Part 31

Capta. Cum dominacio ducalis ex debito teneatur suos cives in eorum iuribus et honoribus cum justicia conservare et dominus Nicolaus Georgio, Marchio Bondanicie, sit iniuriatus ut scitis, et Marchionatu suo per eius uxorem indebite molestatus, et dignum sit, subvenire eidem in eo quod cum honore dominacionis comode fieri potest, ideo visa et examinata petitione ipsius marchionis, et matura et diligenti deliberatione prehabita, consulunt concorditer viri nobiles, domini, Benedictus de Molino et Pangracius Justiniano; quod committatur consiliario ituro Nigropontum, quod postquam illuc applicuerit vadat ad dominam Marchisanam, uxorem dicti domini Nicolay pro ambaxatore, exponendo eidem, quomodo iam diu ipsam ad dominacionem misit suos procuratores et ambaxatores petens sibi per dominacionem de uno nobilium suorum pro marito provideri, et volens dominacio suis beneplacitis complacere, consensit quod ipse dominus Nicolaus carus civis suus ad eam iret, quem ipsa domina receptando, ostendit id habere multum ad bonum. Et quoniam ob hoc semper Ducale Dominium promtum et favorabilem se exhibuit ad omnia que suam et suorum securitatem respicerent et augumentum, treuguas quamplurimas confirmando et opportuna alia faciendo. Sed cum nuperrime per relacionem ipsius domini Nicolay viri sui ad ducalis magnificentie audienciam sit deductus de morte cuiusdam Pallavesini inopinatus casus occursus qui mortuus fuit in culpa sua, sicut postmodum extitit manifestum, quia dum ipse Marchio coram omnibus burgensibus congregatis, de velle et consensu dicte domine exponeret rei geste seriem, ab ipsis habuit in responsum quod ipse Palavesin dignam penam luerat propter foliam suam, et melius erat, quod ipse, qui vaxallus erat mortuus fuisset quam dicto suo domino iniuriam aliquam intulisset, quod ecciam ipsa domina in presencia dictorum burgensium ratificavit. Unde consideratis predictis vellit amore dominij, ipsum dominum Nicolaum honori pristino restituere, quod si fecerit, quamquam sit iustum et honestum nobis plurimum complacebit, et erimus suis comodis stricius obligati. Verum si dicta domina dubitaret de recipiendo ipsum dicat et exponat ambaxator prefatus, quod firmiter dominacio hanc rem super se assumpsit et taliter imposuit civi suo quod minime poterit dubitare. Que omnia si dicta domina acetabit bene quidem, si vero non contentaretur et ipsum recipere non vellet, procuret habere et obtinere omnia bona dicti Marchionis que secum scripta portet antedictus ambaxator et si ipsa ea bona dare neglexerit, dicat quod bona sua et suorum ubicumque intromitti faciemus, et protestetur cum notario, quem secum teneatur ducere, quod tantam iniuriam, quam dominacio suam propriam reputat, non poterit sustinere, sed providebit de remediis opportunis sicuti honori suo et indenitati sui civis viderit convenire, firmiter tenens quod sicut semper dominacio ad sui conservacionem et suorum exhibuit se promtam favorabilem et benignam, sic in omnibus reperiet ipsam mutatam, agravando factum cum hijs et alijs verbis, ut viderit convenire. Et rediens Nigropontum omnia, que gexerit, fecerit et habuerit, studeat velociter dominacioni per suas literas denotare. Verum si dictus consiliarius iturus tardaret ire ad regimen suum, quod baiullus et consiliarij Nigropontis determinent quis consiliariorum de inde ad complendum predicta ire debebit.

Et scribatur baiullo et consiliarijs Nigropontis, quod si habebunt post redditum dicti ambaxatoris, quod ipsa domina stet dura nec vellit ipsum dominum Nicolaum recipere, quod possint si eis videbitur facere et ordinare quod homines Bondanicie non veniant Nigropontum et quod homines Nigropontis non vadant Bondaniciam.

Item prefati baiullus et consiliarij sequestracionem factam de aliqua pecunie quantitate que pecunia est damiselle Marulle filie dicte domine firmam tenere debeant, donec predicta fuerint reformata, pacificata vel diffinita, vel donec aliud sibi mandaretur de hinc.

Et scribantur litere illis de la compagna, quas dominus bayullus et consiliarij presentent vel presentari fatiant, cum eis videbitur, rogando dictos de compagna, quod cum alique discordie venerint inter virum nobilem dominum Nicolam Georgio et eius uxorem Marchisanam se in aliquo facto dicte domine intromittere non vellint quod posset civi nostro contrariare ad veniendum ad suam intentionem.

De non 14—Non sinceri 13.—Alij de parte.

Misti, XXIII. f. 26.

III

1345 DIE V AUGUSTI.

Capta. Quod respondeatur domine Marchisane Bondinicie ad suas litteras substinendo ius civis nostri Nicolai Georgio, cum illis verbis que videbuntur sequendo id quod captum fuit pridie in hoc consilio in favorem civis nostri.

Misti, XXIII. f. 30tᵒ.

IV

1346 DIE XXIV JANUARIJ.

Capta. Quod scribatur nostro Baiulo et Consiliariis Nigropontis quod Ser Moretus Gradonico consiliarius, vel alius sicut videbitur Baiulo et Consiliariis, in nostrum ambaxatorem ire debeat ad dominam Marchionissam Bondenicie, et sibi exponat pro parte nostra quod attenta honesta et rationabili requisitione nostra quam sibi fieri fecimus per virum Nobilem Johannem Justiniano nostrum consiliarium Nigroponti, quem ad eam propterea in nostrum ambaxatorem transmisimus super reformatione scandali orti inter ipsam et virum nobilem Nicolaum Georgio eius virum in reconciliatione ipsius cum dicto viro suo: Et intellecta responsione quam super premissis fecit nostro ambaxatori predicto gravamur et turbamur sicut merito possumus et debemus, de modo quem ipsam servavit et servat erga dictum virum suum. Nam sibi plene poterat et debebat sufficere remissio et reconciliatio cum [eo?] facta coram nobis per dictum eius virum, secundum nostrum mandatum, et nuncio suo in nostra presencia constituto de omni offensa et iniuria sibi facta, et debebat esse certa quod quicquid idem Marchio in nostra presencia et ex nostro mandato promittebat effectualiter observasse. Et quod volentes quod bona dispositio dicti viri sui et paciencia nostra de tanta iniuria facta civi nostro sibi plenius innotescat deliberavimus iterate ad eam mittere ipsum in nostrum ambaxatorem ad requirendum et rogandum ipsam quod debeat reconciliare cum dicto viro suo et eum recipere ad honorem et statum in quo erat antequam inde recederet, nam quamvis hoc sit sibi debitum et conveniat pro honore et bono suo, tamen erit gratissimum menti nostre et ad conservacionem ipsius marchionisse et suorum avidius nos disponet et circa hoc alia dicat que pro bono facto viderit opportuna.

Si vero dicta marchionissa id facere recusaret nec vellet condescendere nostre intentioni et requisitioni predicte, dictus Ser Moretus assignet terminum dicte Marchionisse unius mensis infra quem debeat complevisse cum effectu nostram requisitionem premissam. Et sibi expresse dicat, quod elapso dicto termino nulla alia requisitione sibi facta, cum non intendamus dicto civi nostro in tanto suo iure deficere, faciemus intromitti personas et bona suorum et sua ubicumque in forcio nostro poterunt reperire. Et ultra hoc providebimus in dicto facto de omnibus favoribus et remediis, que pro bono et conservacione dicti civis nostri videbimus opportuna. Et si propter premissa dicta Marchionissa ipsum recipere et reintegrare voluerit bene quidem sin autem scribatur dicto baiulo et consiliariis quod elapso termino dicti mensis et ipsa marchionissa premissa facere recusante mittant ad nos per cambium sine aliquo periculo yperpera octomillia quinquaginta vel circa que sunt apud Thomam Lippomanum et Nicolaum de Gandulfo, qua pecunia Venecias veniente disponetur et providebiter de ipsa sicut dominationi videbitur esse iustum.

Capta. Item quod scribatur domino Delphino Vihennensi et illis de Compagna in favorem dicti civis nostri et recommendando ei iura et iusticiam ipsius in illa forma et cum illis verbis que dominacioni pro bono facti utilia et necessaria videbuntur.

Non sinceri 15—Non 12.—De parte 57.

Misti, XXIII. f. 46tᵒ.

V

1348 DIE XI FEBRUARIJ PRIME INDICTIONIS.

Capta. Quod possint scribi littere domino Pape et aliquibus Cardinalibus in recommendacione iuris domini Nicolai Georgio marchionis Bondinicie nostri civis in forma inferius anotata.

Domino Pape.

Sanctissime pater pro civibus meis contra Deum et iusticiam aggravatis, Sanctitati Vestre supplicationes meas porrigo cum reverentia speciali: Unde cum nobilis vir Nicolaus Georgio Marchio Bondinicie honorabilis civis meus, iam duodecim annis matrimonii iura contraserit cum domina Marchionissa Bondinicie predicte et cum ea affectione maritali permanserit habens ex ea filium legiptimum, qui est annorum undecim, ipsa domina Marchionissa in preiudicium anime sue, Dei timore postposito ipsum virum suum recusat recipere et castrum Bondinicie et alia bona spectantia eidem suo viro tenet iniuste et indebite occupata in grave damnum civis mei predicti et Dei iniuriam manifestam precipientis, ut quos Deus coniunxit homo non separet: Unde Sanctitati Vestre humiliter supplico quatenus Clementie Vestre placeat dictum civem meum habere in suo iure favorabiliter commendatum, ut dicta domina eum tanquam virum legiptimum recipiat et affectione maritali pertractet sicut iura Dei precipiunt, atque volunt, et salus animarum etiam id exposcit. Cum ipse civis meus sit paratus ex sua parte ipsam dominam pro uxore legiptima tractare pacifice et habere.

Misti, XXIV. f. 63.

_Note._—The “Misti” are cited throughout from the originals at Venice; I have corrected the dates to the modern style.

11. ITHAKE UNDER THE FRANKS

In works descriptive of Greece it is customary to find the statement that the island of Odysseus was “completely forgotten in the middle ages,” and even so learned a mediæval scholar as the late Antonios Meliarakes, whose loss is a severe blow to Greek historical geography, asserts this proposition in his admirable political and geographical work on the prefecture of Cephalonia[373]. But there are a considerable number of allusions to Ithake during the Frankish period, and it is possible, at least in outline, to make out the fortunes of the famous island under its western lords.

The usual name for Ithake in Italian documents is Val di Compare, the earliest use of which, so far as I can ascertain, occurs in the Genoese historian Caffaro’s _Liberatio Orientis_, written in the first half of the twelfth century[374]. According to K. Bergotes of Cephalonia this name was given to the island by an Italian captain, who was driven to anchor there one stormy night. Seeing a light shining through the darkness, he landed, and found that it proceeded from a hut in which a child had lately been born. At the request of the parents he accepted the office of godfather, or κουμπάρος at the child’s christening, and named the valley where the hut lay Val di Compare, to commemorate the event. Whether this derivation be correct or not, the name stuck to the island for several centuries, though we shall also find the classical Ithake still surviving contemporaneously with it. The neighbouring islands of Zante and Cephalonia were severed from the Byzantine empire in 1185, at the time of the invasion of Greece by the Normans of Sicily, and were occupied by their admiral, Margaritone of Brindisi. Ithake is not specially mentioned as included among his conquests, but its connection with the other two islands under the rule of his immediate successors makes it very probable. Six years later, in the graphic account of Greece as it was in 1191, ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough, Fale (Valle) de Compar is said to have had a specially evil reputation for piracy, and the channel between it and Cephalonia is described as a favourite lair of those robbers[375]. After Margaritone’s death he was succeeded by a Count Maio, or Matthew, a member of the great Roman family of Orsini, who seems to have been born in Apulia—according to one account he came from Monopoli—and who at the time of the fourth crusade was lord of Cephalonia, Zante, and _Theachi, el qual se clamado agora Val de Compare_[376], under the suzerainty of the king of Sicily. Although the two larger of those islands had fallen to the share of Venice by the partition treaty he and his descendants continued in possession of them and of Ithake, though he thought it wise, in 1209, to acknowledge the overlordship of the Republic. A Venetian document of 1320, alluding to this transaction, specially mentions Val di Compare as one of the islands, for which he then did homage[377]. In 1236 the count recognised as his suzerain Prince Geoffroy II of Achaia, and he and his successors were henceforth reckoned among the twelve peers of that principality, in whose history they played an important part[378].

The next mention of Ithake occurs in a Greek document of 1264, in which Count Matthew’s son and successor, “the most high and mighty Richard, palatine count and lord of Cephalonia, Zakynthos, and Ithake,” confirms the possessions of the Latin bishopric of Cephalonia[379]. Here Ithake is called by its classical name, which was not confined to Greeks, for we find it used in a Venetian document of 1278, where the island is again mentioned as the scene of piracies[380]. Later on, in 1294, a document in the Angevin archives at Naples mentions the promise of Count Richard to bestow “the castle of Koronos”—a name still given to part of the island of Cephalonia—“or the island of Ithake” (_sive vellent castrum Corony de dominio suo, sive vellent insulam Ythace_) upon his son John I, on the occasion of the latter’s marriage with the daughter of Nikephoros I, despot of Epeiros[381]. Richard, in spite of the repeated remonstrances of Charles II of Naples, who, in virtue of the treaty of Viterbo, was suzerain of Achaia, and accordingly of Cephalonia, failed to carry out this promise. We next hear of Val di Compare in the above-mentioned Venetian document of 1320, in which Count John I’s son, Nicholas, who had two years earlier murdered his nephew, the last Despot of Epeiros of the house of the Angeloi, and had made himself Despot, is reminded that his ancestor Matthew had done homage, as he was now offering to do, for the three islands of Cephalonia, Zante, and Val di Compare to the Venetian republic.

Although not mentioned by name Ithake doubtless followed the fortunes of Cephalonia and Zante when those islands were conquered from the Orsini by John of Gravina, prince of Achaia, in 1324. The “county of Cephalonia,” of which the island of Odysseus had long formed a part, was thus under the direct authority of the Angevins, and was transferred by John of Gravina, together with the principality of Achaia, to Robert of Taranto in 1333, after which date the same Angevin officials held office in both Achaia and the insular county till Robert bestowed the latter in 1357 upon his friend Leonardo Tocco, a Neapolitan courtier, whose family came from Benevento. In an ecclesiastical document[382] of 1389 the Greek bishop of Methone, writing about the archbishopric of Levkas, mentions “the duchess Franka (Francesca), lady of Levkas, Ithake, Zante and Cephalonia,” the allusion being to the daughter of Nerio I Acciajuoli of Athens, who had in the previous year married Carlo I Tocco, count of Cephalonia and duke of Levkadia. A little earlier, in a Piedmontese document[383] of 1387, we find Amedeo of Savoy, one of the claimants to the principality of Achaia, rewarding the zeal of one of his Greek supporters, Joannes Laskaris Kalopheros, with Cephalonia, Zante, Val di Compare, and other places as hereditary possessions—a gift which was, of course, never carried out, as the islands were not Amedeo’s to bestow. Spandugino[384] specially mentions “Itaca,” or “Val di Compare,” as being part of the insular dominions of the Tocchi, and Carlo II Tocco is described in documents of 1430 and 1433, and by the annalist Stefano Magno, as _comes palatinus Cephaloniæ, Ithacæ, et Jacinti_—a designation repeated in a document of 1458 after his death[385]. We find an allusion to it under both its classical and its mediæval name in the _Liber Insularum_ of Buondelmonti[386], written in 1422, and the latter also occurs in a Venetian document of 1430, where Val di Compare[387] is stated to belong to Carlo II. Six years later the archæologist Cyriacus of Ancona, visiting the “king of the Epeirotes,” as he calls that prince, mentions _Itaci_ (sic) _insulæ_ as opposite the mainland[388]. After Leonardo III lost practically all his continental possessions to the Turks in 1449 he still retained the islands, Ithake among them, under the protection of Venice, of which both he and his father were honorary citizens, and under the nominal suzerainty of the kings of Naples. From a document of 1558 we learn that it was in his time that the family of Galates—the only Ithakan family which enjoyed the privileges of nobility in the Venetian period, and which is still extant in the island—first received exemptions[389]. It was he too who revived the Orthodox see of Cephalonia and bestowed it, together with spiritual jurisdiction over Ithake, upon Gerasimos Loverdo[390].

When Mohammed II sent Achmet Pasha to conquer all that remained of Leonardo’s dominions in 1479 we are told by Stefano Magno[391] that the Turkish commander “ravaged also the island of Itacha (_sic_), called Valle di Compare, which belonged to the said lord,” whom he also styles “palatine count of Cephalonia, Itaca (_sic_) and Zakynthos.” Loredano, the Venetian admiral, thereupon sent some galleys to Ithake and rescued seven or eight persons—an act of which the pasha complained. This devastation of the island will account for the fact that, in 1504, the Venetian government, which then owned Cephalonia and Zante, took steps for repopulating “an island named Val di Compare, situated opposite Cephalonia, at present uninhabited, but reported to have been formerly fertile and fruitful.” Accordingly lands were offered to settlers, free from all taxes for five years, at the end of which time the colonists were to pay to the Treasury of Cephalonia the same dues as the inhabitants of that island[392]. Thenceforth down to 1797 Ithake remained beneath the sway of the Venetian republic. The offer of the senate seems to have been successful; among those who accepted it were the family of Boua Grivas, of Albanian origin, connected with the clan of Boua, which had formerly ruled over Arta and Lepanto and had played a part in the Albanian revolts of 1454 and 1463 in the Morea, that of Petalas, and that of Karavias, which in modern times produced a local historian of Ithake[393]. In 1548 Antonio Calbo, the retiring _provveditore_ of Cephalonia, reported to the Venetian government, that “under the jurisdiction of Cephalonia there is another island, named Thiachi, very mountainous and barren, in which there are different harbours and especially a harbour called Vathi; in the island of Thiachi are three hamlets, in three places, inhabited by about sixty families, who are in great fear of corsairs, because they have no fortress in which to take refuge[394].” The three hamlets mentioned in this report are doubtless those of Paleochora, Anoe, and Exoe, which are regarded as the oldest in the island.

The former counts of Ithake were till lately the only Latin rulers of Greece who still existed in prosperous circumstances. But in the seventeenth century they took the title of “prince of Achaia”—to which they were not entitled, although the counts of Cephalonia had once been peers of Achaia and Leonardo II and Carlo I had for a short time occupied Glarentza. The modern representative of the family was Carlo, Duke of Regina[395], who succeeded his cousin Francesco Tocco in 1894. But he is now dead and his only son was killed in a motor accident.

12. THE LAST VENETIAN ISLANDS IN THE ÆGEAN

It has hitherto been asserted by historians of the Latin Orient that, after the capture of the Cyclades by the Turks in the sixteenth century, the two Venetian islands of Tenos and Mykonos remained in the possession of the Republic down to 1715. As to Tenos, this statement is unimpeachable; as to Mykonos, despite the assertions of Hopf[396] and Hertzberg[397], who quote no authorities for the fact, all the evidence goes to show that it ceased to belong to Venice in the sixteenth century.

The two islands, the only members of the Cyclades group under the direct rule of the Venetian government, were bequeathed to the Republic by George III Ghisi, their ancestral lord, upon whose death in 1390 they passed into its hands. The islanders implored Venice not to dispose of them; and, though there were not failing applicants for them among the Venetian princelets of the Levant, she listened to the petition of the inhabitants. At first an official from Negroponte was sent as an annual governor; then, in 1407, Venetian nobles who would accept the governorship of Tenos and Mykonos, with which _Le Sdiles_, or Delos, was joined, for a term of four years, paying a certain sum out of the revenues to Venice and keeping the balance for themselves, were invited to send in their names. One of them was appointed, still under the authority of the bailie of Negroponte[398]; and this system continued down to 1430, when a rector was sent out from Venice for two years, and the two islands were thenceforth governed directly by an official of the Republic.