only one

was probably written to Ciriaco’s friend, Andreolo Giustinas108iani-Banca, from Adrianople about 12 June, 1444 (the Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1049CD; ed. Grecu, addressee being unidentified and the letter undated); with

p. 66); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 18-19 (Bonn, pp. 195-96; _ this letter there went as enclosures (the third and fourth ed. Papadopoulos, I, 193-94; ed. Grecu, pp. 336, 338); texts of the series) copies of King Ladislas of Hungary’s cf. Zakythinos, Despotat grec de Morée, 1, 216-17. Whether in letter of 24 April, 1444, to Sultan Murad II (bid., Selymbria or the Morea, Constantine Dragases’ ultimate goal pp. 62-63) and Murad’s reply thereto dated 12 June was Constantinople and the imperial throne, which he (bid., pp. 63-64). The fifth and sixth texts of the series are finally attained (¢f. H. G. Beck, “Reichsidee und nationale _ two letters, dated 12 June and 24 June, 1444 (bid., pp. 64— Politik im spatbyzantinischen Staat,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 65, 65-66), which Cirtaco sent, possibly together on the

LIII [1960], 86-94, esp. pp. 89-90). On Constantine’s latter date, to John Hunyadi, with whose exploits against aggressive policy after his return to the Morea, note Wm. the Turks we shall soon be concerned. Miller, The Latins in the Levant, London, 1908, pp. 409 ff. This division into six parts of the so-called letter of He seized Veteranitza (on the north shore of the Gulf of | “24 June” to John VIII, I take from Halecki, Crusade of Corinth) from the Venetians, to whom the Turks had given Varna, pp. 79-82, who has thus, in my opinion rightly, the town. His action produced a protest from the doge and__ corrected some aspects of Pall’s valuable account (Bull. Senate locum nostrum predictum .. . rectori nostro Nepanti hist. Acad. roum., XX, esp. pp. 34—36) of the Hungarianrestituere (Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XIX [1973], no. Turkish peace negotiations of 1444, to which we shall also

5,090, pp. 54-55, dated 20 April, 1445). come shortly.

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 71 We shall have occasion more than once in the . mand of Greek and Latin would have made him

following pages to speak of Ciriaco of Ancona, well suited. Ciriaco may indeed have been traveler and diplomat, archaeologist and linguist. constrained on various occasions to furnish He was born about 1391; made his first visit information to the Porte concerning Italian to Constantinople in 1418; his second in 1425, affairs, but he obviously never deserted the

and a number of other visits in later years. Christian cause for that of the Turks. UnCiriaco was a good friend of Pope Eugenius IV, doubtedly he employed his knowledge of

who as papal legate in the March of Ancona had Turkish affairs to gather information which he known him in 1420~—1422. During the fourth made available to the western powers. After his decade of the century Ciriaco’s travels took him final sojourn in the East he appears to have

into Dalmatia and Epirus, continental Greece returned to spend his last days in Cremona.’ and the Morea, Chios, Rhodes, and Cyprus, Asia Ciriaco may have died as early as 1452.‘ His Minor and Egypt; he visited the courts of Carlo

II ‘Tocco at Arta, the Palaeologi at Mistra, —————_Nerio II Acciajuoli at Athens, and Murad II at 12 Cf. Franz Babinger, Maometto il Conquistatore e il suo Adrianople and elsewhere.!!! Always dedicated mpo, trans. Evelina Polacco, 1957, pp. 729-32; E. Jacobs,

to the id £ ch h . d th d “Cyriacus von Ancona und Mehemmed II,” Byz. Zettschr., o ; € Ideas of C ure! union an : € crusade = xxx (1929), 197-202, on which however see Babinger,

against the Turks, Ciriaco had been in Florence “Notes on Cyriac of Ancona and Some of his Friends,” during the months of the Council in 1439 when, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXV (1962),

as we have seen, in late July he had accompanied 321—23. -iaco's death he. G. Patrinel

John VIII on the excursion to Prato and Pistoia. ,,,._ OP the date of Cirtaco oscd see Chr. ‘ ratnine ee His k ledge and opinions of Levantine affairs Cyriacus of Ancona: His Alleged Service at the Court 0 IS KnNOWwicage and opin Of Leva the Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and the Time of his were much valued by Greek, Latin, and even Death” [in Greek], ‘Evernpis ris ‘Eratpeias Bulavriwvov Turkish rulers. Some scholars have claimed that 2ovdav, XXXVI (Athens, 1968), 152-60. Ciriaco’s last Ciriaco was in close contact with Murad’s son years are shrouded in obscurity, and the date of his Mehmed IIL the. Conqueror latter’s death remains uncertain. Babinger, Mehmed der Er. oberer,after undtheItalien,” Aufsdtze und Abhandlungen, 1 II., (1962), (second) accession to the Ottoman throne in 175-78, thinks he may have lived until 1455 (this article February, 1451. It has even been asserted, quite .was first printed in Byzantion, XXI [1951]). According to erroneously, that he was in the Turkish camp Jacopo de’Languschi, as quoted by the Venetian chronicler before Constantinople fifteen months later, 2Z0FZ0 Dolfin, Assedio e presa di Costantinopoli nell’ anno 1453,

. he c; ‘th the Turks. I > inserted in the latter’s Cronaca delle famiglie nobili di

entering the city with the turks. it seems most Venezia, ed. G. M. Thomas, in the Sitzungsberichte d. k. unlikely, however, that he ever had any change bayer. Akad. d. Wissenschaften zu Minchen, philos.-hist. K1.,

of heart concerning the “barbarians.” Emil 1H (1868), 5-6, in the year 1452 Mehmed II, “aspiring to Jacobs believed Jacopo de’ Languschi’s statement, a glory like that or exander ot Macedon, every aay has which Zorzo Dolfin incorporated in his chronicle, [°° ™StOTl€S OF Tae Komans and of others reac’ to him by

i . . a companion, Ciriaco of Ancona and another Italian—

that Ciriaco was reading certain Greek and he has them read Laertius, Herodotus, Livy, Quintus Roman historians (and western chroniclers) to Curtius, as well as chronicles of the popes, the emperors,

Mehmed II shortly before the siege of Con- the kings of France, and the Lombards:” Languschi’s stantinople. It has also beén alleged, quite reliability has been questioned, and the source of his . ly. that Cirj d h ’ | ; information is unknown. In 1452 Languschi (or de improperly, tat Uilaco serve as t € sultans Langusco) was in the papal service (see Walther von

secretary, for which, to be sure, his €asy COM- Hofmann, Forschungen zur Geschichte der kurialen Behérden vom Schisma bis zur Reformation, 2 vols., Rome, 1914, II, 111). TO It has, however, been further alleged that Ciriaco was 111 Cf. Roberto Weiss, “Ciriaco d’Ancona in Oriente,” in _ still alive early in 1454 on the basis of a letter which

Agostino Pertusi, ed., Venezia e V’'Oriente fra tardo medioevo e Francesco Filelfo addressed to Mehmed II, presumably Rinascimento, Venice, 1966, pp. 323-37. Bernard Ashmole, from Milan, on 11 March of that year. Filelfo sought the “Cyriac of Ancona,” Proceedings of the British Academy, release of his mother-in-law Manfredina Chrysolorina and XLV (1959), 25-41, with sixteen plates, has shown that the — her daughters, for whom he offered to pay a ransom if the

sketches of antiquities in the Hamilton Codex in Berlin, sum required was not beyond his means, in which conattributed to Ciriaco, can hardly be drawings from his own nection Mehmed’s secretary, grammateus Kyrizis, could pro-

hand. Note the references to his travels in a letter which vide whatever further information might be necessary. Cirtaco wrote on 13 April, 1442, to the Veronese scholar Babinger accepted P. A. Dethier’s conjecture “dass sich hinter

Martino Rizzoni and the laudatory appraisal of Ciriaco’s Kyrizes der Name des Kyriakos von Ancona verbirgt” antiquarian studies in a letter of Martino’s brother (Aufsdtze u. Abhandlungen, I, 177-78, with refs., and cf. Giacomo, dated on 6 May of the same year—for the texts Maometto, p. 731), which seemed very unlikely, and has now

see Gian Paolo Marchi, “Due Corrispondenti veronesi di been disproved: Patrinelis, art. cit., pp. 159-60, has shown Ciriaco d’Ancona,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, XI (1968), that, while Kyrizis was indeed Mehmed’s secretary, he was

317-23. in fact Demetrius Apocaucus Kyritzes, and not at all un-

72 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT career requires further investigation; the chro- years’ persistent and successful opposition to the

nology of his travels still contains many Porte, making Scanderbeg a legend even in his uncertainties. Despite numerous studies con- own day."” His name figures prominently in cerning him, no scholar has yet written a many contemporary documents, and his career

satisfactory biography.'™ has often been dealt with by modern historians,'”® As Ciriaco has informed us, Constantine to whose works the reader must turn for detailed Dragases secured possession of Thebes early accounts of his rule in Albania. A few months

in the year 1444. He also gained suzerainty after his occupation of Croia, an Albanian over the Athenian duchy of Nerio II Acciajuoli, league was formed at a congress of the chiefwho was thus forced from his Turkish allegiance, tains in the Venetian-held city of Alessio now paying his tribute to Constantine rather (Lezhé). Scanderbeg was now elected captainthan to Sultan Murad. Encouraged by his general of Albania, and his annual income from success, Constantine pushed northward to the Epirote sources is set at the unlikely sum of

115 ‘ :

Pindus range; was recognized by the Vlachs of morethan 200,000 gold ducats by his biographer the region as their ruler; and succeeded in Barletius,'*” who elsewhere notes, however, that

occupying Zeitounion, Loidoriki, and some other towns. The Turks were having their "17 On the occasion of the fifth centenary of Scanderbeg’s troubles, and being assailed on all fronts. A new death (on 17 January, 1468), the Albanians themselves and formidable opponent had suddenly ap- _ paid tribute to their national hero by devoting both issues peared against them in Albania, George Castriota, of Studia Albanica to his memory. On the Scanderbeg known by the Turkish name of Scanderbeg. egend note Androklk Kosta a Figure de Skanderbeg 8oN b 1443. Scanderbhad had«Skanderbeg ans la littérature mondiale,” ibid., and Johannes Irmscher, On 2 overmber, » scanderbeg und Deutschland,” V-1 (1968), 191-215,

gained from the Turks by a ruse the important 217-33, as well as Nicolas Ciachir, Gelcu Maksutovici, and fortress of Crolia (modern Krujé), once the Dumitru Polena, “La Personnalité du héros albanais Georges possession of his father.14® With this episode hid V2 (1968) 12 Sans quelques ouvrages roumains," began a truly remarkable career of twenty-five 18 Scanderbeg is the subject of a large literature, many important titles having been added in the last few decades,

on which cf. George Chr. Soulis, “More Recent Reknown (f. G. M. Thomas and R. Predelli, eds., Diplo- searches on George Castriotes Scanderbeg” [in Greek], matarium veneto-levantinum, II [1899, repr. 1965], nos. 199, ’Eaernpis tis ‘Etatpeias Bulavtivayv Yoovdav, XXVIII

202, pp. 369, 371; lorga, Notes et extraits, II1 [1902], (1958), 446-57. Jovan Radoni¢ has collected the major 212-13, on which note Patrinelis, loc. cit.). It still remains to documentary and literary sources concerning Scanderbeg in

be shown that Ciriaco lived beyond the year 1452, which his very convenient work Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg 1

is the date given for his death by a MS. in the Bibl. Arbanija u XV veku [George Castriota Scanderbeg and Ambrosiana in Milan, Trotti 373, fol. 41°: “Kyriacus Albania in the Fifteenth Century], Belgrade, 1942. On Anconitanus Cremone moritur anno domini MCCCCL conditions in Albania from the late fall of 1441, see secundo .. .” (Fr. Edw. W. Bodnar, who examined the Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Sen. Secreta, Reg. 15, fols. MS., informs me that the word secundo is written over 102", 116%, 129, 131¥-133", 134, 154’, and zbid., Reg. 16, an erasure). fols. 9°, 10, 15°, 24°, et alibt. 114 The late James Morton Paton left behind at his death 119 Barletius, Vita, Ist ed., Rome, 1509, bk. un, fols. an unfinished edition of Ciriaco’s letters (the typescript is xvi, x1x; ed. Zagreb, 1743, pp. 35, 40; Giovanni Musachi,

now in the Houghton Library, Harvard University). Breve Memoria de li discendenti de nostra casa Musachi, in 115 Fugen (Jeno) Dark6, Laonici Chalcocandylae historiarum Ch. Hopf, Chroniques gréco-romanes, Berlin, 1873, p. 274;

demonstrationes, 2 vols., 1922-23, II-1, 91-92; ed. Bonn, cf. Giammaria Biemmi (but see below), Istoria dt Giorgio pp. 318-19. In his edition of Chalcocondylas, Dark6 Castrioto detto Scander-Begh, 2nd ed., Brescia, 1756, bk.

gives marginal references to the Paris edition (1650, re- 1, pp. 30-38, who supplies the date of the congress of

printed in that of Venice, 1729) as well as to the Bonn Alessio, “ch’era pei due di Marzo” (p. 30); Hopf, “Griechenedition (1843, reprinted in Migne, PG 159). Cf. Chronicon land im Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit,” in J. S. Ersch breve (following Ducas in the Bonn Corpus, pp. 518-19); and J. G. Gruber, eds., Allgemeine Encyklopadie, vol. 86 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1049D-1050A; ed. (repr. New York, 1960, vol. II), p. 123b, who places it in the Grecu, pp. 66, 68); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 19 (Bonn, pp. summer of 1444, being followed by Babinger in the first 196-97; ed. Papadopoulos, I, 195; ed. Grecu, p. 338); Sp. edition of his life of Mehmed II (Mehmed der Eroberer

P. Lampros, “The Walls of the Isthmus of Corinth” und seine Zeit, Munich, 1953, p. 56), on which note

[in Greek], Néos ‘EAAnvoprjpowr, II (1905), 477-79, aletter Soulis, op. cit., pp. 454-55, but the general criticism which of congratulation from Bessarion to Constantine, containing Soulis directs at Babinger is actually applicable to Hopf. Of both encouragement and advice; and E. W. Bodnar, “The _ the older sources relating to Scanderbeg, the “Anonymous

Isthmian Fortifications in Oracular Prophecy,” American of Antivari” is a fraud, and therefore Biemmi (who “dis-

Journal of Archaeology, LXIV (1960), 165-71. covered” this source) is to be used with extreme caution or 116 Marinus Barletius, Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi, _ rather not to be used at all.

Epirotarum principis, 1st ed., “impressum Romae per B. V.” For the career of Scanderbeg, Barletius is a valuable {Bernardinus Venetus de Vitalibus], ca. 1509, bk. 1, fols. source, but he also should be used with extreme caution. vur'—1x"; bk. xu, fol.. cLrx; ed. Zagreb, “typis Ioannis Quite apart from his constant exaggerations and chrono-

Baptistae Weitz,” 1743, pp. 14-17, 372. logical errors, Barletius (being a good humanist who liked

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 73 the chieftains used to say in jest that enemy the best-known biographers of Scanderbeg, territory was Scanderbeg’s treasury.'”° Barletius wrote fiction in the early sixteenth

Francisc Pall has shown that most accounts century, and Biemmi perpetrated an entertainof Scanderbeg’s career during the years 1443-— ing fraud in the eighteenth. In June, 1444, 1444 owe far more to fancy than to fact."7! Of Scanderbeg is alleged to have scored his first important victory over a large Turkish army,

; which he caught in the narrow valley of

literary speeches and letters) the invented the correspondence Torviolli in the 1 Dib Deb .and between Scanderbeg and Ladislas Jagiellonian in 1443 orviol in the lower ADT a (De er) region,

(Francisc Pall, “Les Relations entre la Hongrie et Scander- the astonished Hungarians are said to have sung beg,” in Revue historique du Sud-Est européen, X [Bucharest, his praises and immediately to have urged him 1933], 121-26). He also invented a correspondence be- to join the alliance of Hungary, the papacy, and tween Scanderbeg and Sultan Mehmed II to fit his interpre- Burgundy against the Turks. i22 tation of events in 1461—1463 (Vita, Ist ed., Rome, 1509, : ; : bk. x1, fols. cxxxiv'—cxL’; ed. Zagreb, 1743, pp. 312-26). During the preceding winter, as we shall see, Marinus Barletius (1450?—1512?) was a native of Scutari the Hungarians and Serbs had concluded a

(Shkodér) in Albania, perhaps of Italian origin, and victorious campaign against the northern outposts served as a Catholic priest at Scutari until the Turkish Of the Ottoman empire. Sultan Murad II found occupation in 1479 (cf. Gazmend Shpuza, “La Lutte pour. . . . la défense de Shkodér dans les années 1474 et 1478-1479,” it advisable to enter into negotiations for peace in Studia Albanica, V-1 [1968], 181-90). Thereafter Barletius With them at Adrianople in June, 1444. Although

resided in Venice and Rome. He wrote an account of the the sultan could not yet know how serious siege of Scutari (De obsidione Scodrenst first printed at Scanderbeg’s revolt was, Constantine Dragases’ (first printed at Rome about 1509-1510). For his life, of daring enterprise was undoubtedly an important which very little is known, his works, etc., see Pall, factor in disposing Murad to peace with the

Venice in 1504) and the famous life of Scanderbe . . .

“Marino Barlezio: Uno storico umanista,” in Mélanges d’his- northern powers, for little could be done about torre genérale, ed. Const. Marinescu, II (Bucharest, 1938), (Constantine’s pretensions in the Morea and his

135-315; for the sources employed by Barletius in his bold incursion into continental Greece until account of Scanderbeg, esp. 177-86,223-28. and for‘ura the Murad his 1 dine diff, general reliability of thenote work, pp.pp. 199-202, ad sett had c Is led long-stan Hung | erences

Giammaria Biemmiz, a priest of Brescia, pretended to have with the Hungarians and Serbs either by making discovered a Latin incunable written by an unknown author peace with them or by defeating them decisively

pte Antvar! (4 storia alleged Standeregi {ana (berhard quendamRatdolt enough to at keepVenice them from: unsettling his Albanensem, rinte :. on 2 April, 1480), which he aims to have used in his northern frontiers by annual invasions. Istoria di Giorgio Castrioto detto Scander-Begh, Brescia, 1742

(2nd ed., 1756). Of course no such incunable was known Constantine’s attempts to reconstruct Byzanto G. R. Redgrave, Erhard Ratdolt and his Work at Venice, tine authority in Greece were merely part of a concon: Bibliographical Society, 1894, repr. 1899; . Kurt uch larger Christian effort to dismantle the R. Janin, in the Echos d’Orient, XXXVII (1938), 210-11; Turkish regime in Europe. In this connection and Willy Steltner, “Zum Geschichtsbild des albanischen attention tends to be concentrated, quite under-

y, in the Gutenberg Jahrbuch, Mainz, 1933, pp. 53-61; . . . . .

Nationalhelden Georg Kastriota genannt Skanderbeg,” Zert- standably , upon the papacy and Venice, Hungary schrift fir Geschichtswissenschaft, IV-5 (1956), 1035-38. and Serbia, and even Byzantium, but there were Biemmi alsoon forged two “early” chronicles Brescia, h Kagusa . lved.(mo R dernDub and was at work a third when death overtook him ot er of States Involved. Vu rovin 1778 (Pall, op. cit., pp. 201-2, note, who properly nik), for example, had been anxiously following observes that Biemmi had a talent for scholarship worthy for generations the westward march of Turkish of more honest application). Biemmi worked very hard to conquest. Never so prominent Or powerful as

ensure that modern‘ scholarship should find workhas worth.. Jb . ; Venice, thehiscity a proud ess. Alessandro Serra, “Relazioni del Castriota con il Papato

and rather neglected

nella lotta contro i Turchi (1444—1468),” Archivio storico past.

italiano, CXIV (1956), 713-33, and vol. CXV (1957), pp. Ragusa has been aptly called the step-daughter 33-63, had not yet discovered that Biemmi’s life of Scander- of the Adriatic. But as the historian makes his

beg was based upon a fraudulent source. Serra has done ' .

somewhat better in his essay L’Albania e la Santa Sede ai way, however idly, through the documents relat

temjr di Gliorgio| C[astriota] Scanderbeg, Cosenza, 1960. ——_——— 120 Barletius, Vita, Ist ed., Rome, 1509, bk. tv, fol. 122 Pall’s articles should be read before Barletius, Vita, 1st xLv'; ed. Zagreb, 1743, p. 97b: “. . . joculariter saepe ed., Rome, 1509, bk. un, fols. xxu—xxvul; ed. Zagreb, 1743, vicini principes aerarium Scanderbegi agrum hostilem appel- pp. 47—57, who was followed by Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad labant.” ann. 1443 [sic], no. 21, vol. XVIII (1694), pp. 285-86;

** Pall, “Les Relations entre la Hongrie et Scanderbeg,” Biemmi, bk. 1, pp. 42-55, 59-60, who supplies 29 June, Revue historique du Sud-Est européen, X (1933), 119-27; 1444, as the date of Scanderbeg’s first victory over the “Skanderbeg et Janco de Hunedoara (Jean Hunyadi),” Turks (p. 54). The spurious correspondence of July and Studia Albanica, V-1 (1968), 103-7; and “Skanderbeg et August, 1443, between Ladislas and Scanderbeg (made up Ianco de Hunedoara,” Revue des études sud-est européennes, by Barletius, who should have assigned it to the year 1444)

VI (1968), 6-9. is reprinted in Radonic¢, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg, pp. 5-7.

74 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT ing to the Mediterranean in the fourteenth and In 1440-1441, to be sure, Ragusa was obliged fifteenth centuries, he is constantly struck by to conclude a “good peace” (bona paxe) with the the importance of this city in the affairs of the Ottoman government, agreeing to pay the Balkans. In 1358 the Ragusei had accepted the sultan, the pasha of Romania, and the vizirs mild hegemony of King Louis the Great of 1,000 ducats a year, and providing in addition Hungary when the Venetians were forced by the gratuities (certae simoniae) to the extent of 400 treaty of Zara (18 February) to yield all claim ducats a year to make certain that officials of to Dalmatia, including the important ecclesi- the Porte were sufficiently attentive to the comastical, military, and commercial centers of mercial and other interests of the republic.'*4 Nona (Nin) and Zara (Zadar), Scardona (Skradin) The future of Ragusa obviously had its preand Sebenico (Sibenik), Trau (Trogir) and carious aspects, but her enterprising merchants Spalato (Split), as well as Ragusa itself. The acquired freedom of trade throughout the wide peace of Zara had brought to an end some years _ territories of the Ottoman empire and its various of warfare and negotiation between the Vene- _ satellite states. The Ragusei continued to recog-

tians and the king of Hungary. Oddly enough nize the suzerainty of Hungary, to which they in March (1358) the Ragusei had ordered from looked for protection from time to time against Venice a standard and banners for their galleys the Bosnians and the Turks. A letter to John and other ships “with the arms of our lord, the Hunyadi, the regent of Hungary, a decade later lord king of Hungary.” A little later,on 27 June, describes the situation of Ragusa amid the the final agreement was reached at Visegrad movements of the greater powers as “like a ship between King Louis and Archbishop Giovanni _ tossed by fortune in the midst of the sea.”!”° Saraca of Ragusa whereby Hungarian sovereignty Important events were in the meantime taking

was recognized in the city instead of that of place in Hungary. Young King Ladislas the Venice, but the Ragusei were left largely totheir Jagiellonian of Poland had been called to the own devices. The local nobility continued to rule Hungarian throne (1440-1444) by a dominant with little interference from the royal court at faction of the Magyar nobility anxious to escape Buda, where schemes were constantly enter- the rule of a woman and an infant king, Ladislas tained for a crusade against schismatic Serbia, ‘“Postumus.” The latter was the son of Albert II less strongly defended after the death of the of Hapsburg and Elizabeth of Hungary, daughter great Stephen Dushan. For Ragusa the peace of _ of Sigismund, whose lands and titles Albert had

Zara had meant an escape from the domination acquired in 1438, as we have seen. Ladislas of Venice, a superior rival. The Ragusei had been happy to acknowledge the suzerainty of —————— . Louis of Hungary, whose kingdom was not q_ ‘d'Italia, Studi e documenti, VIII, Rome, 1938), pp. 367-71. naval power, an d with whom they could have Also see, above, Volume I, p. 228. On the appearance of littl fi f i Ad +f walled Ragusa, cf. Luk&a Beritic, Utvrdenja grada Dubrovittie conilict OF interest. epot in transit fOr nike [The Fortifications of Dubrovnik], Zagreb, 1955, and the exchange of goods between Italy and the see in general the rambling but interesting lectures of N. Balkans, a center of banking and diplomatic lorga, “Raguse,” in the Bulletin historique de UAcadémie intrigue, Ragusa maintained her virtual inde- "0¥maine, XVHI (Bucharest, 1931), 32-100. Present-day

rr Ragusa (Dubrovnik) dates largely from the period after the

pendence and reared her stone buildings all earthquake of 1667

through the Quattrocento. 24 Torga, Notes et extraits, Il, 371-74, 376-78, and esp. pp. 381-84, 386. The difficult negotiations with the Porte

——_———— were finally concluded by the Ragusan ambassador Nicholas

123 The text of the famous treaty of Zara (18 February, de Simon de Goze, but the Ragusei continued to have 1358) may be found in Sime Ljubi¢, Listine, in the trouble with Turkish officials (bid., pp. 395, 412). On their Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridionalium, WI economic relations with the Turks in Serbia, Albania, (Zagreb, 1872), 368-71, with accompanying instruments, Bosnia, Greece, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Anatolia at this and cf. J. Gelcich and L. Thalléczy, Diplomatarium time, see B. Kreki¢, Dubrovnik (Raguse) et le Levant au ragusanum, Budapest, 1887, nos. 1 ff., pp. 3 ff. On the moyen age, Paris and The Hague, 1961, nos. 958, 962, treaty and its consequences, cf. Sam. Romanin, Stora 964-66, 969, 972, pp. 323 ff. The Ragusei had extensive documentata di Venezia, III, 200-6; Giuseppe Gelcich, Dello consular privileges and legal exemptions in the kingdom of Sviluppo civile di Ragusa, Ragusa, 1884, p. 44; Luigi Villari, Sicily (Naples), for which see Ljubi¢, Listine, IX (Zagreb,

Republic of Ragusa, London, 1904, pp. 103-6; H. Kretsch- 1890), 36-37. mayr, Geschichte von Venedig, 11 (Gotha, 1920, repr. 1964), 5 Jovan Radonic, ed., Acta et diplomata ragusina, I, pt. 2 217-18; Louis de Voinovitch, Histotre de Dalmatie, I (Paris, (Belgrade, 1934), no. 231, p. 518, doc. dated 28 January, 1934), 451-54; and Balint Héman, Gli Angioini di Napoli 1451 (Fontes rerum slavorum meridionalium, ser. I); Gelcich

in Ungheria, 1290-1403, trans. from the Hungarian by and Thalldéczy, Dipl. ragusanum, no. 285, p. 477: “. . . come

Luigi Zambra and Rudolfo Mosca (Reale Accademia la nave agitata da fortuna in mezzo pelago. . . .”

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 75 Postumus, born after his father’s death, could tempora inauditum, Eugenius issued a universal only assert the Hapsburg claim to Hungary from appeal from Rome on 1 January, 1443, for the the safety of Vienna, where he lived as a ward defense of the Christian East against the Turks,

of his father’s relative and successor Frederick whose atrocities he rehearsed with an angry III, duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola (and rhetoric. He imposed a special tithe on “all the

crowned king of the Romans in February, 1440). world,” and declared his intention of spending

The small Ladislas’s cause was supported in a fifth of the chief revenues of the apostolic Hungary by his mother Elizabeth and by Ulrich, treasury to equip a fleet and an army.””° Eugenius

count of Cilli. For good reasons the Magyar made a special alliance with Ragusa, whose barons wanted none of a “king in his cradle.” statesmen foresaw an easier future in Turkish They needed a leader against the Turks, who defeat,’° despite the “good peace” they had were able, however, to profit from the anarchy concluded with the Porte. The pope’s correcaused in Hungary by the three years’ war of spondence reveals an anxious desire to launch a

succession which was now waged against the crusade, but except for Hungary, Poland,

Jagiellonian by the legitimist party.”° Neverthe- Wallachia, and Burgundy, Christendom gave a less, John Hunyadi’s victories seemed to show poor response to his appeals for war against the that it might be possible to drive the Turks back enemies of the faith.*** into Asia Minor.’*7

Hunyadi served as general of Ladislas the —————_ | | Jagiellonian, who became leader of the crusade, ™ Hofmann, Epistolae pontificiae, III, no. 207, PP. 69-75:

in eastern Europe when he became king of °° Mctpientes ano b, 'Psis, Omnium 3e o conner et ‘el an dHunyadi diol dacreat ex communibus et annatis ad cameram Hungary. Ladislas planned aproventuum sreat — anostolicam spectantibusservitiis partem quintam ad eundem usum

expedition for the summer of 1443. They could classis et exercitus fidelium deputamus .. .” (p. 75). of course depend upon Pope Eugenius IV, who (Cf., tbid., nos. 264-65, etc., also the notices in Sanudo, was winning his prolonged struggle with the Vite de’duchi, in RISS, XXII (1733), cols. 1106, 1109B,

battled fath t Basel. E us had b 1110AB, 1114C. Eugenius IV’s crusading encyclical is misem at Cc alhers a asel. ugenius a Cen dated 1442 in Pastor, Hist. Popes, 1, 325, but given corplanning for some time to senda fleet intoeastern — rectly as “zu Anfang des Jahres 1443” in the last edition

waters against the Turks, but its organization was of his Gesch. d. Papste, I (repr. 1955), 333. Note also

proceeding slowly. Already on 8 August, 1442, lorga, en ee OO 130 88 ob one orc and Notes

the Venetian Senate had complained ina letter % @7@US: os Delft, (ee fe, 207 af, Otc. Kugenius an Cardinal Giul; C oni that th the Venetians generally did not see eye to eye, and the to ardinal Sslullano Wesarini C at the pope Was latter continued to complain about the financing of the making inadequate financial provision for arming fleet and the unsettled conditions in Italy (Sen. Secreta, the fleet which the Senate was ready to provide. Reg. 16 [1443-1445], fols. 9°, 11%, 12-13", 13, 14%, 26",

Eugenius had so far imposed the crusading tithe 30'~31", 37, 61, 87", 95"—96", and 116"). . lv in Fl d Ven; “and other fund 8° Cf. lorga, Notes et extraits, Il, 403, 417; cf. Krekic, only in Hlorence and Venice, ana other funds — pybsrounik (1961), nos. 1054, 1097, pp. 339, 346.

he employs elsewhere;” the tithe did not yield 131In a letter to Eugenius, dated 13 April, 1443, the much, and would prove hard to collect under Doge Francesco Foscari expressed the pleasure of the the circumstances.!28 But Eugenius soon did Venetian Senate in the receipt of a letter from Giuliano much better. Still rejoicing :publicly in the union C°S47™) cardinal of S. Angelo, explaining “quam bene preparantur res Christiane religionis quaamque omnes populi of the Churches, beneficium et usque ad nostra ijlarum partium ad repprimendam infidelium rabiem ferventissime disponuntur” (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 5Y; lorga, Notes et extraits, III [Paris, 1902], 121). In central 6 Cf. lorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 423~25, and D. Europe at least there was still a willingness to proceed Caccamo, “Eugenio IV e la crociata di Varna,” Archivio against the Turks. Cf. Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XVIII della Socteta romana di storia patria, LXXIX, 43-45. Albert (1974), no. 4,805, p. 20, whose reading of the doge’s letter

died on 27 October, 1439; Elizabeth on 19 December, differs from mine.

1442. On 3 May, 1443, the doge reported to the Senate on ”7The Hungarians had been particularly successful the mission of a Byzantine envoy, one “Theodorus

against the Turks during the latter half of the year 1442 Carastinus” (6 €x Kaptovov ?), who had just stated [in the (cf. Ilorga, ROL, VII [1899, repr. 1964], 78-79, and Notes Collegio] that the Turks were not observing the peace they et extraits, III [Paris, 1902], 105-6, doc. dated 30 October, had made with the Emperor John VIII, “et tandem dicit 1442, and Iorga’s note on the document). For this period, condictionem Teucrorum et quam facile expellerentur de see Francisc Pall, “Le Condizioni e gli echi internazionali Gretia, sed neccessarie essent galee et ob hoc videt penitus della lotta antiottomana del 1442-1443, condotta da Gio- _necessarium esse ut per nos fiat provisio galearum et vanni di Hunedoara,” Revue des études sud-est européennes, habet in mandatis eundi aut scribendi summo pontifici et

III (Bucharest, 1965), 433-63. illustrissimo domino duci Burgundie ut pecunias nobis con-

8 Torga, ROL, VII, 73, and cf. pp. 98, 100, 377, and _tribuant pro armamento galearum predictarum et petit Notes et extraits, III, 100, and cf. pp. 125, 127, 136. consilium et parere nostrum, asserens in mandatis habere in

76 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Plans for the Hungarian expedition were carried son, Mehmed Chelebi (“the Gentleman”), the through, nonetheless, and by July, 1443,the news future conqueror of Constantinople, had just of the Christians’ southeastward advance had joined him at Adrianople. Mehmed was beginning reached Sultan Murad II’s court at Adrianople. to play some part in the affairs of state, and the Murad had just returned from Anatolia, where events of the next few years undoubtedly made he had diminished for a while the ambition of _ a deep impression on him.!? his brother-in-law, Ibrahim Beg, the ruler of ‘The crusaders pressed onward under Ladislas Caramania (il Gran Caramano), who had been and Hunyadi, accompanied by Cardinal Cesarini. flirting for some time with King Ladislas the The Serbian despot George Brankovié was with Jagiellonian, Pope Eugenius, and the Venetians. them too, now a landless fugitive, who (like For more than twenty years (until his death in John VI Cantacuzenus a century before) had early August, 1464), Ibrahim Beg was to be the derived no profit from marrying his daughter to an chief eastern enemy of the Ottoman sultans. Ottoman ruler. The Christian army, containing More than once he entertained the idea of an some 25,000 mounted men and archers (accordalliance with the western powers. The Venetians ing to Ducas), including about 8,000 Serbs, both were to send several embassies to him through horse and foot, met up with Turkish troops the years, but no effective results ever came of between the castle of Bolvani and the city of them, and the Ottoman armies were never caught NiS (Nish) in early November, 1443. The cruin a pincers’ movement of simultaneous attacks saders defeated them easily and went on to take from Caramania and the West. Now, however, Sofia, whence on 4 December Cesarini wrote the having held his eastern enemy in check, Murad Venetian government of the excellens et gloriosa prepared to deal with the Hungarians. His young _ victoria which God had granted them.**? Brankovic, old campaigner in the Balkans, knew every

oo path and pass through the Haemus range. The hoc sequendi parere nostrum.” The Senate voted to inform crusaders dragged along 4 heavy (and yet inthe envoy “quod fecit apud nos fieri sufficient) baggage train for provisions, anda as instantiam ut summus decem pontifex hic posset armare galeas et nos, qui PASS Age a Pp 2)

sequentes vestigia predecessorum nostrorum semper they got into the region of the Maritsa, they comodum et utile Christianitatis quesivimus, fuimus con- found the enemy’s resistance much increased. tenti el corpora ipsarum galearum accomodare et sue requisitioni de armando hic eas consentire. . . .” Cardinal 9 ——W—————

Cesarini had been urging Pope Eugenius to provide the *? On the background, see Bistra Cvetkova, “Analyse funds necessary to arm the ten galleys which Venice was’ des principales sources ottomanes du XV¢° siécle sur les prepared to make available to the crusading fleet. There campagnes de Vladislav le Varnénien et Jean Hunyadi en must be no delay (res hec in longum non est ducenda). 1443-1444,” Studia Albanica, V-1 (1968), 137-58. Ibrahim Theodore should go to the Curia Romana (ad pedes Beg, the ally of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII, was apostolicos) to request dispatch of the money to Venice, under the protection of the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh, who but he should write Eugenius before going. The Senate was especially feared by the Ottomans (see Halil Inalcik, also advised Theodore to write the duke of Burgundy “Byzantium and the Origins of the Crisis of 1444 under before leaving Venice, but to say nothing of his willingness the Light of Turkish Sources,” Actes du XII® Congres to wait upon the duke in person unless he found support international d'études byzantines [Ohrid, 1961], II [Belgrade, at the Curia and had the time and means to undertake such 1964], 159-63). Cf. also Gyula Razs6, “Una Strana Alleanza:

a distant journey. “. . . Verum cum, ut intelligere potuit, Alcuni pensieri sulla storia militare e politica delres Italie in non parva sint confusione, hortamur ut l’alleanza contro i Turchi (1440-—1464),” in Vittore Branca, suadere debeat prefato summo pontifici et supplicare cum ed., Venezia e Ungheria nel Rinascimento, Florence, 1973, instantia ut pro etus officio, quia caput Christianorum est, pp. 79-100, whose article begins with a wrong reference,

taliter operari et providere dignetur quod ipse res Italie misquotes a line from Pius II (which he attributes to taliter cum securitate componantur quod ad hoc sanctum et —_Calixtus III), and thereafter perpetrates in his notes a series

utilissimum opus vacare possimus ut optamus. De parte of mangled Latin texts. omnes alii, de non 2, non sinceri |” (¢bid., Reg. 16, fol. 7°; 33 Cf. Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 73'—'74'; Valentini, Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XVIII [1974], no. 4,807, Acta Albaniae veneta, XVIII (1974), no. 4,925, pp. 129-34, pp. 22-23; lIorga, Notes et extraits, III, 122-23; and note doc. dated 6 March, 1444, by which time the Senate

the summaries of documents, ibid., pp. 125 ff.). knew that Cesarini and Ladislas had returned to HunTheodore “Carastinus” did in fact venture into the duchy gary, “[illos] cum exercitu Christianorum retrocessisse et in

of Burgundy, where Philip the Good received him at Hungariam remeasse bonis necessariisque causis,” and see Chalon-sur-Sa6ne: “. . . vint illec ung ambaxadeur de par _ Ducas, chap. 32 (Bonn, pp. 217-18), and the account given lempereur de Constantinoble devers ycellui duc, nomme_ by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, in a Theodore Crystins, lequel ledit duc recheupt moult hon- letter apparently dated 13 January, 1444, to Giovanni nourablement . . .” (Jehan de Waurin, Recueil des cron- Campisio (Rudolf Wolkan, ed., Der Briefwechsel des Eneas iques d’Engleterre, VI, 1, 6, ed. Hardy, vol. V [1891, Silvius Piccolomini, in the Fontes rerum austriacarum, I. repr. 1967], p. 20; for the full citation of this edition, see, Abteilung, Diplomataria et acta, vol. 61 [Vienna, 1909, on below, note, 134). Philip assured him of Burgundian which edition see, below, note 149], Ep. 117, pp. 281-83, help against the Turks (tbid., p. 22, and cf., below, note 135). dated 15 January in Wolkan, p. 278).

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 77 The Turks had blocked the approaches to If the expedition had not entirely merited Adrianople and Constantinople, felling trees to hymns of triumph, it had been successful, and build barriers all along the ancient military road had impressed Murad II, who was also impressed from Belgrade to the Bosporus. To the enterprise by the unrest in the Balkans and in Greece, as of the Turks was now added the severity of the well as by the renewed hostility of Ibrahim Beg winter. Meeting determined opposition, suffering of Caramania. To prepare for another war with

from the cold, and lacking sources of supply, the Gran Caramano the sultan wanted peace the crusaders began their return in late December, with King Ladislas, and directed his efforts hard pressed by the Turks, whom they repulsed toward this end during the spring of 1444. The toward the end of the month in a battle near Sultana Mara, daughter of George Brankovic, Sofia. Although the crusaders had to continue assisted in the negotiations which seemed to their withdrawal, they defeated the Turks again, promise her father some restoration of his lost in early January, 1444, between Pirot and Nis, power. Brankovic’s two sons, Gregory and taking a number of important captives. They were Stephen, whom their brother-in-law Murad II had little disposed, however, to follow Brankovic’s — seized and blinded a few years before, were also

bold advice to entrench themselves tn winter to be restored to their father.

quarters in Serbia in order to resume their march Pope Eugenius IV had constructed one of those in the spring. They wanted to go home and they _ perennial anti-Turkish alliances, this time comdid so, the army arriving in Buda on 2 February, prising Hungary, Venice, Burgundy, and Ragusa; worn by cold and hunger: “Clutching in emaci-_ the Burgundian adherence proved to be more ated hands,” says Babinger, “the banners of the than a mere gesture of good will. Philip the Good infidel, which they had taken as the spoils of war, wrote encouraging letters to the Venetians,

they returned to their own country amid the promising subsidies for the proposed maritime jubilation of the population of the Hungarian expedition against the Turks. He was willing to

capital, singing hymns of triumph.”'** outfit and arm four galleys in the Venetian

Arsenal. The Senate (having made the offer) was

——__— prepared to do so without compensation for the ‘* Babinger, Maometto (1957), p. 56, and cf. Babinger’s hulls of the galleys in the event of loss or damage, article “Von Amurath zu Amurath: Vor- und Nachspiel der which was more than generous.!> One could not printed in his Aufsdtze und Abhandlungen zur Geschichte be sure to what extent Philip would exert himself

Schlacht bei Varna (1444),” Oriens, III (1950), 229-31, re- “1° :

Siidosteuropas und der Levante, 2 vols., Munich, 1962-66, I, 128-29. See Ladislas’s own account of the expedition of }§—=————————

1443 in his letter of 2 July, 1444, to the Florentine honor nostri dominii est congratulari cum reverendissimo priors and gonfalonier of justice in Iorga, Notes et extraits, domino Cardinale Sancti Angeli ac serenissimo domino II, 404, and Aeneas Sylvius’s letter to Leonhard Laiming, rege Polonie, qui nobis scripserunt de victoriis obtentis, ex the bishop of Passau, dated 28 October, 1445, in Wolkan, nunc captum sit quod mittatur unus noster secretarius ad Briefwechsel, op. cit., vol. 61, Ep. 192, pp. 565-66; Raynaldus, presentiam prefati reverendissimi domini cardinalis et Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1443, nos. 15-19, vol. XVIII (1694), serenissimi domini regis ac etiam magnifici domini Iohannis, pp. 282-84; lorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 433-36; and _vayvode transsilvani, ad congaudendum de victoriis supra-

cf., in general, ROL, VII, 80 ff., 387~88, 398-401, and scriptis et persentiendum de novis et progressibus ChristiaNotes et extraits, III, 107 ff., 146-47, 157-60. The campaign norum .. .” (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 57%, and see fol. of 1443 is described in detail and with some confusion by 58%). But if Ladislas and Cesarini were not going to Jehan de Waurin, Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories follow up their victory by another campaign in the late de la Grant Bretaigne, a present nomme Engleterre, V1,1,5,7-8, spring and summer of 1444, other plans would have to be

eds. Wm. Hardy and E. L. C. P. Hardy, 5 vols., London, made for the galleys which the Venetians were preparing 1864-91, repr. Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1965-72, vol. V, pp. for themselves and for the pope “ut infidelibus Teucris

15-19, 25-30 (Rolls Series). There is an account of the impediretur omnino transitus de Asia in Europam et

“langer Feldzug” of 1443 in L. Kupelwieser, Die Kampfe Un- __ econverso . . . quoniam si aliter esset, frustra esset ac-

garns mit den Osmanen bis zur Schlacht bei Mohdcs (1526), cessus galearum predictarum.” The Senate therefore Vienna and Leipzig, 1895, pp. 68-79, with sketch maps of | sent Giovanni de’ Reguardati as an envoy to Ladislas and the Turco-Hungarian engagements near NiS (up to 3 Cesarini for information on this score (ibid., fols. 73°~74", November, 1443) and at the foot of Mount Kunoviza in doc. dated 6 March, 1444; cf. orga, Notes et extraits, II, early January, 1444. Although he was a professional 155; Cieszkowski, Fontes rerum polonicarum, 1-2 [1890], no. soldier, Kupelwieser, p. 69, believed that Murad had xxxix, pp. 79-85; and Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, 150,000 men under his command during the campaign. XVIII, no. 4,904, pp. 93-94, and no. 4,925, pp. 129-34). Halil Inalcik has devoted much attention to the decade 85 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 81, dated 23 March, 1444,

preceding the fall of Constantinople in his volume of the Senate to Philip of Burgundy, and note fol. 91°;

Fath deuri uizerinde tetkikler ve vesikalar [Studies and Documents cf. Jehan de Waurin, Recueil des croniques d’Engleterre, V1,

on the Period of the Conqueror], 1, Ankara, 1954. 1, 6, ed. Hardy, vol. V (1891, repr. 1967), pp. 19-23, A resolution of the Venetian Senate, passed on 15 Jan- and _ Thiriet, Régestes, II, nos. 2597, 2603, 2639, 2645,

uary, 1444 (Ven. Style 1443), provided that “. . . quia pp. 98 ff.

78 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT ) for the Christian cause, but in fact his galleys aid from the West, and (after some wavering) he were to see effective service under Geoffroy de was now determined to keep that promise.’ Thoisy and Waleran de Wavrin at Rhodes, in Letters of Ciriaco of Ancona, who was at the the Bosporus, and along the Danube (in - sultan’s court during the critical weeks of May and 1442-1445).° The Ottoman emissaries, sent to June, 1444, inform us of the events which now the court at Buda, had their difficulties, although took place at Adrianople. On or shortly before 12

Brankovic himself urged peace upon the Hun- June, Ciriaco wrote to a friend, probably his garian diet in April, 1444. Now that he was patron, the rich Genoese Andreolo Giustinianisupposed to recover most of Serbia, Brankovi¢ Banca of Chios:

was anxious halt plans forI the of ; for 137 . . .to moreover, when had continuance made preparations

the crusade. al £hearthat Adrianopl €or Ladislas and Cesarini nothing of poofrom in eedd eee ae a 5 ¢ Byzantium, wewould learned the envoys Hungary peace, however, and in letters of 25and 28 April, would get here very soon to see the sultan himself.

1444, the latter answered inquiries from the And as I had decided to wait for them, we wit-

Venetian Senate with the unequivocal assurance _ nessed the arrival a few days later of the four en“that, yes, the most serene lord king has firmly voys, accompanied by some sixty horsemen—the decided and sworn in my hands—together with first being Stojka Gisdani¢, from the illustrious King the barons and other lords and primates of this Ladislas of Poland and Hungary; the second Vitislao,

realm—to march with a powerful army against rom the eminent commander ne fear and had made th; th the fifteenth at the diet of silver-rich Moesia and the Serbian province, one

the perfidious Turks this very summer!”!* Ladislas ‘7° Temamung two trom Secorge Lerankovicl, Cespo

; Bud: © Ss oath on the Aiteen th at tae let of whom was the venerable Metropolitan A[thanasius in Buda. ‘The Senate received Cesarini’s letters fyazak of Semendria], and the other indeed the with transports of joy. They could continue with chancellor [of Brankovié, whose name was Bogdan]. their plans for the fleet, which would very shortly And when after two days they betook themselves to be ready to sail for the strait of Gallipoli.’ Asa the august presence of the sultan—the royal envoy matter of fact the fleet was ready. It would soon _ going first, then the representative of the despot, and sail, and in the following chapter we shall follow _ finally the one from the doughty John [Hunyadi] —

its course. As for Cesarini, he was a militarist they gave the great prince their letters of credence,

at heart. His determination to suppress the resent 4 aun Cree and Serbian, and each one

Hussite heresy by “crusades” had provided clear PFe®enie® Bs OWN Thoth Bie evidence of the fact. He had, however, no choice After some days of discussion as to the return of but to march against the Turks. Eugenius IV had towns which had been occupied by the Turks, who promised the Greeks that, when they returned wanted especially to retain Golubac on the Danube, to the bosom of the Church, they would receive _ the sultan gave way on all points, and arranged to

—____—_—— send Suleiman Beg and a Greek named Vranas

"8 Waurin, Croniques, VI, 1, 9, 11, 14-19, vol. V, pp. 30- to Buda as his envoys to conclude a ten years’ 41, 44-51, 58-119, and note Richard Vaughan, Philip the peace with King Ladislas and his followers.!*! Good: The Apogee of Burgundy, London, 1970, pp. 270-72. Waleran de Wavrin was the nephew of the chronicler Jehan de Waurin (Wavrin). There is a miscellany of notes §©=——————~

and a half-dozen texts relating to the Burgundian “em- 140T). Caccamo, “Eugenio IV e la crociata di Varna,” prises” against the Turks from 1443 to 1466 in N. Iorga, Archivio della Societa romana di storia patria, LXXIX, 35-87, Les Aventures “sarrazines” des frangais de Bourgogne au XV°_ esp. pp. 77-78.

stécle, Cluj, 1926. 4417. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca latina mediae et infimae 137 Torga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 438-39. aetatis, VI (Padua, 1754), Addenda, p. 13; Francesco

138 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 91; Valentini, Acta Albaniae [Francisc] Pall, “Ciriaco d’Ancona e la crociata contro 1 veneta, XVIII, no. 4,962, p. 174, doc. dated 12 May, 1444,the Turchi,” Bulletin historique de VAcadémie roumaine, XX (1938),

Senate to Cesarini, repeating and adapting the latter's own 61-62, and cf. pp. 32 ff., with refs.; Halecki, Crusade of words, “. . . videlicet, serenissimum illum dominum regem Varna (1943), pp. 86-87. Some five months after the omnino firmiter statuisse ac iurasse in manibus vestris una disaster at Varna, Andreas de Palatio wrote Cardinal cum baronibus et aliis dominis ac primatibus regni illius Lodovico Trevisan from Poznan on 16 May, 1445, that

adversus perfidos Teucros hac presenti estate potenti Brankovi¢ and Hunyadi had carried on the negotiations

exercitu se transferre. . . .” with Murad without consulting Ladislas, which seems to be 139 Thid., Reg. 16, fol. cit., from the letter referred tointhe Polish propaganda: “Sed non potuit [i.e., rex Wladislaus ]

preceding note: “Intelligit itaque reverenda vestra paternitas in termino constituto delectas ad hoc copias aggregare [i.e., Cesarini] quale ad rem hanc sit ardens desiderium neque cum ipsis omnibus transfretare Danubium propter nostrum et quam potens maritima classis in brevissimo tractatum pacis, quem illustris Georgius despotus Rascie

spacio strictum Galipolis petitura sit,’ and note fols. eiusdem regis subditus ac magnificus Johannes de Huniad

95-96", doc. dated 25 May, 1444. wagewoda Transsilvanus eciam inconsulto rege habuerunt

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 79 We have the text of Murad II’s letter, dated a week later (on 18 June) Ciriaco sent his friend 12 June, to Ladislas, ending with the Turkish Giustiniani his own pompous version of the understanding “that we should have a good and form in which the Latin translator should have solid peace with your Excellency without any cast Murad’s letter to Ladislas, of which, as we reservation or fraud for ten years, and for this have seen, he had secured a copy.’*® we send our noble and distinguished subject, That Ciriaco did not expect the peace to be Suleiman Beg, that your Excellency should be observed is clear from the important letter he willing to swear in person, truthfully and faith- wrote, certainly to Hunyadi, from Pera in fully without any reservation, that you will keep Constantinople on 24 June: He had already written

a good and solid peace with us through ten as much as he had dared from Adrianople

years.”)? [on 12 June]—but for fear of the Turks he would There has long been some dispute whether have discussed conditions at greater length, and the Christian disaster at Varna in November, especially the peace which the envoys had forced 1444, was the consequence of a broken pledge to on the sultan (coacta pax), which Ciriaco believed

Murad II. On the whole it seems reasonable to the latter had accepted merely to protect Thrace

assume that neither Murad nor the Christians against attack while he was absent in Asia intended to keep the peace “sine aliquo dolo vel Minor. The Turks were not relying very heavily fraude usque ad annos decem.” On the very day on this peace, however, for thoroughly frightened, of Murad’s letter to Ladislas (12 June, 1444), as Hunyadi’s people would bear witness, they

Ciriaco of Ancona wrote an admiring letter, were hastily repairing the walls and fortifying

undoubtedly addressed to John Hunyadi, tothe the towers of Adrianople, while at the same time effect that the latter would soon know what equipping their soldiery “for flight rather than for had been done at Adrianople both from his own fight.” ‘The war against the Caramano would be legation and from the sultan’s letter,and he, King pressed, but when Ibrahim Beg had been subLadislas, and Brankovié would know what todo: dued, pacified, or driven out of Konya, the sultan “For you, therefore, and for the honored and would come back over the Hellespont, bringing noble religious expedition of the Christians we with him a still greater army, and invade Moesia hope that all things will turn out ever better and and Hungary again: “He will strive with all his more favorable.”!*? Ciriaco was well informed. might to avenge the past and recent harm that He had met the Hungarian and Serbian envoys, you have done him!” To Ciriaco the ten years’ but was obviously still thinking in terms of a peace wasa monstrous device of the sultan to gain crusade against the Turks. Three weeks before time (pax haec tmproba et penitus execranda . . . pax

(on 21 or 22 May) the sultan had admitted him maligna). Hunyadi and the members of the to an audience with Francesco Drapperio, Christian alliance should move against Thrace Genoese envoy and proprietor of rich alum mines and the Hellespont: “Come, great princes,

at New Phocaea on the Anatolian coast.'44 About declare a war worthy of the Christian religion, and may you never cease to carry on the sacred

OO i, and glorious expedition, already begun under beet ecodem Theucrorumed., principe Omorathhappy auspices, to thedecimt conclusion egha .. .”magno (A. Lewicki, Codex epistolaris saecult /..we. long for!”!“° guinti, IL [Cracow, 1891, repr. New York and London, mn this life-and-death struggle which was to settle 1965], no. 308, p. 460). On the importance of this text for the fate of the Balkans for four centuries, neither Ant. Prochaska, who claimed that Ladislas did not ratify the side was to be bound by scraps of paper, for

6 ff., 17-18, 20. a peace, see Jan Dabrowski, L’Année 1444, Cracow: Académie

polonaise des sciences et des lettres, 1952, p. 3, and cf. pp.

12 Murad II’s letter to Ladislas is given in Pall, Bull. hist. roum., XX, 25, 56-57; Halecki, Crusade of Varna, p. 86. Acad. roum., XX, 63-64, as well as Ciriaco’s own “stylized” There are numerous references to the commercial activities version of the same text (bid., pp. 57-58); cf. Giov. Targioni —_ of “Ser Franzesco di Drapieri dal bancho” in Umberto Dorini

Tozzetti, Relazioni d’alcuni viaggi fatti in diverse parti della and Tommaso Bertelé, eds., Il Libro dei conti di Giacomo Toscana, V (Florence, 1773, repr. Bologna, 1971), 422; Badoer (Costantinopoli 1436-1440), Rome, 1956, pp. 34, 45, 70, Halecki, Crusade of Varna, pp. 88-90; Babinger, Maometio, 73, 90, 91, 94, 99, 102, et passim (Il Nuovo Ramusio,

pp. 62-63. vol. EI).

143 Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX, 64—65; Halecki, Crusade > Targioni Tozzetti, Relazioni, V, 422; Pall, Bull. hist.

of Varna, pp. 90-91. Acad. roum., XX, 58; Halecki, Crusade of Varna, p. 91.

44 Ciriaco, Ep. xvu, in Cod. Palat. Florent. 49 (Serie 146 Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX, 65—66; Halecki, Crusade Targioni), fol. 19° (earlier enumeration, 71"), letter dated 22 of Varna, pp. 91-92. This letter could not have been written,

May, 1444, to Andreolo Giustiniani-Banca; Targioni Toz- as commonly supposed, to the Byzantine Emperor John zetti, Relaztont d’alcuni viaggi, V, 422; Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. VIII (see above, note 110).

80 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT each adversary knew well what the other thought, receiving further currency in the works of Filippo and knew that in this game there were no rules. Buonaccorsi (Callimachus) and the Polish historian

Some animus has been engendered among Jan Dtugosz.'** Although the nations of western historians, nevertheless, by the highly controverted problem of whether Ladislas did or did not ~9—-————

ratify the treaty of Adrianople (of 12 June) by See Halecki, Crusade of Varna, pp. 67-75, and Jan an oath taken at Szeged toward the end of July, Dabrowski, Wtadystaw Jagiellanczyk na Wegrzech (1440-

1444. We have already alluded to this dispute. jyackiy inno Boosaterrsi (14374496), cllet “Call

. . y ; pute. — Halecki). Filippo Buonaccorsi (1437-1496), called “Calli-

The Polish historians Antoni Prochaska and machus,” was a native of San Gimignano near Florence. As Oskar Halecki have tried to exonerate the young a young man he joined Pomponio Leto’s Roman Academy, crusader of Varna from the charge of perjury. and got caught up in the “conspiracy” against Paul Il. When In defense of their position it may and be asked (even me Academy was suppressed in 1468, Buonaccors! to . ; aples, thereafter to Crete, Cyprus, Chios, and Hed Conthough an oath given to the infidel would lack stantinople, and found refuge in Poland, where from the canonical sanction anyway), why should Ladislas _mid-1470’s he embarked on an influential diplomatic and bother to sweartoa treaty that he knew he would _ political career, which took him to Venice, Constantinople, denounce a week later? He could not have ratified 274 other centers of power. He is well known, in the . present context, for his Historia de rege Viadislao seu clade the treaty before 26 July; he swore to conunue Varnenst. Upon his death in 1496, he-was buried at Cracow with the crusade on 4 August. However baffling ., J. A. Fabricius, Bibl. latina med. et infim. aetatis, 1 such inconsistency may now appear, Pall has _ [Florence, 1858], 300, and see the brief account of his life, advanced strong arguments to show that Ladislas_ with an excellent bibliography, by Domenico Caccamo, in

; | 147 the guilty Dizionario biografico degli italiani, XVbeen [1972], of 78-83). was nevertheless There N ar . ; . ot enamoredofofit.'*7 either the Poleshad or the Hungarians in

course no need of Ladislas’s taking the oath. The 1445, Aeneas Sylvius discusses their affairs in numerous device of pretending to make peace in June in letters (Rudolf Wolkan, ed., Der Briefwechsel des Eneas order to mislead Sultan Murad [I had already Siluius Piccolomini [1431-1454], 4 vols., Vienna, 1909-18, in : : . . . the Fontes rerum austriacarum, 11. Abteilung, Diplomataria served its purpose (insofar asit had in fact misled 7 vols, 61-62, 67-68, Epp. 170, 172-74, 186-89, etc. him). If Ladislas did, however, fail to ratify the In a very abusive letter to the chancellor of Queen Sophia treaty which his plenipotentiary Stojka GisdaniC (Sonka) of Poland, the mother of Ladislas III the Jagielhad negotiated with Murad at Adrianople in June, lonian, written in the summer of 1445, Aeneas explicitly he broke the promise explicitly given inthe letter accuses Ladislas of having broken his pact with the Turks

. . . (ibid., 1 [1909], Ep. 175,24 p. 519): “Nec enim federa tenentur of: credence (dated the preceding April) with ; os ;; . . i. cum infidelibus concussa, nisi consensus apostolice sedis which he had furnished Gisdanic¢ as the latter got —interveniat, qui hic non fuit, sed legatus apostolicus [Cesa-

ready to go on his mission. !48 rini] ea omnino scindi mandavit.” A staunch defender of the

In any event, as we know, the charge of perjury Hapsburg claims to Hungary, Aeneas was nevertheless not against Ladislas appears as early as 1445 in two whollygulfed unsympathetic to the catastrophe whichinduttarum had enthe Jagiellonian “quamvis federa essent letters of the youthful Mehmed [IT] and, More juramento firmata” (Ep. 179, p. 530, dated 13 September, significantly, in some letters of the humanist 1445). Alluding again to the broken peace in a letter of Aeneas Sylvius (also written shortly after Varna), 28 October, 1445, to the bishop of Passau, Aeneas blames Cesarini, “qui treugas nullius momenti fore dicebat,” etc.

———— (Ep. 192, p. 566). Although at this time inclined to spare 147 Pall, “Autour de la Croisade de Varna: La Question the pope in his letters (for good reasons perhaps), in de la paix de Szeged et de sa rupture,” Bull. hist. Acad. 1458 when he wrote his work De Europa, 5, in Opera roum., XXII (1941), 144-58, and “Un Moment décisif quae extant omnia, Basel, 1551, repr. Frankfurt a. M., 1967,

de histoire du Sud-Est européen: la croisade de Varna’ p. 397C, Aeneas holds both Eugenius IV and Cesarint (1444),” Balcania, VII (Bucharest, 1944), 102-20; cf. also responsible for forcing the Jagiellonian to break the ten Babinger, “Von Amurath zu Amurath,” Oriens, III (1950), years’ peace he had solemnly sworn with the Turks: 239-42, reprinted in his Aufsatze und Abhandlungen, I “Induciae belli in decem annos dictae iusiurandum per sua (1962), 136-38. D. Caccamo, “Eugenio IV e la crociata di sacra ambae partes praestitere, Despoto Serviae quae bello

Varna,” Archivio della Societa romana di storia patria, LXXIX amiserat reddita. . .. Iuramenta remisit .. .” [at the (1956), 78-79, simply says that “giunto a Szeged non dopo _pope’s command]. There are other pertinent references in il primo agosto, il re ratificava il trattato. . . .” Caccamo Aeneas’s works, but these should suffice to illustrate his rehearses briefly the bibliography of the controversy, which point of view, held over a long period of years, conhas been explored at some length by Dabrowski, L’Année cerning the broken treaty which preceded Varna.

1444 (1952). The chronicler Jehan de Waurin, writing probably in

148 Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. rowm., XX, 62-63; Halecki, Cru- 1446, “while the facts and impressions were fresh in the sade of Varna, p. 85: “Et quidquid ipse Stoyka, noster memory” (according to his editor Wm. Hardy, Croniques, I fidelis, cum vestra magnitudine disposuerit et concluserit, [1864, repr. 1972], introd., pp. xli—xlii), also believed fidem et vinculum quodcunque volueritis, promittimus . . . “que le roy et les seigneurs furent contentz de rompre la vestris nuntiis dare et conferre” (from the letter presenting paix quilz avoient faite avec le Turcq, et ledit cardinal

Gisdani¢é to Murad II). ; [Cesarini} leur donna absollution de leurs sermens et

MARTIN V AND EUGENIUS IV 81 Europe were protected in their political and victim of Varna, however, was widely believed cultural development, from the later fifteenth in the generations which followed his death to century to the seventeenth, by the Poles and have suffered divine judgment for his broken Hungarians, Serbs and Wallachians, modern — pledge. Whether the lie was spoken at Adrianople

historians have subjected to much adverse in mid-June or at Szeged in late July seems criticism some of those (including Ladislas the unimportant. The lie was clearly spoken by a Jagiellonian) who in their time defended European much _ harassed, confused, and overwrought culture and Christianity against the Turks. The young man who took hard the grave responsibility which destiny had placed upon his shoulders. As

TT . great events in the north moved toward their promesses” (tbid., VI, 1, 10, in vol. V, pp. 41-43). Waurin, final resolution. the fate of both Greek and however, revised the(zbid., last part of his work between 1471 Latin states ing thein Levant hungbalance. in the bal and 1474 I, xiviii, note). an the Later on, Erasmus, who had a fair knowledge of eastern AS Ladislas and Hunyadi disputed the future of affairs, blames the pope for the violation of the ten years’ the Balkans with Murad, they were determining

truce, which he says that Murad had sought and obtained also the future of the enfeebled empire of ( reisgau, Utilissima consultatio de bello Turctsfols. inferendo, Freiburg-1mByzantium and. the 1530, unnumbered 8", 10% = signatures A-8, . “ despotate” of the Morea, B-2). He seems to have got his information from Aeneas the Venetian colonies in Greece and the Aegean,

Sylvius. and the Florentine duchy of Athens.

3. THE CRUSADE OF VARNA AND ITS AFTERMATH (1444-1453) To HE EVIDENCE of Ciriaco of Ancona’s had much to talk about, and the coming months letters is particularly valuable in help- were to supply all Europe and the Levant with ing us to assess the events which led to Varna. a topic for conversation, the Christian defeat

The Anconitan moved among the Greeks, at Varna. Genoese, Venetians, and even the Turks It is well known that the young Ladislas of with surprising ease. Interested in diplomacy Poland and Hungary is accused of having as well as in archaeology, he copied docu- signed a peace treaty with Murad II as a prements with the same avidity as Greek in- lude to making war upon him. We cannot be

scriptions. On Wednesday, 15 July, 1444, Ciriaco much concerned here with the justice of this was a member of a large hunting party which charge of perjury. The historian need not be left Constantinople for Thrace. The party was accused of undue cynicism who would take a joined by Boruele Grimaldi, Genoese podesta generous view of tactics in both love and war

of Pera, and a group of his countrymen; in the fifteenth century. The opinions of the

from Constantinople many Venetians came also, canon lawyers are quite clear concerning the headed by the young Niccolo Soranzo, son of inadmissibility of oaths given to the infidel to the bailie Marino. ‘The masters of the hunt were the disadvantage of Christendom. The crusade the Emperor John VIII and his brother Theo-_ was the last hope of saving Constantinople from dore, formerly despot of Mistra and now lord of the Turks. The fall of the Byzantine capital Selymbria. They pitched their camp first at the would inevitably inspire the Turks with the ancient Thracian city of Aphamnia, “rising likea ambition completely to occupy continental beautiful fountain,” and later went on to Mylia- Greece and the Morea. We must acknowledge, dema (undique collapsa vetustate), where they saw however, that Ladislas had a flair for dramatic

long, crumbling lines of walls and the remains of confusion. At the diet of Buda on 15 April, great temples. Although there were many 1444, he had sworn in the presence of Cardinal Venetian and Genoese nobles in the company, Cesarini to renew the war against the Turks durthe emperor paid especial attention to Ciriaco, ing the coming summer, and yet on the twentywhom he had known for some years, and who fourth he dispatched his agent Gisdani¢ with undoubtedly informed him in complete detail of full and binding powers to treat with the Ottothe peace negotiations at Adrianople and the man government. He assured the Venetian amagreement reached on 12 June.’ Obviously they bassador Giovanni de’ Reguardati that he was

going to war.” On 2 July he informed the

' Ciriaco, Ep. xxix, in Cod. Palat, Florent. 49 (Serie Florentine priorate that the object of his strugTargioni), fol. 26 (earlier enumeration 79), dated “Ex §=—--————— Bizantio XIIII K1. Sextilis. Euggenii pp®. A. XITII” [19 July, XIII, pp. 704-7), dated at Mistra on 30 July, is a poor 1444]; Giov. Targioni Tozzetti, Relazioni d’alcuni viaggi, Latin translation of an authentic Greek text. In this letter V (Florence, 1773, repr. Bologna, 1971), 66-69; L. T. John urges Ladislas not to make peace with Sultan Murad II,

Belgrano, “Seconda Serie di documenti riguardanti la although “it has come to our attention that the Despot

colonia di Pera,” in Atti della Societa ligure di storia patria, George [Brankovic] and your Serenity have begun and XIII (1877-84), 977-79, incorrectly dated 18 July. The actually carried through certain treaties of peace with the said hunting party began on 15 July, a Wednesday (ad Iduum Murad, and that the latter is sending his envoys to your Quintihum serenum et gent nostri tocundissimum diem). Cf. Excellency to conclude and confirm the agreements.” This

Francisc Pall, “Ciriaco d’Ancona e la crociata contro i is obviously a reference to the pact of Adrianople of 12

Turchi,” Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX (1938), 42-43. According June, although Pall (op. cit., p. 43, note 3) may be correct

to Oskar Halecki, The Crusade of Varna, New York, 1943, in rejecting Mistra as the place from which John sent the pp. 26-31, the information which Ciriaco gave the Emperor letter. John VIII on this occasion caused the latter to hasten directly ? Reguardati’s commission, dated 6 March, 1444, is pubto the Morea (reaching Mistra in about two weeks) in order _ lished in Aug. Cieszkowski, ed., Fontes rerum polonicarum e

to confer with his brother, the Despot Constantine. tabulario retpublicae venetae, ser. I, fasc. 2 (Poznan, 1890), Halecki thinks that the Latin letter addressed to Ladislas no. xxxrx, pp. 79-84. He was given further instructions of Hungary, and ascribed to John VIII (given in Jan on 23 March (ibid., pp. 84-85). Cf, above, Chapter 2, Dtugosz, Historia polonica, bk. xu, Leipzig edition, 2 vols., note 134. The documents of 6 and 23 March have been 1711-12, I, cols. 790-93, and ed. I. Z. Pauli, vol. IV, in republished by Giuseppe Valentini, ed., Acta Albaniae veneta Alex. Przezdziecki, ed., Joannis Dlugosz Sentoris, canonici saeculorum XIV et XV, XVIII (1974), nos. 4,925, 4,933, Cracoviensis, opera omnia, 14 vols., Cracow, 1863-87, vol. pp. 129 ff.

82

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 83 gle for peace in Hungary had been to embark A contemporary Serbian annalist says that in person upon the holy war.* Again, on the George Brankovic made a separate peace with twenty-fourth, he wrote the king of Bosnia that the Porte on 15 August, 1444,° which obviously he was setting out to encompass the destruction means that he ratified for himself the treaty of of the accursed Turks.* Only the next day, Adrianople of 12 June after Ladislas’s declara-

however, he left Buda for Szeged to meet tion of war on 4 August. The Serbian defection Suleiman Beg and Vranas and apparently to was serious. Brankovic, landless in 43, had still sign the treaty of peace (on 1 August?) which supplied 8,000 fighting men, one-third of the they had brought from Sultan Murad. But on 4 army which had campaigned successfully in that

August, at Szeged, Ladislas finally took the most Sotemnn vow wit his cher nobies to orive me Historia polonica, bk. xu, ed. I. Z. Pauli, vol. IV [=Opera

: ps y . omnia, ed. Alex. Przezdziecki, XIII], Cracow, 1877, pp.

standing any treaties or negotiations whatso- 79g_11, and ed. Leipzig, 1711—12, II, cols. 794-96, to

ever . . .” (non obstantibus quibuscumque tractatt- whom we owe our fullest and earliest literary account of bus aut praticis seu conclusionibus aut capitulis the meeting at Szeged. The documentary source for the

treuguarum factis vel fiendis cum imperatore Proceedings or 13 August Ngo. the Vv eran P an

h °° TheRegesti die wasdet cast. It rolled IV to pcg ase bk. IVTx11, Set no. oe Sed RT Ture orum) Commem., (1896), 264,on pp.ORE 286-87.

Varna. Cf. Halecki, Crusade of Varna, pp. 35-50, but see also Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX, 28-41, 44, and Franz Babinger,

—_—_—_——_———— Maometto il Conquistatore e il suo tempo, Turin, 1957, pp.

3N. Iorga [Jorga], Notes et extraits pour servir a histoire 66-67. des crotsades, II (Paris, 1899), 404-5, letter of 2 July to the Halecki, op. cit., has attempted to show that Ladislas Florentines, and see Pall, in Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX, did not ratify the treaty of Szeged, a view which the Polish 27-31, with refs. A dispatch from the Venetian Senate historian Prochaska had previously advanced. Halecki’s dated 9 September, 1444, to Alvise Loredan, captain of the book is very interesting (and has stimulated discussion) papal fleet in eastern waters (Arch. di Stato di Venezia, although the apparent inaccuracy of this particular conSenatus Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 119’~-120', published by tention has aroused considerable opposition, on which note Cieszkowski, Fontes rerum polonicarum, 1-2, no. LV, pp. Fr. Pall, “Autour de la Croisade de Varna: La Question de 129-31, and by Sime Ljubi¢, ed., Listine, IX [Zagreb, la paix de Szeged et de sa rupture,” Bull. hist. Acad. roum.,

1890], 212 [in the Monumenta spectantia historiam XXII (1941), 144-58, and “Un Moment décisif de

slavorum meridionalium, vol. XXI}), states that letters of 12 histoire du Sud-Est européen: la croisade de Varna (1444),”

and 14 August just received in Venice from Cardinal Balcania, VII (1944), esp. pp. 108-18; see also in general Cesarini and Reguardati contained the assurance that they Fr. Babinger, “Von Amurath zu Amurath: Vor- und had kept Loredan fully informed “de nonnullis praticis | Nachspiel der Schlacht bei Varna,” Oriens, III (1950), esp. habitis per imperatorem Teucrorum tam cum serenissimo pp. 239-42, and Maometto, pp. 65-67. Both Pall and domino rege Hungarie et Polonie quam etiam cum _ Babinger believe that Ladislas did in fact sign the peace illustrissimo domino despoto quas tamen nescimus si locum _ treaty of Szeged, and (as noted in the preceding chapter) so

habiture sint cum idem reverendissimus dominus legatus does Domenico Caccamo, “Eugenio IV e la crociata di Sancti Angeli [Cesarini] ac secretarius noster [Reguardati] Varna,” Archivio della Societa romana di storia patria, LXXIX

nobis scribant serenissimum dominum regem predictum (3rd ser., X, 1956), 35-87, esp. pp. 78-79. For details of ac barones Hungarie, predictis non obstantibus, promisisse the fatal campaign of 1444 and for the bibliography in velle procedere exercitualiter anno isto ad ‘exterminium _ general, see Caccamo’s article and Dabrowski’s monograph Teucrorum .. .” (fol. 119%). Loredan was directed to on L’Année 1444 (1952). The latter also has no doubt that proceed with his commission if King Ladislas and the Ladislas broke the pledge of Adrianople and Szeged.

Christian army took the offensive against the Turks, “ut Works published before Pall employed the letters of

ex Grecia expellantur,” but if they abandoned the enterprise, Ciriaco of Ancona to depict the background to the peace

the Venetians should not try to fight the Turks alone, and of Szeged are inevitably limited in their scope (ee. g., Loredan should refrain from attacking territories belonging David Angyal, “Le Traité de paix de Szeged avec les

to the sultan. Turcs [1444],” Revue de Hongrie, VIL [1911], 255-68, * Ragusan ambassadors at the court of Bosnia reported to 374-92; Angyal, “Die diplomatische Vorbereitung der the home government, in a letter which reached Ragusa Schlacht von Varna [1444],” Ungarische Rundschau, II

on 15 August, 1444, “haver vista una lettera del serenissimo [1913], 518-24; and Rudolf Urbanek, Vladislav Varnenéik:

ré de Ungaria, fata in Ungaria alle XXIIII del passato, Skuteénost i legenda [in Czech, with a French summary], la qual scrive al deto ré de Bosina, digando chome de _ Prague, 1937, pp. 43-94). T. V. Tuleja, “Eugenius IV presente se mette in ordene per andar alla destrution delli and the Crusade of Varna,” Catholic Historical Review, XXXV

maledeti Turchi . . .” (lorga, Notes et extraits, II, 407). (1950), 257-75, believes that Halecki’s Crusade of Varna

Cf. Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX, 37-39. “completely destroys the traditional interpretation of the

°Iorga, in ROL, VII (1900, repr. 1964), 423-24, and Varna crusade,” which is hardly the case. Notes et extraits, III (Paris, 1902), 182-83, publishes an ® Cf. Franz Babinger, “Von Amurath zu Amurath: Vorextract from the “manifesto of Szeged;” the text may be und Nachspiel der Schlacht bei Varna (1444),” Oriens, found in Cieszkowski, Fontes rerum polonicarum, I-2, no. III (1950),. 240, 242-43, reprinted in his Aufsdtze und LV, pp. 119-25; and note its citation by the contemporary Abhandlungen zur Geschichte Siidosteuropas und der Levante, Polish historian Jan Diugosz (well-known canon of Cracow), 2 vols., Munich, 1962-66, I, 137, 138-39.

84 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT year. Hope of a victorious crusade must have _ ships may also have joined the armada. Venice depended largely upon the continuance of the had contributed eight galleys, and Ragusa very unusual Hungarian-Serbian alliance. ‘The Serbs . cautiously, two. Two Byzantine vessels were also

were to be sorely missed on the battlefield of to be added when the fleet had finally reached Varna. It is not strange that the Turks almost its eastern destination. It was a sizable fleet, hastened to restore to Brankovic the territories probably large enough for its purpose of holdthey had seized from him,’ including his capital ing the Dardanelles and the Bosporus against city of Semendria (Smederevo), Novo Brdo, and _ the Turks.

even the fortress town of Golubac on the A year earlier than this, before the first

Hungarian-Serbian frontier.2 The old despot expedition of Ladislas and Hunyadi, the Venehad good reason to confirm the peace. The tian government had advised the pope (in May, negotiations at Adrianople appeared to have 1443) that a fleet of sixteen to twenty galleys been for his benefit, which has made it easy would be required to patrol the straits against for the Polish historians Cieszkowski, Prochaska, the Turks when a plan was envisaged very like and Halecki to insist that Ladislas never did that now to be attempted. Twenty galleys would ratify the treaty of Adrianople, which provided be preferable, of course, the pope had been chiefly for his erstwhile enemy Brankovic.’ told, “ut cum securitate res fieri valeat,” and Hunyad?’s interest in the negotiations had been in addition there might well be a transport to twofold, to encourage Murad to proceed against carry food and munitions. The Senate had in-

the Gran Caramano in Asia Minor, which dicated at the same time that it would cost

would much increase the Christian chances of Venice more than 20,000 ducats to prepare the success against the Turks in Europe, and to gain ten galleys as such (corpora galearum), which

time enough to be sure that the allied fleet the pope was supposed to arm at his own ex-

was really going to set out for the Bosporus, pense. These ten galleys were to fly the standard for without the Christian naval armament the — of the Church. Since the duke of Burgundy was land army was not likely to achieve a victory. also asking for four galleys, Venice was being

Soon there was little doubt that the fleet put to further expense, it was said, and while

would sail eastward, and that the crusade would _ the Senate was willing to supply these galleys with actually begin on the sea. Some two dozen galleys the necessary rigging and cordage (corredz), the

under the command of the cardinal legate pope and the duke would have to arm them.”

Francesco Condulmer, Eugenius IV’s nephew, |

with Alvise. (Luigi) Loredan serving as captain, _——— |

sailed from Venice to the Dardanelles in two proclaimed at Florence. The pope also sent Cesarini or three different squadrons. The pope had assurance that plans were going forward for sending into . . the Levant a papal fleet to be commanded by his nephew, armed ten galleys in the Venetian arsenal, Cardinal Francesco Condulmer, tituls Sancti Clementis and Duke Philip of Burgundy, four; Philip had presbyterem Cardinalem Sancte Romane Ecclesie vicecancellarium,

sent letters of exchange to Venice amounting for service against the Turks (Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg.

(© 3,500 ducats to arm these four galleys, Yat $82 fol. 200" toe) “datum Rome apud, Sanctum over which Waleran de Wavrin was set." Other pontificatus nostri. anno XIII”). cf J. Gelcich and L. Thalléczy, Diplomatarium ragusanum, Budapest, 1887, nos. _7 Later 268, 270, pp. 448 ff., and no. 273, pp. 457-59, which on, the Venetians congratulated Brankovi€ upon last document, dated at Ragusa on 31 July, 1444, credits

receiving the news “vestram inclitam magnificentam the pope with eight galleys; Venice with five; and the duke terras et loca sua recuperasse et in dominio suo restitutam of Burgundy, four; and acknowledges the Ragusan esse,” and sought to settle some differences with him (Sen. _ contribution as two (cf. B. Kreki¢, Dubrovnik [Raguse] et le Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 139-140", doc. dated 17 January, Levant au moyen age, Paris and The Hague, 1961, no. 1060, 1444 [Ven. style 1443]; Cieszkowski, Fontes rerum polonicarum, _p. 340).

I—2, no. Lx1, p. 140). 1 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 9Y-10°; Iorga, ROL, VII, 8 On the strategic importance of Golubac, see Dabrowski, 98-99; Notes et extraits, III, 125-26, letter of the Senate to L’Année 1444, pp. 22-24. Leonardo Venier, Venetian ambassador to the papacy, ° Cf. Halecki, Crusade of Varna, pp. 54-57. dated 10 May, 1443. A year later, on 23 March, 1444, the

10 Marino Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in L. A. Muratori, ed., Venetians informed the duke of Burgundy that fourteen RISS, XXII (Milan, 1733), col. 1114D. On 12 February, galleys would suffice to guard the straits (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 1444, Pope Eugenius wrote Cesarini that the Christian 16, fol. 81, dated by a scribal error “MCCCCLXIIII{!], die successes in central Europe betokened the coming liberation XXIII Martii;” ROL, VII, 403). The following May, however, of those parts of Greece and Europe which were occupied __ it was reported in Venice that the duke was arming at Nice three

by the Turks, so that the Greeks and other easterners more galleys and a galiot, as well as another vessel which was would soon enjoy the fruits of the union of the Churches _ being prepared elsewhere for naval combat (Sen. Secreta,

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 85 In March, 1444, Cardinal Cesarini had been (1444) the Senate wrote Cesarini of Francesco’s informed that the fourteen galleys which the Re- departure on 22 June “with. his last galley:” public was supplying at the request of the pope now the pope’s ten galleys and the eight sup-

and the duke comprised almost a quarter of plied by Venice were on the sea. The duke of

the total number of which the Venetians could Burgundy’s four galleys were expected to leave

dispose.” in two or three days. The Venetians were urging By early June, 1444, Cardinal Francesco’s Cardinal Francesco to send, upon his arrival

fleet had at length been got ready. Some galleys at Gallipoli, eight or more galleys into the Black

had already set sail. It had taken months of Sea and even up the Danube as far as Nicopolis diplomatic effort, to be sure, to get the pope toto establish contact with the Hungarian army meet the costs of the galleys which had been’ when it should reach that area. Francesco could prepared for him.’* Now, however, after the thus assist the army to cross the Danube, and settlement of a score of problems, the Senate victory in this glorious enterprise would lie issued its instructions on 17 June, 1444, to in the army’s getting across the river successAlvise Loredan, who, besides being captain of fully.” the pontifical fleet, had eight Venetian galleys under his direct command. Loredan was toserve —__ under Cardinal Francesco. He was to avoid any divino opere contra perfidos Teucros exerceantur. .. . encounter with the Egyptian fleet and also to Verum quia galee predicte hic armate nomine summi steer clear of Rhodes. His mission lay on the pontificis solummodo pro agendo contra nequissimos Teucros parate et expedite sunt, sicut diximus reverendissimo Dardanelles and the B osporus.” On 4 July domino cardinali legato et sicut ipse nobis amplissime

14 parate et exp ,

promisit se facturum, declaramus tibi quod si forte alique ——_ galee sive fuste aut alia navigia sive armata sultani [the

Reg. 16, fol. 917; ROL, VII, 408, “MCCCCXLIIII, die XII “soldan”] se repperirent in mari seu exirent de terris et

Maii, reverendissimo domino cardinali sancti Angeli legato __locis sultani pro tempore quo stabis extra, nostre intentionis apostolico”). For the two galleys supplied by Ragusa, see _ est et volumus quod nullo modo aliqua novitas eis inferratur,

lorga, Notes et extraits, II, 403, 407, 412, and cf. p. 417, and immo volumus quod ab ipsa armata, fustis, aut aliis Gelcich and Thalléczy, Diplomatarium ragusanum, nos. 268, navigiis sultani galee hic armate se allonginquare debeant

270, pp. 448 ff., letters dated 17 December, 1443, and et ab omni molestia et novitate penitus abstinere. Volumus 10 February, 1444; and BariSa Krekic, “Dubrovnik’s quoque quod Rhodum nullo modo cum galeis predictis te Participation in the War against the Turks” [in Serbocroatian, conferas nec etiam pacto aliquo permittere quod aliqua de with English summary ], Zbornik Radova Vizantoloskog Instituta, _ predictis galeis Rhodum se conferrat . . .” (fol. 100). The

IT (1953), 145-58. Senate wanted no disruption of the still profitable commercial

2 Torga, ROL, VII, 400, and Notes et extraits, III, 159, runs to Alexandria and Beirut and no embroilment with the letter of Cristoforo Cocco to the cardinal of S. Angelo Hospitallers, with whom for generations the Venetians did

(Cesarini), dated 15 March, 1444: “. .. quamvis ... not get along very well.

aerarium ... nostrum non parum exhaustum sit con- 1S Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 103"; Valentini, Acta Albaniae tinuis bellis, tamen triremes XIIII scite factas ex LX eligi veneta, XVIII, no. 4,996, pp. 213-15; Iorga, ROL, VII, 417, ilussimus. . . .” The Genoese petitioned the pope that their and Notes et extraits, 111, 176, letter of the Senate to Cesarini, clergy be exempted from the ecclesiastical tithe which was dated 4 July, 1444: “. . . Commemoramusque et hortamur

being levied to support the fleet (ROL, VII, 382, 388; suam reverendissimam paternitatem [Cardinal Francesco

Notes et extraits, III, 141, 147). Condulmer] ut cum erit in strictu Galipolis, communicata re Cf. lorga, ROL, VII, 99-100, 101-2, 107, 376, 377, ista cum capitaneo galearum summi pontificis cui etiam nos 379-80, 386-88, 389-90, 391, 393, 397-98, 400-1, 403-4, scripsimus opportune, mittat pro meliori executione facti

408~—11, 413-17, and Notes et extraits, III, 126-27, 128-29, utque potentius fiant quecunque fienda sunt, octo vel plures

134, 135, 136, 137-38, 145-47, 148-49, 150, 152, 156-57, galeas cum illo ordine qui videbitur opportunus que per 159-60, 162-63, 167-70, 172-76. The overall problem was Danubium usque Nicopolim seu quo opus erit vadant ad

that the hulls and basic equipment of the galleys were omnem favorem possibilem impendendum ut exercitus costing the Venetian government 2,000 ducats apiece, and Christianorum Danubium transire possit, in quo transitu while Venice had done its part, the pope was (owing to other _—_consistere videmus victoriam illius gloriose impresie. . . .”

commitments) unable to meet the costs of arming his ten Note also Sanudo, Vite de’duchi, in RISS, XXII, cols. galleys for some months. The financing was finally arranged, 1106C, 1109B, 1114, who is not far wrong in placing the

however, largely from Venetian sources. departure of the fleet on 21 June (1444). Cf. Marcantonio Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 100'-101°; Valentini, Acta Coccio Sabellico, Historiae rerum venetarum (ed. Venice,

Albaniae veneta, XVIII, no. 4,983, pp. 195-99; Iorga, 1718), decad. HI, bk. vi, pp. 654-55; Raynaldus, Ann.

ROL, VII, 414-15, and Notes et extraits, III, 173-74, doc. eccl., ad ann. 1444, nos. 1-4, vol. XVIII (Cologne, 1694),

dated 17 June, 1444: “Quod fiat commissio viro nobili pp. 289-91; Alberto Guglielmotti, Storia della marina Alvisio Lauredano procuratori ecclesie S. Marci, capitaneo pontificia, II (Rome, 1886), 158 ff.; N. Iorga, Gesch. d. galearum nomine summi pontificis hic armatarum: . .. In — osman. Reiches, I (Gotha, 1908), 436 ff.

bona gratia et victoria vadas capitaneus presentium On 4 August (1444) the government of Ragusa wrote

galearum que iuxta promissiones nostras nomine Romani their envoys at the Bosnian court “chome le quattro galee pontificis hic armate sunt ut in strictum Galipolis in tam del ducha de Bergogna zonsino qui alle 22 del passato bene

86 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT The extent of Venice’s investment in the cru- the straits of Gallipoli. Sultan Murad II had sade of 1444 has probably not been sufficiently already crossed over into Asia Minor on the appreciated, perhaps because the fleet achieved campaign against Ibrahim Beg of Caramania, so little in the end. In view of the constant and Cardinal Francesco and Loredan were suprumors of a Turco-Hungarian peace Loredan posed to prevent his re-entry into Europe by was inclined to be cautious, and it must not holding the straits against him. be forgotten that Cardinal Francesco was also Many of the Hungarian magnates had opa Venetian. In the meantime, however, on4 July posed the plans for another expedition against (1444) the Senate wrote their envoy in Hungary, the Turks. For the time being they were conthe secretary Giovanni de’ Reguardati, directing tent with the success achieved by Christian him not to conceal the fact that Venice had arms in the five months’ campaign from Sepspent some 30,000 ducats on the Christian fleet. tember, 1443, to the following January. As we She had provided the pope with eight [or ten?] gal- have seen, however, the Holy See was comleys and the duke of Burgundy with four. More- mitted to a crusade against the Turks. The over, the papal galleys had been armed largely by future of church union as well as the safety of the tithe imposed on the Venetian clergy and Constantinople seemed to depend upon an ear!

p SY a p Pp P y

(to a much lesser extent) on the Florentine victory. There was also a war party at the clergy. These “twelve” papal and Burgundian gal- Hungarian court. Eugenius IV and the Veneleys were all manned by Venetian crews, and _ tians had financed a fleet. On 15 March, 1444,

Venice had decided to send another six to eight Eugenius had also instructed Andreas de galleys into the east “sub nostro nomine et cum __Palatio, cubicularius ac in Polonie et Bohemie nostris propriis banderiis.”** By mid-July the regnis nuntius noster, to turn over to Ladislas

fleet was at Modon," and soon sailed on to (to assist his preparations for the crusade)

all the funds to be collected in: Poland and the

,; - Polish dependencies under the name of “Peter’s et triumfevelmente armate, et alle 23 del detto se partirno ”¢ F £ per seguir l’armata che era passata avanti. .. .” Three pence or two years Irom the date of the papal galleys of the king of Aragon had arrived at Trani, and letter.'® Philip the Good of Burgundy had four others were expected, but “a che intentione, per ora) made a sizable contribution to the crusade. non savemo” (lorga, Notes et extraits, II [Paris, 1899}, Cesarini was unrelentin in his insistence

405-6). On 20 August the Ragusei informed the envoys dh ful 5 lit , “che per tuto lo mexe de luyo debiano esser arivate et an € was a powerlul personally. . zonte nel streto de Galipoli...a numero pit che Doubt as to the advisability of the expedition

XXV [galee]” (ibid., II, 406, and cf. Krekié, Dubrovnik was not confined to the Hungarians. On 26 [Raguse | et le Levant, nos. 1060-61, 1066, pp. an. tia90 August, 1444, a Polish diet meeting at Piotrkéw, Cieszkowski, Fontes rerum polonicarum, 1-2 (1890), southwest of Warsaw, set forth the dangers no. Li, pp. 110-14, p. 112;Reg. Ilorga, ROL, VII, 418, and b .ern Ladislas’ 1dd Notes et extraits, III, 177;esp. Sen. Secreta, 16, fol. 104. esetting adIslas S nort reaim, andhurge On 28 August (1444) the Venetians informed the pope that him to accept the incredible terms of peace they had spent more than 40,000 ducats on the fleet (ROL, which Murad II was said to have proposed. VII, 425-26; Cieszkowski, op. cit., no. Lv1, p. 127; Sen. Conguievitque et cessavit furor ille barbaricus, quo

Secreta, fol. 116%). Lessthe than two weeks later, sunt - = M Nura d hadad offered however,Reg. on 916, September, when possibility was con-loriati. groriay sunT eucrl. oltere(th ne

sidered in Venice that Ladislas might make peace with the Poles believed) to Bive up the realm of Serbia,

Turks, whom the Venetians did not wish to fight alone, surrender the Turkish dominion in Albania, Loredan was instructed to inform the sultan (in the eventof restore the occupied parts of Hungary, and peace) that the galleys belonged to the pope, who had release the captives he was holding. He was

armed them expense, it Teady, was necessary d ditpacis . nunquam for us to obey sinceathehis is theown supreme lord in ourand faith, “whom andwe @!SO offerens con uliones could not do otherwise” (ROL, VII, 427-28; Cieszkowski, op. credibiles, tO pay an indemnity of 100,000 ducats

cit., no. LVI, pp. 129-31; Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. and to provide Ladislas with 25,000 armed

119”— 120). . men “for any war of your Highness’s choice.” Iorga, ROL, VII, 421, 425, and Notes et extraits, III, 180, 184. The Poles’ und tandi f these term

The latter reference is toa letter of the Venetian Senate to the c oO“ nders ancing O ; © terms Was

pope, dated 28 August, 1444 (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 116”): derived “from your Highness s own letters and

“. . . Significamus . . . reverendissimum dominum cardi- statements” (prout haec omnia ex litteris et innalem vicecancellarium legatum apostolicum cum triremibus —fimqtione vestrae Serenitatis accepimus). The Turk-

sue rev. dominationi commissis ac cum aliqua parte galearum ish peace et fustarum nostrarum ad hoc opus sanctissimum dessignatarum P y(they wrote) would enable Ladislas die XVII Juli preteriti Mothonum incolumen [sic] attigisse 9 ——-————

indeque ipse die XX discessit ut accessum suum Deo auspice 18 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1444, no. 1, vol. XVIII

persequeretur in strictum. .. .” (1694), pp. 289-90.

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 87 to return to Poland, where the raids of the Skiathos, and Skopelos should be enlisted in the Tatars (and the negotiations for peace with enterprise.” them) were only one of the problems being faced Ciriaco ended his letter with a postscript, by his people, and to re-establish peace and dated 19 September, informing Cesarini of the security in the kingdom.” But neither Hun- potable victory of the Hospitallers of Rhodes garian doubt nor Polish remonstrance could over the Egyptian fleet. The Knights had reslow the gathering momentum which would pulsed a strong assault upon their walls (on 10 lead the Christian forces to the field of Varna. September), taking six emirs (admirati) and kill-

There were disquieting reports of a Hun- ing or capturing some 9,000 Moslems. On the

garian-Turkish treaty, a copy of which Turkish following day, the twentieth, Ciriaco left Conofficers were said to have shown Waleran de stantinople with the Byzantine admiral Alexius Wavrin, when the Christian fleet reached Gallip- Dishypatos on another antiquarian tour of the

oli. Cardinal Condulmer soon received as- seq of Marmara. On the twenty-fourth they

surance, however, from his fellow legate Cesarini janded on the island of Marmara (the ancient

in Hungary that no such peace Was 1D the Proconnesus), and on the twenty-seventh

offing.*” Another letter from Cesarini brought ;eached Lampsacus. On the opposite shore, at the same news to Constantinople on 5 September Gallipoli, the crusaders’ fleet rode at anchor. when Ciriaco of Ancona, after an excursion Cirjaco crossed the strait and discussed the war

on the Sea of Marmara, happened to be at with the commander Loredan. He soon dethe imperial court. In a letter to Cesarini, parted, however, going on with Dishypatos the dated 12 September, Ciriaco states that he had game day to the island of Imbros, whence the read the cardinal’s letter to the Emperor John _ Jatter left for Lemnos while Ciriaco went sightVIII, as well as letters from Ladislas, Hunyadi, seeing on Imbros on the twenty-eighth, having

and other leaders of the crusade. He had in ag his guide Michael Critobulus, who later fact translated them from Latin into Greek for rote the life of Mehmed the Conqueror: the benefit of the Byzantines, who were over-

joyed by the news, as were the Genoese at On 28 September on the eastern Shore of Pera. Anxious to share the good news with Bros we C ed ey and hes horses Nae aarig western Christendom, Ciriaco sent copies of the COTUS Michact Mritobulus, a learned’ “nbrrote nome,

lett to Alf V and the N lit to the western part of the island, to ancient € rers tO OnsSO an co vcap outan no- Imbros, once an important city and of great antiq-

bility, whom he hoped to see jom the expedi- uity, and through high hills we reached the plain

tion. “And to say no more,” Ciriaco con- py the city where we found at the height of the

cludes, citadel Manuel Acanius, a noble from Byzantium, be assured that this great emperor and his illustrious and worthy governor of the island for the Emperor John Palaeologus, and we learned that brothers are employing every effort andfrom resource to ; ;he, ; . had recently built the citadel two earlier promote this undertaking and to increase the fleet arts. Here indeed we saw the remains of a ver of triremes havewall already They from have age. pars:. .. .ae ; . orthey ancient whichprepared. had collapsed

also seen to it that not only the imperial city but all the Aegean islands, Lemnos, Imbros, Skyros,

71 Halecki, Crusade of Varna, pp. 68, 92—93 (Ciriaco’s letter

to Cesarini, 12 September, 1444).

19 A. Sokotowski and J. Szujski, eds., Codex epistolaris 72From the small volume (a copy) of Ciriaco’s Comsaeculi dectmt quinti, I-1 (Cracow, 1876, repr. 1965), no. mentarii odeporict, in the Bibl. Apost. Vaticana, Cod. lat. cxxv, pp. 140-44; cf. Dabrowski, L’Année 1444, p. 21, and 5,250, fols. 11"-11": “Ad IIII Kal. Octob. ex orientali

on the Tatars, note O. Halecki, “La Pologne et empire Imbre littore una viro cum docto et Imbriote nobili

byzantin,” Byzantion, VII (1932), 62-63. Hermodoro Michaeli Critobulo ad occidentalem eiusdem 7° Jehan de Waurin (Wavrin), Recueil des croniques et insulae partem, ad Imbron antiquam insignemque olim et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne [see above, Chapter 2, _ vetustissimam civitatem terrestri itinere equis devecti, et

note 134], VI, 1, 11, eds. Wm. Hardy and E. L.C. P. Hardy, arduos per colles et prope civitatem planiciem venimus, vol. V (1891, repr. 1967), pp. 45-46, and cf. N. Iorga, ubi ad summam civitatis arcem Manuelem Acanium, virum La Campagne des croisés sur le Danube, Paris, 1927, pp. 30-31. ex Byzantio nobilem, et eius insulae pro Johanne Palaeologo

The reference is presumably to the preliminary peace of | Imperatore benemerentem praesidem, quem et arcem ipsam Adrianople (12 June, 1444). The sultan was said to have a duabus iam ex partibus noviter condisse comperimus. “bonne paix au roy de Hongrye,” as the Turks could show Ibidem vero longe antiqui et vetustate collapsi muri by “les lettres du traitie,” on which cf. Halecki, Crusade vestigia vidimus, et hic nonnullam e moenibus partem extare of Varna, p. 68. The chronicler Jehan, as we have already pulcherrimae suae architecturae ordine conspicuam vidimus, observed, was the uncle of the Burgundian commander _ et ingentes ad portum antiqua ex mole lapides, et nonnulla

Waleran de Wavrin. marmorum statuarumque fragmenta, bases, et vetustissimis

88 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Ciriaco’s letters show that he entertained beginning its march to the Black Sea to make much hope of a Christian victory over Islam. contact with the Christian fleet. Throughout the It was not an entirely vain hope. There was’ weeks of the Varna campaign Eugenius IV conreligious dissension in Adrianople, where a_ tinued his efforts to assist Ladislas, Hunyadi,

member of the Shiite Persian sect of the and Cesarini, imposing another tithe “pro apHurtfis, who allegedly sought the reconciliation paratu et expeditione maritima adversus Teuof Islam with Christianity, caused havoc among _cros.”*> On 4 October (1444) Eugenius released

the Turks.” Shortly afterwards the janissaries the Albanian chieftain George Arianiti Topia embarked on a riotous demand for more pay, “Comnenus,” lord of Cerminitza and Catafigo, and burned a good part of Adrianople. And from the peace he had made with and the oath now, on 20 September (1444), the army of he had sworn to the Turks, “since it is absurd Ladislas and Hunyadi crossed the Danube,” that the religious observance of good faith and an oath, which should be reserved for the honor

—_—_—_— of God, should redound to the detriment of

characteribus epigrammata....” A different text was the faith and result in offense to God.’2® transcribed by G. B. de fol. Rossi thecolumn Schede De Rossi The Ott tablish t in E Cod. Vat. lat. 10,518, 2°,inleft (from theinc the . oman establishment i urope was “Schede epigrafiche relative a Ciriaco d’Ancona e notizie clearly in some danger. intorno ad esso”). The same text, in less good form, appears

also in Cod. Napol. lat. V. E. 64, fol. 2. In Adrianople Mehmed Chelebi, later the Much the same account is also to be found in a letter which Ciriaco addressed on 29 September to George Scholarius, § ————————

who later took the monastic name Gennadius, and became _ scribit, Christianorum exercitum in felici omine Danubium patriarch of Constantinople under the Turks (publ. by Erich __ traiecisse die XX Septembris nuper decursi ut ad exter-

Ziebarth, “Cyriacus von Ancona in Samothrake,” in the minium perfidorum Teucrorum procederet” (Sen. Secreta, Mitteilungen des k. deutschen archdaol. Instituts, Athen. Abteilung, Reg. 16, fol. 126’, with a faulty transcription in Cieszkowski,

XXX [1906], 405-6, and cf. Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX, Fontes rerum polonicarum, I-2 [1890], no. Lyin, p. 132, 46-47). Critobulus’s famous work on Sultan Mehmed II was” and ¢f. no. Lix, p. 134, and Valentini, Acta Albaniae first discovered by Constantin Tischendorfon 19September, _veneta, XVIII, no. 5,036, pp. 266-67). 1859, in Istanbul in the Library (Kittiphane) of Ahmed IIT; °° Cf. Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1444, nos. 6-10,

it survives in a unique copy, apparently the most important vol. XVIII (1694), pp. 292-97. On 4 October, 1444, of an alleged 5,000 MSS. in the collection (f Adolf Eugenius sent a brief of condolence to Lodovico II [IIT] Deissmann, Forschungen und Funde im Serat, Berlin and Gonzaga, consoling him for the death of his father Gian

Leipzig, 1933, pp. 28, 43-44). Francesco, first marquis of Mantua (Arch. di Stato di

The siege of Rhodes by the Mamluks, referred to in the Mantova, Arch. Gonzaga, Busta 834), and six weeks later, text, lasted forty days. Their fleet of seventy-five vessels on 16 November, informed him that he was sending one appeared offshore on Monday, 10 August, 1444. The Jacopo de Cortonio to Mantua to see to the collection Mamluk forces broke camp on 13 September, and the fleet of the crusading tithe (ibid.): departed on the eighteenth. The main assault took place on “Dilecto filio nobili viro Carolo de Gonragha [!], marchioni Thursday, 10 September. The chief contemporary account Mantuano: Dilecte fili, salutem et apostolicam benedicis a poem in Catalan, in 240 rhymed verses, by one Francesc tionem. Pro executione litterarum nostrarum dudum Ferrer, Romang dels actes e coses que Varmada del gran solda promulgatarum cum istic tum in quampluribus partibus féu en Rodes, which has been published by L. Nicolau orbis super solutione unius integre decime pro apparatu et d’Olwer, “Un Témoinage catalan du si¢ége de Rhodes en _expeditione maritima adversus Teucros et alios barbaros 1444,” Estudis universitaris catalans, XI1 (1927), 376-87. Christiane fidei hostes indicte, prout in nostris litteris inde Ferrer was present throughout the siege, and gives us a confectis plenius continentur, mittimus dilectum filium

chronology of events. Magistrum Jacobum de Cortonio utriusque iuris doctorem

23 Babinger, Maometto, pp. 69-71. The episode of the in nostro registro supplicationum presidentem. Quocirca Persian preacher must have become widely known in _ nobilitatem tuam pro nostra et Apostolice Sedis reverentia Europe (cf. Sanudo, Vite de’ducht, in RISS, XXII [1733], in domino requirimus et hortamur quatenus pro efficatiori

col. 1116); see also the extract from the Cronaca Zancaruola, et magis celeri executione huiusmodi mandatorum nostrorum ed. Babinger, in Oriens, III (1950), 244-45, and on the — eidem Jacobo faveas et assistas consiliis, auxiliis et favoribus

doctrine of the Hurifis, ibid., pp. 245-48; reprinted in oportunis prout de tua prudentia et devotione erga nos et Babinger’s Aufsdize und Abhandlungen, 1, 139-43. Earlier in sedem predictam specialem in domino fiduciam obtinemus.

the century a dervish named Mustafa, who is said to have Datum Rome apud Sanctum Petrum sub anulo nostro come from Samos, had also preached the spiritual amity of | secreto die sextadecima mensis Novembris pontificatus nostri Moslems and Christians (Ducas, chap. 21 [Bonn, pp. 111-15], | anno quartodecimo. A. de Florentia.”

on which see H. I. Cotsonis [Kotsonis], “Aus der Endzeit 76 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1444, no. 6, vol. XVIII von Byzanz: Birkliidsche Mustafa,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift, (1694), pp. 292—93, and on Arianiti, one of whose daughters

L [1957], 397-404). married Scanderbeg, see Franz Babinger, Das Ende der

24On 19 October, 1444, the Venetians wrote the pope, Ariantten, Munich, 1960, pp. 9~—27 (in the Sitzungsberichte “|. . Ecce mittimus Sanctitati vestre copiam unius capituli d. bayer. Akad. der Wissen., Philos. -Hist. KI., 1960, Heft 4), literarum nobis scriptarum per unum ex secretariis nostris ‘and cf. Francisc Pall, “Skanderbeg et Ianco de Hunedoara,” [Reguardati] ex Buda, datarum VI presentis, per quas nobis Revue des études sud-est européennes, VI (1968), 7, 9.

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 89 Conqueror, ruled for his father, but he wasa boy, After crossing the Bosporus, Murad hastened at odds with his chief counsellors, and Sultan to Adrianople, where he found much to depress Murad II was still in Asia Minor. Fortune was _ but nothing to detain him. Soon he was leading

not on the Christian side, however, for after thousands of soldiers along the roads to the

two months of waiting for the army of Ladislas Black Sea. The crusaders under Ladislas and and Hunyadi the crusaders’ fleet had become Hunyadi, delayed on their eastward march, had short of food and water. Murad had been able not crossed the Danube until 20 September,*°

to bring the Caramanian war to a successful as we have just noted. According to the eyeconclusion. Ibrahim Beg, the Gran Caramano, witness account of Andreas de Palatio, the papal

who is believed to have been allied with collector, there were hardly 16,000 men-at-arms Ladislas,*” had reached an agreement with the sultan MOre quickly than public opinion Januensium infamia in Europam venit, nam et quedam

had thought likely. With some 30,000 to 40,000 Januensium naves prebuisse transitum illis [centum milibus men Murad crossed the Bosporus above Con- _ virorum, si vera est fama] referebantur” (Rudolf Wolkan, stantinople in late October, under the shadow ed., Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvtus Piccolomini, in the of Bayazid I’s castle of Anadolu Hisar, where Fontes rerum austriacarum, II. Abt., vol. 61 {Vienna, 1909], . h Ep. 192, p. 566). Thirteen years later Aeneas noted in his Europe and Asia come closest together. The tract De Europa, 5, in Opera quae extant omnia, Basel, 1551, Christian fleet was stalled by adverse winds and _yepr. Frankfurt a. M., 1967, p. 398A, that si vera est fama, by the cautious policy of the Venetians; having 100,000 Turks were transported across the Bosporus by

prevented Murad’s return to Europe across the “Genuenses quidam” ar a ducat a nea. worenzo aren Dardanelles, its commanders made no effort to COM Ann. ad ann. 1444, in RISS, (Milan, 1732),

. . . . . col. 152D, says that Murad hired Genoese to assist in the

impede his crossing of the Bosporus. Attributing transport of 70,000 Turks “from Asia into Greece;” Paolo this failure to incompetence (negligentia), the Petrone, Miscellanea, in RISS, XXIV (Milan, 1738), col. humanist Poggio Bracciolini was to claim later 1128A, states,“Avvisandovichenon .. . traditori Cristiani,

that it ruined all the crusading plans of 1 quali furono Veneziani e Genovesi .. . [the text is

1444.28 Th | ‘d d corrupt] segretamente LXXX mila Turchi, che ne guadaa ere was alsO a widespread rumor gnarono un ducato per testa d’uomo.” (Petrone wrote in the

at the time that Genoese merchants and sailors _ mid-fifteenth century.) From this text it would appear that had accepted Murad’s money to assist his west- members of the Venetian colony in Constantinople as

ward passage.”® well as the Genoese of Pera took Turks across the straits for a ducat each, the same price as Aeneas gives. The latter

—— was well informed, being close to the Emperor Frederick III, *7 Cf. in general Halil Inalcik, “Byzantium and the who had made him “poet laureate” on 27 July, 1442 (Jos.

Origins of the Crisis of 1444 . . .,” Actes du XH® Congres Chmel, Regesta chronologico-diplomatica Friderict IV. Romaninternational d’études byzantines, II (1964), 159-63 (referred to — orum regis [imperatoris III.], Vienna, 1838, repr. Hildesheim,

above, Chapter 2, note 132). 1962, no. 801, p. 93, and no. 17, p. xx1x).

78 Tn his funeral oration on Cardinal Cesarini, killed at See also Jehan de Waurin (Wavrin), Recueil des croniques Varna, Poggio writes: “. . . Neque eventus consiliis de- d’Engleterre, VI, 1, 11-12, ed. Hardy, vol. V (1891, repr. fuisset si classis, que summa cura a summo pontifice 1967), pp. 46-47, 49-50; Wavrin, ed. lorga, La Campagne Helesponto ad id parata erat, Teucros aditu Europe [MS. des crotsés, Paris, 1927, pp. 32-36; Babinger, “Von Euripi] prohibuisset. . . . At vero Teucrorum imperator, Amurath zu Amurath,” Oriens, III (1950), 251-52, reprinted qui id temporis erat in Asia, contractis plurimis copiis et in Aufsatze und Abhandlungen, I, 145-46. Laonicus Chalcoauxiliis undique a finitimis accitis, cum XXX milibus condylas, bk. vu (Bonn, pp. 330-38; ed. Darké, II-1 [1923], hominum in Europa [transivit] per negligentiam classis, 102-9), gives a rather detailed account of the battle of que aditum illum prohibere debebat . . .” (lorga, ““Noteset Varna, to which George Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, extraits,” ROL, VIII [1900-1, repr. 1964], 271).Cf. Mehmed _1050AB; ed. V. Grecu, Georgios Sphrantzes: Memorii [1401 ~ II’s account, at least as reported by Ducas, Hist. byzantina, 1477], in anexd Pseudo-Phrantzes: Macarie Melissenos: Cronica

chap. 34 (Bonn, pp. 239-40), of his father Murad’s [1258-1481], Bucharest, 1966, pp. 66, 68), merely alludes in crossing the Bosporus, and on the Turks’ subsequent moves, _ passing. The “Pseudo-Sphrantzes” (Macarius Melissenussee the Ragusan documents of 10 and 20 October (1444), | Melissurgus), Chron. maius, II, 19 (Bonn, pp. 197-200; ed. in V. V. MakuSev, Monumenta historica slavorum meridionalium Grecu, pp. 338, 340), had read Chalcocondylas and other vicnorumque populorum deprompta e tabulariis et bibliothecis sources.

italicis, II (Belgrade, 1882), 81-84. °° So the Venetians had informed Eugenius IV on 19

*9 Already on 7 October, 1444, Eugenius IV had con- October, 1444 (see above, note 24, and cf. Iorga, ROL, VIII, demned those Christians who were supplying “arms, iron, 1, and Notes et extraits, I11, 188), and Loredan on 9 November food, and other kinds of assistance to the Turks” (letter (C. N. Sathas, Documents inédits, 1 [Paris, 1880, repr. Athens, given in Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1444, no. 8, vol. 1972], no. 140, p. 209). Cf. Ljubié, Listine, IX (1890), 212,

XVIII [1694], p. 294). The Genoese were especially and Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 129%. Ladislas sent an indicted for such dealings with the Turks (cf. Guglielmotti, | urgent appeal to the Venetians “ut provideamus quod galee

Storia della marina pontificia, I1, 160). Aeneas Sylvius tam nostre quam armate per summum pontificem perPiccolomini wrote the bishop of Passau on 28 October, severent in strictu [Gallipolis] contra Teucros” (ibid., fol.

1445, that “. . . magnus Teucer ... non sine magna 131°).

90 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT or “knights” (equztes) in the army of the cru- had prepared the way for the fall of Jerusalem saders, whose baggage train consisted of more to Saladin two and one-half centuries before, than 2,000 wagons (currus), “not only loaded so Varna was the prelude to the Moslem ocwith supplies, but with gold and furniture and | cupation of Constantinople in 1453.

other things which are part of the accoutre- For weeks, even months, after the battle the ment and make for the dignity of knights.”*! fate of both King Ladislas and Cardinal

In the area of Nicopolis they were joined by Cesarini remained uncertain. From Cracow as Vlad, the voivode of, Wallachia, qui et Dracula late as May or early June, 1445, Queen Sophia dicitur, or by his sons, with some 4,000 Vlachs. of Poland wrote a diet of Hungarian prelates Vlad wanted to make amends for his erstwhile and barons that she had reliable evidence that pact with the Turks. Ladislas, Hunyadi, and the her son Ladislas had not fallen at Varna. In

crusaders had hardly reached Varna when _ fact a merchant from the domain of her other Murad overtook them. By this time the Turkish son Casimir, grand duke of Lithuania, had army may have contained 60,000 men (probably assured the latter of his brother’s continued Murad himself did not know how many he had), existence and safety. Sophia was confident almost outnumbering the Christians by three “quod vivit quodque sanus est cum multis suis to one. The crusaders’ fleet, largely manned _ fidelibus,” and begged the Hungarian estates not

by Venetians, did not venture into the Black to proceed to the election of a new king with Sea. The battle of Varna took place on 10 undue haste, unmindful of the great services November, 1444. If a miracle was required for her son had rendered their realm “contra a Christian victory, a miracle almost hap- barbaricam rabiem:” pened. Had Brankovic and his 8,000 Serbs ang although he had regarded it as a salutary

been present, victory would probably have [move] to preserve the peace and agreement made attended the tattered Christian banners, rent by with the Turks, in accordance with the advice and the terrible windstorm that swept the battle- pleas he had heard from the prelates and barons of field. As it was, the crusaders beat off the first the kingdom of Poland, nevertheless he then preassaults of the Turks, who sustained severe ferred to hearken to your wishes, and for your losses. Christian strength and heroism almost safety and peace of mind to set at naught his own

made up for lack of men. The struggle was a reputation and his life [famam et vitam negligere}. desperate one, and its issue undecided for contro i Turchi, de’quali furono morti 80,000 [!]. Fu morto

hours. il Re, e Giuliano cardinale legato, et molti vescovi.” Murad is said to have contemplated flight at Cf, ibid., col. 1117AB. A Greek poem on the battle of

one point, janissaries restrained him. yarn {ed oyu Moravesik, Budapest, of more 1 ;buttt the ingulstic tnan Nistorical importance, records tnat a19°), Janlssar

Hunyadi displayed those qualities of courage, 13 yond true” threatened to kill Murad if he attempted to caution, and leadership which had made him flee from the field of Varna (ibid., pp. 36, 37, from Bibl. one of the foremost soldiers in Europe, but the Nat., MS. Coisl. gr. 316, verses 299-307, on which ¢f. young Ladislas lost his life, apparently seeking Robert Devreesse, Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de la

glory in areckless charge. Hishead was mounted Sidi Nem oe ca ar Pours 2a ona pole (it was said), a shim sight which help ed from the Library of the Topkapi Seraglio, Istanbul, MS.

to destroy the crusaders’ morale. When night Ser. gr. 35, verses 302-10, on which cf. Deissmann,

fell, both sides moved off to their camps, but Forschungen u. Funde im Serai [1933], pp. 71-72, attributing

the Christian army had suffered beyond re- ne Poem to George Argyropoulus, this MS. being dated COVETY > and IS frightened members now began A etailed account of the campaign of 1444 may be to flee in all directions. Turkish casualties were guing in L. Kupelwieser, Die Kampfe Ungarns mit den so heavy that it took Murad three days to be OQsmanen bis zur Schlacht bei Mohdcs (1526), Vienna and sure that he had won.*? As the battle of Hattin Leipzig, 1895, pp. 83-103, who provides a good map, with the stages dated of Ladislas’s march from Orsova (near as31 Andreas the “Iron Gate”), where: he crossed the Danube on de Palatio, in a letter dated at Poznan on 20 September, to his arrival on the field of Varna (9-10 16 May, 1445, to Lodovico Trevisan, the Cardinal Camer- November) as well as a map of the battlefield to the northlengo (A. Lewicki, ed., Codex epistolaris saeculi dectmi quintt, west of the walled city. Kupelwieser’s account is readable, II [Cracow, 1891, repr. New York and London, 1965], no. and rich in topographical detail, although he seems to believe

308, p. 461, in the Monumenta medii aevi historica res _ that the Christian fleet consisted of 120 galleys (p. 91), and

gestas Poloniae illustrantia, XII). that Murad’s army contained about 100,000 men (p. 96).

32 The battle of Varna was apparently reported in Venice 33 Codex epistolaris, 1-2, no. 11, pp. 4—5. In Cracow, as of as a Christian victory (Sanudo, Vite de’duchi, in RISS, XXII, 24 August, 1445, one still knew nothing of Ladislas’s fate,

col. 1113B): “Ancora Ladislao Re di Polonia ebbe vittoria “et dolemus quod de vita et sanitate ipsius domini nostri

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 9] The -uncertainty attending Ladislas’s death In retrospect it seemed to good Christians quickly produced the legend of a penitent king, that the disaster at Varna was divine retribuwho having expiated the sin of perjury, would tion for breaking the pledge of Szeged. The some day return to the throne and do justice Polish historian Jan Diugosz (1415-1480) says

to the oppressed peasantry.** clearly and categorically —temerato iuramento,

As for Cesarini, the humanist Aeneas Sylvius rupto foedere Turcis promisso—that Cesarini had Piccolomini wrote Filippo Maria Visconti, duke declared null and void the oath which Ladislas

of Milan, from Wiener Neustadt on 13 De- had sworn and the peace he had made with the cember, 1444, that although Cesarini’sdeathhad Turks.*® There can be little doubt that been reported, there was also a rumor of his the agreement made at Adrianople was conescape, “which I could readily wish, but his firmed at Szeged. It is not enough to say, death seems more probable to me, because he as Halecki does, that Dtugosz’s explicit refer-

was not fortunate in his wars.’** Nineteen ences to the ‘violated oath, the broken years later, Aeneas in alluding to Varna states peace” merely reflect the conciliarists’ hosthat Cesarini “was wounded by three arrows and tility to Cesarini, whose abandonment of the in his retreat fell from his horse in a marsh’ extremists at Basel had helped diminish the where he breathed out his noble spirit.” prestige of the council. Dlugosz was, to be sure, Poggio Bracciolini celebrated Cesarini’s “martyr- the devoted friend, secretary, and servitor of dom” in a jejune oration unworthy of its sub- Bishop Zbigniew OleSsnicki of Cracow, who was

ject. Hunyadi escaped to Wallachia, where the a strong conciliarist and an opponent of the treacherous voivode Vlad Dracul, never his Prussian policy of Ladislas’s brother and sucfriend, held him captive for a while but later cessor, Casimir 1V. Dtugosz began his history in

released him.*” 1455, the year of OleSnicki’s death; he had known everyone of importance at the Polish

regis non potuimus ad hanc diem aliquem audire cer- court for years, and had direct access to those

titudinem” (ibid., 1-2, no. v, p. 10, from a letter of Who had witnessed the events at Szeged as Zbigniew OleSnicki, bishop of Cracow [Krakéw], to Matthias, well as to the diplomatic correspondence of bishop of Vilna [Vilnius] in Lithuania). Ladislas was succeeded _ his time. While he may be accused of prejudice,

a year later by his brother Casimir IV (cf., bid. , no. v1, p. 12). he was not ‘given to calumny, not in any event

34 R. Urbanek, Vladislav Varnenéik of (1937), pp. 167 ff.,king 223- .who 24. to blacken the memory the young 35 Rudolf Wolkan, ed., Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius had died fighting the archenemy of the faith—

Piccolomini, in the Fontes rerum austriacarum, ul. Abteilung, whose own mother stated that he had set at vol. 61, Ep. 167, p. 490: “. . . quod magis optaverim, naught his reputation as well as his life.*°

sed mors suaHe mihi probabilior est,toquia non fuitunsuccessful in bellis Th f€the Christi defeatGe had fortunatus.” alludes of course Cesarini’s news 0 € rstlan : ahardl ardary

role in the Hussite wars; four of the five anti-Hussite reached the West when the Venetians and the “crusades” (1420-1422, 1427, and 1431) had ended in pope began wrangling over who should assume disaster. Aeneas reports also that Murad II had crossed the the responsibility for the sailors’ unpaid wages.

Bosporus with 40,000 men (p. 489), and gives a vivid Euyoenius was unwilling to do so because of description of the of battle of Varna, bloodiest hefavure di 1 fail thefeet fl do within the: memory our fathers.” Cf.“the N. Iorga, Notesencounter et C € dismal oO fthe to Oj its part

extraits, 1V (Bucharest, 1915), pt. 1, no. xvi, pp. 36-37, letter against the Turks. He held the Venetian high of Cardinal Archbishop Dionysius Széchy of Gran to Frederick command to have been at fault, and charged

III, dated “in campo” 30 November, 1444, and Jehan de that Loredan had wasted twenty-five entire

Waurin, Recueil des croniques d’Engleterre, V1, 1, 14, ed. Hardy, vol. davs searching for provisions between Tened

V (1891, repr. 1967), pp. 54-57, and Iorga, La Campagne des y § O pro Ss Detwe enedos

croisés, Paris, 1927, pp. 38-41. We do not lack for con- and Constantinople. The pope finally agreed, temporary accounts of the battle, among the most notable being that contained in Andreas de Palatio’s letter of 16 May, §£—————_

1445, to Cardinal Lodovico Trevisan (see above, note 31), in 38 Diugosz, Hist. polonica, bk. xu, ed. Pauli, [V, 708, and

the Codex epistolaris, II, no. 308, pp. 459-69. cf., ibid., p. 704; ed. Leipzig, 1711-12, II, cols. 793-94, and 86 Pius II, Commentari, Frankfurt, 1614, bk. xu, p. 326, cf. col. 790. lines 5—6, and Engl. trans. F. A. Gragg and L. C. Gabel, in 39 Cf. Dabrowski, L’Année 1444, pp. 35, 38-40, against Smith College Studies in History, XLIII (1957), 797-98. On — Halecki, Crusade of Varna, pp. 71 ff. Cesarini’s career see Roger Mols, in the Dictionnaire d’histotre * lorga, ROL, VIII, 8 ff., and Notes et extraits, 111, 195 ff.,

et de géographie ecclésiastiques, XII (1953), cols. 220-49. docs. dated 29 January to 15 February, 1445, from the Sen. 37 On Varna, cf. also Iorga, in ROL, VIII (1901, repr. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 142° ff., 146%. The Venetians expressed

1964), 4—6, note; Notes et extraits, II] (1902), 191-93, disappointment in the pope’s attitude, claiming that their note; Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, I, 440-43, with refs. to the sailors were sometimes reduced to the consumption of bread

sources; Babinger, Maometto, pp. 74-77. with salt water, that the cold had been unbelievable in

92 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT however, to pay 10—12,000 ducats by Genoese against the Turks (at least so the pope was letters of exchange to be drawn on Pera, which to be informed), although the island of Rhodes brought the prompt response from the Senate was now believed to be in especial danger, for

that payment should be made directly to the soldan of Egypt had prepared a fleet to

Venice or the letters of exchange be negotiable send against the Hospitallers.* In urging the at Negroponte or Constantinople. The Venetian pope to pay the “subvention” which he still owed ambassador in Rome, Andrea Donato, informed on his galleys, the Senate wrote Giustinian (on

his government that the pope had had letters 26 April, 1445), instructing him to tell his read in consistory relating to the defeat at Holiness

Varna and we the see death ofweight Cesarini. Blame forthe . , ,Turk has . . that the of war with the disaster was being put upon the fleet been lef rel hould , h tj batur defectustus galeis). And so itlord wentemperor een left entirely upon our shouldersthe since the most (et_ umpone § * serene of Constantinople, Genoese,

Affairs had been in a bad way in Hungary and other peoples [nationes] neighboring upon the since the young king’s death. On 12 March, Turks are at peace with them, but for the longest

1445, the Venetian Senate claimed to have re- stretch of territory in Dalmatia, Albania, and Greece ceived no news from the East for two months.*! we have borders contiguous with those of the Turks, Shortly before, upon the appointment of a new who have already invaded some of our lands in AI-

Venetian ambassador to the Holy See, Orsato bania and Greece, and carried off a considerable Giustinian,” the Senate had instructed him to number of people from the island of Negroponte. inform the Pope, if the latter complained of the The fleet remained in the East,*> until Cardinal Turks crossing over from Asia into Europe be- Francesco and Alvise Loredan finally returned cause of the failure of the Venetian galleys to tg Venice on 10 January, 1446, the cardinal intervene, that Loredan was in no way culpable, departing for Rome four days later, allegedly and that the Republic had not only made great _ fy]j of plans for another expedition in the spring sacrifices for the expedition, but had thereby “to drive the Turks out of Greece.”* provoked Turkish attacks upon the island of

Negroponte, Panta, and other venetian Pos- No Latin resident in the Levant was more The exit ah 7 Ww tte d cen yl continuing. saddened by the Christian defeat at Varna The sailors had suffered severe ved a an than Ciriaco of Ancona, who continued his manders wupraconit) nad been i mec y we" scholarly journeys through wide areas of both

as ree citizens of good con he voole Greek and Turkish territory. He visited Thrace,

was, however, willing to continue the struggle Mount Athos, and Aenos, the Cyclades and Crete, Asia Minor and Lesbos. No man of his the straits during the winter, men having their limbs time traveled so indefatigably in the interests frozen; that many Venetians had been killed, etc. The letter of archaeology. On one occasion, in late Deof 15 February, from the Senate to Andrea Donato, the cember, he revisited “snowy Paros,” which he Venetian ambassador to the Curia Romana, is given in felt he had to see again, “for it is not enough Cieszkowski, Fontes rerum polonicarum, I-2 (1890), no.

Lx, pp. 141-45, and in Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, to have seen once the famous and noble

XIX (1973), no. 5,063, pp. 17-19, who also gives the text monuments of its precious antiquity, but one of the Senate’s deliberations on 29 January (zbid., no. 5,057). must linger there.” The lord of Paros, Crusino

41 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 148” and 153; Iorga, ROL, I m ° . . : .

VIII, 9-10, and Notes et extraits, III, 196-97, docs. dated So maripa, himse't opvious'y a anuquarian, 22 February and 12 March, 1445. Through Andrea Donato, #CCOMpamie Iriaco as he sought out various

Eugenius IV asked the Venetian Senate for advice: Should

the crusade be continued, another appeal sent to the —=————— principes mundi, a cardinal legate sent to Hungary? To this #8 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 158’-159'; Iorga, ROL, the Senate replied, “Sed ei [i.e., summo pontifici] denotamus VIII, 10-11, and Notes et extraits, HI, 197-98, from the quod iam duobus mensibus preteritis novum de partibus addenda to Orsato Giustinian’s commission, which was Romanie non habuimus ita quod ei sufficienter consulere hammered out in the Senate on 16 and 18 March, 1445 non possemus, sed in dies nova habere expectamus, quibus (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 156—59). Cf. also, ibzd., fol. 162%,

habitis fidelissime iuxta requisitionem sue Beatitudinis ei a letter to Giustinian, dated 3 April, which was never sent,

dicemus id quod honori suo cedere sentiemus, et sua and note Babinger, Oriens, III, 257, reprinted in his Sanctitas eius infinita sapienta determinare poterit ut ei Aufsatze u. Abhandlungen, I, 150.

placebit” (fol. 153%). Eugenius finally sent 12,000 ducats for 44 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fol. 171.

the sailors’ wages in August, 1455 (ROL, VIII, 15-16, and Cf., ibid., fols. 168°, 174, 179, 180°-181" and ff., Notes et extraits, III, 202-3). 2117-212",

42 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 16, fols. 146", 150°, docs. dated 11 and 6 Iorga, ROL, VIII, 19, note; Notes et extraits, III, 206,

26 February, 1445 (Ven. style 1444). note; and cf. Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 1, 446-47.

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 93

r is time Crusino . . , ,

marble treasures that he knew from an earlier Snowy Paros, of white marble gleaming . . .

showed him ancient marblethat busts and bodies ;in . ;the é . pleasant reminders life went on which had recently been excavated. Crusino ; ae .archaeologist, Levant despite Christian defeats and. Turkish was a generous and apparently ; ; . victories. Boatstoran from island island, gave some of his finds Ciriaco, whotocon: .and stay on Paros, but, better still, this tme Crush The wanderings of Ciriaco furnish us with

Dns to . . .his .. Greeks, Latins, and Turks extended their cludes a letter _.. ,.hos.. ; se ; pitality tofriend wearyAndreolo travelers.Giustiniani-. Archaeologists like

Banca with the words: “Receive from thewere bearer, . , the Crusino Sommaripa already making A. Galafato, one marble head, and oneits leg, ;; .. .. ;; ara ; rockywas soil Greece give up classic etc.” Cirlaco so of impressed by his gracious ; , treasures, and antiquarians like Ciriaco and his host that he composed a sonnet, described by ¢.: eee ee ee ., “ , > friend Andreolo Targioni as a “miserabile sonettoGiustiniani pedantesco, copied inscriptions,

beginning: .

, ;gg read the ancient authors, wrote poetry,, ?and in praise of two Paros Crusino Sommaripa, ; of (these at and least) enjoyed the friendship Pope Eugenius IV. Andreolo, however, was no ee better a poet than Ciriaco, as shown. by some ‘’ Targioni Tozzetti, Relazioni, V (1773, repr. 1971), fourteen pages of verse he composed on the

423-24; Cod. Vat. lat. 10,518 (“Schede epigrafiche relative Venetian attatk upon Chios in 1431.48 Andreolo

a Ciriaco d’Ancona e notizie intorno ad esso” [from the was a member of one of those one hundred Schede De Rossi]), fol. 98, where the of entire poem is vs .had . taken transcribed): and twenty families Chios which

Nivea Paros di marmor candente the name Giustiniani. While the world around

Cycladum decus aequoris Egei Chios seemed to be going up in smoke, aes on herot magni Pt cen sc Andreolo was collecting a large library and

teen’ MoneLatins Or te st sprendentes corresponding with. .literati both in Italy and the Cf. Wm. Miller, intathe Levant, London, 1908, pp. .

429-93, 605. Fast. Latins resident in the East had undoubtedly

After the death of Andrea Zeno, lord of Andros, in 1437, become quite accustomed to living in an atmospossession of the island had been disputed (cf. Miller, phere of political and military tension, and they Latins in the Levant, pp. 604—5). The case was brought before Could take in their stride even the bad news the Venetian Senate, which by a decision of 22 December, £V

1439 (published as a ducal privilege on 5 January, 1440, Of Varna. Ven. style 1439), awarded Andros to Crusino I Sommaripa, The defeat at Varna gave a hollow sound to son and heir of the late Maria Sanudo, rightful possessor the ecclesiastical union of Florence. Papal efof the island by reason of the feudal grant ‘made to her forts to defend the Greeks against the Turks

by theoflate dalle (Sen. Carceri, whoeewas had failed. M d as it doug! th h the her timebrother, “true duke theNiccolo Archipelago” Secreta, soreatan more t seemed

Reg. 15, fols. 3, 4-5", 7). Crusino was supposed, however, ONly divine intervention could save Constantito give up the islands of Paros and Antiparos, which the nople. Scanderbeg was still to enact the great Senate had granted to his mother in 1423 in compensation Albanian epic of resistance to the Turks, but for her having been unlawfully deprived of Andros, to which the Bulgarians and Wallachians had already sucthe Senate had right, butfol.could not give €her bed. The Serb . 38 the island, “quia nonrecognized erat in manibusher nostris” (ibid., 4%), CUumDed. oerps, overcome In 1389, wouid Obviously Crusino had not given up Paros, where he was still lose the last vestige of their independence in pursuing his archaeological interests. The background of 1459. The Turks were to take over Bosnia in

Maria Sanudo’s litigation (with Pietro Zeno [d. 1427], 1463. as we shall see. and the Herzegovina in

father of Andrea) may be studied at length in the Sen. 1489. The Greek “d tate” of the M Secreta, Reg. 8, fols. 51° [527], 80% [81°], 86" [87°], an € ce espo ate 0 c orea, 102*-104" [103'-105"], 106" ff. [107° f£.], docs. dated With its small but brilliant capital at Mistra,

1422-1423. could not long survive the effects of Varna,

Crusino’s rights to Andros were contested by Petronillan and the Venetian fortresses at Negroponte, 198° [199°], doc. dated 2 July, 1453; ibid., Reg. 6 fol. go" Nauplia, Argos, Coron, and Modon, as well as

daughter of the late Andrea (cf. Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. :

[81°], dated 28 July, 1458, and fol. 120° [121°], dated 28 ——————— April, 1459). The case dragged on until 1462 when Crusino Mehmed II’s seizure of Constantinople. The Senate granted

paid 5,000 ducats to settle the claims of Petronilla, who him leave to return to Andros to look to his istand posseswas then living in the convent of Santa Croce on the Giudecca, sions (Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 197% [198°], doc. dated in Venice (F. Thiriet, Délibérations des assemblées vénitiennes 30 June, 1453).

concernant la Romanie, 11 [Paris and The Hague, 1971], *8 Andreolo’s poem was published by Giulio Porronos. 1478, 1609, and 1613, pp. 195, 232, 234, docs. dated Lambertenghi, “Relazione dell’attacco e difesa di Scio nel 14 March, 1453, and 22 February and 1 June, 1462, and 1431 di Andreolo Giustiniani,” Miscellanea di storia italiana, cf. D. Jacoby, La Féodalité en Gréce médiévale, Paris and The VI (Turin, 1865), 543-58; and on the event itself, see Hague, 1971, pp. 282-83, 304-5). Incidentally, Crusino Philip P. Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by ‘the Genoese, was in Venice defending himself when the news arrived of — I (Cambridge, 1958), 176-87.

94 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT those in the islands, were obviously imperiled. _latter’s father Murad pursued a life of ease and

Turkish control in the Balkans was not yet pleasure for about a year and a half at Magabsolute, however, and according to the Vene- _ nesia, where he received Ciriaco of Ancona and

tian annalist Stefano Magno (d. 1572), Con- his friend Francesco Drapperio in his private stantine Dragases received 300 men-at-arms quarters on Easter Sunday of 1446 (17 April), from Philip the Good of Burgundy to continue as Ciriaco has recorded in a letter sent to his the struggle against the Turks.*® Dum vivitur, friend Andreolo Giustiniani-Banca three days speratur. Despite past failures, the papacy re- later.” mained the cynosure of Christian hopes in the In Adrianople, however, the ambitious and Levant, especially Latin hopes, and the papacy willful young Mehmed, who may not yet have and Venice were drawn more closely together. added to his ample resources the art of decepNow more than ever Hungary had become the _ tion which he was afterwards to cultivate with con-

chief Catholic bulwark against the Turks. The — sistent success, worried his older and wiser popes and even the Venetians would try to help ministers, especially Khalil Pasha, the grand

the Hungarians, who were to find stalwart vizir, who appealed to Murad to return to

leadership for a while in Matthias Corvinus, Adrianople and resume the government of the the son of John Hunyadi. Varna had been Ottoman state.®** A half-century or so later the primarily a Hungarian defeat, however, and the _ historian Giovanni Maria degli Angiolelli of

future looked grim. Vicenza, who lived for years as a “slave” Shortly after his victory at Varna, Sultan at the court of Mehmed (and knew him well), Murad II, a fat voluptuary, renounced the wrote that he was planning an attack in 1445— Ottoman throne (in December, 1444, or the 1446 upon Constantinople, which would have

following January). He withdrew to Asia Minor, been no inconsiderable undertaking for a boy of spending a short while in his favorite city of fourteen.°* Whatever the reasons, Murad set out Brusa (Bursa) before going on to more distant Magnesia (Manisa), where he built himself a records the treaty; the preamble is much the same as that palace. The thirteen-year-old Mehmed Chelebi, employed in Mehmed I’s peace with Venice in 1419 (see Mehmed II, succeeded him; coins were issued above, Chapter I, note 17): in Sanudo’s text, however, in the new sultan’s name. which was also Mehmed IJ is represented as swearing by the 124 prophets

: . . ” 50 of Islam instead of 124,000, the copyist having overlooked

included in th c Friday prayer. The Venetians a superscript M (=milia) in the Latin version (on the oath thought it wise to make peace with the Turks, see J. Pedersen, quoted by Babinger in Or. Christ. period., both the young sultan in Europe and his father, XV, 286-87, note 51). The treaty is given in its entirety, the “sultano d’Asia.” Despite papal hostility in the Venetian dialect, by G. M. Thomas and R. Predelli, to the idea, the Venetians negotiated a treaty Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum (1300-1454), IT (Venice,

‘th Meh d I Adri | 1899, repr. New York, no. 198, III pp.(1902), 366-68; orf peace wit ehme at Adrianople ON Ror VIII, 23-28;1965), Notes et extraits, 210Iorga, ff.; and

Wednesday, 23 February, 1446. An original Predelli, Regesti dei Commemoriali, 1V (1896), no. 289, p. 296 text of this treaty, in a rather ignorant form (from Comm., Reg. 13, fol. 190, and ¢f. fol. 198). Although of demotic Greek but written in a practiced hand, the Venetian text is dated Wednesday, 25 February, the is still preserved in the Venetian State Archives twenty-fifth fell in onLouis a Friday in 1446 (the calendar is given correctly de Mas Latrie, Trésor de chronologie,

(among the Pacta secreta, Ser. 2, no. 230), Paris, 1889, repr. Turin, 1962, col. 448, but incorrectly in probably the only such state document surviv- A. Cappelli’s popular Cronologia, etc., 2nd and 3rd edd., ing from the first reign of Mehmed II].*! The Milan, 1952, 1969, p- 88, where both 20 and 21 February are given as Sunday!). In his Venetian version of the Turco-Venetian treaty of April, 1454, Sanudo (op. cit., col.

TT 1154AB) also does violence to the Islamic oath, reporting 4° Stefano Magno, Estratti degli Annali veneti, ed. Chas. Mehmed II as swearing “ne’ventiquattro Profeti d’Iddio o {Karl] Hopf, Chroniques gréco-romanes, Berlin, 1873, repr. pit. 0 meno.” Brussels, 1966, p. 195: “1444: Constantino Peloponnesi 52 Targioni Tozzetti, Relazioni, V, 450, and cf. Cod. Vat. despotae trecenti milites e Burgundia auxilio missi sunt, qui lat. 10,518, fols. 97'-98" (from the Schede De Rossi), for martio vel aprili anni 1445 in Peloponnesum venere.” the portions of the letter omitted from Targioni’s transcrip°°See in general Babinger, Oriens, III, 254-56, and _ tion, but not relevant to our present interest. On Drapperio,

Aufsdize u. Abhandlungen, 1, 147-49. cf. Babinger, Oriens, HI, 233-34, 259, and Aufsdize u. 5t The Greek version of the Turco-Venetian treaty has Abhandlungen, I, 131-32, 152, and see above, Chapter 2, been edited with a full commentary by F. Babinger and note 144. F. Délger, “Mehmeds II. friihester Staatsvertrag,” Orientalia 53 Ducas, chap. 32 (Bonn, pp. 220, 222); Chalcocondylas, Christiana periodica, XV (1949), 225-58, reprinted in Délger’s — bk. vii (Bonn, pp. 352-53).

Byzantinische Diplomatik, Ettal, 1956, pp. 262-91, and ef. 54 Giovanni Maria degli Angiolelli (Anzolelli), Historia Babinger, Oriens, II, 258-59, and Aufsdtze u. Abhandlungen, turchesca, 1300-1514, ed. Jon Ursu [who has erroneously I, 151-52. Sanudo, Vite de’duchi, in RISS, XXII, col. 1120, attributed the work to Giovanni Maria’s friend, the Venetian

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 95 from Magnesia on 5 May, 1446, with some 4,000 dreolo Giustiniani.” Ciriaco thought that Murad

men. Ciriaco and Drapperio went with the great was returning to Europe at the request of his

Turkish entourage to a point beyond Per- son Mehmed, but it is clear that Ciriaco was gamum, after which Murad and his followers not acquainted with the facts, which were obturned northeast toward Brusa while Ciriaco viously kept from public knowledge.

and his friend continued on to New Phocaea, Murad made a most leisurely advance to whence the antiquarian addressed another letter Adrianople, apparently stopping for some dated Wednesday, 11 May, to his friend An- months at Brusa where on 1 August, 1446,

—_—_————_ he made his will, providing detailed instrucDonado da Lezze (1479-1526), under whose name he has tions for his burial when death should come to

published it], Bucharest, 1909, p. 15. Ursu has derived his him. It is difficult to say whether or not text of the Historia from an Italian MS. in the Bibliotheque M d ted hi turn to the court at Nationale in Paris (no. 1238, fols. 1-120), dating from about ura expecte IS retur the year 1600. See the rather too imaginative book of Adrianople to be opposed by Mehmed, who J. Reinhard, Essai sur G. M. Angiolello noble vicentin descended from the throne peacefully, however, (1452-1525), premier historien des Ottomans (1300-1517) etdes and withdrew in his turn to Magnesia, always

Persans (1453-1524): Sa vie, son ceuvre, Angers, 1913, and harboring thereafter a strong resentment of storico G. Maria Angiolello (degli Anzolelli), patrizio Khalil Pasha, who had thus contrived his loss vicentino (1451-1525),” in the Archivio veneto-tridentinon, V Of sovereignty. Murad resumed control over

the valuable study of N. Di Lenna, “Ricerche intorno allo . . .

(Venice, 1924), 1—56. the Ottoman empire in late August after some Considering the historical importance of Giovanni Maria’s twenty months of semi-retirement.°6

Historia turchesca, some facts concerning him will not be out Al th Ciri £ Ancona of place. He was born of patrician parents in Vicenza in ways on te move, “irlaco Of Anco

1451 or 52. Leaving Venice in 1468 with his elder brother Spent part of the summer of 1446 in ConFrancesco, a captain of infantry in the service of the Republic, stantinople, and at the beginning of the next he was present at the siege of Negroponte, of which he has year embarked on a new voyage archéologique in

left us a valuable account (¢f. Ursu, introd., p. x, and the Aegean. From New Phocaea he wrote his

Di Lenna, op.assigned cit., pp.to 10-11), whereIIhis was friend Andreol 1447. killed. Being Sultanand Mehmed as brother a slave on rien Nn reo Oo on13 ; c!Feb ruary, » Olofa

13 July, 1470, when he was eighteen years old (hence our three days’ visit to Gallipoli where he sought, conjecture as to the date of his birth), Gianmaria is found = ag always , the remains of antiquity. Here he two years later (1472) in the service of Mehmed’s second son had an anguished sight of the Turks driving Mustafa, then in command of part of the Ottoman troops a lon itiabl lum £ Greek and other later to march against Uzun Hasan, the ruler of Persia. Gian- ng, Pillable column oO CK a

maria was to write Uzun Hasan’s life in after years Christian prisoners in chains to the slave marts

(Breve Narratione della vita et fatti d Ussuncassan Ré di Persia, of Gallipoh, long a center for the trade, and ed. G. B. Ramusio, Navigationt et viaggi, II [ Venice, 1559, across the Dardanelles into ASIla. From the

and later editions], fols. 66—78, trans. Chas. Grey, Italian . . :

Travels in Persia in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Conturies, prisoners Ciriaco learned that on the preceding Hakluyt Society, London, 1873, and on the first printing of 13 December (1446) Murad s forces had dethe Breve Narratione, see Gotthold Weil, “Ein verschollener Stroyed with heavy artillery most of the HexaWiegendruck von Gio. Maria Angiolello,” in Fritz Meier, milion, which the Despot Constantine Dragases ed., Westostliche Abhandlungen: Rudolf Tschudi zum siebzigsten Jad so carefully restored about three years

Gi ;, before. The army Turks then ianmaria was in the Ottoman during had Mehmed II’s oe devastated the

Geburtstag wberreicht . . ., Wiesbaden, 1954, pp. 304-14).

campaigns against Uzun Hasan in 1472-1473 (see, below, Peloponnesus. Ciriaco could hardly bear to hear p. 316). After the young prince Mustafa’s death (in 1474)he the weeping voices tell the dismal tale of Turkish passed into the sultan’s own service, and participated in the § ————_—___—

Turkish campaigns against Stephen the Great of Moldavia year 1524 (Ursu, introd., p. xv, and Di Lenna, op. cit., (1476), against Matthias Corvinus in Bosnia (1476-1477), pp. 25-26, 36-39). Some scholars have believed that and against the Venetians in Albania (1478), being in the Gianmaria translated the Koran (from Turkish!), a distinc-

sultan’s retinue in fact at the time of the latter’s death tion which can hardly be claimed for him. He did,

(on 3 May, 1481). however, follow his biography of Uzun Hasan with one of Finding the Porte less congenial under Sultan Bayazid Isma‘il, shah of Persia (1502-1524). Gianmaria’s chief work, II, Gianmaria made his escape in 1483 or 1488-9, returning and a most important one, is the Historia turchesca, the

to Vicenza, where he must have supervised in 1490 the content and sources of which Di Lenna has analyzed printing of the first edition of his Breve Narratione ... di (pp. 44 ff.). On Donado da Lezze, see Ursu, introd., pp. Ussuncassan (“impressum Vincentiae per magistrum Leo- xvi ff., and cf. Franz Babinger’s notice of Gianmaria in the nardum de Basilea MCCCCLXXXX die primo mensis Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 111 (Rome, 1961), 275—78.

Septembris”). Going back to the East later on, Gianmaria *° Targioni Tozzetti, Relazioni, V, 453; and cf. Cod. Vat. seems to have spent the years from 1507 to 1514 in Persia. lat. 10,518, fols. 102'-102°, for omitted portions of the

The facts of his career are far from certain, but he text, which are not relevant to our present subject.

apparently resided in Vicenza from 1514; in 1517 he was 6 Babinger and Délger, in Orientalia Christiana periodica, appointed president of the Vicentine College of Notaries, XV, 227, and Babinger, Maometto (1957), pp. 85-86; which office he held until his death about the end of the Oriens, III, 259-62; Aufsatze u. Abhandlungen, I, 151-54.

96 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT success, and he reflected grimly on how, but a_ high; he was well served both in continental

short time before, the Turks had been almost Greece and in the Morea. In 1445 he had cleared out of Thrace, Macedonia, and all appointed John Cantacuzenus the governor of Greece, and driven into Asia and Lydia. But Corinth;*® John was an old friend of Ciriaco now, with the withdrawal of the western and of Ancona, whom he entertained at AcroHungarian forces, fortune had lifted Murad up, corinth in April, 1448.59 On 22 June, 1446, made him daring, and, aided indeed by the in order to recognize and repay “our beloved slothful inattention of the princes of Europe, son, the noble Constantine Cantacuzenus Palaeallowed him to invade the noble and once _ ologus,” the son of John Cantacuzenus, Pope powerful Greek state in the Peloponnesus. Eugenius IV had appointed him count palatine Alas, the enormity of it all! “For I believe of the Lateran, one of those Roman honors that such a lamentable blow to Christendom— accorded the Greek nobility which were to prove

this miserable slaughter which the Turks have so valuable to them after the fall of the perpetrated upon this people, even though they “despotate” of the Morea to the Turks. Conare Greeks and deserving of some measure of stantine Cantacuzenus was to take the oath of punishment—cannot be thought of except asa __ fealty to the pope at the hands of Niccold Progrievous loss to our own religion and as a_ timo, the Latin archbishop of Athens.

vast dishonor to the Latin name.”°? Counts palatine of the Lateran were of no The expedition which the Turks sent into the avail, however, when Sultan Murad himself Morea in 1446 had been provoked by Con- descended from Macedonia into Greece with a stantine Dragases’ attacks upon the Turkish great army which Constantine Dragases and his

commandery in Thessaly and upon the Latin brother dared not meet on the continent,

duchy of Athens, which latter Duke Nerio II _ believing it wiser to withdraw behind the Hexa-

had restored to Turkish suzerainty after the milion. It was an imposing line of defense, battle of Varna. Constantine had been riding and Murad was discouraged by the sight of it,

—___ chiding Turakhan Beg for urging him to attack 87 Ciriaco, Ep. 1v, in Cod. Palat. Florent. 49 (Serie such a bulwark so close to the winter season. Targioni), fols. 7-9" (earlier enumeration, 59-61"); co But the old warrior, who had already deTargioni Tozzetti, Relaziont, V, 441-45, ex eodem novo stroyed the Hexamilion twice before (in 1423

Phocarum emporio,contra eo quovidimus ad ipsum venimus dieordine Id. Febr. d 1431 he G id flce “. . . Nunc equidem barbaros longo an ),[1447]: was certain the. ree Sk wou

preda nostre quoque religionis homines et potissimum Graia before they would fight. The historian George ex natione captivos miserandum in modum ferreis sub Sphrantzes informs us that Murad was halted by catenis ad eiusdem civitatis emporium [Gallipoli] atquelitora. the wall from 27 November to 10 December per Hellespontum in Asiam transvecturos, quorum et a

miseris nonnullos pientissimo ab ore certius intelliggmus —§=————————

Murath Begh, superbum Theucrorum principem, Pelo- 58 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1050D; ed. Grecu, ponensiacum Isthmon ingentibus admotis copiis hostiliter p. 68); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 19 (Bonn, p. 200; ed. J. B. Idibus Decembribus [1446] invasisse, turritis ibidem paulo Papadopoulos, I [Leipzig, 1935], 198; ed. Grecu, p. 342); ante menibus a Constantino Spartano rege curiosissime cf. Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, geneal. tables, p. 536, and D. restitutis, arto tandem milite superatis et magna ex parte Zakythinos, Le Despotat grec de Morée, 1 (1932, repr. 1975), machinarum vi disiectis et solo convulsis, ac inde sparto 228, 231.

milite regionem late populatum esse. 59 Remigio Sabbadini, Miscellanea [Antonio] Ceriani, Milan,

“Quibus flebilibus auditis vocibus scis, vir clarissime, 1910, pp. 230-31 (see below, note 64). quantum non egre molesteve ferre non potui audire trucem °° Georg Hofmann, ed., Epistolae pontificiae ad concilium et pernitiosum illum Christiane religionis hostem, quem hac Florentinum spectantes, III (1946), no. 285, p. 109, and N. tempestate vel vix anno peracto nostratum armis religioso lorga, Notes et extraits, II, 418. This Constantine does not

vel milite superatum fugatumque et penitus e Thracum appear in Hopf’s genealogical table of the Cantacuzent in Macedonumdue regnis simul et tota vel e Grecia pulsum et the Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 536; Francesco Cerone, “La tergiversatum in Asyam atque Lidiam putabamus. Nuncvero Politica orientale di Alfonso di Aragona,” Archivio storico ignava quadam nostratum incuria principum, nostris et per le province napoletane, XX VII (1902), 597, assumes him to

Pannonum paulisper abmotis et retractis viribus, tantum be a relative of the Manuel Cantacuzenus, lord of Maina, eum fortunam elatum atque audentem fecisse ac sibi who was proclaimed despot by the Albanians in the Morea in Peloponensiacum tam nobile et olim potentissimum Grecie 1453 (see, below, pp. 147—48), which was close to the mark. Fr.

regnum invadere licuisse. Proh scelus! et heu prisca Hofmann seems to have missed the text of Ciriaco of Ancona nostrorum generosissime gentis nobilitas! Nam et illatam which identifies him as the son of John Cantacuzenus, huic genti miserabilem a barbaris cladem, tametsi Grecos © governor of Corinth (1445-1453), for which see Sabbadini, in homines et penas quodamodo dare merentes, non sine Miscellanea Certani (1910), pp. 230—31. On Nerio II’s return

gravi tamen nostre religionis iactura et magna Latini of the Athenian duchy to the status of a Turkish satellite nominis indignitate, tam lachrymabilem Christicolum cala- state and the resumption of his tribute to Sultan Murad, see mitatem existimandam puto . . .” (MS. cit., fol. 8 [60)]). Chalcocondylas, bk. v1 (Bonn, p. 320).

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA | 97 (1446).® In any event several days’ cannonading so (apparently in April, 1447) we find the ail-

prepared the Hexamilion for the assault in ing Emperor John VIII inquiring with feigned which a young Serbian janissary distinguished solicitude about “the health of my brother, himself by being the first to go over the top. the most illustrious Great Emir [Murad ].”® Turakhan Beg had been right. ‘The Greeks A little later, in July, 1447, Ciriaco himself abandoned their positions under the twin pres- went into the Morea, where he appears to sures of fear and force despite the best ef- have remained until April, 1448. In an account forts of Constantine and Thomas to hold them of 30 July (1447) he tells of going from Leonon the endangered rampart. Finding the im- dari to the court of Constantine Dragases at petus of battle running against them, and dis- Mistra, which he had already visited ten years trusting their Albanian contingents, the imperial before, apparently to see the Platonic philoso-

brothers also fled, making their way to the pher George Gemistus Pletho, whom he had southern extremity of the Morea, whence fur- probably known at the Council of Florence. ther flight would be possible if it should prove At Mistra Ciriaco also met the youthful to be necessary. Turakhan Beg followed Nicholas (Laonicus) Chalcocondylas, who later them for a while in a destructive razzia_ became the chief historian of his generation. while Murad moved along the northern coast of | Laonicus was the son of Ciriaco’s friend George

the Morea, capturing and burning Basilicata Chalcocondylas, an important member of one of (the ancient Sicyon), Vostitza, and the lower the few medieval Athenian families known to town of Patras, extending his devastation as_ us. With Laonicus as his guide, Ciriaco went,

far as the promontory of Glarentza. When on 2 August, the few miles from Mistra to

Murad withdrew from the Morea at the onset Sparta to see the sparse remains of celebrated of winter, he left Constantine the vassal ruler Lacedaemon.™ The following year (1448) he of a ruined country, his continental conquests went to Epirus, arriving in the capital city of all lost, and 60,000 of his Peloponnesian Arta in October. The ruling family of the Tocchi subjects reduced to that slavery which Ciriaco was interested in literature and antiquarian could not bear to contemplate.“ Now there pursuits; Ciriaco had found various members of

was nothing for the Greeks to do but seek the family very congenial on earlier visits a to cultivate good will at the Ottoman court, and dozen years before. But on 30 September,

61 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1051B; ed. Grecu, 8 The letter is dated “in the month of April of the tenth p. 70); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, II, 19 (Bonn, pp. 202-3; ed. indiction” (1.e., 1432 or 1447), the latter date being preferred

Papadopoulos, I, 200; ed. Grecu, p. 344). by F. Babinger and F. Délger, “Ein Auslandsbrief des

6&2 Chalcocondylas, bk. vir (Bonn, pp. 341-50; ed. Dark6, Kaisers Johannes VIII. vom Jahre 1447,” Byzantinische

II-1, 112-19), indicates that upon Murad’s arrival in Zeitschrift, XLV (1952), 20-28, reprinted in Babinger’s Thebes, Duke Nerio II Acciajuoli of Athens joined him with Aufsdize u. Abhandlungen, 11 (Munich, 1966), 162-69. N. A.

an armed force (otparév &yépevos did "AOnvev). Ducas, Oikonomides, “On the Date of John VIII’s Letter to Saridja chap. 32 (Bonn, pp. 222-23), informs us that Murad carried Beg,” Byzantion, XXXIV (1964), 105-9, believes the letter off 60,000 Christians into slavery (thus giving the same figure = was written in April, 1432.

as Cirlaco of Ancona), but places Murad’s expedition and 6 The text has been published by Remigio Sabbadini, destruction of the Hexamilion (which he says Constantine “Ciriaco d’Ancona e la sua descrizione autografa del had rebuilt “four years before,” apo teaoadpwv xpovwv) Peloponneso trasmessa da Leonardo Botta,” in the Miscellanea

after Hunyadi’s defeat at Kossovo in October, 1448, an [Antonio]Ceriani, Milan, 1910, pp. 203-4: “. . . Ad antiqua obvious error. The Chronicon breve, ad ann. 1446 (Bonn, _ et celeberrima illa spartanae civitatis monumenta revisenda

following Ducas, pp. 519-20), says that Murad arrived at venimus: cum nec equidem vidisse semel satis fuerat, the Hexamilion on Saturday, 3 December. Cf. Stefano iuvabat sed usque morari . . .” [cf Vergil, Aen., VI, 487]. Magno, Estraiti degli Annalt veneti, ed. Hopf, Chron. The historian Laonicus Chalcocondylas, who later lived and greco-romanes, p. 194, and Ioann. Cartanus, Anthos, ibid., | wrote in Athens, and the humanist Demetrius Chalcocondylas,

p. 267; also Wm. Miller, Latins in the Levant (1908), pp. who later lived in Italy, were not brothers, as Lampros, 411-14; Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX (1938), 50-51; Sabbadini, and others have assumed (with Antonius Babinger, Maometto, pp. 90-92; and esp. Sp. P. Lampros, Calosynas, whose biographical notices on Laonicus and Neos Hellenomn., I1 (1905), 479-84, who collects the sources, Demetrius represent them as brothers, for which see and shows that the (Bonn) editors of the Chron. breve have _ Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 244, and cf. p. Xxx). Actually

misread the text: the chronicle actually states that Murad _ they were cousins, Laonicus’s father being named George, took the Hexamilion on Friday, 9 December, 1446. Note also and Demetrius’s father Basil (George and Basil were Edward W. Bodnar, “The Isthmian Fortificationsin Oracular _ brothers); see Dem. Gr. Kampouroglous, The Chalkokondylai

Prophecy,” American Journal of Archaeology, LXIV (1960), [in Greek], Athens, 1926, pp. 104 ff., 123, 171 ff., and 165-71, to whose work we shall return in the last chapter of Giuseppe Cammelli, I Dotti bizantini e le origini del-

our third volume. Pumanesimo, II1: Demetrio Calcondila, Florence, 1954, pp. 4—5.

98 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT 1448, the Despot Carlo Il Tocco had died at in conclave at the Dominican convent of S. Arta,® being succeeded by his son Leonardo III, Maria sopra Minerva elected Tommaso Paren-

and there were doubtless other topics for dis- tucelli, the cardinal of Bologna, as Pope cussion than the latest finds of antiquities. Nicholas V, and his coronation took place on What was to be Leonardo’s future as the Turks the nineteenth of the month.® With surprisscored victories everywhere on the long front ing skill and swiftness Nicholas V_ restored from Varna to the Morea? Very likely some _ order in the states of the Church, which had Byzantine priest at Arta had already read the been harassed by mercenary troops and freefuture in the past, perceiving in the wisdom booters for a full decade. He reasserted the of Ecclesiastes (2:14) “that one event happeneth papal authority in Bologna, where for five to them all.” Leonardo was to wait thirty years the eminent Cardinal Bessarion fulfilled years for the final event as the Turks occupied, a difficult legatine mission to the general satisfirst, his mainland possessions and finally his faction of the Bolognesi. Urbane and usually

island dominions of Leucadia (S. Maura), genial, the new pope was harsh in his punishCephalonia, and Zante (in 1479), after which ment of dissension or rebellion in his temporal he was to seek refuge in the kingdom of domain. He did encourage unrest elsewhere in

Naples.®® We shall return to Leonardo Tocco Italy, however, doing little to forestall the hosin a later chapter. Actually he was to be more tile moves of King Alfonso of Naples against fortunate than most of the many refugees of the Florentines, but (quite reasonably) opposing his generation; he was to receive the lordship Alfonso’s assumed desire to take over the duchy of

of Calimera, in the Greek-speaking area south Milan after the death of Filippo Maria Visof Mileto in the region of Calabria. But even conti in mid-August of 1447.7° Although the assurance of this haven, could they have Nicholas took some satisfaction in the Italian

known this much of the future, would have wars, so long as they left him at peace to brought small solace to the Tocchi and their establish his control over the states of the learned guest during their conversations in Church, he had no intention of allowing Alfonso

the autumn of 1448. There was a sense of

impending doom in the East, prelude to an ~~ . . . even greater disaster than any that had yet ” Cf. Aeneas Sylvius, Oratio Fred. IH, in RISS, I11-2

happened 1734), 893-97; Raynaldus, Ann. ad ann. ppenee. (Milan, 1447, nos. 15 cols. ff., vol. XVIII (1694), pp. 336eccl., ff.; Mandell The Byzantine Emperor John VIII died on Creighton, History of the Papacy, 11 (London, 1882), 274 ff.; 31 October (1448), and was buried the next day _ Ludwig von Pastor, History of the Popes, II (7th ed., London,

in the monastery of the Pantokrator. Like 1949), 5-31, and Geschichte der Papste, 1 (12th ed., Michael VIII before him, he had remained true Freiburg im Breisgau, 1955), 372-94. On 27 November,

h .union he had ‘ated withwit R OM€, 1444,Thomas Eugenius IV had to t © he na negotiate de Sarzana, to appointed the bishopricParentucelli, of Bologna, butcalled since and like Michael he was buried without the the city was then in revolt against the Holy See, his last rites of the Greek Church.6* He was _ occupation of the cathedra was long delayed (cf. Pastor’s succeeded by his ablest and his favorite brother, Gesch. d. Papste, 1, 383, and his Acta inedita, 1 [Freiburg,

Constantine 1904], ad no.ann. 16, pp. 28-29). TheSegr. Acta Vaticano, consistorialia (1439-— Onstanune XI.8 A+. 1486), 1447, in Arch. Arm. XXXI,

tom. 52, fol. 52%, places the election of Nicholas V on

About 10 o’clock in the morning of 6 March, 6 March “hora nona vel quasi,” which is reckoning the 1447, on the third scrutiny, eighteen cardinals first hour from midnight or 1:00 a.M., although the customary Italian practice of the time was to reckon the first

———_—_—— hour from sundown, about 7 to 8:00 p.m. in March, on which 65 The date, furnished by Ciriaco, corrects the genealogical see B. M. Lersch, Einleitung in die Chronologie, 2nd ed.,

table in Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 530, as noted by 2 pts., Freiburg, 1899, I, 9. Contemporary reports place

Pall, Bull. hist. Acad. roum., XX, 52. the election at the sixteenth or seventeenth hour, which 66 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 29, fols. 34”-35"[44%-45"],a Venetian would be between 10 and 11:00 a.m. (cf Lersch, loc. cit.,

document of 7 September, 1479 (and see below, Chapter and note Pastor, I, 378, note 2). 10, p. 341, and Chapter 17, pp. 514-15), and cf. Stefano ” Gian. Manetti, Vita Nich. V, u, in RISS, WI-—2 (Milan, Magno, Estratti degli Annali veneti, ed. Hopf, Chron. gréco- 1734), cols. 943-46. Nicholas did, to be sure, formally urge

romanes, pp. 201, 208. peace upon the Florentines and Alfonso (cf. Raynaldus,

67 Cf. Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence, Cambridge, 1959, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1448, no. 8, vol. XVIII [1694], p. 351). pp. 370-71, and “John VIII,” in Personalities of the Council See in general Luigi Rossi, “Niccolo V e le potenze d'Italia

of Florence, Oxford, 1964, esp. pp. 123-24. dal maggio del 1447 al dicembre del 1451,” Rivista di 68 On the reasons for designating Constantine the XIthand _ scienze storiche, III-1 (Pavia, 1906), 241-62, 392-429, and

not the XIIth, note Franz Délget, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, LIL ibid., WI-2 (1906), 22-37, 177-94, 225-32, 329-55, (1959), 445, in his notice of Joan M. Hussey, The Byzantine 385-406, with a series of appendices containing forty-four

World, London, 1957. documents, of which the last is dated 17 November, 1451.

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 99 to put into effect the designs of a Hohenstaufen. Hunyadi had been able, however, to reach an And Alfonso lacked the power to do so anyhow. understanding with Scanderbeg, whose reputaThe early years of Nicholas’s pontificate were most tion was already challenging his own, and who

successful, witnessing the final defeat of the con- was to keep the Turks at bay in the rugged ciliarists at Basel and Lausanne, and winning highlands of Albania for a quarter of a century the recognition of France, Germany, and indeed (1443-1468). In September and October, most of Europe except Bohemia. But the major 1448, the impatient Hunyadi marched through

problem of this period was the advance of Serbia, burning and pillaging as though

the Gran Turco, and it can hardly be claimed Brankoviێ and the Serbs were his enemies for Nicholas that he appreciated the full extent instead of the Turks. On 17 October he reached

of its gravity. the historic “Field of the Blackbirds” at Kossovo,

The advance of the Turk in the Balkans where in June, 1389, Sultan Murad I had lost might be slowed, but apparently it could not his life, and his son Bayazid I had secured be stopped. Whatever hope of liberation the both the Ottoman throne and one of the more Greek and Latin inhabitants of former By- resounding victories ever gained by the Turks zantine territories had, lay in the north. John over Christendom. Hunyadi had not been able Hunyadi, who served as regent of Hungary to wait for Scanderbeg and the Albanians, from 1446 through 1452, watched with anxious for the advance of Murad II to meet him had eyes the constant deployment of Turkish troops been too rapid. His army, the last hope of Hun-

on his borders. The defeat at Varna, which garian ascendancy in the struggle, was reinhad tarnished his hard-earned fame in Europe, forced by a large Vlach contingent together

could be redeemed only by victory. The despot with some Germans and Czechs. It was conof Serbia, George Brankovic, however, had _ siderably smaller, however, than the army which learned much from Varna by not being there, Murad II had assembled at Sofia, and which and obviously believed that his country could had reached Kossovo shortly before the Chris-

better withstand the hostility of Hungary tian host. The young Mehmed II had accomthan that of the Turk.” Venice had renewed her commercial relations with the Porte (on 23... ——W—— February, 1446) 7 and was unwilling to jeop- declare himself the protector of both the Hospital of Rhodes

di het em b core f th Horces di and the kingdom Cyprus. He sent two or three fleets ardize y Joining wi unyaCl, into the of Levant (in 1450 and 1451-1453) against the whose bellicose intentions were well understood Mamluks, who had destroyed the Hospitaller castle on the at the Ottoman court in Adrianople. Alfonso _ island of Castellorizzo (Castrum Rubeum, Castelrosso, the

V, king of Aragon, Naples, and Sicily, would modern Kastell6rizon) at the time of their attack upon not risk an expedition against the Turks, even Rhodes (in 1444). Alfonso’s admiral Bernard of Villamarina

h hh €‘ned the j the ‘ble d (Vilamari) rebuilt castle,ofrenaming it “Castel Alfonsi, thoug entertaine Irresponsible GreaM to the the annoyance Jean de Lastic, grand master of the of re-establishing the Latin empire of Con- Hospitallers, on whose behalf Bernard had been sent eaststantinople, with himself as emperor. Nicholas — ward. V responded to Hunyadi’s appeals with little Alfonso had sought and obtained authorization from th ritual t and th Nicholas V to occupy the island, “cuius edificia . . . per more an spiritual support an e sonorous Theucros et Sarracenos . . . dirruta et solo equata sunt,” preachment of another crusade (on 8 April, which was granted on 6 October, 1450, lest the Mamluks

1448).%8 take over the island and use it as a base against Rhodes

(Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 392 [Nich. V Secret. tom. TT VIII], fols. 102'-103'; Sebastiano Paoli [Pauli], Codice "In fact Chalcocondylas, bk. vir (Bonn, p. 355, lines diplomatico del sacro militare ordine Gerosolimitano, 11 [Lucca,

10~—13), states that George Brankovié warned Murad II of | 1737), no. cx, p. 130). While in eastern waters Bernard of Hunyadi’s forthcoming expedition (¢f., tbid., p. 356, lines _-Villamarina raided the coasts of Egypt and Syria, disrupted

17-22). commerce, and brought Jean de Lastic almost as much

” Thomas and Predelli, Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum, trouble as assistance, on which see Const. Marinescu, II (1899, repr. 1965), no. 198, pp. 366-68, where the date “L’Ile de Rhodes au XV° siécle et ’Ordre de Saint-Jean 25 February is wrong; Babinger and Dolger, “Mehmeds II. de Jérusalem d’aprés des documents inédits,” Miscellanea frihester Staatsvertrag,” Orientalia Christiana pertodica, XV, Giovanni Mercati, V (1946), esp. pp. 388-95 (Studi e testi,

225-28, on which see above, note 51. no. 125).

3 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1448, nos. 6-7, vol. The Spanish traveler Pero Tafur sailed past Castellorizzo XVIII (1694), pp. 350-51. As for Alfonso V, he enjoyed on his way to the Holy Land in 1436, and stopped there posing as a Christian champion against the Moslems, and during the course of his return journey the following year. since Albania was Naples’s first line of defense against the He has left us a brief description of the place seven Ottoman threat to the Adriatic, he was generous (as we shall _ years before its destruction by the Mamluks (Malcolm Letts,

note) in his support of Scanderbeg. Although contemporaries trans., Pero Tafur: Travels and Adventures, 1435-1439, expected more of Alfonso than he ever delivered, he did New York and London, 1926, pp. 53, 106).

100 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT panied his father to Kossovo, and now witnessed gain his freedom, he had no intention of ad-

his first major encounter, stationed with the hering to it, and the pope soon released him Anatolian troops on the right wing of the from a promise made under duress.” Turkish army (where he was also to place them In the spring and summer of 1448 Murad II

in the assault upon the landward walls of Con- had led a large expedition into Albania and cap-

stantinople almost five years later). The second tured the fortress of Sfetigrad on the lower battle of Kossovo was hard fought for almost Dibra after a siege of some three months.” Two three days. On 19 October, while the issue years later Murad II returned to Albania with was still undecided, the Vlachs deserted the his son Mehmed, who seems to have divided Hungarians, fearful of the outcome, and Hun- his time between his retreat at Magnesia and yadi had to retreat under the cover of German the court at Adrianople. Their objective was and Czech gunners. He made his way back the most important fortress in Scanderbeg’s through Serbia, but just before he could reach _ possession, Croia, whose defense the Albanian the Danube, he was captured by Serbian peasants leader had placed in charge of loyal comrades,

and taken to Brankovic. Hunyadi got back to who had a garrison of 1,500 men.” In midSzeged at the end of the year only by accept-

ing a harsh treaty dictated by Brankovic to Reports reached Venice from Durazzo at this time that govern the future relations of Hungary and Scanderbeg’s preparations were really intended for an attack Serbia.’“* While Hunyadi signed the pact to upon the Venetian-held coast of Albania, and so the Senate

took appropriate action (Sen. Mar, Reg. 3, fol. 82 [83°], doc.

TT dated 6 October, 1448): “Quoniam per ea que habentur per 74 The second battle of Kossovo and its aftermath are litteras noviter habitas ex Durachio Scanderbegus solicite described in great detail, some of it obviously imaginary, by _parat potentem exercitum suum pro veniendo ad illas partes

Chalcocondylas, bk. vu (Bonn, pp. 355-77); cf. lorga, Notes contra terras et statum nostrum ... , vadit pars quod et extraits, IV, pt. 1, no. 20, pp. 41-42; Gesch. d. osman. au[c]toritate istius consilii scribatur et mandetur vicecapitaneo Reiches, 11 (Gotha, 1909), 450-52; and esp. “Du Nouveau Culphi quod cum duabus galeis sibi commissis remaneat in

sur la campagne turque de Jean Hunyadi en 1448,” _ illis aquis Durachit pro hortamine locorum et subditorum Revue historique du Sud-Est européen, III (1926), 13-27; Fr. nostrorum. . . .” Cf. Valentini, Acta Albaniae veneta, XX Pall, “Les Relations entre la Hongrie et Scanderbeg,” ihid., (1974), no. 5,397, p. 58. X (1933), 127-31; Gelcich and Thalléczy, Diplomatarium * Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1450, no. 7, vol. XVIII ragusanum (1887), nos. 279-82, pp. 466-70; and Babinger, (1694), pp. 366-67, doc. dated 12 April, 1450, in which the Maometto, pp. 93-100. Iorga discounts the presence of the | pope summarizes the terms of the pact. In June, 1450, the Germans and Czechs (mentioned by Aeneas Sylvius) in city of Ragusacongratulated Hunyadi upon his making peace

Hunyad1’s army. with Brankovic (Gelcich and Thalléczy, Diplomatarium

Scanderbeg intended to go “personalmente” with anarmy ragusanum, no. 283, pp. 471-72; Jovan Radonic, Acta et to assist Hunyadi (S. Ljubié, Listine, 1X [1890], p. 283, doc. diplomata ragusina, 1, pt. 2 [Belgrade, 1934], no. 222,

from Commemoriali, Reg. 14, fol. 79, dated 4 October, pp. 499-501, and cf nos. 231-33 [in the Fontes rerum 1448; Giunio Resti, Chronica ragusina, in Monumenta spectantia slavorum meridionalium, ser. IJ).

historiam slavorum meridionalium, vol. XXV: SS., I [Zagreb, 76 Chalcocondylas, bk. vu (Bonn, pp. 350-51), who calls 1893], pp. 295, 298; and Antonio Bonfini, Historia pannonica, Sfetigrad Xperia, passage reprinted (with several mistakes Cologne, 1690, decad. III, bk. vu. p. 339AB), but was in the Greek accents) by Radonic¢, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg

prevented from doing so by Brankovic, whose lands he (1942), p. 220, from E. Darko’s edition, vol. II (1923), ravaged as punishment for the Serbian desertion of the — pp. 119-21. Cf. Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1449, no. 10, Christian cause (Marinus Barletius, Historia de vita et gestis vol. XVIII (1694), pp. 359-60, after Barletius, Vita, Ist ed., Scanderbegi, 1st ed., Rome, 1509, bk. u1, fols. xxvu’—xxvir'; Rome, 1509, bk. v, fols. L11’-Lxi1v; ed. Zagreb, 1743, pp. ed. Zagreb, 1743, pp. 58-59, who puts these events under 115-42. The Venetians had been encouraging the Turks to the year 1444!), on which note Francisc Pall, “Skanderbeg overrun Albania “ad ruinam illius Scandarbeghi perfidi” et Ianco de Hunedoara,” Revue des études sud-est européennes, (from the commission, issued on 27 June, 1448, to Andrea

VI (1968), 10-14. Murad II had cut short his Albanian Venier, who was being sent on a mission “ad partes campaign of 1448 and a siege of Croia in August in order Albanie,” of which the text may be found in the Sen. to march against Hunyadi, as shown by Ljubic, op. czt., YX Secreta, Reg. 18, fols. 14™—15" [16'—17'], published by (1890), 283-84, from the Venetian Sen. Secreta, Reg. 18, Ljubi¢, Listine, IX, 269 ff., and reprinted by Radonié, fol. 52 [54], doc. dated 10 October, 1448. The documents of. cit., pp. 10-13). Cf. Ljubi€, op. cit., IX, 274-76, 282-85,

of 4 and 10 October, 1448, are reprinted in Jovan 289-90. There is a brief sketch of events in Giuseppe Radoni¢, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg 1 Arbanija u XV veku, Capra, “Skanderbeg nel quadro della politica pontificia,” Belgrade, 1942, p. 16, and cf. Riccardo Predelli, Regesti det _‘Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata, XXII (1968), Commemoriali, V (Venice, 1909), bk. xtv, no. 31, p. 16. There 71-84.

is a spurious exchange of undated letters between George 7 Gelcich and Thalléczy, Diplomatarium, no. 284, p. 473,

Brankovi€é and John Hunyadi (clearly of seventeenth- dated 13 August, 1450, reprinted in Radoni¢, Djuradj

century origin), on which see Fr. Pall, “Preteso Scambio di Kastriot Skenderbeg, pp. 19-20. If the garrison maintained lettere tra Giorgio Brankovich, principe diSerbia,eIancude its courage and kept faith, it was believed that Croia could Hunedoara (Hunyadi) a proposito del pericolo ottomano _ hold out against the Turks. Cf. Gelcich and Thalloczy, Dipl., intorno al 1450,” Revue des études sud-est européennes, XII no. 286, p. 485, and Radoni€¢, Acta et diplomata, I, no. 234,

(1974), 79-86. p. 525 (see, below, note 81). Cf. Chalcocondylas, bk. vir

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 101 May (1450) Murad II arrived with his army In early October Scanderbeg, who had grown under the walls of Croia. He had cannon cast discouraged, offered Croia to the Venetians, of metal he had brought in his baggage train; threatening to cede it to the Turks if they at least two cannon were employed against the did not accept it. Toward the end of the month, fortress walls, the larger of which could shoot however, Sultan Murad raised the five months’ stone balls weighing 400 pounds.’”* The cannon _ siege, doubtless fearing the advent of winter,

did their work well, but the Turks could not and began his eastward march toward Adria-

penetrate the battered walls. Scanderbeg and a__nople. The Senate finally decided upon a reply determined force of some 8,000 men, among to Scanderbeg. Affirming their affection for him whom were Slavs, Italians, Germans, and others, and their desire for the independence of his kept descending from the nearby heights he _ state, the Venetians proposed to send an envoy

knew so well, making day-and-night attacks to Murad to try to arrange a “concord” beupon the Turks. While the Venetians of Scu- tween Scanderbeg and the Turks. The Senate tari sold food to the Turks, those of Durazzo had been overjoyed to hear that the sultan

aided the Albanians.” had raised the siege re infecta; as for the offer of Croia, however, they thanked Scanderbeg,

(Bonn, p. 354); Angiolello, Hist. turchesca, ed. Ursu (1909), but they preferred that he keep the fortress. p. 16. Having made his peace with the Venetians, Scanderbeg Venice had more than enough territory alwas seeking their assistance against the Turk in the spring ready.*° of 1449, offering to pay the Republic the annual census of 6,000 ducats which he had to pay the Porte, but the —=——————

cautious Senate declined “to separate him from the Croia under siege in 1450 was of course a very different adherence and recommendation of the Turk” (Ljubic, affair, but we may nevertheless note here that a few years Listine, 1X, 302, and Radonic, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg, later, on 26 February, 1455, King Alfonso V of Portugal pp. 18-19, doc. of 21 April, 1449, from Senato Mar, Reg. 3, received papal permission to trade in foodstuffs and other

fol. 1117 [112°]). wares with the Saracens, subject to the customary prohibition

8 Gelcich and Thalléczy, Dipl., no. 284, pp. 473-74, dated on “ferramenta, lignamina, funes, naves seu aliquarum 15 August, 1450; Radoni¢, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg, pp. armaturarum genera” (Reg. Vat. 440, fols. 22'—23°). 19-20. Barletius says that the sultan had ten cannon cast, Numerous grants of such permission have been published of which four were capable of hurling stones of more than _(e.g., lorga, Notes et extraits, IV, pt. 1, no. 19, pp. 38-40, 600 pounds (Vita, lst ed., Rome, 1509, bk. vi, fol. Lxxm; confirmation by Nicholas V on 10 May, 1447, of such a

ed. Zagreb, 1743, pp. 161-62). concession made by Martin V to the Genoese “usque ad 79 On the Turks’ receiving flour and fresh bread fromthe centum annos’”).

“count” of Scutari, a Venetian official, see Sime Ljubi, 8° Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 227; lorga, Notes et extraits, III, Commissiones et relationes venetae, | (Zagreb, 1876), no. 1, p.4 260, doc. dated 23 November, 1450; “Ser Augustino de (in the Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridi- _Renerio, provisori Dagni: Recepimus literas vestras datas

onalium, vol. VI), reprinted in Radoni¢, Djuradj Kastriot die XIIII Octobris et per eas intelleximus quid vobis dici Skenderbeg, no. 35, p. 20; lorga, Notes et extraits, III, 260-61, fecit Scandarbegus per illum abbatem de volendo dare note, extracts from Stefano Magno’s Annali veneti. There was nobis civitatem Croye quodque nisi eam acceptemus,

always a fair amount of trade with Moslems, especially necesse’ erit quod ipsam det in manibus Turchi, etc., the Egyptians. Trade with the Turks also was probably volumus igitur et vobis cum nostro consilio Rogatorum inevitable in military contraband as well as in foodstuffs and _[i.e., the Senate] respondentes mandamus quatenus si ad vos luxuries. Although Scanderbeg had until lately been hostile —_ redierit vel suprascriptus abbas vel alius nomine predicti to Venice as a result of a war he had waged with the Republic Scandarbegi pro tali materia sibi dicere debeatis quod queover the territory of Dagna (Danja), peace was now supposed —_cunque vobis dici fecit intelleximus et sicut per experientiam to obtain between him and the Venetians, who had promised _ potuit intellexisse sincere amavimus ipsum Scandarbegum et

him an annual pension of 1,400 ducats in return for his _ status sui conservationem caram habuimus paratique eramus

cession of Dagna to them (Ljubic, Listene, IX, 282-83; mittere ad presentiam Imperatoris Turchorum pro conRadonic, op. cit., pp. 15-16, Pax cum magnifico Scanderbego et cordando eum cum sua Excellentia et omnia facere pro

als dominis Albanie, dated 4 October, 1448). With Croia paterna nostra affectione que statui suo et conservationi under siege, it would seem to have been very poor policy for _ eius expedientia esse credebamus quodque quando sensimus

the Venetians in Scutari to supply food to the Turks. They Turchum ab obsidione Croye re infecta se levasse

were doubtless well paid for it. According to Barletius, Vita, plurimum letati sumus, quia non dubitabamus ipsum Ist ed., Rome, 1509, bk. vi, fol. Lxxvu’; ed. Zagreb, 1743, p. Scandarbegum dominium suum recuperaturum esse, debere

175, “. .. multitudo ingens mercatorum ex proximis et per consequens sibi non debere deficere aliquam bonam Venetorum oppidis cum annona, vino, oleo, et omnis concordiam et compositionem cum predicto domino Turgeneris cibariis in castra [i.e., Turcica] quotidie confluebat.” chorum. Occasionally papal licenses were granted to trade with the “Ad oblationem vero quam nobis facit de loco Croye, ei infidels (especially for foodstuffs) as when on 8 May, 1451, — plurimum regratiamur et dicimus quod re vera ad huiusmodi

Pope Nicholas V, granted two merchants of Barcelona the rem nunquam ullam inclinationem sive intentionem haburight to trade in Saracen ports, but excluded arms, iron, _imus nobisque gratius est quod ipse eam teneat et possideat wood, and similar materials from the permitted objects of | quam nos qui nunquam res alienas desideravimus, sed nobis

trade (Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 396, fol. 248). nostra satis superque sunt. Et eum hortamur ad viriliter Supplying flour and fresh bread to the Turks while they held agendum et manutenendum civitatem illam sicut hucusque

102 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Croia had been saved. The Turk had left none Scanderbeg had fought bravely and emerged too soon. Scanderbeg was absolutely atthe endof from it all brilliantly. His heroism caught the his resources. The independent Albanian high- imagination of Europe. Ambassadors and assistlanders, who resented Scanderbeg’s efforts to ance were sent to him from Rome and Naples,

achieve some measure of centralization in the Hungary and Burgundy. Croia was rebuilt,

country (at their expense, to be sure), had made Christians everywhere looked upon its lord as accords with Murad as though he were their their champion against the Turks. Scanderbeg deliverer from oppression. After the Turkish now entered into especially close relations with withdrawal the highland chiefs continued their King Alfonso of Naples, who still talked of a opposition to Scanderbeg’s resumption of crusade; he recognized the king’s suzerainty over

authority over Albania. Their chances of suc- Albania in a treaty dated at Gaeta on 26 cess looked good. He had lost all the country March, 1451." They got along very well toexcept Croia, and now lacked even the means =—W-H— to maintain the loyal garrison which had kept — subvenir el detto Schandarbegh.” The text has been printed the fortress from the invader. While the high- again by Radonic, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg, p. 21. The land chiefs looked forward to his ruin. Scander- 24gusam documents are also given in summaries (régestes)

bcSRwent d with ? i] in B. Kreki¢, ed., Dubrountk (Raguse) et le Levant, Paris and to Kagusa, armed wit papa etters The Hague, 1961, this one being no. 1209, p. 370. urging the rector and the council of the city The pope had just granted the plenary indulgence of the to help him, and the following February jubilee to Ragusei, who (fulfilling the spiritual conditions)

(1451) the Ragusei informed Nicholas V that Would give to the Knights of Rhodes one-third of what they by their financial assistance Scanderbeg had weeks in Rome to visit the four principal churches at least

. . . would have had to spend by remaining the required two

been enabled both to hold Croia and even once daily (Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 392, fols.

to regain a good part of his territory. 98'- 103", esp. fols. 98’-99, dated 6 November, 1450). Since the privilege covered Ragusei dwelling in the entire

———— Levant, the sums would probably be great. The purpose of

fecit, quoniam nos omnes eius statum et bonum rerum the Ragusan embassy to Nicholas V was to have the grant suarum successum iocundissime et leto animo audiemus. to the Knights revoked and to secure it for the defense of

“Vos vero, provisor noster, in omnem eventum non Ragusa itself, but the pope was offered a fourth of the impediatis de occurentibus inter dominum Turchum et pre- amount in question. In this connection the ambassador was dictum Scandarbegum, sed neutralis stetis sicut hucusque to inform the pope of the multiple expenses which Ragusa fecistis: De parte 90, de non 7, non sinceri 5.” There is a _ had to undergo against the Turks (subsidies to Hungary, careless transcription of this text in Valentini, Acta Albaniae _ the subvention of Scanderbeg, their own fortifications, etc.).

veneta, XX (1974), no. 5,634, pp. 272-73. On Scanderbeg’s success against Murad II, cf. also

As early as 12 September (1450), when it appeared likely | Chalcocondylas, bk. vu (Bonn, pp. 351, 353-55), who thinks

that “concord” would be re-established between Scanderbeg the siege of Croia in 1450 preceded the second battle of and the Turks, “quia dictus Imperator [Turchorum] non _ Kossovo in 1448; Barletius, Vita, Ist ed., Rome, 1509, bk. posset habere Croyam,” the Venetians had become anxious’ vi, fols. LxxN—Lxxxiv; ed. Zagreb, 1743, pp. 161-91, that peace should be made rather “by the intervention of our where Murad’s death is erroneously placed during the siege Signoria than otherwise” (Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 8%). of Croia: Croia morte Amurathis tune nobilior quam Argos olim 81 Gelcich and Thalléczy, Dipl., no. 286, p. 485, and =P yrrhi morte reddita! (edd. citt., fol. Lxxx1v; p. 191). Raynaldus,

Radonié, Acta et diplomata, 1, no. 234, p. 525: The Ragusan Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1450, no. 15, vol. XVIII (1694), pp. ambassador, sent to Pope Nicholas V on 27 February, 1451, 370-71, follows Barletius; K. Hopf, “Griechenland im

was to inform his Holiness that “. .. a questo anno’ Mittelalter,” in J. S. Ersch and J. G. Gruber, eds., proxime passato [1450], siando venuto el dicto Turcho et Allgemeine Encyklopadie, vol. 86 (repr. II), p. 125; F. S. Noli,

el suo fiolo sopra el dicto Schanderbegh et soi colligati Geo. Castrioti Scanderbeg, New York, 1947, pp. 42-44, cum potentissimi exerciti et aparati de guerra, et siando 199-200, an odd but useful book; Babinger, Maomettio, accordati col detto Turcho li detti colligatide Schandarbegh, pp. 105—6; and see esp. Pall, “Marino Barlezio,” in Mélanges

habiando esso Schandarbegh perso tutto lo suo paese, salvo d'histoire générale, ed. Const. Marinescu, II (Bucharest, che la citta de Cruya, la qual esso Turcho non poté vincere 1938), 208-9, where most of the relevant sources are per l’asperita de monti et fortezza del dicto luogo et per la collected for the five months’ siege of Croia in 1450. Unfidelita delle persone che erano in essa, che se portono fortunately Athanase Gegaj, L’Albanie et [invasion turque au virilmente, se deliberd el dicto Turcho levarse dalla dicta XV® siécle, Louvain and Paris, 1937, pp. 77-80, had not citade de Cruya. E cosi, siando levato et partito dalle parte discovered that the “Anonymous of Antivari” was an invend’Albania, dubitandose esso Schandarbegh, si per la tion of Biemmi, nor had Noli even by 1947. rebellion delli soi subditi, si per l’'accordio delli soi colligati ® Francesco Cerone, “La Politica orientale di Alfonso di Arafatto col detto Turcho, non poter tegnir et conservar la gona,” in Arch. stor. per le province napoletane, XXVIII (1903),

dicta citade de Cruya et rehaver el suo paese, maxime 171-81, and cf. Radoni¢c, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg, nos. perché non haveva con che substentar le guardie et diffese, 37-38, pp. 22—24. Besides Alfonso V’s assertion of suzerainty

poste per lui in la detta cittade, se parti esso Schandarbegh over Scanderbeg and the latter’s father-in-law George da casa sua et venne ala detta citta de Ragusa cum _ Arianiti Topia Golem Comninovic, whom we have already lettere della vostra sanctitade, per le qual essa sanctitade noted as one of the most important of all the Albanian exhortava el rezimento della detta cittade ad aiutar et chieftains (see above, note 26), Alfonso also gave recogni-

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 103 gether as lord and vassal, and two years after a close his reign of thirty years. Both Ducas the king’s death Scanderbeg described to Gio- and Chalcocondylas have paid tribute to his vanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, prince of love of peace and justice, indicating that his Taranto, supporter of the renewed Angevin victories had been virtually thrust upon him by claim to Naples and archenemy of Alfonso’s Christian treachery and provocation,** an apson Ferrante, the great benefits he had received _praisal one need hardly accept, but certainly

“from that holy and immortal king of Aragon, Murad II was less cruel and cold-blooded whom neither I nor any of my vassals can than his more famous son, Mehmed II, who recall without tears . . . , because you must assumed control of the Ottoman empire for remember that the counsels, subsidies, favor, the second time. And now Mehmed’s elders

and holy works of that angelic king were and advisers were no longer in a position to what preserved and defended me and my restrain his ambition to attempt the conquest vassals from the oppression and cruel hands of Constantinople.

of the Turks, our enemies and those of the Whatever the hopes and fears of leaders

Catholic faith. . . .”8 and lesser folk in the East, there was as yet | a normality to the routines of life. One still

Although Europe did well to honor Scander- made the pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher

beg, one of the greatest soldiers and most in Jerusalem. A French noble, for example, honorable men of his time, his. exploits were a subject of good King René [of Naples, duke but an assurance of things hoped for, and for of Anjou], wanted to make the pilgrimage, but

generations no one was to see the diminution he had arrived in Venice with six or eight of Turkish power in the Balkans. The worst companions some six days after the departure was yet to come. On Wednesday morning, of the regular pilgrim galley. After a long 3 February, 1451, Sultan Murad II died of wait on the lagoon, he addressed a petition apoplexy in a drunken debauch, bringing to to the Senate, which responded favorably to his request on 21 September, 1450. The un-

—_————— named noble was allowed to sail with the Beirut tion as vassals to the Ducagin family, to Simon Zenevisi, galleys, which were leaving shortly for the and to some of Simon’s subjects in 1454-1455 (Const. Levant. The skippers of the galleys were

Marinesco, Alphonse V, roi d’Aragon et de Naples, et di d ‘de hj th « l’Albanie de Scanderbeg,” Meélanges de I’Ecole roumaine en irected to provide him with passage at a

France, Paris, 1923, esp. pp. 48-53, 83-84, 88 ff., and reasonable price, as has often been done for

, note enealogi e , . - :

of. pp. 112-13). On the family of the Arianiti, besides F. similar persons in the same situation.”®

1960, note the genealogical table in Hopf, Chron, gréce. ne Beirut galleys went by way of Modon romanes (1873), D535. On 13 April, 1451, Pope Nicholas Vv (or Coron), Crete, and Cyprus. Their route granted Scanderbeg the plenary indulgence of the jubilee lay beyond the usual reach of the Ottoman year in a special bull honoring his heroic services to arm during this period. The Venetian Archives,

Christendom and taking some account of the needs of however, also take us to the sultan’s court,

atl Ar Sep Vaan, Beg Va S97 fol 65 as when on 8 July, 1451, the Doge Francesca 83 V. V. Makuéey, in the Monumenta historica slavorum Foscari issued a commission to Lorenzo Moro, meridionalium, I1 (Belgrade, 1882), p. 121, reprinted by who was being sent as an envoy to Mehmed II. Radoni¢, Djuradj Kastriot Skenderbeg, p. 120, doc. dated at Moro was instructed Croia on 31 October, 1460. The letter was written to

Prince Giovanni of Taranto in answer to a letter which that since one of our citizens, Alemanto, a factor Scanderbeg had received from him dated 10 October of the nobles, the late Francesco and his brother (MakuSev, II, 118-20, reprinted by Radoni¢, op. cit., Marco Ruzini, has had to do with the magnificent Peae protesting against the aramonese Angevin was lord Nerio Acciajuoli, who is should lord of Thebes and rendering to Ang *errante © Tas “An " Athens, from whom the Ruzini receive a

1459-1464) for the throne of Naples (cf. Pastor, Hist. ; ;

Popes. Ill (Sth ed., London, 1949], me 120-23, 338, ree 1 of we ah as you wi he my id

and Gesch. d. Papste, 11 [repr. 1955], 60, 95-97, 262). mt | oresal Scanderbeg says he will stand by Ferrante, who will win in lord Nerio is a subject of the . . . most serene the end, his affairs being far less grievous than those of }§~=————————

Scanderbeg himself when in 1450 the Turks besieged *4 Ducas, chap. 33 (Bonn, p. 228); Chalcocondylas, bk. Croia, “la quale hogi € de Casa de Aragona et de Soa _ vii (Bonn, p. 375); cf. Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII

Maesta” (Makusev, op. cit., IH, 122). Prince Giovanni's (1733), col. 1137E; Babinger, Maometto, pp. 107-8; and protest was directed against Scanderbeg’s sending an Jos. von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches,

Albanian cavalry force into southern Italy in September, I (repr. Graz, 1963), 489 ff.

1460, on which see below, Chapter 8, p. 231. 85 Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Senato Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 3°.

104 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT emperor of the Turks, you should make every is ordered that they must observe it and have it possible effort both with the most serene emperor observed inviolably.™

himself and in other quarters, as shall seem advisable ; . . ; to you, to see that the said lord Nerio or his Despite the inevitable fact of change, the social heirs, if he is not alive, should pay this debt to our Process varied little from earlier generations. aforesaid nobles and make them quiet and content, The pilgrim galleys still sailed to the Holy as is just and proper. And, in short, you must Land, the Latin lordlings in Greece did not pay give them all possible assistance to achieve the their debts, and the Greek peasantry resisted

settlement of this debt. manorial service to absentee landlords in Venice. This text provides a glimpse into the affairs ae junas had often invaded the Morea, but

of Nerio II Acciajuoli, duke of Athens (1435- . y ha or yet conquered It. e “Aegean

1439, 1441-1451), who may or may not have islands had been harried since long before been dead by July, 1451. If he was, it seems un- ae memory of anyone (hen myn» put the likely that his widow Chiara Giorgio (Zorzi) and sameness to life in the Le nt cre G as ke her lover Bartolommeo Contarini,®” Venetians and Latins Turks and Maral, a , f as ht with both, were any more concerned than Nerio had one another. and went their own ways. wi

been to to make a “justNicholas and proper” settlement of ,also. , ; ys.It .is the debt the Ruzini V went his own way pointless to defend him against the charge Another document from the Venetian series that through most of his reign he neglected

Senato Mar gives us some insight into conditions the well-being of eastern Christendom in his pre-

in the south Moreote village of Xereni, where ©CCupation with his own affairs and those of

the serfs were obliged to serve the Correr Italy. In 1450, to be sure, he welcomed at the

secundum leges et consuetudines despotatus. In re- Curia an Ethiopian embassy, of which little cent years we have been cautioned to regard '8 known, although its purpose may have been the term “despotate” as denoting the dignity ‘© effect “une entente avec les chrétiens d’Oc-

of an office rather than the territorial circum- cident “+ + €n vue de SE retourner contre scription ruled by a despot. Nevertheless, a ’ennemi commun: I'Islam. Certainly there is resolution of the Senate (dated 10 June, 1452), something to be said on Nicholas’s_ behalf. which takes us to within a year of the fall of The Greeks remained obdurate schismatics. Constantinople—the great tragedy of Nicholas here was little or no co-operation, against V’s reign—shows us that by now “despotate” the Turks, between the imperial government had come to mean a Greek principality, in Of Constantinople and the corrupt court of this case the principality of the Morea: the “empire of Trebizond,” with which the Genoese had been at constant odds for more . . . The nobles Pietro Correr, son of the late Ser than thirty years.°? Although the policy of the Giovanni, and Filippo Correr, son of the late Ser government in Constantinople was cautious and Paolo, procurators, possess in the dependencies of conciliatory, even in the capital itself the Grand

Coron and Modon a certain village [caxale] called Xereni, the inhabitants of which, as serfs [pariche, mapo.xot], are held to serve our said nobles, and ® Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 128" [129"], doc. dated 10 June, because they do not obey [these manorial dictates], 1459. On the title “despot,” see Lucien Stiernon’s review our Signoria wrote on 17 July of last year to the of Bodidar Ferjanti¢, Despoti u Vizantiji i juinoslovenskim government of Modon and Coron that they must force Zemljama [Despots in Byzantium and the Lands of the South

the . . . serfs to serve the said nobles according to Slavs], Belgrade, 1960, in the Revue des études byzantines,

the laws and customs of the despotate. And yet, XXI (1963), 291-96. oo, ;

because the said letter was not written by this *° C.-M. de Witte, “Une Ambassade ethiopienne a Rome council [the Senate], it has not been put into due ‘£” 1450,” Orientalia Christiana periodica, XXII (1956), 286-98,

effect. The motion is [therefore] carried that the and in this connection note Lucas P. Desager, “Lettre

aforesaid letter must be sent again to the inédite du patriarche copte Jean XI au pape Nicolas V

Salc 8 ~ * * * (1450),” in the Mélanges Eugéne Tisserant, II (1964),

authorities of Modon and Coron and to their suc- 41_53 (Studie testi, no. 232). cessors, and by the authority of this council it Iorga, Notes et extraits, 1, 243-44, 268, 272 ff., 304,

464, 476-77, and III, 68, 132, 216-18, 234-36, 245-47, oo 259; Wm. Miller, Trebizond, London, 1926, pp. 77-80, 86 Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 67" [68"]. , 91-94; Nicolas Banescu, “Le Conflit entre Génes et I’ empire

87 Cf., K. M. Setton, Catalan Domination of Athens, 1311— de Trébizonde 4 la veille de la conquéte turque (14181388, rev. ed., London, 1975, pp. 209-10, and Los 1449),” Studi bizantini e neoellenici, V (1939), 4-10 (Atti del Catalanes en Grecia, Barcelona, 1975, pp. 181-83, 195-96. — V Congresso internazionale di studi bizantini [Rome, 1936}).

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 105 Duke Lucas Notaras, one of the most upright imexpediency of promulgating in Constantiand distinguished of the Byzantine grandees, nople the Florentine decree of Union (of 6 was alleged to entertain a preference for “the July, 1439). In firm but courteous tones the

Turkish turban to the Roman tiara.”*! pope remonstrated with Constantine for the

Even on the verge of disaster, however, the failure publicly to announce and to abide by pope seems to have been almost as much con- the decree. “Receive, then, my dearest son,

cerned about the petty lapses of the Latins what we are about to say as from a loving resident in Greece as he was about the whole heart . . . addressing you truly and freely.” freedom of Orthodoxy from the oncoming Stressing the necessity of ecclesiastical unity Turkish tide. On 6 September, 1448, the pope and authority for salvation and peace among wrote the Dominican inquisitor and the provincial Christians, the pope said there was one Church,

in Greece: of which Rome was the head: “Outside the It has come to our attention that in places which ohurel there Is no Salvation: he wo 1 not

are subject to Catholics in Greece, many Catholics I NOANS at d DEMISE BE ENE NOOR under pretext of the Union [of 1439] are improperly Turkish depre ation and domination in Greece going over to the Greek rites. We have been Were the judgment and visitation of God for the

most astonished at this, and do not cease to be SM of schism, “which arose In the time of

so, not knowing what it is that has shifted them Pope Nicholas I and of which Photius was the from the custom and rites in which they were born author” [in the ninth century]. According to the and brought up. Although the rites of the Eastern pope, this schism had now endured for almost Church are laudable, it is not permissible to inter- five centuries,®* and during all this time the mingle the rites of the Churches, and the sacro- Church of Constantinople had failed in its

sanct Council of Florence has never permitted it. . to Rome. All the world had watched ; obedience

Therefore we, in whom despite our unworthiness C tantine’s broth the E hn VIII God has placed the care of all such things, desir- OnSstal Sha rotner, the mperor Jo n ,

ing to provide a quick remedy lest the evil keep @CC€Pt by his signature and by his presence spreading, do strictly enjoin upon each and both of the decree of Union at Florence. Now a dozen you... that by the apostolic authority you entirely | years had passed; the union had not been put forbid the commingling of rites in all the afore- into effect; and the same excuses were always said places when you visit them in accordance with advanced to explain the unwarrantable delay. your duty, and if it should be necessary, you are “The Greeks cannot really assume that the Roto summon the secular arm to assist you.”

Ina most interesting and revealing communi- 83 Nicholas V was separated from the time of Photius by cation to the Emperor Constantine XI, dated almost six centuries, and his interpretation of the Photian 97 Ss b 1451. schism was acurrent simplification ofthe history had been eptem er, SI, thethpope acknowledged in the West from close of which the eleventh century. the receipt of a letter from the emperor and Throughout the later years of his reign Pope Nicholas commended the Byzantine envoy who had __ I (858-867) refused to acknowledge the imperial deposition brought it. The issue was the difficulty and of the Patriarch Ignatius in Constantinople and the elec-

tion of Photius as his successor in November and December, 858 (see J. B. Bury, History of the Eastern Roman Empire, 1 Ducas, chap. 37 (Bonn, p. 264): “xpetrrérepov éottvy London, 1912, chap. vi, esp. pp. 192—99). Subsequently, in eidévar év péoy TH TOdAEL YaKLOrALOY Baciievov Totpxwy a reversal of political fortune, Photius was condemned at q KadvoTTpav Aariwixyv.” The traditional rendering of the — the fourth (pro-Ignatian) Council of Constantinople (869-

quotation is misleading. Cf. H. Evert-Kappesowa, “La 870), the decrees of which were later rejected by Pope Tiare ou le turban,” Byzantinoslavica, XIV (1953), 245-57: John VIII (880) when Rome and Constantinople became “Je préfererais voir régner dans cette ville le turban _ reconciled after Photius’s second elevation to the patriarchal

du Sultan a la tiare du Pape” (ibid., p. 245). Notaras’s al- throne. Toward the end of the eleventh century, howleged statement means, however, that he would prefer tosee ever, the anti-Photian council of 869-870 became recognized

a wearer of the turban dominant in Constantinople rather as oecumenical in the West, largely by accident, because than one who wore a western “hat;” use of the word “tiara” certain of its canons condemning simony and lay interimplies an anti-papal sentiment which Notaras doubtless felt, | ference in ecclesiastical affairs were very useful to the but which Ducas does not specifically attribute to him. It Gregorian reformers, and by this time there was renewed is unlikely that Notaras made any such statement although | schism between Rome and Constantinople (from in fact

it presumably represents the view of some of the anti- 1009). After the council of 869-870 had been recog-

unionist party in the capital. nized by Rome as the Eighth Oecumenical Council, there

2 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1449, no. 10, vol. XVHI developed the western “legend” of the second Photian (1694), p. 359. On 2 October, 1457, Calixtus III was to schism (according to Fr. Francis Dvornik, The Photian appoint Simon de Candia, a Dominican, as inquisitor Schism, Cambridge, 1948, passim, esp. pp. 309-49), but Phoheretice pravitatis in provincia Grecie (Reg. Vat. 449, fols. tius seems to have remained in communion with Rome

163-164", by mod. stamped enumeration). throughout his second patriarchate. .

106 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT man pontiff and the whole Western Church . . . of Hungary were kept in mind, and a special are so bereft of intelligence as not to realize indulgence was proclaimed for the archbishops, why in this delay the excuses keep coming— bishops, abbots, and other prelates, the barons, they understand, but they bear with it... .” knights, nobles, and lesser folk of the kingdom,

There was no alternative, it would seem, to with special mention of John Hunyadi. hey the Greeks’ observing the full import of the were dispensed from the visit to Rome and Florentine decree (to which they had given the principal basilicas of the city to earn the an almost unanimous acceptance in 1439). “But plenary remission of sins, because they had to

if, however, you refuse to maintain this decree defend the country against the Turks, “so among your people,” the pope informed Con- that the rest of its inhabitants . . . might be stantine, “you will compel us to make provisions able to live in sweet security without fear and

which look both to your salvation and to our peril. . . .”%

honor.”

It was an unfortunate answer, but its lack of }_———— charity must be set against the background of from Rome, see the latter work, I, 445, and of. the English centuries of embittered relations between the dition, II, 86-88; note the Ann. Forolivienses, ad ann. 1450, Greeks and Latins. Nicholas V could not know in RISS, XXII (Milan, 1733), col. 223E; on the jubilee,

TECKS oe ; . cf. Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1450, nos. | ff., vol. XVIII

that the Byzantine empire was now to survive (1694), pp. 363 ff.

no longer than its emperor, whose days were, _™ Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1450, no. 6, vol. XVIII severely numbered. The pope had had problems (1694), pp. 365-66, bull dated 12 April; Pastor, Hist.

- . Popes, 11, 244, and Gesch. d. Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 597-98. and aspirations, fears hopes own. 4,indulgence é .and e Hungarians couldof gainhis the benefits of the

On 19 January, 1449, he had proclaimed a by paying a three days’ visit to the cathedral church of

jubilee for the following year,”° when untold —Grosswardein (Hungarian Nagyvarad, Rumanian Oradea; thousands of pilgrims flocked to Rome, to be ¢., below, Chapter 5, note 44) as well as to certain other decimated by a violent outbreak of the plague designated churches and by contributing one-half the sum

dt tO t the pope’s timorous which theinjourney Rome and required and WITNESS POPpeflight s— (on 5 residence the citytowould havethecost them.fifteen Theredays is no 15 July) from the city whither he had called _ statement in the bull that the sums thus paid by the faithful them.®*® During the jubilee, however, the needs in Hungary would be used for the crusade. The bull is contained in one of the many registers in

-_* Raynaldus, the charge of Pietro da Noceto (Petrus de Noxeto), who was Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1451, nos. 1-2, vol. a nobilis et notabilis persona in his time (see the Sen. Secreta, XVIII (1694), pp. 375-76, where the letter is dated Reg. 19, fols. 92, 94°, docs. dated 10 and 12 November,

11 October (1451); Hofmann, Epistolae pontificiae, 111 (1946), 1451). Pietro da Noceto was the secretary of Nicholas V no. 304, pp. 130 ff., who dates the letter 27 September, and = and _ Calixtus III, and good friend and correspondent of prints the Greek version from Sp. P. Lampros, Palatologeia Aeneas Sylvius. On 14 November, 1451, Pietro, “papal kai Peloponnesiaka [in Greek], IV (Athens, 1930), 49-63, secretary and citizen of Venice,” was granted a letter patent where it is dated (p. 63) “the fifth day before the Kalends (from the Doge Francesco Foscari) according him and his

of October” [27 September]. On the background see Gill, brother Jacopo the right to purchase Venetian state The Council of Florence (1959), pp. 377-80, and note bonds and to own property in Venice (R. Predelli, ed., Pastor, Hist. Popes, 11, 248-51, and Gesch. d. Papste, 1 Regesti dei Commemoriali, V [1901], bk. x1v, no. 210, p. 66).

(repr. 1955), 601-3, who approves of the pope’s reply. Pietro was living in the Vatican palace in December, 1453 Cf. Nicholas V’s later recollection of his (sparse) assistance (Eugéne Mintz, Les Arts a la cour des papes pendant le XV° to the emperor after Constantinople had fallen, as given by _ et le XVI® siécle, 3 vols., Paris, 1878~82, I, 131).

Manetti in the so-called “testament” of the pope (Viia For the bull in question, see the Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Nich. V, ut, in RISS, W1-2, col. 953); Ducas, chap. 36 (Bonn, Reg. Vat. 391, fols. 252-254": “Indulgentia pro nobilibus pp. 252-53); Critobulus, De rebus gestis Mechemetis II, 1, 39, et prelatis Regni Hungarici . . .” [in margin of fol. 252%]:

ed. K. Miller, FHG, V-—1 (Paris, 1870), 84a, and ed. “... pro parte ... nobilis viri Johannis de Hunniad,

V. Grecu, Bucharest, 1963, p. 109, who says the pope had — gubernatorisacrectoris . . .” [fol. 253]. A special bull dated

planned to send thirty ships. According to Critobulus, 12 April, 1450, was sent to honor Hunyadi and extend to him loc. cit., Nicholas did send three galleys (see, below, pp. 117-18), and his family “omnium peccatorum suorum remissio which arrived in Constantinople on 20 April, and made their _ plenaria” under the same conditions as those noted above way heroically through the Turkish blockade (forthe sources _(ibid., fol. 249). (The enumeration of folios in this register see Miiller, loc. cit., note). In Reg. Vat. 393, fols. 124"-125", is somewhat confused, owing to corrections having been I find a reservation to the church of Coron made in favor made at several points.) The registers of Nicholas V contain

of the eleven-year-old Venetian Antonio Andrea Venier, a number of such special letters of indulgence for the dated at Rome on 29 April, 1450, which was hardly the jubilee (¢f. those to King Casimir IV of Poland in Reg. Vat. way to provide for the Latin Church in Greece, and cf. 393, fols. 17'-18', dated at Rome, 7 December, 1450; to

fols. 125"'—127%. Queen Margaret of England, zbid., fols. 122”—123*, dated at

® Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1449, no. 15, vol. XVIII Assisi, 5 October, 1450; and to Duke Philip of Burgundy,

(1694), pp. 362-63. ibid., fols. 360°-361°, dated at Rome, 1 February, 1451, % Pastor, Hist. Popes, 11, 74-104, much revised in Gesch. “anno, etc., MCCCCL, Kal. Februarii, [pontificatus nostri]

d. Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 433-62; for the flight of Nicholas V_—_ anno quarto”).

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA 107 A dilettante rather than a scholar, petulant accomplished a remarkable amount of building sometimes and irritable, Nicholas V was withal in the time at his disposal, ridding Rome of an honest man. Fair-minded in his dealings with hundreds of thousands of tons of rubble and others, devoted to his friends, and a great lover débris, and unfortunately pillaging the Collof fine books and fine buildings, he was a gen- seum, the Forum, and other ancient sites for

erous and appreciative patron of the arts, blocks of marble and travertine as if they

who spent the great sums which accrued from were mere quarries. He helped destroy the old the jubilee of 1450 in beautifying the city of Rome as he began the creation of a new one. Rome and stocking his newly founded Vatican Nicholas V stands at the close of the middle Library with hundreds of manuscripts in hand- ages and the beginning of a new era. In the some bindings, often of crimson velvet with silver abdication of Felix V (on 7 April, 1449), clasps. The munificence of his gifts to Giannozzo_ the conciliarists’ candidate for the papal Manetti, who wrote his biography,® as well as to throne, Nicholas triumphed over the last of Niccolo Perotti, Francesco Filelfo, Lorenzo _ the anti-popes. With his own hands he crowned Valla, Poggio Bracciolini, Pier Candido Decem-_ Frederick HI of Hapsburg emperor in an brio, and other devotees of humanism evoked — elaborate ceremony in S. Peter’s, the last of the the admiration (and the ire) of the Christian imperial coronations in Rome (on 19 March,

world. 1452). After a half-dozen years of satisfying One of the favorite popes of Gregorovius, achievement as pontiff and as patron of Nicholas V’s love of learning has endeared him scholars, painters, and architects, however, to most scholars who have studied his career. Nicholas found the year 1453 beginning badly

Always shrinking from physical violence and for him with the revelation of. a reckless timid of the hurly-burly of life, Nicholas conspiracy against his authority engineered by showed himself during the eight years of his Stefano Porcari, who was put to death with pontificate one of the boldest planners and most some of his followers in January.*® The conindefatigable builders in the long history of spiracy made a profound impression upon the

Rome. He restored many famous churches pope as it did upon all Italians; he was

and palaces, rebuilt the Acqua Vergine and saddened by the event, made rather moody

improved the city’s water supply, repaired and and suspicious; he suffered a good deal from

fortified the bridges over the Tiber, rebuilt the gout, and was often unable to grant authe walls of the Aurelian circuit, and finally diences for weeks at a time. He was illproposed under the influence of Leone Battista prepared, mentally and physically, for the blow

Alberti a stupendous reconstruction of the which was about to fall. Leonine City with a new S. Peter’s, a vast

papal palace, ecclesiastical and other residences, 99 Pastor. Hist. Pobes. IL. 218-39. and a 19 broad squares, streets, colonnades, porticos, 16. oD an F it opes, 1, 218-39, a append. nos a and shops—a complete renovation of the Vati- 974-91, and append., nos. 43-49, pp. 832-40. On the can. Although these last projects awaited the coronation of Frederick III, see Franz Wasner, “Tor der papacy of Julius II, with other ideas and other Geschichte: Beitrage zum papstlichen Zeremonienwesen im architects, for their partial fulfillment, Nicholas 3 Jogrhundert, Archiwum historiae VI (1968), ~—53, with the text (of thepontificiae, papal ceremonial diarist)

—_ describing the event, and on Frederick’s career, Alphons %° Cf. Francesco Pagnotti, “La Vita di Niccolo V scritta) Lhotsky, “Kaiser Friedrich III.: Sein Leben und seine da Giannozzo Manetti,” Archivio della R. Societa romana di PersOnlichkeit,” in his Aufsaftze und Vortrage, II (1971), 119-

storia patria, XIV (1891), 411-36. 63, cited above in Chapter 2, note 56.

4. THE SIEGE AND FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (1453) FrROM THE TIME of his second accession to Toward the end of June (1451) the Venetian the throne of his fathers in February, 1451, Senate was itself preparing to dispatch two Sultan Mehmed II set about the fulfillment of embassies to the East. Lorenzo Moro was going his dream of conquering Constantinople. The as the Republic’s envoy to Mehmed II, and

extent of his ambition was not yet clear, Francesco Venier as envoy to Ibrahim Beg, the

however, and his personality still remained an Gran Caramano in Asia Minor, the chief Levan-

enigma to his contemporaries. In April the tine enemy of the Ottomans. Ibrahim Beg

Emperor Constantine XI sent one Andronicus thought he saw an opportunity in Mehmed’s Leontaris on an embassy to Venice, Ferrara, accession, and was already endeavoring to stir Rome, and Naples, to seek assistance against the _ up trouble in Germiyan and the coastal emirates

new sultan whose youth, it may have been of Aydin and Menteshe.? Lorenzo Moro was, assumed, would provide both Greeks and Latins however, to console Mehmed for the loss of his

with an opportunity to proceed against the father and to congratulate him upon his attainTurks. By early June (1451) Leontaris had ment of the sultanate. He was also to preach reached Venice, where one of his objectives peace to Mehmed, especially in Bosnia, and becomes clear when on the eleventh the Senate (among other assignments) to press for payment

declined to accept an impost which the emperor of the debt which Nerio II Acciajuoli (a wished to impose on merchandise as well as a Turkish subject for all that he was dominus Stives restriction which he proposed to place on the et Sitines) owed the commercial firm and family export of hides from Constantinople.’ There is of the Ruzini. Upon leaving the Ottoman court, no word of emergency in the documents, and Moro was to proceed to Constantinople, where Leontaris apparently brought no warning of he was directed to lodge a vigorous remonstrance

especial danger to the enfeebled Byzantine against the unlawful activities of Constantine

“empire.” XI’s brothers in the Morea. The Despot Thomas —_—_— Palaeologus had occupied plura territoria in the

‘Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Senato Mar, Reg. 4, fol. region of Modon, as the Despot Demetrius 58° [59°]. Nau prea, N ores “ucharest, extrails pour a Uhistoire croisades © stécle, , ho.315), XXVII, p. des had done in that of Nauplia, Venetian territories 46, gives Constantine xr's letter, dated 10 March, 1451 of cour se, and the numerous protests of the recommending Andronicus Leontaris to Borso d’Este, Signoria had never produced anything but marquis of Ferrara. On Leontaris’s mission to Rome, see “bona verba sine ullo effectu.” Moro was to make Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence, Cambridge, 1959, pp. it clear to the emperor that Venice would no 377-80, and on Constantine XV’s desire to tax foreign longer tolerate the occupation of lands and the

merchandise (the sansaria or sensaria), note Iorga, Notes et . . . .

extraits, ILI (Paris, 1902), 254-55. usurpation of rights belonging to her citizens

2 After the departure of Amadeo VI of Savoy in June, and her subjects. Furthermore, since Moro 1367 (see above, Volume I, Chapter 13), the Byzantine would doubtless reach Constantinople before government gradually lost its tenuous hold upon the south- Andronicus Leontaris’s return home, Conwestern shore of the Black Sea until, during (and even stantine might ask him about the Venetian duced almost to the city of Constantinople. Byzantine YeSPponse to the requests which Leontaris had authority extended northward again, however, as a result made to the Signoria in the emperor's name. of the territorial concessions made to Manuel II by the Emir If this should happen, Moro was to reply in Suleiman and thereafter by Sultan Mehmed I, Bayazid’s the words of the senatorial resolutions (of 11 and sons, aswhich one followed result the of Turkish the civil wars of the Ottoman which h to. , succession defeat at Ankara in June), of whic €12 was£given a Copy, late July, 1402. From the time of Mehmed I’s final victory the effect that the emperor’s proposals were not

efore) the reign of Bayazid I, the “empire” was re- . .

(in 1413) until the beginning of the year 1453 the in accord with the “antiquissima amicicia et

Byzantines seem to have remained in precarious and

intermittent control of the coastline of the Black Sea as far §=————————

north as Mesembria, and of the northern shore of the Sea of 3 For whatever his evidence may be worth, note the account

Marmara as far west as Heraclea. The subject is ob- in Ducas, Hist. byzantina, chap. 34 (Bonn, pp. 233-37; ed. scure, and the sources are sketchy, but see the attempt at Vasile Grecu, Ducas, Istoria turco-bizantina [1341-1462], clarity in A. Bakalopulos, “Les Limites de empire byzan- Bucharest, 1958, pp. 291, 293, 295), of the attempts by the tin depuis la fin du XIV® siécle jusqu’a sa chute (1453),”. Gran Caramano and even of Constantine XI to profit by

Byzantinische Zeitschrift, LV (1962), 56-65. Mehmed’s accession to the throne. 108

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 109 benivolentia” which had long existed between seemed hardly more of a problem than they had

the Palaeologi and the Republic.* been for decades.

Francesco Venier was to begin his eastward All the while, however, Mehmed II was voyage, along with Moro, in the galley Bar- nurturing the passion of his boyhood—the badica, which would take him to Candia in taking of Constantinople—which was to win Crete. Another galley would convey him to him the title of Conqueror (Fateh), and make Cyprus, to the court of King John II, who had _ him the outstanding prince and the pride of the

been at bellicose odds with the Gran Caramano. house of Osman. It was incumbent upon Venier was to learn the details of the “differentiae Mehmed, as a warrior for Islam (ghazi), to begin

et discordiae existentes inter [Johannem] et his reign with a victory over the infidel

dictum Caramanum,” and thereafter make his Christians. What worse enemy was there than way into Caramania to try to. make peace the Greek emperor and the Greek metropolis, between Ibrahim Beg and the Cypriotes. On his now set in the very midst of Ottoman territory, return journey he was to report the extent of the cynosure of Orthodox churchmen, Frankish his success (or failure) to John in Cyprus. By crusaders, and Latin merchants? When he bethe end of December, 1451, Venier was still came sultan, Mehmed could pursue his ambition somewhere in Caramania or Cyptus (orenroute without let or hindrance from anyone, including home), and the Senate wrote the colonial the grand vizir, Khalil Pasha, who was reputedly government in Crete to locate him and speed a friend of the Greeks. For months the attention him on his way to the Adriatic “et inde ad of Europe now became fastened on the shores presentiam nostram.” Hard pressed by both the of the Bosporus, and indeed few events have Caramano and the soldan of Egypt, John had caused more contemporary excitement or subbeen unable to pay his debts to Venice and to sequent speculation than the Ottoman siege and various Venetians. Peace with the Caramano seizure of Constantinople.

would free John from one source of expense Another Byzantine embassy was sent to

and apprehension, and then perhaps he would Venice, Florence, Rome, “et ad alias potentias settle some of the claims against him. This Italie,” but now with solemn warnings of the was the purpose of Venier’s mission, as far extent of Turkish preparations. The Venetians

as the documents reveal it.» His commission agreed to send supplies to Constantinople, contains no reference to the Turks. If Ibrahim but they wanted to see what the other powers Beg suggested that Venice make a move against would do before promising the Greeks armed Mehmed II, Venier very likely replied that he assistance. They reminded the ambassador that was without authority to deal with the proposal, the war in Lombardy, to which we shall come

but he would convey to his government any in the next chapter, restricted their earnest message that Ibrahim Beg might wish to send. desire to help the threatened city. They adAs far as Venice was concerned, the Turks dressed strong pleas, nevertheless, to Pope Nicholas V and the Curia Romana for quick *Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fols. 67'-68" [68'-69'], Moro’s action agains t the Turk, promising to make commission dated 8-9 July, 1451, and cf. fol. 58” [59%]. every contribution they could to such an

The instructions which Moro received with reference to enterprise. The Senate voted to send appeals also Leontaris’s embassy were couched in the following terms: to the Emperor Frederick III as well as to the “Verum si forte per eius Majestatem tibi fieret ulla mentio kings of Aragon and Hungary, imploring their

de capitulis que a nobisAndronicus petit pro parteLeondari sue Serenitatis aidsuus, as necessary spectabilis dominus orator . «ee f for the salvation of Con-

volumus ut responsiones per nos factas capitulis antedictis stantinople, informing them furthermore of et unicuique eorum honestare et iustificare debeas cum the provisions that we have taken on our part, illis verbis que in predictis responsionibus, quarum copiam —_ and stating that these are by no means sufficient

tibi dari fecimus, continentur, et aliter sicut prudentie for so great a crisis.’ tue expediens visum fuerit, procura[re] que animum suum

contentum et satisfactum reddere’” (ibid., fol. 687 [69*]). > On Venier’s embassy to the Gran Caramano in 1451, see 6 Sen. Secreta, Reg. 19 [1450-1453], fol. 122", dated 14

Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fols. 53” [54%], 54° [55"], 60° [61°], February, 1452 (Ven. style 1451); ibid., fol. 170°, 16

66" [67°], 68 [69], 98" [99°], and Sen. Secreta, Reg. 19, fol. November, 1452; fol. 184%, 4 February, 1453 (Ven. style

50". Cf. Louis de Mas Latrie, Documents nouveaux servant 1452), a letter of the Senate to Nicholas V; and fol.

de preuves a Vhistoire de Vile de Chypre (from the Mélanges 187°, 24 February, 1453 (Ven. style 1452). These documents

historiques, vol. IV [Paris, 1882]), Famagusta: Editions are all published in Enrico Cornet, ed., Giornale del-

Oiseau, 1970, p. 370, and Geo. Hill, A History of Cyprus, lassedio di Costantinopoli di Nicolo Barbaro, P.V., Vienna, 1856,

III (Cambridge, 1948), 508-13. append., pp. 67-73. The original numbering of the folios

110 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT During the spring and summer of 1452. gathering together a great army and a fleet. Mehmed II built Rumeli Hisar (the “Rumelian According to Sphrantzes, he formally declared Castle,” as it was later called) on the European side war on Byzantium as early as June, 1452, when

of the Bosporus across the strait from Anadolu he sent an army to invade the environs of Hisar, where the ruins of the older fortress of _ the city, capturing the suburban residents. After Bayazid I “the Thunderbolt” still stand. At this the completion of Rumeli Hisar on 31 August, point Europe is less than half a mile from Asia. he left there and himself appeared under the Here the two castles have stood as guardians of the _ walls of the Greek capital on a tour of inspection

seaway for more than five centuries, great of its fortifications, departing thence for Adristretches of walls and towers still remaining of anople on 3 September.® The imperial governRumeli Hisar (restored in 1953), which the ment in Constantinople spent the winter taking sultan’s forces constructed in a mere three or such measures as it could to prepare the city four months, “the most heavily fortified castle for the coming assault. Walls were strengthened,

in the world,” says Critobulus, “and the most and at least one abandoned foss or moat resecure and famous.”? Mehmed spent months in opened from the Golden Horn.

One Niccolo Barbaro, a Venetian ship’s in this important register corresponds to the modern physician or surgeon, who got caught in the city

enumeration. during the siege, has left us a full account of During the course of the siege the Venetian Senate the disaster in the dated, day-to-day entries in authorized issuance of a commission to Bartolommeo . . :

Marcello (on 8 May, 1453) to go to Constantinople to his diary. Aid came to the city, as Barbaro

confer with Constantine XI and with Mehmed II “ut per =—=————————

omnem modum procuremus pacificare Teucrum cum sua_ capable of shooting stone balls weighing more than 600

Serenitate [imperiali] et ponere statum suum in tranquilo pounds, and garrisoned with a troop of 400 men “all et securitate . . .”. (Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 187 [188], pub- within four months.” Actually 5,000 workmen built the castle

lished by Sime Ljubié, Listine, X [Zagreb, 1891], 7). The from 15 April to 31 August, 1452 (cf. F. Babinger, Venetians claimed “iura et iurisditiones” in the Greek Maometto il Conqutstatore, Turin, 1957, p. 128), on which capital, as indeed they had, and Marcello was to explain to note the Ottoman historian Khoja (Sa‘d-ad-Din) Efendi, Mehmed: “Deliberavimus armare aliquas galeas et naves in N. Moschopoulos, “Le Siége et la prise de Constannostras et eas mittere Constantinopolim non pro inferendo — tinople selon les sources turques,” Le Cing-Centieme Anni-

guerram vel novitatem sue Excellentie sed ut associent versaire de la prise de Constantinople (in L’Hellénisme con-

galeas nostras Romanie et ipsam civitatem tanquam rem temporain, 2 ser., VII, 1953), pp. 31-32, and E. J. W. nostram deffendant et conservent, quod cum omni iure Gibb, trans., The Capture of Constantinople from the Taj-utet honestate facere possumus .. .” (Reg. cit., fol. 187" tevaritkh |“The Diadem of Histories” ], written in Turkish by [188%]). Marcello’s mission was quite impossible. He did go Khdja Sa’d-ud-Din, Glasgow, 1879, p. 12.

to Constantinople later on, however, as we shall see, but There is a brief account of the siege by Admiral Luigi under very different circumstances. Cf. in general R. Guil- _ Fincati, “La Presa di Costantinopoli (Maggio 1453),” in the land, “Les Appels de Constantin XI Paléologue 4 Rome et Archivio veneto, XXXII (1886), 1-36, old but still useful, anda A Venise pour sauver Constantinople (1452—1453),” Byzan- recent book on the subject by Sir Steven Runciman, The tinoslavica, XIV (1953), 226-44, who adds little new, and Fall of Constantinople (1453), Cambridge, 1965. An invaluable

M. M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, “L’Action diplo- anthology of the sources, with Italian translations and matique et militaire de Venise pour la défense de Con- extensive notes, has lately been published by Agostino stantinople (1452-—1453),” Revue roumaine d’histoire, XIII-2 Pertusi, La Caduta di Costantinopoli, 2 vols., Verona, 1976:

(1974), 247-67. I, Le Testimonianze dei contemporanei, and II; L’Eco nel 7 Michael Critobulus, De rebus gestis Mechemetis H, 1, 11 mondo. Professor Pertusi’s introductions to the wide range of

(ed. K. Miller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum [FHG], (often improved) texts he has selected for inclusion are V-1 [Paris, 1870], pp. 60b—62a; ed. V. Grecu, Critobul din most useful. I want to thank him for sending me these two Imbros: Din domnia lui Mahomed al H-lea, anu 1451- volumes, for although this chapter was written long before 1467, Bucharest, 1963, pp. 53, 55). Laonicus Chalco- their publication, I have had time to study them and make condylas, bk. vit (Bonn, pp. 380-81; ed. E. Darké, H-2 appropriate additions to the notes before the present volume [Budapest, 1927], 147), says the castle was built in three went to the press. months. Both Ducas, Hist. byzantina, chap. 34 (Bonn, pp. 8 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1060C; ed. Grecu, pp. 241-46), and the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, pp. 94, 96); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, pp. 234-35; ed.

233-34; ed. V. Grecu, Geo. Sphrantzes ... in anexad Grecu, pp. 378, 380); cf. Chalcocondylas, bk. vu1 (Bonn, Pseudo-Phrantzes . . . , Bucharest, 1966, p. 378), describe p. 381, lines 10—11; ed. Dark6, II, 147, lines 18-19). the armed conflict with the Greeks while Rumeli Hisar Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 2; ed. Dethier, pp. was being constructed. Cf. Geo. Sphrantzes, Chron. minus 695-96, says that Mehmed II came with 50,000 men. I have (PG 156, 1060BC; ed. Grecu [1966], p. 94), and Barbaro, of course followed Sphrantzes’ Chron. minus rather than Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 1-2, also published by P. A. the Chron. maius of the Pseudo-Sphrantzes [the late sixDethier, in Monumenta Hungariae historica, XXII, pt. 1 (1872), teenth-century compiler Macarius Melissenus-Melissurgus],

pp. 694-95; and for other sources, see Miiller’s notes, op. which dates Mehmed’s departure from Rumeli Hisar on cit., pp. 60-61. Ducas, chap. 34 (Bonn, p. 246, lines 20-21), 28 August and his withdrawal to Adrianople on 1 states that the castle was erected, mounted with cannon September.

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE lil indicates, haphazardly and even unintentionally, Toward the end of January the Genoese

with the arrival of some Venetian, Genoese, and_ soldier Giovanni Giustiniani-Longo arrived Cretan ships, mostly merchantmen. Among the with two large galleys. He had on _ board defenders whom chance thus brought to the 400 men in armor (KaTaéypaxrot) enrolled in scene were Gabriele Trevisan, commander of Genoa, besides his sailors, and had recruited two light Venetian galleys, and Giacomo Coco, skipper of a Venetian galley from Trebizond, gata erant de apparatibus sue Serenitatis [i.e., Mehmed both of whom were to play important roles in {Jj terra marique ad expugnationem civitatis Constantino-

the coming struggle. With the approach of politane . . .” (Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 187" [188%], the

winter Isidore of Kiev, the “cardinal of Rus- commission issued to Bartolommeo Marcello and then can-

sia,” arrived on the Bosporus with two hundred celed, referred to above in note 6). ,

cunners and crossbowmen. both There would seem to have been eight Venetian galleys Men,‘ncluding NCUaING Ft ? participating in the Christian operations against the Turks. to defend the city and to commemorate the Nevertheless, Critobulus, I, 24, 3 (ed. Miiller, p. 73b; ed. union of the Churches, as was done on 12. Grecu, p. 85), says there were six galleys (he calls them December (1452) in a ceremony which, to triremes, i.e., ships with three lengths of oars). A ninth the disgust of :the Constantine ponetan ship escaped from the city under skipper : .anti-unionists, a iero Davanzo on 26 February, 1453 (Barbaro, ed.itsCornet, XI attended in Hagia Sophia. The beginning pp. 13-14; ed. Dethier, pp. 717-18). According to Barbaro of Barbaro’s diary is full of these matters, (see below), there were three Cretan ships in the harbor of with a record of the men and vessels available Constantinople, as the Pseudo-Sphranizes, III, 3 (Bonn, for defense when the Turks closed in upon p. 238; ed. Grecu, pp. 382, 384), also notes in his “catalogue

he city? of ships:” “Thereone were theIberian following vessels—three from the city. Liguria [Genoa], from Castile . . . , [one] from Provence, and three from Crete, one coming from the city

oo of Candia [Chandax] and the other two from Cydonia, all ® The sources differ as to the number of western ships well equipped for warfare. . . .” (There were more than still in the harbor of Constantinople by the spring of 1453 three Genoese ships in the harbor.) Leonardo of Chios, (cf. Miiller’s note to Critobulus, I, 24, 3, in FHG, V-1, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, II, 89, also mentions three

p. 73). In any event Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. Cretan ships. All ships being requisitioned by the 3—4; ed. Dethier, pp. 698-99, shows that two large emperor, their departure required a special license, which

Venetian galleys from Caffa got safely through the narrow he would not grant. In November, 1452, however, eight

strait under Rumeli Hisar despite cannonading from its Cretan ships engaged in the wine trade had come to walls, and under Girolamo Morosini arrived on 10 Novem- Constantinople, six of which set sail with a northeast ber, 1452 (E. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, wind under cover of night on 26 February (1453), when London, 1903, p. 217, is quite wrong). Three large Vene- Piero Davanzo made his own illegal exit from the harbor.

tian (merchant) galleys under Alvise Diedo also came Barbaro says that by the defection of these seven ships from Tana to Constantinople, where their escort of two 700 men were lost to the defense (ed. Cornet, p. 13). light galleys, commanded by Gabriele Trevisan, had al- On 26 January, 1453, Giovanni Giustiniani-Longo arrived ready put into port from Venice with orders to return home — in Constantinople with two Genoese ships, while the pre-

within ten days of the arrival in Constantinople of a vious October Isidore of Kiev, cardinal of Sabina, had galley coming from Trebizond (Leonardo of Chios, in arrived in the city with his two hundred men, intent Philip Lonicer, Chronica turcica, 11 [Frankfurt am Main, upon church union (Barbaro, ed. Cornet, p. 3; ed. Dethier,

1578], 91, mentions the five galleys [he calls them p. 698). While Barbaro puts the unionist ceremony in

triremes] of Diedo and Trevisan). On 4 December, 1452, Hagia Sophia on 13 December (1452), Ducas, chap. 36 the galley from Trebizond sailed safely into the harbor (Bonn, p. 255), dates it on the twelfth, as do Isidore ‘of Constantinople under Giacomo (or Jacopo) Coco, who — and Leonardo of Chios.

was to play a heroic role in the defense of the city Isidore was accompanied by Archbishop Leonardo of My(Barbaro, ed. Cornet, p. 4; ed. Dethier, pp. 699-700). tilene, a native of the island of Chios; both Isidore Although the Venetian captains and merchants were and Leonardo of Chios are important sources for the anxious to depart, the Emperor Constantine XI detained siege and fall of Constantinople. They had come in a them to help defend the city, in which he was aided by Genoese ship, which had waited at Chios for another the intelligent and courageous Venetian bailie, Girolamo ship on its way to Caffa, both ships being comMinotto, who in mid-December won over the majority of | mandeered by the Byzantine government (cf. Ducas, chap.

the influential members of the Venetian colony in Con- 36, ed. Bonn, pp. 252-53). Barbaro mentions them tostantinople, at a meeting of the Council of Twelve gether several times. Leonardo’s account of the siege (Conseio di Dodexe) in the church of S. Maria, on which and fall of Constantinople (in the form of a letter dated see Barbaro, ed. Cornet, pp. 8 ff. Trevisan was especially 16 August, 1453, to Pope Nicholas V) has also been

hard toconvince. A literal-minded seaman, he had his orders, published in the Patrologia graeca, vol. 159 (1866), cols. and was going to obey them, but he had to yield toa decision 923-41. It became widely known through the Italian of the leaders among his compatriots in the city. According version in Francesco Sansovino’s Historia universale delto the Venetian Senate, in a statement of 8 May, 1453, Vorigine et imperio de’ Turchi (1568) as well as in his Annali they had recently been informed “quod galee nostre viagii turchescht (1571-73), which latter work is the basis of the Romanie simul cum duabus galeis nostris subtilibus “anonymous” Greek chronicle (Bibl. Apost. Vaticana, Cod. rettente fuerunt in Constantinopoli propter ea que divul-, Barberini gr. 111) published by G. Th. Zoras, Chronicle

112 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT a number of others in Chios and Rhodes, Genoese soldier was put in general charge of the making his total force about 700 men. Critobulus city’s defense, receiving the rank of protostraior.

reports a rumor that Giustiniani had been On 2 April the great iron chain set in wooden invited to come to Constantinople by the blocks was extended across the mouth of the emperor, who was said to have promised him Golden Horn to prevent the entry of enemy the island of Lemnos if the Christians proved _ ships into the inner harbor.’ The young sultan

successful in their opposition to the Turks. and the Ottoman army were just reaching the Ducas describes the splendid reception accorded environs of the capital.

Giustiniani, and adds that the cession of Lemnos Mehmed II is said to have left Adrianople was guaranteed by a chrysobull."° The hardy for the shores of the Bosporus on Friday, 23 March; Critobulus states that the march took of the Turkish Sultans . . . [in Greek], Athens, 1958, pp. ——————— 79 ff., and cf. Zoras, On the Conquest of Constantinople tables). On his arrival in Constantinople, see the preceding

lin Greek], Athens, 1959, pp. 105 ff. On this so-called note and Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, chronicle, note Gyula Moravcsik, in the Byzantinische II, 87. While Critobulus, loc. cit., states that Giustiniani Zeitschrift, XLIV (1951), 430-34, and Byzantinoturcica, arrived with 400 men in armor, Leonardo says there were 2 vols., Berlin, 1958, I, 296-99, and see esp. Elizabeth only 300 Genoese with him on the landward wall on the A. Zachariadou [now Mrs. N. A. Oikonomides], The Chronicle last day of the siege (op. cit., p. 93, and Pertusi, Caduta of the Turkish Sultans (in the Barberini Greek MS. 111) and the di Costantinopoli, I [1976], 148), although he had earlier Italian Original [in Greek], Thessaloniki, 1960. Miss Zacharia- stated that Giustiniani had come “cum . . . armatis circiter dou’s book cleared up a long-lived puzzle as to the date (after | quadringentis” (ibid., p. 132).

1573) and the major source (Sansovino) of the Greek The Longhi were a separate branch of the Giustiniani, chronicle. Although a better (but incomplete) text of the latter being actually an association of families (alLeonardo of Chios, with an Italian translation, is now avail- _bergo) formed in March, 1364, which had adopted the able in Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, 1 (1976), 120-71, family name of the Giustiniani for various political and

it has seemed best to retain the references to the edi- social reasons. Such an alliance or union of families, tion in Lonicer’s Chronica turcica, and check the latter which enabled the smaller to compete with the larger text against that given by Pertusi. Likewise I have re- kinship groups, was a peculiarly Genoese institution (cf. tained the references to Cornet’s edition of Barbaro’s Philip P. Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese, diary of the siege, Marténe and Durand’s edition of I (Cambridge, 1958], 134, 332-34). At one time or another Tedaldi, etc., and checked these and other texts against there were 120 families in the albergo of the Giustiniani those in Pertusi, adding occasional references to the latter. (Argenti, ed., Hieronimo Giustiniani’s History of Chios, Cam-

Barbaro (ed. Cornet, pp. 20, 36) indicates that nine or _ bridge, 1943, p. 387). ten of the larger ships in the harbor guarded the iron "! Chalcocondylas, bk. vin (Bonn, p. 384, lines 6-13; ed. chain stretched on buoys across the mouth of the Golden Dark, II, 150, lines 10-17); Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, Horn. Of these ships five were Genoese, three from Crete, p. 15; Ducas, chap. 38 (Bonn, p. 268, lines 2-6); one apparently from Ancona, and one belonged to Con- Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, p. 238, lines 6-8; ed. stantinople. Barbaro also states that there were seventeen Grecu, p. 382, lines 26-28); Sa‘d-ad-Din, Taj-ut-tevarikh, ships in the inner harbor (ed. Cornet, p. 20). An exact count trans. E. J. W. Gibb, p. 24. The chain was employed only

of the vessels available for the defense of the harbor five times as part of the city’s defenses (in 717-718,

and city is impossible (the emperor had at least five galleys). 821, 969, 1203, and 1453); see the detailed account of

Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 11, 91, line R. Guilland, “La Chaine de la Corne d’Or,” in the 22, says there were thirty ships in the harbor; Jacopo ’Emernpis ‘Etatpeias Bulavria@v Xrovdav, XXV (1955),

Tedaldi, a Florentine merchant who was in the city through- 88-120. The well-known Turkish traveler Evliya Chelebi

out the siege, gives thirty-nine (Edm. Marténe and Urs. (d. 1669) wrote an account of the siege and fall of Durand, eds., Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, I [Paris, 1717, Constantinople in his Seyahatname, vol. I, chap. 10, which is

repr. New York, 1968], cols. 1820-21). On Tedaldi (or _ less interesting as a historical source than as a record of Tetaldi), note the rather speculative article of M.-L. Con- the later Turkish tradition (and of Evliya’s imagination).

casty, “Les ‘Informations’ de Jacques Tedaldi sur le There is a French translation of the text by H. Turkova,

siége et la prise de Constantinople,” Byzantion, XXIV (1954), “Le Siége de Constantinople d’aprés le Seyahatname 95-110. Tedaldi’s text may also be found in P. A. Dethier, d’Evliya- Celebi,” in Byzantinoslavica, X1V (1953), 1-13, and

ed., Monumenta Hungariae historica, XXII, pt. 1 (Istanbul, ibid., XVII (1956), 125-27. On the Turkish historians 1872), pp. 891 ff. For the opening of the foss or moat from and (it would appear) their rather limited value for evithe Horn, see Barbaro, ed. Cornet, p. 15; ed. Dethier, dence on the siege and fall of Constantinople, see Alessio

ibid., pp. 721-22. Bombaci, La Letteratura turca, 2nd ed., Florence and Milan,

10 Critobulus, I, 25 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 74; ed. 1969, esp. pp. 351 ff., and Pertusi, Caduta di Costanti-

Grecu, pp. 85, 87); Ducas, chap. 38 (Bonn, pp. 265-66); = nopoli, I (1976), pp. xtv—xix, 304 ff., and II, 254 ff.

Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 13; ed. Dethier, p. 717, Feridun-Bey, Miinsaat-i-Selatin, 1 (Istanbul, 1848), p. who indicates that Giovanni Giustiniani’s whole force 239, cited by A. D. Mordtmann, Belagerung u. Eroberung amounted to 700 men; Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, Constantinopels durch die Tiirken im Jahre 1453, Stuttgart pp. 241-42; ed. Grecu, p. 386). Giovanni was a member and Augsburg, 1858, p. 44, and K. Miller, note on Critoof the family of the Giustiniani-Longhi, long resident on bulus, I, 23, 1, in FHG, V-1, p. 71. The texts of Critothe island of Chios (cf. Ch. Hopf, Chroniques gréco- bulus and Sphrantzes (see the following notes) are better romanes, Berlin, 1873, repr. Brussels, 1966, p. 517, geneal. reconciled, however, if we assume that Mehmed left

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 113 ten days; and Sphrantzes gives 4 April as the number of batteries along the landward or west

date of his arrival.’ Barbaro informs us that walls. He pitched his own tent opposite the

on 5 April, between eight and nine o’clock in “military” Gate of S. Romanus [now Sulukule the evening, Mehmed encamped with 160,000 Kapisi],’® as the old Pempton (“fifth military men two and one-half miles from the western, gate”?) was apparently called during the period landward walls which went in a majesticlinefrom of the siege. It is located in the valley of the the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara. On river Lycus. The janissaries were for the most the sixth he came to within a mile of the walls; | part encamped between the sultan’s tent and the

it was a Friday, and after the prayer the siege walls, opposite the northern stretch of the

began.’® Mesoteichion (“middle wall’), the most vulnerThe taking of Constantinople by the Turks able part of the whole range of the westward is one of the notable events of the fifteenth fortifications. Details of the siege, as given in the century, and Mehmed II’s eight-week invest- contemporary accounts, are sometimes not easy

ment of the city is one of the most famous to reconcile with the topography of the area. sieges in history. It marked also the startofanew The “Mesoteichion” was apparently well to the

era in warfare, for the Turks employed huge south of the Gate of Charisius [the modern

cannon on a more extensive scale than that to Adrianople Gate, Edirne Kapi]; at its northern which Europeans had hitherto been accustomed. end it descended into the Lycus valley at the Mehmed began operations by establishing a Pempton, to which the name of S. Romanus seems to have been given by the time of the

Adrianople on 25 or 26 March. Details of some importance siege. The Gate of S. Romanus, properly so are provided by a rather late Russian account, Povest’ named, Was a civil gate a bit farther south [now 0 sozdanu 1 o vziatit Tsaregrada, first published by I. I. Top Kap or “Cannon Gate ]. It took its name Sreznevskii, and translated into French by Ph. Ant. Dethier, from a nearby church. The landward walls as the “Anonymus Moscovita,” in the Mon. Hung. hist., contained both “civil”? and “military” gates

XXII, pt. 1 (1872), Ppp. 1053-1122. Used freely by Ith h thi di ti ti . tt b . an . ’ Chedomil Mijatovich, Constantine [XI], London, 1892, pp. altnhoug IS GISUNCHON 1s NO O be ound in

150 ff., 233-34, the text has been reappraised by N. the fifteenth-century texts. The civil gates, used Iorga, “Une Source négligée de la prise de Constanti- by the public in time of peace, led into and out

nople,” Bulletin historique de VAcadémie roumaine, XIII (Bucha- of the city over bridges which were removed

rest, 1927), 59—128, in connection with a Rumanian version upon the likelihood of attack. The landward

of the eighteenth century, and cf. Pertusi, Caduta di Costan- . .

tinopoli, Y (1976), 261 ff. approach to the city was protected by a high 18 Critobulus, I, 23, 1 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 71b; inner wall (the wéya retxos) and a lower outer

aratephrantzes, pp- 89, 85). aus (PG. 156, ed. G wall (the zporetxtopa). Outside theshielded lower wall Giron. minus , » 1060D; ed. LTecu, was a broad walkway (zepiBodos), b p. 96, lines 10-11), and cf. the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, lated yk aA os); he f y 3 (Bonn, p. 237, lines 7-9; ed. Grecu, p. 382, lines a crenelate parapet, eyon which lay the ross

10-11), who gives 2 April as the date of Mehmed’s OF moat some sixty feet wide and twenty feet arrival, and also reckons the beginning of the siege from deep. The double walls and foss ran from the this date since he represents the Emperor Constantine

as saying, on the evening of 28 May in his final address =————————

to the army and the Byzantine court, that Mehmed had '® Critobulus, I, 23 (ed. Muller, FHG, V-1, pp. 71b-72a; then maintained his day-and-night investment and bombard- ed. Grecu, pp. 83, 85); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn,

ment of the city for fifty-seven days (ibid., III, 6, p. p. 237, lines 9-10; ed. Grecu, p. 382, lines 11-12);

273, lines 8-11; ed. Grecu,.p. 416, lines 15-17). (Since | Chalcocondylas, bk. vit (Bonn, p. 385, lines 3-5; ed. Darko,

my references to the Bonn edition of the Pseudo- [I-2, 151, lines 5-7). Ducas, chap. 37 (Bonn, p. 263,

Sphrantzes precede those I give to Grecu’s edition, — lines 2-3), says that Mehmed pitched his tent opposite the I have retained the chapter numbers in the Bonn edi- Gate of Charisius (see below); from the rise on which the tent tion, which Grecu has unnecessarily altered—the present was placed it might in fact be described as “over against reference, for example, appears in the latter’s edition as__ the Gate of Charisius” (kavévavtt rns wbANS TOV Xapicod).

bk. u1, chap. 8.) Sphrantzes’ date (4 April) is in accord with For topographical details of the city, see the excellent

that of Barbaro (cf. the following note). work of R. Janin, Constantinople byzantine, 2nd ed., Paris,

'® Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 18; Ducas, chap. 36 1964; the course of the siege can be followed on the large (Bonn, p. 263, lines 8-10); Muller, note to Critobulus, plan (no. 1) in the portfolio of maps at the end of Janin’s I, 23, 1, in FHG, V-1, p. 71; and cf. Leonardo of volume. Smaller plans are easily accessible elsewhere (ee. g., Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, II, 86. According to in Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire, opp. p. 335; Steven Barbaro, Mehmed encamped at the first hour, which in Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople [1453], Cambridge, late March and early April began between eight and nine 1965, opp. p. 89; and Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, P.M. Jacopo Tedaldi says that Mehmed came up to the city I [1976], pp. 332-33). Other sources indicate that the on 4 April, and that the siege began on the fifth (Marténe sultan’s tent—and his heaviest cannon—were set opposite and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, I, cols. 1819 ff.). the Gate of “S. Romanus” (see below).

114 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Sea of Marmara north to the Golden Horn, a _ too large. But the size of Mehmed’s cannon was distance of four miles, but the great inner wall more fearsome than the numbers of his army. was in some disrepair. The outer wall, which ‘Three cannon seem to have been especially

was protected by the parapet and foss, had formidable, of which one had been cast at been kept up, and so the emperor and hisGreek Adrianople by a Hungarian or Rumelian advisers decided to concentrate upon the founder named Urban, who had first offered defense of the outer wall, as had been done in_ his services to the Byzantine government.” 1422 when Murad II had attacked the city." In February and March; 1453, this cannon had They lacked sufficient forces to man both walls.’* been drawn from Adrianople to Constantinople The sources give us various estimates of the _ by sixty strong oxen yoked to thirty wagons with size of Mehmed’s army, ranging from Chalco- 200 men on either side to steady the huge gun condylas’s figure of 400,000 to Niccolo Barbaro’s (7% ywveia) lest it fall. Fifty artisans went before of 160,000,"* and even the latter figure is doubtless the wagons with 200 workmen to construct or

—-_— strengthen bridges and level off the roads, the ‘7 Chalcocondylas, bk. vii (Bonn, p. 384, lines 21-24; whole operation requiring two months.”! The ed. Darko, II-2, 150-51). On Murad I's siege in the ~awe-struck Critobulus has described in detail the

summer of 1422, cf. above, p. 12, and Chalcocondylas, bk. v thod ) d bv the f, ders in casting the

(Bonn, pp. 227-33; ed. Dark6d, II-1 [Budapest, 1923], Mewnod’s emp oye DY tire Foun ers Hh Castings 6-12); C. N. Sathas, Documents inédits relatifs a Vhistoire de large cannon—“this is a new invention of the la Gréce au moyen age, 1 (Paris, 1880, repr. Athens, 1972), Germans or the Celts,” he says, “about a hundred no. 79, pp. 120-21, 122, dated 26 August, 1422; and Ducas, and fifty years old or a little more, a very

chaps. 28 (Bonn, p. 189, lines 20-23), and 29 (p. 197, ingenious and well-contrived weapon.””2 Acline 5). Murad II had also employed cannon against the di Barb dL do of Chi h city, but they did not achieve the devastating results of COPOIN§ to Barbaro an conan 00 los the

1453. On the westward wall, see Ernest Mamboury, Istan- largest cannon, whether Urban’s or not, shot a bul touristique, Istanbul, 1951, pp. 430-31, and especially stone ball 1,200 pounds in weight.* Such cannon Janin, Constantinople byzantine (1964), pp. 265—83, and¢f. pp. balls more than seven feet in circumference are

347, 406, 420-21, where no mention is made, however, of till to b ‘n Istanbul h th ined

the fifteenth-century confusion between the Pempton and suit to be seen i Astanoul, where be rune

the “civil” Gate of S. Romanus. walls in the area between the so-called palace 8 Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 11, 93, Of Porphyrogenitus or Tekfur Saray (Tek95, who believed that more effort should have been made to fursarayi)** and the Gate of Charisius, at the rebuild the damaged parts of the higher, inner wall, which = .._ a] ed S. Romanus Gate (the old Pempton) he’?says ought to have been made a second line of defense... he L T d he Tr; “third Chalcocondylas, bk. vu (Bonn, p. 383, lines 13-15; in t € ycus va ey, and near the Triton (“thir ed. Dark6, H-2, 149, lines 21-22): A€yerau Kr.; Barbaro, military gate”?) bear witness to the places where Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 18: “. . . fo Turchi zerca zentoe Mehmed concentrated his heaviest artillery. sesanta milia.” Cf. Critobulus, I, 23 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, Tedaldi states that the Turkish cannon (bompp. 72b-—73a; ed. Grecu, p. 85), 300,000; Ducas, chap. 39 bardes) “fired from one hundred to one hundred 38, p. 267, lines 6—7) says that eyewitnesses placed the and twenty shots each day, and [the siege] lasted number at more than 400,000. Leonardo of Chios, in fifty-five days; since one reckons that they used Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 11, 86, informs us that there were g thousand pounds of gunpowder every day, in

(Bonn, p. 283), over 260,000, but elsewhere Ducas (chap. .

more than 300,000, among whom were 15,000 janissaries. Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1060D; ed. Grecu, p.. 9 —————

96, line 14), puts the Turkish land forces at 200,000, but 2° Ducas, chap. 35 (Bonn, pp. 247-49); Chalcocondylas, the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, p. 240, lines 16-17; — bk. vir (Bonn, pp. 385-86; ed. Darko, II, 151~—52). ed. Grecu, pp. 384, 386), at 258,000. Isidore of Kiev sets 1 Ducas, chap. 37 (Bonn, p. 258). According to Chalcothem at 300,000 (Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], condylas, bk. vin (Bonn, p. 382, lines 20—21; ed. Darko, I,

68, 88, 94, 108), as does Henry of Soemmern (ibid., 149, lines 6-8), the large cannon had to be drawn by Ii, 82; lorga, Notes et extraits, III [1902], 310). seventy yokes of oxen and two thousand men. On the size The author of the Threnos (“Lament”) for Constantinople, of the various cannon, note Pertusi, I, pp. xxlI—xxIII, ed. Adolf Ellissen, Analekten d. mittel-und neugriechischen LXXIV~LXxv, 229, and II, pp. 82, 84.

Literatur, III (Leipzig, 1857), pp. 208-12, verses 749-79, 2 Critobulus, I, 29-30 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, pp. 76a—gives a total of 217,000 men (147,000 from Europe, 70,000 78b; ed. Grecu, pp. 93, 95, 97). The Greek historians, like from Asia), among whom were 15,000 janissaries (cited all their contemporaries, were stupefied by Mehmed’s and correctly reckoned by Miller, note to Critobulus, cannon, which they call by various names (é€A€zoAts, FHG, V-1, p. 73). Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, snd&«Bodos, weTpoBddos, Bovp7rapsdn, etc.). Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1820AB, states that Mehmed 3 Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 21; ed. Dethier, p. had 200,000 men; Adam de Montaldo, ed. Karl Hopf, in) 736; Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, II, P. A. Dethier, Monumenta Hungariae historica, XXII, pt. 88; see also Miiller’s notes to Critobulus, in FHG, V-1, 1 (1872), pp. 46-47, gives the total of Mehmed’s forces pp. 76-77, and cf. p. 70. Urban’s cannon is said to have “on land and sea” as 240,000. Cf. Feridun Dirimtekin, [stan- exploded, killing its founder, and required recasting, but the

bul’ un fethi [The Conquest of Constantinople], Istanbul, sources are inconsistent in their reports. 1949, pp. 64-72, and Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopolt, 1 24 Tekfur means kyrios, “lord,” and was the title by which

(1976), pp. XIX—XxXI, LXXIII. the Turks referred to the Byzantine emperor.

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 115 fifty-five days they used up fifty-five thousand Mehmed’s constant cannonading of the Meso-

pounds, and there were also ten thousand teichion, and says that he filled the foss with

culverins.”"*> The informed visitor to Istanbul stones, wood, earth, and other débris to facilitate can easily reconstruct in his imagination some the approach to the great breaches appearing

of the major episodes of the siege from the in the walls.?” Barbaro locates for us the four present-day condition of the landward walls. chief batteries which were established before One may walk along the walls today from the Tekfur Saray on the north, the Pegé (modern fortress of the Seven Towers (Yedikule) on the Silivri Kapi) on the south, and the Charisius south to the palace of Porphyrogenitus on the and S. Romanus Gates in the center; it is clear north in less than three hours even as he that both sides centered their best efforts on the pauses to consult notes, to take photographs, §. Romanus, “la pit debel porta de tuta la or in the mind’s eye to repeople with the tera.”?® Here Mehmed placed the cannon which attackers and defenders of five centuries ago =————_—

what were empty fields and sparsely settled Asia Minor, Thrace, and Pontus some 250 vessels (which he areas until the recent, rapid growth of the Calls fustae), including sixteen regular galleys (trtremes) and

population of Istanbul. seventy light fustae), thefustae remainder beingbanchotrue fuste . . with a single bank ofgalleys oars, (reliquae unius During the first days of the slege Mehmed emis (Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 136). Henry assigned his commanders to their posts—Zagan of Soemmern informs us that Mehmed’s fleet was made up

Pasha of PeraNotes and the eastern of 220 “galeae, inter pa] eae CNap. (ibid., it, 8 hor to-Kthe.region h lorga, et extraits, ; . UVucas,

, de of ine ocen Horns “Che Beg, Ga . (Bonn, p. 268, lines 1-2), believed that the Turkish

andward walls north or the arisius Gate, fleet consisted of 300 triremes (galleys), biremes (fuste), and Ishak Pasha and Mahmud Pasha, the latter of transports. The fusta was a long, fast galley-like vessel whom was soon to become the grand vVizIr, with about two dozen oarsmen (see above, Volume I, to the walls between Top Kapi the Pp eae nore “4, with wels.) It iswas oftena caled PY : : . ‘and e Greek historians. The parandaria heavya bireme transport, Marmara. Mehmed took his stand with Khalil and the brigantine a light, fast boat, in larger models a Pasha at the northern end of the Mesoteichion favorite of the corsairs. It is interesting to note, howopposite the so-called S. Romanus Gate, against ever, that the Turkish historian ‘Ashik-Pasha-Zade says which three chief in cannon were usually mat Mehmed II had only seventy (N.de Moscho: ‘ the h poulos, Czng-Centieme Anniversaire de laships prise Conear eg as provab'y m c weakest section of t © stantinople (L’Hellénisme contemporain, 2nd ser., VII, 1953], p.

Walls. € Uttoman leet under the buigarian 28). In one passage Tedaldi gives the size of the Turkish renegade Balta-oghlu kept a watch along the sea feet as about 110-128 galleys, galiots, fuste, and other walls from the Golden Gate (at the south end _ vessels (Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anecdotorum, I,

of the landward walls) all the way along the ol. 1820C), and elsewhere as 240 “sup (nefs), galleys, Marmara coast to Neorion at the entrance to the and galiots (tbid., I, 1823DE). Althougt Tedaldi $ account

. . is useful, as that of an eye-witness, it is confused and

Horn, where he was to break, if possible, the confusing, as are the wildly differing estimates of the size iron-and-wooden boom and force his way Into of the Turkish fleet given in the various sources (Perthe harbor.”® Critobulus attests the success of _ tusi, I, p. Lxxvi). 27 Critobulus, I, 31 (ed. Miiller, FHG, V-1, p. 79; ed.

_—_ Grecu, p. 99). The cannon were doing so well that Mehmed ° Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thesaurus novus anec- _is said to have stopped his engineers’ efforts to cut pas-

dotorum, I, col. 1820BC. sages under the walls as a needless expense (on the success

7° Critobulus, I, 27-28 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, pp. of the cannon, cf. idem, I, 34, ed. Miller, pp. 80a—81b; 75a—76; ed. Grecu, pp. 89, 91), who gives the fullest ed. Grecu, p. 103). The mining operations continued, howaccount of the disposition of the Turkish forces; Ducas, ever (Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3, ed. Bonn, p. 244; ed. Grecu, chap. 37 (Bonn, p. 263); Chalcocondylas, bk. vi (Bonn, p. 388). Barbaro speaks of them in the Gzornale almost pp. 383-84; ed. Darko, II, 149-50); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, to the very'end of the siege (cf. Giornale, ed. Cornet, III, 3 (Bonn, pp. 237-38; ed. Grecu, p. 382); and cf. N. _ p. 41; ed. Dethier, pp. 782-84). The mines were dug, as Iorga, Gesch. d. osman. Reiches, 11 (Gotha, 1909), 19-21. Leonardo of Chios tells us, by “fossores, quos ex Novo The sources vary concerning the size of Mehmed’s fleet Brodo [in southern Serbia] conduxerat magistros . . . no less than of his army, from well over 400 ships to [Theucrus, t.e., Mehmed II]” (Pertusi, Caduta di Costan145, the smallest figure given by a western source again tinopoli, 1 [1976], 132, 134, and cf, ibid., p. 394 [note 10]). being that of Barbaro (the sources and figures are col- Seven mines were discovered between 16 and 25 May. lected in Miller, note on Critobulus, I, 22, 2, in the 28 Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 21. The identificaFHG, V-1, p. 71). Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 21; tion of the Gate of S. Romanus, where the final break ed. Dethier, pp. 737-38, says: “La dita armada del Turco was to come, has caused some difficulty. In the siege of 1453 fo vele cento e quaranta cinque fra galie e fuste e parandarie one is chiefly concerned with three civil and two military e bergantini, ma ne iera galie dodexe compie, fuste grose ne gates. The civil gates are: 1) the Charisius or modern iera da setanta in otanta, parandarie da vinti in vinticinque, Adrianople Gate (Edirne Kapi); 2) Top Kapi or “Cannon tuto el resto si iera bregantini.” Cf., ibid., ed. Cornet, p. Gate,” which had been commonly known as the Gate of S.

24;.ed. Dethier, p. 743. Romanus until some time before the siege; and 3) the According to Leonardo of Chios, Mehmed assembled from _ Pegé (IIny# or Gate of the Springs, now called the Silivri

116 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT shot stone balls weighing twelve hundred The emperor and Sphrantzes concealed the

pounds. results of the census, which would have been

On the other side the Emperor Constantine damaging to morale.*° Subsequent reinforceXI and Giovanni Giustiniani also took their ments may'have increased the number of the position at the Gate and Tower of S. Romanus. city’s defenders to about 6,000 Greeks and Against the masses of Turks, among whom were almost 3,000 Latins: these at any rate are the

some 12,000 highly trained and determined figures given by Leonardo of Chios.*! There janissaries, they had discouragingly few men for was probably little need to conceal the census service on the walls. Early in the siege the computed by Sphrantzes. The empty stations on emperor ordered a survey made of all the man-__ the walls could speak for themselves, and the power and equipment available in the city. All Florentine merchant, Jacopo Tedaldi, who witlaymen and monks capable of bearing arms were _ nessed the siege, observed that there might be to be included in the census. When the records 6,000 or 7,000 soldiers in the city but no more.” of the local commanders and municipal authorities were turned in, the emperor gave them —- The Greeks and Italians behind the ancient

to the historian Sphrantzes to compute the walls of Constantinople fought with a heroism totals quietly in his own home. It was a sad and endurance worthy of a happier result than report that Sphrantzes had to make: there were they were to experience. Niccolo Barbaro’s about 4,773 Greeks and about 2,000 foreigners diary records three large-scale attacks by the

in the city who could be employed for its Turks, who tried on 18 April, 7 May, and defense. Some nobles and commoners had fled — the city before its investment, but not very the population of Byzantium never exceeded 400,000 as an many. The population within the walls at this absolute maximum. time was probably between 40,000 and 50,000.29 °° Actually Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1060D; ed.

Grecu, p. 96, a better text), gives the number of Greeks as

—_———— “4,773 without the foreigners, of whom there were scarcely Kapi). The military gates are: 1) the Pempton and 2) the an additional 200” (,doy’ dvev trav Eé€vwv ports brvTwv

Triton. When Barbaro, loc. cit., refers to the Pegé, he o' % ptxpov tt mpos), where 200 has presumably been seems to mean the Triton, which shows the effects of — read for 2,000 (8). The text of this passage in the Chron.

severe bombardment. minus appears in PG 156, 1060D, precisely as it does in the Although there is no question that the present Top Kapi first edition of Angelo Mai, Classicit auctores, IX (Rome, had long been called the Gate of S. Romanus, both the 1837), ad finem, p. 65. The Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, Greeks and the Italians appear to have transferred this name __ pp. 240-41), gives 4,773 Greeks and some 2,000 foreigners

to the military gate of the Pempton when as a civil (bid., p. 240, lines 19-20; ed. Grecu, p. 386, lines 2-3), gate the Top Kapi was closed before the siege began— which latter figure I have retained in the text. Cf. Ducas, the Pempton seems very clearly to be the gate called S. chap. 38 (Bonn, pp. 275-77), on the paucity of men, Romanus in the sources (for which see the references par- _ the ruined walls, and the despair of the city. On the distially collected in Miller’s note in FHG, V-1, pp. 72-73, position of the Christian forces, at the gates and along but the reader should be guided in his interpretation of | the walls, to repel the Turkish attacks, note Pertusi, the texts by Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. Caduta di Costantinopoli, I (1976), pp. LXXI-LxxIl.

238-45, 429-35). For the sources relating to the num- Sphrantzes’ Chron. minus (PG 156, 1061; ed. Grecu, p. 96) ber, location, and size of the Turkish batteries, see Miller, records nothing that happened in Constantinople from

op. cit., note on p. 79. the time of his reckoning the totals of the Greek forces 9 See A. M. Schneider, “Die Bevélkerung Konstantinopels _ until the capture of the city by the Turks on 29 May (1453),

im XV. Jahrhundert,” in the Nachrichten der Akademie der leaving a gap which Macarius Melissenus-Melissurgus, the Wissenschaften in Gottingen, Philol.-Hist. Kl., UX (1949), “Pseudo-Sphrantzes,” has filled in from whatever source or

233-44, esp. p. 237. The population of Byzantium at its sources (in the Bonn edition this added material extends height has doubtless been much exaggerated. The area from pp. 240-41 to p. 288 and in Grecu’s edition from within the Theodosian walls had never been entirely — p. 386 to p. 430). occupied. There were extensive open spaces throughout 31 Leonardo, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, II], 93, and in the twelfth century. Besides the dwellings of the masses of _ Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, 1 (1976), 146.

the inhabitants, much land was taken up by the imperial 32 Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anecpalaces and those of the aristocracy, quarters forthe soldiery, dotorum, I, col. 1820F: “En icelle cité ly avoit entour de

public squares and public buildings, the hippodrome, trente a trente-six mille hommes, et six a sept mille numerous churches, monasteries, vineyards and grain fields, | combattans, et non plus.” Tedaldi’s text is also given in

warehouses, magazines, barns, and stables, open cisterns, Dethier, MHH, XXII-1, no. 9, p. 896. Ducas, chaps. orchards, vegetable gardens, and other open and cultivated 38 (Bonn, p. 266, lines 13-14), and 39 (p. 286, lines fields, the vineyards always being conspicuous within the 7-9), says the defenders of the city were outnumbered city walls. In a learned and sensible article David Jacoby, twenty to one, and that all together they did not exceed “La Population de Constantinople a l’époque byzantine: 8,000 (chap. 39, p. 287, lines 15-16), which is of course Un probleme de démographie urbaine,” Byzantion, XXXI___ not consistent with the figures he gives for the Turkish (1961), 81-109, has sought to show that even at its height army, but would fit Barbaro’s figure of 160,000 Turks.

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 117 12 May to force their way into the city through Critobulus says that minor assaults were a daily the gaps their cannon had made in the walls.** —_routine.** The defenders also had some cannon,

ee but their largest one exploded when it was first 33 For these three attacks, see Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, fired. The bombardier was suspected of collu-

pp. 22-23; ed. Dethier, pp. 739-41 (on 18 April), Cornet, sion with the Turks, and subjected to a judicial pp. 36-37; Dethier, pp. 771-73 (on 7 May), and Cornet, inquiry for treason, although the charge was

p. 39;entirely Dethier, p.consistent 777 (on 12 May). diarysources is Gismissed for Miiller’s lack of evidence. not withBarbaro's the other (see ; : In any event

note in FHG, V-l, p. 81). Critobulus, I, 35-36 (ed. the Greeks and Italians found they could not Miller, loc. cit.; ed. Grecu, pp. 103, 105), and the Pseudo- use cannon safely. The recoil shook the Sphrantzes, II, 3 (Bonn, pp. 246-47; ed. Grecu, pp. walls and caused damage, proving in fact to be 390, 392), both seem to be describing the Turkish attack of a greater danger to those who fired the cannon

18S.April, which came fire after of the an Tower he Turks.2®> N h ?dh of Romanus by cannon (tothe the destruction sultan’s amazement, to t c .th UPKS. ow t ere occurre Ow-

says the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, Giustiniani restored the essen- C€VET, a thrilling and heartening episode, which

tial fortifications in a single night). The Turks had also must have seemed to the besieged inhabitants built a tall wooden turret which they pushed up against Jike an answer to their prayers for deliverance we wall at the place where the Tower of S. Romanus from the terror which beset them.

ad been destroyed, and the besieged are said to have . . .

burned this turret during the night. Three large Genoese ships and an imperial

Several such turrets were set against the walls of the city grain transport from Sicily or the Morea,*® the in the course of the siege. The Pseudo-Sphrantzes calls former having been delayed for weeks at Chios this one a “taker of cities” (€A€7roAts). He very definitely by northerly winds, sailed into the Marmara one places this attack just before the naval battle of 20 April ‘cht. On the follow; . 90 April. the; (see below) when an imperial grain transport and three "™!S§ t. On the folowing morning, AAprH, their Genoese ships entered the Golden Horn in the face of the approach was reported by Turkish scouts. whole Turkish armada. Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. Mehmed’s entire fleet left its base at Diplokionion 26-27, however, places the destruction of the Tower of S. (the modern Besiktas), on the western shore of

Romanus (and repair andouter the building a palisade to the Bos above Pera, .to;go in pursuit of replace theitsruined wall)of on 21 April, atporus which time the Turks would have been successful (he says) if they them. The four ships made steadily for the great had attacked “with a mere ten thousand men.” On 22 boom across the Golden Horn, where the Greek April, according to Barbaro, Mehmed decided to have re- and Italian vessels on guard were prepared to course to his naval force (of 145 vessels), which was sta- assist them. The hopeful eyes of thousands tioned at the Two Columns (Diplokionion), at the northern hed f£. h lls of the ci h £ entrance to the Golden Horn, and there followed the drag- watche rom the walls o t € city, the roo -tops, ging of seventy-two Turkish fuste overland into the harbor and other heights. The wind unexpectedly died under the fortifications of Pera (to which we shall come down, however, probably when the ships had shortly) — within the iron-and-wooden boom which hadbeen yeached the turn under the walls of the ancient

stretched across the entrance to the harbor. . . . All this is quite at odds with the account in the Pseudo- acropolis (Seraglio Point, Sarayburnu). For two Sphrantzes, who represents Mehmed as up bright and early OT three hours the Genoese and Greeks fought the day after the attack (when the Tower of S. Romanus off from their tall vessels the unremitting attacks

is whole passage in the Pseudo-Sphrantzes , 3, pp. .

collapsed); ready to renew iis attempt to ea 3 city. of a sea full of Turkish ships (in one another’s 244-47; ed. Greeu, pp. 388, 390) certainly suggests the way) uneer the ouganian agmira Balta-oghlu, Turks’ building (and the Christians’ destroying) a great W110 tlaG already Tailed im a cost Y attempt to wooden turret, which Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. Enter the Horn, and knew that his life might 42-43; ed. Dethier, pp. 785-88, dates to 18 May (cf. depend upon the outcome of this battle. The the Anonymus Moscovita, chap. 11, in Dethier, MHH, Turks had begun the attack with every conXXII-1, pp. 1086-88; Zorzo Dolfin, Chron., ibid., nos. 58, . . 61, pp. 1011, 1013; and Tedaldi, ibid., no. 14, p. 898, also dence of victory. Sultan Mehmed himself in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1821C). A. G. Paspates, Siege and Capture of Constan- —————— tinople [in Greek], Athens, 1890, repr. 1939, pp. 133-34, and 34 Critobulus, I, 36, 2 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 81b; Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. 192-94, have ed. Grecu, p. 105), especially against the places where the employed the Pseudo-Sphrantzes text in this connection, walls were broken down.

actually assuming a gross error in his chronology, which 3° Chalcocondylas, bk. vit (Bonn, p. 389; ed. Darko, II, is probably the case. (Incidentally Barbaro, loc. cit., does 154). not mention the burning of the turret, which he calls a 36 The imperial government in Constantinople purchased bastion, and seems to imply that it stood during the a good deal of grain from Sicily (cf. Const. Marinescu, remainder of the siege, which is in accord with the ac- “Contribution 4 lhistoire des relations économiques entre count of Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus Empire byzantin, la Sicile et le royaume de Naples de anecdotorum, I [1717, repr. 1968], cols. 1821C and 1823A, 1419 a 1453,” Studi bizantini e neoellenici, V [1939], where “le chastel be bois” is mentioned in the last 209-19, from the Atti del V congresso internazionale di

assault of 29 May.) studi bizantini [Rome, 1936]).

118 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT watched the contest from the Pera (Galata) west into a small bay, which Critobulus calls shore of the Horn. In fact, the four ships were Cold Springs (€v 7@ K6A7w Tov Voxpav drifting toward him as those aboard fought for ‘Yéatwy Kkadovpéve@), in the modern district of

their lives. Just when it seemed that Turkish Kasim Pasha just across from the midway point expectations of success were justified, the south between the ancient Byzantine acropolis and the

wind returned in splendid gusts, fillmg the Palace of Blachernae. It was all done, says the Christians’ sails and moving their harassed Pseudo-Sphrantzes, “in a single night;” if so, it vessels under the protective walls of the acropolis. bespeaks the vast manpower which the sultan

To the fury of the sultan, who shouted directions had brought to the siege.*® Mehmed had and imprecations from the shore, Balta-oghlu entered the inner harbor of Constantinople by ordered the northward withdrawal of his ships. the back door; secured his lines of communicaThat night the four vessels were brought within — tion with the Diplokionion and Rumeli Hisar; the chain, with the aid of Gabriele Trevisan and exposed the northern wall of the besieged city to his two light galleys, and Constantinople had attack; and thoroughly intimidated the Genoese more men and supplies and additional units in well-fortified and independent Pera. This was

for guard duty along the boom.*’ a development which the Greeks and Italians in

The exasperating failure of his fleet tocapture Constantinople, says Critobulus, “could never the four Christian vessels on 20 April may well have anticipated, and they were frightened out have hastened somewhat the execution of a plan which Mehmed had been entertaining for some 28 Critobulus. L 49-43 (ed. Miller. FHG. Vl 86h time. This was to transport a .sizable parted. of his Cnitobulus, I, 42—43 ¥oiy 67 PP. ships; OOD” or 88b; Grecu, pp. 115, 117), (ed. saysMuller, there >were fleet from the base of Diplokionion on the Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 27-28 (see above, note Bosporus overland to the Golden Horn. Accord- 26), 72 fuste; the Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, pp. ing to Barbaro, this remarkable feat was accom- renner ed. Grecu, pp. nes se), comments on the diver piisiee on 22 April. Mout seventy vesse’s were ships overland. and is forced to admire the vemarkable auied On various rollers and ghaers over a “strategem;” Ducas, chap. 38 (Bonn, pp. 970-71), 80 “bicarefully prepared roadbed from a place near remes” (fuste), and who ever saw or heard of such a thing? Tophane (south of Diplokionion) up the eastern making the land as navigable as water; Chalcocondylas, slope of the hill of Pera and down again on the bk. vi (Bonn, p. 387; ed. Darko, IH, 153), 70 ships;

re : sity of the equipment use the Turks in transporting the Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, I1, 89, seventy

——_——— biremes; Henry of Soemmern, ed. Iorga, Notes et extraits,

37 The naval battle of 20 April is described by II (1902), 310, seventy naves; and for additional sources

Critobulus, I, 39-41 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-t, pp. 84a— see Miiller’s notes to Critobulus, foc. cit. A. D. Mordtmann, 86a; ed. Grecu, pp. 109, 111, 113); Barbaro, Giornale, Belagerung u. Eroberung Constantinopels (1858), pp. 57-60, ed. Cornet, pp. 23-25; Ducas, chap. 38 (Bonn, pp. 268-___ rightly follows Barbaro amid the disagreement among the 70); Chalcocondylas, bk. vi (Bonn, pp. 389-90; ed. Dark6, sources. Sa‘d-ad-Din, trans. E. J. W. Gibb (1879), pp.

HI, 154-55); Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. 24-25, says that the ships were moved over the hill (of

turcica, 11, 90-91; and Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, Pera) on greased wooden rollers. Cf. lorga, Gesch. d. osman.

pp. 247-50; ed. Grecu, pp. 390, 392, 394). Reiches, 11, 25-26.

The usual discrepancies appear in these sources. Chalco- According to Tedaldi, Zagan Pasha had “seventy to condylas says that two Christian ships were involved, one’ eighty galleys as well as other armed fuste” dragged Genoese and the other Byzantine; Critobulus, three large overland from Diplokionion into the inner harbor of the merchantmen (oAKd&des) “from Italy,” sent by the pope Golden Horn, which he calls the mandraquin, i.e., in Greek [Nicholas V], and does not mention the Byzantine grain mandraki (enclosure, harbor), “which is between the two transport; Ducas, one Byzantine grain ship from the Pelo- cities” of Pera and Constantinople (Marténe and Durand, ponnesus and four Genoese merchantmen; Pseudo- Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1820D). When put together, Sphrantzes, three Genoese ships, which after leaving Chios the Turkish and Christian naval forces did not amount to met a Byzantine ship from Sicily; and Barbaro, Pusculus, seventy to eighty actual galleys. The galley was a very

and Leonardo of Chios say much the same thing. heavy and very expensive vessel, as scores of Venetian

Barbaro, p. 24, says the actual fight lasted close to three documents constantly remind us. Nevertheless, we are inhours. Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire, p. 258, in- formed by one Samile, who calls himself a “Bladick oder

correctly identifies Leonardo as “archbishop of Chios:” Bischoff,” in a letter dated 6 August, 1453, to Oswald, Leonardus Chiensis was the archbishop of Mytilene (Lesbos); burgomaster of Hermannstadt (Rumanian Sibiu, Hunaccording to Eubel, II, 198, he died before 3 December, garian Nagyszeben, the capital of Transylvania), Mehmed’s 1459, and was succeeded by one Benedetto, O.S.B. With forces “dragged with their own hands two hundred galleys some inaccuracy G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine over land for a distance of about two miles, and then

State, trans. Joan Hussey, Oxford, 1956, pp. 506-7, let them down in that part of the sea which lies be-

has written: “The Golden Horn was barred by a heavy chain — tween the two cities [of Pera-Galata and Constantinople]” which all Turkish efforts had failed to break, and it was as_ (the German text in Iorga, Notes et extraits, IV [1915], 66,

a result of such an attempt that a naval battle broke out with an Italian translation in Pertusi, Caduta di Costanon 20 April in which the imperial fleet won the day”[!]. tinopoli, 1 [1976], 229).

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 119 of their senses by the unexpectedness of the thunderous blasts of Turkish cannon. Coco’s sight, and lapsed into depression and a feeling ship was immediately hit twice, and the second of utter helplessness, not knowing what to do time she went straight to the bottom with all

from now on... .”°9 aboard, “in less time than it would take to say Something had to be done. Niccolo Barbaro ten paternosters,” quanto che saria a dir diexe describes a council of war held by the Venetian paternostri.° If we may believe Barbaro, all leaders in Constantinople on 23 April, at which Coco’s crew were drowned.

Giustiniani was probably present although Barbaro In the meantime the Venetian captain Gabriele

makes no mention of him. Various plans were ‘Trevisan, in charge of one of the galleys, had discussed for destroying the Ottoman fleetinthe been advancing slowly and cautiously. Baffled by

cove on the northern shore of the Horn where the sudden explosions, he did not know what the Turks; even though they would notcome out had happened. It was impossible to see, for and fight, were a menace to the Italian and _ visibility was impeded not only by the darkness Greek ships behind the boom or “chain,” for but also by the clouds of smoke issuing from they might emerge at any hour. We have already the Turkish cannon and billowing from the noted that Barbaro says the Turks had seventy- cotton and wool on the transports which had two fuste in the cove. Ducas says eighty. It was also been hit. Trevisan’s uncertainty was quickly finally decided in the council that Giacomo resolved when his own ship was struck. She did not

Coco, master of the Venetian galley from sink, however, and the crew finally managed to Trebizond, should try to burn the Turkish fleet get her back to her anchorage. The Turkish in a nocturnal attack. The bold Coco, who had fleet now joined the fray, all seventy-two fuste volunteered to do the job, wanted to get at it says Barbaro, trying to capture the two transimmediately, but when the Genoese in Pera ports, but the men aboard them prevented their learned about it, according to Barbaro, they seizure by fighting off the attacks for an hour said they wanted to participate in the under- and a half in a contest “that was truly like hell

taking. Their request was granted. They took itself.” It had been a costly venture. The

several days to get ready (24-28 April). It is Christians had lost one or two ships and perhaps strange that the Genoese in Pera should have some eighty men, and had managed to destroy learned about the plan so quickly, even though only one Turkish ship. they were doubtless in constant touch with their The Turks had captured a number of Italians compatriots in Constantinople. The Venetian and Greeks who had swum to the Pera (Galata)

Barbaro, who hated the Genoese and dis- shore, some of them presumably from Coco’s honestly magnifies the part played by the Vene- fusta). When morning came, we are told, tians throughout the entire siege, charges that Mehmed had forty of them put to death in the podesta of Galata revealed the impending plain sight of their relatives and companions attack to Sultan Mehmed, who prepared a hot who watched from the city walls. By way of

reception for his assailants. recompense the Emperor Constantine ts alleged

In the early morning hours of 28 April, before to have ordered that two hundred and sixty it was light, two heavy transports, loaded with ‘Turkish prisoners then held in the city should bales of cotton and wool (to break the impact of | be hanged from the defense towers on the walls. the stone cannon balls if they were hit), pulled The sources tend to agree that the Genoese in

out of the harbor near the northern end of the Pera had in one way or another warned the iron-and-wooden chain. They were to serve asa Turks although the story told by Barbaro in buffer for two large galleys and three swift fuste this regard is extremely suspect. We can imagine which followed with a number of smaller boats, that the Venetians were not slow to charge their called brigantines, full of gunpowder, pitch and other incendiary materials, including Greek fire. "This expression is not to be regarded merely as Their quict progress c oward Cold Springs was picturesqueness of speech (Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. too slow for the impatient Coco, who pulled out 31; ed. Dethier, p. 760); it actually denoted a means of

of line in his fusta, anxious for glory, SayS reckoning brief periods of time. Medical recipes were in Barbaro. As Coco prepared to launch his attack, fact prepared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries however, the silence was sudd enly broken by the by boiling the ingredients or letting them stand or applying

a caustic to a wound for the space of so many paternosters

————_———— or avemarias (cf. D’Arcy Power, Treatises of Fistula . . .

°° Critobulus, I, 43, 1 (ed. Muller, FHG, V-1, p. 87b; ed. by John Arderne, London, 1910, p. xxix, in Early English Text Grecu, p. 117). ' Society, no. 139).

120 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT ancestral enemies with treachery. On the other The last days of Constantinople present a hand the Genoese declared that the whole affair historical drama of great poignancy, in which the had been badly managed from the start. The chief actors on the Christian side inevitably evoke trouble was that the Venetians simply lacked a warm sympathy and admiration because of

the acquaintance of the Genoese with such ——-__—

7 oF ways open to question.

matters (so the jibes of the Genoese are re-_ ness to gloss over Latin misdeeds, and his sources are alported); Giacomo wc had not known what he Although Ducas, chap. 38 (Bonn, pp. 277-79), appears to was about; the rest o the Venetians had displayed be alluding to the nocturnal attempt of Giacomo Coco, the same lack of experience; and here lay the whom he does not name, to burn the Turkish fleet, for cause of the disaster. On one occasion, however, he says that “the Genoese of Galata, learning of what before there was an exchange of blows, the Was being done, informed the Turks” (p. 277, lines 13-

emperor is said to have hurried.to. the scene re Ae as dated the yevouévns whole episode on 4 May, since on g day, hjuépas oby (p. 278, lines of the quarrel, and succeeded in making a sort 7_8), the Turks sank by cannon-fire in the harbor of of peace between the two groups: “I beg you, Galata a Genoese merchantman loaded with cargo and my brothers, remain at peace. The war outside preparing to leave for Italy (cf. Pseudo-Sphranizes, ITI, the walls is enough for you. Do not fight among 4, ed. Bonn, p. 259; ed. Grecu, p. 402), an event which

| for the10 mercy God!?"4! Barbaro, pp.Ducas 35-36; next ed. Dethier, pp. yourselves, y ° of 769-70, informs usGiornale, occurreded.onCornet, 5 May. describes

——_—_—_—_————— the building of a bridge, which Barbaro places on 19 May.

*! Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 28-33; ed. Dethier, | Ducas seems in fact to be concerned (as he says) with an pp. 754-63; Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, attempt of the Genoese Giustiniani on the Turkish fleet, and

II; 91-92, whose account is rather like that which appears so is Critobulus, I, 44 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 88; ed. in the Pseudo-Sphranitzes, III, 4 (Bonn, pp. 256-58; ed. Grecu, pp. 117, 119), who says that Giustiniani tried to Grecu, pp. 400, 402), who has added details. In the confine the Turkish ships in the cove of Cold Springs by present context, cf. Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, arraying a heavy transport and three triremes (galleys) in Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1821AB, and Chalco- battle order, but lost a trireme to the Turkish cannon, condylas, bk. vi (Bonn, pp. 387-88; ed. Darko, II, 153). and had to withdraw the other ships to a safe distance. Marino Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in L. A. Muratori, ed., RISS, Actually, however, if we are to take Critobulus literally, XXII (Milan, 1733), col. 1149B, says that thirty-three men this trireme was lost on 25 or 26 May, for he goes on to were executed by Mehmed. Barbaro’s account is very hostile say (I, 45, 1) that “during these same days . . . three or

to the Genoese throughout; his charge of their treachery four days before the battle” (kata 5€ Tas abtas

might be discounted but for other evidence. Almost two ‘fpépas.... IIpo yap tptwv H tTeTapwv huEepov Tov years later, however, in a letter to Philip the Good of modéov. . . .) certain portents of disaster occurred in the Burgundy, Isidore of Kiev put in a good word for the city. Genoese as having aided the defenders of Constantinople Since Critobulus is generally well informed, it would seem

throughout the siege (see the text in Pertusi, Caduta di that he is not here describing the events of 28 April. This Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 108, letter dated 22 February, 1455, passage of Critobulus has often been used as a source for

and cf., below, note 95). these events, as by A. G. Paspates, Siege and Capture of

Ubertinus Pusculus (Pusculo) of Brescia, the epic poet of | Constantinople [in Greek], Athens, 1890, repr. 1939, pp. the siege. (Constantinopoleos libri IV), reports that, as the 119-23, who shows, however, considerable facility for Christian ships first began to move toward their objective, misreading texts. Paspates, for example, after actually quota light flared from atop the Tower of Galata, apparently ing a sentence from Ducas’s description of Giustiniani’s

as a signal to the Turks (bk. rv, vv. 585-88, 610 ff., attempt on the Turkish fleet (op. cit., p. 120, note 19),

ed. Ad. Ellissen, Analekten, III [Leipzig, 1857], Anhang, pp. _ which he attributes to “Phrantzes,” states that no author ex72-73). Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire, p. 260, says cept Critobulus mentions Giustiniani in this connection (p. that “Critobulus and Pusculus each affirm that Mahomet 121, note 20). L. Bréhier, Le Monde byzantin, I: Vie et mort

had information from Galata;” but he gives no reference de Byzance, Paris, 1947, p. 520, also assumes that when to Critobulus, for there is none to give, and Critobulus Critobulus says Giustiniani, he means Coco, having obviously says no such thing (see below). The Pseudo-Sphrantzes, acquired this impression from Pears and from G. Schlum-

III, 3 (Bonn, pp. 256-58; ed. Grecu, pp. 400, 402), berger’s Le Siége, la prise et le sac de Constantinople,

says nothing of Genoese treachery, and attributes the Paris, 1914, pp.179-—80, whose book is largely based upon Christians’ failure to bad luck and God’s punishment for that, of Pears. The latter, however, has taken pains with their sins (he notes that they destroyed only one Turkish _ the chronology, and places Critobulus’s portents of disaster trireme), but Leonardo of Chios (in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, just before 26 May (op. cit., pp. 296-97). II, 88, 92), who was a Genoese, seems to hint at treachery One need not be surprised at Barbaro’s failure to mento the Christian cause from Galata: ““O Genuenses iam _ tion Giustiniani’s action against the Turkish fleet. He conquodammodo cicurati, sileo ne de meis loquar, quos externi __sistently deprecates the contribution of Giustiniani and the

cum veritate dijudicant. . . . Sed quid dicam, beatissime Genoese to the siege (which exceeded that of the Venepater [Pope Nicholas V]? accusarene quempiam licet? tians), and actually states that the Venetians were posted at silendum mihi est.” The Genoese Adam de Montaldo, ed. _ the critical S. Romanus gate, which we know was deHopf, in Dethier, MHH, XXII-1, no. 16, p. 48, denies fended by Giustiniani and the Genoese. It must be noted, there was any treachery. The evidence in Ducas and Crito- however, that Giustiniani also took part in the attempt to bulus may be more difficult to use than Pears suspected. burn the Turkish ships on 28 April (cf. Leonardo of Chios, The Pseudo-Sphrantzes is not without a certain willing- in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, Il, 92, and in Pertusi, Caduta

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 12] their determination to fight on in the face of cristianitade.” Although the Genoese community hopeless odds. Some time after about half the in Galata professed neutrality in the struggle

Turkish fleet had been drawn over the peninsula and even friendship for the Turk,* their of Pera from the Bosporus to the Golden Horn, sympathies were entirely with the besieged. Mehmed II constructed a bridge across the Horn Their countryman Giustiniani was the very heart

near the northern corner of the city walls (below of the Christian defense. The fate of Galata the Byzantine region of Cynegion, the modern seemed clearly bound up with that of ConAyvan Saray), thus exposing the whole range of _ stantinople. As the Venetians resisted the Turks

the city’s weakly defended fortifications along from the walls of the Greek capital, however, the Horn to the constant danger of direct some of them doubtless regarded themselves as assault.” The bombardment of the landward fighting for the preservation of Galata. This walls was incessant, with its deafening roar of was an awkward position for Venetians to be in; explosion and the sickening crash of the huge it must be admitted that they fought rather for stone balls as they struck the ancient walls and their lives than for the preservation of the city; the hastily improvised palisade which Giustiniani and yet no one should disparage the valiant

had thrown up before the threatened gate of effort of Coco and Trevisan to destroy the S. Romanus. All day long the Turks shot at the Turkish ships in the harbor. The Venetians

walls, and all night long the Greeks and Italians probably had just cause for complaint against

struggled to repair them. the Genoese, whose merchants from Galata

traded with the Turks by day and the Christians

If the Venetian commanders and their sailors by night. Of course they did it for profit, but had been most reluctant to remain in the city they gave information picked up in the Turkish in the days before the siege began, as the early camp to the Christians as they sold them badly portions of Barbaro’s diary make only too clear, needed supplies. Mehmed knew what was going

they were making up for it now in their fight on, but much preferred the alleged neutrality of “prima per l’amor de Dio e poi per honor de la __ the Genoese to their armed opposition on behalf

—__—— of Constantinople. Also some of them were very

di Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 142, and cf. pp. 354-55). useful to him, for it seems most probable that Pusculus, bk. Iv, vv. 606-7, ed. Ellissen, p. 73, places him he farst learned of the projected Venetian on one of the transports in Coco’s brave fiasco, but I sus- . . . pect that Critobulus may be describing and Ducas allud- attack upon his ships in the Horn, planned ing to another (and later) offensive against the Turkish for and attempted on 28 April, from a Genoese ships in which a different strategy was employed. Ducas source. Security was poor on both sides, for accuses the Genoese of treacherously informing the Turks Tedaldi states that Christians in the Turkish or Giustiniant’s attack, which is clearly a con- armyfleet. shot notes over the walls to inform usion with impending Coco’s attempt upon Mehmed’s In fact thecity . es confusion of the sources makes certainty of detail impossible. the Greeks and Italians of the decisions taken at * According to Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. the last meetings of the Ottoman high command

prac, HT, 8980. ot 30 nade pp. before the great assault —92; ed.the Grecu, . , ne ,an3 (Bonn, usculus, Constantino1 ¥on the walls on 29 May.** polis, bk. iv, wv. 579-73, ed. Ellissen, p. 72, the bridge was oo De interesting to prow ow aoe

built after the transport of the Turkish ships to the Horn Lote! - Bal ,

(which happened on 22 April, according to Barbaro). other Christians, especially technicians, were Cf. Critobulus, I, 27, and 43 (ed. Miiller, FHG, V-1, pp. serving in Mehmed’s army and in his fleet. >. 88; ye Grecu, pp. 8, a1 TTD. spaicocondylas, Not all Christians were laboring “for the honor 153, lines 25 ff.), places the construction of the bridge after of God and Christendom. . the Venetian failure to burn the ships (which happened on On 3 May at midnight the Venetians had 28 April, according to Barbaro); Barbaro, Giornale, ed. dispatched a small, swift vessel with a dozen Cornet, pp. 43-44; ed. Dethier, pp. 788-89, dates the men aboard, disguised as a Turkish corsair,

. onn, p. , lines ed. Darko, ; . 9

bridge to 19 May; and Ducas, chap. 38 (Bonn, p. 279, lines according to Barbaro, to find the Venetian fleet 11-12), places it after the Turkish sinking by cannon- : fire of the Genoese merchantman on 5 May (another date under the cap tain-general Jacopo Loredan and fixed by Barbaro). Ubertino Pusculo (Pusculus), cited above and elsewhere —=———————

in this chapter, was an eyewitness of the events he de- “Cf. Ducas, chap. 38 (Bonn, pp. 278-79), to which scribes in his Constantinopoleos libri IV, which he dedicated to _ other references could easily be added; the quotation comes

Pope Nicholas V. He had been living in Constantinople from Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 5; ed. Dethier, p. 702, for some time before the siege. A native of Brescia and _ et alibi. utriusque linguae doctus, Pusculo later taught Greek in the city 44 Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anec-

of his birth. dotorum, I (1717, repr. 1968), cols. 1821E—1822AB.

122 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT carry to him the last appeal of an empire hostility between Greeks and Latins, Genoese now gasping for breath. Twenty days later, on and Venetians. Always on hand somewhere were the twenty-third, the men came back, ran the the Grand Duke Lucas Notaras, Cardinal Isidore Turkish gauntlet through the Marmara, and _ of Kiev, Archbishop Leonardo of Mytilene, the

were admitted within the boom to report their historian George Sphrantzes, the Venetian sad failure to locate the fleet. Their return, physician Niccolo Barbaro, and dozens of others

possibly to death, shows something of the spirit whom the contemporary records have identified which now existed within the walls of the be- as active participants in the defense of the city, leaguered city, inspired by the heroic examples and with every century that has passed since then of Constantine XI and Giustiniani, whose tasks the pious labor of historians has dutifully

were made the more difficult by the endless recalled their names to the readers of later quarrels among the defenders, the results of times. Worthy as that task may be, however, it fatigue, strained nerves, and generations of is not the one which we have set ourselves in this volume, and some interesting episodes in ‘8 Barbaro. Giornale. ed. 34-38 46-47: ed the siege must be:omitted from these pages. arbaro, Giornale, ed.CCornet, pp. 34-35, 46-47; ed.

Dethier, pp. 766-69, 794-95. Since under his entry of 3 On 1 May and ~ m de te twelfth, "7 we have May Barbaro mentions both the dispatch of the men to search noted, the Lurks made heavy assauits on the for the Venetian fleet and their return to Constantinople landward walls, but the defenders repulsed the twenty days later, it is clear that his diary was later re- attacks,4® and day after day thereafter they cast. In his entry under 12 April he knew the siege would = discovered and destroyed tunnels which the end on 29 May Cornet, 22). All through diary dicoi d the th lis. These his comments make(ed. it clear that, asp.the defense continued the UrkS were Turk Cigging under walls. from week to week, the author knew that the city was Mining Operations were concentrated, as Bargoing to fall. Barbaro undoubtedly kepta sketchy diary from baro informs us, at the northern end of the day to day, but wrote up the account we now have after westward fortifications, in the area of the Gate his return to Venice. Although the introductory paragraph of Cali garia (now Egri Kapi), near the Comneof the diary is obviously a later addition, it sets the tone . 1 Blach h h of the whole work, a sketch of the siege of Constantinople Tan palace o ace nae, where t cre was ho “dal principio fino al finimento del aspra e passionevole foss or outer wall.*” And so the grim contest

presa soa.” | dragged on to its inevitable conclusion, because, Although on 3 May the Venetians in Constantinople 4. Barbaro says more than once. “God wanted where in the Aegean (since Barbaro says so), Loredan’s ‘° protons Me taking of the city. commission as captain-general of the sea is dated 7 May, Sultan Mehmed II received reinforcements 1453, by which date he had not left Venice (Sen. Secreta, from Asia. Every day seemed to increase his Reg. 19, fols. 193%—194%): “Nos Franciscus Foscari Dei strength and redound to his advantage. The

doubtless sent out a small vessel to locate the fleet some- t | the taki f the cit os

gratia dux Venetiarum, etc. Committimus tibi nobili viro . . -—

Jacobo Lauredano dilecto civi et fideli nostro quod .. . pagat of the besieged Brew WOTSE. The dis

vadas et sis . . . capitaneus noster generalis maris cu- 4 ected and disgruntled murmured in the

ramque et gubernationem totius classis nostre, quam ob_ Streets and squares of the city, according to reverentiam Dei, honorem Christianorum, et conserva- the Pseudo-Sphranizes, even maligning the tionem civitatis Constantinopolis paravimus, prudentie et emperor, and doubtless the sultan had not fidei committimus. . .(1902), .” Note Iorga’s summary of the; |the kevalue d thofi fa colwithin thi text in tue his Notes et extraits, III 283-85; Thiriet, OVETIOOKE a thfifth column Régestes, III (1961), no. 2922, p. 185; and cf. Sanudo, the crumbling walls. On 24 May the knowledge Vite de’duchi, in RISS, XXII (1733), col. 1148, and Pastor, became general in the city that Mehmed was

ons),; co. i, pel 62, and Gesch.it“ was Paps, hat aa planning an all-out attack(on on the twenty-ninth —11. Actually almost a month later wets

3 June) before the Venetian fleet, with Loredan aboard, both by land and by sea. Giustiniani embarked

had even reached Negroponte, where the first Venetian refugees from the sack of Constantinople were already =——-——— arriving (Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, I (1976], 348 *6 Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 36~37; ed. Dethier, pp. 771[note 29]). Cf. Zorzo Dolfin, Assedio e presa di Costantinopoi, 73 (on 7 May), and Cornet, p. 39; Dethier, p. 777 (on 12 ed. G. M. Thomas, in Sitzungsber. d. k. bayer. Akad. d. Wissen. May). On 20 May the bombardment of the walls was zu Munchen, I (1868), 36: “Le gallie tre de Romania et le very heavy, and on the twenty-first the Turkish armada at

do gallie sotil . . . tirate fuora del porto circa a mezo di _Diplokionion made an ineffective attempt on the boom {i.e., about midday on 29 May] feceno vela et in 4. zorni across the harbor (op. cit., ed. Cornet, pp. 44—45). [ie., on 3 June] perveneno a Negroponte dove trovono 47 Cf. Janin, Constantinople byzantine, p. 283. The name M. Jacomo Loredan capitano zeneral cum otto gallie che Caligaria is said to have been derived from a manufacaspettavano tempo de andar a dar soccorso a Con- tory of military boots (caligae) located in the area. Accordstantinopoli, et per quella sapeno Constantinopoli esser ing to Tedaldi, Turkish miners dug fourteen tunnels under prexo dal Turco adi 28. [stc!] Mazo 1453 al levar del the walls (Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anecdotorum, I,

sole. . . .” Dolfin’s source is Jacopo de’Languschi. col. 1821 BC).

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 123 upon a last, incredible spurt of energy. He crossroads. He is also said to have been worried requested the Grand Duke Notaras to give him __ by the appearance of certain celestial phenomena the cannon which were mounted onthe northern which he superstitiously interpreted as signs of walls along the Golden Horn, where they were adverse fortune. A council of war was summoned doing little good, so that they might be employed at which the question was discussed of a great

on the palisade before the S. Romanus gate attack or the abandonment of the costly siege. where. the chief attack was expected. Notaras Khalil Pasha, the grand vizir and the most refused to give up his cannon, however, on the notable figure in the army after the young grounds that he needed them where they were, sultan, had apparently never approved of this and in the heated altercation which followed, vast undertaking against Constantinople, for Giustiniani called him a useless oaf, an accursed fear that it might bring about a coalition of fool, and the enemy of his own fatherland, to western powers which would drive the Turks

which Notaras replied in kind. Again the from Europe. He urged withdrawal from the

emperor had to calm ruffled spirits and restore Bosporus, lest something worse than the failure peace before the two leaders would go about of the siege should happen. But Zagan Pasha, their business. The Pseudo-Sphrantzes, who tells the rival and enemy of Khalil Pasha, argued this story, pays the highest tribute to the in- otherwise, saying that Alexander the Great (all domitable Giustiniani, who alone in that last this according to the Pseudo-Sphrantzes) had

week caused fear in the Turkish ranks and conquered the world with a smaller army than inflicted losses on them. The Pseudo-Sphrantzes Mehmed now had before Constantinople. He is pro-Latin, and (like Sphrantzes himself) is did not believe that any fleet was coming from the hostile to Notaras. Nevertheless, whatever hope West, where political dissension made united of ultimate safety there was in the city was action almost impossible. Even if a fleet actually

placed in Giustiniani. In these last daysa rumor should come, the sultan’s army would still spread through the Turkish camp that a fleet outnumber the westerners by more than four was on its way from Italy to Constantinople, and to one. Mehmed, who is said to have been much even that John Hunyadi was coming witha great encouraged by Zagan Pasha’s stand, directed

Hungarian army to break the siege. Now him to go among the troops and sound out their Mehmed II became the object of muttered abuse attitude, which he did, and when he returned,

among his forces on the part of those who he reported that they were eager to fight.*° believed the reports, which of course proved

ase for no Christian prince, as the good It was now the evening of 27 May, and phrantzes himself later complained with under- Sultan Mehmed II ordered that all th h th

standable bitterness, sent either a foot-soldier a meeane OFreere aa Prous © or a farthing to assist the Greeks and their night and the following day fires should be

Lat; des ininCConstantinople. nople.48 lighted, and the army should fast. On the atin comrades Mehmed II, having been informed that a

squadron of Italian ships had already reached Chios,” realized that he had reached the 50 Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 4 (Bonn, pp. 264-68; ed.

———_————. Grecu, pp. 406, 408, 410, 412), who also reports that “8 Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1063AB;ed.Grecu, p. Khalil Pasha secretly informed the Emperor Constantine 102), who notes that the Serbs sent both men and money _ what had gone on in the council of war, and encouraged him

to assist the Turks; Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 4, and IV, 2 to hold out, because the fortune of war was always (Bonn, pp. 261-64, 326; ed. Grecu, pp. 404, 406, 408, doubtful (ed. Bonn, p. 269; ed. Grecu, p. 412). Leonardo of 472); and cf. Lodrisio Crivelli (Cribellus), De expeditione Chios (in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 11, 95-96) says the same Pu papae secundi in Turcas, bk. 1, in RISS, XXXIII (1733), _ thing, and is doubtless the Pseudo-Sphrantzes’ source. The

cols. 49-50, and ed. G. C. Zimolo, in the new Muratori, charge of treason against Khalil Pasha appears to be true; RISS, XXXIII, pt. v (1948-50), pp. 49-50, on Giustiniani’s _ three days after the taking of Constantinople, Mehmed II quarrel with Notaras, which became widely known. Leo- had him imprisoned; and he was executed at Adrianople

nardo of Chios (in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, Il, 94-95) on 10 July, 1453 (Sa‘d-ad-Din, trans. E. J. W. Gibb

states that, after Giustiniani’s attack upon Notaras, the [1879], p. 35; Babinger, Maometto [1957], pp. 145, 164latter became more remiss in his efforts for the city’s 65, and cf. pp. 84-87). At the time of his execution Khalil defense, and that the Greeks resented the fact the Latins Pasha had been the grand vizir of the Ottoman empire

would get the credit if the city were saved. Paspates, (the sixth to hold the office) for some years, having Siege and Capture, p. 136, has garbled the quarrel of been appointed by Murad II before 1443. He belonged

Giustiniani and Notaras. to a family which had entertained close relations with the *8 Critobulus, I, 47 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 89b; ed. Byzantine court (Encycl. of Islam, I [1908], 834, under

Grecu, p. 121). Cendereli, and esp., ibid., II [1965], 445, under Djandarli).

124 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT evening of the twenty-eighth™ he called together forces. The admiral Hamza Beg, who had all his officers and subalterns both in the army replaced the unfortunate Balta-oghlu, was to and in the fleet to encourage them to do their harass the sea walls along the Marmara, land best in the great assault which was to come on menon the shores, and try to scale the walls with the following day. Critobulus gives us the fullest ladders. Zagan Pasha was to attack the wall

version of his supposed speech. Mehmed re- along the Golden Horn, using the seventy

minded his men of the fabulous wealth of the ships or so within the harbor. Karaja Beg was city they would conquer the next day. There to attack the northern part of the great landwere vast treasures awaiting them, he said, in ward walls where they were in ruins; Ishak the palaces, the homes of the nobility, and above Pasha and Mahmud Pasha, the long southern all in the many churches; aristocratic men and _ section where less damage had been done boys to be enslaved; beautiful women tobe taken through the weeks of bombardment. The old as wives, enjoyed as slaves, or put up for sale; Khalil Pasha, the grand vizir, and Saruja Pasha and handsome buildings, houses, and gardens_ were to attack, on either side of the sultan, the in the city which they could look forward to ruined area of the Gate of S. Romanus, where securing for themselves. “Now I give over to you Giustiniani’s palisade was not expected to withfor rapine and plunder this great and populous _ stand an assault in mass. “And now go back to city, the royal capital of the old Romans, which your tents and your divisions. Good luck! Have has advanced to the height of prosperity, good something to eat and get some sleep”!*? Although fortune, and fame, and has become the head of the points which Critobulus emphasizes in this

the civilized world. . . .” As they could see for long speech were probably those which the themselves (ws 6pare), the foss before the para- sultan made in his appeals to the army, the pet had been all filled in, and the landward walls form of the speech is as un-Moslem as possible. had been broken down in three places, through Critobulus knew his Turks; he was writing for which not only the heavy infantry but even the western readers. The brief address which the cavalry could easily pass. The besieged were few Pseudo-Sphrantzes puts in the sultan’s mouth

and badly armed. Two or three men were has a much more Moslem cast, and promises a guarding a tower. A single man had to protect three days’ sack of Constantinople. Whatever three or four crenelations (€7d@\€ets). The the nature of the sultan’s speech or speeches to Italians were unlikely to fight very long or hard, his men, the hour of decision was past, and he said, to defend a city and property that that of action had come. belonged to others. The Turks would attack in On the eve of the last assault the Emperor relays, always fresh; the defenders would be Constantine delivered his final address, an fighting continuously without food, drink, or oratio imperi funebris, to the nobility and the

rest. Mehmed urged the officers to be cou- soldiers who had participated in the last rageous and obedient. He would himself leadthe Christian procession in the city. The Turk had attack (according to Critobulus), and would see had them under siege for fifty-two days, he said, what each of them did. Then dismissing them, and had battered their walls with cannon. They

he kept their leaders longer to explain his were not to yield to fear, however, and should detailed plans for the disposition of their put their trust in God’s protection, their own strength, and their drawn swords. The Turkish a horde would attack with barbarous screams 51 Cf. Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 5 (Bonn, p. 269, lines 6-13;

ed. Grecu, p. 412, lines 10-16); Tedaldi, in Marténe and 9————— Durand, Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1822BC. Barbaro, *? Critobulus, I, 48—51 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, pp. 89b—

Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 48-49; ed. Dethier, pp. 798-99, 92a; ed. Grecu, pp. 123 ff.). The speech is imaginary, mentions the constant Turkish bonfires which almost turned modeled after Thucydides, of whom it contains at least two darkness into daylight from the first hour of the night of (he | reminiscences. The Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 5 (Bonn, pp. says) 26 May “to encourage the people in the camp.” The 269-70; ed. Grecu, pp. 412, 414), has composed a briefer weird Turkish cries could be heard as far as the Anatolian speech, with a picture of the Moslem heaven which awaited

shores, “che sun mia dodexe luntan dal campo” (according those who lost their lives, and indicates that the sultan to him). He also says that on the twenty-eighth Mehmed promised the army on oath that Constantinople would be ordered “a son de trombeta” all his commanders to their — plundered for three days, and that every soldier could keep posts for the whole day under pain of death, “e questo his own spoils. Chalcocondylas, bk. viii (Bonn, pp. 392-93; perche ... el signor Turco vuol dar doman la bataia ed. Darko, II, 157), also reports a speech to the janissaries, zeneral a questa dolente cita.” Oddly enough, Tedaldi says promising rewards for victory; cf. the poet Pusculus, bk. the Turks had no trumpets, but used “tambours,” drums _ tv, vv. 819-55, ed. Ellissen, pp. 77—78, and Leonardo of

(op. ctt., I, 1822C). Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 11, 96-97.

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 125 under a cloud of arrows. They were wild made of wood or of stone, he could not have beasts, but the defenders were men, and if they avoided grief.” About midnight of 28-29 May fought with courage, the beasts would be re- the emperor rode out from the palace to inspect

pulsed. The Turk had surrounded Galata with the landward walls. The defenders were all a pretext of peace. Now he threatened “to take at their posts that night on the walls and in the city of the great Constantine, your ancestral _ the towers. The gates were locked. It was imposhome, the refuge of Christians, the bulwark of _ sible to enter or leave the city. We are informed all Greeks, and to profane God’s sacred churches that Sphrantzes went with the emperor. When by stabling his horses in them.” With a special they returned to Caligaria, at the first cockcrow,

appeal to the Genoese and the Venetians, they dismounted and went up into a tower. They Constantine turned to the soldiers, “And you, were in the northwest corner of the city, between my fellow soldiers, obey your commanders. Blachernae and the “palace of Porphyrogenitus” Understand that this is the day of your glory. (Tekfur Saray). Below them could be heard with If you shed your blood, you will win the crown _ frightening distinctness the noise of the Turks of martyrdom and everlasting reriown!’*? But preparing for the attack. The men on the walls God seems to have been on the side of the waited in silence. Leonardo of Chios, who was heavier battalions,** unmoved by the sad cere- probably somewhere nearby, mentions the mony in Hagia Sophia on the evening before the sounds of cannon being made ready, the city’s fall.*> Only the alert angel of death heard rumbling of carts, and the racket of those

that litany of heroic sacrifice to freedom. moving the scaling ladders into prescribed

When the Greeks and Italians took their stand positions. The guards in the tower told the upon the enclosure (7epiBodos) between the emperor that the noise had been going on all (lower) outer wall and the exterior parapet, night. The shores were full of a like activity. they locked the gates leading into the city. About the sound of the second cockcrow, with

There was to be no retreat. The outer wall no sign of a signal being given, the attack and Giustiniani’s palisade would stand or began. The start of this day was like that of

they would fall with it. They could only suc- many others during the weeks now past, but the ceed or die.5® From Hagia Sophia the em-_ end was, alas, to be very different. At this point

peror had returned to the palace of Bla- Sphrantzes is said to have left his beloved

chernae, where with grave courtesy he asked master, probably never to see him again.°’ forgiveness of all who were there. Some of those

: . «6 , seudo-Sphrantzes, III, onn, pp. ~81; ed.

present are said to have been overcome with 51 Pecudo hrantzes, HL, 7 (B 979-81: ed

emouon by the scene: “Even if a man were Grecu, pp. 499. 424), whose source one would give much to

TT know; cf. Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 53 Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, HW,97-98; II, 98. Both Pseudo-Sphranizes, loc. cit., and Barbaro, GiorPseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 6 (Bonn, pp. 271~79; ed. Grecu, _nale, ed. Cornet, pp. 49 ff.; ed. Dethier, pp. 799 ff., pp. 414, 416, 418, 420, 422), reports a longer and yet very indicate that, after the preparations of 27-28 May, Mehmed similar speech, but refers to the fact that the “sultan has _ II launched the final attack upon the city in the early mornhad us under siege for fifty-seven days.” (Although Grecu ing hours of the twenty-ninth. According to Critobulus, I, has numbered the books in his edition of the Pseudo- 54 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 92b; ed. Grecu, p. 133), a signal

Sphrantzes as in the Bonn edition, he has numbered the for this attack was given by trumpet blasts on (Monday) chapters differently, on which see above, note 14.) afternoon, 28 May, when the Turks had the western sun 4 Cf. Critobulus, I, 46 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 89; ed. at their backs and the besieged had it shining in their Grecu, p. 121); Pusculus, bk. Iv, v. 1024, ed. Ellissen, eyes. Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, pp. 282-83), says that Mehmed p. 81: “. . . Auxilium deus ipse negavit.” At the conclusion began the attack on Sunday evening, 27 May, giving the of his epic Pusculus added these verses concerning him- besieged no rest that night, and continued his harassment, self (the scansion needed a little more attention): but rather less severely, until the following afternoon (the Brixia me genuit civem: Ubertinum Puscula honesta twenty-eighth) when he deployed his troops for the kill,

Gens tulit—haec ausus talia qui cecini. giving the signal in the evening at the second hour, which Me Constantini studiis urbs dulcis habebat, would appear more or less in accord with Critobulus. Cum cecidit bello: barbara praeda fui. Here, however, it seems better to follow Barbaro, who was

55 Cf. Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 7 (Bonn, p. 279; ed. Grecu, _ in the city throughout the siege, in placing the last assault p. 422); Anonymus Moscovita, in Dethier, MHH, XXII-1, | inthe early morning hours of the twenty-ninth. The Pseudo-

p. 1113. Sphrantzes says much the same thing (III, 8, ed. Bonn, p. *> Andrea Cambini, Commentario . .. della origine 288, lines 17-19; ed. Grecu, p. 430, lines 22—24), although

de’Turchi, et imperio della casa ottomanna, ed. 1538, bk. u, _ he also regards the attack as beginning in a general way on fol. 20°, lines 16-20; cf. Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Sunday, the twenty-seventh, observing that the enemy finally

Chron. turcica, 11, 98: “. . . valvis urbis, ne quisquam retro- took Constantinople “on the third day.” On the events

cederet, clausis. . . .” which led up to and included the fall of the city, from

126 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Sultan Mehmed began by sending against the arrows, stones, crossbow bolts, and cannon balls.

landward walls his poorest troops, the expend- Over the foss they charged, many of them able masses of bashi-bazuks, among whom were carrying ladders which they placed against the large numbers of Christian irregulars who _ parapet. They attacked on a broad front from the hoped to share in the rich pillage which victory palace of Porphyrogenitus to the region south would bring.*® Both Barbaro and the Pseudo- of the S. Romanus gate, where Giustiniani and Sphrantzes note that the purpose of this motley the Genoese fought valiantly to hold the palisade horde was to tire the defenders (and diminish against the undisciplined but strong attacks.

their supplies of ammunition), and yet there The bashi-bazuks were driven on by Turkish was nothing for them to do but expend the troops drawn up behind them. Maiming or strength and ammunition necessary to stop the death awaited them whether they ventured too

wild onset. The bashi-bazuks came on by the far east or west of the foss. They tried to thousands, their approach covered by volleys of climb the parapet on ladders and on one another’s shoulders. The ladders were pushed backwards from the parapet, and crashed to the 27 May to about noon and somewhat later on the twenty- ground amid the screams of the attackers and ninth, see Barbaro, ed. Cornet, pp. 49-57; ed. Dethier, pp. the triumphant shouts of the defenders, who 799-821; and cf. Critobulus, I, 54-68 (ed. Miller, FHG, threw stones down upon therr assailants, so that

y i" pp. 935 8b ed. Grecu, pp. on ffs Pseudo- few of those who reached the walls escaped with 492-32): Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, pp. 282-96); and Chal- men lives. ¢ was still he car oe horn ca ¥ cocondylas, bk. vur (Bonn, pp. 393-99; ed. Darké, II, € roar oO cannon, t € Drare Of horns an

phrantzes, III, 7-8 (Bonn, pp. -~90; ed. Grecu, pp. “7 I learlv.

158-63). Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1061AB; ed. trumpets, the screeching and cursing of men, Grecu, pp. 96, 98), says suspiciously little about the siege of the bells ringing the alarm on the walls and which he was an eyewitness; one would like to believe at jn the nearby churches, all caused a fearful din. or redactor of Pseudo-Sphrantzes’ text, had access to an After some two hours of vigorous, ever cou expanded memoir of Sphrantzes, the emperor’s friend and Tageous assault, more than once involving hand-

this point that Macarius Melissenus-Melissurgus, the author , . 7

last companion. to-hand fighting, the bashi-bazuks were allowed In this last connection, see Margaret Carroll, “Notes on to withdraw, their numbers decimated and their the Authorship of the ‘Siege’ Section of the Chronicon .

Maius of the Pseudo-Phrantzes, Book III,” Byzantion, XLI ardor jupdued. h here nae pen Tigatenes (1971), 28-44, and XLII (1972), 5-22, who believes that aggar Ss among t em, ut they a serve we

Macarius Melissenus (or rather Melissurgus) did in fact have their purpose of tiring the bodies, daunting

a more detailed version of Sphrantzes’ memoir in hand the spirits, and disordering the ranks of the when he produced the Chronicon matus. She makes capital of intrepid Greeks and Italians on the broken walls.

the strange omission from both the Chronica minus and Bef the defend Id der; h

maius of any mention-of the several embassies exchanged 2etore € cetenders cou erive = muc

between Constantine XI and Mehmed from the latter’s Satisfaction from their successful repulse of the accession in 1451 to March, 1453, although we find one bashi-bazuks, Mehmed ordered out the more

or more of these embassies referred to by Leonardo of determined and disciplined troops of his

Chios,an Critobulus, Ducas, and Chalcocondylas, . ses . : ee ; Anatolian division, whichwhom had Macarbeen stationed

ius used in his description of the siege. Mrs. Carroll also . h h

dwells on the hostility shown by Sphrantzes in the Chronicon through most of the siege on the sout ern minus for Lucas Notaras, which animus receives even more (right) end of the Turkish lines, opposite the extensive expression in the Chronicon maius, although Ma- Gate of Regium (or of “Polyandros,” the carius could hardly have entertained any personalenmity for modern Yenimevlevihane Kapi). The Anatolians

Notaras a century and a quarter after the events he moved northward over the hills into the Lycus describes. Macarius’s account contains many convincing, ove ortnward ove em y

note 206. I :

circumstantial details which it is hard to believe he could Valley, poised for attack against the northern have invented unless he were a novelist of immense talent. Mesoteichion. The great cannon was directed On Macarius, see the first volume of this work, Chapter 13, against the palisade, causing it severe damage.

58 According to Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 51-52; c was f, ot el light. The aan bells a fece far tre schiere de le sue zente, a cinquanta millia posts. Women, children, and the aged carried persone per schiera; una schiera si iera de Cristiani stones to the defenders. The Anatolians made ed. Dethier, p. 805: “Questo Signor Turco [Mehmed II] si ringing trantica Yo summoning ali men tot err

[the bashi-bazuks!], i qual steva per forza in nel campo; la _ their way in large numbers to the parapet,

seconda schiera si iera delazente menuda . . .si [the jacing ladders Anatolian division]; terza schiera iera tutitheir ianizari . . against . . . . it, and trying to

homeni zernidi e valenti a la bataia, e driedo questi ianisari climb up and over it. Their best efforts were si iera tuti i subasi, e driedo questi si iera el Signor Turco.” not enough; the Greeks and Italians drove them

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 127 back to the foss.®® The besieged had exerted an Ottoman attacks. Now it was time for the élite almost superhuman effort, and now the force of corps of heavy infantry and especially for the the Anatolians’ attack was spent. The hours had _ redoubtable janissaries.™

been full of terror and passed slowly for those Mehmed sent the janissaries into the attack

in the city. with chosen infantrymen, bowmen, lancers, and

More than once Barbaro observes that the members of his own bodyguard without allowing continuous bombardment of the landward walls the besieged a moment’s respite. They came, was like “something from the other world,’ says Barbaro, “not as Turks but as lions,” with una cossa de laltro mondo.® The city had also terrible cries and trumpet blasts. This also was been under constant attack elsewhere, however, like “something from the other world,” the as Critobulus emphasizes in his biography of noise being heard as far as the shores of Anatolia, Sultan Mehmed. The Turkish admiral, Hamza _ which Barbaro says were a dozen miles from

Beg, was ranging the Marmara walls, shooting the Turkish camp. Terror gripped all the at them from the decks of his ships, looking inhabitants of the city. The bells were ringing, for a weak spot to exploit. Zagan Pasha had __ both those in the churches and the special alarms

crossed the bridge over the Golden Horn to on the walls. Prayers were addressed to God to attack the city’s northern walls from the harbor. spare Constantinople the rule of pagans. The While his infantry climbed up toward the walls great Turkish cannon which shot stones weighalong the Horn, archers and fusiliers covered ing 1,200 pounds was still directed at the palisade them with a barrage from his ships which sailed before the S. Romanus gate. The janissaries

back and forth in the Horn, doubtless well attacked in a fury, especially in this area, and protected from the Christian vessels in the “the fierce battle lasted until daybreak.” Barbaro harbor by the Turkish cannon mounted on the improperly assigns the spirited defense of

Galata shore. Zagan Pasha’s men, however, were the S. Romanus gate and the palisade to the quite unable to scale the city walls. Inthe mean- Venetians, but every eyewitness saw Giustiniani time Karaja Beg’s division had struck across the and the Genoese repelling the Turks at this focal

foss at the northern stretch of the landward point of attack. “It was of no avail, however,” walls between Tekfur Saray and the Gate of says Barbaro, “because the eternal God had Charisius or Adrianople, where previous can- already rendered his judgment that this city nonading had made a serious breach, but they — should pass into the hands of the Turks.” were vigorously opposed by a Genoese contingent At an hour before dawn, which would be about under the three brothers Bocchiardi. Ducas says 4:00 A.M., the great cannon was fired again, with that fifty Turks got into the city at this point, but’ a foul abundance of powder, which sent black his account is not without some measure of con- smoke billowing around the battered palisade, fusion.*' The defenders had done incredibly — part of which now came down. Dust rising from

well, and Critobulus reports that Mehmed was the débris mingled with the smoke, and “one indignant at the failure of the successive could hardly see a thing,” qguaxi non se vedeva nula. The heavy infantrymen and janissaries 59 Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire (1903), p. 338, says plunged through the smoke, and about three that in the attack of the Anatolian division 300 Turks climbed hundred of them cut and thrust their way into

over the parapet into the peribolos (near the S. Romanus the enclosure behind the parapet, deniro dai gate). He is confusing this attack with that of the janissaries and heavy reserves, which came later: Barbaro, —————— Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 52; ed. Dethier, p. 807, specifically ® Critobulus, I, 56-57 (ed. Muller, FHG, V-1, p. 93; ed. says that the Anatolian troops, whom he identifies only as__Grecu, pp. 135, 137); on Zagan Pasha, cf. Barbaro, Giornale,

“la segonda schiera,” did not succeed in penetrating the ed. Cornet, p. 56; ed. Dethier, pp. 817—18; on the Genoese

walls, e non poder [intra]. brothers Paolo, Troilo, and Antonio Bocchiardi,¢f. Leonardo

6° Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 50; ed. Dethier, p. 801. of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, H, 93. According to ? According to Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, pp. 282, 285-86), Barbaro, loc. cit., the Turkish armada under Hamza Beg

just before the Turks finally broke through into the city in raised anchor at Diplokionion and sailed at “one hour before mass, they effected an entry by an unguarded postern . daybreak” (daybreak would come about 5:00 a.m. in May) gate, known as the Circus Gate (Kerkoporta), which was toward the boom or “chain” across the entrance to the harbor, below one end of the palace of Porphyrogenitus (Tekfur — which they found well guarded by the ten Christian ships sta-

Saray), on which cf. Miller’s note to Critobulus, I, 60 tioned there. Troilo and Antonio Bocchiardi [Buciardi,

(FHG, V-1, pp. 94-95); Pears, Destruction of the Greek Buzzardi] were still active in February, 1461 (R. Predelli,

pp. 282-83. no. 73, pp. 142-43).

Empire, pp. 341—44; and esp. Janin, Constantinople byzantine, ed., Regesti det Commemoriali, V [Venice, 1901], bk. xv,

128 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT barbacani, but in a fierce struggle the Greeks and As usual in most matters relating to the siege, Italians on the peribolos closed in on them and __ our authorities differ concerning the details of

killed most of them. While the exhausted Giustiniani’s fateful withdrawal from the pal-

defenders were congratulating themselves on isade. According to Leonardo of Chios (and the this success, the monstrous cannon spoke again, Pseudo-Sphrantzes), Giustiniani quietly aban-

belching forth black smoke, under the conceal- doned his post when he was injured, in a ment of which the Turks charged again, “like strange reversal of his previous steadfastness. dogs . . . all of them mad.”® They pressed so He wanted a physician, and left the scene of hard upon one another that within a quarter of combat without a word of reassurance to those an hour, we are told, more than 30,000 Turks with him and without turning over his command had climbed the parapet (dentro dai barbacant), toa lieutenant, who might have tried to prevent

and soon there were 70,000 of them in the the panic which ensued as a result of his enclosure, presumably in the long section of the departure. The Emperor Constantine is said to

peribolos before the S. Romanus gate. (Both have been in the peribolos at this time and, figures are absurd.) Although many Turks had learning the cause of the too obvious consternabeen killed by the stonesthrown uponthem from tion, apparently hurried after Giustiniani: “My above, there was no halting the onslaught once _ brother, why have you done this? Return to your

they had reached the upper level of the station. This wound is but a trifle. Go back, for

enclosure. now there is the more need of you. The city is The stars were fading in the heavens, says depending upon you for salvation!” The Pseudothe Pseudo-Sphrantzes, and it was becoming Sphrantzes says that Giustiniani made no reply lighter. In the east was seen the reddish glow to the emperor’s remonstrance, but left the of morning. As night gave way to day, the walls, and made his way to Pera (Galata), where Christians had so far managed to drive back the he died in the bitterness of self-reproach and

first attacks. As Leonardo of Chios puts it, the scorn of others. The fame which he had

“Tenebrosa nox in lucem trahitur, nostris vincentibus,”™ but now “our men” were no longer

winning. The attacks of the janissaries, ready back of the hand. Chalcocondylas, bk. vu (Bonn, p. 395, «cs ” lines 2—3; ed. Darko, II, 159, lines 11—12), also says he was and rested, were too heavy, and our m en. were wounded in the hand, and Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, weary beyond endurance. At this critical point Chron. turcica, I, 98, places the wound sub asella, “below in the battle Giustiniani was wounded, apparently the armpit.” In any event it seems unlikely that all the three

by an iron or lead bolt from a _ crossbow. hundred Genoese stationed at the palisade with Giustiniani

Critobulus says the bolt throughofhisChios, could have withdrawn him “armor all.” Cf., . .went eonardo ibid., II, 93:with “Iuxta ergo and se eodem breastplate; he fell in his tracks, and Was capitaneo [lustiniano] cum tercentis commilitonibus Ge-

promptly removed to his tent in serious condi- nuensibus posito, splendidis refulgentibus armis . . . circa tion (KAKWS EXD). His men were. stunned the illam parter murorum Sancti Romani ' magisbyurgebat pugna, Imperator stetit.”reparatorum, ubi

blow, and thought only of getting him aboard oF Pcoutto. Sphrantees, int 7 (Bonn, pp. 283-84; ed. one of his galleys and clearing out themselves. Grecu, p. 426). For material relating to the Latins, the The Emperor Constantine tried to dissuade Pseudo-Sphrantzes (or rather Macarius Melissenus-Melisthem from leaving the walls, but they went — surgus) drew heavily upon Leonardo of Chios’s letter to anyway, armor and all, hurrying to put Giustini- Pope Nicholas V. Leonardo was a Genoese of Chios, like

ani on one.of65 theatter’s galleys and seeking safetyfrom piustimant, but speaks in “Inter obvious disapprobation the withdrawal the palisade: haec malo of urbis

aboard ship themselves. fato, heu Iohannes Iustinianus sagitta sub asella configitur:

qui mox inexpertus iuvenis sui sanguinis effusione pavidus

OOO perdendae vitae concutitur. Et ne pugnatores qui vulneratum °’ Barbaro, Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 54, ed. Dethier, p. ignorabant virtute frangantur, clam medicum quaesiturus ab 810: “. . . come ccani . . . tutiin furia. .. .” acie discessit. Qui si alium suo loco surrogasset, salus

** Pseudo-Sphranizes, III, 7 (Bonn, p. 281, lines 4-7; ed. _ patriae non periisset. Pugnam inter haec arduam comGrecu, p. 424, lines 4—5); Leonardo, in Lonicer, Chron. mittunt. Imperator ut vidit deesse capitaneum ingemiscens turcica, II, 98. (In Constantinople on 29 May the sun rose quo scilicet ierit percunctatur. Nostri ut se vident sine duce at 6:23 a.m.) Cf. Pusculus, bk. rv, v. 889, ed. Ellissen, p. 78. __resilire e locis incipiunt. Teucri convalescunt, horror nostris

® Critobulus, I, 58 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 94b; ed. incutitur,” etc. (in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 11, 98-99, with a Grecu, pp. 137, 139). The sources contain their usual slightly different text in Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, variations. Pusculus, bk. 1v, v. 975, ed. Ellissen, p. 80, says I [1976], 160, and on the whole episode see, ibid., pp. that Giustiniani was wounded in the upper arm (percussus 362-63). In a well-known address delivered before Alfonso glande lacertum); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 7 (Bonn, p. 283, V of Aragon in Naples in late January, 1454, Niccold lines 17-19; ed. Grecu, p. 426, lines 9-10), in the right Sagundino says that Giustiniani was wounded twice, foot; Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, p. 284, lines 14-15), in the duobusque acceptis vulneribus (Pertusi, II, 134).

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 129 gained by fortitude, observes the Pseudo- the defense. Exhausted men left their posts on Sphrantzes, he thus lost by cowardice.” the walls and fled. Almost everyone thought of According to Ducas, however, Giustiniani the ships in the harbor as the only remaining

could not bear the pain and told the emperor means of escape. The Emperor Constantine was that he was going to one of his ships for killed, as were most of those who stood by him treatment, and would return with all speed.® to the end.” Leonardo of Chios, who gives us a full account

of Giustiniani’s leaving the palisade, informs us Now the Turks got into the city, especially

that he answered the emperor’s appeal to through the little gate which had been opened

remain with the request, “Give my man the key to permit Giustiniani’s withdrawal.” Soon they to the gate.” It was opened, and Giustinianiand were streaming in by the thousands, intent upon a number of his followers crowded through it: pillage, through the Gate of Charisius as well

“The captain fled to Pera, and afterwards as that of S. Romanus, killing all whom they sailed to Chios, but departed this life in- encountered. According to Ducas, the Turks

gloriously as a result either of his wound or of slew about 2,000 men. They had believed that grief.” Giustiniani’s departure was the end of the defenders of the city numbered at least

eS 50,000, but if they had realized that this number The Pseudo-Sphrantzes reports the emperor’s speech to Was in fact only about 8,000, they would not have

Giustiniani from Leonardo, loc. cit., “At ille salutis, gloriae, killed any one.

suique oblitus, uti altam quidem primo magnanimitatem, ita ; . posthac pusillanimitatem ostendit. Debuit enim, si poterat, For this people is so avaricious that if a father’s

vulneris dolorem sufferre, non recedere: si vir erat a seipso, murderer fall into their hands, they release him vel saltem alium qui stetisset, loco sui surrogare,” etc. Cf.

Adam de Montaldo, ed. Hopf, in Dethier, MHH, XXII-1,.. ——_

pp. 49-50, 55. Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. della nave del tempio in una sua capella nella quale avanti

novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1822F, notes that at the time of the — la presa dell’Isola si vedea la sua sepultura, in marmore

final Turkish attacks the city had placed its hope in elevata, con questo epigramma: ‘Hic iacet Joannes JustiGiustiniani’s valiance. Pusculus, bk. 1v, vv. 976-78, ed. nianus, inclitus vir ac Genuensis patricius Chiique maunensis,

Ellissen, p. 80, says that Giustiniani left his post after being qui in Constantinopolis expugnatione a principe Tur-

wounded, either from fear of the Turks or because of the chorum Mehemet, serenissimi Constantini Orientalium ultimi

acuteness of his pain: Christianorum imperatoris magnanimus dux, lethali vulnere

Ac se subripuit pugnae, navesque petivit, icto interiit, anno a partu Virginis M.IIII V [sic], VIII Sive metu Teucrum seu vulnere abactus acerbo, Kal. Augusti.’” S. Domenico, later called S. Maria del

Deseruitque locum. .. . Castello, was within the precincts of the castle of Chios; after

87 Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 4 (Bonn, p. 263, lines 17-18; the Turkish occupation, in 1566, it was converted into a

ed. Grecu, p. 406, line 32). mosque. On the Latin churches and monasteries in the *8 Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, p. 284, lines 17-20), who also —_ Castro, cf. Aimilia K. Sarou, To Kaortpov ths Xtov, Athens,

declares that Giustiniani was on shipboard when he learned 1916, pp. 46, 93 ff., 100, 104-5. Giustiniani’s inscription is

of the Turkish entry into Constantinople and of the — no longer extant (cf. F. W. Hasluck, “Latin Monuments of emperor's death (zbid., pp. 295-96). The dishonest Barbaro, Chios,” Annual of the British School at Athens, XVI [1909Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 55; ed. Dethier, p. 813, says that 1910), 155; Argenti, Occupation of Chios, I [1958], 203, note;

Giustiniani fled to his ship, broadcasting the fact that the 368; 559). Turks had entered the city: “Vedando questo [the Turkish © Critobulus, I, 60 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 95b; ed. penetration of the parapet in force], Zuan Zustignan, Grecu, pp. 139, 141); Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, zenovexe da Zenova [actually he was from Chios], se 1061B; ed. Grecu, pp. 96, 98); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 9 delibera de abandonar fa sua posta [per esser ferito de (Bonn, pp. 290-91; ed. Grecu, p. 432); Ducas, chaps. 39 freza is written by a later hand in the margin of the MS.], (Bonn, pp. 286-87, 296), 40 (p. 300); Chalcocondylas, bk. e corse a la sua nave, che iera sta messa a la cadena... .”. vir (Bonn, p. 395; ed. Dark6, II [1927], 159-60); Barbaro, Cf. Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anec- Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 57; ed. Dethier, p. 820; Leonardo of dotorum, 1 (1717, repr. 1968), col. 1823A, who says that Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, H, 99; Pusculus, bk. rv, wv. Giustiniani was “blechié d’une couleuvrine, s’en partipourse 1007-16, ed. Ellissen, Analekten, III, Anhang, p. 81; Tedaldi,

faire mediciner, et bailla sa garde a.deux gentils hommes in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col. Jennevois,” but that the men on the walls fled before the 1823C. Sa‘d-ad-Din, trans. E. J. W. Gibb (1879), pp. 30-31,

Turkish attack, “et ainsi les Turcs entrerent en Con- has no difficulty imaging an unworthy end for the last stantinople a l’aube du jour, le XXIX jour de May.” Byzantine emperor, “that monarch of evil custom;” his

69 Leonardo, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, I1, 99. Giustiniani account of the decapitation of the emperor, however, is was buried on the island of Chios in the church of S. _ rather like that of Pusculus. Domenico (in the Castro). His funerary inscription is ap- 7! Critobulus, I, 60-61 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 95b; ed. parently known only from Hieronimo Giustiniani’s History Grecu, pp. 139, 141, 143), and cf., below, the letter of of Chios [Istoria di Scio, scritta nell’anno 1586 |, edited from Angelo Giovanni Lomellino, podesta of Pera, to his brother; the MS. in the Archivio di Stato di Roma, Fondo Giustiniani, G. M. Angiolello, Hist. turchesca, ed. Ion Ursu, Bucharest, Busta 130, fasc. 3, by Philip P. Argenti, Cambridge, 1943, 1909, pp. 19-20; and Sp. P. Lambros [Lampros], Ecthesis

p. 418: “Fu sepolto [il Giustiniano] in la chiesa di Santo chronica, London, 1902, pp. 12-16, a sixteenth-century Dominico a man sinistra intrando appresso nella gran porta _— source.

130 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT for gold—how much the more, then, one who has_ well as Christians were slain, and the bodies were

done no injury, but has himself been injured by the thrown into the Marmara where they floated, Park After the war I talked with many Turks who says the Venetian diarist, “as melons float 0 d me how in fear of Mose an me non ranks we through the canals.” stew Hose whom we met, but it we had known there The Byzantine historians found in the fall of

was such a dearth of men inand thethe city, we end would have ;.; : 172 Constantinople tragic of the empire

sold them all like cattle! .; :; ;

a subject worthy of their pens, and in the fulsome

The Turks immediately began their frantic tradition of Byzantine rhetoric they dilate upon search for gold, jewels, and other valuables. the atrocities of that ghastly morning of 29 May. Ducas indicates that among the first monasteries Critobulus declares that the Turks killed the to be looted were those of S. John the Baptist inhabitants of the city in a senseless slaughter,

called the “Petra” and of S. Salvator in Chora venting their rage upon defenseless men, (Kariye Jami), which lay just within the Gate of women, and children for the hardships of the Charisius.”* It was now about 6:00 a.m. or shortly siege and the insults which had been hurled at

thereafter, and some two hours later the Turks them from the walls. The treatment of the reached the fora of Taurus and Constantine.’ women was appalling, and the old men, boys, The imperial and Latin standards had been priests, and nuns were savagely manhandled and lowered, and the banner of the crescent raised dragged off into slavery, while “ten thousand over the captured towers and over at least other crimes were committed” (G@AAa popia one of the historic columns in the city. As the eipyaopéva dSeuvé&:).”© The churches were robbed terrified inhabitants fled before them, the victors of gold and silver chalices, precious reliquaries, broke into all the monasteries and the shops, look- and robes embroidered with gold, jewels, and

ing for loot. ‘The women, including nuns, were _ pearls. The holy tables were wrenched from rounded up, and loaded on the Turkish ships or their foundations and overturned. Relics were dragged off to the camp outside the walls for desecrated. Even the graves of those long dead

safer keeping. To stake out a house and its were opened in the expectation of gain or contents as his possession, a Turk would raise his _ the desire for ghoulish sport. Critobulus informs banner (bandera) over it, and “as other Turks saw — us that sacred and divine books, as well as those that banner raised over it,” says Barbaro, “noone on profane learning and philosophy, were con-

of them would think of entering the house, but signed to the fire, trampled under foot, or sold

went on looking for a house which had no_ for a song as a gesture of contempt for their banner. . . .” Banners were also raised over the contents.”" According to Ducas, books without monasteries and churches, according to Barbaro,

and “I think that throughout Constantinople =——-W¥ there would have been found 200,000 [!] such daily access to good sources of information. On the whole banners over all the houses. . . .’” Turks as his figures are rather less fantastic than those of most of our other authorities, but in the present passage of course he has

40,000 more banners flying than his previous estimate of

TT the size of the Turkish army (160,000 men). On the Con” Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, pp. 287-88; ed. Grecu [1958], | queror’s grants of houses to Turks, Greeks, and others, and

p. 361). his imposition of rents on “state-owned” land and proper3 Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, p. 288, lines 3-6). ties, see Halil Inalcik, “The Policy of Mehmed II toward Cf. Chalcocondylas, bk. vu (Bonn, p. 397; ed. Dark6, the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine

II, 161), who says there was a Greek legend that, when Buildings of the City,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XXUIinvaders reached the Forum Tauri, they would be driven XXIV (1969-70), 231-49. back, and Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, pp. 289-90), who tells a 6 Critobulus, I, 61 (ed. Miiller, FHG, V-1, p. 96a; ed.

similar story. Grecu, pp. 141, 143). Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. 75 Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 57; ed. Dethier, pp. 819-20. novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1823B, says that the Turks “mistrent

Dethier is unduly harsh in his judgments on Barbaro, for a mort tout ce qu’ils faisoient a eulx resistance.” On the whom he entertained an almost personal antipathy. Un- ‘Turkish desecration of crosses torn from the walls of doubtedly Barbaro makes a number of ridiculous state- churches, violation of women, mocking of the Christian faith, ments, and his misrepresentation of the facts is sometimes _ etc., see Leonardo of Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, II, 100.

scandalous, especially in his denigration of the Genoese 7 Critobulus, I, 62 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 96b; ed. and in his mendacious accounts of Venetian exploits. Asa = Grecu, pp. 143, 145). The Franciscans lost their library in

physician on a Venetian galley in the harbor, Barbaro was Constantinople, and Leonardo of Chios, archbishop of probably not in the city very much. Nevertheless, he re- Mytilene, bought two of their missals, a breviary, and some mains our best source for the siege of Constantinople, other books from the Turks! (Pastor, Hust. Popes, II, especially for the chronology of events. He must have append., no. 22, pp. 524-25, and Gesch. d. Papste, 1 [repr. treated many a man injured in action, but oddly enough he 1955], append., no. 55, pp. 843-44), a fact which Leonardo never once refers in his entire diary to his activities as a does not mention in his letter to Nicholas V on the fall of physician. He was a person of some consequence, and had Constantinople.

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 131 number were loaded on carts and scattered to them. Words fail the eloquent Ducas as he recalls the east and west. Ten books were sold for a_ the dreadful scene. The gold and silver vessels single nomisma—Aristotles, Platos, the theo- were stolen, the icons and holy table desecrated,

logians, and every kind of book. Gold and and the famous church stripped bare. Here was silver bindings were torn from the most the fulfillment of the prophecy of Amos (3:15), beautiful gospels, which were then sold or “And I will smite the winter-house with the thrown away.”® The Turks searched in the summer-house; and the houses of ivory shall churches and shrines, old vaults and tombs, _ perish, and the great houses shall have an end, underground porticos, cellars, and cisterns, saith the lord.’’®° hidden retreats and caves, and in every place When it was clear that the Turks had captured where valuables might be concealed or people the city, Angelo Giovanni Lomellino, the

hiding.” There was no escaping. Genoese podesta of Pera, closed the gates of

In those first hours of peril and horror the Galata on the harbor side. In doing so, he shut poor inhabitants of the city thought only of in Alvise Diedo, Venetian captain of the galleys celestial aid. Men and women, monks and nuns, from Tana; Bartolo Furian, armorer of the

fathers and mothers carrying infants flockedinto same galleys; and the diarist Barbaro, el miedego the great church of Hagia Sophia. The portals de le galie, to whose partisan account we owe a were locked against the invading infidel. Now good deal of our knowledge of the last days and only a miracle could save those who sought hours of Byzantium. The Venetians had gone refuge in the church which they had called over to Galata to consult with the podesta when

“but yesterday and the day before a pit and there was no longer any hope of the city’s

altar of heretics,” the resort of unionists and withstanding the attacks of the early morning Catholics. For the pro-Latin historian Ducas the hours of the twenty-ninth. Barbaro as usual plight of the populace was the judgment of accuses the Genoese of treachery, saying that God being rendered on those who had been say-__ they intended to turn over the Venetian galleys

ing only a few days before that it would be and their cargoes to the Turks. Diedo talked “better to fall into the hands of the Turks than _ his way out, however, and he and his companions those of the Franks.” Shortly after 7:00 a.M., the rejoined their ships, which were already under

Turks reached Hagia Sophia in their wild sail, preparing to leave without the captain.

career of carnage. They:broke open the locked Breaking the iron-and-wooden chain with axes, doors with axes, entered with drawn swords, and _ they sailed into the Marmara and anchored near

enslaved the multitude like so many sheep. Diplokionion, where the Turkish fleet had itself Beautiful nuns, the mistress with her maid- been stationed only hours before. They waited servant, the master with his slave, the archi- a little while for any Venetian merchant who mandrite with his doorkeeper, young men and _ might reach them, but Barbaro says that none nobly born girls—all were dragged off to places managed to do so. The Florentine merchant of safekeeping by the plundering Turks, who Jacopo Tedaldi, however, who has also left us returned a second and even a third time to get a brief account of the siege, reached the Venemore of this human booty, with none to gainsay tian ships, presumably before they had passed beyond the chain. Having been fighting on the a78wall near where the Turks entered the city, Ducas, chap. 42 (Bonn, p. 312). After his escape to Tedaldi succeeded in escaping to the shore, Candia on the island of Crete, Isidore of Kiev discussed the removed his clothes, and swam out to the galleys, literary losses with the Venetian humanist Lauro Querini which took him aboard.®! (Quirini), who wrote Nicholas V from Candia on 15 July

(1453) that 120,000 Greek manuscripts (librorum volumina) = ~~ of works both sacred and profane were destroyed in the 8 Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, pp. 289-93); cf. Leonardo of sack of Constantinople (Agostino Pertusi, “Le Epistole Chios, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, I1, 100, who is briefer but storiche di Lauro Quirini sulla caduta di Costantinopoli e no less rhetorical than Ducas; Critobulus, I, 66, 2 (ed. Miller,

la potenza dei Turchi,” in P. O. Kristeller, K. Krautter, FHG, V-1, p. 98a; ed. Grecu, p. 147); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, A. Pertusi, G. Ravegnani, H. Roob, and C. Seno, Lauro’ III, 8 (Bonn, pp. 289-90; ed. Grecu, pp. 430, 432); Quirint umanista: Studi e testi, Florence, 1976, p. 227, cited Chalcocondylas, bk. vin (Bonn, p. 397; ed. Dark6, II, 161). by Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 381 [note 25]). Cardinal Isidore of Kiev also wrote a Lamentatio on the fall

* Critobulus, I, 66 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 98a; ed. of Constantinople, which has been published by P. A. Grecu, p. 147). On the Turks’ desecration of the tombs in Dethier, in the Monumenta Hungariae historica, XXI, pt. 1

their search for plunder, note the address (in 1455?) of (1872), pp. 687-95 (cf., below, note 95). Giacomo Campora, bishop of Caffa, to Ladislas Postumus of 1 Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus anecBohemia and Hungary, in Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopol, dotorum, I, col. 1823CD: “Les gallées Venitiennes de voyage

I (1976), 192, 194. de Romanie et de Trapesonde demourerent la jusques a

132 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT At midday Diedo set sail with the Tana Genoese galleys that Giustiniani lay, wounded galleys. Girolamo Morosini followed in his galley. and heart-broken, dying upon arrival at Chios.

Then the Trebizond galley got under way, but The battle for Constantinople had lasted from she had trouble because she was short 164 men, _ well before dawn until about noontime, after who had been drowned, killed by cannon-fire, which the Christians were generally imprisoned

and otherwise lost in the fighting. Gabriele rather than killed. According to a note added

Trevisan’s light galley sailed; he was left behind _ to the text of Barbaro, “sixty thousand prisoners

as a Turkish prisoner. A galley from Candia were taken, and the Turks found infinite

under Zaccaria Grioni also set out, but was _riches.”®? Leonardo of Chios states that, after the

quickly captured by the Turks. Three other

vessels from Candia, armed merchantmen, a sailed off with the Venetians, and with a favor- of Crete to assist him to pay his debts to certain Jews,

. who must not be allowed more than ten per cent interest

able (north) wind passed through the Dardanelles (Thiriet, Régestes, HI [1961], no. 2950, p. 193). Three years to safety, arriving 1n Crete a month later. The _ later (on 16 November, 1456) Antonios Philomatis (Filomati)

crews of the Turkish ships were sharing in the and his brother Markos were authorized by the Senate to pilla ge of the fallen city. “Within the harbor purchase 40,000 measures of wheat in Apulia for shipment there remained fifteen ships of the Genoese, the yyy no. 3096 p. 214) emperor, and the Anconitans, including all five Giornale, ed. Cornet, p. 59; ed. Dethier, p. 825. The galleys of the emperor, which had been dis- Venetians’ losses alone were 200,000 ducats, to which must armed, all Candia the other vessels in theDolfin, harbor pe Assedio added another 100,000 di ducats lost by their compatriots . .and . of (Zorzo e presa Costantinopoli, ed. remained there, both ships and galleys, which G. M. Thomas, in Sitzungsber, d. A bayer. Akad. a. Wissen could not get away, all being captured by the 5, Miinchen, I [1868], 37; Sanudo, Vite de'duchi, in RISS,

. . to Crete, where there was a very serious shortage (zid.,

Turks.” Besides these fifteen, however, seven XXII, col. 1151A; W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant

Genoese ships, which had been near the chain, 4 moyen-age, trans. Furcy Raynaud, II [Leipzig, 1886, did escape, as well as another from Pera, setting "CP" 1967], 308-9). Tedaldi, Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col.

‘lin th . h fter the hastv d > ~—s«1823E states, “On estime que le butin de Constantinople

sall in the evening, ; ours after the Nasty depar vault aux Turcs quatre millions de ducas. . . .” Tedaldi, ture of the Venetians, whose valor the loyal however, sets the Venetian loss at 40—50,000 ducats; that Barbaro praises from one end of his diary tothe of the Florentines, 20,000; that of the Anconitans, more

other.®2 It must have been in one of these seven than 20,000; while the Genoese loss was beyond calculation

(cf. Heyd, loc. cit.). Some forty-seven Venetians were killed

rs or captured (cf. Sanudo, op. cit., col. 1150B, and the lists of midy, attendans pour sauver aucuns Chrestiens, dont iien names appended to Barbaro’s diary, which present problems est venu ung, entre lesquieulx fut cestuy Jacques Tedaldy, qui _ that need not be considered here). On the captives and the

estant sur le mur en sa garde de la part ot entrerent les casualties, however, see Pertusi, I, 405-6, and on the Turcs, senti leur entrée bien deux heures aprés. Ainsi _ losses sustained by the Italian states, ibid., pp. 413-14. gagna la mer et se dépouilla et entra jusques aux gallées, According to A. D. Mordtmann, Belagerung u. Eroberung qui le receurent.” Since the Turks entered the city at Constantinopels (1858), pp. 95-96, the Turks used to say of a various places, after breaking through at the Gates of S. rich man, for many years after the fall of the city, that he Romanus and Charisius, it would be hard to say where was “at the sack of Constantinople.” Chalcocondylas, bk.

Tedaldi was stationed on the walls. vil (Bonn, pp. 398-99; ed. Dark6, II, 162-63), speaks of the 82 Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 57—59; ed. Dethier, pp. 821-— _ wealth that fell into Turkish hands. Anti-Greek sentiment in

24; cf. Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus the West gave rise to some tall tales of Constantinopolitan anecdotorum, 1, col. 1123D, and Ducas, chap. 39 (Bonn, p. avarice in the face of danger, such as that the city fell 297). Zaccaria Grioni was ransomed from the Turks in — because the Greeks were unwilling to hire troops although July, 1453. On his way back to Crete he was detained one woman was later found to be hoarding 150,000 ducats’ for debts by the Genoese at Chios (see M. Manoussakas, worth of jewels, silver, money, and clothes, and a man was “Les Derniers Defenseurs crétois de Constantinople d’aprés _—_ concealing 80,000 ducats (Cronica di Bologna, ad ann. 1453,

les documents vénitiens,” Akten des XI. Internationalen in Muratori, RISS, XVIII [1731], col. 701D; Corpus chrontByzantinisten-Kongresses [1958], Munich, 1960, pp. 333-34). —corum bononiensium, in the new edition of the RISS, XVIII,

The masters of the other three Cretan vessels were pt. I, tom. 4, pp. 187a, 188b). Cf. L. Crivelli, De expeditione Greeks (Peter Sgouros, whose uncle George owned the ves- Pu papae secundi in Turcas, bk. 1, in RISS, XXIII (1733), sel; Antonios Yalinas [‘YaAtvas]; and Antonios Philomatis), col. 55, and in the new RISS, XXIII, pt. v (1948-50), while the ship of another Venetian, Giovanni Venier, 59-60; note also the addendum to Niccolo Barbaro’s diary, appears also to have got away safely (¢f. Manoussakas, made by Marco Barbaro (Giornale, ed. Cornet, pp. 65-66). art. cu., pp. 335-39, and R. Browning, “A Note on the S. Antonino of Florence relates that, while Constantinople Capture of Constantinople in 1453,” Byzantion, XXII was beset by the Turks, the Greeks sent envoys to Pope [1952], 381-84). Besides these, other vessels also escaped Nicholas V, imploring him for aid in men and money, which

the Turks (Pertusi, Caduta di Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 368 he refused, believing it unfair to burden Italy, already [note 180]). Yalinas, notabilis homo maris, lost almost all his exhausted by wars, with further taxation to help the Greeks, possessions in the fall of Constantinople. On 26 December whom he knew to have plenty of money to hire mercenaries, (1453) the Venetian Senate directed the colonial government but who were devoid of all patriotism and so intent upon

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 133 city had been subjected to pillage for three days, in the city. Bitter memories and recriminations the booty was carried off to the Turkish camp, long outlived those who had been involved in

and that 60,000 Christians had been put in_ the disaster. The Grand Duke Lucas Notaras, fetters.** Critobulus reports that some 4,000 first minister of the Byzantine state, who had Greeks and foreigners (€€vor) lost their lives been opposed to the union of the Churches, during the entire siege and final assault on the emerges a villain in our largely pro-Latin city, and that rather more than 50,000 persons sources. Leonardo of Chios charges him with were taken captive, including 500 from the trying to curry favor with the young sultan by

defending army. The population of Con- accusing the Grand Vizir Khalil Pasha of stantinople, however, was probably closer to treasonable correspondence with the Emperor

40,000 than to 50,000 in the mid-fifteenth Constantine. In fact Notaras is said to have

century. turned over to the sultan some of the letters The Turks had emptied the city and largely which the grand vizir had sent, thus destroying destroyed it. According to Critobulus, even the Greeks’ one influential friend in the Ottoman Mehmed II was moved to tears: “What a city, camp. Leonardo adds, however, that Notaras

he said, we have given over to pillage and paid the price of his wickedness. Having lost desolation!’®* There were probably almost as his two elder sons in the siege, he now saw a many personal tragedies as there were people third, a youngster, slain before his very eyes,

after which he was himself beheaded with some

, oo . . Other Byzantine nobles. The Venetian bailie in preserving their private wealth that they lost everything, in- C . le L d . Girol

cluding freedom: after the siege great private treasures were onstantinop €, Leonardo continues, Girolamo

found, but the Greeks had been blinded by avarice (see Minotto, and his son were both executed.

Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1453, no. 1, vol. XVIIJ Catarino Contarini, vir humanisstmus, and another {[Cologne, 1694], p. 404). Undoubtedly the Greeks tried to six Venetian nobles would also have been done concea’ wealth, as the Pseudo-Sphrantzes accuses Notaras of to death if they had not man age d to assure the pp. 432, 434), but it is surprising to find Pastor, Hist. Popes, Turks of 7,000 gold ducats Transom. The II, 274, and Gesch. d. Papste, I (repr. 1955), 621, being taken Aragonese-Catalan consul was killed with two

oing (III, 9, ed. Bonn, p. 291, lines 15-20; ed. Grecu, ,

in by this anti-Greek propaganda. _ members of his staff or of his family.®’ As Although Zorzo Dolfin says that after the fall of the city

Nicholas V ordered five galleys to be armed in Venice a sue =—§ ————————

spese against the Turks (ed. Thomas, op. cit., p. 38, and ed. 87 Leonardo, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, II, 100-101, and Dethier, MHH, XXII-1, p. 1046), a Venetian document of PG 159, col. 943AB; cf. Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 9 (Bonn,

10 April, 1453, shows that the pope had been trying to arm p. 293, lines 13-14; ed. Grecu, p. 434, line 33), who his five galleys for some time before that date (Sen. Secreta, says that the Catalan consul’s two sons were executed with Reg. 19, fol. 192, and G. B. Picotti, “Sulle Navi papali in him. According to our other sources (see the following note),

Oriente al tempo della caduta di Costantinopoli,” Nuovo Notaras also had two sons who were put to death with Arch, veneto, n.s., XX [1911], 420-21, 438-39). Dolfin also their father. Cf. Crivelli, De expeditione Pii P. I, bk. 1, in observes that Nicholas V offered a plenary indulgence to RISS, XXIII (1733), col. 55; new edition, in RISS, XXIII,

whoever took up arms against the Turks, “ma é pocho pt. v (1948-50), 60, on Notaras; Critobulus, I, 76 (ed.

soccorso in tanto bisogno.” Miller, FHG, V-1, pp. 103b-—104a; ed. Grecu, p. 167), on

84 Leonardo, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, 11, 100: “Traduci- Khalil Pasha; Zorzo Dolfin, Assedio e presa dt Costantinopolt,

tur ad papiliones omnis substantia et praeda, vinctique from Dolfin’s Cronaca, ed. G. M. Thomas, in Sitzungsber. omnes ad sexaginta milia -funibus Christiani captivantur.” d. k. bayer. Akad. d. Wissen. zu Miinchen, II (1868), 32-33

Sa‘d-ad-Din, trans. Gibb, p. 31, reports that “for three days (also in Dethier, MHH, XXII, pt. 1), who had read and nights there was with the imperial permission [of the | Leonardo of Chios.

sultan] a general sack; and the victorious troops, through The Venetian Senate believed the bailie Girolamo (or the richness of the spoil, entwined the arm of possession Geronimo) Minotto to be alive on 17 July, 1453, when the round the neck of their desires. . . .” Following Runciman, following resolution was passed (Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 201” The Fall of Constantinople (1965), p. 148, however, Inalcik, | [202°]): “Cum omnibus notus sit miserabilis casus nobilis viri “The Policy of Mehmed II . . . ,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, | Ser Jeronimi Minoto, qui erat baiulus Constantinopolis, qui

XXII-XXIV, 233, believes that Mehmed “put an end to — sicut habetur ductus est captivus in Turchia cum uxore et

the pillage on the evening of the first day.” uno filio et perdidit omnem facultatem suam, et unus eius

* Critobulus, I, 67 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 98b; ed. _ filius deliberaverit ire ad procurandum redemptionem et

Grecu, p. 149). The Chronica bononiensia, ad ann. 1453,inthe __liberationem suam et sit res pia dare sibi omnem favorem

new RISS, XVIII, pt. 1, tom. 4, pp. 186a, 187b, state et comoditatem possibilem, considerato hoc miserabili casu, that “. . . furono morti da tre milia homini de amedoe le __ vadit pars quod filius dicti Ser Jeronimi vadat pro ballistario parte,” according to a Franciscan report received in Bologna super hac galea subtili cuius est patronus nobilis vir Ser (Cron. di Bologna, in RISS, XVIII [1731], col. 701B, and Petrus Arimundo in numero duorum balistariorum ordinari-

cf. Dethier, MHH, XXII-1, p. 940). orum qui accipi debent pro dicta galea: De parte 163, de

8° Critobulus, I, 68 (ed. Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 98b; ed. non 0, non sinceri 0.” On 28 August, however, having

Grecu, p. 149). learned that Minotto and one of his sons had been put to

134 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT for the proud Notaras, who can say what the addressed his plea to avenge the terrible injuries

, ; , ers

truth may have been? Ducas and Chalcocondylas inflicted upon the Christians by the Turks.*°

tell a moving story of Notaras’s boldly refusing The Turkish occupation of Pera is vividly to surrender the younger of two surviving sons’ described in a letter written by the podesta to Mehmed’s abnormal lust, preferring death Angelo Giovanni Lomellino to his brother on for himself and his family to Turkish infamy. 23 June, 1453, less than a month after the fall Mehmed ordered the immediate execution of of Constantinople:

88 . .

father and sons.” Very likely Critobulus was Noble and most dear brother: If I have not written right when he affirmed that the siege and sack before this, and do not herewith answer the lett of Constantinople were more terrible than those | pave received from you, do pardon me, because of Troy and Babylon, Carthage, Rome, and | have been.and am unceasingly in such melancholy

Jerusalem.” and so preoccupied that I prefer death rather than The podesta of Pera, Angelo Giovanni _ life. I am certain you have learned before this of the

Lomellino, had reason to be frightened. He sent unexpected fall of Constantinople, taken by the lord messengers to Sultan Mehmed to offer him the Turk on the twenty-ninth of last month, a day that keys to Galata. The sultan accepted them and_ We had been looking forward to with keen anticipareceived the inhabitants of the Genoese colony tion, because it seemed to hold certain victory for us.

as his subjects. Mehmed appointed a Turkish teeronts, lord [Turk] gave all nightat and all and he was metbattle courageously everyonpoint.

governor, confiscated the property of those who To put it briefly, however, in the morning Giovanni had fled, and ordered the demolition of the Giustiniani . . . left his gate, withdrawing to the sea, towers and landward walls of Galata. The in- and the Turks entered by that very gate, where no

habitants obeyed and accepted the status of resistance was offered—indeed, in this miserable slaves, writes Leonardo, for safety’s sake, dis- fashion not even a village should have been lost! regarding their instructions from Genoa (what- I want to believe this comes of our sins. Considering ever they may have been), and now the sultan my nature, just imagine how I am now. God give “is pulling down the tower, at the height of which ™e patience. [The Turks] gave the city over toa three stood the cross of Christ, from which it took days’ sack. You have never seen such suffering. They its name.” Those who had been free and kept took an inestimable booty. I sent in defense of the the peace were now slaves. Their future lay “YY all the mercenaries from Chios and all those sent with Pope Nicholas V, to whom Leonardo wrote burgesses from here [Galata] and, what concerns us his long letter on the fall of Constantinople and more at this point, our [nephew] Imperiale and our

© P . Y from Genoa as well as a good many citizens and

family retainers. For my own part I have done as much as I could, God knows, for I have always recognized death by the Turks, the Senate voted the dead bailie’s mat if Constantinople were lost, we should lose this daughter a dowry of 1,000 gold ducats if she married or piace too. . . .

300 if she entered a convent. His other children and his The podesta notes that some of the Genoese

wife—she must have escaped or been ransomed—were had dth ] bv flicht. Others had b each to receive a pension of twenty-five ducats a year (Iorga, ad saved themse ves DY Mg nt. thers had been

Notes et extraits, III [1902], 289, and note Pertusi, Caduta captured on the palisades. The rest had been

di Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 369-70). obliged to remain in Galata, because the captains chsalcocondylas, pucas,, chap. 40 MBean at sength ane—3; of the ships had been unwilling bk. PPvu wie (Bonn, pp. ed. Darko, I, ary: to wait for

164-66); see also Critobulus, I, a (ed. Muller, FHG, V-1, people who wanted to escape: When I Saw, p- 102; ed. Grecu, pp. 159, 161, 163); Pusculus, bk. tv, vv. however, that things had reached such a pass, 1070-74, ed. Ellissen, p. 82; Leonardo of Chios, loc. cit.; I preferred to lose my own life rather than to Adam de Montaldo, ed. Hopf, in Dethier, MHH, XXII, leave this land. If I had gone, this place, thus

. ; cf. Babinger, Maometto ; . —95, an a ”

P eee “Loukas Notaras” hn Greek in Aktines, ne i36 abandoned, would have been sacked.” The

(Athens, 1953). According to the poet Pusculus, bk. 1, vv. £=———————

434-439, ed. Ellissen, p. 21, Notaras was not of noble birth % Leonardo, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, I, 101-2, letter

as commonly stated: “. .. olim pisciculos vendebat dated at Chios on 16 August, 1453; on the surrender of

avus. . . .” Two Cantacuzeni were also executed after the Pera, cf. Tedaldi, in Marténe and Durand, Thes. novus Turkish occupation of Constantinople (D. M. Nicol, The anecdotorum, I, col. 1823B; Critobulus, I, 67 (ed. Miller, Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos [Cantacuzenus| ca. 1100- FHG, V-1, p. 98a; ed. Grecu, p. 149). L. T. Belgrano 1460, Washington, D.C., 1968, nos. 68-69, pp. 179-81). reprints Leonardo’s letter to Nicholas V, from Philip 89 Critobulus, I, 68 (ed Miller, FHG, V-1, p. 99; ed. Lonicer’s Chronica turcica [1578], in the Atti della Societa ligure

Grecu, pp. 151, 153). On the fortunes of “Istanbul” during di storia patria, XIII (1877-84), no. cL, pp. 233-57. An the half century or so following the conquest, see the improved text, with an Italian translation, is given in Pertusi,

article of Inalcik referred to above in note 75. Caduta di Costantinopoli, 1 (1976), 124-71.

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 135 podesta sent ambassadors to Mehmed II with consequence of the capture of Constantinople handsome gifts, the keys to Galata, and a_ that it seems he will soon make himself master request that the peace which obtained between of the whole world, and states publicly that in

the Turks and the Genoese might be observed. less than two years he plans to come to There was no immediate reply. Inthe meantime Rome... .”! the frantic podesta tried to maintain quiet in Sultan Mehmed had provided, at the beginning the terrified colony, and implored the skippers of June, 1453, for the Genoese community of [patron] of the ships to remain all the next day, Galata by a firman which spared the town because he was sure that, if the sultan was not (ka@o7pov), and permitted the inhabitants to provoked, he could secure the desired peace retain their homes, shops, and warehouses, vinefrom him. The skippers were unwilling to take yards and mills, merchandise and ships. Their

the chance, and sailed at midnight. wives and children were not to be taken away,

their sons being made exempt from the devshirme

When in the morning the lord [Turk] received oy tribute of boys for the service of the sultan. the news of the departure of the ships, he nformed The residents of Galata could also keep their my ambassadors that he wanted an unconditional churches, but were forbidden to build new ones, ly dour personal property_—for he said that 224 aS usual they were prohibited from ringing we did everything possible to save Constantinople, church bells. No Turks, however, were to live and that we were the reason why the Turks had not 11 Galata except officials of the Porte. The

surrender [terra libera|—-we could scarcely save a Ls

ourselves and our personal property ; taken the place on the first day. Certainly they spoke residents were to have freedom of trade, and the

the truth. We were in the gravest danger. Genoese ready access to their erstwhile colony. They were to be free of corvées, but had to Despite the extreme difficulty peace was made pay the poll-tax (kharaj) exacted of non-Moslem

with the Turk in the name of the burgesses subjects of the Porte. Although they could elect of Galata. The podesta now kept behind the a sort of chairman (protogeros) of their local

scenes, possibly in order not to appear to board of trade, Galata had become a Turkish commit Genoa to the terms imposed by the town, and Genoa had no prospect of recovering sultan. The podesta did, however, pay a visit it.% to the sultan, who entered Galata twice; ordered

most of the defenses, including the Tower of 9! This letter was first published by the orientalist Silvestre Santa Croce, to be demolished; took all the de Sacy, “Piéces diplomatiques tirées des Archives de la cannon; “and he intends to take allthe munitions République de Génes,” in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la

and all the arms of the burgesses.” Bibliotheque du Roi et autres bibliothéques, XI (Paris, 1827), 75— Mehmed also had an inventory made of all the 0. atthe wasMonumenta later republished by P. A.historica, emer and »Mee Hungariae pt. in ’.

goods and property of the merchants and 647-55, and by LT. Belgrano, in the rit belle BP.

burgesses who had fled. If they returned, figure di storia patria, XIII (1877-84), no. CXLIX, pp. 229-33. their possessions would be restored; if not, they Angelo Giovanni suggested to his brother that an embassy would be confiscated. The fugitives, who seemto be sent from Genoa to deal with the sultan. His nephew have congregated at Chios, were notified of Imperiale was captured in Constantinople, but he had been this fact. Mehmed had just withdrawn to Adri- unable to secure his release, “quia dominus [Mehmed] vult ‘ ; habere aliquos Latinos in curia sua” (an interesting fact on anople, whither he had had Khalil Pasha sent, hav- which Babinger, Maometto, p. 171, comments). He had not ing taken his wealth from him (Khalil was to be _ yet written to the doge, “non habendo animum.” On Angelo executed on 10 July). The Venetian bailie and Giovanni Lomellino [not Zaccaria], note Pertusi, Caduta di

his son had.been beheaded text along of withthe seven oeenopolisI (1976), 355the (noteedition 75). 7 . e Greek firman given,39-40, after

other Venetians; so had the Catalan consul with by Jos. von Hammer-Purgstall, in F. Miklosich and J.

another five or six Catalans. “Just think whether Miller, eds., Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi, III (Vienna,

we have been in danger.” Mehmed had placed 1865, repr. Aalen, 1968), 287-88, and by Belgrano, in one of his men (Angelo Giovanni calls him a Atti della Societa igure, XII, 226-29; there is a Venetian . . translation in Zorzo Dolfin, Assedio e presa di Costantinopoli,

sclavus) over Galata, and a subashi and a hadi ed. G. M. Thomas, in the Sitzungsber. d. k. bayer. Akad. d. with about 1,500 janissaries In Constantinople. Wissen., II (1868), 34-36, and cf. J. W. Zinkeisen, Gesch. d. He was said to be demanding the kharaj Or poll- osman. Reiches in Europa, 11 (Gotha, 1854), 26-28.

tax levied on non-Moslems (carrachium) from An original Greek text of the firman of 1453 is preChios. Caffa. and other Genoese possessions. He served in the British [Museum ] Library (MS. Egerton, no.

a. . . 2817), where it has been hanging framed on the wall of one

was making claims on the despot of Serbia. of the exhibition rooms for more than sixty years. It is

“Finally he has achieved such arrogance as a_ dated 1 June a.m. 6961—a.p. 1453, and bears the sultan’s

136 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT In retrospect perhaps no event in the history been expanding, their influence extending, of the fifteenth century seems more certainly throughout the entire Balkan peninsula. Over inevitable than the Ottoman occupation of the _ the years tens of thousands of Turks had moved Greek capital on the Bosporus. In 1453 the city into southeastern Europe, where they fought

had stood as a tiny island in an Ottoman sea. and won, went about their daily affairs and

For a full hundred years, ever since the Turks died, leaving their impact upon the life, language, had seized Gallipoli in 1354, their power had and literature of the Balkan peoples. The latter took their revenge of the invaders by reviling official signature (tughra) at the top, with the signature of them in folk songs of lament and heroism, Zagan Pasha at the bottom. Being the first treaty made by prophecies, chronicles, and lives of saints and the sultan with an Italian state after the conquest of Con- princes. In the popular as well as in the learned stantinople, the grant of privileges to the Genoese of Galata literature of the later fifteenth century (and is Most In fact ittherea waster) to the constitute hf. for amore thanimportant four centuriesdocument. the juridical foundation fall of Constantinople was always upon which were to be built the rights enjoyed by Roman a pre-eminent theme.” Catholics in the Ottoman empire, forming the major prece- In the meantime, however, except for the sad dent for later treaties between the sultan and the Christian Jot of the inhabitants of the fallen city, most powers, especially France, which from 1536 (as we shall see | tj d thei | humd li £ in the next volume) became the chief protector of Roman people continue their usual hum PUI VES O

Catholics under the Porte. hardship and of want. The fortunate discovery

The firman of 1453 was formally renewed for the first by Jean Darrouzés of eight letters dated from 29 time, with some modifications of content, in March, 1613, by July to 13 December, 1453, provides us with a

Sultan Ahmed I. For re-editions of the Greek text and ‘fleeting glimpse into the affairs of the Greeks in commentaries, see N. Iorga, “Le Privilege de Mohammed . II pour la ville de Péra (l-er juin 1453),” in the Bulletin the months that followed the Ottoman occupation historique de l' Académie roumaine, II (Bucharest, 1914), 11-32, of Constantinople. The chief actor in the petty where a number of other Ottoman-Christian treaties are also lay and ecclesiastical dramas depicted in these

republished, and E. Dalleggio d’Alessio, “Le Texte grecdu Jetters is an otherwise unknown Nicholas

traité conclu par les Génois de Galata avec Mehmet I], le Isid h ‘no Mehmed II Greek

ler juin 1453,” ‘EAAnvexa, XI (1939), 115-24; “Traité entre asl orus, who Was serving enme . aS a OTE les Génois de Galata et Mehmet II,” Echos d’Orient, XX XIX judge (Kpi7ns) in the erstwhile Ottoman (1940), 161-75; and “Listes des podestats de la colonie capital of Adrianople. The requests made of him génoise de Péra (Galata) ee e ? Revue des études byzantines, by his Greek correspondents, however, make

re (1969), of the af- described (jaar that they were seeking his airs of 151-57. GalataTheisTurkish ratherdisposition inaccurately by Pears, . -financial .

Destruction of the Greek Empire (1903), pp. 371-72, but see assistance and the employment of his influence Heyd, trans. Furcy Raynaud, II, 310-13, with refs., and rather than the exercise of his authority (if any)

the works cited by Dalleggio d'Alessio. as a judge, whatever krités may have meant in the The Genoese community was located not only in Pera, present context. While it was hard to find the

but (after 1475) also in the area of Salma Tomruk, called f, : bei held b & il “Kaffa Mahalessi,” when Mehmed II settled the inhabitants ransom ‘Or a captive eins c ya mere! SS of Caffa near the Adrianople Gate (Edirne Kapi) in the and ‘unyielding Moslem” (MovoovApavos . . : northwestern part of Istanbul. The community developed aviens Kal aovyKaTaBaTos), and there is

into the “nation latine de Constantinople,” under the more than one reference to the fall of Conreligious authority of the Apostolic Delegation. num-mid-nineteenth stantinople in ‘these letters, most of .them ered almost 14,000 persons by Itthe century, ... but had fallen to about 3,400 by 1927, when it was sup- illustrate the dreary continuance of life and its

pressed as a sort of juridical entity (see Dalleggio d’Alessio, problems as being much the same after as before “La Communauté latine de Constantinople au lendemain de la conquéte ottomane,” Echos d’Orient, XXXVI [1937], 309—

17, and in general cf. Ernest Mamboury, Istanbul touristique, §

Istanbul, 1951, pp. 92-101). % Cf. I. Dujcev, “La Conquéte turque et la prise de

Some twenty-five years after the Turkish occupation of | Constantinople dans la littérature slave contemporaine,” in the city there were, according to the census of 1477, some Byzantinoslavica, XIV (1953), 14-54; ihd., XVI (1955), 8,951 Moslem households in Istanbul proper and 535 in 318-29; and, ibid., XVII (1956), 276-340; V. Grecu, “La Galata; 3,151 Orthodox-Greek households in Istanbul and Chute de Constantinople dans la littérature populaire rou592 in Galata; and, all together, 3,095 households of maine,” tbid., XIV (1953), 55-81; J. Irmscher, “Zeitgen6sArmenians, Latins, and Gypsies (Inalcik, “The Policy of | sische deutsche Stimmen zum Fall von Byzanz,” ibid., XIV, Mehmed II... ,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XXITI-XXIV, 109-22; A. Vaillant, “Les Langues slaves méridionales et la 247). According to “Bishop” Samile’s letter of 6 August, conquéte turque,” ibid., XIV, 123-29; G. Th. Zoras, “Ori1453, to Oswald, the burgomaster of Hermannstadt (see _ entations idéologiques et politiques avant et apres la chute above, note 38), Mehmed had already by that date trans- de Constantinople,” L’Hellénisme contemporain, 2nd ser., VII ferred 30,000 persons by sea to Istanbul and the arearound- (29 May, 1953), 103-23, esp. pp. 108 ff.; G. Megas, “La Prise about (lorga, Notes et extraits, 1V [1915], 67; Pertusi, Caduta de Constantinople dans la poésie et la tradition populaires

di Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 230, and cf., ibid., p. 426). grecques,” ibid., VII, 125-33. .

THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 137 “the seizure of the wretched city” (7 @Awous Mehmed had returned to Adrianople, which had

THS AOALas TONEwS).*4 been the Ottoman capital for almost a century, Constantinople was wretched, but Mehmed II _ he would soon be establishing his court and his

was not. He seemed to have climbed to the top government in the newly acquired city. Conof the world in two months. He had realized — stantinople, however, was no longer the city of the ancient Moslem ambition of conquering the Constantine. It became Turkish Istanbul, a city greatest city in the Levant. He was soon to set of oriental bazaars, grey domes, and white about repopulating it. There can be no doubt minarets, tombs, little cemeteries, black cypresses, that he aspired to world domination, as Angelo and turbanlike vines growing atop crumbling Giovanni had informed his brother; Leonardo walls. of Chios warned Pope Nicholas V that Mehmed was boasting that he would soon be appearing —————— in the Adriatic on his way to Rome. Jacopo side of the head; and gives a dramatic picture of the siege and Tedaldi al ks of his desire to rule the sack of Constantinople), as well as for the letter of lamentaCCalal alsO Speaks O s Cesire to ru tion addressed to Christendom at large (universis et singults world, and notes that he fed his ambition by Christi fidelibus, dated 8 July), and the letters to Francesco reading the histories of Alexander and Caesar, Foscari (26 July) and to Philip the Good of Burgundy (from and was full of inquiries about Venice, Rome, Rome, dated 22 February, 1455), see Pertusi, Caduta di and Milan, “et d’autres choses que de guerre Costantinopoli, 1 [1976], 58—111. In the letter to Philip, Isidore 1 "96 Alth h after hi . again states that Mehmed had assembled 300,000 men and ne parle. . . . though after nis great VICLOry 990 vessels for the siege of Constantinople. He also defends,

TTT the siege.

as stated above in note 41, the conduct of the Genoese during

%4J. Darrouzés, “Lettres de 1453,” Revue des études 9° Mehmed’s ambition and his interest in Italy are well byzantines, XXII (1964), 72-124. George Scholarius, thenthe known, but Tedaldi’s text is interesting (Marténe and monk Gennadius, is mentioned in one of these letters Durand. Thes. novus anecdotorum, I, col. 1824AB):“. . . cou-

(ibid., pp. 101, 122-23). rageux et ardant de seignourer et converser tout le monde:

** Leonardo, in Lonicer, Chron. turcica, I1, 101. After his voire plus qu’Alexandre, ne César, ne aultre vaillant qui flight from Constantinople, Cardinal Isidore of Kiev took ait esté allegué qu’il a plus grande puissance et seignourie refuge for a while on the Venetian island of Crete, from que _nul d’eulx n’avoit: et tousjours faisoit lire leur histoire, which in July, 1453, he addressed letters to Nicholas V_ demande ot: et comment est posé Venise, combien loing de

(lorga, Notes et extraits, Il, 522-24), Cardinals Bessarion terre ferme, et comme on y puet entrer par mer et par

and Capranica, the Doge Francesco Foscari, and the Floren- terre. . . . Pareillement demande de Romme ot elle est

tines (for references to the texts see Georg Hofmann, _ assise, et du duc de Milan et de ses vaillans: et d’autres “Quellen zu Isidor von Kiew als Kardinal und Patriarch,” choses que de guerre ne parle. . . .” Tedaldi offers a Orientalia Christiana periodica, XVIII [1952], 143-48, who program for the expulsion of the Turk from Europe (ibid.,

gives the text of Isidore’s letter to the Florentines, dated cols. 1824-25). 7 July, with a brief description of the horrors of the Turkish When Cardinal Isidore returned from the East, he resack of the city, and cf. F. Babinger, “Veneto-kretische ported that Mehmed seemed more powerful than Caesar, Geistesstrebungen . . . ,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift, LVII Alexander, “or any other prince who has ever aspired to

[1964], 70-71). dominion over the world.” His treasure in coined money

For good texts, with Italian translations, of Isidore’s letters | was immense; he had 230 ships, and could build as many to Nicholas V (from Candia in Crete, dated 6 and 15 July, more as he chose; he also had 30,000 horsemen and many 1453) and to Bessarion (also dated 6 July, in which he in- _ footsoldiers, with apparently no limit to possible additional forms Bessarion that he had arrived on the Bosporus on __recruitments. See the dispatch dated 22 November, 1453, of 26 October, 1452 [cf., above, note 9]; declares that Mehmed Leonardo de’Benvoglienti, Sienese envoy to Venice (in had had an army of 300,000 men and a fleet of 220 vessels, Pastor, Hist. Popes, II, 288-89, note, and Gesch. d. Papste, I

as he also says in his letter of 15 July to Nicholas V; _ [repr. 1955], 634, with addenda to the note), who says that reports that he was himself wounded by an arrow on the left Mehmed “intende presto venire in Italia.”

5. PERILS AND PROBLEMS AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (1453-1455) ‘HE FALL of Constantinople seems to have doge of Genoa, Pietro di Campofregoso, and the

made as great an impression both in “officials of Romania” of the news which they

Europe and in the East as the fall of Rome had had just learned at the ducal palace in Venice.

almost a thousand years before. The news During that very hour a grippo had arrived

reached Venice on Friday, 29 June, while the from Corfu with (they'said) two letters, one from Grand Council was in session. A fast vessel, the castellan of Modon and the other from the

a grippo from Corfu, bringing letters from bailie in Negroponte. On 28 May, or so they Lepanto, put in at the wooden landing-stage on informed the doge, the sultan had taken Pera

the Bacino. People were standing by their by force of arms at about eleven o'clock in

windows and on the balconies, “waiting between the morning, killing everyone except the hope and fear to learn the import of the news, children. On the twenty-ninth he had captured whether of the city of Constantinople or of the Constantinople, and again he had slain everyone. galleys of Romania.” They were anxious fornews ‘Two large Venetian galleys and a light galley of a father, a son, or a brother. The letters were had escaped miraculously with all aboard, but presented to the Signoria, presumably inthe Sala the letters from Modon and Negroponte con-

del Collegio. The word spread immediately tained no word of the Genoese ships in the

through the Grand Council that Constantinople Golden Horn. The Venetians were in such utter had been taken, and that everyone above six despair that Battista de’ Franchi and Piero Stella years of age had been killed. All balloting in the had not yet ventured to ask for copies of the Council was postponed. There were cries and letters.’

groans, wringing of hands and beating of breasts. As one wept for the assumed death of =_____

a relative, another lamented the loss of his 2 Arch. di Stato di Firenze, Dieci di Balia: Carteggi, property on the Bosporus. When silence was _ Responsive, Reg. 22 [old classification: Classe X, dist. 2, achieved by order of the Signoria the secretary no. 22], fol. 261: The letter was written “ex Venetiis .adi

XXVIIII a hore XIIII” [on 29 read June, 1453, at about 11:00 of the‘ .Ten, Lodovico adStella alta vocewith . , an . . — A.M.]. BattistaBevazan, de’ Franchi and Piero began

(presumably in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio) apology for the lamentable news which their letter would a letter from the colonial government of Corfu, bring to Genoa, “. . . perche noi vi facciamo noto come “lq qual avisava haver per lettere da Nepanto nella presente hora cé venuto grifo da Corfu mandato pel exaudito Constantinopoli esser prexo.” Lamen- bali di decto luogo a questa illustrissima Signoria con due tauon gave way to recrimination, and everyone Negroponte, le quali contengono questo effecto: El signore

. oe . d lettere, una del castellano di Modone et laltra del bali di

accused the Signoria and the Collegio of de’Turchi adi XXVIII di Maggio avendo avuto Pera per negligence, and blamed “those who had written forza alle XIIII hore et amazato ogniuno et maschi et falsely from Constantinople that the Turkish femine excepto che i fanciulli piccoli, et adi XXVIIII del

t 14COMmIng. decto mese avendo avutoogniuno. Costantinopoli et nel de medesimo army Was not . . . modo amazato Due galee grosse Venitiani On the same day, at about 11:00 4.M.,acertain — et una sottile miracolosamente fuggirono quasi con tutti gli Battista de’ Franchiand one Piero Stella wrote the huomini fediti. Delle navi nostre non cé nessuna mentione. Questa cipta [citta] € in maximi lamenti, et non abbiamo

TT avuto ardire de cercare le copie delle lettere, per la quale * Zorzo Dolfin, Assedio e presa di Costantinopoli, ed. G. M. cosa non piglino admiratione le Signorie vostre se abbiamo Thomas, in Sitzungsber. d. k. bayer. Akademie d. Wissenschaften _scripto confusamente et maximamente essendo in tanta

zu Miinchen, II (1868), 36-37, also in P. A. Dethier, ed., | angustia et dolore, non avendo provato mai simili cose per Monumenta Hungariae historica, XXII, pt. 1 (Istanbul, 1872), cagione del damno cosi publico come privato nella roba pp. 1043-44; Marino Sanudo, Vite de’duchi,in L.A. Muratori, — et nelle persone. . . .” Cf., ibid., fol. 263, a letter of the Florened., RISS, XXII (Milan, 1733), col. 1151A; Ludwig von — tine ambassador Niccolo Soderini to the Florentine Dieci, dated Pastor, History of the Popes, U1, 271-72, and Geschichte der at Genoa on 8 July, 1453, alluding to this letter.

Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 619; F. Babinger, Maometto il Soderini had written the Signori Dieci on 29 May [!], 1453, Conquistatore, Turin, 1957, p. 159; and cf. N. Iorga, Gesch. that Constantinople appeared likely to fall to the Turks d. osman. Reiches, 11 (Gotha, 1909), 39 ff. On the “incredibilis (fol. 249”). On 10-11 July he informed his government dolor” in Venice, see Giov. Simoneta, Res gestae Fr. Sfortiae, that many persons in Genoa were unwilling to believe that

bk. xXx, In RISS , XXI (Milan, 1732), col. 645AB, and the Turks had actually taken Constantinople and Pera, and ed. Giovanni Soranzo, in the new Muratori, RISS, XX1, pt.2, that the news which came his way was still too confusing

pp. 378-79. to allow him to reach a conclusion as to what had 138

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 139 The next day, on 30 June, the Venetian On 18 July (1453) the Venetian Senate notified

government wrote Pope Nicholas V the papal legate, Archbishop Jacopo of Ragusa,

although we assume, most blessed father, that both who ih i pusy wien the shel nea of a crusade, by letters of the reverend father, the lord archbishop that their Greek an evantine p vrtaries of of Ragusa [Jacopo Venier of Recanati], your papal which had enjoyed upwards of two centuries o legate here, as well as from other sources your Peace [!], were neither fortified nor equipped Holiness has probably been able to learn before this to face the great peril in which they found of the horrible and most deplorable fall of the cities themselves, and that, if they should be lost, the

of Constantinople and Pera.’ Turk would have no difficulty entering Apulia.® Actually the pope had not yet been informed. About the same ume (on 19 July) Cardinal

d’Estouteville wrote Francesco Sforza, The news reached Bologna on4 4Guillaume July,* Rome : duke of Milan, thatand the latter knew of course

on the eighth. The popular preacher, Fra

Roberto da Lecce, made the announcement to ye

the people. Rome was for weeks the scene of Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Sen. Secreta, Reg. 19 [1450deep lamentation as well as of rumors that 1453], fol. 205", doc. dated 18 July, 1453. The Venetians Constantinople had not fallen or that the the legate: “. . . Verum dicimus quod quoniam preteritis Turks were already preparing for an attack on mensibus ante casum urbis Constantinopolis hinc ex-

P . claimed to be very sympathetic to the representations of

Rome.® pedivimus non nullas galeas nostras pro favore et succursu urbis eiusdem, misimus etiam cum eisdem galeis unum

rs oratorem nostrum ut proficisceretur ad dominum Teucrum really happened. Couriers had reached Genoa about ut se interponeret et operaretur quicquid boni posset pro

5:00 p.m. on the eleventh, a hore XX, from Venice and _ concordia facienda inter serenissimum dominum imperafrom Naples, each bearing letters confirming the Turkish torem Constantinopolitanum et ipsum Teucrum, et etiam victory. It was still some time before the facts were given ut si quid per nos agendum esset cum Teucro ob favores credence in Genoa, where there was much wishful thinking, datos Constantinopoli per galeas nostras Romanie et aliter partly occasioned by Genoa’s difficulties with Naples (fols. id fieri posset ita quod per viam pacis, si ita fieri posset,

258", 259", and cf. fols. 260 ff., 278). res ille transirent.

3 Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Senatus Secreta, Reg. 19 “Supervenit autem inopinatus casus amissionis urbis [1450-1453], fol. 202", cited by Pastor, Gesch. d. Papste, eiusdem de quo tamen cordialiter doluimus quantum facile I, 619, note; the text has been published by Sime Ljubi¢, _ satis diiudicari potest. Remanserunt captivi in ea clade XL ed., Listine [Documents] 0 odnoSajth izmedju juznoga slavenstva nobiles nostri aliique cives et mercatores nostri in bono 1 mletacke republike, vol. X (Zagreb, 1891), pp. 13-14 (inthe numero ultra multos Cretenses et alios subditos nostros Monumenta spectantia historiam slavorum meridionalium, ita ut ultra quingenti ex nostris illic remanserint. Cupivol. XXII); of. F. Thiriet, Régestes des délibérations du musque multum illos qui vivi superfuerunt posse redimere Sénat de Venise concernant la Romanie, III (Paris and The ne pereant. Consideravimus etiam quod civitates et loca

Hague, 1961), no. 2928, p. 187. nostra Gretie et illarum partium nostrarum que ab annis

On 30 June, 1453, the Venetian Senate also debated CC citra, ut ita dixerimus, in pace vixerunt nec fortificate whether to allow the departure of commercial vessels for nec munite sunt per modum quod in magno et evidenti Syria until more certain news could be had from Con- periculo constitute sunt, et si (quod absit) amitterentur, stantinople (Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. 197" [198"], and ¢f., ibid., non est dubium quod valde, habiliter, ac comodissime fol. 201" [202%], docs. dated 17 July). The stir caused by the absque alia contradictione hostis iste crucis cum potentia

ghastly news has naturally left its imprint upon the doc- sua in Apuliam se transfretare posset cum magno periculo uments (ibid., fols. 197% [198%] ff.). On 12 July two nominis Christiani. Nos vero ut iste impetus, si fieri possit, envoys from Negroponte appeared before the Signoria, aliquanto contineatur, iussimus prefato oratori nostro quod stating that the city and the island lacked the arms and det operam eundiad presentiam Teucri tam pro redimendis munitions wherewith to putupa defense against the Turks, Captivis nostris predictis quam etiam pro componendo res should the need arise. The Senate responded promptly to _ illas ut non procedat ad expugnandum et occupandum the needs and fears of the Negropontines, and gave orders __terras et loca nostra predicta pro evitando tantum excidium

that arms be sent them, including ten small cannon to tantumque inconveniens quantum occurrere posset. . . .” mount upon the city walls. The decision was made also to The letter closes with a statement of the necessity of send immediately an “engineer” with the requisite skill and achieving peace and union among the Christian powers to experience to put the walls and breastworks of the city into help meet the Turk, crudelissimus hostis, and thanks the pope

shape for an emergency (fol. 200" [201"]). From this for his promise to send five galleys into Levantine waters, time on, a Turkish attack upon Negroponte remained the — which should be done as soon as possible. Note the Venetian

Senate’s worst fear. claim, in the text quoted above, that more than 500 subjects

*Corpus chronicorum bononiensium, ed. Albano Sorbelli, of the Republic were taken captive by the Turks in the fall in the new Muratori, RISS, XVIII, pt. 1, vol. IV, pp. 189a, of Constantinople. Venetian subjects (subditi), however, were

190b. not citizens (cives). Greeks and gasmuli had often been * Pastor, Hist. Popes, Il, 272-73, and Gesch. d. Papste, given Venetian “naturalization papers,” which had made

1, 619-20. On the Franciscan friar Roberto Caracciolo da _ them “subjects,” and had enabled them to escape the buyer’s Lecce, who gave a series of pentecostal sermons on the fall __ half of the Byzantine customs duties (see Volume I, p. 239,

of Constantinople, note Agostino Pertusi, La Caduta di note 71, and cf. Thiriet, Régestes, III, no. 2933, p. 188, Costantinopoli, 2 vols., Verona, 1976, I, pp. xXxvHI-—xxxIx, which document, however, presents Greeks as acting “au

and II, 510. , nom de Vénitiens” in a different context).

140 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT about the Gran Turco’s having taken Con- Bartolommeo Marcello was elected; he accepted the

stantinople “although now some people are commission and went. It was also decided that trying to say that it has been miraculously Jacopo Loredan, captain-general of the sea, should recovered, which is possible but not probable.” 8° with twelve galleys to protect Negroponte.

The pope looked upon the catastrophe as the Although Sanudo has got his facts somewhat out shame of Christendom (vergogna de la chris- of order, they are substantially accurate.

tanitade), and was in agreement with his The Venetian envoy Bartolommeo Marcello advisers that, if possible, peace must be reached Istanbul safely, and labored there to established in Italy. (The Venetians, as we shall good effect, apparently finding Sultan Mehmed note, had given far more attention during the easy to deal with, avendo impetrato tutto da lua winter of 1452-1453 to their war with Milan benignamente. When Marcello returned in the

than to the plight of Constantinople.) ‘To this mid-year of 1454, he brought with him the end Cardinal Domenico Capranica had just left well-known Turco-Venetian peace of 18 April. for Naples as legate to Alfonso V of Aragon- Mehmed sent one of his “slaves” back with him Catalonia, and Cardinal Juan de Carvajal was to to receive the doge’s oath if the Signoria found

leave the next day for Florence, Milan, and the terms satisfactory. ‘They were quite satisVenice." Years later Marino Sanudo, learned factory, for the new treaty was largely a conhistorian of the doges of Venice, summed up firmation of the one made on 10 September,

the situation: 1451.9 In April, 1454, the peace of Lodi, to which The news of the loss of Constantinople caused a WE Shall come presently, had effected the great terror among Christians, and the pope immedi-

ately sent word to the Signoria that the Venetians —————_ .

should arm five galleys against the Turks at his 8 Vite de’ duchi, In RISS, XXII (Milan, 1733), col, 1151B;

expense, and he launched the crusade. Those g. vom 3A a ce Thomas, in, Suungsber d. hk. bayer.

who went in an armada or by land against the Turks ad., MI, 98. Sanudo’s chronology Is a bit awry. Already on

. receive - 7 10 April, 1453,benefits the Senate had jubilee. written Pope Nicholas V should the full of the If any ar nuper . f . : (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 19, fol. 192"), “Habuimus soldier refused recruitment and declined to g0, literas a reverendissimis dominis cardinalibus, vicecancellario

he was excommunicated. ‘The Senate decided to send [Francesco Condulmer, d. 30 Oct., 1453] et Sancti Marci an ambassador to the lord Turk to demand of him [Pietro Barbo, later Pope Paul II], quibus nos cerciores faciunt our men who were taken prisoners in Constantinople, _Beatitudinem vestram pro sua innata clemencia ut occuratur because we had a just peace [buona pace] with him. _ tantis malis et periculis que parari videntur opem ferre civitati Constantinopolitane constituisse et triremes quinque in hac

—_—— nostra civitate armari facere. . . .” The pope had decided *L. v. Pastor, Acta inedita historiam pontificum romanorum _ to arm his five galleys long before the fall of Constantinople

. . . ulustrantia, | (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1904), no. 22, (cf. Thiriet, Régestes, III, nos. 2917, 2927, pp. 184, pp. 35-36; on Carvajal’s difficult mission, see Simoneta, 186-87). Res gestae Fr. Sfortiae, bk. xxi, in RISS, XXI, cols. 645—46, Furthermore, on 8 May the Senate had directed Loredan and ed. G. Soranzo, in the new Muratori, RISS, XXI, pt. 2, | “quoniam non deveniente Teucro ad pacem vel treuguas

p. 379; Cristoforo da Soldo, in the so-called Istoria cum _ serenissimo domino Imperatore Constantinopolis

bresciana, RISS, XXI, cols. 882D-—888, and ed. Giuseppe posset occurere quod mitteret ex gentibus et navigiis suis Brizzolara (who notes that in the oldest MSS. Cristoforo’s contra civitatem et insulam nostram Nigropontis, volumus

work is called simply Cronaca), in the new Muratori, quod in hoc casu cum galeis nostris tibi commissis

RISS, XXI, pt. 3, pp. 123-31, on the warfare in northern provideas ad bonam securitatem et tutellam civitatis et Italy, leading to the peace of Lodi in April, 1454, when insule Nigropontis sicut sapientie tue melius et utilius Francesco Sforza made peace “che’l si possa resistere al videbitur” (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 19, fol. 194%). Well before

impeto del Turco” (zbid., p. 129, line 22). the Turkish victory on the Bosporus, therefore, the See in general Enrico Carusi, “La Legazione del Card. Senate had provided for the defense of Negroponte but,

D. Capranica ad Alfonso di Aragona (Napoli, 29 luglio—7 it would seem, not adequately (cf., above, note 3). agosto 1453),” Archivio della R. Societa romana di storia patria, °G. M. Thomas (and R. Predelli), Diplomatarium veneto-

XXVIII (1905), 473-81; there is a sketch of Capranica’s levantinum, II (Venice, 1899, repr. New York, 1965), career in M. Morpurgo-Castelnuovo, “II Cardinal Domenico no. 209, pp. 282-84, and note V. V. MakuSev, MonuCapranica,” ibid., L11 (1929), 1-146, with twenty-one — menta historica slavorum meridionalium, 11 (Belgrade, 1882),

documents, and on Capranica’s (unsuccessful) mission to 226-27, doc. dated 18 June, 1454. Thomas does not give Naples, zbid., pp. 55-57. On the peace that was eventually _ the text of the treaty of 18 April, 1454, his latest document made at Lodi (on 9 April, 1454), see below, but Cristoforo being the Venetian pact with Ibrahim Beg, the Gran da Soldo notes, “Hor perché cadauno sapia che questa Caramano, dated 12 February, 1454, a diplomatic move on

Italia non po stare senza guerra.” the part of the Venetians which presumably hastened

On Carvajal’s dedication to the bellum in Turcos, note Card. _Mehmed’s willingness to make peace with the Republic, Jacopo Ammanati, Ep. 41, in ed. Frankfurt of Pius Il’s — since Ibrahim Beg was one of his chief enemies. An envoy Commentaru (1614), p. 483, and Ammanati’s own Com-_ of Ibrahim Beg was active in Rome a little later (MakuSev,

mentarit, ibid., pp. 354—55. II, 195-96, doc. dated 16 August, 1455).

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 14] pacification of Italy,’° and the Venetians found It was one thing to negotiate a treaty, as themselves free from the onerous burdens of Heyd has observed, “but the situation was much

war both at home and abroqd. Marcello was more attractive on paper than in reality.” In sent back to Istanbul to discuss the modification Ottoman Istanbul the Venetians lived in an of certain articles, and since by the terms of the atmosphere of perennial disturbance. ‘The treaty the Venetians were allowed to maintain =—————— a bailie on the Bosporus to preside over their P- 383, from the peace of 10 September, 1451; note also

. . Sanudo, op. cit., col. 1155C, and R. Predelli, ed., Regestt

commercial colony, Marcello was appointed to dei Commemoriali, V [1901], bk. xrv, no. 204, p. 65, misdated

the post with an annual salary of 1,000 ducats. 1461, and no. 288, pp. 91-92). According to Sanudo, Venice had been under The commission, issued in the name of the Doge

the huge (annual) expense of 550,000 ducats for Francesco Foscari to Bartolommeo Marcello, “about to go as

. bailie to Constantinople,” dated 16ofAugust, 1454,|and may her Italian forSen. an isSecreta, armada :; vant . . . ewars, foundand in the Reg.forty-five 20, fols. 29”%~30 galleys and eight other ships the captain-general [30°—31'], with a brief summary in Thiriet, Régestes, III,

Jacopo Loredan had wanted an additional no. 2976, p. 200. It is an important document. Marcello

120,000 ducats a year. By the treaties of Lodi was to press for the Turkish observance of the peace which and Istanbul, Venice was relieved of much of ©btained between the Republic and the Porte, and to protest

; ; against Turkish depredation of Venetian territory. The

this expense. By the terms of 18 April, 1454, Venetian government had instructed its own officers in the Porte and Signoria swore to maintain with critical areas strictly to maintain the peace, “sed sicut ex each other “peace and friendship” (la pace et Corphoo et Nigroponte sumus informati post dictam pacem amicizia), with full respect for the rights and per Teucros ex Barga et Nepanto quam plures anime

. . abducte fuerunt et multa damna illata, et ex ;insula properties of .both infustam the i f TNigropontisthe nonsignatories. nuile anime perAs unam Turcorum

agreement of 1451, Venice was assured protec- — fuerunt accepte cum derobatione bonorum subditorum tion for her citizens’ ships and goods throughout nostrorum, et quoniam credimus quod hec processerunt

the Ottoman domain, free entry into and exit contra mentem et scitum Excellentie sue quam non from ports including that of Istanbul, and the dubitamus velle pacem ipsam servare, instabis quod anime ‘oh b ? d-sell. “and th h il b £ abducte relaxentur et quod damna restituantur sicut iustum right to buy and ‘sell, “an Ut cy sna € Sate et debitum est et quod ordinet per modum quod omnes sui on the sea and on land,” promised Mehmed, “as a damnis nostrorum se de cetero abstineant.” was customary before, in the time of my father.” Venice wanted to retain the northern Sporades (Skyros, The Venetians were only obliged to pay a two Skiathos, and Skopelos) because of their proximity to per cent sales tax, and .they granted to(Lesbos), Turkish Negroponte (Euboea). If Domenico Gattilusio, lordfor of . . ytilene or his envoy was at the Porte asking merchants the same rights in Venetian ports aS the return of the islands to his rule, Marcello was to they were to enjoy in those of the sultan. Both — dissuade him: “Ad partem vero insularum Schyri, Schinti, powers pledged themselves not to assist each et Scopuli per formam capitulorum pacis nulla fit mentio other’s enemies, to which the Venetians cheer- quod restituantur fueruntque insule ille accepte tempore guerre quo tempore accipi potuerunt promisimusque fully assented some seven months after the papal hominibus dictarum insularum quod eos pro dominio announcement of a crusade. From the Venetian nostro tenebimus et conservabimus et nulli alio domino standpoint it seemed to be a good peace and to dabimus, propterea non videmus, salvo jure et honore meet the needs of the Republic if not those of —"°Stro, posse ipsas insulas alicui dare licet vellemus in longe

Christendom." maioribussue quam de his minimis miserabilibus : complacere Excellentie sicqueetnon dubitamusinsulis quod dominatio sua pro eius summa sapientia et magnitudine

© See, below, pp. 156-57. animi bene contenta et satisfacta remanebit. Et cum his et ‘! The full text and historical background are given by _ aliis pertinentibus rationibus et verbis instabis et procurabis, Sanudo, Vite de’ duchi, in RISS, XXII, cols. 1153-58; sicut de prudentia tua confidimus, quod desistat a petitione Thiriet, Régestes, III, nos. 2923, 2932, 2934-36, 2946, dictarum insularum quia nostre mentis est quod ipse insule 2955-56, pp. 186 ff.; cf. S. Romanin, Storia documentata nobis remaneant. Et si dominus Methelini [Domenico di Venezia, 1V (Venice, 1855), 254, 527 ff.; J. W. Zinkeisen, Gattilusio, d. 1458] vel nuntius suus esset ad portam Gesch. d. osman. Reiches in Europa, 11 (Gotha, 1854), 33-37; Theucri solicitando restitutionem dictarum insularum sibi

W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen-age, suadebis cum illis verbis et rationibus que tue prudentie trans. Furcy Raynaud, II (Leipzig, 1886, repr. Amsterdam, _videbuntur quod velint desistere ab hac petitione et potius

1967), 315-17; Pastor, Gesch.. d. Papste, I (repr. 1955), caripendere benevolentiam nostram quam tres scopulos 626-28; F. Babinger, Maometto il Conquistatore (1957), prout sunt dicti tres.” pp. 175-76. Bartolommeo Marcello served as Venetian The commission continues with Marcello’s instructions to bailie in Istanbul for two years, being replaced in 1456 by the effect that: “Iustificata materia insularum dices prefato Lorenzo Vitturi (Thiriet, Régestes, III, nos. 2969, 3016, domino quod pro observatione et implemento capitulorum pp. 198, 211). We may also note that in the treaties of pacis designavimus et misimus te in bailum nostrum 1451 and 1454 Venetian suzerainty was recognized over the Constantinopolis et misissemus etiam galeas nostras iuxta duchy of Naxos, which was not to pay tribute to the Turk — solitum. Sed quoniam in tempore convenienti ad nos non (Thomas and Predelli, Dipl. ven.-levantinum, Il, no. 209, _ rediisti nostras galeas mittere non potuimus sed ex Venetiis,

142 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Turks were hardly civilized, and the merchants The recovery of Constantinople rather than of

of S. Mark often looked back with strong Jerusalem now became the crusading ideal of

nostalgia to the good old days of ‘Byzantium. such Europeans as were moved to contemplate At any moment the sultan might indulge in some war against the infidel. There were a good many fit of passion or brutality. However conciliatory of them. The significance of the Turkish victory the policy of the home government, the Vene-

tians found it hard to get along with the warlike , a ,

Turks, who looked with disdain upon merchants In a most engaging but rather misleading article Emil ae , Jacobs, “Mehemmed II., der Eroberer, seine Beziehungen of patrician families as mere hucksters. If the ur Renaissance und seine Bichersammlung,” Oriens, H Venetian bailie in Istanbul received an unusually (1949), 6-30, has depicted Mehmed’s cultural interests and large salary, he earned it. Considering the con- the intellectual life of the court circle around him in too flict of interest which, given the sultan’s insatiable 8!0W'g colors. Jacobs believed that Mehmed, “der treueste ambition, was certain to obtain between the Porte Verstandnis fur die zeitgendssische Bildung des Abendand the Signoria, the bailie could not be sure | landes” (zbtd., p. 9). He gives a good deal of attention to any morning that he would not spend the night Ciriaco, whom he erroneously believes to be the Kyrizis in prison. The fate of Girolamo Minotto was of Francesco Filelfo’s letter of 11 March, 1454 (pp. 14-15), always before him. The Venetians could lament which has already claimed our attention in Chapter 2. the passing of the Byzantine empire almost as {ralian Jewish physician Yakub Pasha than by the diplomats

ws . . Reprasentant des alten Osmanentums,” had acquired “ein . ° : Certainly more influence was exerted on Mehmed by his

much as the Greeks.” and humanists who came for (usually) brief periods to the

——————_ Porte. At a later date (in July, 1469), for example, the

Creta, et aliis omnibus locis nostris ordinavimus quod naves_ _ Venetian Senate thought that Yakub Pasha, “Master Jacomo et navigia cum mercatoribus vadant Constantinopolim iuxta the Physician” (see below, p. 296), whose name is linked with

solitum et in futurum servabitur consuetudo.” He was to that of the Grand Vizir Mahmud Pasha, might help prevail make the customary presents of cloth of gold, silk, and other upon Mehmed to make peace with the Republic during a

gifts to the high officials of the Porte; report fully and terrible phase of the Turco-Venetian war (Sen. Secreta, clearly on conditions in Constantinople four days after his Reg. 24, fols. 34% and 36°). On this interesting figure, arrival; attend to several other important matters; and finally apparently more important than any humanist at the Porte, look to the release of Venetian prisoners in Turkish hands see Babinger, “Ja‘qub-Pascha, ein Leibarzt Mehmed’s IL., —“Sicut scis, restant adhuc captivi in manibus Teucrorum Leben und Schicksale des Maestro Jacopo aus Gaeta,” non nulli Veneti et fideles nostri inter quos est Victor Aufsatze u. Abhandlungen, 1 (1962), 240-62 (first published Trivisano de la Barba; ipsorum liberationem procurabis in the Rivista degli studi orientali, XXVI [Rome, 1951], sicut melius et utilius cognoveris et maxime dicti Victoris 87-113); note also Bernard Lewis, “The Privilege Granted culus pater providit de pecuniis necessariis ad illius by Mehmed II to his Physician,” Bulletin of the School of

redemptionem.” Oriental and African Studies, University of London, XIV-3 Marcello’s duties, as he departed for Constantinople “in (1952), 550-63; and cf. E. Birnbaum, “Hekim Ya‘qib, baylum et rectorem nostrorum Venetorum exercendo Physician to Sultan Mehemmed the Conqueror,” Harofé regimen tuum ibidem et in illis locis que tenebat Imperator Haivri: The Hebrew Medical Journal, I (1961), 250-222 [sic].

Constantinopolis a die quo applicueris illuc usque ad duos Few works of notable value were produced in Istanbul annos,” are defined in detail in the Senato Mar, Reg. 5, _ in the fifteenth century, very little originality being shown fols. 49°—51" [50°—-52"], doc. dated 16 August, 1454, witha __ in belles-lettres, grammar, theology, philosophy, law, or the

concise summary in Thiriet, Régestes, III, no. 2976, — sciences (cf. Babinger, Maometto, pp. 685-720). Mehmed’s

pp. 200-1. Upon his return to Venice, Marcello passed interest in western “culture,” as was noted by Jacopo through Ragusa in April, 1456, bringing the news of vast Tedaldi, Jacopo de’ Languschi, Niccolé Sagundino, the Turkish preparations for a campaign “ad expugnanda Pseudo-Sphrantzes, and’ others, was to learn enough of Danubii loca” (to be directed against Belgrade, for which see —_ Europe to facilitate further conquests in the West (Babinger,

below, Chapter 6). The Ragusei reported the fact to John “Mehmed II., der Eroberer, und Italien,” in Aufsatze u. Hunyadi on 15 April (J. Gelcich and L. Thalléczy, eds., Abhandlungen, 1 [1962], 178-86). He wanted to know how Diplomatarium ragusanum, Budapest, 1887, no. 342, p. 592). Alexander and Caesar had conquered the world, but he was A Turkish envoy accompanied Marcello upon the latter’s no “prince of the Italian Renaissance,” addicted to humanism

return home (Sen. Secreta, Reg. 20, fol. 89° [90°], doc. (idem, Maometto, pp. 740-42). To be sure, Persian copyists,

dated 19 May, 1456). miniaturists, and binders produced some fine books at

" Cf. Heyd, Hist. du commerce, trans. Furcy Raynaud, II Mehmed’s court, but the sixteenth century was the great era (1886, repr. 1967), 317-18. There was some intellectual of bookmaking and manuscript illumination (ibid., pp. 682—activity at the court of Mehmed II, especially in his later 83). Highly intelligent without doubt, Mehmed practiced a

years. An assessment of his interest in western culture _ religious tolerance which did him honor. He was in fact usually begins with a discussion of Ciriaco of Ancona’s intrigued by Christian theology, but probably had a less presence at the Porte (see above, Chapter 2, note 113). Most extensive knowledge of “foreign” languages than has of the Ottoman soldiers and tax officials with whom the — usually been assumed (Ch. G. Patrinelis, “Mehmed II the Venetian merchants dealt were a crude and grasping lot. Conqueror and His Presumed Knowledge of Greek and Although the names are known of various literati and Latin,” Viator, II [1971], 349-54). On the whole Heyd, II, scholars at the Ottoman court, to whom Mehmed sometimes 317, seems not without reason in stating that “chez les gave pensions and offices, their intellectual achievements Turcs, prince et peuple étaient encore ... loin de la

were very modest indeed. civilisation. . . .”

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 143 of 29 May, 1453, quickly penetrated even into place again become a rich market for precious the dream world of chivalric forms and cere- stones, fine cloths, silks, and other agreeable monials which one still found at the court of items. They were, however, not to discuss the Burgundy, and on 17 February, 1454, Duke possibility of a tribute, if the sultan brought up Philip the Good and the Knights of the Golden _ the question, unless there seemed a reasonable Fleece took the most solemn crusading vows at chance of his restoring Pera to the Republic. Lille amid the gorgeous and (to us) melodramatic Should they be able to secure no concession at spectacles attending the celebrated Feast of the all from him, they were to solicit his mercy for

Pheasant. the inhabitants of Pera, whose own prayers they were also to transmit to him. In the (highly

If the Venetians viewed the Turkish success unlikely) event of their success, the two envoys with dismay, the Genoese did so with terror. were to draw lots to see which one of them would Mehmed II’s occupation of Pera (Galata) had take over the office of podesta and assume the

come at a low point in the checkered fortunes task of refortifying Pera. They were also to of Genoa, which could do nothing but fear for secure in writing, if they could, the sultan’s the future of Caffa and the trading company or guarantee of freedom for Genoese trade and

mahona of Chios. Since the state had only the shipping as well as access to the Black Sea, where slenderest resources, and was at war with Naples, Caffa now hung like a ripe apple on the tree.

it was preposterous to think of making war also Permission to export wheat from Ottoman on the Porte. It was difficult even to find the funds territories was another request. ‘The commission

necessary to send an embassy to Istanbul. On given Spinola and Maruffo represented the 11 March, 1454, however, two envoys were triumph of wishful thinking over common sense, finally appointed, Luciano Spinola and Baldassare and after consulting with their compatriots at Maruffo, whose instructions were to proceed Chios, Pera, and Adrianople, as Heyd suggests, without delay to Istanbul, stopping first at Chios _ very likely the poor envoys never presented their

and then at Pera, in order to learn all they petition to the sultan at all, which would

could of conditions at the Ottoman court and also have been in keeping with their instrucof the sultan’s general mood, asa guide to how tions. Maruffo died on the return journey, and much they might ask for, and with what chance Spinola later gave the poor state of his health as

of success. Once in the sultan’s presence, they the reason for declining to return to Istanbul were to congratulate him on the occupation of on a second such mission." Constantinople, which under his domination Spinola’s reluctance again to face the Gran might now look forward to a new era of ‘Turco was no greater than that of his governprosperity! If their previous consultations at ment, which had surrendered Caffa and all its Chios and Pera had been at all hopeful, they other possessions on the Black Sea to the Bank were to make a special plea for Pera, which

without its own defenses would inevitably perish,

being unsafe as a resort for merchants and asa _,, ‘imedeo wigna, wodice orp omatice “ene colonic ee depot for merchandise. They were to try to gain 1275) oan ora Hiligure ih coria bathe. nanan » In Ati Alte ‘lla’, della Societa di storia patria, IL VI (Genoa, the return of Pera to Genoa and to secure 1868), docs. 11, XXXVIII-XXXIX, CXVH, pp. 21-23, 118-22, permission for the repair of its walls and towers, 297-301, and esp. L. T. Belgrano, “Documenti riguardanti

for only thus could Mehmed hope to see the Ja colonia di Pera,” «id., XII (1877-84), no. cLIVv,

pp. 261-70, where note the importance of Francesco

Drapperio (p. 263), on whom see above, pp. 79, 94—95, and

OO below, note 19. Cf. also V. V. MakuSev, Monumenta historica 8G. du Fresne de Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, slavorum meridionalium, U (Belgrade, 1882), 14-15, letter

V (Paris, 1890), 395-97; Otto Cartellieri, The Court of dated 13 March, 1454, of the Doge Pietro di CampoBurgundy, trans. Malcolm Letts, New York, 1929, pp. fregoso and the Council of the Anziani to Sultan Mehmed 136-53; Constantin Marinesco, in Comptes rendus de II; Heyd, Histoire du commerce, trans. Furcy Raynaud, I, l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris, 1951, p. 136; 313-15, 387; Philip P. Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by

Armand Grunzweig, “Philippe le Bon et Constantinople,” the Genoese, I (Cambridge, 1958), 203-5. For conditions in Byzantion, XXIV (1954), 47-61; Richard Vaughan, Philip the Genoese colonies of Pera and the Black Sea, see the Good: The Apogee of Burgundy, London, 1970, pp. Vigna, in Atti, VI, nos. I, XXI-xXxU, xxxul ff., Cxxxviu, 143-45, 266-67, 297-99, 358 ff.; and Yvon Lacaze, cut, et alibi, and on Genoese commercial enterprise both “Politique ‘méditerranéenne’ et projets de croisade chez at home and abroad, see Jacques Heers, Génes au XV® Philippe le Bon: De la chute de Byzance 4 la victoire siécle: Activité économique et problémes sociaux, Paris, 1961, who chrétienne de Belgrade (mai 1453—juillet 1456),” Annales de gives some attention to the colonies at Pera and on the Black

Bourgogne, XLI (1969), 5-42, 81-132. Sea as well as to Francesco Drapperio.

144 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT of S. George (Uffizio di S. Giorgio) in an irrev- become all the greater “unless the city lof Chios] ocable grant, made in the Palazzo Pubblico in’ were fortified with stronger walls and _ battle-

Genoa shortly after noontime on Thursday, ments, and protected by a larger garrison.”

15 November, 1453. The Bank of S. George Considering the Turks’ striking power both on acquired Caffa and the other colonies in full land and at sea and Sultan Mehmed II’s audacity

sovereignty, with the rights of naming all and greed, the refortification of Chios and its

officials, legislating for the inhabitants, and try- harbor facilities had become a grave necessity. ing under its jurisdiction even capital cases. The Fear of the sultan, however, had already imBank, founded in 1407, disposed of larger posed the most terrible financial burdens on the resources than did the impoverished Republic mahona. The intolerably large annual tribute of Genoa. The directors (protectores) of the Bank which the island company had to pay the Porte began most vigorously to see to the repair of the made it quite impossible to provide for the fortifications and the reform of the administra- proper defense of Chios from current revenues. tion of Caffa (and Samastri also). The constant Conditions had become such that the commune danger, however, to men and ships having to of Genoa should itself be extending a helping run the gauntlet under the cannon of Rumeli hand. There was pressing ‘need, we are told, of a Hisar and Anadolu Hisar, as well as the great financial subvention for the preservation of expense involved in such difficult and distant Chios, but the mahonesi realized that the home operations, soon diminished the directors’ ardor government was faced with its own perils and

for justice, efficiency, and the honor of S. problems, and so dared not ask for the help

George. The stockholders had to be considered. which the state of emergency actually demanded.

The Bank had been obliged to reduce its The mahonest therefore proposed as an alternadividend from seven to four per cent, and the _ tive, however inadequate it might be, the fuller inhabitants of Caffa apparently paid the Porte employment of local resources in the public from year to year a tribute of 3,000 Venetian interest—increasing the import duty paid by ducats, which an embassy sent from the colony foreigners and also the tax on wine; doubling

had negotiated for 1454-1455." the government brokerage fees on all purchases,

Important enough before the fall of Con- sales, and exchanges; removing the Latin

stantinople, the city and island of Chios became _ burghers’ exemption from the kharaj (caragium),

(after the Turkish occupation of Pera) the chief which was levied on all property to help meet Genoese outpost in the Levant. There was there- the Turkish tribute; and further requiring from fore every reason for the mahonest solemnly to the Latin burghers an annual contribution of warn the Genoese Doge Pietro di Campofregoso food (provisio victualium), such as the Greeks,

and the Council of the Anziani, in the autumn Jews, and others were obliged to make, notof 1454, that as the Republic’s ships and _ withstanding the burghers’ previous exemption merchandise were more and more concentrated from this impost.'® On 18 December, 1454, after in the island, the danger from the Turks would _ two days’ examination of the mahonesv’s petition, the doge and Anziani granted all their requests, Cf. Heyd, Hist. du commerce, trans. Furcy Raynaud, which were con firmed by the treasury officials II, 382-90, and for the sources see Vigna, “Codice diplo- OM the following day, and registered by the matico,” in Atti della Societa ligure di storia patria, V1, nos. Chancellor on the twentieth.’” It was necessary

n ; er . - .

I-IV, pp. 24-43, docs. dated November, 1453, and Sil. to do something, but of course there was little de Sacy, “Pieces diplomatiques,” in Notices et extras tq do. The Genoese hold on Chios would be des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque du Roi et autres biblio- . . théques, XI (Paris, 1827), 81-89. The revenues of Caffa relinquished whenever the Ottoman sultan “and those parts” were estimated at more than 30,000 should decide that the time had come. pounds (Vigna, op. cit., p. 25). On 22 April, 1455, For a while it seemed as though the time had

Mee AT ata ake toatl Siu Safcsxies come in the spring and summer of 1455 when the Turks or the Tatars to help hold “hreatened Caffa the Turkish admiral Hamza Beg, after raids

for the directors of the Bank of S. George, the plenary UPON the Hospitaller strongholds at Rhodes and remission of all sins, as outlined in Nicholas’s declara- elsewhere,’® directed his large fleet toward the tions with respect to the jubilee year (Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 436, fols. 3'-5', and 269'-270", by mod... —————__ stamped enumeration, and ¢f. Reg. Vat. 439, fols. 174¥- 6 Argenti, Occupation of Chios, II (1958), 302-4. 175’, doc. of the following November referring to that of Ibid., 11, 304—5; vol. I, pp. 422-23. 22 April). On the Bank of S. George, which survived until On the problems of the Hospitallers in the years 1797, see Heers, Génes au XV° siécle, esp. pp. 97 ff. immediately after 1453, see R. Valentini, “L’Egeo dopo

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 145 harbor of Chios, which was rather better de- to Drapperio. He landed some forces on the fended than the mahonesi’s petition of 1454 might island; they became embroiled with the in-

have led the Genoese government to believe. habitants; and in the encounter the Turkish Although Hamza Beg landed troops on Chios, flagship was sunk. The ship was Hamza Beg’s

lacking cannon and siege tackle, he did not attack own property, but the fact helped little to assuage the town walls nor the harbor installations, but the wrath of Mehmed II, who removed him from

he demanded the payment of 40,000 ducats the naval command, and appointed Yunus which the mahonesi were alleged to owe Francesco Pasha in his place. Chios was spared a full-scale Drapperio for alum delivered to Chios. Drapperio, Turkish attack when the mahonest agreed to pay

a Genoese resident in Galata, whom we have an increased tribute and an indemnity of 30,000 met as Ciriaco of Ancona’s friend, had long ducats, which seems like a steep price for the been a favorite of the Porte. He appears to ship which the Turks had lost as a consequence have assigned the debt, which the mahonesi of their own aggression. Toward the end of the claimed already to have satisfied, to the sultan.!2 year 1455, however, the two Phocaeas on the Drapperio was in fact on board a Turkish Anatolian coast, the chief source of alum for the vessel calmly watching Hamza Beg’s ineffective European market, were taken by the Turks, who effort to collect the money. After ravaging parts sacked them with their customary thoroughness.”

of the island and taking two reluctant Chian During the anxious months of waiting for

envoys into custody, Hamza Beg sailed on to Mehmed II’s next move, the mahonesi addressed Cos (Stanchio, Istank6y), where he laid un- an appeal from Chios to Rome on 14 August, successful siege to the highland castle for three 1455, reminding the pope, now Calixtus III, of weeks. Cos was a dependency of the Hospitallers, the terror under which they lived. The Turkish

whose persistent refusal to pay tribute to the fleet had just been sent against them. It was Porte earned them Mehmed II's lifelong enmity. going to return in greater strength, “and that Accomplishing nothing against the defenders of this will happen, we have learned through no

Cos, Hamza Beg finally set sail for Gallipoli, idle rumor but from informed authorities.”

again weighing anchor off Chios, where he The mahones: would stand by the Christian cause demanded that the mahonest send envoys to with steadfast hearts: Adrianople to settle the question of their debt But what is our strength? How will so small a colony be defended without the common help of Christen-

—_ dom?—and yet, however small, we think its imporla caduta di Costantinopoli nelle relazioni dei Gran Maestri tance is not unknown to all Christians overseas. Its di Rodi,” Bullettino dell’ Istituto storico italiano per il medio fall would carry most of them to the same destruction.

do, € Archivio seratoriano, Ll (192°), 137-68, we four Amid these perils which we share with other 48_ 51, Ss ang ap lie presen’ cones’ notes, Ws PP: — Christians we take refuge in your Holiness. . . . 19 Drapperio was not always prompt, it would seem, inthe The mahonesi expressed a touching if somewhat payment of his own debts. Four years before this (on 8 July, 1451), when Lorenzo Moro was being sent as Vene- §—=—————

tian envoy to the new sultan, Mehmed II, among the 2° On the indemnity, see Ducas, Hist. byzant., chap. 45 charges he received from the Senate was that of getting (Bonn, p. 335); in addition to the ship it was, of course, Mehmed or the pashas at the Ottoman court to force intended to cover the Turkish loss of life. The annual Drapperio to pay what he owed one Giovannitde Mercato tribute for Chios was now set at 10,000 ducats. In a Novo, a Venetian citizen, who had done business with second expedition of the same year the Genoese station of Drapperio through a factor named Domenico de Magistris. New Phocaea, together with its alum works, was taken by Moro’s commission indicates that a magna summa pecuniarum _ the Turks (on 1 November, 1455), as we learn from Crito-

was involved, and describes Drapperio as a “Genoese and __ bulus, II, 5 (ed. Karl Miller, in Fragmenta historicorum subject of the sultan,” Januensis et subditus dicti imperatoris graecorum [FHG], V-1 [Paris, 1870], p. 108b, and ed. V. Turchorum (Arch. di Stato di Venezia, Sen. Mar, Reg. 4, fol. Grecu, Critobul din Imbros: Din domnia lui Mahomed al 67° [68°]). Amedeo Vigna, “Codice diplomatico,” Atti della -lea, anit 1451-1467, Bucharest, 1963, p. 179), as well as

Societa ligure di storia patria, VI, 221, note, says that from Ducas, chap. 44 (Bonn, pp. 333-34), in some detail. “Drapperio” (drappo, cloth; drappiere, draper, mercer) seems Old Phocaea soon followed New Phocaea into Turkish not to be a Genoese surname, and that Francesco was a hands. See in general Vigna, “Codice diplomatico,” Atti Jew, which might explain his friendliness with the Turks della Societa ligure, VI, 220 ff.; W. Heyd, Hist. du and his apparent indifference to his Christian compatriots. commerce, trans. Furcy Raynaud, I, 319-20; Babinger, He was the chief financial figure in the eastern alum Maometto (1957), pp. 202-6, 208; Argenti, Occupation of

trade during the fifth decade of the century (Marie- Chios, I, 208-9; and esp. Wolfgang Miller-Wiener, Louise Heers, “Les Génois et le commerce de lalun a la “Kusadasi und Yeni-Focga: Zwei italienische Grindungs-

fin du moyen 4ge,” Revue d’histoire économique et sociale, stadte des Mittelalters,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen, XXV (1975),

XXXII [1954], 36-42, 49 ff.). 399-420.

146 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT rhetorical confidence in the aged pontiff’s taken again, with considerable losses on both divine mission to save them and redeem the _ sides, and partially destroyed. This was the fifth

faith by massing western arms against the ‘Turkish invasion of the Morea and the fifth

Turks. The mahonesit were pleading for the destruction of the Hexamilion in less than thirty rescue not of schismatic Greeks, but of ancient years, the previous occasions being in 1423, Christians of Italian stock, who had ever been ’31, ’46, and ’50.”4 faithful to the sacrosanct Church of Rome, and After forcing his passage through the Isthmus who (whether deserted by their fellow Christians of Corinth in October, 1452, TTurakhan Beg had

or not) were prepared to fight until the end.*’ traversed the Argolid and southern Arcadia, On 28 November, 1455, Calixtus III granted going by way of Mantineia, Tripolitza, and to those who supported themselves for six Tegea, past Megalopolis, all the way to the rich months in the defense of Chios the indulgence | plains of ancient Messene at the foot of historic

and plenary remission of sins which had been Mount Ithome. Killing or capturing all the bestowed on pilgrims to Rome in the jubilee and inhabitants who did not escape him, he despoiled

on crusaders in the Holy Land.” The pope the beautiful countryside in a brutal razzia. As a made no mention of his intention to send a_ diversion to prevent the Moreote despots from fleet into Levantine waters against the Turks. sending aid to the beleaguered capital, it was The customary privileges of the crusading quite successful, although a Turkish contingent indulgence did not fit very well the requirements under Ahmed Beg was ambushed in a mountain

of the mahonesi. There were more attractive pass near Mycenae by a force under Matthew ways to win the indulgence than by giving half a Asan, whose sister Zoe had married the Despot year to garrison duty in Chios, to the patrol of Demetrius. Ahmed Beg was captured and sent to lonely shores, or to service aboard the mahona’s Demetrius at Mistra, where he was imprisoned.

galley. The Pseudo-Sphrantzes concludes his account of these events with the sad notice that “on 17

The attention of Europe had been fastened January [1453] . . . there was born the heir of upon Constantinople. The Genoese worried the Palaeologi and of this small spark of the about Pera and Caffa, and the Venetians about Roman empire, the lord Andreas Palaeologus, Negroponte, but there had been another im- son of the porphyrogenite Despot Thomas.””° portant theater of Turkish military operations Andreas’s later history was to be as sad as the in the Morea. While Mehmed II had been _ political circumstances attending his birth.

making preparations for the siege of Con- The fall of Constantinople had produced

stantinople, he had sent the old general consternation in the Morea, and it would be hard Turakhan Beg and the latter’s two sons, Ahmed to say whether the despots were the more Beg and Omar Beg, to invade the Morea in reassured or frightened by the accounts they October, 1452, directing them to remain there received from some of the notable refugees who all winter to prevent the Despots Thomas and managed to reach their peninsular domain in Demetrius from coming to the assistance of their safety. Among these was the diplomat and brother Constantine XI.23 The Hexamilion was historian George Sphrantzes, who had lost his

21 Cod. Barberini lat. 3210, fols. 115-16, published by 4For the Turkish assaults on the Hexamilion in 1423, Argenti, Occupation of Chios, II, 427-28, and by Vigna, 1431, and 1446, see above, pp. 38, 95b, 96—97; for that in “Codice diplomatico,” Ait della Societa ligure, VI (1868), 1450, see Chalcocondylas, bk. vit (Bonn, p. 378; ed. Darko,

no. CxLvul, pp. 353-54, from Raynaldus, Ann. ecel., ad II-1 [1923], 144-45), and cf. in general Wm. Miller, ann. 1455, no. 33, vol. XVIII (Cologne, 1694), p. 443. Latins in the Levant, London, 1908, pp. 387, 410, 412-14, 22 Reg. Vat. 439, fols. 220"-221; wrongly dated in Ar- and 425. genti, op. cit., I, 430-31. Numerous documents relating to 25 Pseudo-Sphrantzes, III, 3 (Bonn, pp. 235-36; ed. Calixtus III’s crusading efforts are given by Vigna, in Atti, Grecu, p. 380), from Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156,

VI, esp. pp. 505 ff. 1060D; ed. Grecu, p. 96); Chalcocondylas, bk. vi (Bonn,

23 Pseudo-Sphranizes, III, 3 (Bonn, p. 235; ed. V. Grecu, pp. 381-82; ed. Dark6, II, 148); ef. Critobulus, I, 19 (ed. Geo. Sphrantzes . . . in anexad Pseudo-Phrantzes, Bucharest, Miiller, FHG, V-1, pp. 69-70; ed. Grecu, pp. 79, 81), and 1966, p. 380), and cf. Geo. Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG Chas. Hopf, Chroniques gréco-romanes, Berlin, 1873, repr. 156, 1060D; ed. Grecu, p. 96); Laonicus Chalcocondylas, Brussels, 1966, geneal. tables, p. 536. On this expedition, bk. vim (Bonn, p. 381; ed. E. Darko, H-2 [Budapest, note also Franz Babinger, “Turakhan Beg,” Encyclopaedia of

1927], 148). This expedition is not mentioned by either Islam, IV (1924-34), 877, where it is wrongly dated Ducas or Critobulus. October, 1453.

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 147 wife and children, sold into slavery by the Albanians, who were to be urged “to be bold and of Turks,?® and who had apparently served the late stout heart and to proceed manfully until the Emperor Constantine XI with love and loyalty to coming of the said commissioner.”*® Although the last hours of the latter’s life. Another refugee Canale’s appointment and this encouragement of to reach the Morea, after a sojourn in Crete, was the Albanian insurrection apparently passed the Cardinal Isidore of Kiev, of whom Chalco- Senate by a large majority, it is not clear what if condylas says: “If the sultan had known this man, anything was done in consequence of this action.

that he was Cardinal Isidore, he would have The coming months, moreover, saw a con-

killed him and not let him escape, but thinking siderable modification of Venetian views, for that he was dead by now, he had paid no _ occupation of a large part of the Morea would

attention to the matter.”?? Pope Pius II later inevitably embroil them in war with Sultan recalled that Isidore, who became cardinal Mehmed, which they certainly did not want. bishop of Sabina, escaped from Constantinople In an elaborate commission of 16 and 19 July, by changing clothes with a corpse, “leaving his 1454, the Doge Francesco Foscari directed cowl and the red hat on the dead man” (cuculla et another envoy, the famous Vettore Capello, to rubenti pileo supra mortuum dimissis), whose head go to Modon, where he should notify both the was mounted ona pike and paraded throughthe despots and the Albanians of his arrival for city and the Turkish camp “per ignominiam the purpose of negotiating with them. He was

contemptumque Sedis Apostolicae.””® instructed to acquaint himself thoroughly with The terrible news from the Bosporus un- the state of affairs in the Morea and by what doubtedly added much to the confusion that means and methods peace might be re-estabcommonly existed in the Morea. According to lished between the contending parties. Capello Chalcocondylas, the two despots were preparing was also to investigate the extent of the Despot

to flee to Italy with the most important Greek Thomas’s violation of Venetian rights and

dignitaries of the Morea when Sultan Mehmed _ territories, request an audience of Thomas, and made peace with them.”* If they paid the annual explain

tribute, they could apparently retain their that because of our very great affection for his

sovereignty, which they chose to do, but now illustrious forebears, we have suffered deep distress a storm of discontent against their feeble rule gy, his Excellency’s behalf and on behalf of all his

broke out in the Morea. By the late summer family for the death of the most serene lord, the

of 1453 some 30,000 Albanians had revolted emperor of Constantinople, and for the grievous fall against the despots, aroused by one of their of that famed city—but recognizing now the many chieftains, Peter Boua “the Lame,” who was a_ uncertainties and perils hanging over him and all the member of the family of the Boua Spatas, once Morea, because no one can doubt that if the war despots of Arta and Lepanto. The Albanians continues between their Excellencies and the Aloffered to submit to Venice; it was said they banians, the country will be reduced to such condition had raised the banner of S. Mark. The Republic tat it must needs pass into the hands of others with answered their appeal with alacrity and ap- have decided not to postpone any longer the sending pointed one Dr. Niccolo da Canale on 17 of our embassy, which we have not been able to send October, 1453, as its high commissioner to the yp to this time because of other occupations and

26 : . .

. ; . e complete ruin and destruction of his state, we

——— our many commitments. ...

>. od; Pseudo Sphrantecs, Ww. 1 (Bona, pp. 809-10 Capello’s task was then defined in these terms: ed. Grecu, p. 458), and cf., ibid., chap. 14 (Bonn, pp.

383-84, 385; ed. Grecu, pp. 522, 524). —_—_———

27 Chalcocondylas, bk. vu1 (Bonn, p. 399; ed. Dark, II, °C. N. Sathas, ed., Documents inédits relatifs a Uhistoire 163), who informs us that the inhabitants of the Greek de la Gréce au moyen-age, I (Paris, 1880, repr. Athens, islands fled when they had learned of the fall of Con- 1972), nos. 145-48, pp. 215-17; Stefano Magno, Estratti

stantinople, and those of the Morea, including the despots, degli Annali veneti, ed. Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 199,

hastened to the sea, contemplating flight. and geneal. tables, p. 531; Chalcocondylas, bk. vu (Bonn,

7° Pius II, Commentarii, bk. x1, Frankfurt, 1614, pp. pp. 406-7; ed. Darké, II, 169-70); D. A. Zakythinos,

299-300, trans. Florence Alden Gragg, in Smith College Le Despotat grec de Morée, 1 (Paris, 1932, repr. London, Studies in History, vol. XLHI (Northampton, Mass., 1957), 1975), 247 ff; and in general see J. Ch. Poulos, “The pp. 746-47 [on which see below, Chapter 7, note 13). Settlement of the Albanians in Corinthia” [in Greek], in the 2° Chalcocondylas, bk. vi1i (Bonn, p. 406; ed. Darko, II, ’Ezernpis tov peoatwrixov ’Apxeiov, HI (Athens, 1950),

169). 31-105, esp. pp. 75 ff.

148 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT You are to interpose yourself in our name [between Mistra. Manuel, who was lord of Maina, took the contestants] and provide for and insist upon the Albanian name Ghin; his wife Maria called concord and agreement with respect to all existing herself Cuchia; and the Albanians proclaimed differences between his Excellency [Thomas] and the him despot (1453-1454). Turakhan Beg’s son most illustrious lord Demetrius, brother, and the O . ; only Albanians. and to contrive 2 sound peace and marhis was sent into the Morea, but remained

peace | ht ll vict ver the

harmony between them. . . . ong enough Co score a smali victory Ove Albanians, and then withdrew, gaining the free-

After trying to secure Thomas’s subscription to dom of his brother Ahmed as a reward for peace, Capello was to go next to Demetrius, and his services from _ the Despot Demetrius.*2 finally to the chiefs of the Albanians. In anyevent Doubtless the, Porte saw much value in the

“we wish that you take particular care before or Albanians’ continued hostility to the Palaeologi,

after the conclusion of the said peace, as shall for it would make the latter more tractable seem better to you, that all our places, villages, and very likely make their payment of the lands, and jurisdictions of Modon, Coron, and annual tribute more prompt. The immediate Nauplia should be fully restored to us, as is just repercussions of the Albanian revolt had reand most proper.” Various difficulties were dounded to the discredit of the Palaeologi, anticipated if one or more of the contending who could not suppress it, but if allowed to parties should be unwilling to make peace. Such continue indefinitely in a Turkish satellite state

were Venetian fears and suspicions of the suchas the Morea had become, the revolt would Genoese and Catalans that sixteen members of ultimately reflect on the sultan’s own power the Senate wanted Capello to try peacefully to to preserve order. acquire, by purchase or otherwise, such im- Omar Beg’s military gesture was not sufficient portant seaports as Glarentza, Patras, Corinth, to discourage the Albanians and _ re-establish and Vostitza (Lagusticia, Logostiza), if there peace in the Morea, especially since Giovanni should be any danger of their falling into the Asan, the bastard son of Centurione II Zaccaria, hands of “another maritime power.” A majority last of the Frankish princes of the Morea of the Senate was opposed, however, to the (d. 1432), came forward as a new aspirant to acquisition of more places that would require power. The Albanians flocked to his standard defense, and so this proposal was not incor- as Manuel Cantacuzenus faded into the turbulent

porated in Capello’s instructions.” background. Giovanni Asan was the brother-in-

While Vettore Capello went from place to law of the Despot Thomas, who had married place in the Morea, circumspectly fulfilling the Caterina Zaccaria, legal heiress of Achaea, in instructions in the doge’s commission as well as_ 1430; he had now escaped from imprisonment those he received from home after his arrival, inthe castle of Chloumoutsi, where Thomas had Sultan Mehmed intervened to help the despots confined him after an uprising in 1446 during

suppress the Albanian insurgents. No few the Turkish invasion. Quite a stir was caused

Greeks had joined the Albanian uprising, taking by Giovanni’s appearance in the arena, and advantage of the situation to seek their own Chalcocondylas recounts the events of 1454 at

profit in the peninsular war against the length. It looked as though an Albanian

Palaeologi. The chief of these was Manuel principality might be set up in the peninsula

Cantacuzenus, a descendant of the imperial under this last Latin prince of Achaea, who took family which had established the despotate of his father’s name, Centurione. The Albanians had already appealed to the Porte, recognizing 31 Sathas, Docs. inédits, I, no. 149, pp. 218-23. The Vene- Turkish suzerainty and promising a large annual tian Senate had an especial fear of Genoese meddling in the Morea (ibid., no. 150), but Capello was reminded by letter —= ———————

after his arrival in the Morea that Venice had no territorial 32 Chalcocondylas, bk. vu1 (Bonn, p. 407; ed. Darké, ambitions in the peninsula, and wanted only to see peace II, 170); Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1064; ed. maintained (no. 151). The handsomely written archival copy Grecu, pp. 104, 106); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, IV, 14 (Bonn, of Capello’s commission of 16-19 July, 1454, from which _p. 383; ed. Grecu, p. 522); Ioann. Cartanus, Anthos, in Sathas published the document, may be found in the Sen. Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, p. 267; Theod. Spandugnino, Secreta, Reg. 20, fols. 23¥-25" [24¥-26"]. Nicholas V was Tratt[at]o della casa d’Ottomano funder Giov. Musachi], showing, at this time, a rather belated anxiety to proceed ibid., pp. 330-31; and for Manuel Cantacuzenus’s alleged against the Turks, having even dispatched galleys to the descent from the Emperor John VI, see Hopf, op. East (cf. his letter to the doge of Venice, dated 9 March, cit., geneal. tables, p. 536, and esp. D. M. Nicol, The 1454, in Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXIX, tom. 6, fol. Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus), ca. 1100—-

8’, by mod. stamped enumeration). 1460, Washington, D.C., 1968, pp. 201-3.

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 149 tribute. The despots, however, sent Demetrius’s temporaries were well aware that an important

brother-in-law Matthew to the Porte with a change had taken place in world history. second request for assistance, and this time the Shocked by the fall of the city, Cardinal sultan sent Turakhan Beg himself with a large Bessarion wrote from Bologna on 13 July, 1453,

army. Accompanied again by his two sons, the to Francesco Foscari, the doge of Venice, old warrior arrived in October (1454), declaring recounting the tragedy of the event, and that, since the inhabitants of the Morearegarded appealing to the Republic to take up arms against

the Turks as their enemy, one of the two the Turks with the Christian princes, lest the

despots must at all times be seen with the Turkish Greek islands, central Europe, and Italy should

forces as an assurance to the people. First, in their turn come under attack. There were

Demetrius joined the Turks in an attack upon a doubtless many thoughtful people who realized strongly fortified place called Borbotia. The the importance of these recent events as fully as Albanians, fearing apparently both assault and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, onetime publicist siege, withdrew from the place at night, leaving and orator at the Council of Basel, and for years an alleged 10,000 men and women behind them. _ thereafter observant diplomat and knowledgeNext, Thomas, the younger of the brothers, able secretary of the German imperial chancery. assisted Turakhan Beg in attacks upon Ithome Never a profound thinker, Aeneas Sylvius was and nearby Aetos. The latter place had recently well informed, and his views possess an especial acclaimed Prince “Centurione,” and was ob- _ significance, because within a few years he was viously an important center of the resistance to to become S. Peter’s successor and to make the the Palaeologi. It produced another thousand crusade the chief object of his papacy.

captives. The Albanians had never intended, Aeneas was bishop of his native Siena at this however, to make war on the Porte, a consider-_ time, and happened to be with Frederick III able undertaking. They now capitulated withthe and the imperial court at Graz in Styria when understanding that they might keep the lands, news of the fall of Constantinople reached horses, and beasts of burden they had seized him. The Turkish menace had probably been on in the course of their revolt. Quiet returned to everyone’s mind, but on 17 April, 1453, Aeneas that harassed land, long ravaged by war, plague, had written Cardinal Juan de Carvajal from and famine.* Before his departure Turakhan Wiener Neustadt: “We hear nothing about the Beg summoned the two despots to him for ‘Turk. Would that we might never hear anyanother conference, urged them torule together _ thing! for there 1s no word of him unless he is up

in harmony, do justice to their subjects, and to some harm.”*® On the same day he wrote in suppress evil and sedition. Then, having ex- the same vein to Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa: tended his hand to them in friendship, he left “Concerning the Turk I neither hear anything the country.** But harmony and justice were nor want to do so, for whenever word comes words that Demetrius and ‘Thomas did not understand.

35 _ ; : ; ;

The European abandonment of Constan- 75) er a5 as seP ayes ess Jay, an tinople to the Turks had shaken the conscience Paris, 1878, pp. 454-56; cf. L. Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion, of the West. As Pope Nicholas V had said, it I (Paderborn, 1923), 275—76. Mohler’s book is important,

was the “shame of Christendom.” and con- Ut contains a good many errors throughout. In his brief , account of the fall of Constantinople (p. 273), for example, we may note that Giovanni Giustiniani was a Genoese, not

—-—_——— Venetian, that he went to assist the city with two ships, 33 In the general famine of 1456, for example, grain for not five, etc. There are brief sketches of Bessarion’s bread, when obtainable at all, sold for more than thirty career, with bibliographical data, by L. Labowsky, in the

nomismata for a five-pound weight (wevtddttpov), on which Dizionario biografico degli italiani, IX (1967), 686-96, and

cf. the Chronicon breve, ad ann. 1456 (following Ducas, Antonio Coccia, in the Miscellanea francescana, LXXIII

in Bonn corpus, p. 520). (1973), 265-93. Raoul Manselli, “Il Cardinale Bessarione

3¢ Chalcocondylas, bk. vir (Bonn, pp. 407-13; ed. Dark6, contro il pericolo turco e I’Italia.” ibid., LXXIII, 314II, 170-76); Sphrantzes, Chron. minus (PG 156, 1064; 26, adds nothing new. Bessarion’s letter of 13 July, 1453, to ed. Grecu, pp. 104, 106); Pseudo-Sphrantzes, IV, 14 (Bonn, Francesco Foscari may be found also in Mohler, III

pp. 384-85; ed. Grecu, pp. 522, 524). For the family of (Paderborn, 1942), 475-77. Mohler’s volumes were reGiovanni Asan (“Centurione”) and his relationship to the _ printed at Aalen in 1967. Despot Thomas, cf. Hopf, Chron. gréco-romanes, geneal. tables, 3° Rudolf Wolkan, ed., Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius

pp. 502, 536, and Wm. Miller, Latins in the Levant Piccolomini, in the Fontes rerum austriacarum [FRA], u.

(1908), pp. 391-92, 428-30. Abt., vol. 68 (Vienna, 1918), Ep. 69, p. 140.

150 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT | of him, it portends evil for Christendom.’3? whom more than to your Holiness this responsibility Indeed it did, and such word had reached him by — belongs. You must rise up; write to the kings; send 12 July at Graz, where the court had been since legates; warn, exhort the princes and the communities

late May: “Here we have horrible news,” he [of Europe] to assemble in some place of meeting or wrote, “of the loss of Constantinople—if only to send thither their envoys. Right now, while the

it were false!’’38 evil is fresh in mind, let them hasten to take counsel

The news was not false. On the same da for the Christian commonwealth. Let them make a - ay peace or truce with their fellow Christians, and with (12 July) Aeneas wrote his fellow humanist joined forces take up arms against the enemies of

Nicholas V: salvation’s cross!*°

I grieve that S.'Sophia, the most famous church in The letters of Aeneas Sylvius and Frederick all the world, has been ruined or polluted. I grieve J]] to Pope Nicholas V show that the report

that saints’ without number, built with . . .of the fall of ; ,; basilicas which reached the imperial court

wondrous skill, should lie beneath the desolation or C . ‘ed with it the inf . defilement of Mohammed. What shall I say of the onstanunople carried with it the information countless books, as yet unknown to the Latins, which that the Turks had slain 40,000 persons and

were there [in Constantinople]? Alas, how many Teduced even more to slavery. The disaster names of great men will now perish! Here is a second _ filled men’s thoughts, and in a bull promulgated death for Homer and for Plato too. Where are we now on 30 September, 1453, the distressed pontuff to seek the philosophers’ and the poets’ works of _summoned all the Christian princes to a crusade genius? The fount of the Muses has been destroyed. against the Turks and their ruler, Mehmed, “son

Well might we wish that sufficient talent were of Satan, perdition, and death.”*! In the weeks words! .. . vouchsafed us to deplore this calamity with fitting

Men used to say that there was no such danger as 40 7h: a

was alleged, that the Greeks were lying, scheming Ihid., Ep. 109, pp. 200-1, a better text than that in Pius to get money—they used to say that all the perils e. Ep. 162, Opera quae extant omnia, Basel, 1551, repr

. he fears empty. Your ¥Holiness rankfurtGraz a.M.,from 1967,Venice pp. 715-16. August a fa se were: imagined, the npty. : rumorhas reached thatInthe Christians

done what he could. There is nothing for which you still held Constantinople, but it was soon dispelled by recan be blamed, but posterity without knowledge of the ports from various sources (Wolkan, ed., in FRA, u. Abt.,

facts will attach this disaster to your name when it vol. 68, Epp. 126-27, pp. 230, 231). References to the has learned that Constantinople was lost in your fall of the city and to the Turks now become especially time. . . . Now we see one of the two lights of frequent in Aeneas Sylvius’s correspondence (cf. Epp. 112,

tee elgns ; ; conti. th

Christendom extinguished. We behold the seat of en nc Whe ae 141, 147, oe teefrom fen , etc.), where therehee are many interesting letters Greece blotted overthrown, al re Bory oat wes the latter part of 1453 and the early months of 1454, hangs over our verv heads. especially Ep. 153 to Leonardo de’ Benvoglienti, then amongNow us .the a)Turk y Sienese ambassador to Venice; Ep. 274 to Gregorio (Goro) The Black Sea is closed to us, the Don has become J }]i, Aeneas’s cousin and fellow student at the University inaccessible. Now the Vlachs must obey the Turk. of Siena (1423-1431), on conditions in Austria and GerNext his sword will reach the Hungarians, and then many; and Ep. 280 from Giovanni Cirignano to Aeneas, on the Germans. In the meantime we are beset by _ the political situation in Italy. On Aeneas’s years of service internecine strife and hatred. The kings of France and with Frederick HI and his yearning to return home to

England are at war; the German princes fight Italy, the hortus mundi, see Alphons Lhotsky, “Aeneas amongst themselves. Rarely is all Spain quiet; our own oa und Osterreich,” in Anpsatze und Vortrage, 111 (Munich,

Italy is without peace. .. . 1972), 20-71, esp. pp. 09-71. How much better we might turn this abundance Wolkan, ed., Ep. 109, ibid., p. 199; Raynaldus, Ann. 8 ce eccl., ad ann. 1453, no. 8, vol. XVIII (1694), p. 408.

of arms and unceasing warfare against the enemies jy, Frederick's letter, however, the text as given in Rayn., of the faith. I know not, most blessed father, to Jog. cit., hominum quadraginta millia caesa sunt, differs from that in Wolkan’s better edition, hominum pleraque milia

TT cesa sunt (Ep. vil, p. 577); Aeneas Sylvius, however, 37 Ibid., Ep. 70, p. 141. Aeneas Sylvius and Nicholas of | does say quadraginta et amplius milia personarum illic occisa Cusa had a common interest in German affairs which — referuntur (Ep. 109); manuscripts do vary, but in any case served to some (slight) extent to draw them together, | Aeneas wrote not only his ‘own letter, but Frederick’s also!

and their relationship forms the major theme of Erich (Although I have tried throughout this study to adhere Meuthen’s study ‘of Die letzten Jahre des Nikolaus von closely to the sources, I have commonly omitted detailed Kues: Biographische Untersuchungen nach neuen Quellen, notices of minor textual variations.)

Cologne, 1958. ; 41 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1453, nos. 9-11, vol.

38 Wolkan, ed., in FRA, u. Abt., vol. 68, Ep. 108, p. XVIII (1694), pp. 408-10; cf. Pastor, Hist. Popes, II, 188, to Stefano Caccia di Fara in Rome. The news had 275-76, and append., no. 20, p. 522, and Gesch. d. been brought to Graz by travelers from Serbia (Ep. Péapste, I (repr. 1955), 622-23, and append., no. 53,

112, p. 207) and from Venice (Ep. 114, p. 217). p. 842.

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 151 and months that followed, papal emissaries a session of the privy council, when Aeneas equipped with the usual letters of credence were Sylvius and others had urged Frederick to attend

sent to the Italian courts as well as to those the assembly of Regensburg in person, the infarther afield to acquaint the princes with what dolent, short-sighted emperor had frankly stated the pope and cardinals had decided in consistory _ his position: as tO ne vei ‘B be take n against the vue and Certainly I should like to be on hand at the congress to sohcit their financial assistance and general ince nothing is closer to my heart than to take counsel support for the crusade, haec fam pia et sancia res, {9+ the common good. It is hard, nevertheless, to look

which the pope had launched. after general interests at one’s own peril. I admit that

The Emperor Frederick III called for a as individuals we ought to aid the commonwealth, but crusading assembly to meet at Regensburg in I see no one anxious to put the advantage of another the spring of 1454, to which Philip of Burgundy before his own. Why mention the [imperial ] electors to

came with great ceremony,* as well as a few of me? It does not escape me pow much anxiety they the German princes, including Duke Ludwig Thev'll « for the common B00 | Pil go to Regensburg.

(1X] of Bavaria-Landshut and the Margrave cy © Stay at home: . . Albrecht Achilles of Brandenburg-Ansbach. When it was known that Frederick was not The emperor remained in Austria, however, for going to Regensburg, Aeneas wrote Cardinal he feared the German diets, and sent Aeneas Carvajal from Wiener Neustadt on 11 April, Sylvius to Regensburg as his chief spokesman. 1454, two or three days before the imperial Nicholas V had a papal suspicion of anything envoys left for the assembly, “I fear that in resembling a council, and although he sent the German fashion because of the emperor’s bishop of Pavia as his legate, he did little to absence we shall only get another diet out of this add to the effectiveness of the meeting. At one, but we hardly know what the evening may bring!’’*® Five weeks or so later Aeneas wrote the ” Cf. the papal letter of 24 November, 1453, to Marquis priors of Siena from Regensburg that Lodovico II Gonzaga of Mantua (Arch. di Stato di Mantova, this would have been a great assembly if the emperor

Arch. Gonzaga, Busta 834): “Nicolaus episcopus, servus had come, but his Majesty was necessarily detained

servorum De}, dilecto filio et nobili viro Ludovico marchioni t h b f th .. in. Hunear Mantue. Salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Ut intel- ak ome secause =O © ee wel oe y

ligat nobilitas tua quid per nos unacum venerabilibus [which had served Frederick as well as any other fratribus nostris Sancte Romane Ecclesie cardinalibus §=—————

ordinatum sit atque statutum circa provisiones faciendas lorga, Notes et extraits pour servir a Uhistoire des croisades contra Teucrum, Christi nominis inimicum, comisimus non- au XV® siécle, 1V (Bucharest, 1915), pt. 3, nos. 13-14,

nulla dilecto filio Stephano Cacie {on whom note Walther pp. 88-91, and cf. no. 17, and Georg Schrotter, Dr. von Hofmann, Forschungen zur Geschichte der kurialen Martin Mair: Ein biographischer Beitrag zur Geschichte der Behorden vom Schisma bis zur Reformation, 2 vols., Rome, politischen und kirchlichen Reformfrage des 15. Jahrhunderts, diss.

1914, Ii, 185], iuris utriusque doctori, archidiacono Munich, 1896, pp. 45-56. Taurinensi, cubiculario et nuncio nostro, presentium exhibi- References are frequent in Aeneas’s correspondence from tori, tue Excellentie nostri parte referenda qui eandem ad _ 1 January, 1454, to the coming diet at Regensburg (Epp. plenum de omnibus informabit et litteras nostras superinde 211-14, 216, 221, 224, 229-30, 234, 236, 240-44, 253,

confectas ostendet, hortamur ergo tuam nobilitatem ut 256-58, etc.), but he had his reservations: “De Ratisvelit sibi tanquam nobis plenam fidem adhibere auxiliaque _ ponensi dieta, etsi spem bonam multi gerunt, non tamen et favores oportunos ad hanc tam piam et sanctam rem __ futuri certitudo ulla est apud homines . . .” (Ep. 267, ed.

peragendam impendere quemadmodum in eadem plene Wolkan, op. cit., p. 455, to Cardinal Carvajal, dated at confidimus et speramus. Datum Rome apud Sanctum Wiener Neustadt, 4 March, 1454). Aeneas also composed Petrum anno Incarnationis dominice millesimo quad- Frederick III’s letter to the pope outlining Frederick’s ringentesimo quinquagesimo tercio, octavo Kal. Decembris, intentions at the coming diet of Regensburg, summoned

pontificatus nostri anno septimo.” for the feast of S. George (23 April), and requesting

*’ Richard Vaughan, Philip the Good, London, 1970, pp. that a cardinal legate be sent to assist him (ed. Wolkan, 296-302, and on the Burgundian background, see also ibid., Amiliche Schreiben, Ep. xu, pp. 595-602, dated at Armand Grunzweig, “Philippe le Bon et Constantinople,” Wiener Neustadt, | January, 1454). Cf. also Epp. xtv,

Byzantion, XXIV (1954-55), 47-61. XV, XVI, etc., to the king of France, the duke of Bur** Aeneas Sylvius wrote a “history” of the famous but gundy, the duke of Modena, etc., also written by Aeneas. futile diet of Regensburg in the form of a letter to John Young King Ladislas of Bohemia and Hungary was not Vitéz, bishop of Grosswardein (Hungarian Nagyvarad, now _ represented at Regensburg, although the Hungarian realm

Oradea in western Rumania), chancellor of the kingdom was much threatened by the Turks, and Ladislas was in

of Hungary (Ep. 291, ed. Wolkan, in FRA, u. Abt., close touch with Rome concerning the crusade (lorga, vol. 68, pp. 492-563; ed. J. D. Mansi, Pa HW... Notes et extraits, IV, pt. 3, nos. 5, 7—8, pp. 81 ff.) orationes, 3 vols., Lucca, 1755-59, III, 1-84); cf. Raynaldus, *® Aen. Syl., Ep. 291 (de Ratisponensi Dieta), ed. Wolkan,

Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1453, no. 13, vol. XVIII (1694), pp. in FRA, 1. Abt., vol. 68, pp. 499-500.

410-11, and ad ann. 1454, nos. 1-2, pp. 418-19; N. 6 Ibid., Ep. 272, p. 460.

152 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT pretext might have done]. In attendance at this Nuremberg, if Frederick III decided to come in meeting have been the great dukes Philip of Burgundy _ person. Otherwise the place of meeting was to be

Aillen) oe of ens me Margrave | LaIbrecht Frankfurt. The emperor’s decision as to his chules] of brandenburg; the cardinal of». Fietroin attendance, and so the choice of sites for the diet,

Vincoli [Nicholas of Cusa]; the papal legate, Bishop was requested promptly. If h t going t

[Giovanni Castiglione] of Pavia; the envoys of the ae 72 h Puy: nd ve hot going to

emperor, the king of Poland, the duke of Savoy, the appear Aumsett, he was to sen represen tatlves

electoral princes, and other lords and cities in with full powers to act on his behalf. I think Germany—those who had promised to come from that within a few days the emperor s edict will

Italy have not appeared. . . .*” go out,” Aeneas Sylvius wrote Cardinal Carvajal

on | June, 1454, “by which the princes will be an ane SH, day Ne way 454) poneas wrote ordered to convene at Nuremberg; the emperor’s

Is Iriend@ Peinrich senitieben in Kome, appearance will be promised; God knows

Although you have heard from others of the dissolu- whether he will go or not.” If he did not go, tion of this diet, nevertheless I want you to learn from everyone’s effort would be in vain, and the whole

me what happened here. . . . From this diet, as is business would be ludicrous. If he did go, our custom, another diet has been born, which is to Aeneas had high hopes for the future.*® In other

pe nee in art naa the feast of the ee de of words, a diet held at Nuremberg had a chance

the Virgin [8 September], where, if it can be done, of organizing an effective crusade. One held at

the: plans [capitula] devised here for the defense of . Frankfurt was foredoomed to failure.

Christendom are to be completed, for all have agreed The lett fA Sy]y; th that an army is to be raised against the Turks: but on © renters OF Aeneas oylvius are among the

the methods of recruiting troops we have met with ore fascinating literary productions of a

difficulty and dissension. . . .*8 century rich in the variety of its life and letters.

. The writer of a historical synthesis, however,

Provision had been made at Regensburg for must select only letters which illustrate the the next diet, which was in fact to be held on main flow of events and resist the ever pleasant the feast of S. Michael [29 September] at temptation to follow Aeneas into the lesser byways

—____—_—_—_. of his time. He was a keen observer, a shrewd “ Ibid., Ep. 281, p. 479, dated 19 May, 1454. The diet of appraiser of men and their motives. If we may be

mentioned in Aeneas Sylvius’s many letters from the years

and elector of Brandenburg (1440-1471), seems not to be Felating to the attempt to organize a crusade for 1453-1454; the reference is always to his younger brother the recovery of Constantinople, we may note his Albertus marchio Brandenburgensis (Epp. 49, 61, 90, 135, 147, letter of 5 July, 1454, to his old friend and fellow 160, 168, 172-75, 291). Aeneas Sylvius, as Pope Pius II, citizen, Leonardo de’ Benvoglienti, written from later expressed his admiration for the Margrave Albrecht, Wiener Neustadt between the diets of Regens-

“vir celsi animi et rei militaris peritissimus, qui et in Hun- b d Frankf In this h tolled Phili

garia et in Bohemia et in Polonia et in omni Ger- urg an ran urt. n this he extolle 1p

mania militavit. . . . Achillem plerique Theutonicum voca- Of Burgundy, “a prince to be praised above them vere . . .” (Commentarii, bk. m1, Frankfurt, 1614, p. 91, all.” Philip had put the interests of the Christian

; ; . Note also Eric euthen, “Nikolaus . : .

nes nacre oy J Pastor, easel “ P “psi N repr. commonwealth above his own concerns, “and von Kues auf dem Regensburger Reichstag (1454),” in he promised that he would go in person against the Festschrift fiir Hermann Heimpel, I1 (Gottingen, 1972), the Turks if the emperor, the king of Hungary,

482-99. or some other great prince would lead an army Since the Poles were at armed odds with the Teutonic [eastward ].” Aeneas spoke of the coming diet of Knights and had also to defend themselves against the Frankfurt, for which the date was still given as

Tatars, they were not likely to join a crusading alliance against the Turks (cf. Serban Papacostea, “La Moldavie, ——---———-

état tributaire de l’empire ottoman au XV° siécle: Le *Ibid., Ep. 290, p. 490, from Wiener Neustadt, and

Cadre international des rapports établis en 1455-1456,” see also Ep. 291, p. 551. Aeneas adds, “Therefore, if our

Revue roumaine d’histoire, XI11-3 [1974], 445-61). The Polish lord the pope has the expedition at heart, if he desires

king, Casimir IV, was suzerain of Moldavia, which paid Christianity to be safe from Turkish attack, let him take tribute to Mehmed II, and during the 1450’s (and ’60’s) heed and make every effort to see that the emperor neither Casimir nor the voivodes of Moldavia had any in- attends the diet at Michaelmas. I have wanted to say tention of becoming embroiled with Mehmed. Later on this as my duty, although I do not doubt that the advice (from 1470) Stephen the Great of Moldavia turned against is of small consequence since it comes from me.” There ‘

the Turks. was little love lost between Aeneas and Nicholas V, who

* Aen. Syl., Ep. 282, ed. Wolkan, in FRA, u. Abt., refused to make Aeneas a cardinal, although he had vol. 68, p. 480, from Regensburg. Aeneas also notes appointed him bishop of Siena on 23 September, 1450 that “principes absente imperatore negligentiores sunt.” (C. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medi aevi, II [1914, repr.

Cf. also Epp. 283, 290, and esp. Ep. 291. 1960], 235).

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 153 29 September. Leonardo had written Aeneas The diet met at Frankfurt in October, 1454. that many delegates should have beensummoned _ Frederick III did not appear; Aeneas Sylvius was

from Italy to attend the diet of Regensburg. no false prophet. Although rather more largely Indeed, Leonardo had thought of this assembly attended than the diet of Regensburg, that of

as being like that of Constance, not to say Frankfurt displayed from the beginning a

Basel, which had lasted for twenty years. “But poorer spirit, at least from a crusading stand-

our diet [at Regensburg],” as Aeneas hastened point. There were a number of important

to agree, personages present, among them Albrecht has been over and done with after a month. Another Achilles of prandenburg Ansbach, tne M So of has been called. Once more there are being sum- Kar! of Baden, and the electors (archbishops) o

moned here, from Italy, King [Alfonso V] of the Mainz and ‘Trier. Again the papal legate was Aragonese, the Venetians, Genoese, Florentines, the bishop of Pavia, Giovanni Castiglione, whose Sienese, and Lucchesi. Count .Francesco [Sforza], Latin address to the diet was translated into although he has not been invested: [by the emperor] German by Bishop Ulrich of Gurk. Envoys with the Milanese duchy, is also being summoned, as represented the king of Hungary, the dukes of are the duke of Modena and the marquises of Mantua, Burgundy, Savoy, and Modena, the lord of Montferrat, and Saluzzo. Now we shall see how great Mantua, and others; the German dukes of the ardor of our Italians is going to be. Letters are also Austria, Bavaria, and Brunswick sent envoys, being dispatched to the kings of |,France, England, did ber of citi among dt th em Bohemia, Hungary, [ Dacia as area nur O Cl TES an Owns, Se tePoland, card Denmark de -.. Col FraSweden Giovanni da (We have like Neri Capponi and Giannozzo Manetti, already encountered Angelo Acciajuoli as the whose views on foreign affairs followed more Byzantine Emperor John VIII’s guide to Pistoia,

traditional patterns. Prato, and Peretola in 1439.) The French When Charles VII of France afforded virtual acceptance of Sforza as duke diminished the danger from Venice, but the French claim. to

—_——— Naples was inevitably a source of anxiety to strate,” on which seeSforza Atessanoro o, angresso Alfonso. The Medici di Francesco inorem iano e€ iimnizio 1 un ° : became enamored of the

principato,” Archivio storico lombardo, XXXII (4th ser., UI, French alliance which was, after all, part of the 1905), 297-344, and, ibid., IV (1905), 33-101, with seven tradition of old Florence. As for Sforza, he was documents dated from 22 February to 22 March, 1450. obviously better off with France as a friend than The Emperor Frederick III claimed the Milanese duchy asan enemy. France, however, was now emerg-

by escheat as a vacant fief, refusing to recognize the ing victorious from the Hundred Years’ War.

succession through a female line (either through Gian Th ned b h bl f Galeazzo’s daughter Valentina Visconti to her son, the poet ere remained, to be sure, ot er probiems for

Charles d’Orléans [1391-1465], or through Bianca Maria the French to solve, especially those relating Visconti to her husband Francesco Sforza). Alfonso V as- to Burgundy. If the Medici had not encouraged sented nis right duchy on the Nave pasts of aleit, wn whien French interest e€ in Italy, Fili rla Wato the eileve Oo Dequeatnin . ° others would have done Milknese duchy to him. See 'B. Buser, Dit Berichungen sO. The Angevin claim to . Naples: and the der Medicéer zu Frankreich wihrend der Jahre 1434- Orléanist to Milan made such interest inevitable, 1494 in ihrem Zusammenhang mit den allgemeinen Verhaltnissen however long ‘direct intervention might be Ttaliens, Leipzig, 1879, pp. 27 ff., 358 ff., an old but still postponed.

most useful book. On some of the problems which Alfonso During the reign of Nicholas V the papacy,

faced atnote thisAmedeo time, including the possibility of war with hich had t t df | Venice, Miceli di Serradileo, “Sul Temuto WUC a no ye recovere romthe € 10ng Assalto veneziano alle coste ioniche della Calabria nel 1447. years of schism and conciliarism, was unable to

e 1449,” Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania, XL play a decisive role in the diplomatic drama. (1972), 113-27, and see in general Ernesto Pontieri, La Nicholas might have worked for peace, noneNaples, 1968, chap secolo AP et le rivolte di Antonio Centelles, thel ess, m ore vigorously than he did, alth ou gh

There seems no reason to doubt that Filippo Maria the conflicting territorial interests of the Italian had designated Alfonso V as his heir. Alfonso’s own in- States seemed insusceptible to any resolution but tentions appear somewhat ambiguous, however, inasmuch as that of force. Francesco Sforza was wary of the

he assumed the role of defender of the Ambrosian Re- French connection, for everyone knew of public against Francesco Sforza and the Venetians (see Charles VII’s desire to recover Genoa. which Aurea Javierre Mur, “Alfonso V de Aragon y la Republica . ? Ambrosiana,” Boletin de la Real Academia de la historia, (aS we have seen in the preceding volume) CLVI-2 [Madrid, 1965], 191—269, with twenty-four documents, and especially Alan F. C. Ryder, “Alfonso d’Aragona =— ————————

e lavvento di Francesco Sforza al ducato di Milano,” 55 Paul M. Kendall and V. Ilardi, eds. and _ trans., Archivio storico per le province napoletane, n.s., XLI [LXXX, Dispatches with Related Documents of Milanese Ambassadors

1962}, 9-46, with several documents). Alfonso lacked the in France and Burgundy, 1450-1483, 2 vols., Athens,

military strength to make himself a decisive force in Ohio, 1970-71, I [1450-1460], nos. 1~19, pp. 3-131,

northern Italy. docs. dated from 10 September, 1451, to 21 April, 1453.

156 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT France had held from 1396 to 1409. Sforza peace which he had doubtless hoped would thus had more reason to fear France than the make possible a crusade against the Turks.*8 Florentines did. Neither the Angevins nor the Francesco Sforza desired peace, however, as

Orléanists had any claim to Florence. If, much as the Venetians did, and what the however, the Venetians could add much of diplomats had been unable to accomplish in Lombardy to their own great resources, they Rome was brought about by the Augustinian would dominate the northern part of the _ friar Simonetto da Camerino, who served as a

peninsula.*® Cosimo had come to see in his friend secret mediator between Milan and the Repub-

Sforza the best means of preventing that pos- lic. Owing largely to the efforts of the indesibility. But Venice was determined to push her fatigable friar, suddenly and unexpectedly western border to the river Adda, and on 16 Sforza and the Serenissima suspended their May, 1452, she declared war on Sforza and _ hostility to each other. With the flowers of Florence. The Senate believed that the French spring came the peace of Lodi (on 9 April, were not yet in any position to take action. 1454).°° Writing to Sforza on 21 April, Frate Alfonso of Naples promptly joined his Venetian Simonetto told him of the joy which reigned allies on 4 June. The following April (1453) in Venice as a consequence of the peace, and the Florentines induced René, duke of Anjou, ended his letter with an exhortation to the duke to cross the Alps on Sforza’s behalf, to the to arm galleys against the Turks, as was being discouragement of the Venetians. Both Sforza done at Venice.®° The new allies were later and the Florentines were vague in their offers to support René’s ambition to conquer Naples. 58 Cf. Pastor, Hist. Popes, 11, 289-95, and Gesch. d. Papste,

Alfonso was concerned, but hardly alarmed, | (repr. 1955), 634-38. Nicholas was taking some steps although Sforza had enjoyed considerable success against the Turks. A tithe was being collected from the against the Venetians, and René was not inactive. _ Italian clergy and laity for the “exaltation and preserva-

Suddenly came the news of the fall of tion of all the Christian faithful and the destruction and

Constantinople, . i d Veni hadanhundred of all the infidels.” The 1455, accounts were kept from enice haddesolation a hundre January, 1454, to January, by one Francesco di

reasons for wanting to make peace. After some Benedetto of Borgo S. Sepolcro, with numerous paydifficulty and disagreement with his alleged ments recorded through the Medici (Arch. Segr. Vaticano, friends, René of Anjou withdrew north of the Introitus et Exitus, Reg. 426, fols. 85'~91", 100’—101"). In ; 1453-1454 the Lombard humanist Lampo Birago composed Alps, decidedly unhappy, but Charles VII and dedicated to Nicholas his Strategicon adversum Turcos,

believed that Rene had not pushed hard in which he describes the pope as having been ardent enough, and was apparently not seriously for the crusade, et nunc ingenti spiritu ad bellum idque affronted. Cosimo and Sforza had won their wstissimum (Agostino Pertusi, “Le Notizie sulla organizame, and the latter was now recognized as 22ione amministrativa e militare dei Turchi nello ‘Strate-

eS £ th duk f Mil 8 gicon adversum Turcos’ di Lampo Birago [c. 1453-—1455],” € four uke O an. in the Studi sul medioevo cristiano offerti a Raffaello Morghen,

Nicholas V summoned a congress of the 1 (Studi storici, fascc. 88-92, Rome, 1974], 692). Italian powers to convene in Rome. Both the *9 Cristoforo da Soldo, Istoria bresciana, in RISS, XXI

: the new Muratori, RISS, XXI, pt. 3, pp. , —30;

contestants and the authorities of the minor (1752), cons. 882 Eee see 8 ane ed. yazzo tara, states sent their ambassadors, who debated and ga iudo, vite de'duchi, in RISS, XX, cols. 1151E—1153A;

aired the differences of their principals from C. Canetta, “La Pace di Lodi (9 aprile 1454),” Rivista November, 1453, to the following March. The _ storica italiana, 11 (1885), 516-64; Antonini, in Arch. stor.

: : : : perpetua” o April is summarized in Predelli, Regesiz

congress failed to settle anything,’ and indeed = lombardo, vn esp. pp. 245-72. The text of the “pace Nicholas had done little to help it achieve the dei Commemoriali, V (1901), bk. x1v, nos. 282-83, pp.

———— 87-90.

56On the Venetian government’s policy of “imperialist” 6° Antonini, op. cit., p. 277. A few days after the peace of expansion westward and the propaganda of the Sforzeschi __ Lodi, Jacopo da Recanati, archbishop of Ragusa, also wrote

and Florentines to combat it, note Nicolai Rubinstein, Sforza to congratulate him on the peace which had just “Italian Reactions to Terraferma Expansion in the Fifteenth been made. He also stated, “Si anchora che ho speranza, Century,” in J. R. Hale, ed., Renaissance Venice, London, — essendo unita Italia, facilmente se porra obviare et repri-

1973, 197-217. mere le crudelita de pessimo animo del Turco, contro lo

57 See especially Federico Antonini, “La Pace di Lodi ed quale non dubito che la Sanctita di Nostro Signore i segreti maneggi che la prepararono,” Archivio storico [Nicholas V] fara qualche buona provisione, et questa lombardo, 6th ser., LVII (1930), 233-96, with eighteen _ illustrissima Signoria [Venice] ce fara omni sfor[c]io posdocuments, and cf. Leopoldo Pagani, “L’Ambasciata di sibile. Supplica la Excellentia vostra che leit anchora una Francesco Sforza a Nic[c]ol6 V per la pace con Venezia con li altri principi Christiani vogli porre mano a si pesta, (da documenti del R. Archivio di Stato in Milano, 1453- _ sancta et laudabile impresa . . .” (V. V. MakuSev, Monu1454),” ibid., 5th ser., XLVII (1920), 82—96; Carlo Canetta, menta historica slavorum meridionalium, 11 (Belgrade, 1882},

“Il Congresso di Roma nel 1454,” ibid., IX (1882), 129-35. 84-86, doc. dated at Venice on 14 April, 1454).

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 157 joined by Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentines present, and urged the crusade upon the diet. (on 30 August), and finally by the reluctant Ladislas of Bohemia and Hungary came as close Alfonso of Naples (on 26 January, 1455), who as Vienna, while his envoys pressed an appeal

had been supporting Venice. When Pope for aid against the Turks before Frederick Nicholas V in a further agreement went along at Neustadt, reminding his Majesty that the

with the others for the preservation of peace in imperial office imposed this noble responsibility

Italy (on 25 February, 1455), the millennium on him, that the opportunity was at hand, and appeared to have been reached. The peace that there was need for action. The emperor was supposed to last for twenty-five years. The had himself summoned the diets. He must try

formation of the Italian League of the five to fulfill the high purpose for which he had

powers was publicly announced in Rome on summoned them. 2 March, and again there was widespread While the pope carried the keys, the emperor rejoicing in the peninsula. An equilibrium had _ bore the shield of Christendom. More than actually been achieved. With Venice held in twenty months had passed since the fall of the check by Milan in the north, and Naples by the — eastern empire. Further delay could be fatal, for

papacy in the south, Florence tried to maintain as time passed Christian strength was being the political balance by commonly supporting diminished, and that of the Turks increased. Milan against Venice, which was much the The campaigning season was approaching. The strongest single state in Italy.°' Now the pope Hungarians did not blame the emperor for past could turn his undivided attention to the expedi- delays; certainly proper preparation was essential

tion against the Turks, as he immediately in- for so great an undertaking. Besides this, the formed Francesco Sforza on 28 February, Hungarians had been obliged to make a truce 1455,” and indeed it did seem that the political with the Turks, but the last day of the truce had situation in Italy had become unusually favorable recently passed: “We freely promise our aid and

for the crusade against the Turks. best effort,” the Hungarian spokesman said.

“We are absolutely ready to respond to whatever

Unfortunately for the Christian cause, how- is wanted of us. We are directed to arm

ever, no such progress was being made in the twenty thousand men, and we will arm them north. In February, 1455, as decided at Frank-_ well. We are asked to allow the passage of the furt, the third diet had assembled at Wiener army through our lands, and we grant it most Neustadt, where the timid Frederick III had to willingly. We are requested to supply food for leave his gardens and aviaries for the unpleasant the army on the march, and we will do so in deliberations of the small gathering of notables, great abundance!” The Hungarian made a good dominated by Archbishop Jacob von Sirk of speech: “Now you will show clearly whether you Trier, who represented all the other electors. are truly Christian, truly Augustus. . . . Behold Jacob von Sirk pressed for the “reforms” which how heaven and earth, God and man implore would have still further weakened the emperor’s you: do not frustrate the just hope that so many

feeble grasp of the reins of government in peoples have placed in you. . . .”® the highly feudalized empire. The margraves Frederick III was not to be moved by oratory,

of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Baden had come _ however, and he doubtless assumed that every-

again; many cities had sent their deputies; the one knew he was quite prepared to frustrate king of: Naples had sent envoys; and of course any crusading hopes that might be. placed in Aeneas Sylvius and the bishop of Pavia were both him. His mind had probably wandered as the

ee Hungarian envoy spoke, even as it had probably 61 Pastor, Hist. Popes, 11, 295-300, and Gesch. d. Papste, Wandered when on 25 February his own I (repr. 1955), 638-41; see especially Giovanni Soranzo, advocate, Aeneas Sylvius, had delivered “eine

a Lega italica Ops 4 455), wan n.d. 1924], with nine sch6ne getzirde latteinische Red” before the deruments; and of. lorga, Nats tetas, IV" PX 2 delegates in the castle of Neustadt. Interminable the peace on 26 January, note Predelli, Regesti dei discussions and sometimes heated wrangling Commemoriali, V, bk. xv, nos. 13-14, pp. 121-25, and continued all through March. Time was taken on Nicholas V’s ratification, ibid., no. 15, p. 125. to consult the young Ladislas and his advisers “Torga, Notes et extraits, IV, pt. 3, no. ll, p. 87. in Vienna. The decisions of Frankfurt were

Iorga seems to have thought this document belonged in the . . .

year 1454, but pridie Kl. Martii pontificatus nostri anno reviewed. The question of the Italian fleet was octavo 1s 28 February, 1455 (Nicholas V was crowned on 19 March, 1447 [Pastor, Gesch. d. Papste, I, 393], —————

which is therefore the first day of his first year). * Iorga, Notes et extraits, IV, pt. 3, no. 36, pp. 106-10.

158 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT raised. The affairs of the empire were thoroughly the period of the diets held at Regensburg, ventilated, and on 5 April the formal sessions Frankfurt, and Neustadt to promote the crusade, of the diet were adjourned until the twelfth, when Johann Gutenberg’s types were employed in Frederick summoned Archbishop Jacob of Trier printing broadsides to advertise Nicholas V’s and the envoys of the absent electors at ten encyclical letters of plenary indulgence for those

o'clock in the morning, and then kept them who assumed the Christian burden in the war

waiting for three hours, to Jacob’s great against the Turks and contributed to the annoyance. But the news had just arrived of defense of imperiled Cyprus.® Indulgences Nicholas V’s death in Rome on the night of were sold in the Rhineland on printed forms, 24-25 March. Frederick therefore proposed with blank spaces left for the insertion of

that, owing to the uncertainty which now existed names and dates, the earliest known examples with respect to the Italian fleet, it would be of “job printing.” The press was now employed, better to postpone plans for the expedition also for the first time, in what was almost news until the following spring (1456). He would in reporting, for as Europe feared the loss of the meantime carry on negotiations with the new Cyprus to the Turks, someone, very likely pope and the Italian states and seek to restore Gutenberg himself, published the famous ninepeace in the empire. The diet then broke up, page pamphlet, Eyn manung der cristenhett widder

as it had begun, in bickering.” die durken (A Warning to Christendom against the

Turks). The Manung, prepared in the form of a The advocates of the crusade in Germany had_ calendar or almanac, addresses stirring appeals

at least one great weapon which their dread for action against the Turks to Nicholas V,

enemy, Mehmed II, lacked, and they employed Frederick III, the emperor of Trebizond, the it against him as effectively as they could. This king of Inkerman (in the Crimea), the Ragusei, was the newly devised printing press, which was Albanians, and Bulgarians, Dalmatians, Croats, made to serve Christian interests against Islam. Wends, and all their fellow Christians, the kings The political and social disunion of the empire, of France and England, Castile and Navarre, however, the rapacious individuality of the Bohemia and Hungary, Portugal and Aragon, German princes, and the incompetence, timidity, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, the archbishops

and indecisiveness of Frederick III prevented the full realization of the power of the press. 65 Konrad Haebler, ed., Einblattdrucke des XV. Jahrhunderts, But the printers certainly helped propel the vast Halle a. S., 1914, nos. 482-89, pp. 121-22; W. A. Copinger, ecclesiastical program of anti-Turkish propa- Supplement to Hain’s Repertorium bibliographicum, pt. II, vol. 2 ganda which had been set in motion in Germany. 1 YStuen Jee) P an "a By, noe 11758. peer apnicum, Th € importance of the press mm this connection the famous broadsides of Nicholas V’s indulgences of will be better appreciated perhaps by our = 1454-1455, which were printed with the types employed in gathering together some illustrations of its use _ both the 42- and the 36-line Bibles, issued under the authority at this point rather than by putting them at of Paulinus Chappe (Zappe), see also the Gesamtkatalog der

those places in the text to which awas strictly Neo VI (Leipzig, 1934), nos. 6555-56, cols. . . —24, Chappe a Cypriote noble, ambassador and

chronological treatment would assifn them. . commissioner of King John II of Cyprus, appointed to At Mainz in 1454-1455, for example, during administer the three years’ crusading indulgence (1452-

1455) declared by the pope against the Turks (N. Paulus,

oo Gesch. d. Ablasses im Mittelalter, 111 [Paderborn, 1923], 19864 Torga, Notes et extraits, IV, pt. 3, nos. 37-38, pp. 99; Geo. Hill, A History of Cyprus, III [Cambridge, 1948], 111-16, and cf. nos. 39-40, 42, 47. On the three diets 523-24). Although only the Germans were equipped to of Regensburg, Frankfurt, and Wiener Neustadt, cf. G. print them, these letters of indulgence were sent to all the

Voigt, Enea Silvio de’Piccolomini als Papst Pius der Zweite . . . , states in Europe (Pastor, Hist. Popes, 11, 247, and append.,

3 vols., Berlin, 1856-63, II, 108-35; M. Creighton, Hist. no. 7, pp. 503-5, and Gesch. d. Papste, I [repr. 1955], Papacy, 11 (London, 1882), 315-25; Schrétter, Dr. Martin 599-600, and append., no. 38, pp. 830-31). On 30 May, Mair (1896), pp. 39-93; Pastor, Hist. Popes, 11, 300-5, 1452, the pope granted King John of Cyprus one-half the

and Gesch. d. Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 642-45; and the’ return from the sale of indulgences in France to help Ragusan documents in Gelcich and Thalléczy, Dipl. rebuild the walls of Nicosia (Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann.

ragusanum, nos. 324-25, 327,. pp. 572-74, 576. Jacob 1452, no. 15, vol. XVIII [1694], p. 401). The first set of bulls von Sirk, archbishop of Trier, had gone to Rome during — on behalf of King John may be found in Reg. Vat. 396, the jubilee of 1450 (Pastor, Gesch. d. Papste, 1, 447). He fols. 167”—173%, including the indulgentia per totum orbem and

was in the’ city in May, at which time a long series of that relating to Nicosia (fols. 170%—172'): these bulls are grants and confirmations of privilege was made to him, all dated “Rome apud S. Petrum anno . . . MCCCCL which may be found in the Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. primo pridie Idus Augusti, pontificatus nostri anno quinto”

Vat. 392, fols. 222—46 (by original foliation). (12 August, 1451).

AFTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 159 and bishops, the military orders, and all the other Although it is too early in our narrative to lords, prelates, and cities of Christendom. consider the religious problem in Germany and Among the great landmarks in the early history the indulgence hawkers, who were to evoke the

of typography, as well as the first book ever ire of Martin Luther (and to whom we shall printed in a vernacular language, the Manung come in the following volume), one may be appeared in Mainz toward the end of the year permitted the belief that until the time of Sixtus 1454, presumably, between the diets of Frank- IV, at least, the funds gained by the sale of

furt and Neustadt. indulgences in Germany and central Europe About seven years later, in the same city of were in fact largely expended on the crusade, Mainz, Gutenberg’s successors, Johann Fust and whether as subsidies granted to the Hungarians

Peter Schoffer, printed Pius I1’s bull Dudum in or directly on papal fleets for service in the conventu, dated at Tivoli on 4 September, 1461, Levant. It seems unlikely that the amounts imposing a clerical tithe to help prosecute the collected in Germany met more than a fair portion coming war against the Turks® (he had preached _ of the Curia’s expenses in combatting the Turk. the crusade at Mantua two years before). Again The higher clergy in Germany, recruited largely

and again as the years passed, preachers of from the nobility, were independent and antiindulgence, ecclesiastical administrators, bailies, Italian. They were also exploitive of their own commissioners, and other authorized persons people, and their rapacity added to the growing sought to enlist popular support for the war anti-clericalism. It is undeniable, of course, that

against the Turks by having recourse to the the papacy made heavy demands upon the

wonderful instrumentality of the press. Some of German archbishoprics and bishoprics in the the chief printers of the day multiplied for servitia communia and in other charges. Pluralism wide distribution the briefs, bulls, and other was rife, contrary to the canon law of cumulation. documents, in Latin, German, and Italian, by There were many conciliarists in Germany to which Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, and Alexander whom the papal victory over the Council of VI announced the financial and other impositions Basel was a grave disappointment. for the crusade and the accompanying “plenary The conciliarists nurtured for decades a deep

remission of all sins.”® and understandable resentment of German money going to Rome whether by crusading °° The original of the Manung was reproduced in a tithe or by indulgen ce, and it would not be

facsimile edition by J. Neuhaus, Das erste gedruckte Buch difficult to show (it has been shown often Gutenbergs in deutscher Sprache, Copenhagen, 1902, with enough) that the ecclesiastical commissioners of notably inadequate historical notes and commentary (from the indulgence were grasping and employed the

Staatsbibliothek). b d the inst . th 1 dth | the only copy known to be extant, in the Bayerische jy og¢t questionable tactics. They went quite

87 Haebler, Einblatidrucke, no. 1199, p. 321; Copinger, eyond te 1s ruction of the people and the sale Supplement, 1-2, p. 409. Pius II’s bull of 22 October, 1463, of the indulgence (Ablassverkauf) to the crudest was often printed (Hain, Rep. bibliogr., I [1826], nos. 261- advertising and its “hawking” like some article of 63, p. 31). The works of Pius II were very interesting to ¢ommerce (Ablasskramerei). But we are not here

the Germans and central Europeans, and were often Te- concerned with the s ources of Nicholas V’s printed from the later fifteenth century (cf. Alex. Apponyi, . “1a: ; Hungarica, 1 [1903], nos. 4-5, 9, 11, 41-46, 59, etc.), as money for his building programs, of Paul II’s were various Turcica (ibid., nos. 10, 55, 58, 62, 69, 75, 78, for his jewel collection, or of Sixtus IV’s for 87, 102, etc.). Some important examples are listed in a his Italian wars. Ironically enough, papal efforts catalogue of the antiquarian bookseller Jacques Rosenthal, to collect funds through indulgences for the

Einblattdrucke . . ., 1455-1519, Katalog 92, Munich, no . . . . date. protection of Hungary, Carniola, Carinthia, 68 Haebler, Einblattdrucke, nos. 1-41, 91, 106-7, 108, 111, Styria, and Germany itself against the Turk 357-75, 378-82, 406-11, 421-29, 477, 510, 535-44, 553- actually redounded to the disadvantage of Rome

a nee ; 708 Oe ee etc ane g Mo ane “re in the very areas that the papacy was anxious dulgentias ‘sacrae Cruciatae reads, with Variatione: “Quo ad to assist. This 1s not to suggest, of course, that tres [or quatuor] facultates principales. Quarum prima est 9 —-——————

iubileus. Primo pro iubileo et remissione plenissima et singulos penitentiarios et habeant illis istas instructiones omnium peccatorum obtinendis necessarium est christi- perfecte declarare. Cetera suppleant discretiones comfideles confiteri qua confessione facta illos oportet de bonis missariorum sed horum nihil omittant sub penis in suis secundum suam devotionem et facultatem ad iudicium _ bullis contentis” (ibid., no. 1014). Certainly a good deal was

sui confessoris aut alicuius alterius boni viri propriis left to the judgment of the confessor and the discretion manibus distribuere et ponere. . . . [and concludes:] Sint _ of the officials. On the printing of Calixtus III’s crusading ergo sollicit! commissarii avisare de omnibus istis omnes _ bull of 20 (or 29) June, 1456, see below, Chapter 6, note 101..

160 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT the abuses were not real, of long standing, far and a thousand ways are thought up by which the too numerous and persistent, and often accom- Roman See with its finely-wrought talent extracts gold panied by a cavalier cynicism. But complaints from us—from the barbarians! Hence our nation, once were quite as numerous as the abuses, and for illustrious, which by its valor and blood secured the an example let us turn to a contemporary source oman. cmPpires ane dio MIStTess ane wean of the

—an eloquent denunciation of the failings both ond - ble « ‘bi ee Tas penury oho h been f th d of the Curia. Itcomes from Dr. 2" taxable subject. Lying in squalor, she has been of the pope and otf the a. 1C COMES IFO lamenting her lot and poverty these many years. But Martin Mayr, chancellor of the archiepiscopal pow, as though awakened from sleep, our nobles have

elector of Mainz. begun to consider the remedies with which they may

On 31 August, 1457, Mayr wrote to con-_ meet this dreadful plight, and have decided to throw

gratulate Aeneas: Sylvius upon the latter’s off the yoke entirely and reclaim their. ancient

receipt of a cardinal’s hat. Mayr expressed liberty. It will be no small loss to the Curia Romana

pleasure in this advancement of a friend who _ if the princes of the Roman empire give effect to what could now render him assistance if he needed they are now thinking. The more I rejoice in your new it, but he was disturbed that Aeneas’s promotion dignity, the more I am grieved and tormented that

should have come in such evil times: this trouble should be developing in your time.

To my lord the archbishop complaints are frequently narun mayr s prank cobment f of German

brought concerning the Roman pontiff [Calixtus IIT], nationalism and O estrangement trom Rome 1S

who observes the decrees of neither the Council of hardly a unique text. Trouble Was indeed Constance nor that of Basel, and does not regard him- developing in Aeneas Sylvius s time, and self as bound by the commitments of his predecessor German self-consciousness was to be intensified

[Nicholas V]. Rather he seems to hold our [German] by events. German dislike of the Italian nation in contempt and to be exhausting us completely. increased, and German hostility to the Curia

It is a known fact that the elections of prelates Romana assumed dangerous proportions. The

are set aside, and that benefices and dignities of every warning signs of this disaffection were not grade are reserved for cardinals and protonotaries. sufficiently heeded in Rome, where wit was

; : ; : oo many complaints

Even you yourself have obtained reservation to three mistaken for wisdom and t , 1a;

provinces of the German name by this device, which had f b dismissed with th I up to now is without precedent and quite unheard ad tor too long been dismissed with the usua

of. Expectancies are granted without number. shrug of Italian shoulders. The final break came Annates . . . are demanded with no allowance of three generations later, causing spiritual lesions time, and it is public knowledge that they are that have never been healed. extorted, even beyond what is due.

The governance of churches is not given to the ~

one who deserves it more but to the one who offers —_”” Pius II, Opera quae extant omnia (1551, repr. 1967), more for it, and new indulgences are granted every P° 1055, dated “MCCCCVII" by a typographical error

day to scrape up money. Collections of tithes are 86D) 939-98; Panton Fi Pe Pet, AIF 18. and Gesch, ordered because of the Turks, with no consultation 4 Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 734-35; Albert Werminghoff,

of our prelates. Cases which should have been Nationathirchliche Bestrebungen im deutschen Mittelalter, Stutthandled and settled in the places [of their origin] are _gart, 1910, pp. 106-8 (Kirchenrechtliche Abhandlungen,

dragged off indiscriminately to an apostolic court, Heft 61).

6. CALIXTUS III AND THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE, MEHMED II AND ALBANIA (1455-1458) SULTAN MEHMED Il’s spectacular victory on ancient Colchis; and appeared on 11 July under the Bosporus had added immeasurably to the _ the walls of Caffa, which was forced to pay tribwoes and burdens of Pope Nicholas V, whodiedon ute, as we have seen. The fleet also imposed a

the night of 24-25 March, 1455, after several tribute upon the defenseless population of serious and prolonged illnesses.’ On his death- Gothia in the Crimea.* Aeneas Sylvius was quite bed Nicholas delivered a well-known apologia right. Whenever one heard about the Turks, it for his papacy, which Giannozzo Manetti has’ was bad news. reported in unlikely detail. The pope defended A military people little given as yet to industry not only his vast building program but also his _ or large-scale commerce, the Turks lived on their efforts on behalf of Constantinople, lamenting conquests. While broadsides warning Christians the unfairness and shortsightedness of his many against the Turks were being printed in Europe,

critics.” But certainly neither Nicholas nor the the Serbs, Greeks, Latins, and others in the Curia could take satisfaction in the results of conquered territories in the East were expapal policy in the Levant, as Mehmed II was __periencing to bitter fullness the dire fears con-

organizing his military successes for profit. stantly voiced by the western preachers. MehDuring the summer of 1454 a Turkish fleet of med imposed an annual tribute of 12,000 ducats fifty-six vessels had sailed into the Black Sea; (nomismata) on Serbia; 10,000 or 12,000 on the attacked the grain port of Moncastro, which re- Greek “despotate” of the Morea; 6,000 on Chios;

sisted their assault manfully; captured Sebasto- 3,000 on Mytilene (Lesbos); and unspecified polis, at the mouth of the Phasis (Rioni) river in sums on Trebizond and the rest of the Pontic

region.* In the despotate of the Morea

' Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Acta Consistorialia (1439-1486),

in Arm. XXXI, tom. 52, fol. 57%, by mod. stamped ~~ _ enumeration: “Anno a nativitate Domini MCCCCLV?° die 3\W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen-age, lune, que fuit XXIIII@, mensis Martii hora quinta [vel] circa 2 vols., Leipzig, 1885-86, repr. Amsterdam, 1967, II, 383.

sextam noctis [about 1:00 A.m.] sanctissimus dominus noster The Turks had already ravaged Gothia in 1446 when dominus Nicolaus divina providentia papa Quintus suum Murad IJ had sent a fleet against Colchis (Laonicus diem clausit extremum, culus anima requiescat in pace.” Chalcocondylas, bk. v, in ed. Bonn, pp. 260-61, and ed. Selections from the Acta Consistorialia, including this Eugen Darko, II-1 [Budapest, 1923], 37-38). passage (in very abridged form), may be found in Conrad * Ducas, Hist. byzantina, chap. 42 (Bonn, p. 314; ed. Vasile Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medi aevi, II (1914, repr. 1960), Grecu, Ducas: Istoria turco-bizantind [1341-1462], Bucharest,

26 ff., 30. As recorded in Arm. XXVIII, fol. 47, 1958, p. 395), and ¢f., zbid., chap. 45 (Bonn, p. 339, line 4; Nicholas V died “die lune vicesima quinta mensis Martii ed. Grecu, p. 423, lines 27-28). Grecu gives marginal anni supradicti [1455, in which year, however, 25 March references to pages in the Bonn edition of Ducas; I fell on a Tuesday, not a Monday] circa horam quintam rarely cite his edition in the present volume. While Ducas noctis cum dimidia animam Deo reddidit, cuius corpus in puts the Moreote tribute at 10,000, Chalcocondylas, bk. Vaticano in basilica Sancti Petri de urbe honorifice sepultum — vii (Bonn, p. 414; ed. Darko, II-2 [1927], 176), gives it as

fuit. . . .” 12,000 ducats: “. . . qv d€ avrots [the inhabitants of the

* Gian. Manetti, Vita Nich. V, u, in L. A. Muratori, ed., Morea] 6 é7réretos gépos piptor Kai dSiaxidtot xpvoiov RISS, I-2 (Milan, 1734), cols. 947-57; cf. O. Raynaldus, orarnpes.” Annales ecclestastict, ad ann. 1455, nos. 10-16, vol. XVIIT According to Critobulus of Imbros, when the Despots (Cologne, 1694), pp. 431-34; L. v. Pastor, History of the Thomas and Demetrius were faced, after the fall of Popes, 11, 166-67, and esp. pp. 305-18, with append., nos. | Constantinople, with a revolt of the Albanians (in 145326-28, pp. 529-33, and Gesch. d. Papste, 1 (repr. 1955),514-— = 1454, on which see above, Chapter 5), they appealed to Sultan

15, and esp. pp. 645-56, with append., nos. 59-61, Mehmed for aid, promising to pay him an annual tribute pp. 846-48. Already before 7 March Nicholas V had in- of 6,000 gold staters (De rebus gestis Mechemetis II, II, formed his secretary Pietro da Noceto “in qual locho el 1, ed. Karl Miller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum voleva esser sepelito,” as the Milanese ambassadors in- [FHG], V-1i [Paris, 1870], p. 120a; ed. V. Grecu, Critobul formed Francesco Sforza (Pastor, Acta inedita historiam din Imbros, Din domnia lui Mahomed al U-lea, 1451-1467, pontificum Romanorum . . . illustrantia, 1 [Freiburg im Breis- Bucharest, 1963, p. 215). Aeneas Sylvius, De Europa, 12, in

gau, 1904], no. 25, p. 39, lines 27 ff.), and on 14 March Opera quae extant omnia, Basel, 1551, repr. Frankfurt a. M., the Florentines had informed their ambassador in Venice 1967, p. 405, puts the tribute at 17,000 gold pieces after “chel sancto padre € si gravemente malato che si dubita the suppression of the Albanian uprising. Andrea Cambini, che in pochi di non passi di questa vita” (ibid., I, no. 26, Commentario, ed. 1538, p. 22, gives the same figure (“di

p. 40). pagarli [Mehmed II] lanno diciasette migliaia di ducati 161

162 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT conditions were especially bad. We have already After the death of Nicholas V, the position paid some attention to the Albanian revolt which of Alfonso seemed to be unexpectedly strength. had followed the Greek loss of Constantinople. ened when on 8 April, 1455, fifteen cardinals Now there were even demands from the Greek elected the Catalan canonist Alfonso Borgia nobility for direct dependence on the Porte (Alonso de Borja) as Pope Calixtus III. Actually

rather than on the Despots Thomas and De- the great Cardinal Bessarion had almost been metrius. Sometimes the two brothers con- awarded the tiara, receiving eight votes early in templated flight from. their harassed domin- the conclave, but the opposition of Alain de ions, and at others apparently set themselves Coétivy, the cardinal of Avignon, and of

the unpopular task of raising the Turkish Lodovico Trevisan, the worldly cardinal of

tribute, which the Greeks paid no more willingly Aquileia, cost the long-bearded Greek humanist than the Albanians, believing that much of the _ the election which he might have won if he had tribute money would stick to the fingers of the been a more effective politician.* The electors

despots. There could be little confidence in being divided by constant pressures from the opthese last Palaeologi. A once rich society was posing factions of the Orsini and Colonnesi, declining rapidly into chaos. There had been Calixtus III was made pope as a compromise

too much war, and the future looked even candidate, who at seventy-seven years of age blacker than the past. The Greek population was believed to be too old to last long.’ Since in the Morea waited fearfully for the inevitable. the new pope had once been the secretary of Everyone knew what was coming; the only ques- King Alfonso, and had served him in various

tion was when it was coming. diplomatic connections, there was widespread

After the fall of Constantinople Pope Nicholas fear that his election would endanger the peace V had turned hopeful eyes toward Alfonso V_ of Lodi and the newly formed Italian League.

“the Magnanimous,”’ whose power extended On 8 April the cardinal of Aquileia had from the banks of the Ebro in Spain to the

shores of the Adriatic and to Albania, and ® According to the letter of Roberto di Sanseverino to whose influence was felt in Cyprus, Rhodes, Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, written from Bologna and Egypt. Despite grandiose promises Alfonso on 17 April (1455), as given in F[rancesco] Petruccelli did iess than he might have done, although della Gattina, Histoire diplomatique des conclaves, 4 vols., Pastor an injustice when he says that Paris, 1864-66, I, 269, Pius from a II, document in the Arch. ae . .does di him Stato di Milano, Carteggio di Roma; Commeniari, neither now nor later did Alfonso ever raise bk. 1, Frankfurt, 1614, p. 24, and note the addendum to a hand in defense of Christendom.”® this :passage in Jos. Cugnoni, ed., Aeneae Siluit . . . opera inedita, in the Atti della R. Accademia det Lincei, anno

—_— CCLXXX (1882-83), 3rd ser., Memorie della classe dt scienze

doro . . .”). According to the Rabbi Joseph Ben Joshua morali, storiche e filologiche, VIII (Rome, 1883), p. 498, ex Ben Meir, Chronicles, trans. C. H. F. Bialloblotzky, 2 vols., cod. man., p. 33, inc. “Ecquid scimus” [which passage was London, 1836, I, 281, the Despots Thomas and Demetrius omitted from the printed edition of Pius II’s Commentari], promised to pay the sultan an annual tribute of 17,000 on Cardinal Alain’s questioning the sincerity of Bessarion’s

“pieces of gold.” conversion to Latin Catholicism; cf. the English translation

5 Pastor, Gesch. d. Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 629-30: of the Commentaries by Florence Alden Gragg, in the “Alfonso . . . ruhrte weder jetzt noch spater eine Hand Smith College Studies in History, XXII (1936-37), 75-76, zum Schutze der Christenheit.” In actual fact, during the which work has the merit of including the passages exsummer of 1455, Alfonso V dispatched a thousand foot cised from the printed text; Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad to Scanderbeg “in Albania per defensione de quelle terre,” ann. 1455, no. 17, vol. XVIII (1694), p. 434; Pastor, most of whom were killed in the Turkish invasion, Hist. Popes, 11, 323-24, and Gesch. d. Papste, I (repr. 1955), “.. e hano tra morti e presi da cinque in sey milia 659-60; Ludwig Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Cristiani” (V. V. MakuSev, Monumenta historica slavorum Humanist und Staatsmann, 3 vols., Paderborn, 1923-42, repr.

meridionalium, I1 [1882], 148-51, docs. dated 8 and 14 Aalen and Paderborn, 1967, I, 267-68. August, 1455). Alfonso had apparently intended to send 7 Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1455, no. 17, vol. XVIII Scanderbeg 1,200 foot and five hundred horse (ibid., p. (1694), p. 434; Pastor, II, 319-26, and Gesch. d. Papste, I 227, doc. dated 22 May, 1455), but may have found (repr. 1955), 656-61; Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Acta Conhimself unable to spare so large a cavalry force (cf. sistorialia, in Arm. XXXI, tom. 52, fol. 57%: “Creatio below, note 127, for further reference to these docu- domini Calixti papae Tertii: Anno predicto [1455] die vero ments). See in general Ernesto Pontieri, Alfonso il Magna- Martis octava dicti mensis [Aprilis] circa horam quintanimo, re di Napoli (1435-1458), Naples, 1975, pp. 262— decimam reverendissimus in Christo pater et dominus, 63, 318-25, and esp. “Alfonso I d’Aragona e la ‘crociata’ dominus’ Alfonsus, etc., Quatuor Coronatorum presbyter di Callisto HI,” in the Atti della Accademia nazionale det cardinalis Valentinus, assumptus fuit ad summi apicem Lincei, Rendiconti, Cl. di scienze morali, etc., 8th ser., XXIX — apostolatus et vocatus Calixtus Tertius . . .” (not in Eubel).

(1974), 61-68, for a simple statement of the reasons why Cf. Arm. XXVIIII, fol. 4°, by mod. stamped enumeration, Alfonso, although a “son of the Spain of the reconquista,” and J. B. Saegmiiller, Die Papstwahlen und die Staaten von abandoned his (apparent) plans to move againstthe Turkson 1447 bis 1555 (Nikolaus V. bis Paul IV.), Tubingen, 1890,

a grand scale. pp. 82-84.

CALIXTUS HI AND MEHMED II 163 written Lodovico II Gonzaga, the marquis of Other documents of the time strike a similar Mantua, that the cardinals had elected Alfonso note, and certainly the brief reign of Calixtus Borgia, the former cardinal of Valencia, as pope III, who was a native of Valencia and imbued about 10:00 a.m. that morning (circha le XIV with the Spanish spirit of the reconquista, was

hore), and expressed the hope “that by his marked by a sincere if ineffectual dedication singular goodness and virtue this election willbe to the crusade against Mehmed II and the Turks.

helpful to all Christendom.’ The Venetians, Florentines, and Genoese, however, were — Calixtus III was crowned on 20 April, 1455, gravely concerned that the balance of power the ceremonies being disrupted by factional in the peninsula would be upset. Antonio - strife.12 Embassies soon arrived, however, to Guidobono, the Milanese ambassador in Venice, congratulate the new pope upon his accession

informed Duke Francesco Sforza in a letter to the throne. Serving on them were disdated 12 April that “in this city [Venice] most tinguished citizens sent from Lucca, Siena, people are very dissatisfied, both because this Bologna, Florence, and Venice. Alfonso V of

dignity has gone from the Italians and also Naples and Frederick III of Germany also

because it seems to everyone that his Majesty, the sent ambassadors, the latter being especially king of Aragon, may have the Church at his represented by the untiring Aeneas Sylvius. The disposal as he wishes, and will thereby become anti-Turkish war was uppermost in men’s minds. more arrogant than ever.”® The Milanese am- The Venetian ambassadors were instructed to bassador in Genoa, Giovanni de la Guardia, sent give Calixtus the urbane assurance “that, when

a similar report to Sforza from Liguria on 14 we see that the other Christian powers are April: the election of Calixtus III was most moving in force against the Turks, we also shall

displeasing to the Genoese, because the Catalans _ be found following in the footsteps of our forewere their long-standing enemies, and because it bears, with that same good disposition which

seemed to have been contrived “per gli favori we have evinced in the past.”!? The Venetians de la Sacra Regia Maesta del re de Ragona. . . .”"° On the following day (15 April), however, the _——————

Genoese Doge Pietro di Campofregoso wrote crusading vow, of which Barbo had sent a copy to Calixtus of the vast, incredible joy which his Venice (bid., fol. 59° [60°]): “Ea omnia nobis profecto compatriots took in the election of one whose fuere gratissima.” Cf. Marino Sanudo, Vite de ducht, in

far-f d andand d rtwonerous had madevirtues him RISS, XXIISegr. (Milan, 1733), Arm. col. 1158DE. ar-famed € ’ Arch. Vaticano, XXXI, tom. 52, fols.

known throughout the world, a proper pastor 57*_58", by mod. stamped enumeration; Pastor, Hist. Popes, for those troubled times in which the savagery _ Il, 337-39, and Gesch. d. Papste, I (repr. 1955), 671-72;

of the Turks was ever growing, and who alone 44 inedita, I, no. 31, pp. 43-44.

. . 8likely 8? 13 Sen. Secreta, Reg. peace 20, fols.among 61’—-62'[62"—63"], from the seemed to bring about the1455, wes commission dated 6 June, issued:in the name of the

crowned heads of Europe as well as tO AFOUSE Doge Francesco Foscari to Pasquale Malipiero, Triadano the laggards and arm them against the infidels.!! — Gritti, Jacopo Loredan, and Lodovico Foscarini, the Venetian envoys being sent to Rome, as an embassy of obe-

TT dience to Calixtus III: “. . . Quando eritis Rome dabitis ® Pastor, Acta inedita, I, no. 27, p. 41. operam adeundi conspectum summi pontificis, et exhibitis 9 Ibid., I, no. 28, pp. 41-42. litteris nostris credentialibus factisque devotis et filialibus Ibid., I, no. 29, p. 42: “ex Ianua die XIIII aprilis | recommendationibus Beatitudinisue . . . declarabitis sum-

1455.” mum gaudium ineffabilemque letitiam quam suscepimus " Ibid., I, no. 30, pp. 42-43. The Doge Pietro also re- cum primum intelleximus Sanctitatem suam ad summi

quested the confirmation of his young brother Paolo as_ pontificatus apicem esse assumptam, persuasimus namque archbishop of Genoa, for although elected to the office nobis ac certissimum tenuimus hanc eius electionem divinam three years before, Paolo had never been accorded the title, | potius quam humanam fuisse. . . . owing to his youth. Cf. the Genoese letter to the College of “Si per id tempus quo stabitis Rome summus pontifex Cardinals, dated 28 April, 1455 (bid., I, no. 32, p. 44). For qui, ut intelligere potuistis, multum inclinatus esse videtur the Florentine letters of congratulation, see Cesare Guasti, ad exterminium Theucrorum requireret seu diceret vobis Due Legazioni al sommo pontefice per il comune di Firenze quicquam de his rebus Theucrorum velletque intelligere presedute da Sant’ Antonino arcivescovo, Florence, 1857, pp. nostram intentionem si et nos cum aliis potentiis favores 34-35, cited by Pastor, Gesch. d. Papste, I (repr. 1955), 664, nostros huic impresie prestaturi sumus, contenti sumus et note 2, who also quotes a brief passage from a Venetian letter volumus quod sue Beatitudini respondeatis in ea modesta of 20 April (in the Sen. Secreta, Reg. 20, fol. 58” [59°J) to et pertinenti forma verborum quam magis utilem iudicabitis: the effect that Calixtus III’s election must be regarded asa Quod quando videbimus alias potentias Christianas contra celestial rather than human act, and letters cannot express Teucros potenter se movere, nos quoque imitantes vestigia

the immense joy and pleasure which the statesmen of the maiorum nostrorum repperiemur illius bone’ dispositionis Serenissima have derived from it. On the same day, the cuius per elapsum fuimus.” Senate wrote Pietro Barbo, the cardinal of S. Marco, of A month later, on 7 July, the envoys were again ditheir great satisfaction in Calixtus’s election and in his rected to repeat this statement to the pope, with whom

164 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT were well aware how unlikely the prospect for he was a great student of the fine arts and a was of the “aliae potentiae Christianae” moving most assiduous collector of books—and he has con-

in force against the Turks, despite the already verted this spoil into money for use [against the famous vow which Calixtus frequently made to Turks]. He is said to have had 200,000 ducats when give his whole effort, “even to the shedding of his he dal, elevated he te papacy; he has spent these

own blood,” to the recovery of Constantinople, im nine eet his pontificate2° 20 August (1458)con the Florence, Ugurgieri Berardenga, Pio p ° 5 IT On Piccolomini, notizie1971, suand PioC. II e altridella membri della

TT italiano, vol. XVIII).

famigha, Florence, 1973 (Biblioteca dell’ Archivio storico

1° Cf. Eugene Mintz, Les Arts a la cour des papes pendant "! Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Arm. XXXI, tom..52, fol. 5". The

le XV° et XVI° siecle: Recueil de documents inédits, 3 vols., Paris, | precious Acta Consistorialia (1439-1486) thus record Pius

1878-82, I, 300-5. On Pius’s birthplace, see Enzo Carli, II’s election and coronation (ibid., fol. 617, not in Eubel, Pienza, la citta di Pio II, Rome: Monte dei Paschi di Siena,‘ Hterarchia, 11 [1914, repr. 1960], 32): “Creatio Pii pape 1966, with beautiful illustrations and copious notes. In the Secundi: Anno predicto [1458], die vero XVIIII* eiusdem Pieve di S. Vito (of Corsignano) the visitor may still see the | mensis [Augusti], circa horam XVI [about noontime, but font at which both Pius II and his nephew Pius III were _ the sources vary as to the hour of Pius’s election, on which baptized. The biographical sketches of Pius II (who wasborn cf. Pastor, Gesch. d. Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 11, note 1, who

on 18 October, 1405) by his friends and admirers Gio- always records details of this sort] reverendissimus in vanni Antonio Campano, whom he made bishop of Cotrone Christo pater et dominus, dominus Eneas . . . , Sancte (1462-1463) and Teramo (1463-1477), and Bartolommeo _ Sabine presbyter cardinalis Senensis, assumptus fuit ad Platina, humanist and librarian of the Vaticana under summi apicem apostolatus et vocatus Pius Secundus et Sixtus IV, have been edited with a rich annotation by associatus de conclave quod factum fuit in capella palatii Giulio C. Zimolo, Le Vite di Pio IH, in the new Muratori, —usque ad altare Sancti Petri et reductus in palatium cum RISS, Ill, pt. 3 (Bologna, 1964). Platina wrote his life of | omnibus cardinalibus. Coronatio Pii pape Secundi: Anno Pius shortly after the latter’s death; Campano, who died in __ predicto, die vero tertia mensis Septembris, qui [sic] fuit 1477, wrote his after the Turkish occupation of Negro- dies dominica, sanctissimus dominus noster Pius divina ponte (Euboea) in 1470, to which he refers (zbid., p. 78). providentia papa Secundus fuit coronatus in gradibus Sancti The two works are compared and contrasted by their editor Petri et deinde ascendens equum album associatus [here a Zimolo, “I] Campano e il Platina come biografi di Pio II,” _ blank space is left in the MS. where we should expect ‘ab in Domenico Maffei, ed., Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Papa Pio II: omnibus reverendissimis dominis’] cardinalibus in pontiAtti del convegno per il quinto centenario della morte... , ficalibus cum consueta sole[m ]pnitate ivit ad Sanctum Ioan-

Siena, 1968, pp. 401-11. nem Lateranensem.” The works of Georg Voigt, Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini A letter of 20 August, 1458, sent by the Sacred College

als Papst Pius der Zweite und sein Zeitalter, 3 vols., Berlin, to Marquis Lodovico II Gonzaga of Mantua told him of the 1856-63, and Ludwig v. Pastor, Geschichte der Papste, I1 election of the “reverendissimus . . . dominus Eneas tituli (repr. 1955), 5-289, still provide us with the most sub- Sancte Sabine presbyter cardinalis Senensis vulgariter nunstantial treatments of Pius II’s career. Voigt is umsym- cupatus. . . .” Giving Cardinal Aeneas the usual praise, the

pathetic toward him, both before and after his elevation letter includes the doubtful statement that he was elected to the papacy. Pastor has rejected Aeneas, and embraced = “incredibili animorum consensu” (Arch. di Stato di Mantova,

Pius. There are semi-popular lives of Pius in English by Arch. Gonzaga, Busta 834). On 4 September Pius II him-

PIUS II AND THE CONGRESS OF MANTUA 201 Humanist, diplomat, traveler, and statesman, Bibl. Apost. Vaticana; it is complete, while the printed Pius II seems to have been the only pope to Latin texts of the original are all mutilated, as indicated

. . ; . as recently appeared in Siena, the work of Giuseppe

write his memoirs (he called them Commentarii) pelow in this note. An Italian translation of the Commentarit while he occupied S. Peter's throne. Pius had Bernetti, Pio HT (Enea Silvio Piccolomini), I Commentari, 4

° 2 bl L .

long been interested in the Greek world and, vols., 1972-74. It is based upon a study of the Cod. despite the frivolities of his youth, had for Cersinianus 147 (on which see below) as well as the Cod. years lived in deep concern over the Turkish Beas eed each volume being equipped with an inadvance into Europe.’ Soon after his corona- Of particular interest for the present chapter is the work tion he announced that he would hold at Mantua jn two books of the humanist Lodrisio Crivelli (Cribellus)

or Udine on I June, 1459, a congress of all of Milan, whom Pius II made a papal secretary on 17 the great powers to organize a crusade against October, 1458 (Arch. Segr. Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 515, fol. the Turks. The Venetians, however, fearing to tay De expeditione Pu P. I] in Turcas, in RISS, XXHI (Milan, disrupt their political and economic relations Muratori, RISS, XXIII, pt. 5 (Bologna, completed in 1950). with the Ottoman empire, were unwilling to al- On the rather unhappy career of Crivelli, poet as well as low the congress to meet in Udine, and so Man-_ Greek scholar, see Ferdinando Gabotto, “Ricerche intorno "+ 13 Diyic? . allo storiografo quattrocentista Lodrisio Crivelli,” Archivio tua was selected as the site. Pius’s good triend storico italiano, 5th ser., VII (1891), 267-98, who gives the

. . . ; ¢ ), cols. 25-80, and ed. G. C. Zimolo, in the new

OS text of several of Crivelli’s letters, and Leslie F. Smith, self informed the marquis of his election (zbid.), “. . . ipsi. “Lodrisio Crivelli of Milan and Aeneas Silvius, 1457-1464,” fratres [cardinales] licet potuissent in alios maioris meriticon- Studies in the Renaissance, 1X (1962), 31-63, who provides us

sentire, tandem . . . unanimiter vota sua nos ... nes- with the text of six of Crivelli’s poems. cimus quo occulto sed tremendo nobis Dei iudicio ad On 9 December, 1458, Pius renewed his predecessor’s celsitudinis apostolice fastigium concorditer elegerunt.” This declaration of the crusading tithe, in a bull to be found in occultum sed tremendum iudictum made a profound impres- Reg. Vat. 469 (vol. II of Pius’s letters de Curia), fols.

sion upon its beneficiary. 86°-—87', and cf. the bull dated 5 July, 1459, in Reg. Vat.

Aeneas Sylvius had been ordained a priest on 4 March, 471, fols. 302'-303', “. . . ad executionem indulgentiarum 1447 (see Angelo Mercati, “Aneddoti per la storia di pro defensione ipsius fidei contra dictos Turchos concespontefici: Pio IH, Leone X,” in Archivio della R. Societa sarum.. . ;” etc., etc. The convocatio Pii papae II ad dietam romana di storia patria, LVI-LVII [Rome, 1933-34], Mantue vel Utini celebrandam, as sent to King Charles VII of 363-65), a date which always eluded Pastor, Gesch. d. France and the German imperial electors, appears as the Pa&pste, | (repr. 1955), 351-52, note. On Aeneas Sylvius’s first document in the volume of Pii I brevia: Ann. I, I, et election as Pius II on 19 August, see Pastor, Acta inedita III (1458-59-60), in Arm. XXXIX, tom. 9, fol. 4, by mod. I (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1904), nos. 64-65, pp. 90-95, stamped enumeration (originally fol. 1), and cf. the pope’s docs. dated 19 and 20 August, 1458, and Gesch. d. letters to Cardinal Carvajal, fols. 6Y—7', 8'-9"; the Emperor

Papste, II (repr. 1955), 9-11. It is worth noting that Frederick III, fol. 9; etc., etc. Late copies of various Benozzo Gozzoli painted numerous banners, flags, and even opuscula of Pius II may be found in the Vatican Archives, the cardinals’ benches used in the ceremonies attending Miscellanea, Arm. XII, tomm. 3—4 (=Bibl. Apost. Vaticana,

Pius’s coronation on 3 September (Mintz, Les Arts a la Codd. latt. 12,255-56), together with texts of Platina on

cour des papes, I, 263, 330). Sixtus IV, Volaterrano, Infessura, and a few other items,

We may observe, for example, that in an oration but there seems to be nothing in these two volumes not which Pius had delivered as Aeneas Sylvius more than elsewhere available in better form. twenty years before (1436) at the Council of Basel as to the Also cf. in general Mansi, Concilia, XXV (repr. Paris, choice of a site for the oecumenical council which was to 1902), 105-34, a poor section, and, ibid., XXXII, 203-66; discuss the prospect of church union (Aeneas advocated Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., ad ann. 1458, nos. 1-5, 14-19, Pavia as the best place for the Greeks and Latins to meet), vol. XIX (Cologne, 1693), pp. 1-2, 4-5; Marino Sanudo, he had made especial note of the plight of the Greeks in Vite de’duchi di Venezia, in RISS, XXII (Milan, 1733), cols.

subjection to the overwhelming power of the Turkish em- _1166E, 1167; K. J. Hefele, Histoire des conciles, ed. and trans.

pire (J. D. Mansi, ed., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et am- HH. Leclercq, VII, pt. 2 (Paris, 1916), 1291 ff.; Pastor, plissima collectio, XXX [repr. Paris, 1904], 1098C~—1099). This Hist. Popes, III (repr. 1949), 19, 21-24, 45 ff., 240 ff., and oration, like Pius’s others, may also be found in Mansi, ed., _ Gesch. d. Papste, 11 (repr. 1955), 15, 16-19, 39 ff., 220 ff.

Pu Hl. P. M. . . . orationes politicae et ecclesiasticae, 3 vols., Since frequent reference will be made in the following Lucca, 1755-59, I, 5 ff. (with the passage relating to Greek _ pages to Pius II’s Commentarii, his most important literary

subjection to the Turks on pp. 11-12), and ¢f., ibid., pp. work and one of the chief sources for his reign, some

163-81. account should probably be taken of its peculiar history, 'S The most interesting source for the six-year reign of even at the risk of wearying the informed reader who

Pius II is his own Commentarii, in thirteen books, which the chooses to pursue this note to the end. Following Julius English reader may easily employ in the useful translation Caesar, whose title Commentarii he adopted, Pius wrote his of Florence A. Gragg, published in the Smith College Studies memoirs in the third person, a fact which was to play

in History: Book 1 appeared as vol. XXII, nos. 1-2 (1936- its part in the now well-known attempt to conceal his 37); bks. 1-1 as vol. XXV (1939-40); bks. 1v—v, vol. authorship. In the edition of the Commentarii printed at XXX (1947); bks. vi-1x, vol. XXXV (1951); and bks. Rome in 1584 and reprinted in 1589, as well as in that x—xiu, vol. XLIII (1957). The pagination is continuous. This printed at Frankfurt in 1614, one Johannes Gobellinus translation is said to be based upon an unpublished edition ofthe (of Linz), vicar of the Church of Bonn, is given on the Codex Reginensis lat. 1995 (Pius’s original text) in the _ title page as the author of the work (. . . a R. D. Ioanne

202 THE PAPACY AND THE LEVANT Gobellino Vicario Bonnen. itamdiu compositi, et a R. P. D. upon the pope long before this, however, the appointment Francisco Bandino Picolomineo Archtepiscopo Senensi ex vetusto was designed to confirm his status in view of the recent originalt recognitt). Gobellinus, however, identifies himself in _ reorganization of the college of (seventy) abbreviators or to

Cod. 147 (35-G-6) in the Bibl. Corsiniana in Rome [at add to his income. Patrizzi’s handwriting has been identified

the Accademia de’ Lincei, Via Lungara, 10] merely as a as that in which most of the MS. is written (Kramer, copyist, as Voigt clearly showed him to have been “Untersuchungen,” pp. 62-69). From all this it is quite (Enea Silvio, II [1862], 336-41, and see Pastor, Gesch. obvious why Raynaldus, Ann. eccl., thinks he is citing Gobeld. Papste, II [repr. 1955], 33-38, and append., no. 65, pp. linus when he is of course quoting Pius’s own words; 754-56). Cf. also Giuseppe Lesca, “I Commentarii ... unfortunately Gobellinus is still sometimes cited as a hisd’Enea Silvio de’Piccolomini,” in the Annali della R. Scuola torian, for~ example by Zakythinos, Despotat grec de normale superiore di Pisa, Filos. e Filologia, vol. X (della serie Morée, 1, 264-65. Various aspects of Patrizzi’s career are XVI, 1894), pp. 22-24 [of whose work Pastor, II, 756, note explored in Rino Avesani, “Per la Biblioteca di Agostino

2, had a low opinion, although it is of some use], and Patrizi Piccolomini, vescovo di Pienza,” in the Mélanges especially Hans Kramer, “Untersuchungen tber die ‘Com- Eugéne Tisserant, VI, pt. 1 (Citta del Vaticano, 1964), mentarii’ des Papstes Pius II,” in Mitteilungen des Oster- 1-37, esp. pp. 3-31 (Studi e testi, no. 236).

reichischen Instituts fiir Geschichtsforschung, XLVIII (Inns- In July, 1959, and May, 1970, I examined for myself Cod.

bruck, 1934), 83-86. Reg. lat. 1995 in the Vaticana. A quarto volume, it is of

It has long been clear that Francesco Bandini de’ Piccolo- quite manageable size and weight, containing 595 fols. mini, archbishop of Siena (1529-—1588!), also named on the (1190 pages), in an eighteenth-century leather binding, a title pages of the printed editions, must assume the paper MS. with several different watermarks including crossed responsibility for this imposition on the learned world arrows imposed upon a circle, a column, scissors, and a hunt-

(Kramer, “Untersuchungen,” pp. 86-91, although I can ing horn suspended on a crossed cord. The first twelve

hardly agree with Kramer that Pius II himself wanted to folios (with a separate enumeration) give the rubrice of the conceal his authorship of the Commentarii, allowing only the __ first twelve books of the Commentariu. Book 1 begins with

Piccolomini family to share in the secret [ibid., pp. 85-86]). fol. 1‘, and bk. xm concludes with fol. 584” and the notice Bandini was the great-grandson of Pius II’s sister Laudomia, _ that the twelfth and last book is fortunately finished (see and the grandnephew of Pius III. Although about 1566 below), after which comes the Greek word Tédos. The MS. Bandini was prepared to print the Commentaru under the — is written in several hands, most of them quite legible.

name of Pius II, and had received a license to do so’ In the margins are various additions, corrections, guide (Kramer, op. cit., pp. 88-89), he changed his mind, and words to the text, and notations of special emphasis. published the work under the name of Gobellinus. The Following a fine humanist hand there begins a section in deliberate fraud was part of an effort to protect Pius II’s Pius II’s own hand (fols. 35 ff.), which runs to the conreputation against the attacks of Protestant critics during clusion of bk. 1, where a group of blank pages were left the later years of the Catholic Reformation. The work was (fols. 61.-68") for a continuation that was never added. moreover severely and carefully edited (clearly by Bandini Special notice should be taken of the directions given to himself, for his letter to Pope Gregory XIII, printed in his the copyist on fol. 189%: “pone hec ultra ad hoc signum

edition of 1584, p. 3, states that Gobellinus’s Commen- se ,” which marks a passage to almost the middle of tari was his favorite reading). Bandini prepared the work fol. 191”. The same sign reappears at the middle of fol. for the press by recasting or removing many of Pius II’s 238" with directions for replacement of the marked passage frankest observations on the people and events he described. _at this point: “vide supra et pone que sunt ad hoc signum The first edition, (1584) was printed, directly or indi- usque quo reperies aliud in hunc modum °° .” These direcrectly, from Cod. 147 (35-G-6), now in the Corsiniana, tions are in’ Pius’s own hand. His coronation is recorded where the passages to be excised were marked for the _ on fol. 69". printer (cf. also Voigt, II, 341); from this edition those The paper of Cod. Reg. 1995 is of the same general of 1589 (Rome) and 1614 (Frankfurt) were reprinted. The quality throughout despite the different watermarks. It was passages omitted from the first twelve books of the Com- all manufactured in Italy, and was being used in Rome durmentarii are published in Jos. Cugnoni, Aeneae Silvit Pic- ing the years 1459-1464, on which cf. C. M. Briquet, colomini . . . opera inedita, in the Aiti della R. Accademia dei Les Filigranes, ed. Allan Stevenson, 4 vols., Amsterdam, Lincei, CCLXXX (1882-83), 3rd ser., Memorie della classe di 1968: for the crossed arrows (“deux fléches en sautoir”), scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, VIII (Rome, 1883), pp. see vol. II, no. 6303; the column (“colonne”), zbid., no. 496-549. Book xin, not given in the printed texts of the 4411; the scissors (“ciseaux”), no. 3685; and the hunting Commentarii, has been published by Voigt, I, 359-77. horn (“huchet”), nos. 7686 (too early) and 7693, which occurs Cf. Pastor, Gesch. d. Papste, 1 (repr. 1955), 659-60, note throughout the MS., including book xin, but the precise 2; it was Pastor (see, ibid., II [repr. 1955], append., no. 65, huchet is not given among the watermarks even in the new pp. 754-56) who discovered or rather rediscovered the Briquet. On fol. 584” appears the annotation, “Comenoriginal MS. of Pius’s work in the Bibl. Apost. Vaticana, tariorum Pii Secundi Pont. Max. liber duodecimus et

Codex Reginensis lat. 1995. ultimus feliciter finitus,” but Pius obviously changed his Although Pius II wrote some of this MS. in hisown hand, mind and added bk. x1, the genuineness of which is n