Essays on the Latin Orient

by William Miller

There had been, as we have noticed, a Genoese party at Corfù when the fate of the island lay in the balance, and the commercial rivals of Venice did not abandon all hope of obtaining so desirable a possession until some time after the establishment of the Venetian protectorate. Twice, in 1403 and again in 1432, they attacked Corfù, but on both occasions without success. The first time they tried to capture the impregnable castle of Sant’ Angelo, which was courageously defended by a Corfiote noble. The second attempt was more serious. The invaders effected a landing, and had already ravaged the fertile island, when a sudden sally of the townsfolk and the garrison checked their further advance. Many of the Genoese were taken prisoners, while those who succeeded in escaping to their vessels were pursued and severely handled by the Venetian fleet. The further attempts of Genoese privateers to waylay merchantmen on their passage between Corfù and Venice were frustrated, and soon the islanders had nothing to fear from these Christian enemies of their protectors.

Although the Turks were rapidly gaining ground on the mainland, they were repulsed in the attack which they made upon Corfù in 1431, and did not renew the attempt for another century. Meanwhile, after the fall of Constantinople and the subsequent collapse of the Christian states of Greece, Corfù became the refuge of many distinguished exiles. Thomas Palaiologos, the last Despot of the Morea, and the historian Phrantzes fled thither; the latter wrote his history at Corfù at the instance of some noble Corfiotes, and lies buried in the church of Sts Jason and Sosipater, where Caterina Zaccaria, wife of Thomas Palaiologos, also rests. About the same time the island obtained a relic which had the greatest influence upon its religious life. Among the treasures of Constantinople at the moment of the capture were the bodies of St Theodora, the imperial consort of the iconoclast emperor Theophilos, and St Spiridion, the latter a Cypriote bishop who took a prominent part at the council of Nice and whose remains had been transferred to Constantinople when the Saracens took Cyprus. A certain priest, Kalochairetes by name, now brought the bodies of the two saints to Corfù, where they arrived in 1456. Upon the priest’s death his two eldest sons became proprietors of the male saint’s remains, and his youngest son received those of the female, which he bestowed upon the community. The body of St Spiridion ultimately passed to the distinguished family of Boulgaris, to which it still belongs, and is preserved in the church of the saint, just as the body of St Theodora reposes in the metropolitical church. Four times a year the body of St Spiridion is carried in procession, in commemoration of his alleged services in having twice delivered the island from plague, once from famine, and once from the Turks. His name is the most widespread in Corfù, and the number of boys called “Spiro” is legion[255].

During the operations against the Turks at this period the Corfiotes distinguished themselves by their active co-operation with their protectors. We find them fighting twice at Parga and twice at Butrinto; we hear of their prowess at the Isthmus of Corinth and beneath the walls of Patras in 1463, when Venice, alarmed for the safety of her Peloponnesian stations, called the Greeks to arms; and they assisted even in the purely Italian wars of the Republic. It seems, indeed, as if, at that period, the words of Marmora were no mere servile phrase: “Corfù was ever studying the means of keeping herself a loyal subject of the Venetians[256].” At last, after rather more than a century of almost complete freedom from attack, the island was destined to undergo the first of the two great Turkish sieges which were the principal events in its annals during the Venetian occupation. In 1537 war broke out between the Republic and Suleyman the Magnificent, at that time engaged in an attack upon the Neapolitan dominions of Charles V. During the transport of troops and material of war across the channel of Otranto the Turkish and Venetian fleets came into hostile collision, and though Venice was ready to make amends for the mistakes of her officials the Sultan resolved to punish them for the insults to his flag. He was at Valona, on the Albanian coast, at the time, and, removing his camp to Butrinto, despatched a force of 25,000 men, under the command of the redoubtable Barbarossa, the most celebrated captain in the Turkish service, to take possession of the island. The Turks landed at Govino, destroyed the village of Potamo, and marched upon the capital, which at that time had no other defences than the old fort. That stronghold and the castle of Sant’ Angelo were soon the only two points in the island not in the power of the invaders. A vigorous cannonade was maintained by Barbarossa from the site of the present town and from the islet of Vido, but the garrison of 4000 men, half Italians and half Corfiotes, under the command of Jacopo di Novello, kept up a brisk reply. The Greeks, it was said, could not have fought better had they been fighting for the national cause, and they made immense sacrifices in their determination never to yield. In order to economise food they turned out of the fortress the women, old men, and children, who went to the Turkish lines to beg for bread. The Turkish commander, hoping to work on the feelings of the garrison, refused; so the miserable creatures, repudiated alike by the besieged and besiegers, wandered about distractedly between the two armies, striving to regain admission to the fortress by showing their ancient wounds gained in the Venetian service, and at last, when their efforts proved unavailing, lying down in the ditches to die. Their sufferings contributed largely towards the victory of the defenders, for while provisions held out in the fortress they began to fail in the camp.

Sickness broke out among the half-starved Turks, and, after a stay of only thirteen days in the island, they re-embarked. But in that short time they had wrought enormous damage. They had ravaged the fair island with fire and sword, and they carried away more than 20,000 captives[257]. The population was so greatly reduced by this wholesale deportation that nearly forty years afterwards the whole island contained only some 17,500 inhabitants, and rather more than a century after this siege a census showed that the total was not more than 50,000—a much smaller number than in classical days, when it is estimated to have been 100,000. In 1761 it had declined to 44,333; at the end of the Venetian occupation it was put down at 48,000; a century later, in 1896, it was 90,872[258]. At the census of 1907 it was 94,451. Butrinto and Paxo, less able to defend themselves than Corfù, fell into the hands of the Turks, who plundered several of the other Ionian islands. Great was the joy of Venice at the news that the invaders had abandoned Corfù, and public thanksgivings were offered up for the preservation of the island, even in the desolate condition in which the Turks had left it. A Corfiote, named Noukios, secretary of an Ambassador of Charles V and author of three books of travels, the second of which, relating to England, has been translated into English, wrote, with tears in his eyes, a graphic account of this terrible visitation.

One result of this invasion was the tardy but systematic fortification of the town of Corfù, at the repeated request of the Corfiote council, which sent several embassies to Venice with that object. More than 2000 houses were pulled down in the suburb of San Rocco to make room for the walls, for which the old classical city, Palaiopolis, as it is still called, provided materials, and Venice spent a large sum on the erection of new bastions. Two plans are in existence showing the fortifications of the citadel and of the town about this period[259], and some parts of the present Fortezza Vecchia date from the years which followed this first Turkish siege. The still existing Fortezza Nuova was built between 1577 and 1588, when the new works were completed. Another result of the Turco-Venetian war was the grant of lands at Corfù to the Greek soldiers, or stradioti, who had formed the Venetian garrisons of Monemvasia and Nauplia, and for whom provision had to be made when, in 1540, the Republic ceded these two last of her Peloponnesian possessions to the sultan. The present suburb of Stratia still preserves the name of these soldiers. The loss of the Venetian stations in the Morea and the subsequent capture of Cyprus by the Turks naturally increased the numbers of the Greeks in Corfù.

Shortly before the battle of Lepanto the Turks raided Kythera, Zante, and Cephalonia, and again landed in Corfù. But the memory of their previous failure and the fact that the garrison was prepared for resistance deterred them from undertaking a fresh siege. They accordingly contented themselves with plundering the defenceless villages, but this time did not carry off their booty with impunity. Their ships were routed; as they were departing many of them sank, and in Marmora’s time the sunken wrecks could still be seen when the sea was calm[260]. In the battle of Lepanto 1500 Corfiote seamen took part on the Christian side, and four ships were contributed by the island and commanded by natives. One of these Corfiote captains was captured during the engagement and skinned alive, his skin being then fastened as a trophy to the rigging of one of the Turkish vessels. Another, Cristofalo Condocalli, captured the Turkish admiral’s ship, which was long preserved in the arsenal at Venice, and he received as his reward a grant of land near Butrinto, together with the then rare title of cavaliere. The criticisms which Finlay, after his wont, has passed upon the Greeks at Lepanto, and which do not agree with the testimony of a contemporary Venetian historian, certainly do not affect the conduct of the Ionians[261]. A little later, when the Turks again descended upon Corfù, they were easily repulsed, and the long peace which then ensued between Venice and the Porte put an end to these anxieties. Both the Corfiotes and the local militia of Zante did service about this time under the banner of St Mark in Crete; but the fearful losses of the Zantiotes, of whom eighty only out of 800 returned home alive from the Cretan mountains, made the peasants reluctant to serve again.

There are few facts to relate of the Ionian islands during the peaceful period between the battle of Lepanto and the war of Candia. At Corfù the peace was utilised for the erection of new buildings; the church of St Spiridion was finished, and the body of the saint transferred to it[262]. But the town did not strike the Venetian traveller Pietro della Valle, who visited it early in the seventeenth century, as a desirable residence. Both there and at Zante he thought the buildings were more like huts than houses, and he considered the latter island barren and no longer deserving of its classical epithet of “woody[263].” It was about this time that the Venetians introduced the practice of tournaments, which were held on the esplanade, and at which the Corfiote nobles showed considerable skill. Rather later the island was visited by the plague, which was stayed, according to the local belief, through the agency of their patron saint, who had on a previous occasion saved his good Corfiotes from famine by inspiring the captains of some corn ships to steer straight for their port. The first two of the four annual processions were the token of the people’s gratitude for these services[264].

When the Candian war broke out further fortifications were built at Corfù as a precautionary measure; but during the whole length of the struggle the Turks came no nearer than Parga and Butrinto. The Corfiotes were thus free to assist the Venetians, instead of requiring their aid. Accordingly the Corfiote militia was sent to Crete, and horses and money were given to the Venetian authorities for the conflict, while one Corfiote force successfully held Parga against the enemy, and another recaptured Butrinto. In fact the smallness of the population at the census of that period was attributed to the large number of men serving on the galleys or in the forts out of the island. When Crete was lost Corfù naturally became of increased importance to the republic, and in the successful war between Venice and Turkey, which broke out in 1684, the Ionian islands played a considerable part. They were used as winter quarters for the Venetian troops, and the huge mortars still outside the gate of the Old Fortress at Corfù bear the memorable date of 1684, while a monument of Morosini occupies, but scarcely adorns, the wall of the old theatre. That gallant commander now led a squadron, to which the three chief islands all contributed galleys, against the pirates’ nest of Santa Maura. The countrymen of Odysseus are specially mentioned among the 2000 Ionian auxiliaries, and the warlike bishop of Cephalonia brought a contingent of over 150 monks and priests to the Republic’s standard[265]. Santa Maura fell after a sixteen days’ siege; the capture of Prevesa followed; and though the latter was restored to the Sultan with dismantled fortifications by the treaty of Carlovitz, Santa Maura was never again, save for a few brief months during the next war, a Turkish island. The Venetians did not forget the Ionians, who had co-operated with them so readily. Colonel Floriano, one of the Cephalonian commanders, was granted the two islets of Kalamos and Kastos, off the coast of Akarnania, famous in Homer as the abode of “the pirate Taphians.” Thenceforth their inhabitants were bidden to pay to him and his heirs the tithes hitherto due to the Venetian government. In consequence of this he assumed the curious title of conte della Decima (“count of the Tithe”), still borne by his descendants[266]. No wonder that Venice was popular with an aristocracy to which it gave employment and rewards.