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.

Stratioti, numbers, horses

Chesepritri* off the coast of Candia, south of Tolo. 
Mid-16th C, redrawn 18th C.

From the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, identified as Poros.

What Albanian word would the French have heard as Chesepritri?  

In January I wrote an entry about how the number 6000 became the definitive number whenever the troop strength of the Morea was estimated.  This works very well, if you take some simplistic calculations.  Sphrantzes said that there were 30,000 Albanians.  Assume half were males, 15,000.  Evidence from various population groups in medieval and pre-modern Greece suggests that from 37-54% were under the age of 14, or 5550-8100.  That  is a very wide range, from 9850 down to 6900 adult males, and if you consider the ones too old or too injured to fight, or those needed to keep an eye on the settlements and herds, 6000 is quite reasonable.

There is one other estimate of stratioti numbers in the Morea to consider.

Chesepritri is the green island, farther down the coast than this suggests. 

The blue is Ropolı/Romvi, the red Daskalo in the bay off Tolo.

Nauplion upside-down. Piri Re'is, 1574 edition of 1520s map. 
Piri Re'is's islands should be rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

In 1465, Jacopo Barbarigo (in charge of Venetian forces in the Venetian-Ottoman war in the Morea) said that the territories of Methoni and Koroni could only support about 150 horses each -- he was having a difficult time getting feed for the stratioti's horses, and many had starved to death.  Although he was stationed in upper Mani, he had to keep most of his forces up in Nauplion territory.

He said he had a total of 1500 stratioti, in addition to the Italian troops. He estimated that there were between 2000 and 3000 stratioti fighting with the Ottoman troops. This would be a total count of 3500-4500 stratioti in the Morea.  What happened to the other 1500-2500?

Στὸ βουνὸ would be my guess, assuming there had been about 6000 earlier.  The Ottomans are only recorded as having one battle in the field with stratioti, and that was in 1423.  Barbarigo gives accounts of one side coming upon the other en route, or an occasional ambush, but all other accounts concern sieges and raiding the countryside.  Stratioti, with horses, did not think much of sieges, from either side.

 Chesepritri more accurately located by GoogleMaps,
triangular plain of Canda right, Nauplion upper left.  

In the Nauplion area, the stratioti had been given the land at Aria and Candia, in the flat triangular plain south-east of the coastal mountains and the narrow road past the bay of Drepanon. (The area produces artichokes today.)  In theory, and following the Byzantine system, stratioti had land on which to support themselves and their families, and otherwise they were paid in loot.  In practice, as Minio found in the summer of 1480, stratioti could not collect their harvest and then pay their harvest taxes, if they had to be armed and on full alert for an Ottoman attack just at harvest time.  Or, as Barbarigo kept trying to explain to Venice, stratioti could not feed themselves if they had been away from home for three years and were always on the move. (For more on stratioti pay, here.)  

This gets us to Chesepritri, the large island in the bay between Tolo and Candia.  The French map emphasizes pastures which are difficult to have confidence in looking at the aerial map of the island.  I do not know how many farm plots and how many horses the plain of Candia could maintain.  This site on horses suggests 1 1/2 acres of good pasture land -- 6 stremmata -- dung-free, per horse.  So I suspect that Chesepritri's pastures provided a home for some of the stratioti's horses, probably the mares and foals, as the others would at times be needed immediately.

Chesepritri itself, showing that the 16th-C map was not too far off.  

Modern houses in just about the same locations, some pasture areas.

* Thanks for the Chesepritri map to Pavlos Plessas, himself from a stratioti family known at the time the original map was made, the Blessi.

Stratioti Faces

Soldiers in the Panagia, at Skafi-Prodromi, Crete.
John Pagomenos, 1347.

When Piero Brunoro of San Vidal died in Negroponte in 1461, his company of 42 chavalli and 500 fanti had to be dispersed. Some were merged into other companies, some were discharged. The records of the fanti and stratioti discharged -- 176 of them, a few noted as morto or fuzì -- give a remarkable sense of the international quality of these military companies and, more important, an impression of what these men looked like. They come from all over Italy, Greece and the islands, the Balkans, and across Europe. The injuries and scars are striking, and the descriptions, overall, reflect difficult lives.  


 - Batista da Padoa, de Antonio; short, black eyes, pale, broken nose, scar on right temple.
- Rugier de Burgos, de Diego; ruddy complexion, tall, smallpox scars, 38.
- Zuan de Petra Santa, de Nicollo; young, pale grey eyes, scar between eyebrows.
- Piero del’Arta, de Nicollo; 34, short, mole under the ear; caporal.
- Stefano de Bosnia, de Zorzi; 32; black eyes; wart under right eye.
- Zuan de Belgrado, de Mirislan; blond, pale grey eyes; scar under left eye; 30.
- Zan da Modon, condan * Zorzi; young; short; thin; little beard; scar on right side under lower lip.
- Cazavillan da Zara, condam Lucha; 34; thin; red; scar on right forehead.
- Andrea dele Spezie, di Bertino; scars around eyebrows over nose; servant of Piero Venier.
- Stefano de Narenta, de Zorzi; pale; thin; short; black eyes; servant of Marioto.
- Nicollo da Corfù, de Piero; young, smallpox scars; brown hair; scar on forehead; servant of Greguol da Padua.
- Anton da Rodi, de Marcho; young; brown hair; black eyes; scar on right hand; servant of Zan da Chiarenza
- Zuan de Salonikchi, condan Xeno; 18; brown hair; pale grey eyes; hand covered with scars; servant of Piero da Vinexia.
- Piero Frezer de Napoli di Romania, condan Marco; 36; thin; scar in middle of forehead.

Two entries in the original spelling from the list above:
 - Piero del'Arta, de Nicollo; anni 34; basso; ja. mora soto l'arechia; caporal.
 - Rugier de Burgos, di Diego; rosso, longo, varoloso; anni 38.

The condotta for a band of 31 Albanians included with these does not give descriptions, and is much less carefully detailed, but it lets us know that the band under a capo of stratioti implied the men of the catuna under his authority. A condotta was written for a certain number of men, and if some were hired, others had to be discharged, as this shows:

- Gini Canessi, capo

- Musachi Canessi, his son

- Georgi Canessi, his son

- Dimitri Canessi, enrolled in place of Martino Marcho (discharged).

- Georgi Zanrandino, entolled in place of Laxaro Marcho (discharged).

- Dimitri Marcho (dead)

- Gini Marcho (dead)

Thirty-one men are listed in Gini Canessi's company. They remained in Negroponte for nearly nine years. Twenty-six of Gini Canessi's relatives were killed in Negroponte's defense. The next year he was at Nauplion, leading a band of 25, continuing the war. He was to have a provision of 5 ducats a month (which meant 50 a year, quite decent if actually paid) and was given a present of 25 lire, about 10 ducats.  


* condam = quondam = "son of the late" . . ..

This material is taken from C. Capizzi, "Un documento ineditor sulla guarnigione veneziana di Negroponte," Rivista di Studi Byzantini e Neoellenici 12-13 (1975-1976) 35-108.

More Palaiologues

The Palaiologos 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 as the initials of the imperial motto:
Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων  or Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλεῦσι ),
"King of Kings, Ruling over Rulers."*   

  

My colleague 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 a John Palaiologos who was Constantine's governor of Mani.  ( Cyriaco wrote the name Iωannum Palaeologum 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 Fatma chatún, 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-ruled Vallachia in and was able to push them back. John-Zuanne-1 apparently 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.

Stratioti Pay

 

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

Peacemakers

 

One of the galleries at Tiryns, Minio's Castellazo.

On 9 October 1480, the Greek kapetanios Krokondelos Kladas led a company of stratioti out of Koroni in a private war against the Turks in Mani. He carried a Venetian banner, to give the impression that he had serious backing, and he acquired Greek, Albanian, and Italian supporters as he went. Mehmed II wrote Venice that he knew they had nothing to do with it and sent two different military expeditions to bring Kladas down and punish his accomplices.

On 15 December, Captain-General Morosini of the Venetian fleet reviewed the troops in Nauplion -- he had already done this in Methoni and Koroni -- and fired most of the Greek and Albanian stratioti or reduced their ranks, without their back pay. In peacetime Venice had no need for so many troops. When they protested, he demoted some and had others beaten. One of the leading Albanian kapetanioi, Thodaros Bua, stormed out with some 60 followers. They attacked Turks farming outside Argos, killed three, and went south to join Kladas. (See Letter 23.)

Ottoman reprisals were terrific, towns were burned, hostages taken, a few prisoners sent to Constantinople where they were cut to pieces. The impression from the documents is that it was not those responsible who received the brunt of the punishment. Kladas and Bua fought over control, Bua pulled out. Avoiding the dragnets across the Mani, many of the rebels made their way toward the borders of Koroni and Nauplion territory and started operating as bandits. Nauplion's provveditore, Bartolomeo Minio, banned the bandits from entering Nauplion territory and prohibited the sale of their goods. Nicolò Navagero, did the same for Koroni territory. This was their only defense when they could not lay hands on the guilty.

In early March, Bua got in touch with his cousin, Ismail Pasha, voivode of Karitena (who had taken troops across Mani) and asked for pardon. On the 12th Ismail wrote Navagero, provveditore of Koroni, proposing that both sides grant mutual amnesty -- he knew Navagero well after spending three weeks with him the previous fall in negotiating the territorial boundaries, but Navagero replied that he was unable to take such an action. Bua, taking pardon for granted, went into Monemvasia where he was immediately recognized and jailed.

In April, Kladas abandoned his followers, perhaps a day before certain capture near Porto Quaglio, sailing away on a ship belonging to the King of Naples on which there was someone he knew. For nearly a year, what was left of the revolt remained in a limbo, with some of the rebels hiding in the mountains, some looting and attacking Turks.

In January of 1481/82, Ahmed Beg, the new Ottoman governor or sancakbeg, arrived in the Morea. On 13 February, he -- with 300 horsemen and his personal staff -- met Bartolomeo Minio -- with 500 horsemen, 200 foot, and half of Nauplion -- at Castellazo. Then the two of them, each with five attendants, withdrew to talk. After issues of mutual interest had been discussed, and much good will exchanged, Ahmed Beg took one of the voivodes as a translator, Minio took his secretary and his translator, and the five of them talked privately.

I chose the picture above of one of the galleries at Tiryns, as it seems a most likely place for them to have talked. It offers shelter from the February chill, and privacy.

Ahmed Beg said that he wanted to put the matter of the revolt to rest. One of his voivodes who was related to the Busichi clan, and Ismail Pasha, had been working on it (or maybe the voivode and Ismail were the same person), and he asked Minio if he would share in a joint pardon.

Minio said that he himself did not have the authority to pardon rebels against the Signoria, people who had violated their peace agreement with the Ottomans. Ahmed urged him again, saying that if he -- the offended party -- was willing to forgive them and Venice was not, it could be taken that they were willing for the rebels to continue. Minio saw his point and said that he would write to the Signoria.

It was agreed that, until they had the Signoria’s response, the rebels were to withdraw and remain quiet. The voivodes and some of the kapetanioi said they would speak with their rebel relatives and asked for three days to get an answer. By the end of the three days, the kapetanioi brought word that Mexa Busichi, Elia Sagan, and Canessi Climendi, the rebel leaders, were willing to accept that.

So Minio sent his secretary with two Nauplion citizens with the kapetanioi to meet the rebels and record their oaths to remain at peace. Minio wrote the sancakbeg about this, and received from him a pardon and safe-conduct for the rebels. 

Minio urged the pardon on the Signoria, pointing out all over again that the offended side had already given a pardon. Further, this was a matter of 77 men, all of them first-rate men with good horses that the Signoria could ill-afford to lose. He was taking a great risk: had his proposal been resented in Venice, he could have lost any future position and could have been hit with enormous fines. Then Minio wrote something else, something he had not written the Signoria before because loyalty to a senior officer was such a supreme Venetian value. Minio explained what had happened to prompt the Nauplion revolt:

The Magnificent Captain General, held a review . . . through the bad information given for their advantage by those who were close to his Magnificence, . . . many of the old and competent stratioti have been rejected and their appointments annulled, and other useless ones taken on. Mexa Busichi, a competent man, and personally more valuable than his other Busichi brethren . . . was downgraded and listed as a simple stratioto. . . . Elia Sagan, who was a kapetanios of the stratioti, a provisionato, and one of the old stratioti of this territory . . . and his brother who was also a kapetanios and provisionato and others of his family have died in Your Lordship's service . . . was not only discharged . . . by the aforesaid Misier Hieronimo, but was also beaten.

He said a great deal more than this. (See Letter 72) Minio’s sense of unfairness and his strong loyalty to ’his’ stratioti won him enormous loyalty in return. His arguments convinced the Signoria, and within six weeks the first pardons -- seventeen -- were issued. It took several months to get it all settled, and the Busichi had to be pardoned for assorted homicides as well, but it was done, and then Venice offered them all jobs fighting in the Ferrara war. How they were seen in Italy is described here .

In fact, the stratioti were so contemptuous of the leadership they got in Italy that they refused to fight if not assigned a leader of their own choice.  They were given Minio. The sequel to this story, and the Ferrara war, will be told in a few weeks.

Minio’s letters are dowloadable here.

The Greek Correspondence of Bartolomeo Minio:
Volume 1, Dispacci from Nauplion, 1479-1483.

Diana Gilliland Wright & John Melville Jones

Unipress: Padua, 2008.