Nauplion: The Little Churches

This woodcut of Nauplion was published in 1686 with the Venetian reoccupation of Nauplion, and although it was based on an image made at least 150 years earlier it has added new detail. Where its original had a sparsely occupied city, this shows the lower city of Nauplion crowded with houses and churches, some with the familiar little Argolid domes. It nicely illustrates what Bernard Randolph, who published in 1689, said of Nauplion: "the houses stand thick and very full of People." It was the largest city in the Morea then.

In 1696 and 1700, the Venetians listed the churches they found, 26 on one list and 25 on the other. The author from whom I took the lists printed one list in Italian and one in Greek translation: I have used both sets of names and I have marked on the table below with an X the names I can identify on both lists. 

There are 20 names of churches inside the walls of Nauplion and 6 outside.  Most of these churches will have been small family donations, used only on their feastdays.  Several churches have multiple names: these are identifiably Latin churches with the names of the saints to whom the various altars are dedicated.  Another Venetian list says there are 5 Latin churches, but these lists have more than five.  The author from whom I am drawing is not reliable about giving dates, so it is quite likely that some of the churches evolved after the 5-church list.

Some of the churches are reported as owning vines or olive trees: most are listed with a number of houses and residents, which indicates a neighborhood or parish.  These numbers are given below. But more important, we can read a great deal of instability in the view of Nauplion that emerges from the lists.

The lists show a total of 795 houses, with 3,484 residents.  However, a large number counted as residents are oarsmen from the fleet -- kept there for construction work on the walls, armory, gate, and imperial staircase, and we do not know how many ships of the fleet were stationed there at the time.  Each had easily 200 oarsmen, so the influx or departure of so many males from, say 3 or 4 ships would have a large effect on such a small community.  The community of Ag. Sotiros is almost solidly a near-slum of oarsmen and immigrants.

Another example is the case of the Madonna of Vatopedi where the neighborhood is solidly Athenian.  After the Venetians under Morosini took Nauplion in 1686, they went on to Athens where they smashed the Parthenon.  Once it was decided that Athens would be too difficult to hold, as of 1688, they offered to transport to the Morea any Athenians who wanted to go.  Simultaneously, they evicted Moreote Turks from their homes, transported them to the beach at Faleron and abandoned them.  Abruptly Nauplion found itself burdened with Athenian refugees, increasing its population by nearly a third.

It looks as if the better-off moved into the 50-some houses in the emptied-out Turkish neighborhood, took over a church, and settled in.  Many more lived in shacks outside the walls, as you can see with the Anargiri and Ogni Santi, and in the cells at the Metamorphosis.  Two churches are associated with Russians. I have no idea what the Russians were doing in Nauplion at that date.  The conquering army had large contingents of Slavs, Croatians, and Scandinavians: possibly it had Russians, too.

The Beata Virgine Tragella with 2 noblemen's houses intrigues me.  Tragella is a family name so perhaps one of those houses was a Tragella house?  I suspect, because of the grander houses, it is located to the west end of the city, near the Amfitryon Hotel, where we do find most of the larger Venetian houses of the period.  On the other hand, B. V. Tragella has an altar dedicated to S. Antonio, and I find elsewhere that the Franciscans were given  the little mosque on the plateia the (used for a cinema) which they dedicated to S. Antonio.  S. Antonio does not otherwise turn up on the list and it is possible that the Franciscans moved in after the list was made.

I have put in bold lettering the names of the churches I can surely identify with present-day churches.  It will be noticed that there is no Ag. Sophia: the one surviving Byzantine church is now called Ag. Sophia but what its name is on these lists is anyone's guess.  I am unsure as to which church is the present Panagia, a 15th century church completely rebuilt in this period.  The present Ag. Nikolaos was apparently built after the lists and replaced either of two churches called S. Nicolò on the list.  Panagia and Ag. Nikolaos both have typically Italian flat coffered wood ceilings. When Bartolomeo Minio was building the city wall in 1480, he referred more than once to S. Nicolò on the edge of the marsh. The 1713 inscription from the "new" construction is reportedly kept in the museum. The present facade is much later and the bell tower is modern.  There was a second S. Nicolò nearby on the beach at Karathona, built out of profits from the wine trade and probably a 15thC church which may be included here.

An Ag. Spyridon is listed. The present church was built in 1702 by a confraternity,  ἀδελφότητος on the surviving inscription. Because the lists are from 1696 and 1700, there probably was a smaller, older one.  It is odd to think of Naupliots building a church to Ag. Spyridon anyway: he is a Corfiot saint, but a number of Corfiots could have been living there as merchants, or, more likely, recently arrived with the new Venetian occupations.  This is supported by another list that considers 267 of the 278 residents of the Ag. Spyridon district as foreigners. Ag. Spyridon is -- you will not be surprised to learn -- in the heart of a Turkish neighborhood of large houses.

The little Panagitsa, muse for so many bad Nauplion poems, was then known as the Madonna of the Golden Spring at the Lazareto, which means that the backpackers I remember from 30+ years ago were camping out where Nauplion's contagious used to live.

If you consider the number of churches in the old city of Nauplion now, the number of 25-26 is quite remarkable.  I can think of 9, though only 4 are used regularly   -- Panagia, Ag. Nikolaos, Ag. Spyridon, Ag. Giorgios, Ag Sophia (nearly always closed), chapels of the Archangel Michael & Ag. Paraskevi, Panagitsa, and a cave church by the elevator to Akro-Nauplion, always locked shut and whose name I think is Ag. Apostoli -- Ogni Santi on this list.  I have never found it unlocked there is nearly always a burning lamp inside. [Note: none of these churches looked in 1696 like they do in these pictures.]

The sakalarios signed a document with his title -- unfortunately, not with his name --  in 1679, before the Venetians arrived, being one of those responsible for the finances of the Agia Moni,  He is identified as being 'of Nauplion,' not resident in the monastery.

Churches inside the city	vines/olives owned	houses
S. Demetrio [probably outside city]		13	x
S. Zorzi  [probably outside city]	10/24
S. Nicolò a Xerombalo	0/24	47	x
Sta Maria
B. V. (Blessed Virgin, Beata Virgine) Mazzucato (Ματζουκάτου)  [a family of that name here in 1480]	8/0	27	x
S. Zuanne del Sachelario (treasurer) & SS. Adriano, Bernardo, Zorzi	4/32	37
S. Arcangeli /  Ασώματι Αρφανού	0/9	17
S. Salvador
B.V. Tragella & SS. Teodori, Antonio, Michael	0/34	39 & 2 noblemen’s houses	x
Sta. Anastasia	0/20	41	x
B.V. della Comunità & S. Michael
S. Nicolò & S. Trinità	0/20
Madona Ghrisopigi à Lazareto [Panagitsa]			x
S. Spiridon			x
S.i Teodori e la B. V. Pletori (marketplace)		42
Ogni Santi  [the cave church by the elevator to Akro-Nauplion]	0/13	52 & 11 houses of Russians
Redentor e S. Michael	14/0
BV la Madonna di Vatopedi	20/41	53 [mostly Athenians]	x
S. Salvador e BV,  papà Conomo	8/114
Chiesa Catedrale, S. Nicolò, S. Pantaleon [called S. Athanasio in 1500]	0/7	26	x
Αγ. Μαρίνα		12
Παναγία Ορφανή		2
Παναγία και Σωτήρας		50
Σωτήρα και Ασωματος		51 [mostly little houses and shacks of Westerns, Russians, and oarsmen from the fleet]
Παναγία Ορφανή		2
Παναγία της Κουμουνιτάς		25
Αγ. Νικόλαος Παπακόνδη		98
Μεταμόρφωση		Athenians living in the monastic cells
Churches outside the city
S.i Anargiri, S. Zorzi		32 [refugees from Athens]	x
Ogni Santi [possibly this one out where the cemetery is]		46 [immigrants]	x
S. Zorzi στὸ ζευγολατιό Οχμετάνι [a private church on a large landholding]		19 [Albanians]	x
VB del Vurducha Γενέσιο Θεοτόκου του παπά Βουρδούχα	1	12	x
Αγ. Γεώργιος	3	95 [foreigners]
S.a Veneranda [Αγ. Παρασκευή στη σπηλιά?] [the road going out from the main gate was called the strada S.a Veneranda in 1500]	1	1 nun	x

 Of course, further information on any or all of this is most welcome.  

The information here is taken from Ευτυχια Δ. Λιατα, Το Ναυπλιον και η Ενδοχωρα του απο τον 17^ο στον 18^ο αι (Αθηνα, 2002) which analyzes the Venetian statistics.  The Greek names of churches are by Liata: the Venetians gave Greek churches the equivalent Italian names and dis not identify to which confession they belong.

Prayer for the Beloved City

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Aeschylus, the choruses from Eumenides 921-2001 in an unidentified modern Greek translation; in English, Richmond Lattimore with small modifications; original Greek.

ΧΟΡΟΣ

. . . Έτσι προφητεύω και εύχομαι.

Ζωοδότης ο Ήλιος, να δίνει στη γη ν' αναβλύζουν αγαθά και χαρές ατελείωτα.

. . .

Χιονιάς να μη φυσήξει δεντροξηραντής - ευχή και έργο κάνω - ούτε λίβας που τα μάτια τυφλώνει των φυτών να μην περάσει προς τα δω. Κι αρρώστια των καλών καρπών να μην πέσει εδώ ποτέ. Ο Πάνας να βοσκά κοπάδια καλόγεννα και να δοξάζουν τους θεούς τα πλούτη της θείας ετούτης γης.
 . . .

Και τον άγουρο των παλικαριών το χαλασμό ξορκίζω. Μοίρες, σεις που ορίζετε,

- θεές και αδερφές μου - στις κοπέλας τις καλές δώστε να καλοπαντρευτούν,

που μπαίνετε στα σπιτικά και κάθε ώρα βρίσκεται ο ίσκιος σας παντού ο πολυτιμημένος.

. . .

Των συμφορών η Διχόνοια, εγώ η εύχομαι, ποτέ να μην ξεσπάσει στην πόλη. Μήτε εμφύλιο αίμα οργής να πιεί η γη. Και να ζητά για το χυμένο αίμα άλλο αίμα.

Τη χαρά ν' ανταποδίδουν αδερφωμένοι οι πολίτες κι από κοινού ν' αποφασίζουν.

Η συμφωνία σώζει απ' το κακό τους ανθρώπους.
 . . .

Χαίρετε και να ζείτε τις χαρές του πλούτου.

Χαίρετε πολίτες, αγαπημένοι του Δία, αγαπημένοι της αγαπητής Παλλάδας.

Και πάντα να δείχνετε φρόνηση. Όποιους προστατεύει η Παλλάδα, ο Δίας τους νοιάζεται.

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Chorus

So with promise of good

I speak this prayer for them

that the sun's bright magnificence shall break out wave

on wave of all the happiness

life can give, across their land

. . .

Let there blow no wind that wrecks the trees.

I pronounce words of grace.

Nor blaze of heat blind the blossoms of grown plants, nor

cross the circles of its right

place. Let no barren deadly sickness creep and kill.

Flocks fatten. Earth be kind

to them, with double fold of fruit

in time appointed for its yielding. Secret child

of dearth, the hidden wealth, bestow

blessing and surprise of gods.

. . .

Death of manhood cut down

before its prime I forbid:

girls' grace and glory find

men to live life with them.

Grant, you who have the power.

And o, steering spirits of law,

goddesses of destiny,

sisters from my mother, hear;

in all houses implicate,

in all time heavy of hand

on whom your just arrest befalls,

august among goddesses, bestow.

. . .

This my prayer: Civil War

fattening on men's ruin shall

not thunder in our city. Let

not the dry dust that drinks

the black blood of citizens

through passion for revenge

and bloodshed for bloodshed

be given our state to prey upon.

Let them render grace for grace,

Let love be their common will;

let them hate with single heart.

Much wrong in the world thereby is healed.

. . .

Xairete, xairete. High destiny shall be yours

by right. Farewell, citizens

seated near the throne of Zeus,

beloved by the maiden he loves,

civilized as years go by,

sheltered under Athene's wings,

grand in her father's sight.

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ΧΟΡΟΣ 

ἇι τ’ ἐγὼ κατεύχομαι
θεσπίσασα πρευμενῶς
ἐπισσύτους βίου τύχας ὀνησίμους 
γαίας ἐξαμβρῦσαι 
φαιδρὸν ἁλίου σέλας.
. . .
 δενδροπήμων δὲ μὴ πνέοι βλάβα,    
τὰν ἐμὰν χάριν λέγω, 
φλογμοὺς ὀμματοστερεῖς φυτῶν 
τὸ μὴ περᾶν ὅρον τόπων, 
μηδ’ ἄκαρπος αἰα-
νὴς ἐφερπέτω νόσος,
μῆλά τ’ εὐθενοῦντα Πὰν
ξὺν διπλοῖσιν ἐμβρύοις
τρέφοι χρόνωι τεταγμένωι· γόνος 
πλουτόχθων ἑρμαίαν
δαιμόνων δόσιν τίοι.
. . .
 
ἀνδροκμῆτας δ’ ἀώ-     
ρους ἀπεννέπω τύχας·
νεανίδων δ’ ἐπηράτων 
ἀνδροτυχεῖς βιότους δότε, κύρι’ ἔχοντες, 
θεαί τ’, ὦ Μοῖραι
ματροκασιγνῆται,
δαίμονες ὀρθονόμοι,
παντὶ δόμωι μετάκοινοι,
παντὶ χρόνωι δ’ ἐπιβριθεῖς, 
ἐνδίκοις ὁμιλίαις
πάνται τιμιώταται θεῶν.
 . . .
τὰν δ’ ἄπληστον κακῶν     
μήποτ’ ἐν πόλει Στάσιν
τᾶιδ’ ἐπεύχομαι βρέμειν, 
μηδὲ πιοῦσα κόνις μέλαν αἷμα πολιτᾶν 
δι’ ὀργὰν ποινὰς
ἀντιφόνους Ἄτας
ἁρπαλίσαι πόλεως,
χάρματα δ’ ἀντιδιδοῖεν
κοινοφιλεῖ διανοίαι 
καὶ στυγεῖν μιᾶι φρενί·
πολλῶν γὰρ τόδ’ ἐν βροτοῖς ἄκος.
 . . .
 <χαίρετε> χαίρετ’ ἐν αἰσιμίαισι πλούτου,   
ἴκταρ ἥμενοι Διὸς
παρθένου φίλας φίλοι,
σωφρονοῦντες ἐν χρόνωι· 
Παλλάδος δ’ ὑπὸ πτεροῖς
ὄντας ἅζεται πατήρ·

Archons: Demetrios Laskaris Asan of Mouchli

 

This court official of Mistra  is standing in for Demetrios Laskaris Asan.  He was known to the Venetians in Nauplion and Argos as Demetrios Laskaris, and to the Greeks as Demetrios Asan, and it has taken a while to figure out that they were the same person.  Demetrios was the kefali, or governor of Mouchli, one of the Byzantine border fortresses, and he was not one of the glories of Byzantium.

Mouchli is this great bald peak, to the left of the highway from Myloi to Tripolis, just at the point where you begin to come down out of the mountain curves.  It has the same configuration as the peaks of Mistra and Karitena, and it is completely isolated from the mountains that chain down from west of Argos.

Mehmed II did not take Mouchli by blocking an aqueduct, as Kritoboulos claimed, because there is no place from which an aqueduct could have brought water to Mouchli. [Late correction: not Kritoboulos: Chalcocondylos.] There are still springs on the hillside, and they and cisterns would have been adequate for a city that probably never held even 2000 people.  Mehmed took Mouchli by a simple surrender from Demetrios Laskaris Asan because six years earlier he had already pledged his loyalty to Mehmed.  

Little is left of Mouchli now -- this photo shows the most interesting remains, though there are considerable traces of walls made from the local stone and the same color -- but there was never much of Mouchli.  Twenty-five years ago you could still find traces of a fresco on a wall fragment of what is called the Mouchliotissa, a church of the Virgin.

Like Mistra, Mouchli was a new city, founded for its defensive site at the end of a major mountain pass.  It was built by Andronikos Asan, Byzantine governor of the Morea between 1316 and 1322.  He was the son of Tsar Ivan IV of Bulgaria and Eirene Palaiologos, sister of Andronikos II who appointed him to the job.  Asan's daughter Eirene married John VI Kantakouzenos, whose daughter Helena married John V Palaiologos, which makes Andronikos Asan the great-grandfather of Manuel II and Theodoros I Palaiologos. From then until the final surrenders to Mehmed in 1460, Asans married Palaiologoi and held governorships.

It is difficult to think what would have supported the city of Mouchli, other than sheep and goats, and high-level brigandage --  waylaying travelers and merchants from Venetian Argos and Nauplion, raiding the Argolid.  We have evidence for both.  Last spring the apple trees were blooming across the hillside, and there is a nearby town named for pear trees, but fruit cannot have contributed much to the economy.  

Demetrios Laskaris Asan was a difficult person.  Anonymous of Nauplion went to him in 1449 to complain about Mouchli Albanians rustling his animals at the Fair of Ag. Demetrios, and Asan's response was to imprison and torture him for two months, before sending him home.  (Another Asan at Mouchli did this to Nicolò Catello of Nauplion in 1399 when he went to clarify a financial matter.  The Venetian governor had to write to the Despot, Theodoros I, to get him freed.)

The Venetian community of Argos wrote a complaint to the Signoria of Venice about Asan, about what happened at the same Fair of Ag. Demetrios that Anonymous attended:

Also, about the Albanians who live in the territory of Your Excellent Signoria -- [Demetrios Laskaris Asan] orders them about and attacks and beats them, and takes them by force and imprisons them, and judges them in his way and says that they are his and not the Signoria's.

And he makes the Chief of the Albanian catuna pay 1 gold ducat for each hearth, for some two ducats, and for some three according to the families that he has. The said Chief is called the primicerio, and if he doesn't pay immediately, his cow or horse or sheep is taken, and he is put in prison. Because of this they ask the favor that they be protected so that they want to be under Your Signoria rather than under Greeks. La chiefali of Mouchli is named Dimitri Laskaris.

He came to trade at the Fair of S. Francesco at Kiveri, that was last Saturday and that he should favor our journey, for we wanted to go to Venetian territory for the one at Nauplion since I trade with him. And the Sunday of which Dimitri was at the fair we were making our way between Argos and Kiveri. He dashed past the toll post, and we were surrounded, and we were seized and we were unhorsed and were taken with an Albanian from Argos who came with us to bring the horses back.

And he strikes to the ground and inflicted much dishonor on Messer the Rettor [Perigrino Venerio di Bernardo], and has horses given to us, pretends to let us go on our way, and he sends a man to say that we would be held in Mouchli. And because of that Messer the Rettor sends the horseman to see what was going to happen to us, and thus he was held as well. And he has the horse of Messer the Rettor taken -- the poor young man went on foot -- as far as Argos, where he ate, and ordered taken the pigs of the brother of the Albanian whom he had in prison. And he sent the Albanian to take the horse of the priest-teacher and [he said] “Give it to me and then I will give you your pigs!”

Answer. We are writing the Lord Despot Demetrios [Palaiologos at Mistra] in the usual form to satisfy custom that he should see that similar incidents do not occur.

This is only part of a fascinating document, and it gives us a lot of subsidiary information, such as the fact that there was a Franciscan monastery at Kiveri [now Myloi], and that pigs were raised in the territory.  But this makes two serious incidents -- the Anonymous affair, and this last, really a cluster of incidents -- involving Demetrios Laskaris Asan of Mouchli and the Fair of Ag. Demetrios of 1449, and we have no reason to think he was any worse than a number of other archons of the Morea.  People who lament the fall of Byzantium might bear in mind that the archon business was a very large proportion of that civilization for all of its thousand years, in Asia Minor and in Greece.

Demetrios Laskaris Asan was acquired by Mehmed at the surrender of Mouchli in 1460, and then was the intermediary who arranged for the surrender of Demetrios Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea, and Mistra on 29 May. [Late correction: Mouchli was surrendered in 1458, and it was Mathaios Asan of Corinth who dealt with his brother-in-law, Demetrios Palaiologos, on Mistra.] He would have accompanied Mehmed when he returned to Constantinople.  It was Mehmed's practice to keep the nobles of conquered lands close to him so he could keep an eye on them, occasionally putting them in governing positions in other territories with other languages.  But we don't know what happened to him after 29 May 1460. [Correction: after the summer of 1458.]

This last dramatic view shows what Anonymous and the assorted prisoners and merchants saw as they looked to Nauplion beyond the distant mountains, with Mouchli on the right. 

Pavane for a Dead Princess: Part Five

 

This image will represent Cleofe Malatesta.  It is painted on the wall of the throne room in her sister, Paola's palace in Mantua, and its features strongly resemble features in the portraits of her brother, Carlo, and Paola, below.   Compare the nose, chin, supraorbital arch. It is true that I once used another image of the same woman for Maria of Trebizond, but that was because I accepted the pronouncement of an Important Art Historian. We were wrong. 

I have written here on Sophia of Montferrat and how men talked about her face.  This entry is on how men talked about Cleofe's clothes.  Cleofe was an Italian woman of the early Renaissance, and brought with her to Greece manners and dress quite different from what was assumed appropriate for Greek women.  Certainly, her dress made more of her visible than Greek dress would have.  This is the sort of thing Cleofe may have worn on a formal occasion:

While this is what a woman of her class would have been expected to wear at Mistra, except for full-press court occasions.  You can see that the difference would have been noticed:

 

A year and a half before Cleofe arrived in Greece, Theodoros wrote the pope that she would be able to keep her Italian customs, and her religion.  She arrived in the fall of 1420 and the wedding was 19 January 1421.  Then she disappears from written records for six years, except for the information in Paola's account books that she was sending Cleofe an annual gift of Mantuan cheese.   

Six years later, in February 1427, Battista, their sister-in-law, wrote Paola that Cleofe was dressing as a nun.  This was a great shame. A fabric specialist  who worked on fabrics found in a Mistra grave wrote: "Most Byzantine fabrics are dense and relatively thick; it seems that the criteria of lightness and suppleness were not prevalent in Byzantium."

A mutual friend who had visited Cleofe reported that she said, "I have not become a nun because I was anointed with a little oil."  Far from it.  She had now achieved the status she should have had six years earlier, but only now did she tell her family that at the time of the marriage, Theodoros had announced that he would live with her for six years, only, without sex.  

At the end of the six years, before they knew this, there were worried letters from the family to the Pope fearing Theodoros would abandon her.  Then the next month there was the letter about dressing like a nun.  It does look as if, for his own complex reasons which he probably did not understand, Theodoros offered her a real, sexual marriage, in exchange for conversion to Orthodoxy and a change of dress.  A year later, in early 1428, there was a baby girl, and in April 1433 she died in giving birth to a son. 

That would be it, except that at the memorial service, the Mistra men talked about her clothes.  Plethon, who was for inexplicable reasons considered to be a great philosopher, spoke first.  He assured Theodoros that he could believe in the immortality of the soul because horses do not commit suicide. Then he complimented Cleofe's "sober prudence in putting off her leisurely ways and taking up the decorous restraint of our women."  He also commended her fasting. It is difficult for a modern, Western women not to think that he was pleased to think of the erasure of her body.

The next speaker was her doctor, Demetrios Pepagomenos.   He responded to Plethon, speaking obliquely, but disagreeing at length about clothes, and lamented

her youth, in which she had such grace, [and] the beauty, which has not been concealed, as might have been proper, but in a cruel way. . . . The wearing of clothes outside our habits of dress, beyond our temperament and sense of what, so to speak, is naturally required, was a matter of her unmaterial and spiritual nature. [Look at the untidy hair and imperfect posture in the top picture.] . . .  Not that there might ever be perfection more perfect than perfection, or that clothing will change character, but nonetheless, there was some length of time before the end, when, unless she was constrained by official ceremonies, she wore the fashion of those who live monastically (μονάζουσι) so that what was earlier unappreciated by outsiders, was now obvious to all.

In 1955,  a few fragments of the body of a young woman were found in a grave in the palace chapel of Mistra.  Among them were bits of fabrics from two gowns, with enough stitching in place to make the style of dress clear.  The outer gown was of a silk Italian brocade with a top styled like this: 

This V-necked gown was worn over a sheer silk gown very like the gown the Cleofe-stand-in  is wearing here.  The fabric expert noted how very soft and light these tomb fabrics were. 

The speaker after Pepagomenos was Nikeforas Cheilas.  He blasted Plethon's ego and then accused Pepagomenos of killing his patient.  He went on to describe Cleofe's death as being like "like the falling and shattering of a precious crystal." Going beyond clothing, he said:

Gone is the shrine of all virtues and graces, the most holy queen, the rainbow shining brilliantly in the beauty of her body, flashing out more intensely than any statue or image . . . [she] enjoyed a sort of splendor and radiance . . .

The Palace at Mistra

 
This is a thirty-five-year-old picture of the palace complex at Mistra, back when visitors could actually go inside and see how it worked.  The bureaucrats and the archaeological wizards have seen fit -- using the excuse of needing to protect the deteriorating walls, and they did need protection -- to "restore" it, giving us a series of barricaded chancroid boxes that look like this:

The walls are preserved, but no one will ever get in there again to explore, no imagination will be permitted its freedom.  To get in, you will need to be invited to a conference. Improvements have meant classism and investigation only with permission. 

In the 1970s and 1980s, before I knew anything about the Palaiologoi and little about the Franks in the Morea, it was possible to go through the sequence of palace buildings (there were few guards in those days, and those mostly sympathetic) begun in 1261 by William Villhardouin. (It is his palace that you see as yet unrestored on the right.).  Going left from the Villehardouin building, there was the complex built by the Kantakouzenoi with a chapel upstairs -- bits of frescos remaining -- and a magnificent loggia looking out over the valley of the Eurotas.  From there you could work your way around into the third, great wing built under the Palaiologoi.  Or you could enter it properly, under the aegis of a guard, from the courtyard. 
 
That was a wonderful room, taking up a whole floor of the wing, with eight chimneys for heating paired down one wall, and high round windows through which you could see the snow on Taygetos or -- as I did on one occasion -- the moon.  In the center of the long wall facing the plateia was built a throne.   

Archaeologists found graffiti in there from later periods, like these that combine the 17th century with the neolithic. 

This third wing was constructed -- according to the guidebooks and archaeological statements -- between 1400 and 1460.  That is manifestly silly dating, and you can knock 14 years off immediately, as Theodoros I was not in Mistra in 1400, and he was sick between 1402 and his death in 1407.  And you can bet Demetrios wasn't building any palace after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, what with the various revolts, and Ottoman incursions, and wars with his brother. Nor did Demetrios build this palace between becoming Despot in 1449 and the Fall in 1453, for a reason that will become  clear below.

Constantine didn't build anything between 1443 and going to Constantinople in 1449 or the hagiographers would have told us.  He couldn't afford it, and he was focused on making the Morea a coherent political entity. Any money he had was used for strengthening defenses. Further, he was a realist and, had a throne room been suggested to him, he would have responded that there would very soon be no one left to sit on a throne.

Theodoros didn't build any palace between his accession in 1407 at the age of 10, and 1423, what with being quite young, the episode of getting the wall built at the Isthmus, an archon revolt, various small wars, a major Ottoman incursion, and getting married.  He didn't build a palace between 1436 and leaving Mistra in 1443, because he was focused on being named heir to the imperial throne, which no one but an idiot could have pursued at that point.  (See this entry about Theodoros.)

So the time when the palace wing must have been built was between 1423 and 1436, and it can be narrowed down more. Cleofe died in 1433, so he wasn't building after that, and we have evidence that he was planning his venture to Constantinople in 1436.  He wasn't building between 1423 and 1429 because he was dickering around about taking monastic vows, and discovering sex and falling in love with his wife and becoming a father and watching his brothers do more wars.  

This leaves us 1429-1433, the "glory days" of the Despotate of Mistra, the last years before losses and splitting changed the whole nature of the Morea. That was the period in which Theodoros felt triumphant -- and could afford the construction.  A great deal of loot had been gained with the sea battle of the Sporades, even if he did not obtain percentages of the settlements with Carlo Tocco and the Principality and the surrender of Patras.  And he had received a very large dowry from the Malatesti.

1929 was also the year Cleofe's father, Malatesta Malatesti, Lord of Pesaro, and her brother-in-law, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, Lord of Mantua, came out to [correction] negotiated with Theodoros as representatives of the Venetian government to settle matters of Despotate incursions into Venetian territory. Malatesta owned a house in Venice.

 Architect Anastasios Orlandos who began the excavations and restorations at Mistra drew this sketch of the front of the palace wing as he found it.  It is essentially what you see in the first photograph above.  Here is his drawing of a restored building, which is probably fairly close to what was once there:

This is why Demetrios didn't build the palace. It is Italian. Like the poem Theodoros wrote for Cleofe which is assumed Byzantine because it is in Greek, but which is actually an Italian poem.  Demetrios was anti-West, though he had been to Venice, twice, which Theodoros hadn't. (And, yes, there are Byzantine similarities, but Byzantine and Italian both came out of the Roman, and they had been in dialogue for 1100 years.)  

If you compare the palazzo of the Venetian doges with the palace of Mistra, and if  you allow for less skilled builders, different materials, and less public financing and will, you have very similar buildings. I have never seen these images juxtaposed before and I can only assume it is because either (1) no one who has seen the palazzo has seen Mistra, and vice versa, or (2) an unwillingness to admit that the last great production of Byzantium wasn't Byzantine. 

It is a provincial building, much smaller than the palazzo, but compare the programs. There is the same sequence moving up from the ground of large arches, then arches along a balcony, arched windows with late Gothic ornamentation (some still in situ at Mistra) on a throne room, and a top row of round windows.  The numbers of windows and arches differ, but there is also a central imperial "signifier" -- the throne alcove on the Mistra facade where Orlandos has intuited a double-headed eagle, and a balcony for appearances on the Palazzo of Venice.

There is also a certain similarity -- because of the period and because it is Italian -- with the palace of Cleofe's sister in Mantua, but hers was built 100 years earlier.

It is striking that with all the mounds of paper and parchment exhausted by the Mistra writers, there is never a mention of the palace construction, beyond a remotely possible oblique mention by Bessarion that Cleofe had been a generous patron. All imperial ladies were generous patrons.  This tells us nothing.  However, all the Malatesti were enthusiastic builders and specifically patrons of architects.  Cleofe's brother rebuilt the cathedral at Patras, and apparently some of the palace at Patras.  Her father had much to do with architectural enhancements in Pesaro.  Her sister Paola built a church and convent and palace additions in Mantua and a palace outside Mantua.  So what with one thing and another, it is quite possible that Malatesta "dei Sonetti" Malatesti  arranged for master builders and stone cutters to come over and help build the throne room wing for Theodoros.*
The monodies for Cleofe make very clear how dependent Theodoros was on her for decisions about everything -- such as building this wing of the palace.  She had extracted him from the bullying of his advisors and made him feel like a man.  He ruled the whole (nearly) united Morea, and he was in an emotional and financial position to act like a real ruler. It would be quite in keeping with what we know of his psychological makeup for him to model his palace on his idea of what a real palace should be.  Venice was at her peak in the 20s, and he knew the Eastern Empire was on the skids, not to mention what he must have heard about the poor condition of John's palace in Constantinople.

This throne room whose high round windows look out at the snows of Taygetos is unique in its arrangements for the throne is in the center of one of the long sides of the hall, while benches run around the whole perimeter of the room. I cannot find any possible contemporary Greek or Italian prototype (though I would be very glad to know of one), but possibilities come to mind. For one, a number of ancient bouleteria were constructed with a single line of equitable seating around the perimeter, though none so large, and none of these was visible in the 15th century. For another, the philosopher Plethon was deeply convinced of the superiority of the ancient Spartans and their equality under that system, and it is just possible that he convinced Theodoros to set an example in that regard in the throne room.   I like to think that Plethon had manuscripts, lost to us, that mention seating of this sort: unknown manuscripts are a great comfort to historians and art historians.

[Late note: forget the comments about bouleteria.  I have now learned this speculation is quite irrelevant and that there are other reasons for the seating arrangement.]

The guidebook says this throne room had frescos, and since there is absolutely no information on these unknown frescos, they may be recreated along with the unknown manuscripts. A hundred and more years before this throne room, the castles of Geraki and Thebes had frescos of Joshua taking the land of Canaan, and of the crusaders taking Palestine-- the same thing, really, if you think about it. The gatehouse of the castle at Nauplion had a series of saints commemorating a treaty. There is a reference I have lost about fine frescos in the castle in Patras.  [Late correction: I found my reference.  The frescos in Patras related the Fall of Troy. Also, the bishop's palace in Coron had extensive frescos of Troy.] But there is no other information about secular frescos in Greece.

If my dating is correct, a military victory can be assumed as one theme, and because they were all such self-conscious intellectuals it was probably Troy. They may have put to work the fresco painters who were just finishing up on the Pantanassa, or Malatesta or the Gonzagas may have sent painters from home.  Paola couldn't send Pisanello because he was frescoing the Gonzaga throne room at the time, but if her husband had mentioned that to Theodoros, of course Theodoros would have wanted his own throne room frescos. In fact, since Gianfrancesco and Paola started a workshop for the production of tapestries, he may have brought sent one or more to Cleofe and Theodoros.

There may also have been military saints painted as portraits of the victorious brothers.  Because Plethon was much focused on Plato, and because of Plato's Republic and proximity to the site, equally focused on Lykourgos, there were possibly portraits of Plato and Lykourgos, probably based on the statues remaining in Sparta that they identified as Plato and Lykourgos.  Missing statues are almost as assuring as missing manuscripts.

There is one other aspect of this wing to which I would call attention, and that is an area behind it (the throne room wing is to the right of this photo) that has arched constructions on three sides.  I was refused permission to go into this area last year, and was given two reasons: (1) it might be dangerous, and (2) the archaeological service did not have the authority to give me permission.  So from what I could see standing at the rope, some of the arches have been filled in, and clearly the constructions have had various uses.  But I believe there was there, once, an enclosed garden with arched walkways on one side -- possibly on more than one side but this photo is what I could see in person.


It is possible that the Orlandos sketches are questionable.  Certainly I have seen nothing from the Archaeological Service -- or anyone else -- to replace them, and beyond the publication in 2000 of the findings from the 1955 discovery of a Mistra burial (forty-five years!  What was going on there?) I have been able to find no substantive new archaeological information since I first saw Mistra on Holy Saturday of 1977.  There have been shiny overpriced books on frescos, and there is an over-determined publication that informs us about the occasional well, olive press, defense angle, and buttons, mostly illustrated with images from somewhere else, but when I was looking for publications on Mistra last year in Athens, the only thing I found I did not already have was a collection of papers from a Plethon conference.

* * * * *

An additional comment, two weeks later: I discover that the comparison of the throne room wing of the palace has been compared to the Palazzo in Venice.  Jordan Demakopoulos,  Ta Spitia tou Rethemnou (Athens, 2001), 21-22, superimposes the floor plans of the throne rooms to demonstrate that the Mistra space is less than a quarter of the Venetian.  He would date it between 1408 and 1416, and have it built by Manuel II.  I think this dating impossible to justify.
  
[LATE NOTE: For more on the architecture of the palace, go here.]
* A future blog will discuss the lack of technically-trained workmen in the Morea.