Surprised by Time

More Palaiologues

2012-02-01T00:00:00.001Z

ThePalaiologos cross between four firesteels (πυρέκβολα)each resembling a B
which are also said to have originally been Bs that were later turned into firesteels.
These have been interpreted asthe initials of the imperial motto:
Βασιλεὺς ΒασιλέωνΒασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων or Βασιλεὺς ΒασιλέωνΒασιλεύων Βασιλεῦσι ),
"King of Kings, Rulingover Rulers."*

Mycolleague Ersie Burke and I both work on stratioti but we share them out. I get the Morea stratioti, and she gets the stratioti who ended up in Venice, but we overlap on the occasional family relationships and then we work together with scans, Skype and Dropbox. Just after Christmas we were reading together a petition Ersie found from a Demetrio-2 Paleologo** recorded in Venetian records with a date of 27 January 1584. (I have given the names in this petition numbers to help keep them straight -- this family was most loyal to the Greek naming tradition.)

Demetrio-2 Paleologo, the petitioner, had held land on Cyprus, inherited from his father Zuanne-2, worth 5,000 scudi, and commanded 60 stratioti for Venice. During the Ottoman assault on Cyprus that began in 1570, he lost his land, saw his father and brother killed, his house destroyed, and the women of the household raped. He himself was chained at the oars on Turkish galleys for six years. At the time of writing, he was asking to be assigned to Kefalonia or Crete as captain of stratioti, with a position appropriate to a member of his family which had lost so much in the service of Venice.

Before he tells of the Cypriot disaster, he recounts this family service going back over four generations and more than a hundred years.

*Andronico-1 Paleologo, because of his command and valor at the Hexamilion and Corinth in 1463, was given Kastri (Hermione) in the Argolid in 1469. He fortified it himself and brought settlers there.

* Zuanne-1 Paleologo (remember this one) did no less. He had been given Stalimene (Lemnos) by his cousin, the Despot of the Morea, and was confirmed in possession by the Venetian captain-general, Alvise Loredan in the Venetian-Ottoman War (1464-1478). After that, he fought in Valachia for his brother-in-law, the Voivode Stefano, to drive out the Ottomans. In 1482 he led Greek troops in the Ferrara War, and just after that fought at Padua.

* Demetrio-1 Paleologo , Zuanne's son and grandfather of Demetrio 2, our petitioner, was with the Venetians at the attacks at Metilene (Lesbos) in 1501, Santa Maura, and Kefalonia.

* Andronico-2 Palaeologo, Demetrio-1's son, had been instrumental at the Ottoman siege of Nauplion in 1500 in getting food into the city which was on the verge of surrender from starvation. He and two of his cousins were killed in an ambush near Argos.

* Zuanne-2 Palaeologo, also a son of Demetrio-1 and father of our petitioner, was mentioned in the second paragraph He had better fortune than his brother, and fought so well for Venice that he was knighted and given the fief on Cyprus. He was killed in the Ottoman takeover.

There are a great many Palaiologos names scattered through the Venetian records, and sometimes they say they are "da Costantinople" and sometimes "da Napoli di Romania" but mostly there is no identification. So go back to Zuanne-1.

Zuanne-1 held Lemnos from his cousin, the Despot of the Morea. Lemnos was an island given as appanage to members of the imperial family. Manuel II had Lemnos at one time. Demetrios Palaiologos had Lemnos for many years, until he was created Despot of Mistra.*** But despots do not grant islands, but emperors do, and the only Despot of the Morea to become emperor was Constantine. So it looks like Constantine gave his cousin Zuanne-Ioannis-John, Lemnos when he became emperor, in 1449 or so.

Now, when Cyriaco of Ancona was in the Morea in 1447, he visited with aJohn Palaiologos who was Constantine's governor of Mani. ( Cyriaco wrote the name IωannumPalaeologum with an omega.)**** John took Cyriaco to look at an inscription on ancient walls in a field near Oitylo where there were also cisterns and sarcophagi. This John is not found in the PLP, which is the sacred book of Byzantine names from 1261 on, but there are a great many names not found in it, and it is a starting-point, not a definitive conclusion. I am quite sure that this John Palaiologos of Mani is Zuanne-1 Palaiologos whose cousin gave him Lemnos.

Constantine's cousin. Now Constantine's uncle, Theodoros I who died in 1407, is known to have had children, though not by his wife. The only reasonably-identified, and nameless, child was a daughter, known later as Fatmachatún, who was married to Sulayman, son of sultan Murad. Sulayman, briefly sultan of Edirne , was overthrown in 1411. She disappeared.

There appear to have been at least two sons. I am suggesting that this John-Zuanne-1-Iωannum

Palaiologos was one of the sons of Theodoros I Palaiologos, and that is why he had status adequate to receive the island of Lemnos. John was the name of Theodoros' father.

The petitioner says that Zuanne's brother-in-law Stefano was ruler of Valachia. A Stephen III ruled Moldavia from 1457-1504, and in 1471, he invaded Ottoman-ruledVallachia in and was able to push them back. John-Zuanne-1apparently participated in this effort, and it is somewhat confirmation of his status that he married a daughter and sister of rulers. She apparently did not have a name either.

Because of the way names entwine in this family, I am also suggesting that Andronico-1 was another a son of Theodoros. Andronikos was the name of Theodoros' grandfather. I have no evidence beyond a sense of tidyness and you now have all the evidence I have.

I also have a Michali Paleologo who was governor of Vassilicata (Sicyon) in 1430. Someone was selling silver jewelry for him in Venice. I don't know what to do with him. I don't know how many sons we can give Theodoros credit for but he was a governor in the territory Constantine controlled at that date.

This is as far as I can go with these names, other than to recall that Constantine is the only Palaiologos we know of whom there is recorded some concern for family.

* This comes from Wikipedia. I like the description but I cannot vouch for the accuracy. I would be grateful for more information and sources.

** Sathas 5: 217-219 can be downloaded here.
*** Mehmed gave the income of Lemnos back to Demetrios for a while.
**** Cyriaco, Diary V: 23.

A masque for Cyriaco

2012-01-25T18:18:00.001Z

Dancers, based on a drawing by Cyriaco.
He may have been trying to draw these Samothraki dancers.

InAugust 1446, Cyriaco of Ancona wrote letters to his friends, Franzesco di Drapieri, and Baldassare Maruffo, the podestà* of the Genoese colony of Galata, or Pera, across the Golden Horn from Constantinople. Cyriaco's editor, Edward W. Bodnar, SJ, believes that the Maruffo letter describes a fantasy. I am not so sure. Such masques as he describes were popular back in Italy, a way for respectable women to perform in public, and a nice way to exhibit girls eligible for marriage.

Early in the letter Cyriaco compliments Maruffo for rebuilding and extending the walls of Galata, and gives him an inscription to be inscribed in marble and attached to the walls. The inscription survives in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. It begins:

ΑΓΑΘΗΤΨΞΗΙ

BALTASARIB. F. MARVFO GALATEAE

HVIVSBIZANTINAE PERAE THREICIO

INBOSPHORO CL. GENVENSIVM COLO
NIAE B. M. PRAETOR

and continues for nine more lines. Translated, this reads: "Good Fortune. To Baldassare Maruffo, son of Baldassare, well-deserving podestà of this illustrious Genoese colony, Galata Pera, on the Thracian Bosporus . . .."

Then Cyriaco describes the long day of August 15, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (or the Dormition of the Theotokos) which the Genoese observed at the Galata church of St. Francis. Cyriaco himself went to services at Agia Sophia before taking the ferry to Pera to a celebration.

In both letters, Cyriaco wrote: "First of all, among the distinguished, celebrated golden-haired nymphs of Galata I saw your beautiful daughter (the comely, beautiful, beloved daughter of Franczesco di Drapieri, the elegant market inspector for Thrace and Asia,) Elisabetta Maria, conspicuous in gold and a cloak the color of the sky, walking just as once the chaste, quiver-bearing goddess Diana was seen gloriously leading her band."

Both letters say that he saw her later in the day at the Umbriaci house with friends, relatives, and in-laws, "clothed in her father's divine, golden gifts, speaking with gracious joy during a decent (honesto) drinking party and replying to me most becomingly." Cyriaco pronounced her husband, Tomasso Spinola, most fortunate, because apparently Elisabetta Maria had been wooed by a number of highly-placed men, and a few rulers.

I think Cyriaco was carried away enough to write his description of Elisabetta Maria first, and only then then describe where he had seen her, thus giving the passage the fantasy quality Bodnar identifies. Several days later, on August 21, the young Gerolimo Franchi took Cyriaco up to the top of the Galata hill -- quite a climb, really -- to the grand house of Benedetto Selvatico where "noble fellow-guests, especially eminent citizens, and colonists and their wives, as well as their married and unmarried daughters." Notice how the young women are daughters first, even if they are married.

In the Maruffo letter, he writes that while he was admiring the young women and their wardrobes, he saw descending from heaven "three divine, radiant nymphs" who moved into the crowd and took on human identities. Now for a very long time, churches and stages had been able to show divine descents from heaven, and there is no reason not to think that the wealthy citizens of Galata couldn't manage the same kind of show. Particularly as the event turned out to be given in honor of Cyriaco who had been a guest of the Byzantine emperor, and who chatted with the Holy Roman Emperor, and was an agent for the Medici, and who knew absolutely everyone.

The first nymph, Pohyhymnia, became Lisabella Selvatico, "an upright, modest, and most charming widow dressed in a dark-blue cloak and wearing a snowy-white veil." She began a public address to Cyriaco, describing the grandeur and history of Genoese colonies -- something with which Cyriaco was familiar. There was nothing unusual about a woman's giving a formal public address. Battista Malatesta de Montefeltro gave one to a visiting pope, and in Latin. Cyriaco writes in Latin anyway, so it is not clear whether Lisabella was declaiming in Latin.

When Lisabella-Polyhymnia finished, Urania became the "deeply modest maiden" Moisetta Catania," radiant in white. She spoke about the emblems of Genoese triumph: weapons collected in battle, bolts of gates, beaks of ships, a great bowl of green stone from Syria, the body of St. John the Baptist (except for the head), and then moved to a discussion of the decay of contemporary Genoese in comparison to their ancestors' nobility. This does sound quite unlikely and certainly contributes to a judgement of fantasy.

Then the nymph Calliope became Elisabetta Maria who was apparently wearing the gold and blue she had on last week. She tossed her gold-tressed head and told Urania she would speak to Cyriaco about Galata. She began:

"I heard a voice from heaven saying to him, 'Alas, flee the weakness of the Thracians' land. Flee this rapacious shore and its citizens, no longer Genoese, but degenerates, leave them behind, colonists in a barbarous, motley land . . ..'"

That is where the document ends. It is difficult to know what to think. How likely is it that Cyriaco would write an imaginative theatrical performance criticizing his hosts? He did, a year later, at Mistra, write a dismal Latin poem for Constantine Palaiologos about how modern Sparta was not up to the standards of Lykourgos.

Still, there was surely a party for him on the Galata hill, and a masque with those pretty daughters.

Wasn't there?

* podestà = governor.

The translations are mostly from Edward W. Bodnar, SJ, Cyriaco of Ancona: Later Travels (HUP, 2003). Review here.

More Cyriaco:
Cyriaco of Ancona Website

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-galley-by-lamplight.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/01/along-with-bishop-and-huntsmen.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/09/genio-vrbis-johannes-darivs.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/02/roosters.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/02/cyriacos-kore.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/06/cyriaco-discovers-polykleitos.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/12/silver-candlesticks-and-cyriacos-angry.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-very-good-friends.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/01/to-tell-you-something-special.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/08/visiting-with-palaiologues.html

Constance

2012-01-20T18:15:00.002Z

Constance
Austin Shaw, 1922

The house was looking dull, once the Christmas traces were removed and too much grey January was lurking about in corners, so we embarked on picture rehanging. Constance moved down from the stairwell and into the dining room, replacing an over-sized gloomy cathedral etching. She has simply taken over the room. It has a good story, this picture.

Her father, Hector Charlesworth, was editor of the Toronto weekly Saturday Night before leaving to become director of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission. Somewhere along the way he met the portrait painter Austin Shaw, and somewhere Shaw saw Constance and asked to paint her. Shaw promised to give Charlesworth the painting, but every time the topic came up, it was, "Oh, Hector, I have an exhibition coming up and I would really like to include it as one of the not-for-sale items. It's the best thing I've ever done."

When Shaw died, Charlesworth had no proof of ownership and was unable to claim it from Shaw's widow who took it off to Los Angeles with the rest of the estate. Constance assumed it was lost.

Then in 1961 or 62, after Constance had moved with her husband and children to Berkeley, California, she was exploring a neighborhood of less than chic "antique" shops in the area of Alcatraz and Adeline. She saw this painting in a window and reacted with something like, I had a scarf like that. Then she thought, I sewed two black extensions into it just like the ones there -- Good heavens! That's me!

The next day her husband and son, Louis and Pierre went to the shop and looked at paintings, discussing loudly which would go with a putative color scheme. They finally decided the portrait would do, and were able to get it for less than $100.* Thus Constance was reunited with Constance. Pierre inherited her at his father's death.

*An Austin Shaw portrait sold recently from a Toronto on-line gallery where it was priced at $3,999 CD. His work is very nearly invisible on the internet, though there is one portrait in the Ontario National Archives.

When Constantine became emperor

2012-01-14T20:57:00.008Z

Byzantine plaqueplaced in modern times to mark the crowning
of Constantine XI, which probablynever happened.
Ag. Demetrios, Mistra.

Becoming emperor was for Constantine, like becoming despot, a muddled and unpleasant process sabotaged by his older brothers. Consider becoming despot. Theodoros, his older brother and despot of Mistra, decided in 1427 that he wished to withdraw from ruling and enter a monastery -- never-mind that his wife was pregnant -- he had been working this idea off and on since at least 1423 and probably earlier. When John arrived with Constantine to install him as despot at Mistra, just after Christmas, Theodoros had changed his mind.

The net result of this was that Constantine, with Thomas and John, managed to go out and acquire Patras, and Elis, and wives, bringing the whole Morea except for the Venetian ports, under Greek control. Theodoros hived off a great deal of his own territory in an effort to pacify Constantine, and Constantine made Sphrantzes governor of the southern territories that Mehmed would give Korkondelos Kladas in 1460.

In 1436 Theodoros again decided he was finished with being despot and would prefer to be closer to Constantinople. It was noticed that he was avid to be heir to the throne. John had not been well. John sent Constantine to Mistra to take over -- he had created Constantine and Thomas despots in 1428 while in the Morea -- and Constantine went in June. Theodoros followed him on the next ship and the next thing anyone knew armies had been collected and Theodoros was briefly at war with Constantine and Thomas. John had to send two sets of clerics to Mistra to get things calmed down.

Finally, in 1443, Theodoros was really finished with being despot of Mistra, and it was settled that Constantine would have Mistra and Theodoros would have the small territory of Selymbria (Silivri) just down the coast from Constantinople. Everyone knew that Theodoros wanted to be close to Constantinople. John's health was poor, and Theodoros wanted to be emperor. Everyone also knew that John, their mother Helena, and nearly everyone else but Demetrios wanted Constantine to be emperor.

There was never a set sequence for the heir to the throne in Constantinople. It was usual for the reigning emperor to designate an heir, and have him crowned in advance of actual need. Manuel himself had been made co-emperor with his father over his older brother Andronikos. Then Manuel made his nephew John VII, co-emperor over his oldest son, later John VIII. Manuel was present at his son's crowing in 1421. Despite this immediate and flexible precedent, John never formally designated Constantine his heir -- he talked about it, but nothing was put on paper and there was no ceremony. It is inconceivable now that he would have been so careless in those fragile times, particularly considering how ill he was. He had nearly died from his first attack of gout in 1432, and since the Council of Union, he had never been really well.

Theodoros had watched his uncle dying of gout at Mistra in 1407 and he knew what was happening with John. By the early summer of 1448 his plans were accomplished, he had made an alliance with Alfonso V of Naples who selected a Spanish bride for him. Alfonso would supply troops to take Constantinople, and once Theodoros was in place, the bride would be shipped out. Then a Catalan ship arrived in port at Selymbria and it was carrying plague. It may have been carrying troops, too, but that didn't matter. Plague spread in the city. Theodoros was advised to leave for safety, but in his usual manner he dithered.

Theodoros died miserably of plague on June 21. They carried his body to Constantinople where it was buried in the Pantokrator in a night ceremony, and then his supporters -- there appear to have been quite a few -- had to figure out how to explain themselves. It was three months before there was a formal court observance of his death -- he was family: it had to be done -- but John was not present. Scholarios spoke, mostly about their collective fury at Theodoros' behavior, but still trying to do a proper eulogy.

A little more than a month later, on October 31, John died. The way should have been clear for Constantine, but Demetrios knew about sabotage, he got to Constantinople first, and he had his own supporters. Considering the violence of four and a half years later, one can have a certain sympathy with the pro-Ottoman party, particularly as Demetrios was known to be strongly anti-Union. Thomas was on the way to Constantinople at the time, and got the news at Gallipoli. Their mother, Helena, and the upper nobility managed to keep control with Thomas' support, though apparently it was nearly a month of uncertainty (or waiting for a ship) before men were formally dispatched to inform Constantine. Alexios Philanthropenos Laskaris, who had been travelling with Thomas, on a mission from Constantine, was sent back to Mistra with Manuel Palaiologos Iagros. (One wonders if Constantine, knowing of John's illness, had planned for Thomas and Laskaris to discuss his position with John.)

On January 6 they made him emperor -- βασιλέαπεποιήκεν, Sphrantzes writes: he wasn't there, being off on a mission from the court to ask permission of Sultan Murad II for Constantine to accept the title. There is no information as to how they made him emperor. Pseudo-Kodinos has two coronation ceremonies: what appears to be central to both is the act of anointing, and then of placing a crown on the emperor's head by the patriarch. Sphrantzes never mentions a crowning. Pseudo-Sphrantzes says "they crowned Kyr Konstantinon," implying that Philanthropenos and Iagros (both relatives) did the crowning. Two people (the emperor and the patriarch) could perform a crowning if there was to be a second emperor, such as John VIII.

Something happened in Mistra, but there is no evidence for its happening in Ag. Demetrios. Did Constantine symbolically crown himself as did his grandfather, John VI Kantakuzenos? There was no official crown for the Eastern Empire, in the way that the British monarch is crowned with St. Edward's Crown.* Other emperors -- Manuel I and John VI -- who had become emperor outside the City made a point of a ceremony performed by the Patriarch when they got there. A later crowning for Constantine in Constantinople would have been very nearly impossible -- the Patriarch was a committed Unionist, Constantine was a pragmatic Unionist -- while most of the clergy, the people, and most important, the Empress Helena were in violent opposition to the idea.** Anti-Unionist John Eugenikos, in a letter to Constantine of 1450 emphasizing his faults, wrote that he had not been crowned.

There was no Greek ship to take Constantine to Constantinople. (What happened to all that famous Monemvasia shipping?) He tried to get the use of a ship from Crete, but the duca said he had to get permission from Venice. A Catalan ship appeared -- Constantine and Thomas had also been in correspondence with Alfonso V, and a bride for Constantine was also under discussion -- and the last emperor arrived in Constantinople on 12 March 1449.

* I cannot remember where I acquired this information about there being no official single crown. I would be grateful for corrections, information, and sources.

** Donald M. Nicol, The Immortal Emperor, p. 37-40.

The Bride had dinner at Ragusa

2012-01-09T23:22:00.004Z

Bride, Marriage at Cana - ΟΓάμος στην Κανά

Ag. Nikolaos Orfanos, Thessaloniki

Whenthe fifteen-year old Helena Palaiologina sailed for Ragusa en routeto her marriage to Lazar Branković of Serbia, she had wanted to stopat Corfú. That stop and, in fact, the whole trip seem to have provided occasion for a great deal of fuss.

In anticipation of her imminent arrival, the Ragusan council worked out the details for her formal reception:

A committee of five nobles would meet her at Cavtat, a short sail south of Ragusa. The rettor* and the Minus** would meet her at the port. She would be led to the rettor's palace. (This was the Italian style of welcome: had she gone to Constantinople as a bride, she would have been met by the court ladies.) The ladies of Ragusa -- that would be the upper-class ladies -- would greet her in front of the church of the Virgin. Housing would be supplied for her entourage, and for the contingent that her father, Thomas, had sent by land (no word on the sizes of the entourage or contingent).

A committee of five would be appointed as her escorts. The rettor would dine with her once. A committee of three would be appointed to see to the furnishings of her suite and to her provisions. There would be an allowance of 50 hyperpers a day for food: "bread, wine, meat, poultry, wax, sweets, and other necessary things."*** Live animals and poultry would be provided so they could be prepared as she preferred. (No word as to whether she was bringing her own cook.)

Someone was to buy at Venice, for a wedding present, twenty "arms"**** of crimson velvet, and ermine to the value of 300 ducats. The bridegroom, Lazar, was to have a gift of 300 ducats worth of cloth from Mantua or Florence. Arrangements were to be made for the bride to invite the gentlewomen of Ragusa to the palace to dance, and then dine.

Measures for the security of Ragusa would be taken. Thomas, Despot of the Morea, having invited the Republic of Ragusa to be represented at the wedding: Ragusa would send two nobles.
This is all the information I have found, but I have questions.

Presumably there were interpreters. Had Helena learned Italian from her mother? Did she have western clothes, or was she dressed as a Greek. Had Thomas ever had a party or a dance -- how was she to know how to act with these ladies she was to entertain? How long was she to stay in Ragusa before going to meet Lazar? And so on . . .

* rettor = governor.
** Minus = the inner council.
*** Salvadexine is also listed, but I can't discover what that might be.
**** arm, braccio = cloth measurement, of about 66-68 cm. Every city had its own, slightly differing, measurement. For Venice a braccio of wool was .683m, and for silk .638m.

This account is from N. Iorga. Noteset extraits pour servir l’histoire des croisades au XVe siècle.(Bucharest. 1915) 2: 416.

For the picture here, I am reusing a bride who has already sat in for another young woman, there being a vast shortage of contemporary images of Byzantine brides, fifteenth-century galleys and fifteenth-century Ragusa. Contributions from readers would be appreciated.

6000

2012-01-05T00:00:00.013Z

One of several pairs of blue soldier legs:
Rethymnon district. Another pair of legs here.

By 1444, there was no army in the Morea: a generation of men had come to adulthood without military training or experience. There were the stratioti bands, there were the armed bands that worked for individual archons, but there was no organized group under any sort of centralized military command. This was thoroughly demonstrated at the Ottoman attack on the Isthmus in December 1446, when Constantine and Thomas Palaiologos were nearly killed, trying to hold together the Moreote troops who panicked and ran. [Allow them a little leeway: the wall construction couldn't have held off Boy Scouts with pocket knives.] Doukas says there were 60,000 in the Greek army and a Venetian letter to John Hunyadi said the Turks took 60,000 prisoners.

We need not give this number a moment's credence: 60,000 would have been far more than one-third of the total population. Nor need the odd zero cause too much concern: the number of participants in the Kladas revolt varies from 160 to 16 to 166 to 16,000.The most consistent number for the number of troops in the Morea is 6,000.

6000 goes back at least to the Chronicle of the Morea which says that the Prince had available 18,000 mounted knights, of whom 6000 were on duty at any one time. The Chronicle has a Homeric sense of numbers and need not be given any credence either, but that seems to be the first appearance of the 6000.

In 1417 -- maybe a year earlier, maybe a year later -- Plethon suggested that the Morea needed a force of 6000, always on duty, not having to take part of the year off to farm for their families. 6000, is, in fact, a reasonable number and Plethon would have had access to any population and tax numbers available.

In 1418, a Venetian letter to the Despotate cited a letter of 1417 from the Despotate saying that they had 6000 Albanians under arms (and implying that they were uncontrollable). This was when John VIII was conquering territory of the Principality of Achaia. Zakythinos quotes Iorga who quotes the Cronica Dolfina to say that John was leading 10,000 horse and 20,000 foot. Clearly no one has given a moment's thought to the logistics of 10,000 horses and 30,000 men, let alone how this might relate to the Moreote population. I have a certain reliance in numbers in official Venetian documents, especially as these armed Albanians had been giving Methoni and Koroni considerable trouble, and the Venetian administrations needed to know exactly what they were dealing with.

No Moreote army was in evidence when Turahan Bey broke down Manuel's Hexamilion in 1423 -- the defenders ran away when they saw him coming: again, remember the construction -- and raided up to the walls of Mistra and burned Akova, before turning north to Davia. Theodoros quivered behind Mistra's walls, dithered about becoming a monk, and offered the Morea to Venice. Venice had just been given Thessaloniki by Andronikos Palaiologos and was having no more Palaiologos hand-me-downs.

No Moreote army, but bands of Albanians made an attempt to stop the Ottoman forces at Davia. 800 of them were killed. 800 is another recurrent number in the 15th century and I have written of 800 here and here. But neither the Despot, nor his brother Despot, nor protostrator, nor megas stratorpedarches, nor any kefali made the slightest recorded gesture of defense.

Around the time of the Conferences of Basel, and Ferrara-Florence, in the late 1430s, Moreote troop numbers were flying around and we get statements of 50,000 and 15,000, but the point was to convince the western powers that there was a substantial number of Greeks, worth western support.

Then in 1443, a letter of John VIII written in Catalan by the Neopolitan consul who was also acting as John's ambassador -- a letter sent to Alfonso V of Naples who was considering offering John an army and twenty-plus galleys, said that the Morea had 40,000 Greek and Albanian horsemen, and 20,000 or more archers. That is a total of 60,000. Here is 6,000 again, just with an extra 0.

Chalcocondyles caught the 6,000 infection and it appears frequently in his history: 6,000 Venetians troops were defeated by Antonio Acciaiuoli's 300; Beyazid I had 6,000 hounds; the Ottoman sultan was accompanied by 6,000 infantry at all times; Milan captured 6,000 cavalry from the Venetians; 6,000 Turks fell in battle against the Hungarians; Murad brought 6,000 troops to inspect the Isthmus in 1446 (before bringing up the rest of the army to fight the 60,000).

Bessarion described the problem of the Moreote army in a letter to Constantine of early 1444, after Constantine had become Despot and rebuilt the Isthmus wall which had been down for 20 years.

* * * * * *

. . . I know that the present Peloponnesians are, in essence, brave and good-spirited, and strong in body, but in other respects they are naked of arms and untrained, in some part owing to the cruelty of their oppressive leaders and their harsh exactions, and in some part to an overpowering softness and laziness of the generation. These you will take care to train together with immigrants brought, as I have said, either willingly or unwillingly from elsewhere, and you will harden and habituate them to real contests and combat. You will supply them with arms. You will lighten the burdens and unreasonable taxes they suffer under and you will rebuild their downtrodden characters and restore their ancient nobility of soul. Distinguishing between agriculture and military service, and separating the warlike from the peace-loving, you will give to each what is proper, a single craft and a single duty, setting down laws for each of them to carry out.

For manly discipline is in part inherent and in part learned, and no increase in it will come about without learning and study. Whence, both the clever and the dull in character, in every matter in which they wish to become distinguished, must learn and study it.

For some time I thought there was time

2011-12-31T23:37:00.000Z

Thrush, House of Livia, Rome

THE NEW SONG

Forsome time I thought there was time

andthat there would always be time

forwhat I had a mind to do

andwhat I could imagine

goingback to and finding it

asI had found it the first time

butby this time I do not know

whatI thought when I thought back then

thereis no time yet it grows less

thereis the sound of rain at night

arrivingunknown in the leaves

oncewithout before or after

thenI hear the thrush waking

atdaybreak singing the new song

W. S. Merwin

From the New Yorker, December 12, 2011, p. 42.

Silver candlesticks and Cyriaco's angry dolphin

2011-12-27T00:00:00.009Z

There are fourdolphins on each of two candlesticks in this household. They were made in Athens about seventy years ago -- Renaissance-style candlesticks that continue a long tradition of finishing off feet with dolphins. These are large candlesticks, and look massively heavy, but they are all repoussé and no interior. You will notice the green-man effect given the dolphins by waves that have become leaves.

Every year when I bring the dolphins out for the Christmas celebrations, and polish up their snouts, I am happily reminded of Cyriaco's angry dolphins:

Cymadocea, detail.

This is Cymadocea, the nymph whom Cyriaco was pleased to fancy as speeding his ship across the Aegean -- you can just see her holding his ship in her left hand. She is more or less riding on a dolphin, wearing one as a hat, and with a particularly irritated dolphin firmly clamped under her arm.

. . . while Cymodocea, the most glorious of all the nymphs, swam and made music from the depths of the sea, from time to time bedewed me sweetly with her kisses, and carried the iron keel from below. (Letter 19, January 1445, from Ainos)

With his classical interests, Cyriaco must have already known this dolphin from Roman carvings in Italy, but it is my particular fancy that he was taken by the dolphin in Ag. Demetrios at Mistra. Under the circumstances, you would expect it to look angrier than it does, and its eye quite denies that it is simply a carved post to support an angel's book.

Detail, Angel and dolphin, Ag. Demetrios, Mistra

The Byzantines had used dolphins in the service of books for a long time, as in this Gospel manuscript illustration from the 11th (?) century:

This dolphin is barely a support at all -- the tail makes an unconvincing prop -- more of a weary companion, curled around the post as if trying to act like a cat. It, too, has the eye of a living creature.

Rethymnon, by G. Gerola.

The Mediterranean dolphin has a nice snout but it takes a great deal of creativity to get any angry expression on its face. These Rethymnon dolphins photographed by Gerola look positively ferocious.

Fitzi Futzi

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000Z

Helived in the countess's work-basket and nobody knew he was FitziFutzi.

* * * * *

This is the first sentence of a book I was given for my 5th Christmas, and it contains the whole story. Fitzi Futzi was the most treasured book of my childhood, I slept with it in the early years, and the pages finally mostly disintegrated after my three daughters had had their turns. After years of searching for a copy on this side of the Atlantic, I found it this year through The Children's Bookshop at Hay on Wye, which had found me Peter Magpie.

* * * * *

The countess lived in a castle and she was Hansli's grandmother. (Click to enlarge these pictures.)

Once Cook made a cake for Hansli's birthday. Fitzi Futzi had to stand on tip-toe to see the top of the cake, and he thought it looked lovely.

As you might anticipate, the icing was soft at one point. Fitzi Futzi fell in and had to eat his way out through the side. Cook thought it was mice.

Fitzi Futzi was the explanation for things that happened in the castle. Such as how chocolate got on the countess's workbasket. And how the countess's glasses disappeared because Fitzi Futzi looked through them and saw how big everything became and he was frightened. And how the chimney smoked because Fitzi Futzi climbed inside to get warm and it made him sneeze, and every time he sneezed a big cloud of smoke came out. And how one of the carriage lanterns would never stay lit because Fitzi Futzi would ride inside and he would blow the candle out. And how the goldfish got fat because Fitzi Futzi went fishing without a hook. And how wineglasses got broken because the butler was trying to grab Fitzi Futzi who was drinking the left-over wine. If you are missing a button, it is because Fitzi Futzi has taken it to try to match the one he is missing on the back of his trousers.

He wanted to know how to cry. So he pinched the baby and saw that she opened her mouth and squeezed her eyes, but when he did that himself, no tears came.

Once he had tears, he could be seen, and he was seen with the baby, and he was seen in the garden, and seen hiding around the corner of the stairs. A great many things happened that could be taken to indicate that Fitzi Futzi -- like Peter Magpie -- had a general disregard for the proper human order of things. Cook and the butler and the nurse discussed all the happenings, and decided they had to stop.

The Greek economy in 1834

2011-12-17T01:00:00.052Z

Bettina's mother, Gunda Brettano von Sevigny,
drawn by Ludvig Emil Grimm.

In November 1834, Bettina Schinas and her husband were planning to move from Nauplion to Athens with the new government. Schinas -- Bettina calls him "S" -- had a high appointment in the government, but just about the time he was able to propose marriage, he lost it in the rivalry between Armansperg and Maurer, two members of the regency council for King Otto. Schinas had earlier been a student of Maurer's in Munich, as well as a student of Bettina's father in Berlin. When Maurer had to leave Nauplion to return to Munich, Schinas lost his support and thus his income. Bettina is concerned for transferring and investing funds because her parents are currently providing their support.

In this letter she talks about the practicalities of money, and gives striking insights into the economic situation of the young country. Notice the variety of currencies and countries involved in the transactions.

* * * * * *

17 November 1834, Bettina to her mother:

Thereis no doubt that investing money here is most profitable. Exchangingthe gold I got 22 Dr. 40 L. instead of 22 Dr. 33 L., a small profit.I have 3 bills on very safe local houses to be drawn in case theborrower cannot pay at a certain date. An expert and respectedmerchant served us as consultant: he speaks Italian and can teach meabout all that is strange to me. A bill of 1200 Dr. borrowed for 2months at 18 percent; a second of 1000 Dr. for 4 months at 12percent, a third of 1500 Dr for 6 months at 12 percent.

Generallyhouse building is suggested. The government has specified rentat 15 percent of a house’s value and generally it is expected to risein the future. If S. could get a position that included a residence,a rental house would be perfectly profitable. At least could we rentout a part of it as shop or storage. House building is very cheap andridiculously fast. So why doesn’t everybody build? Because there isa huge lack of money and nobody can risk speculation. So what we don’tneed for our housebuilding we can invest in Athens very profitably atthe time being, but only for short periods so there will always bemoney at our disposal -- mainly for the following reason: products ofthe country like silk, butter, cereals are bought wholesale locallyand sold there to the small retail merchants within 2-4 weeks at avery large profit. You give the wholesaler a certain amount and getit back with profit after 2-4 weeks.

Theowner of Miaulis’ house, now an employee, made 1000 Scudi. profitfrom 5000 Sc. and kept for himself besides the 1000 Sc. profit 600Sc. for himself. This sounds fabulous to us but it happens here. Idon’t count on such strokes of luck but am expecting significantinterest earnings compared to German offers. But it is most difficultto get money transferred here. Armansperg, Heideck and others ofthese men cannot pay out because Eichthal keeps significant sums ofadvance payments for future deliveries in his hands. There are noother bankers here to handle the matter easily, correspondence viaSyra would be necessary or maybe Triest.

Now Heidenstamm offeredtoday to pay out ⅓ in 2 weeks, the second third in 6 weeks, therest in a bill of Rougemont in Paris, as in Paris business is thefastest and most profitable. So I am asking father to do the adequatesteps at Rougemont as fast as possible. I will hardly draw thecomplete rest of 16.000 Thaler as I will need it later forhousebuilding, to pay for beams, planks, doors and windows in Triestwhere I will have to order them. I would take the rest just in casethe profit on money here is so significant that I mightbetter use it here for a certain time first. I also would appreciatethe opening of credits for me at Duthil Tichy or Höslin &Springer. Please give me information about your steps as soon as possible, and besure I will accepts any of your advices with gratitude. I will informyou exactly about my further experiences to help your decisionwhether to invest here and trust my faithful management or not. Thisis a new job for me, the good Lord who is preparing my whole fatewill give me the necessary understanding to all of it.

Just now I got a note that my silver box reached Customs. Thefreight, insurance, etc. are 78 Dr. 18 L.; the cost of Customs Idon’t know yet. There is duty on the unprocessed pieces of linen,as well as furniture, tea service, silver. Table linen, underclothes(as processed linen), books, used pieces of bronze etc. are free.Still the boxes from Ancona are not yet here.

Theend of the week Countess Armansperg will leave for Athens -- everyone else will leave in 2-4weeks. I would have preferred to go there earlier withS. to buy the plot, but it has been raining for the past two days andin 8 days summer is expected back for several weeks like everywinter, so we wait for it in order not to sink into the mud climbingup and down plots in uncobbled Athens. Heideck will bring me the planof Athens one of these evenings so I can benefit from his knowledge ofthe terrain and get his much appreciated advice concerning thehealthy position of the plot etc.. He agrees with my thought to buildoutside the town to have a garden and has a place in his mind whichis closer to the future royal palace without being in the center oftown, with a view of the sea, etc..

Foreground, Bettina's house outside Athens.

S.wants to correct my information about the rent of 15 %: this is thegovernment’s suggestions, but private landlords are taking 50 - 60%. We will probably move to Athens the end of February to be presentfor the house building. Until then I will busily study Greek so I can share my thoughts with the very expert craftspeople withoutan interpreter.

Heidecksays Schnikelich should come here because there is only one masterglazier in town for so many buildings, and he is doing nothing butglass. If Schnikelich came he would have to travel via Trieste* to getall the contacts concerning glass, complete windows, doors, floors,shutters etc. so he could take over for them completely atconstruction projects. With my experience here I want to add thoughthat a glass pane including insertion which costs in Berlin 8Groschen is here only 80 L. Tell him so -- I don’t want to persuadehim though I believe he can earn good money here, specially withgilding, paintwork, oil painting, varnishing etc. which partly isdone here very inadequately or partly even unknown.

*Bettina explained in an later letter, printed earlier here, that doors for the new houses were ordered ready-made from Trieste. This door industry make a splendid piece of research for someone.

Copyright © Brigitte Eckert 2011.

Bessarion calls for a crusade

2011-12-10T01:00:00.154Z

CardinalBessarion, detail from manuscript.

In1458, Mehmed entered the Morea to obtain surrender of the territories formerly held by Constantine. Corinth, Kalavryta, and Patras were surrendered to him. He left the Morea ostensibly under the control of Thomas and Demetrios Palaiologos who were to pay him tribute. Their incoherent administrations were fighting among themselves with adherents changing sides while Thomas clawed for the ascendency. In 1459 in Italy, the newly-elected Pius II called a congress at Mantua for the purpose of forming an alliance of Christian princes against the Ottomans. Cardinal Bessarion was given heavy assignments toward this goal. In May of that year he wrote a letter about the proposed crusade to Fra Jacopo de Marchia, a Franciscan professor. It took four and a half more years before the crusade sailed in August 1464.

Bessarion decribed the Morea as a land flowing with milk and honey, but he had not been there for 25 years. Some of his numbers are extraordinary, though the Isthmus is all right, and they should be taken not as untruthfulness but as a measure of his desire for its recreation as the heart of a restored Eastern Empire. I am not convinced of his view of Thomas, but he was trying to rally the troops.****

This is my draft translation of part of the letter:

* * * * *

InGreece there is also this large province, commonly called Morea, about 800 miles in circumference, withmost the most fruitful, fertile fields and a great abundance ofeverything, not only providing that which is necessary for human use,but also for producing bread, wine, meat, cheese, wool, cotton,linen, silk, kermes, cochineal, small berries for making dye. Everything is found in abundance. Grain is two stera for one ducat . . . wine costs nothing, eight castrones a ducat.** Hay and straw for horses without number so that, in additionto the inhabitants and locals of the place, the country can feed50,000*** horsemen without having to get food from any other source. Last year the Turks came in with 80,000 mounted soldiers, andinnumerable foot and wagons, and they stayed five months and stillhad an abundance of food, and even after they left everything wasvery cheap, so abundant is everything.

Further, it is almost an island, its shape is round and large and full, surrounded by the sea, with a narrow branch by which is it connected to the mainland, a width of six miles, by which protection the whole country is secure. Also, the cities which it has, are almost 300, walled, very strong and very well fortified; also, innumerable animals, and a generous supply of men. Also, it is well situated, for Italy, Sicily, Crete and the other islands, Turkey, Albania, and Macedonia, and other parts of Christendom, so that, if it is in Christian hands, it could be the means of major attacks on the Turks and a great use to Christians: if it is in Turkish hands, it would threaten great danger to Christians.

Such, therefore is the land which the Turkish infidels almost completely occupy. Last year they entered it with a great force, in a betrayal by evil men, except for a few places, in which the lords of those places, who are both brothers of the lord, the emperor of the Greeks, the brother dead in the Constantinople war, received him. But this year, in January last, God resuscitated the spirit of one of those lords, Thomas Palaiologos, despot of the Morea, and he took up arms against the infidels for his own liberty and that of his people, and within two months he recovered all the lost places. Blessed be God! The thing is great and wondrous, and was and is a miracle, and it holds out to us great hope for future things, so long as we understand how to use it well!

* In 1480, Bartolomeo Minio expected Argolid grain to be 3 stera for a ducat.
** Castrones: castrated goats.
***The largest semi-reliable number we have for horsemen is 10,000 in 1417 under John Palaiologos against the Principality of Achaia. It comes from a Venetian chronicle. A more reliable number is a Venetian document of 1418 which gives 6000. Neither Plethon nor the Cronicle of the Morea expected more than 6000 at any one time, and in 1444 John VIII said there were 6000.
**** In fact, when the crusade actually came off, the Venetians had to arrange for Thomas to be told that he was not going with them.

Her most dear daughter: Helena Palaiologina of Cyprus

2011-12-04T10:00:00.004Z

Women and their daughters:
donors from frescos in Galata and Pedhoulas, Cyprus.

Helena's mother died when she was five years old, an age to have established specific memories, as well as a sense of devastating loss. In their memorials for Cleofe, Nikiforas Cheilas spoke of "her most dear daughter," and Demetrios Pepagomenos, the family doctor said, "Your beloved daughter mourns you, bereaved of her dear mother at so young an age, at a time when she most needed you, and required your instruction and advice, who have left her with no maternal consolation."

Her father completely fell to pieces, so Helena had no help there, and we have no real sense of what kind of companionship might have been available to her. She was given a foster-mother (who apparently had no name), unmentioned in Greek sources. Plethon and Bessarion and Cheilas and Scholarios and the rest of the intellectuals would have been very nice to Helena, but I think of a mother -- Andromache -- speaking of what the death of a parent means to a child:

He bows his head before every man, his cheeks are bewept, he / goes, needy, a boy among his father's companions, / and tugs at this man by the mantle, that man by the tunic, / and they pity him, and one gives him a tiny drink from a goblet, / enough to moisten his lips, not enough to moisten his palate. (XXII, Lattimore trans.)

On 3 February 1442, possibly on her fourteenth birthday, and a day or so after she arrived in the country, she was married to the King of Cyprus, John II, in the cathedral of Nicosia. Look at that photograph, and then look at the cathedral of Mistra. She must have found it overwhelming, the city overwhelming, after the little churches and closed spaces of Mistra. She was from a puritan court when men and women were covered from neck to feet (and women's heads and necks covered, and she came to a court where the men wore tight-fitting hose, very short jackets which showed more than anyone needs to know about, great puffed sleeves, and wide turbans; the women, high-waisted, low-necked gowns with long trailing sleeves and upswept hair revealing great expanses neck, bosom, and back. I imagine a terrified adolescent, adamantly refusing to change her dress, almost flaunting her severely covered-up Greek style and hidden hair.

John was ten years older than she, had become king at the age of fourteen, had been married before (to a distant relative, Medea Palaiologina of Montferrat), and had a very pretty mistress at court -- Marietta de Patras -- by whom he had a son. A story is told concerning Helena's treatment of Marietta's nose, either by biting it off or by having it cut off (with the intent of causing an abortion, although the infant involved was three years old at the time), but the nose sounds unlikely and is very much the sort of story that abounds in Cypriot accounts of high-born women. As does the story that she poisoned the husband of her 13-year old daughter. Really, Cleofe's daughter simply could not have done that. Further, accounts of the street brawl and illness that immediately preceded the husband's death suggest other possibilities.

Nothing survives as direct evidence of Helena, there is no correspondence and no documents -- only what people reported, and the reports are almost entirely from those who fall on the Latin side of the Latin-Orthodox divide. Her foster-mother, and her son Thomas, had accompanied her to Nicosia. They are remembered as powerfully ambitious. Helena is remembered in the Cypriot chronicles for imposing her Mistra Greeks on the Lusignan court, for pushing policies that favored the Orthodox, for hostility to the Latin church, and for seizing and using political power -- with the consent of her husband. They also complained that she spent money aiding refugees from Constantinople.

The Cypriot chronicler, Henrico Giblet, described her as "fine & adroite" -- fine could mean "pretty," but he more likely meant "subtle, shrewd, sharp." The chronicler Estienne de Lusignan described her as "una donna astuta & sagace greca" -- "an astute and shrewd Greek lady." Of course she was, with those parents, but I think it is particularly through comparisons with her mother, Cleofe, that we begin to understand what was said about her, and understand how she had been damaged even before she arrived in Cyprus.

Helena was particularly reviled for her support of Orthodoxy, her generosity to a particular monastery, and her advancement of Orthodox clergy. Nothing is said about her own spiritual life, but who had there been to nurture it? Cleofe was deeply devout, but she had grown up with, and when at Mistra, corresponded continually with women who were equally devout. A small girl could translate deep devotion into militant action as an adult, particularly in what she must have felt as isolation.

In 1451, Constantine sent his trusted Sphrantzes to Cyprus. He said:

. . . do you know the monk I met a few days ago? He brought me a message from my niece that she is in need of something; she would have told me in her own voice what she wanted; had it been possible, she would have sent her message through a loyal, trusted courtier, but she has none. As she does not have one and cannot make the trip, I must send a man whom I consider appropriate . . . it is you, since you have acted and made decisions for me, know me personally, and have been informed. (XXXIII. 8-9)"

". . . not enough to moisten her palate." Helena had no one whom she could trust. That is a significant comment, considering the presence of a foster-mother and brother, and it is not a rare characteristic of individuals who have been bereaved at a young age. Still, Sphrantzes does not say if he actually made the trip.

Giblet, said that "she liked being queen, she also acted like a King, and in effect, governed the kingdom." Estienne de Lusignan said, "vedendo il suo marito esser huomo feminile inhabile à regger'il regno; prese lei il governo" -- "seeing her husband was weak and unable to rule his kingdom, she took over the government," and he later reports that the High Court declared Helena regent. (But her grandmother Helena had served as regent when Manuel was abroad.) One account says that John was never entirely well, but Pius II -- and later chroniclers -- wrote that John had been educated among women as a boy, that he acted more as a woman than as a man, and concerned himself with banquets and pleasure.

Is John's life of sensual pleasure the only explanation for Helena's participation in government? Perhaps, but having been educated among women, perhaps he appreciated female ability. Perhaps he recognized the girl's intelligence, perhaps he knew something of Plethon, and found her valuable. Particularly if he recognized he had few talents for his position, something about which the chroniclers had no doubt whatsoever. Helena's mother, Cleofe, had been an equal (though discrete) participant in her husband's rule. Pepagomenos had said:

For there was nothing that was not communicated to your judgement and thus some difficult problems were solved, while matters of greater moment, of holy governance and of the (soul’s) ascent were determined by the superiority of your virtue. . . .

For you were the best co-worker urging him toward the good, and consoling him for what was incurable, a good counsellor,

And Cheilas had said:

. . . as she stood by her husband, the most holy despot, yielded to the men around him and enjoyed a sort of splendor and radiance while doing only what seemed right to her. . . . In the midst of turmoil, when present among the imperial councillors she gave virtuous advice of every sort, and made herself available to help everyone, from which both sides learned the better, and the better triumphed over both . .

Well, Cleofe had grown up without a mother, but with Battista's love and guidance in poise and discretion. Helena had no such guide as she moved into adolescence, but she apparently had the touchy disposition of her father Theodoros and grandfather Manuel.

Pius II wrote that her foster-brother Thomas ruled in his mother's place, his mother ruled in Helena's place, and Helena ruled in place of the king -- "regina regem regebat." He was proud of his literary style. It is true that King John made Thomas Chamberlain of Cyprus. It is also true that John's son, James, eventually murdered Thomas. It was not James' only murder. James was tall, broad-shouldered, terribly good-looking, much indulged by his father.

The Genoese governor of Famagusta wrote, "The king was governed by a queen . . . a detestable Greek." A chronicle published in 1788, by the Archimandrite Cipriano, says: ἀλλ´ οὖσα τῇ ἀληθεία γυνὴ μὲ φρόνημα ἀνδρικόν. καὶ πνεύματος ὀξέος, καθὸ Ρωμαία -- "though she was in truth a woman, she had a man's mind, and a quick spirit -- since she was Greek." That is what Nikeforas Cheilas had said about her mother Cleofe: "she possessed a truly masculine intelligence." The Greeks seemed to appreciate what the Latins found threatening.

Beyond these remarks, all we know about her is that she was never very healthy. We have no real impression of her personality, no idea of how she and her husband regarded each other outside issues of ruling. There were two daughters: Charlotte, born in 1444, who was married at thirteen and queen at fourteen; and Cleofe who died very young, in 1448. Helena herself died 11 April 1458, at the age of thirty. One of the chronicles has her, on her deathbed, angry at the marriage John had planned for Charlotte, to a first cousin, and demanding Charlotte reject the marriage.

John died the next month. The deaths are not explained. Charlotte became queen, and in the fall married the cousin. Her half-brother, James, claimed the throne, and with the aid of Egyptian troops captured Famagusta and Nicosia, driving Charlotte from Cyprus. Charlotte died in Rome in 1487 and was buried in St. Peter's. James eventually married Caterina Cornaro, who later sold Cyprus to Venice, and was painted by Gentile Bellini.

Broto is essential for Helena:

Eva Latorre Broto, "Elena Paleóloga de Chipre: revisión de un mito," Erytheia 23 (2002) 159-186, in Spanish.

______, "Η Ελένη Παλαιολογίνα, αναθεώρηση ενός θρύλου," L’épopée dans le monde grec: Η εποποιια μεσα στον ελληνικο χωρα. Colloque International, Nancy, mars 2001.
(If you are unable to find one of these articles and really need it, write me privately for a PDF.)

also, a brief account in
Ioanna Christoforaki, "Sainted Ladies and Wicked Harlots": perceptions of gender in medieval Cyprus."

The Cretan Healer's Handbook

2011-11-28T14:34:00.001Z

Opium poppy, narcissus, polion. Ps. Apuleius Herbal
MS Ashmole 1431 ff. 15v-16r. Bodleian Library, Oxford.

The manuscript is more than a thousand years old, but the medical information in it
derives from a thousand years earlier, and has been found in use in this century.

I recently came across a fascinating book, A Cretan Healer's Handbook in the Byzantine Tradition by Patricia Ann Clark, the publication of a document which she studied over many years in Crete. The document, a handbook of medical cures, or iatrosophion, had been copied in 1930 by Nikolaos Konstantinos Theodorakis, a healer from Meronas, Amari, Crete.

Clark spent years in Crete, talking to other healers and listening to their explanations, and says that there are probably 240 of these iatrosophia in existence. Most are from the 18th and 19th centuries, but some are earlier. The contents have been copied over and over since Hippocrates, Galen, and Dioscorides, with cures added in as new substances came to hand, or as Christianity brought new prayers, or as people went off to medical school at Padua and came home with new information. In 1934 a botanist reported an encounter with a healer-monk who carried with him four manuscript volumes of Dioscorides that he had copied out himself.

Some of the cures are extremely complex, and one can only think that the patient would get well or die before the medicine was ready. Like this one for the eyes:

Take a snake, cut off its head and its tail, throw them away and the rest chop it into pieces, put it in a pot and smear it and leave it considerable days until you know that it has formed worms. Open it, gather the worms and put them in a heavy pot on the fire, roast them, make a powder very fine and put this powder on the eyes and when you have put on a coat of half of a quarter of the amount, have sugar, very fine and put it onto the eye and it cleanses. Sure.

Other cures sound very like cures the "old folks" knew in the South when I was a child, like this one for warts:

First count how many there are and you take just as many plane tree nuts and you go and pour them out at the banks of a river and when they have rotted, the wars are destroyed. But you should do it at the waning of the moon.

The phase of the moon was quite important for Southern, and Appalachian, warts. The treatments for toothache are quite like the ones the old folks knew, too:

Take the bulb of an onion and cook it and put it on top of the root of the tooth. . . . (and for a cavity) A little tar and unslaked lime, you should soften it well, the pain disappears and the tooth disintegrates too.

Suppose hemorrhoids were a problem:

First let him have a moderate, regular life for two days, later take one dram of oak gall, pound it well, put a piece in with wine and have him drink it in the evening and have several pounded onions and garlic and put them in a pot and put in also two bricks, but you should have them well heated in the fire, and from above quench them with strong vinegar and he sits on top and is steamed well, then he drinks again the oak gall and lies down like this. Do this three times . . .

These iatrosophia have become a field of great scholarly interest but what has fascinated me particularly is that I have found two recipes in Theodorakis' book that I know from 15th-century sources. One of these 15th-century treatments I have already used here, and that is a note on childbirth from Demetrios Pepagomenos, a noted doctor who himself collected cures from local healers:

Πρὸς δεύτερα γυναικός: παγούρους ποταμίους θὲς ἐπ´ ἀνθράκων καὶ ὑποκάπνισον αὐτήν, ἀγριοκαννάβου ῥίου δίδου πίνειν νῆστις. For a woman’s seconds [afterbirth]: put river crabs on charcoal and smoke her, give [her] fasting a drink with grated cinnamon wood.

This is the treatment that Theodorakis copied:

τά κόκυλά της νὰ θυμιάσης τήν κακόγενην γυναῖκα εὐθύς γενά . . . οἰ τρίχες ὄπου εἷναι στό κουτελόν της νά καπνήσης τήν γυναῖκα τήν κακόγενυν εὐθύς γενᾶ. (With) the bones of the seal you should fumigate the woman who is having a difficult birth, immediately she gives birth. . . . The hairs which are on the seal's face: you should fumigate the woman having a difficult birth, immediately she gives birth.*
These are close enough -- both use water animals and fumigations -- and the Theodorakis text shows that his source came from two different sources.

A second recipe from Theodorakis is for fever. Part of the prayer reads:

ἠ δὲ τιμία σου κεφαλή ἔκραζε καὶ ἔλεγε πιρετός δυταίος τοῦ θεοῦ, . Σ . Μ . Κ . Λ . Σ . Μ . Τ . Ρ . Θ . ἀμήν. Ἠλί, ἠλί, λιμά σαβαχθάνι τούτέστι θεὲ μου, θεὲμου, ἴνα τὶ μὲ ἐγκατέληπεις τόν δουλον του θεοῦ. . . . χριστός εὐηγγγελήσθη φύγε ρίγος. χριστός ἐγενήθη φήγε ρίγος. Ξριστός ἐβαπτήσθς φύγε ρίγος ἀπό τόν δούλον τοῦ θεου. . . . Ιησοῦς Χριστός νικά καὶ βασιλεύει εἰς τούς ἀιώνας. And your holy head (of John the Baptist) cried out and said, 'Fever of the second, third and fourth both days and nights, flee from the servant of the Lord, . Σ . Μ . Κ . Λ . Σ . Μ . Τ . Ρ . Θ . Amen. Ili, ili, lima savachthani, this is, my God my God to what purpose do your forsake me, the servant of the Lord . . . Christ is proclaimed, flee fever chill. Christ is born, flee fever-chill. Christ is baptized, flee fever-chill from the servant of the Lord. . . . Jesus Christ triumphs and rules forever".

Compare it with Michael of Rhodes' prayer for fever:

Sava Sava episava che Sava. Pasqua ton evreon. To Sava. Ectes tetartin oran Oiisus demonya epechefalisen diaton psicron to rigos, to proton to defteron to triton to tetarton che ton padote feuge rigos poreton demonochefale apo ton dulon tu Theu Michallin, stomen chalos agios o theos, steonen meta fovu. Agios ischiros agios athanatos eleison imas. Angelli Michail, Gavriil, Uriil, Rafail, apo rigos voithi. Savas, Savas, Bishop Sava. Passover of the Jews. Saviour! Yesterday at the fourth hour, O Jesus, the demon leaped on my head – chills – the first, the second, the third, the fourth – continually. Chase away the chills, take the demon-head from the servant of God, Michael. We cry, Good God, Holy God! We cry out in fear. Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. Angels Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, save me from the chills! Return to health!*

There is great similarity between the two fever prayers, which are certainly for malarial fever, and if you think they are somewhat overwrought, you have never known the desperate fever or the bed-rattling chills that come with malaria. I knew malaria well as a child in West Africa, and I have a visceral response to these prayers.

Theodorakis and Michael have other similar cures, such as when Theodorakis says that repeating the Credo (τό πηστεύω) three times is a cure for scrofula, and Michael says that three repetitions each of the Pater noster and the Ave Maria will allow a woman to give birth. I suspect I could find many more similarities between Pepagomenos and Theodorakis. The image at the top of the page is of the opium poppy: it was used by both healers. Theodorakis' cures give such an awful view of the possibilities faced by pre-hospital populations, it is a great comfort to know that at least opium was known, and sometimes available, to them.

* Trans. DW.

A terrible beauty

2011-11-22T03:54:00.004Z

AgiaFotini, Mantineia, Arkadia. North side.

I know very little about Ag. Fotini at Mantineia. We stopped there, briefly, so most of the others could give a scholarly eye to the ruins of Mantineia. I was told that the church was built, one stone at a time, over thirty or more years, by a visionary lawyer from Tripolis. (A few construction photographs here.) I was also told that the Bishop had refused to consecrate it until the builder replaced his own portrait in the dome as the Pantokrator in bluejeans with a more conventional Pantokrator. If readers have more and better information, I would be grateful to hear from you.

[Late note: a colleague has sent an article which tells me that Ag. Fotini was built in 1973 by the architect, Kostas Papatheodorou.*]

Ag. Fotini is at the white comma to the left of the straight road,
within the wall circuit of ancient Mantineia.

Somewhere in the original design is a memory of a Byzantine church, but where nearly every other "new" Byzantine church in Greece bears the stifling ugliness of poured concrete, this one is an ecstatic revelation of materials and forms, and what seems random and disproportionate begins to reveal an intensely personal logic.

The workmanship is solid, the masonry excellent, if all the perpendiculars and parallels are not perfectly conventional, and in places such as the brickwork here, there is the same movement of intensifying soaring praise that I saw in the Gloria gloria gloria spiralling around the spires of La Sagrada Familia. In fact, La Sagrada Familia is the church I know most like Ag. Fotini in character, and I think of Gaudi, as I do of Ag. Fotini's builder in terms of Yeats: And what if excess of love /Bewildered them . . ./A terrible beauty is born.

Occasional spolia has been incorporated, nearly always
as functional pieces, rather than as surface decoration.

Apse leading from the mountain of the Lord.

South side. Externally, Ag. Fotini seems large, unwieldy,
but it is a structure that intends to soar.

Once you come to enter Ag. Fotini, the proportions are humane, easily understandable.

Door

The interior is tender, light-riddled as suits the name of Fotini.

The interior creates spaces of intimacy over and over.

The iconostasis is a gate rather than a barrier.

Mosaic

It is easy enough to name off all the different kinds of architecture incorporated into the fabric, but really, it is all of Greek history brought to support an anthem of praise. Ag. Fotini was the Samarian woman at the well, and the apolytikion for her feastday says All illumined by the Holy Spirit.

* John J. Yiannis, "Coping with the Imported Past: A theme in Greek and Greek American church architecture," inΑναθήματα Εορτικά: Studies in Honor of Thomas F. Mathews, ed. Joseph D. Alchermes, (Mainz, 2009) 318-326.

The Winter Voyage: Coming Home

2011-11-17T01:02:00.002Z

When John Palaiologos sailed to Italy in the winter of 1437 for the Council of Union, it was with Venetian galleys hired by the Pope. The captain of his ship was one Michael of Rhodes. None of the Venetian documents mentions Michael's name, though they do name the investors in the voyage, but a frustratingly short entry in Michael's diary says:

I signed on as comito with the nobleman Alvise Bembo with the papal galleys to Constantinople for the emperor, in 1437, my captain the distinguished Antonio Condulmer, my paron Nicolo de Candia.*

When the Greek delegation to the Council of Union returned in the winter of 1439, Michael wrote again:

I signed up in the papal voyage to Romania. We carried the emperor to Constantinople. Captain in this the distinguished Antonio Condulmer, having the galley of the nobleman Andrea Gritti, whose patron was Nicolo Gritti, with two Tana galleys accompanying. Their captain was Marco Zago and patrons Andrea Contarini and Francesco Manolesso, armiraio of them Nicolo Dellegende, my armiraio Benedetto Dardoin, my sworn paron Antonio Paresin.*

That is all we know about Michael's role in John's life, and given John's experiences on board ship, both trips, John probably never wanted to see him again.

The Document of Union was signed on 6 July 1439. Despite his personal misery, John made a fine impression, "with a hat in Greek style on the point of which was a beautiful jewel, a handsome man with a beard in Greek style." There were still more days of bickering, and then, on 20 and 21 July, more signing so that all the right people could be sent copies. A group of Greeks then left immediately for Venice, and on the 25, John's brother Demetrios left with Georgios Gemistos Plethon and Scholarios -- the three of them strongly opposed to Union. Possibly John was not well, as on the 28th, John he made a pilgrimage to a healing shrine, and then had his famous visit and lunch with Giovanni di Pigli who saw how much trouble he had walking.

He was in Florence some time longer, not arriving in Bologna until 31 August, but the ships were nowhere ready to leave. The imperial ship was blessed and launched on 13 September -- the Medici had sent up 6000 florins on behalf of the Pope for expenses -- but there was a fire in the arsenale that night and another long delay. John made a trip to Padua. After he got back, the Greeks had a liturgy in San Marco at the request of the Doge which was a great cause for upset once people got back to Constantinople. John was ill and did not attend. Then they had a funeral service for the Patriarch, Joseph II, who had died in Florence where he had been buried in the cathedral.

It was not until 14 October that the Greek delegation actually boarded their ships to leave. The Pope had insisted, because of the expense, that a hundred go on each galley, and the crowding was justifiably much resented. That night a storm broke the ships from their moorings, and smashed in the side of one. It took three days to repair the damage. (Two years earlier, when they boarded the ships for Venice, there at been an earthquake the first night.) The delegation actually sailed on the 19th. Leaving Pola, they encountered contrary winds and had to wait three days. More bad weather forced them to stop at a deserted island, where they thought they had lost the Emperor whose ship had only half the oarsmen that it should. Then at Ragusa there was another storm, so violent that they did not expect to live through it. Once they were able to sail again, another storm blew them far off course.

At Corfu, the ships had to wait for the Emperor's galley to catch up. The Corfiots were upset about the Union and argued with the Emperor who gave them their own signed copy. From Corfu to Methoni the sailing went well and they arrived on 16 November. They stayed there for more than a week, the Greeks of Methoni protested the Union, and there was a more-or-less joint liturgy celebrated by a Latin. The Mistra delegation left the group, freeing up a little space on the galleys.

The Emperor went by horseback to Koroni where there was another demonstration of antipathy to Union and where he rejoined his galley. Passing Cape Malea, there was another terrifying storm. The sight of the columns of the temple of Poseidon at the Cape of Columns gave a bit of hope, the wind was down, the sea calm. Then there were two days of drenching rain while they struggled to attain Negroponte. At Negroponte, another joint liturgy was celebrated by a Greek. The priests of the island made a great protest about Union.

After ten days, they were ready to sail again, but John decided to wait for couriers from Constantinople, and then the weather turned nasty. It was two weeks before the other ships could sail, up the coastline, to Oreos where they waited for John. George of Cappadocia died after a long illness and they buried him in a little island church of St. George After ten days without the Emperor arriving, they sailed back down to Negroponte to sit out fifteen days of snow and ice.

It was learned -- couriers actually arrived -- that John's wife, Maria, was ill with plague but no one told John. They were ready to sail when a relative, Konstantinos Palaiologos, died and it was arranged that the interpreter, Nicolo Sagundino, would see to his burial.

They were able to use their sails past Skyros and Skiathos, but then were forced to stop at the little island of Cheliodromia for a storm. They ran out of food and water, then sent a galley to Skopelos to get provisions. Two days later the galley brought back seventeen loaves of bread and a donkey to use for dog food. (Had you realized John's hunting dogs were sailing, too?) There was debate as to whether they should return to Negroponte, or go to Crete, or to Lesbos. Then the ships became separated -- the details get lost at this point -- and they met up again in the harbor at Pelagonisi.

John wanted to leave immediately: Condulmer's secretary announced that they would be there for a week, and contrary winds made sure that would be true. When they sailed, Condulmer, "forgetting his great age," encouraged the oarsmen by calling them his brothers, and promising them a great deal of wine. Meanwhile the galleys of John and Demetrios were held back by wind. They reached Lemnos after another day, and there John went hunting. While he was out hunting, the Venetian oarsmen got their wine and pillaged the port of Kotzinos. (I had said they pillaged on the outward journey, but I was wrong on this.)

Also while he was out hunting, word arrived of the death of his wife, the Empress Maria, and of Demetrios' wife Zoe. It was decided not to tell either of them, or else it would be two weeks before John would be able to sail. Another storm. A four-hour sail to the Hellespont. Gallipoli where they encountered a Venetian ship that had left Venice two weeks after them. The Emperor took on board several men, lions (lions? that's what the Greek says), and dogs that he wanted to take to Constantinople.

At Gallipoli the Turkish governor sent greetings to the Emperor, and John sent him a silver vase in return. From there, it was two days to the port of Hebdomon, just outside Constantinople, where the governor of Constantinople -- Paul Asan -- came with a small group of people to greet them. They sailed around to the Golden Horn and dropped anchor near the arsenale where they received another welcome and spent the night. It was necessary to prepare a grand entrance for the Emperor's return.

The next morning, on 1 February, a galley with Constantine and a great many Italians came to conduct them formally into port. Trumpets and chanting accompanied them from along the shore. Once on shore, Constantine led a horseback procession to the palace. Since it was known that John did not know of his wife's death, there was a great show of celebration.

But at the palace they encountered mourning. John had been told privately that Demetrios' wife, Zoe, had died of plague, and Demetrios had been told privately that John's wife had died, so each thought it was for the other's loss. The "holy Empress" Helena took her sons into a private room and told them that both their wives had died. John was immediately ill, in bed for three weeks, his exhaustion, gout, and grief worsened by the fury of the anti-unionists. No one bothered to report about Demetrios. I have no idea what happened to the lions.

* Comito: actual commander of the ship, what we understand by captain. When Michael says captain, he means the individual in command of a group of ships or galleys. Paron, dialect for patron, or the investor in the voyage who takes the physical risk of travel. Armiraio : responsible for navigation.

The drawings are from the Michael of Rhodes manuscript in which Michael recorded information about his voyages, routes, notes for shipbuilding, cures for illnesses, and much else. The 200-page manuscript has been splendidly edited and published in three volumes at M.I.T. Press by a group of scholars which included Alan M. Stahl, Curator of Numismatics at Princeton, Pamela Long, and David McGee, and has recently won the biennial Eugene S. Ferguson Prize for the best reference work or edition from the Society for the History of Technology, and the Jameson Prize for the best edition of a primary source important for historians from the American Historical Association.

Determining the Dividing Line: 1480 & 1482

2011-11-10T02:32:00.000Z

Aerialview of the (modern) Venetian Argolid.

Once the peace settlement for the Venetian-Ottoman war had been put in writing, it had to be worked out on the ground -- literally. The 14th provision of the settlement provided for lands taken by the Venetians to be returned to the Ottomans, and the 15th provided for lands taken by the Ottomans to be returned to the Venetians. This meant that, in many cases, both sides had to determine what actually belonged to whom. There were two main issues for the Argolid.

1. The Ottomans held Argos: Argos had not actually been taken in the war, but before the formal declaration of war, so it was not covered by the 15th provision.

2. The Ottomans held the entire Argolid peninsula as the result of the surrender of Demetrios Palaiologos in 1460. It had been agreed in correspondence between the Doge, Giovanni Mocenigo, and Mehmed, that the boundaries were to be those boundaries. However, Demetrios had appropriated the territory in about 1449 (#3 here) despite the treaty made by his uncle Theodoros in 1394 which assigned this territory to Venice, and the matter had been in negotiation when the Morea disintegrated.

A third issue was that the sançak-bey of the Morea, Suleiman, had arbitrarily set Nauplion's boundary at the stream of Profitias Elias, on the road to Tiryns, and Nauplion was strangled for land for its food. The governor, Bartolomeo Minio, had had two tense and unsatisfactory encounters with Suleiman on this matter. Whatever the attitude of the sançak-bey, Minio's letters show that he was tense, legalistic, and hostile.

The official boundary commission arrived in Nauplion on 12 August, 1480. The Venetian representative was Giovanni Dario, and the Ottoman was Sinan Bey, protogero of Greece, the official over the sançak-beys of Greece. Minio was less than a week out of sickbed after nearly dying from an attack of malaria. He was not ready for all this, but he found a house for Dario and another for Sinan -- "the best that I could manage, considering the condition of the place" -- making him a gift of 30-40 ducats "so that Your Lordship's affairs will prosper."

Sinan sent for the sançak-bey, and the cadis of Karitena and Kalavrita. When the Turks arrived, Sinan, Minio, Dario, and their staffs met them at Argos where they were joined by the cadi. They seated themselves in the sançak-bey's pavilion -- a great tent -- and went over the main issues to be settled, the castles of Kiveri (actually, Myloi), Kastri (Hermione), and Thermissi and the salt pans.

Minio immediately said he had documents demonstrating Venetian ownership. The Turks said they had documents demonstrating Turkish ownership: these territories were listed in Mehmed's cadaster of 1460 and had already been assigned.

They spent two days arguing this. The Venetians produced witnesses, beginning with the Greek bishop (possibly Demetrios Pigasi), and then the oldest citizens. All the witnesses testified for the Venetian position, and the testimonies were written down in Greek and Turkish and compared for accuracy. The Turks agreed with them and said that Mehmed made the final decision.

Then there was the boundary between the actual cities of Argos and Nauplion. Minio said he had documents and witnesses: more important was the fact that Nauplion territory had 20,000 people and Argos fewer than 200 households (or about 800 people). Nauplion needed a fair share of land. This was fine with the Turks, but they wanted to leave the Albanians out of the population numbers, since they were foreigners. (This would have reduced the Nauplion population by at least 4000 people and possibly several thousand more.) There was an impasse. Finally, they decided to ride the boundaries while the oldest citizens from both sides pointed out where the line had traditionally been.

They began across the bay from Nauplion, at the White Tower by the shore and "the river which is ours," went up to Kefalari, then started east across the plain. No problems were found and, coincidentally, Nauplion fiefholders in the area had made more gifts to Sinan and the sançak-bey. As they went along, a secretary for each side noted descriptions, wells, trees, points of significance, drawing out a map. Once they encountered an Albanian settlement which had been paying taxes to both the Ottomans and the Venetians, in the hope of being left alone.

A problem came up when they got to the monastery of Osios Theodosios (Minio called it San Theodosio).

Osios Theodosios at the end of the road, quite isolated even now.
Google maps (click to enlarge).

Osios Theodosios was in Ottoman territory, but Minio argued for it to be given to Nauplion, as the Greeks thought it was a miraculous shrine. (They still do, and I have a bottle of holy water from the well on my iconostasis.)

Another problem came up when they got to the end of the bay of Drepanon, and the mountain pass giving access to the narrow coastal road to the plain of Candia.

Google's version of the enclosed bay of Drepanon (center)
and the triangular plain of Candia (right). (Click to enlarge.)

Nauplion's stratioti had been given the land at Candia to support themselves, and pasture their horses. Further, this land gave access to Kastri and Thermissi. The Turks produced two witnesses "of the vilest sort" who testified that, on the contrary, this land had always been despotate territory. Minio said he had documentary proof of possession. The Venetians asked for their own witnesses to be heard on this matter. Then Sinan said he had no authority to hear witnesses, and that this territory had not been mentioned in his commission. It may or may not be relevant that there were no fiefs in this area whose fief-holders could make gifts.

It was August. It was hot. Minio was still weak, and Dario had chest pains. We don't know how Sinan and Suleiman felt, but at this point they had spent 10 days on horseback and matters were not going well at all. There was a great crowd of concerned citizens, potential witnesses, and the curious, trooping along with the dignitaries and their staffs. No one seems to have noticed that the beach at Drepanon was lovely and that they could all do with a swim. Instead they broke up and went home. Dario, however, went back to Argos with the Turks.

Dario spoke Turkish, liked Turks, and he and Sinan were well-acquainted. The next morning Dario sent Minio a note to say Sinan had agreed to Osios Theodosios, and to leaving a route to Thermissi. Candia was still at issue. Minio called in the citizens and showed them the proposal. It was generally agreed to accept Sinan's proposal, but keep Candia open for discussion, and they offered a few modifications of the dividing line. Minio sent a messenger to Dario.

Dario sent back the messenger with a note suggesting that representatives from both sides go look at the two sets of proposed boundaries one more time. So six men from Nauplion met six men from Suleiman and they went out to look again. They came back and reported that they all agreed with the Nauplion lines. Sinan said Nauplion could have Candia until further notice.

It should be noted that these discussions had been primarily between the two governors involved, Suleiman and Minio, with Sinan and Dario mediating. So Dario acquired, without Minio, everything that Minio wanted. The agreement had to be submitted for Mehmed's approval. Mehmed sent a letter saying that, although Kiveri, Thermissi, and Kastri had been given as timars to his people, he was returning them to Nauplion for the sake of peace.

Mehmed died three days later and it all had to be done again. People from Beyazid's new sançak-bey met with Minio's people and went over the lines in April 1482, very quickly. April in the Argolid is a delight -- yellow flags grow in the coastal streams, the fields are full of poppies, the nights are cool. There was a period of delay while various timar-holders argued against the former lines, and once again Minio started bringing out witnesses and documents, but they were confirmed without too much difficulty. Again, the agreement had to be submitted to Beyazid, and again, approval was given.

Both times, the details of the boundaries and the agreements were written down by the Turkish scribe and Minio's secretary, and two copies made in Greek which were compared for accuracy. The documents for Constantinople were signed by the Venetian side, and the documents for Venice signed by the Turkish side.

Somewhere in Venetian archives is the boundary commission's map of the Argolid boundaries. I have examined every unidentified map in the Archivio di Stato, trying to find it. There are more archives, more papers to be discovered.

Read about the boundary commissions in more detail here.

Minio's letters reporting the boundary commissions can be found here, particularly in letters 5, 21, 22, 74, 77.

Dating

2011-11-05T15:12:00.004Z

Tugraof Mehmed II on the ^cahd-name establishing
peace with Venice, 25 January 1478 m.v.

The ^cahd-name was a statement of terms for peace, not a peace agreement, and it was a more generous agreement than Venice could have hoped for. You can read it and read about it here, but I want to write about its dating.

The document is in Greek -- communications from Istanbul to Venice were normally in Greek -- and so is the date: ,ςϠπζ. There is a line over each character in the manuscript which I cannot duplicate here but you can see it at the end of the second line in the image below.

The date on the ^cahd-name (click to enlarge). The text reads:

σύνορα τὸνκαστρῶν αὐτον. ὁπου γητοναίβουσηνμαι τοὺς τόπους της
αὐθ(εν)τη(ας) μουπάνταιχώθ(εν). δηα βαιβαίὁσην κ(αὶ)ἐπη |
κήρωσην τὼν ἄνωθ(εν) γεγραμένωνκαὶφάλαιων καὶ ορκωμοτηκῶν.
ἔγην(εν)δαι ἡ παρουσα γραφὴ εν τὼ ἐτους͵ϛ̅ϡ̅π̅ζ̅ ι(νδ)ι̅β̅ μ(ηνι) οἱἀνουαριω κ̅ε̅ ἐνκωσταντηνουπολι

. . . of their fortresses which neighbor with the lands of myLordship on all sides.

Theabove-written provisions are confirmed and ratified and sworn.

Thepresent writing was done in the year 6987,

the 12^thindiction, the 25^thof the month of January, in Constantinople.

That number ,ςϠπζ translates to 6987 because Greek dating starts with the creation of the world. Lets not go there.

Now for the problems with 6987. The Greek year starts with September, ours with January, the Venetian with March. Normally, in conforming Greek dating with ours, one subtracts 5509 if the date is between September and December, and 5508 if the date is between January and August. But if it is a Venetian date -- more Veneto or m.v., 5509 is used for September through February. This assumes that we know the month.

So the Venetians understood that the ^cahd-name was issued in January 1478.

But if you follow the tradition of authority among historians, that date becomes 1479 because, apparently, the m.v. date, coming as it does from a culture without electricity and flush toilets, is not worth respecting. Kenneth Setton and Franz Babinger are the authorities most often cited for the use of 1479 for the ^cahd-name, and since they opted for 1479, that is apparently definitive. Had this been a document written for Romans instead of Venetians, the Romans would also have agreed with 1479. (Setton also pronounced a date other than 1470 for the fall of Negroponte which I will not repeat here, compounding the error. Mind you, I could not live without Setton, but I still check his sources.)

(An anecdote: When I was in graduate school, in 1996, I compiled a list of sources Setton had cited that I wanted to see for myself, sources I could not find in DC libraries. I took the train up from DC to Philadelphia, and went to his University of Pennsylvania library. Not one of those sources was on the shelves. It took some time and the efforts of several librarians, but it was determined that Setton had never returned the books on my list to the library, and that after his death in 1995, no one else had, either.)

The subject of dates comes up because a recent correspondent took me to task for using 1478 in my article on the document, condescendingly explaining, "Hence we convert any dates falling in Jan and Feb to the following year."

Well, that depends on who "we" are, and the problem with authority-based work is that "we" have to choose an authority.

I would like to say that I have opted for the document as my authority, but I chose instead to use 1478 instead of the 6987 chosen by the scribe whose employer, Mehmed, would himself have been using hijri dates. I have used my authority to interpret the date for readers, and I have opted for the date the Venetians would have known since they were the people most involved.

Also, I think it is more interesting.

* * * * *

A correspondent (Comments, below) questions scribal choice. I think this is an important issue so I want to put my response here, rather than in the Comments.

I have looked at my copies of all the surviving Greek copies of Ottoman ^cahd-names and correspondence with Venice for the 15th C. More than half have no year dates at all, only the day and month. One ^cahd-name, written in Greek, has the Venetian date written in Greek numerals. The evidence indicates considerable leeway for the scribe.

Also, in the copies made in Greek by Greek scribes for the Venetian records, the dates are also in Greek -- this reflects the Venetian characteristic of copying as exactly as possible: I suggested this in the entry on The Argos Petition though I did not give the Italianate text.

Finally, I find, in his article on the "1446" ahd-name, that the date Babinger presents as 3 February 1446, I -- and my co-author -- read as 3 February 1443/4. The Babinger date has been cited over and over through the years. This is another reason why you absolutely have to check your sources.

What Happened to the Parthenon's Stud Farm

2011-10-31T17:03:00.002Z

Detailfrom an icon of Ag. Menas, Emmanuel Lampardos, 16th C.
Istituto Ellenico, Venice

What happened to the stud farm is a good question. Most of this will come from work by Julian Chrysostomides* who transcribed mounds of documents from the Acciaiuoli period.**

Nerio Acciaiuoli, Lord of Corinth (acquired in 1371 as security for a loan) and first Florentine Duke of Athens (a new title that year) died on 25 September 1394. Two months earlier a visitor had noted that he was aged and unwell. A few days before he died, "sano de la mente ben che infermo del chorpo," he had made his will which begins with the request that he be buried in Santa Maria de Setines, the Atheniotissa or Christian Parthenon. We don't know if that request was fulfilled.

In the second section of his will he leaves the city of Athens to Santa Maria de Setines. The silver, gold and jewels Accaiaiuoli had earlier removed for his ransom have been mentioned before: he asks that the silver be restored to the door, and that all the other furnishings, gold, silver, jewels and precious stones be bought back and restored to the church. I wrote earlier that we didn't know how that worked out: I still don't.

Nerio asked that twenty canons say masses night and day for his soul (which he probably needed), and that these be provided for out of the intrade, the income, from Athens. The intrade was also to pay for repairs to the cathedral. All this was to be handled by his executors, who were to be backed up by the Signoria of Venice.

He left a rouncey to each man in his employ, and gave the Bishop of Argos the horse of his choice. Otherwise, he left all the çumente, his spelling of jumenta -- horses -- in his stables to the church in Athens. This would be the famous stud farm, and in the contemporary world, "stud farm" implies race horses. But in my understanding of medieval terms, jumenta were animals that could carry weight -- war and pack horses. That understood, he certainly had a very large stud farm, or farms: one witness recalled seeing a herd of fifty 3-year olds at Vasilicata, on the coast west of Corinth. Three horses in the Acciauoli stable, corserii -- war horses, were valued at 300 ducats apiece.

Carlo Tocco, Duke of Kefalonia, was married to Nerio's daughter Francesca. Theodoros Palaiologos, Despot of Mistra, was married to Nerio's other daughter Bartolomea. Each considered himself the rightful heir to Corinth and all that was Nerio's, quite apart from Nerio's own opinion. There ensued a great tangle of events, bad behavior, falsified documents, disguises, the participation of the Navarrese and Evrenos Bey, war around Corinth, and intimidation of the executors. Chrysostomides explains it all as clearly as anyone can.*

Tocco won, for a while, although in less than a year he was reduced to selling Corinth to Theodoros who had occupied the territory with Turkish help. (And two years later, in 1397, Theodoros offered Corinth for sale to the Hospitallers.) But while Tocco still considered himself a winner, one of the first things he did was to send twenty of the best horses as a gift to Beyazid, who was going to war in Wallachia.

Financing this required selling and pawning a considerable amount of jewels and silver from Corinth. (The Venetians reported that everyone who sat at table with Francesca ate and drank out of silver vessels, and after Tocco got there, they didn't.) The twenty were to be taken by his brother, Leonardo, to whom he gave the largest and most valuable courser, a grey. He also gave a horse to the person he sent to take over Francesca's castle of Megara, and other horses to assorted people who had come with him from Cefalonia.

Then he packed up Francesca, the jewels, pearls, silk cushions, wall hangings, furniture, curtains, beds, mattresses, and a great many horses and palfreys and sent them ahead of him to Cefalonia. Nerio had made Francesca his heir to Corinth: he was quite capable of mentioning Tocco had that been his intent. In fact, it looks as if he wanted neither of his sons-in-law involved. Nothing is reported of Francesca's opinions, but it is clear from the statements of various participants that there was a great deal of personal loyalty to her and none at all to Tocco.

As best I can understand, the Greeks of Athens did not like the idea of belonging to a Latin cathedral, and asked for Ottoman help. In the summer of 1395, a small Turkish force took over Athens. One of Nerio's executors, the castellan Matteo de Montona, sent to Negroponte for Venetian help, in accordance with the will. The bailo there, Andrea Bembo, sent down enough soldiers to drive the Turks out. A Venetian administration was sent out from Venice, which decided that since so many horses had disappeared from the stables, there was not enough income to support twenty canons, and so the twenty were reduced to eight.

At the time of Nerio's death, his son Antonio was Lord of Thebes. Nerio had, as one witness said, kept Antonio "on a very short leash." So quite a few people were surprised when, in 1402, having observed that there was a very small Venetian force to defend Athens, Antonio took over Attica and all of Athens except the Acropolis. After seventeen months, the Venetians surrendered from hunger. Except for an interval of four years, Antonio was Duke of Athens until 1451. Early on, because of Turkish raids, he moved the stables to Negroponte, good relations with the Venetians having been restored.

So that is, more or less, what is known about what happened to the Parthenon's stud farm. Other provisions of the testament will be considered in another entry, but given all the fassaria, I am skeptical as to how much Corinth, Argos and Nauplion actually received from what they were bequeathed.

* Julian Chrysostomides, "Corinth 1394-1397: Some New Facts," Byzantina 7 (1975) 83-110.
** Julian Chrysostomides, Monumenta Peloponnesiaca (Camberly, 1995) #160 et seq.

Handprints

2011-10-26T16:29:00.000+01:00

Handprintsfrom when I was 9 and my brother was 4.

Arecent post by Kostis Kourelis reminded me of visit to Argos in 1978. I had taken my daughters over from Nauplion to look at the remains of the Roman baths and theater. If there was a guard in those days, he paid no attention to us and we were able to go through the tunnels of the baths, crawl into openings, climb over walls, and enjoy the triumph of our own discoveries.

I started looking at the little knee-high columns, the stacks of dried mud-pies in the hypocaust. The hypocaustcarried heat under floors supported on thesestacks of sun-dried mudpies, four square plaques onthe top and four on the bottom, varying numbers of round plaquesbetween. This square-round-square stacking is apparently unique to Argos.

I sat down on the ground beside a column and began unstacking the mudpies. On the lower side of each round mud-pie was a handprint, much longer than mine in the fingers, much narrower than my piano-trained palm, and with a greatly enlarged pad at the base of the thumb. The whorls and ridges of each individual fingerprint were quite distinct. This handprint appeared on most of that stack and I called the daughters to see. They each began unstacking a column and I began another -- we were careful to keep the plaques in order so we could replace them exactly -- and then two other handprints began to appear again and again: smaller hands, both with the same long fingers, narrow palm, and enlarged pad. There were other handprints, but the majority were these three sizes with this distinctive shape.

We were looking at the production of a specific family, this father and two children makingmudpies, hundred of mudpies, for the baths. Estimating the little columns on a plan of the hypocaust andaveraging mudpies in a column gives a rough total of 15,000 mudpies. How many mudpies could they make in a day? How longcould this employment last? If we had unstacked other columns, would we have found other families.

That was all, but for a half hour we were touching the hands of this family of Roman Argos.

An important discussion of childhood in the Roman Empire, here.

Scholarios talks about Theodoros II Palaiologos

2011-10-20T16:24:00.000+01:00

The churches of the Monastery of the Pantokrator,
now the Zeyrek Çamii, where the last Palaiologoi were buried.

TheByzantine Studies Association of North America begins its annualmeeting Friday, this time in Chicago. I will be speaking on theconstruction of the throne room wing of the palace of Mistra whichwas built about 1430 under the aegis of Theodoros II Palaiologos.

Ihave apparently written about Theodoros in sixteen other entries, and I have written with increasingdespair. Recently Pierre MacKay translated for me the speechScholarios made after Theodoros died, which adds considerable nuances but does nothing to alleviate the despair.

Theodoros died in Selybria in June 1448 of plague, and was buried with his father and brother in the Pantokrator in Istanbul. He had exchanged Mistra with Constantine for Selybria in 1444, anxious to be close to Istanbul where their brother the Emperor was increasingly weakened from gout, sure that he was entitled to inherit the throne. George Gennadios Scholarios, the High Judge of the Court of Constantinople, spoke at the memorial before John VIII and the court. Possibly his brother Demetrios was present, and certainly his mother,Helena. Scholarios began:

Ihave put off my speech about the deceased brother of our mightyemperor until this day, in the third month after his death, notbecause I had no sense of what to say about him, nor because Ithought it was proper to add my silence as one more misfortune forhim but (the truth will out), understanding that that the enmity thatmany feel for him will have abated over time, and that thus, morereasonable judges of arguments in his favor will be found, and thatthose who are absolutely intolerant of listening to this memorialutterance will be less offensive toward me.

His own feeling, and the enmity in the court, had been so intense that the eulogy had to wait for three months. This enmity is somewhat explained later in the speech, but some things have to be deduced. It appears that certain people had urged Theodoros in his desire for the throne, probably because John had been very ill. Scholarios spoke in September. John died the end of October. Fortunately, Theodoros died first:

Hedid not cause loss to any of the Greeks, but as he was on the vergeof doing so or, as it seemed to some that this was so, he departedthis life, which is his good fortune, that in such an evilcircumstance he succeeded in doing nothing that was irreparable.

Scholarios spent considerable time at the beginning of his speech discussing how each of us has failings, and people have to be judged by the totality of their characters and not just by one incident. He admitted that Theodoros was a fair and just ruler, and he was most respectful of his parents. Then Scholarios cut loose and spoke of the Turkish incursion of 1423 and of the subsequent assault on the Isthmus of 1446.

Thereis one thing that one might blame him for, if one failed to give itproper thought, that fecklessness about the Isthmus of Corinth, whichled to his being defeated, the people of Peloponnesos being takencaptive, and a great many being killed. But if one were not toacquit the man of this, neither will his brother's actions be spared . . . It would not be right for the most stalwart Constantine to bedeprived his praise for this . . . norshould anyone burden his brother with responsibility for not settingup the wall strongly in the first place. That, the earlier and alsothe later collapse of the wall was a matter of the vileness itself ofthose living within the isthmus, as were the misfortunes thatoppressed the entire Peloponnesos . . . the Peloponnesiansknew not how to come to a call for aid, nor, if they did come, how todefend the land and keep it safe, being unwilling to confront theenemy, or, if they did face up to him, not having the courage toendure and to overpower him but rather to desert and run . . . while those who were destroyed by their own cowardice of spirit andintention seem to the observer who knows nothing about the defectsand sicknesses of the ruled to have been ill-generaled and badlygoverned. The present population of Peloponnesos can be said to beheirs of the land and the name of the race only, but of the virtue oftheir forefathers they they have not even what might seem to be theexpected inheritance of bastard offspring.

Floor plan of the Pantokrator.

In 1423, the troops of Turahan Bey had come all the way to the walls of Mistra before returning home, and it was the Albanians alone -- "those laborers who had taken over Peloponnesos" -- who made any effort to stop them. Those would be the same Albanians whom Manuel had praised for their work in building the wall. Coincidentally, it was in that year of 1423 that Theodoros was considering becoming a monk. Recently, in the winter of 1446, Constantine and Thomas had to defend the Isthmus against Murad II, the Greek troops cut and ran, and the brothers barely escaped alive. Murad's troops went as far as Patras before turning back.

Scholarios gave personal information, some of it a little surprising. I had not expected Theodoros to have such physical interests:

Washe not strong? Was he not athletic? Was he not a fine rider capableof guiding an untrustworthy horse down a hillside? Was he not readyto set his hand to anything that anyone might have conceived inreason? Was he not superior in dexterity of hand and nature to themasters of crafts? But all this is a matter of physicalskills.whereas he was better in more important thing: he was a loverof learning, a quick learner and thus a polymath. I shall pass overthe rest, but in calculation, and geometry and in the so-calledorganizations of the sciences who was there who handled such mattersbetter in both theory and practice?

Just possibly, Theodoros talked a great deal too much. Scholarios is complimentary, but still:

Inquickness of tongue, grace flowering in words, and cleverness inconceptions whether with or without training, I do not think therewas any one at all who could equal him. Rather I think it came to himfrom God. Who, on hearing him speak would not forget his owncircumstances, who would not be delighted and would not beg to hearmore, as it flowed continuously, to the extent that they were able toneglect their necessary concerns.

Apparently,his interest in becoming a monk had started even before he wasmarried, in 1421. Scholarios makes only the most limited mention of hismarriage and family:

Sucha man he was, zealous in his private self, and happy in public goods.He was blessed with a distinguished marriage and proved to be thefather of a fine child resulting from this marriage with a mostdistinguished family, and came to a similar end. He did not enslavecities, nor place a yoke on peoples.

Scholarios' information combined with the letters Bessarion wrote to Theodoros (links below) -- quite apart from the information we have from his marriage, gives us an exceptional portrait of character and personality, for any Palaiologos, and certainly for the period. It is not a pleasant portrait.

Translationcopyright © Pierre A. MacKay, October 5, 2011. Text from M.Jugie, L. Petit, and X.A. Siderides, Oeuvres complètes de Georges(Gennadios) Scholarios, vol. 1. Paris: Maison de la bonne presse,1928: 247-283.

More on Theodoros:
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/02/theodoros-ii-palaiologos.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/04/glory-days.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/05/bessarion-to-theodoros.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/05/bessarion-to-theodoros-part-two.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/10/theodoros-poem-to-cleofe.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/06/emperor-in-pain-part-2.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/07/pavane-for-dead-princess.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/02/pavane-for-dead-princess-part-two.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/07/pavane-for-dead-princess-part-three.html

Marieta Dario

2011-10-14T20:10:00.000+01:00

Carpaccio, UnknownWoman

Marieta was the only child of one of the most interesting men ever known in Venice. At the age of 26, on 6 February 1499, she made a testament, "

consideringthat nothing is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertainthan the hour of death, not wanting to die without a testament sothat my affairs are left disordered, sound of mind, intellect andbody, but close to childbirth . .

She lived six more years, dying in 1505 from an unrecorded cause. She was born in about 1473 to the woman Giovanni Dario called "mia Chiara," in their house at S. Apostoli near the Rialto bridge. In 1478 and 1484-85, Dario had won Venice such concessions from two Ottoman sultans that the city presented him with Ca' Dario, which he so charmingly restored, and 1000 ducats for Marieta's dowry. He was Cretan, and perhaps Chiara was, too, though he was a Venetian citizen, and Marieta was born out of wedlock, but for a few years he was the most valuable person Venice had.

"toChiara, mother of my daughter Marieta":
from GiovanniDario's will of 1 October 1493, made just before he died.

She was married, in 1493, to the boy next door -- Vicenzo Barbaro, the son of Giacomo Barbaro and Nicolosa Bochole. He may not have been a boy at all: his parents were married in 1448, so he may have been considerably older than she. All that is known of him is that a particularly violent outburst of temper got him excluded from the Great Council -- all patrician males over the age of 20 were members -- for ten years. That, and the fact that he is almost unmentioned in her will -- she identifies herself as his wife, but her children are left in the care of her mother Chiara, and Ca' Dario is left to her son at the age of 25 -- and any other that might be born -- with Chiara to be in charge. (Her daughter could inherit at 20.)

Dario loved Chiara dearly, that comes through in his various testaments. He had adopted his sister's sons and brought them to Venice from Crete to share his business ventures: in his testaments he asked that they regard Chiara as their mother. Only one of them, Francesco Pantaleone, was alive when he made his will, and Dario left Ca' Dario jointly to him and Marieta . When Marieta made her testament she left Francesco half of something, probably the house, but it is not perfectly clear what. What is is clear that Marieta controlled several pieces of real estate, including an estate near Padua, and had a variety of investments. Dario had given her 1000 ducats at marriage, in addition to the 1000 from Venice, so she had considerable financial autonomy.

When she made her 1499 testament, Marieta had one son, Gasparo, born about 1496. Giacomo was born about 1501 and Giovanni probably 1502-3, unless he was the child with which she was pregnant when she wrote the testament. So much personal material involves the words "about," "may," "probably".

Marieta was buried, at her request, in her father's tomb at Sta. Maria della Grazie, on a small island near S. Giorgio Maggiore. Much later, the church was used as an Austrian ammunition depot: the ammunition exploded in 1849, destroying the church and all its tombs.

What happened to Ca' Dario after Marieta died is vague, but she had specified that it be rented out. The next we know of it, Ca' Dario was used as a residence for the orators -- ambassadors -- of Signor Turco at least three different times starting in 1514. The office of the governor of one of the state banks was responsible for preparing the house for visitors, and for their expenses. When a Turkish ambassador arrived, his ship was met at Lido by sixteen patricians dressed in scarlet who escorted him to Ca' Dario. The ambassadors must have been delighted with the Turkish fountain room Dario had installed. In 1515, the ambassador was provided 6 ducats a day for expenses, but by 1517 that was reduced to 5 -- rank ingratitude when that year the ambassador had brought with him the head of a commander from Bulgaria where the Turks had won an important battle.

In 1522, when Gasparo was of age, he and his brothers made claim for possession of Ca' Dario and this was granted. The document survives, with the signature of Doge Antonio Grimani. After that, information on Ca' Dario disappears until the early 1800s.

The notary's draft of Marieta's testament (click to enlarge).

My thanks to Emanuela Brusegan Flavel of Venice who transcribed Marieta's testament for me.

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/08/most-beautiful-red-parrot.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/09/genio-vrbis-johannes-darivs.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/09/interlaced-circles.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/03/valor-of-our-stratioti.html

The Negroponte Hoard, Part Two

2011-10-08T18:50:00.002+01:00

Someof the "Negroponte hoard," now in the British Museum.

I recently presented a couple of items from the "Negroponte hoard" -- it is neither a hoard nor all from Negroponte -- and thought it might be a pleasure to look at more of the individual items. The British Museum lists 389 items, mostly multiples of buttons, in this collection which was a bequest to the museum in 1897 by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, Director of the museum. His total bequest consisted of more than 6000 items, and such a private collection in the possession of a museum director would now be considered highly questionable. I do not know about the financing of the BM in 1897 -- perhaps a reader does -- and this may have been its primary means of acquisition. But it leaves a bad taste. The Dalton catalog of the holdings says that the items were acquired "in the first half of the nineteenth century" but provides no more information about the acquisition.

(These pictures should all enlarge when clicked on.)

First, BELT ORNAMENTS. You can see similar belts in 15th C Byzantine and Italian portraits. These are all Italian, and I would prefer Venice for the first two.

Note that the item to the lower left has a Malatesta shield,
with initials L and B: the third Malatesta shield in this collection.

BUTTONS. Byzantines had massive assemblages of buttons on their formal garments -- forty or so at times -- and every single button gets its own catalog listing. These are the ones I like best. Most of them are not as charming.

EARRINGS.

RINGS.

The number 1821 is the ring's original catalog number.
The number now is AF-1860. It is an extremely large ring,
a thumb ring, or for a man.

The "hoard" included an elegant silver bowl:

And an ancient Greek cup.

Go here to look up items from this collection at the British Museum under the term "Halkida" or "Halkida gold".

Cyriaco and the Little Metropolis

2011-10-02T17:46:00.000+01:00

Watercolor of the Little Metropolis by Mary Hogarth, ca. 1910.

WhenI was first in Athens in 1977, I was given to understand that the LittleMetropolis was dated to the 11th century. I have seen that datefloated back to the 9th and forward to the 13th, and find that the 12th is preferred on Google. I didn't mind this at all. I was, and have been, enchanted by its exuberance and utter charm. In fact, it was the first "Byzantine" church I ever saw, and for the next year, until I went to Thessaloniki, other Byzantine churches were a great disappointment.

However, a graceful work of scholarship a few years ago by Bente Kiilerich (below) shows definitively that it had to have been built after Cyriaco of Ancona visited Athens in 1436. The reasoning works like this: Cyriaco collected inscriptions. These inscriptions were mapped and numbered by Edward Bodnar. The Metropolis, and Cyriaco #36 which is built into the Metropolis to the right, are marked on Bodnar's map. (click to enlarge)

But Cyriaco's #34, #35, and #37 are on the left, just inside the modern entrance to the Agora and near those large statues of men with snakes' tails.

Drawing by Cyriaco of statue in Agora

Kiilerich reasoned that Cyriaco would not have interrupted his notes to go across Athens for one inscription, and then go back to take up where he had left off. And if he had, he certainly would have noted other inscriptions on the church, easier to spot and more interesting. Thus, the inscription mapped to the Metropolis must have been in the Agora when Cyriaco saw it.

It is not an exciting inscription and even Kiilerich had trouble photographing it:

ΗΡΑΚΛΕΩΝ ΗΡΑΚΛΕΩΝΑΣ ΚΗΦΕΙΣΙΕΥΣ ΔΩΡΟΘΕΑ ΙΣΙΓΕΝΟΥΣ
ΜΥΡΡΙΝΟΥΣΙΟΥ ΘΥΓΑΤΗΡ

Southwest corner.

So this charming lace-covered chapel was built after 1436. Kiilerich would have it built after the Ottoman take-over in 1456, but I find that unlikely. I have posted here twice about Florentine houses in Athens, and given images of Florentine houses on the Acropolis, and of one built into the Lantern of Lysicrates.

Mid-century Florence was enthralled with graceful ornamentation -- think Alberti's architecture, Donatello's Cantoria, Fra Angelico. Florence was also enthralled with things Greek, and Athenian. Two of the wealthiest Florentine merchants and collectors of art and Greek manuscripts -- Palla Strozzi and Piero de Medici -- bankrolled Cyriaco. This building of the Little Metropolis has a completely different attitude from "Byzantine" churches with spolia. In them, spolia seems, for the most part, very specifically placed -- look at the other spoliated Byzantine churches in the Plaka area. For this building, spolia is the whole purpose of its existence.

Eastern apse.

West wall.

Olga Palagia (below) has already suggested, en passant, a Florentine origin for the construction, and I hope she will go further with this. I would add the suggestion that it was built as a private chapel by a wealthy Florentine merchant-collector. Cyriaco gives us much evidence for Italians in the islands putting up spolia on the walls of their buildings, though almost nothing they were finding was up to the quality of most of the pieces here. (I note, on the map above, that the Little Metropolis and below it, on the semi-circle, the Lantern of Lysicrates to which a Florentine house was attached, were both outside the old city walls, and so possibly in areas with space for surrounding grounds.)

Eastern apse.

This is work for another scholar, and I hope someone looking for a dissertation topic will take up the question of Florentine Athens and what remnants may be still recoverable.

South wall.

BenteKiilerich. "Making sense of the spolia in the LitteMetropolis in Athens," Arte Medievale n.s.4 (2005)95-114.

OlgaPalagia. "The date and iconography of the calendar frieze onthe Little Metropolis, Athens," Jahrbuch des DeutschenArchäologischen Instituts 123 (2008) 215-237 Download at .http://uoa.academia.edu/OlgaPalagia/Papers

Crow

2011-09-26T14:16:00.001+01:00

Crowdied when he landed on the wrong part of an electric power line just after noon on Wednesday. Ittook two and a half hours for the part to be replaced and theelectricity to come on again in the four houses that were affected.

Crowhad been inhabiting our yard for more than a week. He was newlyout of the nest, still accustomed to being fed, and he spent most ofhis -- and our -- waking hours demanding to be fed. Screaming to be fed. The inside of his mouth was brilliant red, still detectable after death.

Despite the fact that we had been putting out abundant crow food well within his reach, he wanted his parents to bring it to him, and would fly to wherever they were perched to do his demanding, even if they were much farther away than the food. One parent -- crow genders are tricky -- would simply fly away after a certain amount of time, while the parent in the picture here would sit patiently, and then let out a withering sequence of caws that would have made any other creature shut up permanently.

Crow did not shut up. He demanded more, and then would move closer and closer to the parent, apparently trying to groom, if not snuggle. So we don't know if he ever quite learned to feed himself.

Our yard was raucous with crows all summer, but since Wednesday noon, we haven't seen a one and the quiet is disturbing. I have seen the parent in these pictures down in the park, three blocks away.

These crows were tool-users. We frequently saw them poking in the chimney of the house next door, and under the edge of the roof with sticks about 4 inches long. Most mornings they would wake us up by skiing down the roof over the bedroom, claws scraping along the slates, and they have spent much time pecking on things under my desk window, just out of sight. We put food for the crows on the roof of the shed under the lilac bushes, and it took them several weeks to feel secure about coming down into such close quarters. Often Squirrel or Ms. Squirrel would get to the food first -- squirrel genders are quite easy -- and then it took the crows a few more days to come down and eat with the squirrels. The squirrels hated it and the crows did, too, but neither side was willing to concede.

Alexandra dug a hole for Crow where we used to keep the beehive. He was surprisingly light in the hand. Some famous ornithologist said that if humans were birds, very few of us would be intelligent enough to be allowed to be crows. We had great expectations for Crow.

Crow'sTheology

Crow realizedGod loved him-
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So thatwas proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.
And he realizedthat God spoke Crow-
Just existing was His revelation.
But what Lovedthe stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
Andwhat spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded?
And what lovedthe shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifyingcrows?
What spoke the silence of lead?
Crow realizedthere were two Gods-
One of themmuch bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having allthe weapons.
Ted Hughes

The Bride stopped for lunch at Corfú

2011-09-20T17:39:00.004+01:00

A Serbian Helena of Byzantium,
possibly the one involved here.

Helena Palaiologina, daughter of Despot Thomas of the Morea, was sent at the age of fifteen to marry Lazar Branković of Serbia. This was in October of 1446. She traveled with two Ragusan trading galleys and a galeota. When the ships returned to Durazzo, a complaint -- apparently concerning unreasonable delays, bad manners, livestock, and excessive drinking -- was filed against the captain and the patrons by the Serbian lords of Helena's escort. On 3 November, the tribunal recorded a series of depositions on the matter. This is the story they relate:

* * * * * *

The priest Lucas Branković deposed: He was on the captain's galley. It was true that the captain stopped several times for bad weather, and that he had to return to Durazzo three times for the same reason. They also had to stop and wait several times for the galeota to catch up with the galleys. The captain was neither arrogant nor bad-tempered, as the Serbs complained, but on the contrary, he was most respectful of them. Lucas heard it said that the galeota had taken two cattle from Arniti territory. The captain had not bought linen: he didn't know if the patrons did. Several people had bought skins, but they put them on the galeota and not on the galleys.

Juniti Grdečević, comitus of the galley, deposed: The delay was because of the galeota which could not keep up with them. The Serbian lords insisted on speed, which the captain explained was impossible. It was not true that the galleys were delayed in two ports because of the falcons and the dogs. The fiancée had made gifts of wine to the officers. The galley and galeota patrons came aboard the captain's ship every evening to take council.

His junior officer confirmed his statement.

Ser Alvise de Restić, patron of one of the galleys, deposed: The sailing was reasonable, except when they left Clarenza and the fiancée wanted to stop at Corfú for lunch. The weather was not good. It was decided to leave at midnight but when Restić called for them to go, no one responded and they left at dawn. The galleys went to Sta. Maria de Caroppo but the galeota stayed at Corfú. That was because of the dogs that had been stolen from the captain. The galleys waited for it at Sta. Maria. The Serbian lords complained of the captain's attitude toward them but Restić never heard anything amiss. Several people bought linen and skins, which they put on the galeota, not on the galleys. He knew nothing about the fiancée's gift of wine. He had heard that the captain had taken cattle aboard.

Restić continued: At Cape Lachio they wanted to get water, but the Albanians came to the shore armed with swords and arrows, and kept them off. The captain used the bombardella, which was useless. So they stopped at Kefalonia for water on the way to Clarenza. He heard from the patron of the galeota, the people on the ship, and the slaves, that the captain had seized a goat, and the patron of the galeota a cow.

At Clarenza, the captain told Restić that they were instructed to make three visits to the Despot Thomas: the first, on their arrival; the second if they were invited to dine; the third at their departure. The first visit Restić went with the captain. The second and third visits, the two galley captains and the patron of the galeota went. He heard it said at Clarenza that the sailors had drunk 10 caratelli of wine which were on the quai, and wanted to take one on the galeota, but the Port Authority stopped them. In the waters off Kefalonia, they encountered a small ship that complained that the sailors on the galeota had thrown a stone at them and wounded a Greek.

* * * * * *

The document stops here.

Patron: one of the investors in a trading voyage.
Galeota: a small, light galley.

Comitus: a patrician assigned to command a galley, although there was a real captain on hand.
Caratelli: small barrels made from chestnut.

The story comes from Dubrovnik in the 14th and 15th Centuries, by Bariša Krekić, #1119.

Manuel's Grandchildren

2011-09-15T15:57:00.000+01:00

The single coin issued in the Morea by Manuel II Palaiologos.

Manuel Palaiologos and his wife Helena had ten children recorded for history by Sphrantzes. Their first Constantine and two daughters died in Monemvasia, of plague. Later, the infant Michael died in Constantinople, also of plague. After him there were two more sons, for a total of six sons, which augured well for the future. But.

John had no children at all.

Theodoros had one daughter who lived to adulthood and who had daughters of her own. A second child, probably a son died before birth, with his mother.

Andronikos never married, and died in his 20s.

Constantine fathered two children who died before birth, with their mothers.

Demetrios had a daughter who eventually ended up in Mehmed's harem as a hostage for his good behavior. She died there.

Five sons of Manuel produced no male heirs.

It was left to Thomas, the youngest. His first child, Helena, was married to in 1446 to Lazar Brancović, later Despot of Serbia. Helena and Lazar had a daughter, Helena, the next year. More than twenty years after the birth of Helena, and after the birth of their grandchild, Thomas' wife Katerina gave birth to a son in January 1453. We know almost nothing about Thomas during those twenty years, but from the way he treated Katerina's brother, his relationship with her cannot have been a particularly pleasant one. The boy was not called Manuel after his grandfather in approved Greek fashion, but Andreas after the patron saint of Patras, one of Thomas' two capitals.

So at the time of the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, Manuel's heirs consisted of a baby boy, and two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter all named Helena after his wife.

It was in 1453 Thomas went to war against Demetrios who had been panting for the throne for years, and who had tried to take it from Constantine when John died. Thomas may have thought a son gave him a certain weight in the inheritance stakes. A second son was born in 1455, this one called Manuel. Thomas fought for control of the Morea, tooth and claw, fire and axe, until he was forced to make his escape in the summer of 1460.

Thomas died in 1465, having learned that the "crusade" begun the previous year that promised to retrieve the throne for him was a disaster. He had not seen his children since leaving them in Corfu in 1460 -- their mother had died in 1462 -- and he had written asking that they be sent to Rome. He had just time enough to learn that they had arrived in Ancona.

Cardinal Bessarion brought young Andreas, Manuel, and their sister Zoe to Rome where he established a household for them, and arranged for their education -- Zoe was to have the same education as her brothers. Weary Giorgios Sphrantzes visited them the next year -- "Lord Andreas, the despot, and Prince Manuel, my masters"-- and stayed for a month. Andreas was 13, Manuel 11. There is much that Sphrantzes could have told us about that visit, much that he could have told the children to give them some sense of their family.

One thing that strikes me in this narrative is the way the effects of nature reflect the process of history. The brothers Palaiologos might have been expected to produce at least six or eight grandsons for Manuel. There was one infant male in May 1453. One could have simply kept track of the children and known there was no future.

The Knight and Death -- Ο Ιπποτης κι ο Θανατος

2011-09-10T19:06:00.005+01:00

The Knight and Death, Durer etching, 1513.

The night before 9/11, I was working on a translation of Gatsos' great poem, "The Knight and Death," a title he took from this Durer etching. The next morning as I stood in the crowds watching the astounding beauty of minute red flames flickering in the pillars of cloud, fragments kept buzzing in my head - - I saw your descendants like birds / rip open the sky of my country / and I saw the cypress trees of the Morea stop breathing on the plain of Nauplion . . . Gatsos speaks of April 1941 but the poem has become something of a talisman for me, and I have used its title for my book on the Morea. For this tenth anniversary of that terrible day, I am printing here my translation and Gatsos' original from my translations of his complete poetry.

* * * * * *

THE KNIGHT AND DEATH (1513)

Just so, I see you motionless

traveling down the ages with the horse of Akritas
and the sword of Ai-Yiorgi
I would place beside you
with the dark shapes that stand eternally beside you
until the place where you are extinguished eternally with them
until you become a fire in the great Chance where you were born
I would place beside you
an orange from the snow-covered fields of the moon
I would unfold for you the veil of an evening
with red Antares singing the young men
with the River of Sky overflowing into August
to weep with the North Star and freeze
I would place beside you meadows
waters that never watered the lilies of Germany
and I would ornament this iron you wear
with a sprig of basil and a handful of mint
with the arms of Plapoutas and the sword of Nikitaras
And then I who saw your descendants like birds
split open on a spring day the sky of my country
saw the cypress trees of the Morea stop breathing
there on the fields of Nauplion
before the waiting embrace of the wounded sea
where the eons wrestled with the crosses of gallantry
I would place beside you
the bitter eyes of a youth
and the closed eyelids
in the mud and blood of Holland.

This dark land

will someday become green again

The iron hand of Götz will overturn the caissons

and mound them with sheaves of barley and rye

And in the dark oaks with the dead loves

there where time turned a virgin leaf to stone

on the breasts where a tear-stained rose trembled

a star will shine silent as a spring daisy

But you will remain motionless

with the horse of Akritas and the lance of Ai-Yiorgi you will travel

through the years

a restless hunter from the race of heroes

with those dark shapes that stand eternally beside you

until a day when you will vanish eternally with them

until you become again a fire in the great Chance where you were born

until in the caves of the river

the heavy hammers of patience resound again

not for ornaments and swords

Ο ΙΠΠΟΤΗΣ ΚΙ Ο ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ (1513)

Καθὼς σὲ βλέπω ἀκίνητο
Μὲ τοὺ Ἀκρίτα τ᾿ ἄλογο καὶ τὸ κοντάρι τοῦ Ἁη-Γιωργιοῦ
νὰ ταξισεύεις στὰ χρόνια
Μπορῶ νὰ βάλω κοντά σου
Σ᾿ αὐτὲς τὶς σκοτεινὲς μορφὲς ποὺ θὰ σὲ παραστέκουν αἰώνια
Ὥσπου μιὰ μέρα νὰ σβυστεῖς κι ἐσὺ παντοτεινὰ μαζὶ τους
Ὥσπου νά γίνεις πάλι μιὰ φωτιὰ μὲς ατὴ μεφἀλη Τύχη ποὺ σὲ γέννησε
Μπορῶ νὰ βάλω κοντά σου
Μιὰ νεραντζιὰ στοῦ φεγγαριοῦ τοὺς χιονισμένους κάμπους
Καὶ τὸ μαγνάδι μιᾶς βραδιᾶς νὰ ξεδιπλώσω μπροστά σου
Μὲ τὸν Ἀντάρη κόκκινο νὰ τραγουδάει τὰ νιάτα
Μὲ τὸ Ποτάμι τ᾿ Οὐρανοῦ νὰ χύνεται στὸν Ἄγουστο
Καὶ μὲ τ᾿ Ἀστέρι τοῦ Βοριᾶ νὰ κλαίει ταὶ νὰ παγώνει –
Μπορῶ νὰ βάλω λιβάδια
Νερὰ ποὺ κάποτε πισαν τὰ κρίνα τῆς Γερμανίας
Κι αύτὰ τὰ σίδερα ποὺ φορεῖς μπορῶ νὰ σοῦ τὰ στολίσω
Μ᾿ ἕνα κλωνὶ βασιλικὸ κι ἕνα ματσάκι δυόσμο
Μέ τοῦ Πλαπούτα τ᾿ ἄρματα καὶ τοῦ Νικηταρᾶ τὶς πάλες.
Μὰ ἐγὼ ποὺ εἶδα τοὺς ἀπογίνους σου σὰν πουλιὰ
Νὰ σκίζουν μιὰν ἀνοικάτικη αὐγὴ τὸν οὐρανὸ τῆς πατρίδας μου
Κι εἶδα τὰ κυπαρίσσα τοῦ Μοριᾶ νὰ σωπαίνουν
Ἐκεῖ στὸν κάμπο τοῦ Ἀναπλιοῦ
Μπροστὰ στὴν πρόθυμη ἀγκαλιὰ τοῦ πληγωμένου πελάγου
Ὅπου οἱ αἰῶνες πάλευαν μὲ τοὺς σταυροὺς τῆς παλλυκαριᾶς
Θὰ βάλω τώρα κοντἀ σου
Τά πικραμένα μάτια ἑνὸς παιδιοῦ
Καὶ τὰ κλεισμένα βλφαρα
Μέσα στὴ λάσπη καὶ τὸ αἶμα τῆς Ὁλλανδίας.

Αὐτὸς ο μαῦρος τόπος
Θὰ πρασσινίσει κάποτε
Τὸ σιδερένιο χέρι τοῦ Γκὲτς θ᾿ ἀναποδογυρίσει τ᾿ ἁμάξια
Θὰ τὰ φορτώσει θημωνιὲς ὸ κριθάρι καὶ σίκαλη
Καὶ μὲς στοὺς σκοτεινοὺς δρuμοὺς μὲ τὶς νεκρὲς ἀγάπες
Ἐκεῖ ποὺ πέτρωσε καιρὸς ἕνα παρθένο φύλλο
Στὰ στήθια ποὺ σιγότρεμε μιὰ δακρuσμένη τριανταφυλλιὰ
Θὰ λάμπει ἕνα ἄστρο σιωπηλὸ σὰν ἀνοιξιάτικη μαργαρίτα.
Μὰ ἐσὺ θὰ μένεις ἀκίνητος
Μὲ τοῦ Ἀκρίτα τ᾿ ἄλογο καὶ τὸ κοντάρι τοῦ Ἁη-Γιωργιοῦ θὰ ταξιδεύεις στὰ χρόνια
Ἕνας ἀνήσυχος κυνηγὸς ἀπ᾿ τὴ γενιὰ τῶν ἡρώων
Μ᾿ αὐτὲς τὶς σκοτεινὲς μορφὲς ποὺ θὰ σὲ παραστέκουν αἰώνια
Ὥσπου μιὰ μέρα νὰ σβυστεῖς κι ἐσὺ παντονεινὰ μαζί τους
Ὅσπου νὰ γίνεις πάλι μιὰ φωτιὰ μὲς στὴ μεγάλη Τύχη ποὺ σὲ γέννησε
Ὅσπου καὶ πάλι στὶς σπηλιὲς τῶν ποταμιῶν ν᾿ ἀντηχήσουν
Βαριὰ σφυριὰ τὴς ὑπομονὴς
Ὄχι γιὰ δαχτυλίδια καὶ σπαθιὰ
Ἀλλὰ γιὰ κλαδευτήρια κι ἀλέτρια.

On Vacation: Islamic Ceramics

2011-09-08T01:00:00.000+01:00

A selection of photographs, mostly of ceramics, from the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art in the Keramikos neighborhood of Athens. The treasures of this museum are too little known except to specialists, but it is fortunately out of the way of the route of the average tourist. I am not knowledgeable enough to label the pictures securely: enjoy their beauty. (I will just add that they have the best gift shop of any Athens museum.)

Athens, 1835

2011-09-02T17:17:00.002+01:00

Bettina and Konstantinos Schinas went to Athens in December 1834 to find a place to live, before they moved in March 1835. After they returned to Nauplion, Bettina wrote her family about her impressions.

* * * * * *

Here in Nauplia we heard so much about the shortage of lodgings etc. in Athens so I actually expected to find only ruins or half destroyed buildings. I was very surprised then at the first sight of the town, bending from a small hill, of significant extension and full of new houses. But when I got off the horse and searched on foot for the little house of Mme. Gerakis I found myself in a boundless labyrinth of ruins. . . . Look at the plan of the city and the surrounding hills, if you can, at Schinkel’s and . . . my description becomes more graphic to you.

Franz Heger, 1829

The city lies in a wide big valley, at all sides of the plain mountains rise; not towards the sea though, only small hills at the sides of the Piraeus. In this plain lies the rock on which the Acropolis stands, the midday side oriented to the sea. The morning sun shines on one narrow side of the rock where it steeply ends towards the plain; at the other narrow side several hills string, flattening out; the Areopagos, the hill of Nymphs (adjacent to the higher rocky plateau where I possibly will get a little house, it flattens towards the big road from Piraeus; in front of the rock which would carry the house is on the same level a garden plot with a steep end. If I could build here no neighbor could take away my view and my house would be standing free on all sides -- I could look over the Piraeus to Aigina and indescribable beautiful mountains in the distance; the big olive forest, the ships coming into Piraeus harbour, everybody coming from there to town; a few hundred steps below me the future palace and it’s future park reaching to our rock, the Thesion and the whole city; if I could look at the Acropolis from the second floor I do not know yet), the hills of Pnyx, Philopappos etc.

The city leans with its widest extension to the northern side of the Acropolis rock, descends from here to the plain and expands far to both sides. The district close to the Acropolis where the ancient town mainly must have been exists only in ruins of younger times. The government did not yet explain clearly about intending future planned excavations or not, so there is no house building here as well. A few individuals built new houses here, either because they were owners of wrecked houses and so did not have to pay for plots, or because they could buy an inexpensive plot because there is not much competition in this district and construction material can be found more or less at the spot as the remaining pieces of walls and rubble between them provide building stones.

How messed up these houses are standing is incredible however. There are no streets laid out, the former ones are hardly recognizable just now and then, cut off by rubble, turned into hills and valleys. Two new houses next to each other will surely not stand in a line -- one orients its facade to the north, the other to the south, just as the owners feel it convenient. If one tries to draw lines from one house to another one would bump into them very often in obtuse or acute angles. You see forms and shapes here like nowhere else in the world, a real collection of varieties of stairs going outside diagonally upwards, others start at the entrance of a yard rising straight over it to the 2nd floor, Swiss shaped houses with prominent roofs and upper floors etc.. Most owners are builders as well. Instead of lime everything found in the street is put between the stones, that is rubble, sand, dirt, everything that can be mixed in a pit dug for this purpose like for slaking lime. It happens not only for small houses -- for example the big house where Heideck lives, built by an Italian Count as a rental has walls leaking all over when it is raining continuously; in setting up a stove the wall involved was found to be made of dirt.

If the government decides for the excavations, the newly built houses will be torn down: if it decides against, a plan will be made and still many houses will have to come down which do not fit into further streets. The rent however is so expensive people took the risk hoping for years of indecisiveness, which one can indeed expect. There is such a labyrinth here you will not easily find again a house even after a visit. Best is to climb somewhere high looking for the right house, after finding it walk from which point ever in a straight not losing its direction, crossing walls, rubble, pieces of stairs, broken water pipes, open cisterns, deep sewers etc.. I had one point, an open, very deep half-dried cesspool with a snowy-white skull of a horse lying in it, from there I could find orientation.

The summer’s conveniences for the inhabitants of this district are millions of very poisonous midges living under hollow wet stones and in stagnant waters. The convenience of winter is the lack of sun in the shade of the Acropolis, in summer it shines over it and the cooling wind from the sea does not get here because of the high rocks.

In flattened areas new streets have been laid out with many new houses in rows with more or less ruins between them. This center of the town -- if one wants to call it so as the market and the shops are here -- consists mostly of small quickly constructed buildings of little value, which are of intense interest at the moment with the lack of houses but will exist only a few years. But there is also a fair number of good houses of 6-8 rooms etc., and not just few considerably big ones inhabited by diplomats, ministers, regency etc.. Were all these latter buildings and the reasonable middle sized ones built according to town planning it would be the basis for an orderly town and not insignificant at all.

There was a plan drawn up about 2 years ago by Kleanthes and other Greek architects and temporarily approved which set the king’s palace far away from the now existing buildings (where the king laid the foundation stone last year which was in all the newspapers), Klenze made another plan, putting the palace near the temple of Theseus, a little closer to the road to Pireas. At the moment the king lives at the opposite end of the town in the district of the remains of the temple of Zeus but far of the Acropolis, deeper in the plain. Supporters of Kleanthes’ plan built close to the site of the palace he is proposing, others were built near the king’s were they are needed now, others along the road to Pireas. In a very wide and enormously long street (in the future, maybe!) are standing right now two very big and beautiful houses like fallen out of the blue, Kobel and Armansperg are living there, also the houses of Caradja, Dawkins, Cantacuzenos are separated from all other houses.

Joseph Thurmer, 1819-1824

Communication is extremely difficult at the time being and almost impossible with bad weather or in the evening. Even where the streets have been cleaned of piles of rubble one must walk hills and valleys, there is no base because of the lack of pavement. In addition water pipes are broken in many places, the delicious clear water is running and building muddy spots until it vanished in canals. To remedy this trouble ditches are dug towards the canals but they get sodden and everything stays the way it is. Streets have been dug in the middle to their full length to build the draining ditches, the ground has been thrown up at both sides. The street lowers to the ditch and is very slippery, and the results can be unpleasant and dangerous you can imagine. Cisterns and wells of former yards where now paths are leading have no edges and might make a wanderer disappear without a trace at night. Big dogs have been bought everywhere as guards for the isolated lodgings at the time being, as soon as it gets dark they bark behind pedestrian from house to house.

The ruins here come partly from small houses of Athenians, from big Turkish palatial buildings, from 365 churches and chapels and between them ancient ruins which have been unearthed only by the latest devastation. The remaining walls of destructed houses give a strange impression because between the stones they have been built of, or the clay and timber frame parts are single square stone blocks visible, obviously from ancient walls, pieces of marble slabs, columns, knobs, statues (from a small wretched house a most beautiful marble hand is jutting out), marble slabs with new Turkish decoration, from Venetian times many lions etc.. Many Turkish wells, now dried out, at the walls. From the former 365 churches, most of them small of course, one can see next to nothing, just some bigger cupolas, no towers, because churches were not allowed to be seen under Turkish rule. These building too have a wonderful mixture of most different materials, times, stiles of construction, fresco painting etc.. Many of them are buried like Constantine’s arch at the forum. Some of them are built into ancient buildings. A Turkish bath (with steam pipes) which lies now like a cellar deep dark and moist is getting whitewashed and done up for soldiers.

Between all this chaos the ancient ruins give a moving and reassuring impression. Though many of them are partly hidden by lodgings which have been built at or in them it is planned to clean them all and leave them standing as they are. They are rather many, even now when the overview is not yet complete.

I mentioned the war bringing to light a number of antiquities. Amongst them are some colossal statues which obviously remained on the original pedestals and at the spot they were made for. They were found on the occasion of the destruction of a big building belonging to a clergyman. He had built walls around them 300 years ago (if I am not mistaken) to keep safe what had remained of them. They stand in line and regular distances, two lines of them facing each other, the road between them leads straight from the temple of Theseus to another ancient building. The mass of marble is huge but the mutilation too is not little: there would be little interest for them in a collection, but here where they offer information about situation, buildings etc. of the ancient town they are regarded with admiration and pleasure.

I should now tell you about the antiquities but I confess honestly I can’t. We were not in Athens for very long. I didn’t have any time of peace.

* * * * * *

Previous letters from Bettina Schinas:

The lovely mighty waves will carry her away

Here, more than anywhere else, patience

Only soldiers are dying, not the officers

Bare planks and green silk

I wish I could have enjoyed it with you
Outstanding infinite excellence

Copyright © Brigitte Eckert 2010

Ruth Steffen: Leben in Griechenland 1834–1835. Bettina Schinas, geb. von Savigny. Briefe und Berichte an ihre Eltern in Berlin. Verlag Cay Lienau, Münster 2002. ISBN 3-934017-00-2.

The Negroponte Hoard, Part One

2011-08-27T18:33:00.003+01:00

Malatesta coat-of-arm, Negroponte Hoard, BM

There is a remarkable and nearly unknown collection of jewelry in the British Museum, known as the Negroponte hoard. It consists of 395 items (28 items are one model of silver filigree buttons, 65 another model of exquisite gold buttons), some of them important. The collection was acquired in the late 19th-century from an Athens dealer who claimed these were all found in one hoard in Negroponte, and who made requests for secrecy. I will write later about my opinions of that.

What has fascinated me this week is this 2.5 cm shield with alternating bands, certainly the Malatesta shield, and the same one that Pandolfo Malatesta put up in two locations in Patras.

The Patras shields disappeared during the Italian occupation in WW2 and there has been no report of them since. This image was taken from a photocopy of an etching of a squeeze of the shield found in the Lambros history of medieval Greece, and you may have to trust me on this.

A second shield turns up which somewhat explains the first, which is the same size as the shield in the center with reverse bands and may have been similarly used as the center of an ornament. I do not find a photograph of it on the BM site and this one, a detail from a large mass of ornaments, is extremely difficult to make clear. The three heads are interesting: the Malatesti added three profile heads to their shields around 1385, and possibly these heads refer to those.

[Note: I have identified a third shield in a subsequent post on the collection.]

The main question I have about these two Malatesta shields is: what were they doing in Negroponte? Cleofe Malatesta was in Mistra from the fall of 1420 to the spring of 1433. Her brother Pandolfo was archbishop of Patras from 1424 until mid-1429. I can think of a number of ways in which the shields might have traveled east: the explanation that convinces me will have to wait for another blog.

Below, I am supplying a series of Malatesta shields. They vary according to the owner, but the basis for each is a pattern of bends, sometimes checked, sometimes with suggestions of weaving. The first three are from manuscripts reproduced in large expensive books on the Malatesti, but unidentified; the last two are from Wikipedia.

Manuscript portrait of Malatesta "dei Sonetti" Malatesti

Tempio Malatesiano, Rimini

Palazzo, Roberto Malatesta, Rimini

One of Pandolfo Malatesta's emblems

Malatesta Novello, Cesena Library

I would much appreciate further information, and suggestions for specific identifications.

Misunderstanding Mistra, Part Two

2011-08-23T01:59:00.003+01:00

Wedding crowns, Athens

Last night when I was not sleeping, I found myself thinking about the marriages of the sons of Manuel II Palaiologos. A fairly dismal subject, on the whole, with a great deal of waste and grief on all sides. It is an article of faith that Manuel received a letter from Pope Martin V giving permission for his sons to marry Western rite brides, and this is demonstrated by showing that in August 1420, Sophia of Montferrat and Cleofe Malatesta of Pesaro were shipped out as the first lucky candidates. (By the way, none of these women married to the Palaiologos sons was a princess: enough of the "Latin princesses" theme.) There is a vast wasteland of articles on the marriages of the sons of Manuel II, and having recently written on this topic myself (with more to come), I think it needs re-evaluating.

The marriages of John VIII are no proof of this Western rite theme. When he was 21, in 1414, he was presented with a child bride in the person of Anna of Moscow. She died of plague three years later. He had been so detached from her that he did not learn of the event for another year. Then there was Sophia of Montferrat. John left her a bride unwedded, and she left him after nearly six years. This cannot be considered a Western rite marriage. When he remarried in 1427, this time blissfully, his bride Maria was from Trebizond and of the Eastern rite.

Theodoros II of Mistra married Cleofe Malatesta in January 1426 and he, too, left her a bride unwedded. After six years, he decided to be married after all and pressured her -- despite a written promise to the Pope -- to convert to the Eastern rite. She assured her family that this was an outward conversion -- "I have not become a nun just because I have been anointed with a little oil." -- and spent the next six years doing penance for her act. This, too, cannot be considered a Western rite marriage.

Constantine's two marriages were both to Latin rite women, and both of them died during pregnancy. Both women, Theodora Tocco and Caterina Gattilusi, were from families that had lived in Greek-speaking lands for generations, and both were certainly bilingual. From what we know of these Latin-Greek families, their choice of rite was fluid, and they were at home in both. Neither of these marriages was arranged under the papal dispensation and there is no information as to any observation of any rite. Theodora was part of the territorial settlement concluding the Palaiologos conquest of the Tocco territories in the Morea. Caterina's family was related to the Palaiologoi and she was chosen for her suitability.

Moving on to Demetrios, both of his marriages -- to Zoe Paraspondylos and to Theodora Asan -- were in the Eastern rite.

Which leaves Thomas. His marriage to Catarina Zaccaria in January 1430 was, again, outside the papal dispensation and part of the territorial settlement in the peace treaty by which the Palaiologoi acquired the Principality of Achaia and added 50% more territory to the Despotate. She might have been considered a princess, as her father was known as the Prince of Achaia, but no contemporary document calls her that. Sphrantzes calls her "kyra." The marriage was celebrated at Mistra. It is highly unlikely that the ceremony was in the Western rite.

All of this means that, instead of forcing the marriages to fit that letter from the Pope, one should look at what actually happened. Or didn't happen.

Stratioti Pay

2011-08-18T19:27:00.001+01:00

Stratiote (detail from 15thC icon, Byzantine Museum of Thessalonike)
wearing the red fabric that appears so often in Venetian documents on stratioti pay.

Stratioti, in the ideal Venetian system, pretty much paid for themselves. They worked their own land -- land otherwise unused, provided their own food, and earned the rest from wartime loot. The ideal Venetian system never actually worked. Stratioti who are farming cannot fight. A man ordinarily can only carry about three days worth of food with him for him and his horse. Stratioti who are not fighting do not get loot. And so on and so forth. So it became a delicate balance to keep stratioti fed and reasonably accepting of authority until their services were needed for the next time. You can read all about it in detail in Bartolomeo Minio's letters here. (And bear in mind that he tends to call them "stratioti" when his nerves are good, and "Albanians" when they are not, though the majority were Albanian.)

Stratioti come in several categories. One is those for whom there was a short-term contract: they appeared, served their time, and left. Another category is for those who had land allotments and were considered residents of the territory. A third category is the provisionati, usually the kapetanioi, who received larger amounts of money, payments of red and black cloth, and sometimes large land allotments, maybe with fortifications. They were guaranteed payment for a certain number of stratioti, and their servants were usually provided with extra gifts. This is a very interesting system because, while ostensibly imported from Italy, it actually represents the monetization of the pronoia system. It is claimed that there is no evidence for the pronoia system in the Morea but we have former landholders becoming provisionati, and I have now found documents that specify land grants by the despots for men we later see as kapetanioi. It takes a lot of reading back and forth.

Taking into consideration the vicissitudes of weather and the lack of loot in peacetime, Venice provided a certain number paghe, payments, in cash and grain in a year. That is, they provided them on paper, and some years it was 3 and some years it was 6, and sometimes it was four of cash and three of grain. Minio's letters say otherwise: "In 19 months they have had only two pays of cash and two of grain." "For a year they have had no payments of cash or grain." "You promised the stratioti 3 pays of grain a year, and the soldiers 5 of cash."

This is where it gets dicey. Stratioti had to appear at the regularly-scheduled mostra with arms and horses in order to get those payments, if the payments had actually arrived. No governor could have been sanguine in the face of 500 armed stratioti when telling them they would, again, not be paid, and during the war a commander was decapitated when he gave that news once too often. If payments had actually arrived, a stratiote without a horse or weapons would not be paid. But if the period of hunger had been going on long enough -- and most of the stratioti had families to feed -- they might have to sell the horse, or the weapons for the metal in them, to get food. During the war Barbarigo reported men selling off their bollete (promises of pay) for a quarter of the value in order to buy food now. Minio reported his Cretan ballestrieri, bowmen, selling their bollette for half the value.

There was never a budget item "food for soldiers." Fanti were paid on one schedule, stratioti on another, and the ballestrieri were to be paid from the administration Candia which rarely happened. When Minio was captain in Candia twenty years later, the payments to the Nauplion ballestrieri were absolutely conscientiously made on schedule. So through Minio's letters you see one group or another hungry. More than once in Nauplion, Minio took loans from the better-off corporali (fanti commanders) so he could buy food for the ballestrieri and stratioti.

One of the things you see in the Minio letters is that you can predict when the peacetime food is simply going to be inadequate. In the winters of 1479-80 and 1480-81, Minio reports that the rains and the early grain look good for the year, and they are. In the winter of 1481-82, he predicts a poor crop, and that summer the stratioti, and Nauplion, are on the edge of famine. Each year, from March on until early June, Minio is desperate for grain to feed the stratioti. It is no coincidence that the Lenten fast coincides with the depletion of food stores and before the new growth.

There was a problem in the summer of 1480. Fearing an Ottoman attack -- and there were massive assaults on Rhodes and Otranto -- Minio called up everyone from the farms, Greek landworkers and stratioti, and provided them with spears from the Nauplion armory. Shipping for food and cash from Venice was blocked. While there was a fine harvest, within another month the Italian fanti were hungry, and because of their weakened physical condition, many of them were dying from the summer malaria. Fanti did not have land (although Antonio Marinato and his troop may have been pirates on the side, and interestingly, none of them died) and were dependent on what was provided from Venice. Minio had been asking for money for grain for 6 months, and finally was sent old grain from Venice, half of what he could have bought locally for the same price. Would you believe that Venice had financial interests whose pacification was regarded as more important than hungry soldiers?

Now, when the pay actually arrived, there were still roadblocks. A stratiote received 28 soldi or 112 torneselli in a payment. Of this, he had to pay 4 soldi to the Paymaster-General, and 2 to the paymaster at Nauplion. A fante, an Italian soldier, should his pay have arrived, would receive 300 torneselli, and he was not likely to have a legal family.

So right there you can see a problem and why stratioti needed land, and loot -- and why many of the unpaid stratioti who joined the Kladas revolt took the opportunity to continue as professional looters. One way around on occasion this was for stratioti companies to be written up with allowance for a certain number of paghe morte, dead pays, and at mostre, the number of live pays were reported.

Here are some numbers to suggest what was involved with pay and food that show how fragile the system was. (Much of the Venetian financial calculations for the stato da mar involved hyperpera which did not actually exist as coins.)

28 soldi = 1 2/5 hpp. [one payment]
1 stero wheat = 1 3/4 hpp. [weight varies from 70-100 kg. Ideally, an individual would have 200 k. of wheat. This assumes access to fruit, beans, olives, fish, oil, cheese, etc.]
1 kg. wheat = 1.52 liters, as bread, has 2500 calories. Cooked as porridge, it produces about 6 servings. In other words, 1 kg. of wheat is basic nutrition for a man for 2 days, though without other sources of food, malnutrition will soon set in.

Cloth was always nice, though not edible. During the 1484-1478 war, Yanni Volassi and Piero Boziki were given robes, and one of Micheli Rallis' aides was given a scarlet robe. Giorgio Pagomeno and Giorio Paniperi were given, respectively, robes of black velvet and cloth-of-gold. (This was probably an indication of knighthood: Kladas and two men with him whowere knighted by the Doge were given cloth-of-gold robes.) Early in the war, provveditor Andrea Dandolo was sent 63 lengths of cloth to distribute to the kapetanioi according to status and loyalty. Nicolo Gritzas, Petro Bua, Nicolo and Micheli Rallis, and Count Comnino were given fine scarlet. Like service ribbons of the last century, cuts and colors were calibrated to honor and status.

But what comes clear, over and over, reading between the lines in the Venetian documents, is that after mid-century Venice was always too stressed to be able to organize the necessary funds for the necessary shipments at the right time: this assumes the will, good shipping weather, and seas safe from piracy -- none of which could be taken for granted.

Other related posts:

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/12/bartolomeo-minio.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/12/singular-stratiote.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/08/nauplion-siege-of-1500_26.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/11/capi.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/11/mocenigo-war-part-one.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/02/peacemakers.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/03/valor-of-our-stratioti.html