The first years after the cessation of the Hungarian protectorate were again disturbed by a quarrel with the Venetians. Some of the grain ships bringing foodstuffs to Ragusa were captured by Venetian cruisers in the Adriatic, as the Government of the great Republic accused its small but enterprising rival of playing a double game. The Ragusans, wishing to retaliate, thought that they could not do better than by tampering with the Venetian despatches. The Senate did not exactly authorise these proceedings, but the Archbishop Trivulzio, a Milanese,[458] who was very friendly to France and therefore hostile to Venice and Spain, had the messenger carrying letters to the Venetian Provveditore at Cattaro seized. The papers, which contained the announcement of an alliance against the Sultan, were at once forwarded to the French ambassador at Constantinople.[459] The Venetians were furious, and threatened vengeance on the Ragusans, in spite of the Senate’s protestations that the Archbishop had acted entirely on his own responsibility. They were partially appeased by the arrest and punishment of one Pozza, who had actually executed the Archbishop’s orders, but Venetian ships continued to harry the Ragusan coast for some time, inflicting much damage.[460] This same year (1538) the Pope Paul III., as head of the Christian League against the Turks, issued a decree, probably inspired by the Venetians, hostile to the Ragusans, forbidding all Christians to sell them arms, gunpowder, cables, ship-timber, iron, &c., because they were supposed to sell these articles to the Turks. He also ordered the Republic to shake off all allegiance to the Sultan, to cease to pay him tribute, and to join the League against the Infidel at once, contributing five galleys and 10,000 ducats to the common war chest. The citizens were filled with consternation at these peremptory commands, but the Senate sent one of its cleverest diplomatists, Clemente Ragnina, to Rome, and he proved equal to the emergency. Ragusa, he informed His Holiness, was situated between the Turks and the sea, and would, if she joined the League, be the first to fall a victim to the wrath of the Infidel. Owing, moreover, to the small extent of her territory, she was dependent for three-quarters of the year on foreign grain, which came mostly from the Turkish provinces; she could not, therefore, exist without intercourse with her neighbours. The only result of Ragusa’s joining the alliance would be the destruction of the city, with her churches, her convents and monasteries, and all her precious sacred relics would fall into the hands of the Infidel, without any advantage accruing to Christendom thereby. The astute Ragnina hinted that the Venetians were merely urging the Pope to take measures against Ragusa out of jealousy. These arguments had the desired effect, the Pope relenting towards the Republic and exempting it from joining the League, to the great satisfaction both of the Government and the citizens. There is no doubt that their position was always a very risky one, and it required all their diplomatic tact to save them from ruin. They were literally between the devil and the deep sea, but they always managed to steer a clear course between the many dangers which beset them.
But although they were on good terms with the Sultan, there was also danger to be apprehended from the turbulent Pashas and Sandjakbegs of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Many of these men were the descendants of the lawless native princelings who had gone over to Islam, and still maintained their old ambition to win their way to the seaboard. The whole country of Dalmatia was now threatened. Clissa, Poljica, and even Montenegro had to pay tribute to the Turks after 1515. In 1522 Knin, the chief Croat fortress in the country, surrendered to the Pasha of Bosnia, and Scardona was also occupied. Sinj, Vrlika, Nučak, and Clissa fell in 1536, and the castles of Vrana and Nadin in 1538. The Turkish fortress of Castelnuovo was captured by the Venetians and Spaniards in that year, but in 1539 it was attacked by the pirate Haireddin Barbarossa and recaptured, the Spanish garrison being put to the sword. It is said that some Ragusan vessels took part in the siege, thus contributing to the success of the Turks, and that the Republic sent presents to Barbarossa so as to induce him to respect their territory. There now remained no part of Dalmatia under a Christian Government except the Venetian coast towns and the Ragusan State. On the whole, the Republic found the Turks in some ways less objectionable neighbours than the Christian Powers, especially the Venetians. In 1538 the allied fleet under the command of Grimani, the Venetian Patriarch, sailed down the Adriatic and touched at the Isola di Mezzo; a part of the squadron proceeded to Ragusavecchia, where it was received with great honour by the citizens, but some vessels remained at the island and sacked it, took 170 prisoners, including the Count, and did much damage to property. The Ragusan Senate protested to the Patriarch, who had all the prisoners liberated, the stolen property restored, and compensation paid. A certain number of Ragusans were detained as rowers, but at good salaries, and thirteen Ragusan ships were pressed into the Spanish service. The fleet then sailed southwards, and encountered the Turks off Prevesa; the engagement proved undecisive, but the honours of the day remained with the Turks. It was then proposed to attack Castelnuovo. The Venetian and Pontifical admirals objected, and suggested that Ragusa should be attacked instead, as she had shown herself so friendly to the enemy. But Doria, the Genoese admiral, and Don Ferrante Gonzaga refused to make war on a Christian city, and the Castelnuovo plan was adhered to. Thirteen thousand troops and 22 guns were disembarked, and an assault delivered by land and sea. The walls were soon battered down, and the town captured, the Sandjakbeg escaping with 200 horse. One hundred Ragusans fell in the attack. The Republic sent envoys to the Christian force with provisions, and requested the leaders not to invade Ragusan territory. This was promised, but nevertheless a Spanish column which was raiding the country round Castelnuovo also sacked Canali, carrying off 17,000 head of cattle, outraging many women, “and generally behaving worse than the Turks.” The Republic protested against these proceedings, and Doria, with whom it was on friendly terms, sent the engineer Mastro Antonio Ferramolino of Bergamo to Ragusa to strengthen the fortifications of the town. Under his supervision the Torre Menze or Minćeta, the bastion outside the walls under the Monte Bergato to guard the harbour, and the town gate close by were built. On the latter the following inscription was placed:
“Este procul sævi: nullum hæc per sæcula Martem
Castra timent sancti, quæ fovet aura senis.”
Ferramolino remained four months at Ragusa, and refused all payment for his services; but the Senate presented him on his departure with a gift of plate and a fine horse, and conveyed him to Sicily on a Ragusan galley.[461]
The following year Barbarossa determined to recapture Castelnuovo, which was defended by 4000 picked Spanish troops and 54 guns. A first attempt from the land side in January failed; but in July Barbarossa entered the Bocche with 200 galleys, and after a series of engagements succeeded in landing an army and 84 guns. The Ragusans sent envoys to him with presents, and, it is said, ships and ammunition, in recognition of which he strictly respected the Republic’s territory. On August 7 an assault was delivered, and the first line of defence broken; on the 10th a second took place, and the Governor, Don Francisco Sarmiento, surrendered with his few survivors. According to Razzi[462] they were all put to the sword; but Professor Stanley Lane Poole says that the capitulation was honourably respected.[463] Three thousand Spaniards fell in the siege and 8000 Turks (50,000, according to Razzi).
Ragusan trade was now in a somewhat depressed condition owing to these various disturbances. Many Ragusan ships in the Spanish service had been lost in the expedition to Algiers,[464] and the pirates under Dragut Reis wrought much havoc among their ships elsewhere. While the Emperor Ferdinand was invading the Hungarian provinces occupied by the Turks, the Ragusan factories there suffered considerably; and the land trade was disturbed by the depredations of the Sandjakbeg of the Herzegovina. In 1544 the bankruptcies at Ragusa amounted to 80,000 ducats.[465] In 1545 peace was made between the Sultan and the Christian Powers, and the former issued severe injunctions to the Algerine corsairs not to molest ships flying the Ragusan flag. In the somewhat quieter period which followed, there was a partial revival of the city’s trade, which now extended to America by means of the favour of Spain. But in 1566 Suleiman the Magnificent died, and his successor, Selim the Drunkard, at once began to cast covetous eyes on Cyprus, instigated, it is said, by a Jew named Nassi, who had given him a glowing description of the Cyprian vintages.[466] War between the Turks and the Christian Powers was again imminent, and Ragusa began to fear that she might get into difficulties with either of the belligerents. She therefore applied to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, with whom she was then on excellent terms,[467] and he recommended them to the King of Spain on the plea that if their trade failed so would the greater part of their income cease, and they would be unable to pay the tribute to the Sultan. The latter would seize on this as a pretext for occupying the city, to the great detriment of Christendom.[468] The plea was successful, and, moreover, the same year Pius V. renewed the exemption to trade with the Infidel, because the city “in faucis infidelium et loco admodum periculoso sita est.” Ragusa now acted once more as intermediary between Christian and Turk, and obtained the liberation of many Venetians and Dalmatian prisoners captured by the Turkish pirate Ali-el-Uluj, or Occhiali as the Christians called him.[469] In spite of the citizens’ not altogether undeserved reputation for double-dealing, they were also true to their better reputation for hospitality. Their hospitality towards the Papal admiral Marc’ Antonio Colonna and the Venetian general Sforza Pallavicini, who were shipwrecked on the Ragusan coast in 1570, won them the gratitude of the Pope and of Venice.[470] Francesco Tron, who was pursued by Turkish corsairs, took refuge in the harbour of Gravosa, and in spite of the threats of the pirate commander the Senate refused to give him up. Finally they bought off the cousin with a sum of money, but he sacked the monastery of Lacroma. Complaints were sent to Constantinople, and the Sultan delivered up the pirate Karakosia to the Ragusan Government to do what it pleased with him; but it was deemed best to set him at liberty with a warning. It was justified in its clemency, for in future none of his ships ever harmed a Ragusan. Venetian intrigues again threatened the Republic’s independence, and during the negotiations for a new Christian League it required all the diplomatic skill and eloquence of Francesco Gondola, the Ragusan ambassador in Rome, to save the city from destruction. In a despatch to the Senate, dated April 1, 1570, he wrote as follows:—
“This war gives food for reflection to the thoughtful, especially with regard to the State of Ragusa, considering the capital malignity of the Venetians against us; it is recorded and confirmed that at the war of Castelnuovo in 1539 they tried to induce Andrea Doria, general of the Emperor (Charles V.), to capture Ragusa before aught else; and they were so keen on this proposal, that they only gave way when Doria opposed an absolute refusal. He informed them that the Emperor had expressly recommended the said Republic to him, and enjoined him to protect it and guard it in the same manner as the cities of his own kingdom of Naples.... Upon these words the Venetians abandoned their project; but it is believed that our country may suffer much, and that this war will not end without many tribulations.” On April 8 he added: “The Emperor’s ambassador in Rome has been informed from Venice that the Senate has determined to place a garrison in Ragusa, so that the Turks may not occupy the city; and that if the Republic refuses to admit it, they have decided to seize it by force, which means that they wish to capture the town with the excuse of preventing the Turks from doing so, in order that Christendom may not be shocked (‘perchè la Christianità non strilli’).” The Spanish and Imperial ambassadors took the side of the Ragusans, and the Pope also favoured them, the Venetian representative alone declaring that “it was right that the League should not only burn the city of Ragusa, but raze it to the ground and destroy its people, so that their seed should not be found anywhere.”
On June 27 he wrote as follows:—
“I have been to His Holiness, who had requested that your Lordships should provide him not with one ship, as Cardinal Rusticucci had said, but with many, so that he may transport his troops on them. I replied that on the previous evening Cardinal Rusticucci had spoken to me in his name, and added that I had written to your Lordships ... and that you hoped that as His Holiness had liberated you from so many troubles in the past, he would take care that you are preserved, nor will he permit that his many benefits to you be turned to your ruin. I informed him how, after the Maltese war, Piali had come with his fleet to Ragusa and threatened your Lordships because some of your vessels had been with the Spanish fleet, and swore that if a similar offence were again committed he would come to your destruction.” The Pope was convinced by these arguments and withdrew his demand for a Ragusan contingent, and made the other allied Powers realise the Republic’s danger. Venice alone remained obdurate, and continued to repeat “ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.” She believed that the only way of saving Ragusa from all danger on the part of the Turks was to occupy the town herself.