Two stratioti portraits

(Stratiote)

Male profile bust, 1477-1491, V& A, London. 48 x 47 cm.

One of my correspondents, Pavlos Plessas, sent me these remarkable portraits of stratioti. They, and four others, are in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.  The V & A considers the subjects unknown, as is the artist or artists, but I think we can come very close to identifying the stratioti. First, some background.

Twelve more are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  These 18 are from a sequence of at least forty-four panels sold off in 1881/2 from the castle of San Martino Gusnago -- 32 k from Mantua if you are driving. Two panels are in the Cornell Fine Arts Museum in Florida, the rest are -- or were -- in private collections. The latest date for a whereabouts of one that I have been able to find is 1991.

The castle of San Martino Gusnago belonged to, and was built by the condottiero Francesco Secco d' Aragona  who was married to Caterina, daughter of Ludovico III Gonzaga of Mantua. Caterina was the great-granddaughter of Malatesta "dei Sonetti" Malatesta and the granddaughter of Paola Malatesta, sister of Cleofe Malatesta Palaiologina who has been the focus of so many entries here.  Secco and Caterina named their own daughter Paola.

Secco moved in the best circles.  His architect, Luca Fancelli, worked with Leon Battista Alberti.  He had the best employers -- the Duke of Milan, the Marchese of Mantua, the Doge of Venice -- and in 1477 was given the right to use the name and arms of the kingdom of Aragon.  He survived the battle of Fornovo in 1495 at the age of 72 but the next year he was killed by a shot from a crossbow.  

The V &  A dates their panels to 1477-1491 and consider them Secco's responsibility.  In 1491 Secco's properties were confiscated by Francesco II of Mantua because he was negotiating to work for Lorenzo di Medici.  Francesco gave the castle, or palazzo, to Eusebio Malatesta, his Jewish advisor.  The MMA dates their panels to 1500-1515 and considers them Malatesta's.  I don't think anyone has suggested that Secco commissioned some, and that after he was ousted Malatesta continued the series.  Several of the MMA panels have very suggestive Jewish elements.  The panels originally appear to have been in two facing groups on either side of a large beam that divided the ceiling of the hall where they were placed, eleven facing eleven in four rows.  The four central portraits looked straight ahead, while those on either side faced the center.

I identify these two portraits as stratioti, because of the distinctive hats, and the beards.  Greeks wore beards in that period, Italians generally were clean-shaven.  These are the only two beards in the eighteen portraits from the V & A, and the MMA. The stratiote above, in cloth-of-gold, seems to have the rank of a knight of San Marco.  Knights of San Marco were most often non-Venetian.  They were invested by the Doge, and given a gold robe. You can see one in the center of the bridge in Gentile Bellini's Miracle of the True Cross although it is difficult to make out any details of tailoring to compare with this portrait.

In September 1480, Krokodylos Kladas, Theodoros Palaiologos, and Micheli Rallis Drimis were invested as knights. Piero Busichi was also a knight, as were his brothers, Mexi and Dima. Mati Clemendi was a knight. That makes seven knights. There may have been other kapetanioi who were knights, but these are the names we have for the early 1480s.  Possibly more would have been created after the Ferrara War.  I want to be very cautious here, but I doubt that the list of Greek and Albanian knights of San Marco between 1477 and 1491 would be very long.  

The stratiote in the portrait below is wearing red -- we have a number of mentions of Venice giving red cloth to selected kapetanioi.  

( Stratiote)

Male profile bust, 1477-1491, V & A, London. 48 by 47 cm.

Here I am pushing -- and I want to emphasize the almost complete lack of information, or evidence -- but this picture reminds me powerfully of the Pisanello drawing of John VIII in Florence, most particularly the set of the eyes and the shape of the nose.  

John VIII. Pisanello, 1439. 25.8 X 19 cm.

Louvre, Departement des Arts Graphiques, 2478.

The stratiote appears to be a slight man, as we know John and Manuel were. Palaiologoi were kapetanioi for Venice in the period in question, and after. We have no solid proof of the relationships of any of them to John, Constantine, and Theodoros, but my colleague Ersie Burke and I think there is some evidence that allows us to say they were descended from Theodoros I Palaiologos.  Not enough evidence to be absolute, but some.  

I will take this a little further.  I have been struck by the particular striped design on the robe over the red fabric.  It reminds me of Ottoman design, so I asked an Ottoman art historian for his reaction.  He said, "It looks a bit like the wave pattern of the cintamani motif: tiger stripes and leopard dots (last is missing)." (Might the dots, or balls, have been too reminiscent of the Medici to be thought politic -- if it is supposed to indicate Ottoman fabric?)

Theodoros Palaiologos, knighted with Kladas, had -- like Kladas -- given allegiance to Mehmed II in 1460 and had received more lands.  When he came over to the Venetians in 1478 they noted that he had been highly regarded by the pasha of the Morea, and decided to send him and his company to fight in Friuli.  So there is an immediate Palaiologos-Ottoman-stratioti connection.  But not enough proof to identify this portrait.

There is another possible Palaiologos connection. Andreas Palaiologos, Thomas' son and John's nephew, seems to have been with Kladas in an effort to establish Skanderbeg's son in Albania in 1481, under the sponsorship of Ferdinand I of Naples who gave Franceso Secco the arms of Aragon in 1477. And there may have been another Palaiologos or two.

That is all that can be said here about identities -- there are teasingly close links: no solid evidence, no proofs.

If someone is looking for a dissertation topic in art history, I would like to offer these panels.  I will not have time in my life to follow up on the present locations, and images, of the other twenty-four panels, but I suspect that, seen collectively the forty-four would provide much more information about identities. (The only reasonably sure identification that has been made is that of Doge Marco Barbarigo in the MMA set.)  Archival work needs to be done to find the panels listed in private collections.

I hope readers will have more information to contribute.

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.

Eustacio and the Franciscans of Nauplion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 South side, remains of earlier arch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brigitte Eckert took the photographs.

6000

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

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

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

the number of troops in the Morea is 6,000. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * * *

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

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

Translation copyright © Pierre A. MacKay 2012.

"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.

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.

The Mocenigo War: Part One

In 1470, after Nicolò da Canale helped lose Negroponte to Mehmed II, Venice replaced him as Captain General of the Fleet with Pietro Mocenigo.  In 1474, after a series of military and diplomatic successes along the coast of Asia Minio and Cyprus, Venice elected Mocenigo doge.  One of the sopracomiti -- ship commanders -- Coriolano Cippico, a Dalmatian in his 50s, wrote an account of these ventures for Marcantonio Morosini, Venetian ambassador to Burgundy,.  Burgundy was theoretically an ally of Venice in this war that Pius II had got going -- he called it a crusade against the infidel but he died before the ships sailed -- and this document was most likely intended to encourage Burgundian participation and financing by reassuring them about the Venetian leader.

The document is printed in the 7th volume of Konstantine Sathas' invaluable collection of Venetian documents for 15th-century Greece which you can download here. Cippico's description of the stratioti seems to be the basis of the famous description Sanudo gave later.  Cippico writes:

The Venetians, in all the cities of the Morea that are under their dominion, have hired many Albanians on horseback, who are called by the Greek name stratioti.  These with their swift raiding have so wasted the part of the Morea that is under the Turks that is is almost a desert and a solitude.  These people are by nature intensely rapacious, and more apt to raid than to give battle.  They use a shield, sword, and lance; few have breastplates; the others wear a bombazine cuirass as protection against the blows of an enemy.  The most valorous of all are those from Nauplion.

Mocenigo's tactics were exceptional for that time: he took took the stratioti with the fleet, and not in roundships and towed hulks, but on the war galleys, carrying ten horses on each galley.  Depending on how many allies were sailing with him, this allowed him 400 mounted stratioti.  Without heavy, slower ships, he was able to attack with exceptional speed, which was increased by his having the fleet sail to its target by night so the attack could begin dawn.  Cippico describes that over and over in this account.  Mocenigo had certain principles: he would not attack Greek islands held by the Turks, because the residents were Christians, but only sites on the Turkish mainland.

After a brief description of an attack on the mainland opposite Lesbos.  Cippico describes the division of the spoils, a few comments in parentheses:

The stratioti brought the General the heads of their dead enemies, to have a ducat each, as the General had promised them: this has always been their custom.  The General loaded the galleys with the spoils, and came to a deserted island with good landings, between Chios and the mainland, which is now called Panagia.  Here were put all the spoils. Three arbitrators were selected from the sopracomiti, two Venetians and the third a Dalmatian, which is the custom always used in such circumstances.  The arbitrators, according to ancient Venetian custom, gave one tenth of all the spoils to the Captain General. (1/10)  The stratioti for their part kept two-thirds (6/10), and the arbitrators one-third (3/10).  The General had promised them this.  All the prisoners were consigned to the arbitrators: these were sold at auction.  (It appears from various reports in Cippico that slave dealers followed the fleet.)  The money was divided in this way.  First, all the soldiers who had brought in an enemy prisoner were given three ducats.  Then, the sopracomiti were paid for the expense of the stratioti's horses. The rest was divided equally among the galleys.  The galley of the provveditori was given double what was given to the other galleys.  The sopracomiti kept one third, and distributed the rest among the soldiers and oarsmen, according to rank.

The next division of the spoils was made on Delos, where Cippico noted columns, statues, remains of temples, an amphitheater, and a colossus of 15 cubits with the inscription

                                  ΝΑΞΙΟΙ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙ

The people of Naxos to Apollo

The next island episode was on Samos, :

Samos at present is a deserted island and has always been celebrated for its fertility.  Now it is full only of all sorts of animals, an abundance of woodland honey which one can find all around in the forests, and springs of sweet and living water that rise in all parts.  The horsemen and soldiers were disembarked to drill and refresh themselves.  The soldiers and others went hunting and while they were taking various prey, a youth of the Dalmatian nation and language encountered a bear of marvelous size.  The bear avoided his blow, went behind the boy and knocked him to the ground.  The boy, without losing spirit, jammed his fingers into both the bear's eyes and held its head so that it would not lacerate him, long enough for another youth of the same nation to kill the bear from behind with a sword.  On all sides there was a great killing of animals, and the whole army was employed in the hunt.  Several days were spent  in festival, with a great deal to eat and drink.  More than anyone else, the Schiavoni, of whom there were a great many among the oarsmen, sang drinking songs.  After everyone was sated, they boasted about the great deeds they had done, and how they had prospered so successfully against such vile men.

More from Cippico in another entry.

The top image is a detail from a Genoese tapestry of the Battle of Lepanto; the bear is from a medieval bestiary, and is actually licking her cub into shape rather than eating something.

The Capi

 

 Manessis icon, 1546
S. Giorgio dei Greci, Venice,
(probably) Comin Manessis, d. 1565

  

There are very few pictures of named kapetanioi to be found. I have identified, with help from a friend, a total of five -- all of them painted in Italy in Italian style -- and only one is a real portrait, though one other shows a recognizable face. All five of them, in Italy, considered Nauplion as their home town and that is mostly because of the accident of history that let Methoni and Koroni be taken by the Turks in 1500, and let Nauplion stay Venetian for another 40 years.

 Manessis icon, S. Giorgio dei Greci, Venice,
Ioannis Manessis, son of Comin.

  Manessis icon, S. Giorgio dei Greci, Venice,
Giorgios  Manessis, son of Comin.

They never dressed that way in Greece.  In this icon the Greek-Albanian Manessis men have become Italian soldiers. These three shown here as donors of one icon were all capi of stratioti.  Comin may just possibly have been Nicolò or Todoro (d. 1545): the records are confusing. Members of the family were prominent in the Venetian-Ottoman War (1463-1478), and in those years owned land in Mani, in the mountains above Kardamyle.  

During the war, five Manessis capi whom the Venetian command considered homini da conte had to beg for food for their families because they were near starvation, and men in one of the Manessis villages finally made a private peace with the Turks to avoid starvation.  Later they went back to fighting for the Venetians and one of them, Marino, was captured and flayed by the Turks for his treason.  The Venetians felt a strong obligation to families who had risked so much for them, and after the war, made sure they had positions as capi and land for their families near Nauplion.

 

 Stratioto Demetrios Palaiologos, in Venetian dress

Theodoros Palaiologos, father of the man in this picture, was given a fief with a castle at Thermissi, in Nauplion territory, in 1479 (he was aged about 30) in return for leading troops in the Venetian-Ottoman war of 1464-1478. For the next thirty or so years, Theodoros, and Demetrios in turn, when they weren't off fighting somewhere else, were difficult tenants for the Nauplion administration: they ignored the tax requirements, and used their men for private raids into Turkish territory, and their Greek tenants complained to the Venetians about their violence. 

After the peace treaty was signed, Theodoros was rehired to lead a small band of horsemen in Friuli. He was made military governor of Zakynthos in 1485, and married Maria Kantakouzene of Corfù in 1486. He fought for Venice in the terrafirma in 1489-95.  After that, Venice found Theodoros useful as a spy, an interpreter, and a minor diplomat.  His name is remembered in Venice now as one of the men who persuaded the Senato to establish a Greek rite church in Venice. He died in 1532.

The position of capi passed from father to son. Demetrios eventually moved to Venice and became a member of the Greek confraternity there.  He probably died in 1570, shortly after making his will  He identified himself as "da Costantinopoli," probably figuring that with his name, Constantinople would be more advantageous than Nauplion or Zakynthos. Some of the family had escaped from Constantinople in 1453.

The  picture of Demetrios appears at the end of the Gospel of John in a gospel book of the mid-14th century, made in Constantinople.  The text behind his head reads X(ριστο)ῦ τοῦ Θ(εο)ῦ Δημήτριος Παλαιολόγος: the servant of Christ the Lord, Demetrios Palaiologos.  The book is now in the National Library of Russia. The artist, probably Markos Vathas or a member of his workshop,painted a number of Italian-style images in the book.  There are also several imperial-type images added to the book by a Greek-style painter, which Demetrios probably commissioned.

 Mercurio Bua, by Lorenzo Lotto
1527-1530

Mercurio Bua (1478-1452?) was a son nephew of one of the leading archons and capi of the Morea, Petro Bua, who fought outside the Morea for the Venetians once the peace treaty had been signed. Members of his family led the Bua revolt at Nauplion in December 1480 in support of the Kladas revolt when he was an infant.  After Petro Bua died, in 1489, Mercurio (formerly Maurikios) moved to Venice and changed his name to something Italians could manage  Although the family had originally moved from Albania to Ioannina to the Morea over several generations, Mercurio identified himself as coming from Nauplion.

Sanudo said he was a small man, but this did not seem to affect the regard in which he was held.  Beginning with a small band of men, twenty-five or so, he acquired a tremendous record during his career as condottiero, rather than a capo or kapetanios, and eventually was awarded the title of Count of Aquino and Roccasecca from the Holy Roman Empire.  He was twice widowed: this portrait shows a small skull and fallen rose petals beside his hand, and is thought to have been painted in commemoration of one of those losses.

This painting shows something else.  This is not the face of a proud man, which he certainly was, or of a comfortable man, which he had achieved along with the knowledge of a very good and fashionable portrait painter, or of a man who has won an extraordinary number of battles.  He poses as a duty. He seems to be bracing his weight with his right hand and leaning against the wall.  For years, various people had been commenting that he had gout, and once that he had had to miss a festival because he was in bed with gout. Shortly before this portrait was painted, Sanudo wrote that his body was full of gout. As gout advances it affects not just the feet, but joints over the whole body.  The crystal deposits can be felt in many places under the skin and even break through. Bua was in excruciating pain, as well as grief, for this portrait.

When Mercurio Bua died in Treviso, in 1542, he was given a magnificent tomb in S.ta Maria Maggiore.

One of the interesting things in the stories of these men is that  four, whom outsiders might identify as Albanian, identified themselves as coming from Nauplion -- originally a Greek city but by 1500  Frankish and then Venetian for nearly 300 years. The fifth man had the name to enable him to claim Constantinople.  The modern insistence on nationalism comes from immature egos, and is an advantage only to suppliers of armaments. To insist on these men as Albanians is to completely ignore the culture in which they lived.  They spoke and wrote Greek and Venetian, and worshiped as Greek Orthodox.  They lived by choice in Venice and the terrafirma. They were professional military, even though sometimes their bands were as small as 15.  We have no idea what they would claim for themselves, beyond Nauplion.

Venetian documents in the 15th century consider Albanians either [1] people living in that geographical area; or [2] migrant herders in the stato da mar territories.  Stratioti were military who lived on land assignments, an inheritance from the Byzantine tradition, whether they were Greek or Albanian or of some other origin.  Albanians were migratory; they moved about with their flocks and had no fixed address.  They may have been soldiers with capi, but they were not identified as stratioti in the documents and when there was no war they paid no attention to Venetian authority.  The matter of stability was key for Venetians, and the Venetians saw that Albanian loyalty was first of all to the clan, not to Venice.  So one of the things you see with these four men is that, though their families of origin were Albanian, they have become urbanized and ultimately Venetian.

My great appreciation to Ersie Burke for her identifications in the Manessis icon, and her information on all of these men. Her book, Coming to Venice, about stato da mar Greeks in Venice, should be out in a year.  It will have much more substantive information to offer about all these capi and their families.


For Mercurio Bua and his portrait, the source is  
Lorenzo Lotto. Il Gentiluomo della Galleria Borghese

Maria Luisa Ricciardi

Artibus et Historiae
Vol. 10, No. 19 (1989), pp. 85-106

Published by: IRSA s.c.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483285

NOTE: While I have put links here to an Italian site on condottieri , the information should be used with great caution.  We have found  a considerable number of errors in family names and places of origin.