Determining the Dividing Line: 1480 & 1482

 

Aerial view of the (modern) Venetian Argolid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read about the boundary commissions in more detail here.  

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

"the valor of our stratioti"

 Sketch of a Turk, Gentile Bellini, 1480.

A couple of years after Minio arranged for pardons for the stratioti who participated in the Kladas affair, Giovanni Dario was in Turkey representing the signoria of Venice at the court of Beyazid II. What happened at that point with the stratioti is best conveyed in Dario's own words:

 * * * * * *

 Yesterday a slave from the Porte arrived here unexpectedly who brought letters from the Most Illustrious Sultan . . . The third letter, which was addressed to me alone, contained complaints by the Ottoman governor of the Morea about the many excesses perpetrated in the Morea by many stratioti and other subjects of Your Excellency, both from Nauplion as well as from your other places in the Morea, and he sent me a good many papers in which are -- all annotated in order -- 56 offenses, including, among others, the insult and rebellion made in the Mani by Kladas and some of the stratioti from Nauplion in time past.

. . . at present there have returned to the territory of Your Excellency some of those banned for the aforementioned excesses -- that was the reason the former governor of the Morea . . . requested and constrained the magnificent messier Bartolomeo Minio . . . that he would pardon them and received them back into favor, because the said governor (who was the more offended and more powerful because of ending the great scandal) had done the same and our administrator was reluctant to consent, and did something that he should not according to our laws . . . This seems an incurable disease and a scandal between us.

* * * * * *

Then two days later Dario had a meeting with the Lords Pasha.  They informed Dario that they knew Venice was not at fault, but the administration of Nauplion and the citizens were sharing the stratioti loot, and had in their houses the robes, the turbans, and swords, and other possessions of the murdered Turks.  In the year since the end of Minio's term, all his restrictions and concern for law and peaceful relations with the Ottomans had been abandoned. The Ottoman governor had been ordered to 'cut to pieces' any Venetian stratioti found in the Morea, and not to accept anyone who was not a merchant or 'original citizen' of the country.  Dario told the Lords Pasha that Venice would have no problem with that. They told him that Piero Busichi was the commander of the thieves, and had become rich from the system.

Piero Busichi was well-known to the Signoria.  Piero was one of four Busichi who had to have special pardons for all their homicides so that they and their troops could be drafted for the Ferrara war.  He first appeared in Venetian records in 1473 when he was hired for 50 ducats a year and a robe worth 100, plus pay for his company of 25 stratioti.  When Ismail Pasha and Minio were trying to settle the Kladas revolt, he acted as go-between.  Then the next year, at the time of the Ferrara draft, he had led a rebellion against Minio for more pay.  He got it.  Five hundred and forty stratioti had enlisted under him for Ferrara and they were so successful that he was given a bonus of 8 ducats for each of them, in addition to the 12 he had already been given.  

As soon as Dario's letter reached Venice orders were given for the arrest of the Venetian governor of Nauplion and a replacement was sent.  Dario wrote again.   

 * * * * * *

There was recently brought to the Porte, in a cart, a timariot named Ciri Pasha, robbed and beaten by our stratioti just when he was leaving the Morea, as he said, and 100 ducats taken, and clothes and silk cloth, and other possessions, and the pashas ordered that he should be sent to my house immediately so I might see for myself the valor of our stratioti.   

I responded to those who brought him that I deeply regretted the occurrence, which I did not know about, but I wanted to be informed by them about the persons, so that they could be identified, and would write to Nauplion, and if the malefactors are there, they would settle the accounts and bring them to justice.  They replied that the pasha said that the families of the malefactors were in Nauplion, enjoying his goods and those of others, and also that they aided their husbands to break the law and worse . . .  I, on my part, have written the rettor of Nauplion, and given him information about the names of the malefactors and the stolen items, according to the man who was beaten, and I am informing your Excellency.  

* * * * * *

Dario wrote again, that he had heard from the governor of Nauplion, and from the pashas, that the matter of Piero Busichi had been settled, and that the Ottomans were satisfied with the results. This is all we know about this affair, but occasional Venetian records indicate that the stratioti continued to demonstrate their valor.

Nauplion: The Siege of 1500

In the 15th century, July and August were the times for massacres -- Negroponte on 12 July 1471, Otranto on 14 August 1480, Modon on 9 August 1500. Under Ottoman law, a city that did not surrender was up for grabs.  Modon tried to surrender, but the white flag was not seen in the turmoil.  And massacres happened in late summer, because the Ottoman armies could not leave home before mid-May because of the length time needed to send messengers across the expanses of the empire and for men to get to the meeting points.  There is an adequate account of the war here.

On this date in August 1500, Nauplion was put under Ottoman siege.  Expecting a siege, Venice and Crete had sent men and supplies, but most support had to be sent to Modon and much of the available shipping was involved in that disaster. It is difficult to work out the sequence of events  now: more difficult in 1500 as reports did not get to Venice until October, being written days after the events they relate, and arriving out of order.

The Sultan, Beyazid, after watching the executions at Modon, accompanied the Ottoman governor of the Morea and 30,000, or 10,000, or 60-70,000 troops -- reports differ -- to Nauplion. They arrived on the 25th or 26th -- reports differ -- and immediately encountered a band of stratioti to whom it was suggested that Nauplion might surrender. Beyazid's tents were set up by the church of Santa Veneranda on the side of Palamidi. [Now Ag. Pareskevi, the church is still there, on private property.]

On the 26th, Ottoman messengers were sent with formal offers of surrender and were turned away. Polo Contarini, governor of Coron which had insisted on surrender against his own wishes, was used as an emissary.  Januli Stathi reported that he was brought up to the gate by three Turks, and then there was this conversation: Contarini said, "Modon is taken, Coron has surrendered, and you, poor fellows, what are you going to do?"  Stathi replied, "We are going to fight for our faith. We have all taken an oath that we will all die rather than surrender."  Contarini, "I will die with you."  A moving account, Stathi's.

Contarini's own account said that he had been dressed up by the Turks, given a gold collar, and promised great things should Nauplion surrender.   He was brought up by ten or fifteen Turks to the walls where a row of crossbowmen trained their sights on him.  Terrified -- swords at his back, arrows at his front -- he called out, "Don't you recognize me?" -- he had formerly been castellan in Nauplion -- "I'm Polo Contarini!"  Some men came out and embraced him.  Making a gesture to negate what he was saying, he said what he was supposed to say about handing over the keys of the city.  While they were making their formal response, he broke away from his guards and darted through the city gate.

Inside Nauplion, he found a great deal of confusion, some arguing for surrender and others arguing against.  There was a good supply of food and water, but not of ammunition. That same day, the governors of Nauplion -- Jacomo de Renier and Alvise Barbarigo -- put him with 19 other men on a small boat called a gondola and sent them off to find the Captain General for more information and instructions.  Gorlin of Ravenna, a commander of foot soldiers, sent a letter with them saying they in Nauplion were all united, soldiers and residents alike, and would live and die to the honor of the Signoria.

Contarini and the boatmen spotted the Ottoman fleet down in the bay, and went ashore at Kyparissia.  They went through the mountains and down to Monemvasia, and then Vatika where the Venetian Captain General was anchored with the Venetian fleet.  Two of them were captured by the Turks, but the rest got through safely. 

Outside the walls of Nauplion, there was frequent skirmishing ["scaramuzava"] between stratioti and Ottomans -- now reported to be 100,000. The stratioti were splendid, at least at the beginning, and were reported riding back and forth with Turkish heads on their short spears.

The Ottoman fleet arrived in the bay on the 28th, and anchored at Kiveri-Myloi, across from Nauplion, where it could take on fresh water.  There was general panic in Nauplion, particularly among the peasants who were unused to city walls and who knew what was happening to their homes and lands. Everyone had heard what happened at Modon. 

To defend against the Ottoman fleet, Renier and Barbarigo had the Venetian galleys unloaded and planks taken to make a great palisade along the marsh [You can see a hint of this if you click on the image below.]  Then five galleys and all the little boats -- all the fishermen's boats -- were sunk around the island fortress and along the harbor to prevent the arriving Ottoman ships from being able to get close. The rest of the boats were burnt. The sailors tented over the plateia with the sails from the galleys.  The Greek and Venetian priests concelebrated a mass on the plateia, and all the men embraced each other in turn, asking forgiveness for any offenses.

The Ottoman fleet left the bay on the 4th, and went to Spetses where it was held for several days by the bora, a N -NE wind.  Then the fleet went to Aigina, and eventually started back to the Dardanelles, with the Venetian fleet in pursuit.

A number of Greeks wanted to go over to the Turks.  The issue was settled when a band of Albanians killed twenty of them and put an end to such talk.  Somehow word of this incident was taken by land across the Morea and then to Corfu, where it was sent on to Venice. Spies were sent from Corfu to get more information about Nauplion but they were captured and killed.  Skirmishing continued, with many reports of Turks "tagliato a pezo." The Turks put a trebuchet on Palamidi, and offered the Manessi and Busichei clans 1000 horses to come over, but they refused.

Meanwhile, Coltrin, was working on the walls.  He reinforced the round tower at the end of the wall that you see below [the inlet had not been dug then] and reinforced the advance wall.  He dug out a cistern for the tower and planned four more, as the autumn rains had begun.  Since boats could now come and go, he sent off an order for 2400 planks, 200 shovels, and other implements for construction. The wall building continued under fire.  Nauplion men and women voluntarily worked day and night, carrying stones and dirt. A German cannonier, Corangian Lanier, arrived from nowhere and was put in charge of the island fortress.

A hundred and twenty-eight men were reported missing -- some known dead, some known to have levanted, some known to have been killed.  There were 551 horses within the walls, many in poor condition, and many more horsemen whose mounts were dead.  There seems to have been a good bit of coming and going, with occasional skirmishes, people going off to find their families, and some joining the Ottoman army.  Not knowing how long the food in storage would have to last, decisions had to be made about how much grain could be spared for the horses.  Gorlin was extremely ill, and was put on a boat to be taken where he could get help.

Then in the early hours of 15 October, the Ottoman army moved out, burning a few houses and leaving mounds of rubble and their dead. A small number of troops were left on the Argos-Nauplion border  -- 4,000 or 10,000 -- to continue the siege. The stratioti continued, as the report said, "to treat them badly," also raiding down in the Morea where they loaded up on loot the Ottomans had had to leave behind.

The withdrawal happened because Beyazid had seen he could do nothing to take Nauplion -- having lost 16,000 men there, or it happened because word had come of a disaster to an Ottoman army in Hungary.  There was extensive evidence of dysentery in the Ottoman camp. Beyazid had gone to Megara.  Or Negroponte.  Or Thessalonike.  Or Constantinople. Bits of news arrived in Venice from all over and no one there was sure what was happening.  What certainly must have happened is that the Ottoman army was short of food.  Without supplies from the fleet, there was no way an army of 10,000 or 100,000 could have kept itself supplied off the countryside.  Further, the Ottoman army normally disbanded in the fall so the men could return home for the winter plowing and sowing.  So an end to the siege might reasonably have been anticipated.

That is pretty much it.  There are no tidy wrap-up reports but there was no massacre in Nauplion in 1500 and very few deaths at all. Barbarigo and Renier saved the city by the simple decision to destroy their boats.  Once the Turkish army had left, there was no produce to bring into the city from the countryside, and no firewood.  People were hungry. Bartolomeo Minio, captain of Crete, sent as much food as he could -- beans, biscuit, some flour, but Crete was stretched thin, having lost many ships and men at Modon, and then having to supply the Venetian fleet.  Nauplion was safe for another 38 years, but it was always under strain as the Turks who occupied the whole Morea, with the exceptions of Monemvasia and Nauplion, put pressure on the boundaries and moved in closer.

The top image is a detail from a 16thC icon  of the Crucifixion. The helmets  and spears are appropriate for 1500 and the Italian soldiers would have had them. The stratioti would have been lucky to have much of anything.  The Camoccio map of Nauplion is the first known, published in 1571 but made before 1540.  It makes clear the advance wall and the Albanian houses between it and the city wall.  The information here comes from Volume 3 of Sanudo's Diarii.

A Most Beautiful Red Parrot

In the summer of 1485, diplomat Giovanni Dario and the Ottoman court had to attend the hunting camp of the Sultan, Beyazid II. The weather was exceptionally hot, everyone had to live in tents, and cold water was unavailable. Dario was seventy-one and could not get neither doctor nor medicine for the pains in his chest. He wanted a taste of wine--impossible in Beyazid's ambit. He craved bed rest, but he was got out of bed to come observe the reception of the Egyptian ambassador. It took all day. The ambassador had brought gifts, a lot of gifts, for the Sultan, who remained invisible. The pashas invited Dario into the shade of their pavilion--they were sitting on carpets on the grass, and they had a stool brought so he would not have to lower his aching, weighty body to the ground. Then the procession of gifts began. 

The first was a great cat as large as a lion, with black spots: it had, he said, a terribilità. Then came six Arabian horses, the first with gilded saddle and trappings, and then three racing camels. "After this came the little presents," he wrote: three parrots in cages, four black eunuch boys, six swords, iron maces, battle axes, helmets, shields, saddles. Behind these came a procession of slaves, each one bearing two bolts of cloth--double weaves, scarlets, silks. All of these gifts were the preface to the Ambassador who advanced wearing green damask embroidered with gold and a cape of sable down to the ground. In July.

The ambassador was allowed fifteen minutes inside the imperial tent, then he was sent out to sit with the pashas and Dario. He directed that a large long scroll be cut open and read. As Dario said, "It was a very long reading." This was followed by a banquet of many dishes served on Chinese porcelain. He particularly liked a serving of vegetables with a lemon sauce. 

That was the first day. The second day Dario was got out of bed again, this time for the reception of the Indian ambassador. He too had brought gifts, the first of them in a chest, and when Dario arrived at the pavilion, the ambassador and the pashas were rummaging in the chest, pulling out handfuls of jewels and passing them around. Dario was handed a dagger in a gold sheath ornamented with twenty-two large rubies, more little rubies, turquoises, and topped with a large pearl. Then the ambassador was allowed his fifteen minutes in the imperial tent. Again there was a procession of gifts--the grounds were full of slaves waiting their turn to march past, it was still very hot, and Dario noted that of all the diplomatic corps present, he was the only one invited to sit in the shade.  

The pashas were making an inventory, and they reported 2600 bales of silk, eighty bales of scarlet cloth, more brocades, and then tray after tray laden with porcelain, followed by horse tails (these were Beyazid's symbol) cane lances, various Indian luxuries, and ending the procession, a single most beautiful red parrot.

 

This parrot, or one like it, came back to Venice with Dario. It appears in Venetian paintings of the period, as in the Carpaccio detail above. What also came back, or the idea of it, or a Venetian painter had seen one in the East, was the great cat with black spots, its terribilità no longer in evidence here in this painting by Mansueti set in a Venetian house decorated like Dario's--this painting of a lonely Turk and his cheetah that has no place to run.

Mouse Castle

Evliya Çelebi learned this story in the Morea in 1668:

Mouse Castle [Pondikókastro] was built by the Venetians on a peninsula at the sea's edge, and would be a prosperous castle, except that in the year 906 [1500], it was conquered by Sultan Beyazid the Saintly, and he is supposed to have left it in ruins after the conquest so that no gathering of infidels might raise an insurrection there. But according to a sound tradition the reason for the ruin is this:

Inside this great city there was a magic charm in the shape of a golden mouse, fashioned by one of the ancient sages and placed on a high column. While the charm existed, there were no mice in the city, but at the time of the conquest, Muslim booty-hunters pulled down the column, tore off the golden mouse that was on it, and took it away. As soon as they did so, the entire city was taken over by mice, and not only could the people there not save their clothes and provisions, but the warrior's horses were all nibbled down into colts by the mice, which ate up their manes and tails, and all the weak old men, long in the tooth, had their hair, beards and mustaches eaten off and were turned into young lads by the mice.

Terrified by the mice, therefore, the entire populace abandoned the city and ran away, so that the whole place fell into ruin. There are still mice as big as cats in the orchards of the city but there is no trace of any of Adam's sons.

Thus it is written . . .

From Evliya's Travels in the Morea © Pierre A. MacKay..