For Bartolomeo, with love and respect

A book on which I have been working far too long – The Greek Correspondence of Bartolomeo Minio. Vol. 2: Dispacci from Candia, 1500-1502 – has just been published. To have the new book in hand is a pleasure, but this entry is late because I have not known how to bring about the end to this working companionship.  I have nothing more I can write about Bartolomeo Minio. I have not been far from tears as I have autographed books to send out, and as I have tried to write here.

 I discovered Bartolomeo Minio while looking for material on Nauplion at Dumbarton Oaks, long before I thought of graduate school. The 100 pages of his letters from Nauplion became bedtime reading off and on for years.

<They were intensely familiar, of course because of Nauplion, where my house had been attached to the wall he had built, but also because I had grown up in a colonial environment. Minio's constant fatigue and frustration at lack of adequate equipment and money, his isolation, his increasing identification with the local population, all reflected what I had absorbed in my younger years from the adults around me. I found something else, too: the sense of a desperately lonely child, so you can imagine my reaction when I found in Venice a document indicating that his father had remarried when he was two and a half years old. 

He was the youngest child in his family, born in about 1428 and named for his mother's father, and was the only one of his brothers to marry.  His wife was Elena Trevisan. This was normal Venetian practice, and his third son, Francesco, was the only one of his sons to marry.  His oldest son, Marco (born about 1460) , became a prominent Venetian ambassador to the Vatican and Constantinople, and was elected Doge of Crete.  Little is recorded about the second, Alvise (born a year later). There may have been children who did not live. The youngest, Francesco, was born in 1483/4, nine months after Minio returned from his assignment in Nauplion.  Francesco made a fortune in shipping and the transport of pilgrims to the Holy Land, and his wills record a number of houses, including the pretty Ca' da Madoneta on the Rio da Frescada near S. Toma.  The family were all buried at the Franciscan church of S. Francesco dalle Vigne: in several searches I failed to find any tombstones in the hundreds there.

My PhD dissertation was on his letters from Nauplion.  Hans Theunissen from Utrecht published it in his on-line monograph series in EJOS.  One of my dissertation readers, John Melville-Jones from Perth, suggested a published edition of the letters which are preserved in a Minio family copy (written in four different hands, including Bartolomeo's) in the Correr Library in Venice. We published the letters from Nauplion in 2008, and then set to working on another set of his letters, a Minio family copy (by his son Marco) in the Correr, from Candia. This is a total of more than 150 letters written by one man, a very rare inheritance.  

Minio was clearly lonely in Nauplion -- there were probably no patricians there, and I suspect he was acutely class-conscious where Venetians were concerned.  His letters and reports rarely received a response, and supplies were rarely and inadequately sent.  He developed a few very close and protective relationships -- his secretary Eustacio; Antonio Marinato, an Italian commander of foot soldiers, who may have been a part-time pirate, and was kidnapped and sold into slavery; his wife's brother, Piero Trevisan, who commanded a galley occasionally sent to Nauplion; an Ottoman governor who shared all the same problems, and who let him in on a plot to overthrow Mehmed.  

He was a tense man, with neck cramps and migraines.  He had a strong sense of fairness and justice, and though he insisted on following instructions to the letter, he received tremendous loyalty from the Greek and Albanian stratioti, and from the Greek townspeople of Nauplion. He wrote once, in great distress, that he had had to used forced labor at Nauplion for work on the walls.  It was, he said, a hardship for "these poor people," but "I worked with them in person." The Greeks remembered that, and a chronicle records:

At that time, the governor of the place, that is, the Venetian, with all the people of Nauplion, did all the building, and built the walls around, just as they appear today . . . and the governor of the place, the Venetian, gave benefits and many gifts.

Minio died in 1515, in his late 80s.  His failing health is mentioned in several entries in Sanudo's Diarii.  He should have died several other times that we know of: from malaria in Nauplion, from camp fever in the Ferrara war, from pirates in the Bay of Biscay, from pirates off Cyprus, from pneumonia in Crete. In his mid-70s he wrote with pride of his good eyesight, and then rode the length and width of Crete to inspect its fortresses. He was a survivor and a fighter, though I suspect he absolutely hated fighting. Not because of any pacifist leanings, but because it was an indication of disorder, and he did value order above all.

He has been a good companion. I hope he would have liked my work.

The Greek Correspondence of Bartolomeo Minio. Vol. 2: Dispacci from Candia, 1500-1502. Diana Gilliland Wright & John Melville-Jones. Padua: Unipress, 2015.  Orders here.  

Map by Ioannis Xenodochos, Corfu, 1520.

Nauplion's fiefs

15^th-century remains of fief boundary wall and tower at Myloi.

It is easier to think about fief churches than fiefs, because with churches you have a definite building in a specific place. For the fiefs of the Frankish and first Venetian occupations, you have in a very few cases the name of a general area. When the Franks divided up the Argolid as of 1212 or so, it is probable that they used the general divisions already used by the Byzantines. The Aragonese version of the Chronicle of the Morea says that two Greeks who knew the whole country helped the Franks with the division of the territory. 

All we find for the Argolid is that the Foucherolle family was given three fiefs or cavallerias in Argos and Corinth, and many others were given one and two cavallarias. It is not clear how much land was involved in a cavalleria but many Greeks received them, as well as Franks. To suggest possible numbers in the Argolid, Passava and Helos each had 12 fiefs, Patras 24, Escorta 22, Arcadia 8, Damala (considered part of Corinth) 6.  A report on fiefs from 1391 gives Clarentza and Kalamata 300 fiefs each, Vostitza 200, and says the despot has 40 in Mani.

For a completely different area, in 1500, Crete was divided into 391 cavallarias. Each fief or cavallaria in Crete had 50 boine or fields. A boina was the amount of land that could be plowed in a day, and each could support two families of villani or paroikoi. There is nothing to let us know whether the Cretan system was applicable in the Morea.

The Frankish system of privatized justice and privatized military fit well with the Byzantine rule in the Morea. We have no idea what shifts might have occurred as the culture of the Franks from north-western France became the culture of Franks from southern Italy during the next 180 years or so. Venice took over the Frankish Argolid in 1394 in a treaty with Theodoros I of Mistra, guaranteeing to protect the traditional rights of the inhabitants. What those traditional rights might have been in relation to the fiefs after 180 years of foreign rule, we have no idea. The significant change Venetian rule brought was that justice and the military came under the control of the governors of Argos and Nauplion, and the fief was a means of collecting taxes which apparently became more stringent.

In the Venetian land system, all the land belonged to the state. There seem to have been several categories of land-holdings. The fiefs which were comparatively large, and were heritable. Then there were large land-holdings that were rented out for 5, 10, or 29 years. My “fief” churches may have belonged to these landholdings as much as to fiefs. There is good evidence for substantial Greek ownership of these. Another division of land came in 40-stremmata plots, plus another 5 of vineyards, which were given to the immigrants Argos needed to repopulate its empty countryside. The 40 stremmata plus 5, allowed a family to make a basic living and pay the taxes required in cash and farm produce.  

Venice tended to make land divisions relate to the productivity of the land: we don't know if the Franks followed this system  in the 13th century.  Another division of land was the territory given to stratioti who were responsible for raising their own food and horses, and we know nothing about amounts of land there. It is unclear whether an appropriate unit of territory was assigned to a particular band of stratioti, or whether land was assigned individually. Argos seems to have assigned plots of land to individual stratioti, but that may have been a special case.

Essentially, we have minimal information about the Venetian land system, but Bartolomeo Minio's letters suggest that he considered the landworkers – villani or paroikoi – hard-pressed. He does give us a little information about fiefs, and what he does say suggests fairly large divisions of land. Given the locations of the fiefs he mentions, I would wonder if the areas farthest from Nauplion were made into fiefs, and lesser divisions of land were closer.

Minio only identifies the fiefs of Kiveri, Thermissi, and Kastri. After two difficult conferences that divided the Ottoman-held territory from the Venetian, Minio writes of “the feudatories who have recovered the lands of their fiefs.” The cumulative information about fiefs gives erratic information about productivity, owners, and local morals. 

The bishop of Nauplion (who never visited his see) held the fief of Thermissi which was administered through a local agent. The bishop had half the profit from the Thermissi salt pans, Venice the other half, from which 900 kilograms of salt was exported annually. There was a fief with a castle at Kiveri (the former name for Myloi) whose primary income was from water mills. The fief's boundary line is shown above. A fief of Kastri, held by Sier Francesco Alberto, had a fortification into which people could come when under threat. Sier Francesco seems to have lived primarily in Nauplion. In Crete, landholders had to have houses in one of the main cities – Candia, Chania, Rethymnon, or Sitia. There is no information as to whether this was the case with the Venetian Morea, though the case of Giovanni Cavaza (below), combined with Sier Francesco, suggests it might have been. 

Giovanni Catello had a half-fief of vineyards. Giovanni Cunia had a fief of 200 stremmata which he was required to plant half in vines and half in grain. He apparently grew linen and was also required to have a beating yard and a machine for smashing linen stalks, for which he had permission to obtain wood and materials from Venice. Damian Agrimi seems to have had a fief (or perhaps a land allotment) near Kastri from which he shipped cheese, as did Zorzi da Londa.

Giovanni Cavaza, who seems to have been doing a little embezzling in his job as castellan of Nauplion, came into possession of one of the Foucherolle fiefs which had been in that family for six generations. At least half the fief was in vines: he also had a solid business in linen and wool. He had a house on Akro-Nauplion, and one outside the walls which he willed to his wife and then his sister. He seems to have died about 1405.

 In 1412 the governor of Nauplion gave half the fief to Manoli Murmuri, from the leading Greek family of Nauplion. After three years of suits and counter-suits, the half-fief was transferred to Giovanni Catello, from the leading Venetian family of Nauplion. This half-fief was apparently worth killing for, and this is where the story gets complicated. 

In 1416, Giovanni's brother Michali, Nicolò Murmuri, and someone's brother named Gregorio tried to kill Giovanni, who was so badly injured that he lost his right hand. Eight years later, in 1424, these conspirators bribed a villano to kill Giovanni when he was out in the vineyards . Again he survived the assault, although he received five wounds. The villano disappeared, but his brother testified against him and Michali, Gregorio, and Nicolò. Giovanni made a complaint to the Venetian Signoria against the three: we have no further information, even though the story has gone on for at least nine years.

Manoli Blessi: the man who never was

Frontispiece,

I Fatti e le Prodezze di Manoli Blessi, Strathioto

by Antonio Molino, 1561.

Having seen two blogs in the past month that went on at some length about Manoli Blessi, stratiote and poet/song-writer, I find it necessary to say that Manoli Blessi never existed.

This Manoli Blessi is a character invented by Antonio "Burchiella" da Molino who wrote a very long account in verse of Blessi's life and writings (Sathas 8: 78 pages of 8-line stanzas in double columns, and who also created an extremely long marching-song by him (Sathas 9: 82 pages of 6-line stanzas in double columns.)

These are written in greghesco, a 16th-century stage impression of the Greek-Venetian dialect. We cannot know how closely this represents the normal expression of second- or third- or fourth-generation Greek-Venetians, but it is great fun.

Unde è thora el gran Clemende,

capettagno del Strathia,

e chel Gerbessi valende

chie tremar feva ’l Turchia,

con chel Gigni del Fraschia

pien de inzegno, e del secretti?

          O Strathiotti puveretti.

Dovè e1 Stigni, e chel Canacchi,

Mexsa, Lopossi, et Berbatti,

con Andruzzo dal mustacchi,

Petro Bua, com Stamatti,

chie andama como ’l gatti

al buscade andavan stretti?

          O Strathiotti puveretti.

What is particularly striking to me here, is that these are all names of individuals (and villages) from the Nauplion area (and mostly from the period of Bartolomeo Minio), and it is fascinating to find a work by a Venetian in 1561 that remembers Petro Bua who died about 70 years earlier. These names certainly suggest something about Molino's informants.

What is also striking is that Sathas (8: 471-2) prints the dedication of Molino’s book which makes it very clear that Manoli Blessi is his creation. Very few have noticed that. Sathas didn't notice it (4: lvii-lix; 7: liv-lxiii, which includes the image above). The Ελληνική Βιβλιογραφία (Athens, Grafeio dimosievmato tis akadimias Athenon, 1984-86) didn’t notice it.

The dedication of Molino's book seems to have been written by a Lodovico Dolce.  It assures the Magnifico e Valorosissimo Signore Giacomo Contarino, who probably paid for the printing, that Molino is a most honored citizen of Venice, ornamented with many virtures, and that since boyhood he has endeavored to master all the abilities of a civilized man.  Molino has spent much of his life as a merchant, and while in Corfu and Candia he became interested in comedy.  On his return to Venice, he started an academy of music, and to finance the academy, he took up writing comedies.  There is more, about art purifying the soul, and the importance of Petrarch, Virgil, and Homer, and such, but that really has nothing to do with the life and works of Manoli Blessi.

This entry has made use of Marc D. Lauxtermann, "Linguistic Encounters: The Presence of Spoken Greek in Sixteenth-Century Venice," in Renaissance Encounters: Greek East and Latin West, edited by Marina S. Brownlee & Dimitri H. Gondicas.

The volumes of Sathas are downloadable here.

The Flanders Galleys, 1485: Part Two

 

Continuation of the commission from Doge Giovanni Mocenigo to Bartolomeo Minio, appointing him Captain of the Flanders Galleys. 12 April 1485.

* * * * * *

After the departure from Flanders of these present galleys, all merchandise, of which the conveyance is conceded to them exclusively and which shall be sent to Venice (by other means) within two months from that time, either by land or water (in case the galleys have not their full cargo), to pay full freight to the Signory, for the benefit of the arsenal, whose masters to receive one "soldo" per "livre," for all sums thus collected by them. All goods from England likewise brought by land or sea to pay the like freight to the said galleys until the departure of the next galleys for England. 
 

The physician not to receive more than seven ducats per month. 

 

On the outward voyage, the masters not to stay in any place beyond the limited number of days, and on the-homeward voyage less, under penalty of 100 golden ducats for each day, to be deducted from the bounty; the captain keeping account of these days under oath.

Notice to be given of all these clauses to the consuls at Bruges and in London, that they may endeavour to obtain the payment of full freight to the Signory for all merchandise. 

 

Prohibition against shipment in the holds, or in their berths by the. masters, officials, or oarsmen, of cloths called Verui (sic) Santone, Lowestoft, Bastards, Serges, and Furs (varij-vairs). The cloths called "Bastards," Lowestoft, white "Gotifaldi," wools, and block tin, to be loaded for Ven ice alone, and not for intermediate ports. 

 

The masters to give the crews, arbalast men, and comrades three months' pay in England, at the rate of 38 pence per ducat. One month's loan to be made at the same rate; and any further advance to be charged at the exchange of the day. On payment of these moneys in England, the "writers" of the galleys forbidden to receive more than one penny from each man. 

 

Prohibition against stowing on deck either chests or wrought pewter ; nor may currants or molasses be stowed in the hold. 

 

Gross spice to pay freight at the rate of four ducats; small spice and Levant sugar, five ducats; cottons, raw and spun, 12 ducats, currants,-lambskins, and undressed hides, 18 ducats; wax of every sort, 10 ducats; dressed hides, 10 ducats for every 1,000; paper, one ducat and a half for every bale containing 12 reams; silks of every sort, 20 ducats per thousand-weight Troy (mier sotil). Foreign fustians may be imported under the usual restrictions. Cloths valued at 25 ducats and under, half a ducat per piece, and of higher value, one ducat; household utensils, half a ducat per 100; and should anyone smuggle raw silk, or cloth of silk, or pass them as spices, substituting one sort of merchandise for another, the goods to be forfeited. 

 

The freights of merchandise and goods loaded for the intermediate ports to belong to the masters; but all goods loaded in Flanders, Malaga, England, and Sicily, whether on deck or below, to pay freight to the Signory. 

 

Each of the masters on his safe return to Venice to receive from the Signory a bounty of 3,500 golden ducats of the unappropriated moneys of the Jews, which, the debentures being liquidated, may not be dispersed or employed for any other purpose than that. bounty, under penalty of 1,000 ducats to anyone acting otherwise; he paying the sum from his own purse, and being proclaimed a thief in the hall of Grand Council. Each of the masters is at liberty to proceed against those who shall make any motion to the contrary. The masters to receive also for the aforesaid bounty 3,500 ducats of the three and two per cents. from the Signory, and all the freights (on goods loaded for the immediate ports) on the homeward voyage. 

 

Each of the masters to disburse 400 ducats as a loan eight days after receiving the galleys from the masters of the arsenal, under penalty of 1,000 ducats. This loan to. be repaid them from the proceeds of the auction and the emendations (emendi); and, should the price paid by them at the auction exceed the loan, they may deduct it from the bounty derived from the two and three per cents.; the masters of the arsenal being bound, under penalty, to expend the loan on nothing but the outfit of the galleys, and the captain or the majority of the masters being present when the moneys are dis­bursed, and keeping careful and particular account of their appli­cation that they be not employed for any other purpose. 

 

On the opening of the bank of the Flanders galleys the masters to deposit the installments of pay required for the crews, arbalast men, and stipendiaries. The masters forbidden to engage men for the voyage, instead of by the month, or to compound with them in any way, under penalty, but the crews to be paid like those of the galleys bound.to Syria. No vessel at Venice to load for Flanders, or be " put up " for that voyage from the day of the decree (28 April 1485) until two months after the period assigned to the galleys for their departure (15 July 1485); ships bound to Candia or from' Candia to Flanders or England to be at liberty to continue their voyages, but not to load currants or others goods of which the Flanders galleys had the monopoly. Should the captain incur expense for the reception of personages of rank or others, he is to give a note of it in writing to the masters, and should he not do so, its payment to be optional with th em, provided the captain allege no just impediment. The galleys to convey the Republic's ambassadors and envoys, and ammunition, and all other things belonging to the Signory to any ports made on the voyage, free of passage money or freight. 

 

Each of the masters to give the arsenal 50 ducats for the dry docks, and 10 ducats for the purchase of houses, also 200 lbs. white-wrought wax, on their return, to the Procurators of St. Mark's Church. The presents for the King of England, and the Duke of Burgundy, to be paid with the first moneys derived from the averages on goods, one half on going, the other on returning; and as Sluys and Bruges were blockaded. by the Archduke Maximilian, by land and sea, the inhabitants of those places being in revolt against him, the Senate authorized the. captain of the Flanders galleys, Bortolomeo Minio, on the 29th April 1485, to take them either to Antwerp or Middleburg; the masters being forbidden to claim any indemnity on this account. 

 

Ducal Palace, 12 April 1485. 

[MA illuminated volume of 163 pages: on parchment, part in Latin and part in Italian, being the original commission drawn up by order of the Doge and Senate.]

Taken from Rawdon Brown, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts (London, 1864) , Vol. 1: #492. The translation and editing within the text is his. Rawdon Brown owned the original commission, but it is not now listed in the Rawdon Brown papers in the British Library.

The Flanders Galleys, 1485: Part One

An earlier entry told about Bartolomeo Minio's disastrous voyage to Flanders with the trade muda, fleet, for 1485.  This entry and the next print Minio's commissione from Doge Giovanni Mocenigo of 12 April 1485, with the details of his appointment as captain.

* * * * * *

Salary for the voyage 600 golden ducats, with which, besides servants, he is to keep a clerk, priest, notary, an admiral -- for which board, and not his pay, he is alone responsible -- and two physicians. The salaries of the captain, musicians,¹ physicians and others to be paid as usual by the masters. For the present year, each galley to have (at the cost of the galleys) 30 good arbalast men² from 20 to 50 years of age, with a monthly salary of 19 livres -- each livre containing for light "solidi" -- and galley rations as usual, like the oarsmen; with the understanding moreover, that amongst the said arbalast men there be included four noble youths for each galley, and no more; the which noblemen to he boarded by the masters of the galleys, who are also to pay them their full salaries going and returning, according to the act passed in this matter. Amongst the aforesaid stipendiaries, the masters to take with them one competent adviser for each galley, with a monthly salary of 10 ducats in money, to be paid by the masters who are to board them; the said adviser to be in lieu of one of the arbalast men appointed to each galley,

On the day of his arrival at Sluys the captain to engage a courier for Venice, and inform all the merchants that they may write if they please, dispatching him on the morrow at the farthest, with news of the date of his entry into port; to send a second courier in like manner after a fortnight's interval. 

On the homeward voyage each galley to bring 120,000 weight of light goods, under penalty, &c.; and the masters in Flanders or England to obtain from the merchants 80,000 weight of copper and tin for each galley and no more. The merchant shippers of the said tin and copper to be paid four ducats for each 1,000 weight avoirdupois. 

With the first freight, money received by the captain, he is to pur­chase "in the west" four pieces of ordnance for each galley; to be given to the arsenal on the return.

The masters to be at liberty to remain one month and half more than usual between Bruges and London, and to touch on the out­ward voyage at Palermo and Messina.

On his departure from Flanders and return to England, the cap­tain to remain either at Sandwich or Southampton for 90 days. To be at liberty to touch at Alicant or not; and on the homeward voyage he has also the option of touching at Pisa and Talamone, and of sending thither one or more galleys.

The masters, before being confirmed by the Senate, to deposit at the Accountant's Office one half of the money required for the usual presents made in the Signory's name to the King of England³ and the Duke of Burgundy⁴; the other half to be disbursed on their return, under penalty.
 

Should the galleys be detained at Sluys by the ice beyond the term assigned them, the extra days to be deducted from those appointed for the stay in Hampton, provided always that the mer­chandise be disposed of. within the said term. 
 

On the voyage toward Venice, the galleys to touch at the usual ports; and on the way, both out and home, should the masters deem it advantageous, they are allowed to go to Malaga and Almeria; though should the country be at all in a disturbed state, the captain alone to decide thereon: if they go, they may remain three days in each of those places. When in the waters of Almeria, the captain to dismiss the galley which is to return by the Barbary ports, touching at One, Oran, Tunis, and the other places for which it may have goods, remaining but three days at each; shipping all goods along the coast, either from port to port, or for Venice, exacting the same freight money as the Barbary galleys, and receiv­mg it at the same date. 
 

The master of the aforesaid galley forbidden to take from any Venetian subject more than 25 ducats freight money for each thou­sand weight of cloth. The goods of Venetians to be shipped before those of foreigners ; and first of all the galley to load for Barbary. If unable to obtain a full cargo for that district, she may then take the entire surplus freight of the other galleys bound for Venice; and after touching at the Barbary ports she is then to go to Syracuse. 

 

Term of payment for the freights of cloths and wools, 16 months from the day of the arrival of the galleys at Venice; for tin and wrought pewter, 8 months; for all goods loaded in Malaga, Majorca, and Sicily, 6 months.

On making the island of England, the captain to dismiss the two galleys bound to London; and should there be more spices for Sluys than contained in the two galleys destined for that port, in that case one of the two London galleys, namely, the one which does not carry the [vice ]captain, to go to Sluys, and after lauding the spices return to. London as customary of late years. The galleys, on going to any place in England, not to load or unload any thing soever under penalty of 500 ducats,&c.; and under the like penalty the captain.is bound to go to Sluys, for the avoidance of such peril as incurred by the galleys of late years. 

 

The London galleys being dismissed, the captain is then to go with the others to Sluys, there to remain. for 60 days, those of arrival and departure not included; and on their expiration, he is to proceed either to Sandwich or Hampton, as shall seem best to him; and in the port thus selected he is to remain and load for 60 (sic) days, and then return to Venice. Ten days before departure from England, the masters to unship the windlasses; and no longer load anything," under penalty of 500 ducats; and in like manner the sailing masters and "comiti," and all the other stipendiaries [of the Sluys·~ galleys] are prohibited from going to London; with the exception of: the admiral when directed by the captain for matters concerning] the galleys, under penalty; &c. 

 

Of the two London galleys, one to be chosen either by agreement or lot, to return by the coast of Barbary; shipping first of. all in England fine cloths and merchandise, save that neither copper nor tin, nor vessels of those metals, are to be imported into Barbary; under penalty of 500 ducats, &c. 

 

The masters both in Flanders and England, and also at all intermediate ports, on their return, to load all such goods as shall be brought them for Venice, until the very last hour of their depar­ture (sic) ; which goods, if left behind for the sake of taking others for the intermediate ports, or on any other account, they to make good the loss incurred by such rejection, and pay the arsenal the freight which will be deducted from their "bounty.' The consuls both in, London and Bruges to keep account of all merchandise presented for Venice; and on the homeward voyage, the captain, in Flanders, England, and all ether places; is to keep account, with the "writer's assistant" and his chaplain, of all goods preeented for Venice, whether, shipped or not; and this note he is to consign to the Signory on his arrival. 

(to be continued)

1Musicians: probably the trumpeters by whom movements and orders were signalled.

2Arbalast men: crossbowmen.

3Richard III.

4Philip the Handsome.

Text taken from Rawdon Brown, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts (London, 1864) , Vol. 1: #492. The translation and editing within the text is his. Rawdon Brown owned the original commission, but it is not now listed in the Rawdon Brown papers in the British Library.

Cretan Defenses, 1502

Crete, by Piri Re'is

 From July 1500 through August 1502, Bartolomeo Minio was Venetian captain of Crete, which meant that he had primary responsibility for the defense of the island, and was second in command after the Captain General of the Fleet for the defense of the stato da mar.  In June 1502 he was finally able to make a tour of the defenses of Crete, unable to go sooner because of the pressure of the Ottoman war.  This is what has survived of his account of the fortifications, from a draft translation of the book I have coming out with John Melville Jones: The Greek Correspondence of Bartolomeo Minio: Volume 2: Dispacci from Crete, 1500-1502.

* * * * * *

14 July 1502

. . . I left here on the 19th of June to investigate various parts of this island and among other places, I was at Milopotamo¹, a fortification on the shore which is in very bad condition in every respect that can be mentioned, where a number of good people live, but I am ashamed to speak of their condition. Then I went to Rethimno where I stayed two days. I looked over that place carefully and found it to be very weak, both in its walls and its ditches, and in my opinion a small enemy fleet would cause it great fear, and harm because of its weak fortifications. Then it has a large borgo, unwalled, not protected by any ditch nor anything else, one could jump into the terra over it anywhere without getting wet feet.

I left that place and went to Bicorna², which is a fortification outside the mouth of Suda Bay on the left side. A very good fortress in bad condition, but to some extent better than Milopotamo; in truth one could without much expense have an angaria of villani³ in this area to put it in such a condition that it would not be captured by an attack from the sea, and would also be strong enough to withstand a number of shots from bombards. On the right bank of this fortress, not far away, are two streams of most abundant water, and anyone who wants to take water from these streams can be attacked from the castle. 

Then I went to Suda Bay and made the whole circuit and went to the rock of S. Nicolò which is at the mouth, guarded now and then. This island is 300 passa long and about a mile around. This island is about 275 passa from the land of the right side, 850 passa and more from the land on the left side. ⁴ On this island, in the middle, is a church with some other dwellings, and it is flat and open to all, and it is a steep place where many people could stay, I say a large number. If one wanted to block the entrance to Suda with the island, it is necessary to build two fortresses on it, one at the right bank and the other on the left, and build them low facing the sea . . . and nevertheless it would defend from the sea where one would have to put the bombards, because the sirocco and levanta⁵ batter from the sea against all. Then the middle area of the island is a spacious area, like the terraferma. . Behind Suda there is not enough drinking water for a large fleet. 

 

Then I traveled from the end of the bay of Suda to Chania by land, which is a completely flat area and really beautiful territory, about 3 miles, where I stayed two full days. I wanted to see the whole area of Chania and all the borgo, which is completely walled and seems as if it were a strong site, I found the place badly fortified, both the wall of the terra and the borgo, as well as the trenches, as all who have seen the place can well testify. I found Chania, both the terra and the borgo, very well populated and to be land well situated to be able to fortify both the terra and the borgo, . . . it is a place having value for many reasons that they can tell you. 

 

In Chania I found a man who seems to me to have great ability and great authority, by the name of Conte Franzon, who from what I have learned is a provisionato of Your Sublimity, who went everywhere with me both at Suda and the island, then we toured all of Chania, and I also took him to Bicorna. Speaking a good deal together, he seems to have a concern for its good condition and apparently has sent Your Signoria a modello of Chania.⁶ He has been most useful.

Then I went to Chisamo, a fortification very near Cape Spada⁷, a place in worse condition than the others and in a place more dangerous that, by the true God, Most Serene Prince, besides such a place could enter into the hand of the enemy to cause real harm to Your Sublimity's state. It seems to me, speaking always with my customary respect and submission toward you, that seeing this island of so great importance to your state, seeing these places in such a condition, seems to me a great shame. I inform you that I have learned from him [Franzon] that last year at Chania there was the captain of His Majesty, the King of France, at Suda, incognito, and he wanted to see the whole thing and learned such details, saying with his own mouth, “The Signoria of Venice has little care for this great island to have these places so desolate and in such bad condition, which all need to be completely fortified.” I do not enlarge beyond what was said to me. 

 

Because the Most Serene Signoria commands me in your letter that I should look well into the whole matter of Suda and also tell them my feelings and thoughts, I think I have said reasonably discreetly what I think, nor do I want to say anything else about this, but I will send in another letter a detailed account of what I think are the needs, and I will do also with good and loyal advice, and I will draw a map, so that Your Serenity will be able to make the best decision, both for Suda and for the other places . . . I will not refrainfrom telling Your Most Illustrious Signoria these few other words: the area of Sitia is of great importance because there is a good port and it is at a cape on the eastern end.

 Outside the mouth of Suda is a place most suitable for mounting arms named [- - - -⁸] that has an island in front which forms almost a port and is a spacious place. And on this same route which goes from Suda to Chania⁹ one goes by the place of Marathonisi¹⁰ at Chania, of which I have the opinion that there is no more apt place than Suda to be able to load and unload from this island I think you do not know it, because [ - - - - ¹¹] Spinalonga¹² is a spacious port for landing and so too is Sitia. It is true that the island is mountainous and in several places there are a number of quite narrow mountain passes for going from one place to another, but there is no other way to be able to pass. So as to not diminish the truth some people have the opinion that the villani could stand strong at the passes, but in my judgement they can have the opinion that pleases them, but every day one sees through experience that when they hear the name Turks they take to the mountains. But if there were a good number of people, equipped and practiced in such exercise, they could manage a good number of villani with them. I have not thought it inappropriate to say these few words and Your most illustrious Signoria will make your own most wise judgement.

1    Milopotamo is the present Panormas, between Candia and Rethymno. There is nothing to be seen of the fortification now.

2    Bicorno is a small fortification on Suda Bay.

3    Angaria of villani = required labor from paroichi, serfs.

4    275 passa is about 1512 feet, and 850 passa is about 4674 feet.

5    Sirocco: a wind out of the Sahara desert which can reach hurricane force. It leaves a coating of fine red dust in its wake. Levanta, or levanter, is a strong north-east wind often bringing rain.

6   Modello: a wooden model.

7   Chissamo, a fortified town, is the present Kissamos, at the base of the gulf formed by Capes Spada and Gramvousa, capes west of Chania.

8  The name is left blank in the manuscript, but Minio is probably referring to the small island of Souda    

      Nisida towards the mouth of the bay.

9   Suda and Chania are on opposite sides of the neck of a head-shaped peninsula that bends eastward to form

     Suda Bay.

10 Marathonisi ("fennel island"): now Marathi, a small bay and peninsula at the opening of Suda Bay.

11A short space is left in the manuscript but more than a little is missing, as the text switches abruptly from the western  

      end of Crete to the eastern end.

12 Spinalonga: a long peninsula with many inlets and outlets toward the eastern end of Crete, north of Ag. Nikolaos on Mirabella Bay; not as far east as Sitia.

For more of Bartolomeo Minio:

 Bartolomeo Minio

Columbus, Pirate

Peacemakers

Stratioti Pay

The Dividing Line

Diplomatic Expenses

Eustacio and the Franciscans of Nauplion

North side of Panagia, in Nauplion, originally a 15th-century
church, possibly the Franciscan church of S. Maria Val Verde.
Possibly not.

 Eustacio showed up the other night.  In my world it was 1491, and I hadn't seen him since 1483.  He was Bartolomeo Minio's cancellier,* which means that he maintained financial records and files, and wrote necessary documents for Minio's administration. He provided deeds, various legal papers, and letters in Italian and Greek for local clients.  They paid him for each individual service, and these examples from 1515 show what they paid.**

- for a letter, 3 aspri; for a letter within the territory, 2 aspri.

- for a document authenticating manumission of a slave, 1 ducat.

- for a document authenticating ownership of a slave, 3 hyperpera.

- for writing out the payroll for a ship, 2 marcelli; for a grippi, 2 aspri; for a barcha, 4 soldi.

- for an inventory of the deceased's possessions: moveable property 1/2 tornese per hyperper; for real estate, 1 aspro per hundred; for a fair copy on good paper, 2 aspri.

His documents moved into history: he wrote the Greek versions of the two boundary agreement that were accepted by Mehmed and Beyazid. So Eustacio should have been comfortable.  He was a survivor of the siege of Negroponte, but his wife and children were taken as slaves.  He had been able to redeem three daughters who needed dowries, but two daughters were still -- more than ten years later -- in Turkish possession.  

In addition to being Minio's cancellier, in 1475, the provveditor of the Venetian fleet and the Captain General had jointly appointed him as paymaster for the Greek and Albanian stratioti, and the Italian fanti. 

When the provveditor of the Venetian fleet arrived in Nauplion in late January of 1480/81, besides firing stratioti, and beating and humiliating some of the kapetanioi, he fired Eustacio -- two months before his appointment was to end -- and assigned his own cancellier as paymaster. This was a serious matter, because the paymaster took a cut from every salary paid, and Eustachio lost in some instances a good four years' worth of benefits. 

What these paycuts meant in actuality was that Minio thought a stratiote should have received 28 soldi for one pay, six times a year.  If Venice was overdue -- and it always was -- there may have been back pay, too.  From that 28 soldi, the Paymaster General back in Italy got 4 soldi and Eustacio was to get 2. When the provveditor put in his own paymaster, the new paymaster took Eustacio's 2 and then another 2 for himself.  So a stratiote could pay nearly a quarter of his salary for the privilege of having a salary at all.  

Minio says that this system was put into place by Valerio Chiericati during the war of 1463-78, when he was sent out to standardize the pay system across the Venetian territories.  I have never been so close to a storming-the-Bastille-and-Winter-Palace mood as I the day was when I was in Vicenza and saw the Chiericati palazzo, the eventual celebration of grinding down Nauplion -- and many other -- stratioti and fanti and soldati.

Minio began writing to Venice about this outrage to his cancellier, and although it took more than two years, Minio managed to get Eustacio's money repaid and, in fact, the payment was put into the hands of Minio's brother-in-law, galley captain Piero Trevisan, to bring to Nauplion.***

In 1491, two Franciscan friars were sent to Nauplion.  There had been no Latin clergy in Nauplion since 1487, and nothing tells us what was going on -- if anything -- in the little Latin churches.  In an effort to remedy this problem, the Senato Mar formally gave possession of the church, friary, land, and houses of S. Maria Val Verde in Nauplion to the Franciscan Minister of the Province of Greece.****  The Senato also provided the first year's expenses for the friars.

When the friars arrived, they found the house where they were to live a calamitatem, there was no place else suitable, and they had no way of building a new house.  They complained to the Nauplion governor, provveditor, probably Giovanni Nani.

A petition was sent to the Senato -- the petitioners are not identified in the Senato document -- which said that since a staff chaplain, capellan, for the provveditor cost 48 ducats a year, that money could be used to build a house for the friars, and then provide for their necessities.  Also, the provveditor would like two more friars to be sent.  He wanted to be able to have Mass said for him and his staff in his own house in the fortifications on Akro-Nauplion, or in church.  The provveditor and the Nauplion council were in agreement with the petitioners.  The Senate approved the petition on 15 December 1491, which is the document I have.

We have almost no information about Latin churches in Nauplion.  There was a Franciscan convent at Myloi in 1450. (Here, #6.)  There was a S. Anastasio on the plateia and a S. Veneranda outside the walls in 1500, and a S. Niccolo (which could have been a Ag. Nikolaos) on the waterfront in 1480. (The dates are the dates of my documents, and don't suggest anything about when the churches appeared.  The Camoccio map shows a number of churches, all certainly small, but they cannot all be Latin rite.

Nauplion's Panagia has been shown to be a 15th-century church, and it is my own prejudice after living beside it for two years that the street organization in its vicinity derives from its origin as a conventual church, and so Franciscan. {Domenicans were never in Nauplion despite what guidebooks  have claimed.]  

[I would be grateful for information from anyone who has knowledge of the archaeological findings that made it 15th-C -- what I know comes from a tiny sign on the rear of the church.]

 South side, remains of earlier arch.

As the photographs indicate, Panagia has been built and rebuilt to such an extent that the original appearance is speculative, though it surely looked like these little churches from Camoccio, or a very small version of Ag. Pareskevi in Chalkida:

 It has been through periods as a mosque, and about 1700 the Venetians reconfigured the roof to give it the flat ceiling customary at the period.  But we don't know if Panagia was S. Maria Val Verde.

The connection between the friars and Eustacio is that he is identified in the Senato document as writing the Nauplion petition.  The petition is so clearly worked out in detail,with all the possible bases for objection covered, that you can see the careful work of the man Minio wrote about during the early 1480s.  It was Eustacio who allowed me to identify Minio's handwriting: the manuscript of the Minio letters is written in four different hands, closely related. There are occasional glosses in the margin written in one of the hands, and you can see how that works in the printed version of the Minio letters, say on page 101 here. Eustacio's name never appears in the letters, but in the margin of Letter XXVII, the gloss says about my Eustacio, cancellier and collateral. That my Eustacio -- mio Eustacio -- identified Minio's handwriting is not an earth-shaking discovery in many worlds, but it was exciting for me after so many years of living with the letters. After finding this document, he is mio Eustacio, too.

* Bartolomeo Minio's letters about Nauplion between 1479 and 1483 are here.

** These can be found in volume 4 of Sathas, 216-217, here. 

*** Possibly as a result of the Eustacio affair, the Senato declared in 1485 that no cancellier could hold his position under the same governor for more than two years. Obviously, Eustacio had been rehired.

**** S. Marie Vallis Viridis in the document. The mother house was  in Venice, in Cannaregio.  The Franciscan Minister of the Province of Greece who had to handle the matter of sending Franciscans to Nauplion in 1491 was Gratiano of Brescia.

Brigitte Eckert took the photographs.