The inhabitants of the two cities had been loyal to Venice, and Venice was loyal to them. The first idea of transporting the Monemvasiotes to the rocky island of Cerigo—then partly a Venetian colony and partly under the rule of the great Venetian family of Venier, which boasted its descent from Venus, the fabled goddess of Kythera—was abandoned, in deference to the eloquent protests of the Metropolitan, and lands were assigned to the exiles in the more fertile colonies of the Republic. A commission of five nobles was appointed to consider the claims, and provide for the settlement, of the stradioti, or light horsemen from Nauplia and Monemvasia, who had fought like heroes against the Turks; and this commission sat for several years, for the claimants were numerous and not all genuine[323]. Some, like the ancient local family of Daimonoyannes, formerly lords of Cerigo, received lands in Crete[324], where various members of the Athenian branch of the great Florentine family of the Medici, which had been settled for two hundred years at Nauplia, also found a home. Scions of the clan of Mamonas went to Zante and Crete, and are found later on at Corinth, Nauplia, Athens and Corfù. Others were removed to Corfù, where they soon formed an integral part of the Corfiote population and where the name of these stradioti is still preserved in a locality of the island; while others again were transplanted to Cephalonia, Cyprus, or Dalmatia. Not a few of them were soon, however, smitten with home-sickness; they sold their new lands and returned to be Turkish subjects at Nauplia and Monemvasia[325].
The Venetian fortifications; the old Venetian pictures on the eikonostasis of the Ἑλκόμενος church; the quaint Italian chimneys, and the well-head up in the castle, which bears the winged lion of St Mark, two private coats of arms, the date MDXIV and the initials S R upon it, the latter those of Sebastiano Renier, Podestà from 1510 to 1512 (to whom the first coat belongs, while the second is that of Antonio Garzoni, Podestà in 1526 and again in 1538, when he was the last Podestà before the Turkish conquest), still speak to us of this first Venetian occupation, when the ancient Byzantine city, after the brief vicissitudes of French and Papal government, found shelter for nearly eighty years beneath the flag of the Evangelist (Plate V, Fig. 2 and Text-fig. 2).
APPENDIX
TWO VENETIAN DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE ACQUISITION OF MONEMVASIA IN 1464
I.—Regina fol. 52.
MCCCCLXIIIJ indictione xij.
Die xxi Septembris.
Cum per gratiam omnipotentis Dei acquista sit in partibus grecie insula Staliminis dives et opulenta in qua sunt tres terre cum Castellis viz Cochinum, Mudrum et Paleocastrum que tempore pacis reddere solent ducatos circa xᵐ. Item etiam Civitas Malvasie sita in Amorea. Ad quorum locorum bonam gubernationem et conservationem sub obedientia nostri Dominii providendum est de rectoribus et camerariis e venetiis mittendis tam pro populis regendis et jure reddendo quam pro introitibus earum bene gubernandis et non perdendis sicut hucusque dicitur esse factum....
Eligatur per quattuor manus electionum in maiori consilio unus potestas Malvasie cum salario ducatorum V. auri in anno, sit per duos annos tantum; et habeat salarium liberum cum prerogativis et exemptionibus rectoris Staliminis et similiter in contumacia sua. Debeat habere duos famulos et tres equos et recipiat salarium suum ab insula Staliminis de tribus mensibus in tres menses ante tempus.
| †De parte | 474 |
| De non | 14 |
| Non syncere | 9 |
Die xvij Septembris mcccclxiiij in consilio di xlᵗᵃ.