[70] Mas-Latrie, op. et loc. cit.; Heyd, French edition, i. 537.
[71] A splendid field for historical research, which, as far as I know, has never yet been touched, is the compilation, from the Vatican records, of the dates for the extinction of the dioceses of the early Christian world in Africa and Asia. When did the bishops of these dioceses begin to be appointed and consecrated in partibus?
[72] Bosio, op. cit., ii. 37; Abbé Vertot, Histoire des Chevaliers de Malte, i. 106.
[73] See Bosio, ii. 37 f., and Vertot, i. 101 f. With a view to glorifying the Order, and also the Duke of Savoy, this fiction has been fabricated and perpetuated. Even such a serious work as that of Muralt gives, upon the strength of Raynaldus, who merely quotes Bosio, Osman as leader of this attack upon Rhodes: see Chronographie Byzantine, ii. 507. During the recent war between Italy and Turkey, when it was a question of Rhodes, more than one leading Italian newspaper revived this story of the founder of the Italian royal house defeating the founder of the Ottoman royal house. There is, of course, no foundation whatever for the statement.
[74] So Clement V evidently believed. See his letter to the Genoese in Epistola Comm. vii. 10.
[75] That the Sangarius used to run into the Gulf of Nicomedia instead of into the Black Sea is the opinion of many geographers, ancient as well as modern. There have been a number of projects to connect the Sangarius, Lake Sabandja, and the Gulf of Nicomedia by canals that would give a deep waterway across the plain and prevent the frequent overflooding which has always been a source of loss to cultivators in that region.
[76] Idris, quoted by Hammer, i. 192.
[77] Brusa is three hours by carriage from its port on the southern side of the Gulf of Mudania, or one hour by narrow-gauge railway. One can reach Nicaea either from the Gulf of Mudania or that of Nicomedia.
[78] Pach., VII. 18, pp. 597-9.
[79] Pach., VII. 25, p. 620. The Turks call this castle Hodjahissar.