We may now ask ourselves whether the rule of the company was successful. Financially, it certainly was. Even in its latter days, when heavy loans had been contracted with the bank of St George and the Turkish tribute was 14,000 gold ducats, a dividend of 2000 ducats was paid on each of the thirteen original shares; while in its best times the small caratto, originally worth some 30 Genoese pounds, was quoted at 4930. Chios during the middle ages was one of the most frequented marts of the Levant, while the alum of Foglia Nuova (which, as long as that factory remained Genoese, covered the annual rent to Genoa) and the mastic of the island (in which a part of the Turkish tribute was paid) were two valuable sources of revenue. The production of mastic was carefully organised. The company leased to each hamlet a certain area of plantation, and the lessees once a year handed in a certain weight of mastic in proportion to the number of the trees. If it were a good year and the yield were greater, they received a fixed price per pound for the excess quantity delivered; but if they failed to deliver the stipulated amount, they had to pay twice that sum[512]. In order to keep up prices in years of over-production, all the mastic over a certain amount was either warehoused or burned. Special officials divided the net profit accruing from its sale among the shareholders; no private person might sell it to foreigners; and thefts or smuggling of the precious gum, if committed on a small scale, cost the delinquent an ear, his nose, or both; if on a large scale, brought him to the gallows. Another curious source of revenue was the tax on widows[513]. The latter must have had ample opportunities of avoiding the penalty, for the courtesy and beauty of the Chiote ladies was the theme of every traveller. Indeed, one impressionable Frenchman[514] proclaimed Chios to be “the most agreeable residence” with which he was acquainted, while another visitor[515] declared their natural charm, the elegance of their attire, and the attraction of their gestures and conversation to be such “that they might rather be judged to be nymphs or goddesses than mortal women or maids.” He then, greatly daring, attempts a detailed description of their costume, upon which I shall not venture. Nor were amusements lacking. The inhabitants were musical; they were wont to dance by the Skaramangkou torrent; the chief religious feasts were kept in state; and Cyriacus of Ancona[516] was a witness of the festivities which accompanied the carnival in what Bartolomeo dalli Sonetti[517], another traveller of the fifteenth century, called the first island of the Archipelago.
There was more intellectual life at Chios than in some of the Latin settlements in the Levant; indeed, the two Genoese colonies of Chios and Lesbos stood higher in that respect than most of the Venetian factories. The list of authors during the period of the maona is considerable. Among them we may specially notice Leonardo Giustiniani, archbishop of Lesbos, but a native of Chios, and author of a curious treatise, De vera nobilitate, intended as a reply to the book De nobilitate of the celebrated scholar, Poggio Bracciolini. But the chief value of the literary divine for us at the present day is the graphic account which he has left us in two letters, addressed respectively to Popes Nicholas V and Pius II, of the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and of Lesbos in 1462—accounts of the greatest historical interest, because their author was an eyewitness of what he described. In Gerolamo Garibaldi Giustiniani, born in Chios in 1544, the island found an historian, who wrote in French a work entitled La Description et Histoire de l’Isle de Scios, ou Chios; Vincenzo Banca Giustiniani, another Latin Chiote, edited the works of St Thomas Aquinas; while Alessandro Rocca Giustiniani translated portions of Aristotle and Hippocrates. But the most curious local literary figure of the period was Andriolo Banca Giustiniani (1385-1456), who sang in Italian verse the Venetian siege of Chios[518] of 1431. The poet was a man of taste and had the means to satisfy it; he constructed near the so-called “School of Homer” (who, according to Thucydides, was a native of Chios) an “Homeric villa” in a forest of pines near a crystal well, where he was visited by the well-known antiquary and traveller, Cyriacus of Ancona, his frequent correspondent[519]. This elegant Chiote accumulated a library of 2000 manuscripts, and for him Ambrogio Traversari of Florence translated into Latin the treatise on the Immortality of the Soul by the fifth-century philosopher, Æneas of Gaza. His son, in 1474, entertained at his villa a greater even than the archæologist of Ancona, then, however, only a modest ship’s captain, the future discoverer of America, Christopher Columbus. The culture, however, of the Giustiniani seems to have been mainly Latin—a fact explained by their practice of sending their sons to be educated at Genoa, Pavia, Padua, or Bologna; and it was from Italy that they summoned the architects to build their palaces “of divers kinds of marbles, with great porticoes and magnificent galleries,” and their villas, of which there were more than 100 in the last century of their rule. It was only just before the Turkish conquest that they thought of founding a university[520].
But we must also look at the picture from another point of view—that of the governed. The judgment of Finlay that the rule of the company was “the least oppressive government in the Levant” seems by the light of later research to need qualification. If we are to take as our standard the happiness of the people as a whole, then of all the Latin establishments in the Levant Lesbos comes first. But for that there were special reasons. The first Gattilusio came to Lesbos not as a foreign conqueror, but as brother-in-law of the Greek Emperor; he soon spoke the language of his subjects; his successors wrote in Greek, and as time went on the family became hellenized. But a company is apt to be deficient on the human side; and this would seem to have been the weak point of the maona. Quite early in its career a conspiracy of the Greeks was discovered, which led to the permanent expulsion of the metropolitan and the substitution in his place of a vicar, called Δίκαιος (or “the Just”), elected by the company and confirmed by the patriarch. Moreover, the dominant church, whose bishops were usually Pallavicini or Giustiniani, was partly supported by tithes, which the members of the other creed had also to pay, and which they paid so reluctantly that in 1480 the bishop was glad to abandon all claims to tithe and all the church property to the company[521] in return for a fixed stipend. Moreover, we are told that certain Latins seized property belonging to Νέα Μονή, “one of the most beautiful churches of the Archipelago,” as it was called[522]. To these ecclesiastical disadvantages was added social inferiority. The native nobles, or archontes, sixty in number, although their privileges had been guaranteed at the conquest and although instructions were subsequently given to see that that pledge was respected, ranked not only below the Giustiniani, who formed the apex of the social scale, but below the Genoese bourgeoisie also, from which they suffered most. They lived apart in the old town (much as the Catholics still do at Syra); and if they sold their property and left the island, they forfeited to the company one-quarter of the proceeds of such sale.
Worse still was the position of the Greek peasantry, who were practically serfs, forbidden to emigrate without permission and passports. Liable to perform military service even out of the island, they had to undertake in time of peace various forced labours, of which the lightest was to act as beaters once a year for their masters during the partridge season. So many of them sought to escape from Chios that a local shibboleth was invented for their identification, and they were obliged to pronounce the word fragela (a sort of white bread), which became frangela in the mouth of a native. Still, the Greeks were consulted at least formally before a new tax was imposed; a Greek noble sat in the commercial court and on the commission of public works, and during the administration of Marshal Boucicault in 1409 and down to 1417 four out of the six councillors who assisted the podestà were Greeks. In later times when there was a Turkish element in the population—for after 1484 the Turks paid no dues—the company provided the salary of the Turkish kâdi. Cases were tried in a palace known as the Δικαιότατο (“Most Just”), and a “column of justice” hard by served for the punishment of the guilty. A great hardship was the cost of appeals to the ducal council in Genoa—the counterpart of our judicial committee of the privy council. Worst treated of all classes were the Jews, forced to wear a yellow bonnet, to live in their ghetto, which was hermetically closed at Easter, to present a white banner with the red cross of St George to the podestà once a year, and to make sport for the Genoese at religious festivals[523]. Such, briefly, was the Genoese administration of Chios—an episode which may serve to remind us how very modern in some ways were the methods of Italian mediæval commonwealths.
The Genoese occupation of Chios, Lesbos, and Phocæa by the families of Zaccaria and Cattaneo was not forgotten in the counting-houses of the Ligurian Republic. In 1346, two years after the capture of Smyrna, Chios once more passed under Genoese control, the two Foglie followed suit, and in 1355 the strife between John Cantacuzene and John V Palaiologos for the throne of Byzantium enabled a daring Genoese, Francesco Gattilusio, to found a dynasty in Lesbos, which gradually extended its branches to the islands of the Thracian sea and to the city of Ænos on the opposite mainland, and which lasted in the original seat for more than a century.
Disappointed in a previous attempt to recover his rights, the young Emperor John V was at this time living in retirement on the island of Tenedos, then a portion of the Greek Empire and from its position at the mouth of the Dardanelles both an excellent post of observation and a good base for a descent upon Constantinople. During his sojourn there, a couple of Genoese galleys arrived, commanded by Francesco Gattilusio, a wealthy freebooter, who had sailed from his native city to carve out for himself, amidst the confusion of the Orient, a petty principality in the Thracian Chersonese, as others of his compatriots had twice done in Chios, as the Venetian nobles had done in the Archipelago 150 years earlier. The Emperor found in this chance visitor an instrument to effect his own restoration; the two men came to terms, and John V promised, that if Gattilusio would help him to recover his throne, he would bestow upon him the hand of his sister Maria—an honour similar to that conferred by Michael VIII upon Benedetto Zaccaria.
The family of Gattilusio, which thus entered the charmed circle of Byzantine royalty, had already for two centuries occupied a prominent position at Genoa. One of the name is mentioned as a member of the Great Council in 1157; a second is found holding civic office in 1212 and 1214; and two others were signatories of the treaty of Nymphæum. Luchetto, grandfather of the first lord of Lesbos, was both a troubadour and a man of affairs, who went as envoy to Pope Boniface VIII to negotiate peace between his native city and Venice, served as podestà of Bologna, Milan, Savona, and Cremona; and founded in 1295 the family church of San Giacomo at Sestri Ponente in memory of his father—a foundation which remained in the possession of the Gattilusj till 1483, and of which the Lesbian branch continued to be patron. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the family seems to have turned its attention to the Levant trade, for a Gattilusio was among the Genoese who had sustained damage from the subjects of the Greek Emperor at that period, and by 1341 another member of the clan was a resident at Pera. In that year Oberto Gattilusio was one of the Genoese ambassadors, who concluded the treaty between the Republic and the Regent Anne of Savoy at Constantinople, and ten years later the same personage was sent on an important mission to all the Genoese commercial settlements in the East. The future ruler of Lesbos was this man’s nephew[524].
The Genoese of Galata had good reasons to be dissatisfied with the commercial and naval policy of Cantacuzene, and it was no less their interest than that of their ambitious fellow-countryman to see John V replaced on the throne of his ancestors. They accordingly entered into negotiations with him at Tenedos, and thus Gattilusio could rely upon the co-operation of his compatriots at the capital. On a dark and windy night in the late autumn of 1354 he arrived with the young Emperor off the “postern of the Pathfinding Virgin,” where his Ligurian mother-wit at once suggested a device for obtaining admittance. He had on board a number of oil-jars, which he had brought full from Italy—for he combined business with politics—but which were by this time empty. These he ordered the sailors to hurl against the walls one at a time, until the noise awoke the sleeping sentinels. To the summons of the latter voices shouted from the galleys, that they were merchantmen with a cargo of oil, that one of their ships had been wrecked, and that they were willing to share the remains of the cargo with anyone who would help them in their present distress. At this appeal to their love of gain the guards opened the gate, whereupon some 500 of the conspirators entered, slew the sentries on the adjoining tower, and were speedily reinforced by the rest of the ships’ crews and marines. Francesco, who was throughout the soul of the undertaking, mounted a tower in which he placed the young Emperor with a strong guard of Italians and Greeks, and then ran along the wall with a body of soldiers, shouting aloud: “long live the Emperor John Palaiologos!” When dawn broke and the populace realised that their young sovereign was within the walls, their demonstrations convinced Cantacuzene that resistance would be sanguinary, even if successful. He therefore relinquished the diadem which he could not retain, and retired into a monastery, while John V, accompanied by Francesco and the rest of the Italians, marched in triumph into the palace. The restored Emperor was as good as his word; he bestowed the hand of his sister upon his benefactor, and gave to Francesco as her dowry the island of Lesbos. On July 17, 1355, Francesco I began his reign[525].
Connected by marriage with the Greek Imperial house, the Genoese lord of Lesbos seems to have met with no resistance from his Greek subjects, who would naturally regard him not so much in the light of an alien conqueror as in that of a lawful ruler by the grace of the Emperor. He soon learnt to speak their language[526], and continued to assist his Greek brother-in-law with advice and personal service. At the moment of his accession, the Greek Empire was menaced by the Turks, who had lately crossed over into Europe, and occupied Gallipoli, and by Matthew Cantacuzene, the eldest son of the deposed Emperor. In the very next year the capture of the Sultan Orkhan’s son, Halil, by Greek pirates from Foglia Vecchia, at that time a Byzantine fief, enabled John V to divide these two enemies by promising to obtain the release of the Sultan’s son. The promise proved, indeed, to be hard of fulfilment, for John Kalothetos, the Greek governor of Foglia Vecchia, resisted the joint attacks of the Emperor and a Turkish chief, whom John V had summoned to aid him, until he received a large ransom and a high-sounding title. It was during these operations, in the spring of 1357, that the Emperor, on the advice of Francesco Gattilusio, treacherously invited his Turkish ally to visit him on an islet off Foglia and then arrested him[527]. Such reliance, indeed, did John place in his brother-in-law, whose interests coincided with his own, that, when Matthew Cantacuzene was captured by the Serbs and handed over to the Emperor, the latter sent the children of his rival to Lesbos, and even meditated sending thither Matthew himself, because he knew that they would be in safe keeping[528]. In 1366, when the Bulgarian Tsar, John Shishman, had treacherously arrested John V, and the Greeks of Byzantium, hard pressed by the Turks, sought the help of the chivalrous Conte verde, Amedeo VI of Savoy, Francesco Gattilusio was present with one of his nephews at the siege and capture of Gallipoli from the Ottomans and assisted at the taking of Mesembria from the Bulgarians[529]. But fear of Murad I made him refuse to see or speak to his wife’s nephew, Manuel, when the latter, after plotting against the Sultan, sought refuge in Lesbos[530].
Meanwhile, as a Genoese, he naturally had difficulties with the Venetians. Thus, we find him capturing[531] in the Ægean a Venetian colonist from Negroponte, and quite early in his reign he imitated the bad example of his predecessor, Domenico Cattaneo, and coined gold pieces in exact counterfeit of the Venetian ducat, although of different weight. This was so serious an offence, that the Venetian Government made a formal complaint at Genoa, and in 1357 the Doge of his native city wrote to Francesco[532] bidding him discontinue this dishonest practice, which augured badly for the future of his administration, and would entail severe penalties upon him, if he insisted in its continuance. Francesco felt himself strong enough to go on his way, heedless of the ducal thunders alike of Genoa and of Venice, and coins of himself and of at least four out of his five successors have been preserved. The great war, which broke out between the two Republics in 1377 on account of the cession of Tenedos by the usurper Andronikos to Genoa and its seizure by Venice, must have placed Francesco in a difficult position. He was, it is true, a Genoese but he was also brother-in-law of John V, whom Andronikos had deposed and who had promised the disputed island, which he and Francesco knew so well, to Venice. Accordingly, when the treaty of Turin imposed upon Venice the surrender of Tenedos to Amedeo VI of Savoy, who was to raze the castle to the ground at the cost of Genoa, yet the islanders none the less swore that they would retain their independence. Muazzo, the Venetian governor, excused his action in refusing to give up the island by pleading Francesco’s intrigues. An agent of the Lesbian lord, he wrote, one Raffaele of Quarto, had stirred up the inhabitants, some 4000 in number, to resist the cession, by spreading a rumour that, if Tenedos fell into Genoese hands, the Venetian colonists would all be forced to turn Jews or emigrate[533]. When, however, Venice found herself reluctantly compelled to force her recalcitrant officer to carry out the provisions of the treaty, Francesco helped to victual the Venetian fleet, and Tenedos was reduced to be the desert that it long remained.
While such were his relations with the Byzantine Empire and the rival Republics of the West, the Papacy regarded Francesco as one of the factors in the Union of the Churches and thereby as a champion of Christendom against the Turks. When Innocent VI in 1356, despatched St Peter Thomas and another bishop to compass the Union of the Old and the New Rome, he recommended his two envoys to the lord of Lesbos. Thirteen years later, Francesco accompanied his brother-in-law, the Emperor John V, to Rome, and signed as one of the witnesses of that formal confession of the Catholic faith, which the sorely-pressed sovereign made on October 18, 1369, in the palace of the Holy Ghost before Urban V[534]. He was one of the potentates summoned by Gregory XI in 1372 to attend the Congress[535] of Thebes on October 1, 1373, to consider the Turkish peril—a peril which at that time specially menaced his island—and in the following year the Pope recommended Smyrna to his care, and sent two theologians to convince him, a strenuous fighter against the Turks, and defender of Christendom beyond the seas, that the Union of the Churches would be a better defence against them than armed force[536]. The Popes might well have thought that no one could be a better instrument of their favourite plan than this Catholic brother-in-law of the Greek Emperor. But the astute Genoese was too wise to compel his Greek subjects to accept his creed. Throughout his reign, besides a Roman Catholic Archbishop, there was a Greek Metropolitan of Mytilene, and under his successor the Metropolitan throne of Methymna was also occupied[537]. The Armenian colony, settled in Lesbos, preferred, however, to seek shelter in Kos under the Knights of St John rather than remain as his subjects, without proper protection from a hostile raid[538].
The success of their kinsman encouraged other members of the Gattilusio clan to seek a comfortable seigneurie in the Levant. The barony of Ænos, at the mouth of the Maritza, had been assigned in the partition of the Byzantine Empire to the Crusaders, and, although reconquered by the Greeks, the exiled Latin Emperor Baldwin II had been pleased to consider it as still his to bestow, together with the titular kingdom of Salonika, upon Hugues, Duke of Burgundy, in 1266. Besieged by Bulgarians and Tartars in 1265, and invaded by the Catalans in 1308, it had been governed in the middle of the fourteenth century by Nikephoros II Angelos, the dethroned Despot of Epeiros, the son-in-law and nominee of John Cantacuzene. When, however, Cantacuzene fell, the Despot thought it more prudent to surrender the city to John V, who thus, in 1356, became its master. We do not know the precise time or manner of its transference to the Gattilusio family. A later Byzantine historian[539], however, states that the inhabitants, dissatisfied with the Imperial governor, called in a member of the reigning family of Lesbos, who was able to maintain his position owing to the domestic quarrels in the Imperial family, and by payment of an annual tribute to the Sultan, when the Turks became masters of Thrace and Macedonia. Whether the ancient barony became a Genoese possession by the will of the natives or by grant of the Emperor, one fact is certain, that in June, 1384, it was in the possession of Francesco’s brother, Nicolò[540]. Some six weeks later, a great upheaval of nature, prophesied, it was afterwards said, by a Lesbian monk, made the new lord of Ænos regent of his brother’s island also.
The violent end of the first Gattilusio who reigned in Lesbos was long remembered in the island. On August 6, 1384, a terrible earthquake buried him beneath the ruins of the castle which he had built, as an inscription proudly informs us[541], some eleven years before. After a long and painful search, his mutilated body was found and laid to rest in a coffin, which he had already prepared, in the church of St John Baptist, which he had founded. By his side were laid the mangled bodies of two of his sons, Andronico and Domenico, who, with his wife, had also perished in the disaster. A third son, named Jacopo, escaped, however, by a miracle. At the time of the shock, he was sleeping by the side of his brothers in a tower of the castle; next day, however, he was discovered by a good woman in a vineyard near the Windmills at the foot of the fortress. The woman hastened to tell the good news to the chief men of the town, who came and fetched the young survivor. The boy took the oath on the Gospels as lord of Lesbos before the people and the nobles, and, as he was still a minor, his uncle, Nicolò Gattilusio, lord of Ænos, who hastened over to Lesbos on the news of the catastrophe, shared authority with him. In order to perpetuate the name of the popular founder of the dynasty, Jacopo on his accession took the name of Francesco II[542].
The joint government of uncle and nephew lasted for three years, when a dispute arose between them, and Nicolò returned to the direction of his Thracian barony. In November, 1388, Francesco II joined the league of the Knights of Rhodes, Jacques I of Cyprus, the Genoese Chartered Company of Chios, and the Commune of Pera against the designs of the Sultan Murad I. His popularity with his Perote compatriots was such, that, on the occasion of a visit to Constantinople in 1392, they gave him a banquet; but four years later they complained that he had not performed his treaty obligations, made in 1388, against the Turks. In the summer of 1396, Pera was besieged by the forces of Bayezid I, and although Francesco was actually in the port of Constantinople at the time, and his galley was stationed in the Golden Horn near “the Huntsman’s Gate” in the modern district of Aivan Serai the Commune thought it necessary to draw up a formal protest against his inaction and execute it on the stem of his ship. He replied by offering to aid his fellow-Genoese, if they would make a sortie, and his galley subsequently assisted the Venetians in relieving the capital[543]. After the disastrous defeat of the Christians at the battle of Nikopolis later in the same year, both he and Nicolò of Ænos rendered signal services to the Sultan’s noble French prisoners, and Lesbos emerged into prominence throughout the French-speaking world. Thither came the Duke of Burgundy’s chamberlain, Guillaume de l’Aigle, on his preliminary mission to mollify the heart of Bayezid, with whom Francesco had such influence that he was able to obtain leave for his sick cousin, Enguerrand VII de Coucy, to remain behind at Brusa, when the rest of the captives were dragged farther up country by the Sultan[544]. The humane feelings of the lord of Lesbos were doubtless further moved by the fact that de Coucy was, through his mother, an Austrian princess, connected with the reigning family of Constantinople, from which he was himself descended, and by the recent establishment of a French protectorate over Genoa.
Accordingly, he offered bail for his suffering relative, and when Marshal Boucicault, another of the prisoners, was set free to raise the amount necessary for their ransom, Francesco and other rich merchants of Lesbos advanced him the preliminary sum of 30,000 francs. Nicolò of Ænos willingly lent 2000 ducats more, and sent the prisoners a present of fish, bread and sugar, while his wife added a goodly supply of linen, for which they expressed their deep gratitude[545]. Of the total ransom, fixed at 200,000 ducats, Francesco and Nicolò, anxious to please the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy, respectively made themselves liable for 110,000 and 40,000, which the prisoners promised to repay as soon as possible. Half of these two sums was actually paid, and the lord of Ænos further furnished on account of the Comte de Nevers 10,000 ducats to a son of Bayezid and another Turk, who had guarded that nobleman on the day of his capture. Some years later the two Gattilusj of Lesbos and Ænos sent in a claim for what they had advanced and for sundry expenses amounting in all to 108,500 ducats. Another member of the family lent 5075 ducats, and during his stay in Lesbos the Comte de Nevers negotiated another loan from his host for 2500 more[546]. These sums show the wealth and credit of these merchant princes.
When the ransom had been settled, the three French and Burgundian envoys who had been treating with Bayezid, embarked for Lesbos, escorted by Francesco and Nicolò and accompanied by one of the ransomed prisoners, who took with him to Burgundy a natural son of Francesco, destined to become the grandfather of Giuliano Gattilusio, the terrible corsair of the next century[547]. The rest of the prisoners followed early in July, and remained for six weeks the guests of Francesco and his lady, a noble dame of gentle breeding and European accomplishments, acquired at the court of Marie de Bourbon, titular Empress of Constantinople and Princess of Achaia, in whose society she had been educated. Feeling herself highly honoured at the presence of the Comte de Nevers and his companions in the castle of Lesbos, she clothed them with fine linen and cloth of Damascus, according to the fashion of the Levant, not forgetting to replenish the wardrobe of their retainers, while her husband and his uncle rendered them every honour and assisted them in their necessity. The visit terminated in the middle of August, when two galleys, equipped by the Knights of Rhodes, transported them to that island, their next stage on the homeward voyage. Their generous host stood on the shore till the Rhodian galleys had sunk beneath the horizon[548]. A few hours earlier he had obtained the signature of a treaty which might confer a solid advantage upon his own family and give an illusory hope of future glory to his departing guests. His daughter Eugenia had just married John Palaiologos, Despot of Selymbria, the Emperor Manuel II’s nephew and rival. Through the agency of Francesco this potentate ceded his claims to the Empire to King Charles VI of France in return for a French castle and a perpetual annuity of 25,000 gold ducats[549]. Thus in Lesbos, on the morrow of Nikopolis, the French could dream of re-establishing the long extinct Latin Empire of Romania!
Francesco had not seen the last of the French prisoners. In the summer of 1399, Boucicault, sent by Charles VI to assist Manuel II in defending Constantinople from the Turks, arrived at Lesbos, which he had last visited two years before. Francesco received him with outward signs of joy, but told him that he had already informed the Turks of this new expedition, as he was bound to do by the treaties which he had with them. The position of the Lesbian lord was, indeed, of no small difficulty. It was his interest to stand well with Bayezid, while his son-in-law, John Palaiologos, who spent much of his time in the island, had received, as the son of Manuel’s elder brother, Turkish assistance in his blockade of the Imperial city. The diplomatic Levantine did not, however, wish to offend his powerful guest; he therefore offered to accompany him, and ordered a galley to be made ready to join the expedition. But the information which he had supplied to Bayezid had put the Turks upon their guard. A raid in Asia Minor was Boucicault’s sole military success; but he achieved, probably thanks to the influence of Francesco, the reconciliation of Manuel with his nephew, whom the French Marshal fetched from Selymbria to Constantinople. Manuel then departed with Boucicault to seek aid at the courts of Europe, while John acted as his viceroy on the Bosporos and received, in the presence of the Marshal, the promise of Salonika as his future residence[550]. Thus, during the absence of Manuel, Francesco’s daughter Eugenia sat upon the Byzantine throne as the consort of the Emperor’s representative, while her sister Helene married Stephen Lazarevich, Despot of Serbia, who had made her acquaintance during a visit to Lesbos on his return from the stricken field of Angora[551]. Francesco was at that time holding Foglia Vecchia on a lease from the maona of Chios, and his tact and presents saved the place in that crisis from the covetous hands of the victorious Timour and his grandson[552].
When Manuel returned to Constantinople in 1403, he refused to carry out his promised gift of Salonika. Before the battle of Angora had decided the fate of Bayezid, and the issue between the Turks and the Mongols was still uncertain, John Palaiologos had agreed—it was said—to surrender Constantinople and become a tributary of the Sultan, in the event of a Turkish victory. This was Manuel’s, excuse for refusing to allow his nephew to reside at Salonika and for banishing him to Lemnos. John thereupon appealed to his father-in-law for assistance, and Francesco, early in 1403, sailed with five vessels to attack Salonika. Hearing that Boucicault, then French governor of Genoa, whose interest in Lesbos had just been evinced by the despatch of an embassy thither, was once more in the Levant on a punitive expedition against King Janus of Cyprus, who had besieged the Genoese colony of Famagosta, Francesco despatched a vessel to meet the Marshal, reminding him that he had been a witness of the Emperor’s promise and begging him to aid in taking Salonika[553]. Boucicault did not accede to this request; on the contrary, two vessels from Lesbos and two from Ænos went to assist him in his operations against the King of Cyprus, and remained with him till shortly before he reached the Venetian colony of Modon on his homeward voyage. Manuel ended by bestowing Salonika upon John Palaiologos, but the attacks made by Boucicault upon Venetian trade in the Levant and the consequent hostilities cost Nicolò Gattilusio, owing to his Genoese origin, the loss of 3000 ducats in gold, seized by the Venetians at Modon[554].
In October of this eventful year of Boucicault’s cruise, there arrived at Lesbos a mission, sent by Enrique III of Castile to Timour, the victor of Angora, whose court was then at Samarkand. The narrative of the Castilian ambassador, Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, gives us an interesting account of the island under the second Gattilusio. He found the town “built on a high hill near the sea,” and “surrounded by a wall with many towers,” outside of which was “a large suburb.” Besides the capital, Lesbos contained “several villages and castles,” while the neighbourhood of the city was well-cultivated and abounded in gardens and vineyards. At one time—probably before the earthquake—“very large houses and churches” had stood near the town, and at one end of the city were “the ruins of great palaces, and in the middle of the ruins about 40 blocks of white marble.” The local tradition was, that “on the top of these blocks there was once a platform, where those of the city met in council.” During the five days of their stay the envoys made the acquaintance of John Palaiologos, who was then residing in his wife’s old home, and heard the tragic story of the late lord’s death, of his successor’s marvellous preservation and of the recent expedition against Salonika[555]. Thus, in the reign of Francesco II, Lesbos was frequently visited by important personages from the West, and was their last stopping-place in Latin lands on their way to Constantinople or to Asia. Descended from the famous houses of Byzantium and Savoy, and connected with that of Austria, the lord of Mytilene and lessee of Foglia Vecchia was regarded by Western visitors as “a great baron”; Eastern potentates sought the hands of his daughters in marriage, and when one of them married the heir of the powerful Giovanni de’ Grimaldi[556], governor of Nice and usurper of Monaco, the dowry of 5000 gold ducats which she brought from Lesbos was considered a large sum on the Riviera. Although born in the Levant, he still kept up the family connexion with his paternal city. Both he and his uncle had financial transactions with Genoa[557], and Francesco was patron of the family church of San Giacomo at Sestri Ponente[558]. At the same time, while Latin archbishops held the see of Mytilene, his relations with the dignitaries of the Orthodox church were excellent. The Œcumenical Patriarch addressed him as “well-beloved nephew of the Emperor,” and his uncle Nicolò as the “Emperor’s kinsman by marriage[559], the most noble, glorious, and prudent archon of Ænos,” whose consent was sought for the appointment of a Metropolitan to that long vacant see[560]. With Venice the Gattilusj, as befitted Genoese, at times had difficulties. In 1398 corsairs, sallying forth from their dominions, did much damage to the Cretans who sailed under the Venetian flag; but the Republic none the less allowed the wax of Lesbos to be exported at certain seasons for sale in her dominions[561].
After an eventful reign of 20 years, Francesco II died, if we may believe an anonymous Greek chronologist[562], on October 26, 1404. His end was strangely similar to that of his father. On a journey through the island, while passing the night in one of the lofty towers then common in the Archipelago, he was stung by a scorpion. Alarmed at his cries, his attendants and nobles climbed up into his room in such numbers that the floor collapsed and he was killed on the spot leaving three sons, Jacopo, Palamede and Dorino, of whom the eldest Jacopo became his successor[563]. The heir was, however, still a minor, and accordingly once again Nicolò came and acted as regent. His friendly policy as regent and his support of her subjects in the Levant on more than one occasion called forth the warm praise of Venice; but his fortification of Tenedos provoked an indignant protest[564]. Moreover the Greeks of Lesbos can scarcely have been edified by the appointment of rival Latin bishops—the result of the schism in the Western Church—which occurred during his regency[565]. In the spring of 1409 he died[566], and Jacopo, then of age, assumed the government of Lesbos, while Francesco’s younger son, Palamede[567], succeeded his uncle and guardian at Ænos. Nicolò’s fame long lingered in the Levant. Kritoboulos[568] half a century later ascribed to him the achievements of Francesco I, the founder of the dynasty, whose wisdom, and education, whose courage and physical gifts he extols, whom all Syria and Egypt feared and propitiated with annual blackmail, for his numerous navy ravaged their coasts and even the Libyan littoral.
Jacopo’s policy was to favour Genoese interests where they conflicted with Venetian, but to co-operate with the two rival Republics when they showed signs of uniting against his dreaded neighbours, the Turks. Thus, he aided Centurione Zaccaria, the Genoese Prince of Achaia, in his campaign against the Tocchi of Cephalonia and Zante, who were thereby compelled to invoke the protection of Venice; while the Venetians threatened to sequestrate all Lesbian merchandise in Crete, unless he gave satisfaction for the seizure of a Cretan merchantman[569]. Venetian and Genoese subjects, however, suffered alike from the reprisals provoked by the attack of two Lesbian galleys upon the Saracens of Damietta; and Jacopo had a counter grievance in the illegal levy of toll upon his people by the Genoese of Chios[570]. Towards the Turks he was, from his position, obliged to be deferential, except when he saw prospect of common action against them. If the Knights of Rhodes complained that he had sheltered the Turks, and so saved them from destruction at the hands of those zealous champions of Christendom[571], he was ready, in 1415, to join the latter, the Genoese of Chios, and the Venetian Republic in an anti-Turkish league; while he did homage to Mohammed I and aided first that Sultan and then Murad II in the suppression of Djouneïd of Aïdin, when fortune smiled upon them[572]. In 1426, the threatened declaration of war by Venice upon Genoa, then under Milanese domination, caused him some embarrassment; but the Genoese Government bade him[573] not to be afraid of Venetian threats. Not long after this, probably in 1428, Jacopo died[574]. An anonymous Greek informs us that he had married Bonne, “the fair daughter of the lord of Nice near Marseilles” but this statement would appear to be due to a confusion with the marriage of his sister with Pietro de’ Grimaldi, for Bonne, the offspring of that union espoused Louis Cossa, lord of Berre, unless the Bonne mentioned was the daughter of Amedeo VIII of Savoy, in whose dominions Nice was then included[575]. In 1421, however, Valentina D’Oria is described as “lady of Mytilene[576].” At any rate, it seems probable that he left no issue, for his successor, Dorino I, is described in a Genoese document and by a traveller of this period as “brother” of Palamede, lord of Ænos[577], and therefore of Jacopo. Dorino, whose name was derived from the famous Genoese house of D’Oria, allied by marriage with many Gattilusj, had already had experience of ruling for several years over Foglia Vecchia as his appanage—a fact still commemorated by his coins and an inscription there[578], which describes him as its “lord” in 1423-4. This former possession of the Zaccaria is first mentioned as administered by the Gattilusj in 1402, and remained united with the Lesbian branch of the family till 1455.
Meanwhile, Ænos had prospered under the rule of Palamede. Six inscriptions, still extant there, proclaim the activity of the masons during the early years of his long reign—the erection of the churches of the Chrysopege and of St Nicholas by two private citizens and the completion of three other public works[579]. But Palamede not only embellished his domain; he also extended it. The neighbouring island of Samothrace, a Greek possession since the reconquest of Constantinople from the Latins, now owned his sway—for in 1433, when Bertrandon de la Brocquière[580] visited Ænos, he wrote that Samothrace also belonged to its lord. In that island, then known as Mandrachi and celebrated for its honey and its goats, Palamede erected on March 26, 1431, and extended in 1433, a new fortress for the protection of its numerous population, as two inscriptions in its walls, one in Greek, one in Latin[581] still remind us. The Genoese lord, we are told, was interested in the past history of his dominions; he “loved greatly to hear learned discussions,” and to him a contemporary scholar, John Kanaboutzes, applied the saying of Plato about philosophers and kings. To his desire to know what Dionysios of Halikarnassos had written about Samothrace we owe the brief commentary on that author, compiled at his command by that writer, a native of Foglia[582], whose family was connected with Ænos[583]—one of several instances, where Italian rulers of Greece showed a consciousness of that country’s great past. Like his brother Jacopo, Palamede was inclined to support the Genoese Prince of Achaia, and the Venetian admiral was ordered to remonstrate with him, should occasion require[584].
Although more than seventy years had by this time elapsed since Francesco I had left Genoa for the Levant, the connexion between the distant Republic and his descendants in the East was never closer than now. In 1428, and again in 1444, the Genoese Government, although it forbade the circulation of Lesbian ducats in Genoa and district, and repudiated responsibility for the harm done by the Gattilusj to the subjects of the Sultan of Egypt, specially consulted “the lords of Mytilene, Ænos and Foglia Vecchia” whether they desired to be included or no in the treaties of peace, which it had just concluded with King Alfonso V of Aragon. “The many services rendered to us and to the community of Genoa by you and your ancestors”—so runs one of these interesting despatches—“make us realise that in all treaties involving peace or war we ought to consider your honour and advancement. For your welfare, your misfortunes, are equally ours.” Dorino I replied that he wished to be so included, and his agents accordingly ratified the peace at Genoa on his behalf in 1429. When, two years later, Genoa was drawn into the war between her Milanese masters and Venice, the Archbishop of Milan, who was at that time the governor of Genoa, notified Dorino of the outbreak of hostilities, following the precedent set in the case of his father and grandfather, warned that “most distinguished of our citizens” to put his island in a state of defence and begged him to aid any Genoese colony that might require assistance[585]. So much importance was attached at Milan to his support, that Francesco Sforza, the Duke, accredited Benedetto Folco of Forlì to the Lesbian court, in order to urge Dorino against Venice[586]. At the same time, the Genoese Government, “remembering that in all its past victories the galleys of the Gattilusj had borne their part,” invited the lord of Lesbos to co-operate with Ceba, the Genoese commander who was to be despatched for the relief of Chios from the Venetians, and requested him to send a galley to that island. Dorino replied in a loyal strain, whereupon the Genoese Government thanked him for this display of fidelity, traditional in his family, and again urged him to equip his galley for the defence of Chios. Two other despatches, following in rapid succession, begged him to inform the Chians of the speedy arrival of the Genoese fleet and to see that his own galley was in Chian waters by the middle of May. Dorino was as good as his word, and gave orders that a Lesbian galley should join the expedition; but before the latter arrived, the Venetians had raised the siege. As a reward for his services, the commander of the Genoese fleet and the governors of Pera and Chios were instructed to provide for the safety of his little state, and the home government invited him to rely upon its unshakable affection in time of need. Influential Genoese marriages stimulated this feeling. Dorino had married a D’Oria; Palamede’s daughter Caterina now married another; while her sisters, Ginevra and Costanza, respectively espoused Ludovico and Gian Galeazzo de Campo-fregoso, relatives of the then reigning Doge, and the former soon to be Doge himself. Thus Lesbian interests were well represented at Genoa. In return, Genoa frequently requested Dorino to see that justice was done to her subjects in his dominions, even to the detriment of his own family[587].
Genoa found Dorino no less useful as a diplomatist than as an ally, for the lord of Lesbos and Foglia Vecchia had married his daughter Maria to Alexander, second son of Alexios IV, Emperor of Trebizond, in whose dominions the Genoese, owing to their Black Sea colonies, had important commercial interests, latterly greatly injured by the pro-Venetian policy of that sovereign. According to the Trapezuntine practice, Alexios had raised his eldest son John IV to the Imperial dignity in his own lifetime; but his unfilial heir conspired against him, was driven into exile, and replaced by his next brother Alexander. John IV was, however, as favourable to the Genoese as his father to the Venetians, and was restored with the assistance of a Genoese of Caffa. Alexios IV was murdered in 1429; but John IV was not allowed to reign undisturbed. His brother Alexander fled to Constantinople, where his sister was wife of the Emperor John VI, and contracted a marriage with Dorino’s daughter, in order that he might secure his support, and through him, that of Genoa, against the Emperor of Trebizond. When the Spanish traveller, Pero Tafur, visited Lesbos at this time he found Alexander there engaged in levying a fleet for his restoration. This did not, however, suit Genoese policy, and accordingly the Doge of Genoa requested Dorino in 1438 to act as peacemaker between the two brothers and to invite his son-in-law to reside at Constantinople or in Lesbos on an annuity chargeable on the revenues of Trebizond[588]. Another matrimonial alliance brought Dorino’s family into renewed relations with the Palaiologoi. In 1440, an old link between the two families had been snapped by the death of Eugenia Gattilusio, widow of the Emperor John VI’s cousin and namesake[589]—an event which was doubtless the occasion when the castle of Kokkinos on the coast of Lemnos, which had been her widow’s portion, passed into the hands of Dorino[590]. On July 27 of the following year, however, the Emperor’s brother, the Despot Constantine, afterwards the last Christian ruler of Byzantium, married Dorino’s daughter Caterina, a marriage arranged by the historian Phrantzes. This union did not last long; after a brief honeymoon in Lesbos, Constantine left his bride in her father’s care, and set out, accompanied by a Lesbian galley, for the Morea, nor did he see her again till his return in the following July. At Lesbos he took her on board his ship; but, when he reached Lemnos on his way to Constantinople, he had to take refuge behind the walls of Kokkinos from the attacks of a Turkish fleet. The Turks in vain besieged the castle of the Gattilusj for 27 days, and the strain and anxiety of the siege caused the death of his wife, which occurred at Palaiokastro in August. There the ill-fated second consort of the last hero of the Byzantine Empire was laid to rest[591].
Meanwhile, besides the acquisition of Kokkinos, thus courageously saved by his heroic son-in-law, Dorino had received from the Greek Empire the island of Thasos, which more than a century before had belonged to the Genoese family of Zaccaria. Indeed, if we may accept the two allusions to the Gattilusj in the Greek version of Bondelmonti[592] as the work of that traveller, Thasos, which was Byzantine in September, 1414, had been given to Jacopo as a fief before 1420. At any rate, a Thasian inscription of April 1, 1434, now preserved in the wall of the church of St Athanasios at Kastro, informs us that a tower was built there by Oberto de’ Grimaldi[593] a member of the well-known Ligurian family who is mentioned elsewhere[594] as a captain in the service of Dorino. Ten years later, the archæologist, Cyriacus of Ancona, upon visiting Thasos, found that Dorino had recently bestowed the island upon his son, Francesco III, who was still under the control of a preceptor, Francesco Pedemontano.
The indefatigable antiquary may have paid an earlier visit to Lesbos in 1431, but the accounts which he has left of the Gattilusj, their dominions, and the neighbouring islands of the Thracian Sea range from 1444 to 1447. In Lesbos he was well received by Dorino, who promised to aid him in exploring the whole island. He had, indeed, arrived at a fortunate moment, for the rumour of a threatened Turkish invasion had ceased, so that the lord of Lesbos had leisure for archæology, and his visitor could examine “the remains of the temple of Diana,” and “the baths of Jove,” whose name was carved in the midst of them[595]. With Dorino’s captain, Oberto de’ Grimaldi, he sailed to Foglia Vecchia, where the Gattilusj had a factory, as at Lesbos, for the production of alum, and made the acquaintance of “the Master Kanaboutzes,” probably the author of the commentary on Dionysios, who could tell him all about the Foglie, of which he was a native[596]. In Thasos, the third domain of the elder branch of the Gattilusj, he spent Christmas day, and composed a long Latin inscription as well as an Italian poem in honour of young Francesco. The enthusiastic guest prayed that the beginning of his host’s rule over Thasos might be of as good omen as “the yule log thrown on the fire in the turreted castle”; that the yoke of the barbarian Turks might be removed from Thrace, that the former dependencies of the island there might return to his sway, and that Francesco’s patron saint, St John the Evangelist, might protect this “native offspring of the Palaiologoi, this pride of the most noble Gatalusian race.” “What Thasian nymph,” he asks, “could have deprived Lesbos of her Francesco?” The attraction was the lordship of an island, which had been described by Bondelmonti as well-peopled, very fertile and containing three fair towns. Francesco had, indeed, begun well by restoring the principal city, thus earning a dedicatory inscription by the Thasian citizens and colonists, and by erecting at the entrance of the harbour some fine marble statues, which an ancient inscription showed to have represented the members of the Thasian council. At this time the island could boast of six other towns beside its “marble city,” whose walls attracted the admiration of the traveller. Under the guidance of Carlo de’ Grimaldi and “the learned Giovanni of Novara,” he inspected the numerous ancient tombs outside, the large amphitheatre with no less than 20 rows then standing intact, and the akropolis of the city[597].
The worthy Cyriacus was no less hospitably received by the junior branch of the Gattilusj. At Ænos he met Palamede with his two sons Giorgio and Dorino II, and was delighted to find there an old friend in the person of Cristoforo Dentuto, envoy extraordinary of Genoa in the Levant. Accompanied by “the prince of Ænos and Samothrace” as he calls Palamede, and by Francesco Calvi, the latter’s secretary, he was taken to see “the great tomb of Polydoros, son of Priam,” some five stadia beyond the walls, admired the sculptured figures of fauns and animals there, and copied an ancient Greek inscription from the marble base of a statue that stood before “the prince’s court.” Letters of introduction from Palamede and Francesco of Thasos secured for him a warm reception at the monastery of Hagia Laura on Mount Athos[598]. At Samothrace, Joannes Laskaris Rhyndakenos, Palamede’s prefect of the island, personally conducted the antiquary to the old city, where he saw “ancient walls and the remains of a marble temple of Neptune” (known to modern archæologists as “the Dorian marble temple”), “fragments of huge columns, epistylia and bases, and doorposts, adorned with the crowned heads of bulls and other figures”—now identified with the remains of a round building built by Arsinöe, daughter of Ptolemy Soter. Thence he went to “the new castle, founded by Palamede” some thirteen years before, and built to protect his new town of “Capsulum.” Close to the tower he saw to his delight “several ancient marbles, with dances of Nymphs sculptured and inscriptions in Latin and Greek”—the two reliefs of dancing Nymphs now in the Louvre[599]. From his accounts of the neighbouring islands, we learn that Imbros, where his guide was a noble and learned Imbriote, Hermodoros Michael Kritoboulos, the historian, in 1444 was still Byzantine, and “governed for the Emperor John Palaiologos” by that same noble, Manuel Asan, of whom inscriptions have been found there, and who had lately restored two-thirds of the akropolis[600]. We find, too, that in 1447 Theodore Branas was Byzantine governor of Lemnos, where the Gattilusj as yet held only the castle of Kokkinos[601].
The visit of the antiquary of Ancona to the Gattilusj was the calm before the storm, which was so soon to burst upon them. Even while Cyriacus was their guest, the fatal battle of Varna made Murad II master of the Near East. For a few years, indeed, the Gattilusj went on marrying and giving in marriage, as if the end of their rule were not at hand. In 1444, Dorino’s daughter Ginevra married Giacomo II Crispo, Duke of the Archipelago[602]; five years later the lord of Lesbos sent the Archbishop of Mytilene, at that time the celebrated Leonardo of Chios, to Rome to obtain from the Pope a dispensation for the marriage of his eldest surviving son, Domenico, and a daughter of Palamede. As the two young people were first-cousins, Ludovico de Campo-fregoso, Palamede’s son-in-law and at that time Doge of Genoa, begged the Pope not to grant the dispensation, and as an example of the iniquity of such an alliance he instanced the case of Dorino’s firstborn (presumably Francesco III of Thasos), who had married another daughter of Palamede and had died less than six months afterwards. The Pope refused his consent, and the marriage did not take place[603].
Hitherto the Gattilusj, partly by tribute paid ever since the reign of Murad I[604], partly by tact, had managed to keep the Turks at a distance. On one occasion, when Constantinople had been threatened, the Pope had offered to pay the expenses of the Lesbian galley, if Dorino would agree to sent it thither; but the Genoese Government, while transmitting his Holiness’ offer and praising the services of the Gattilusj to Christendom, recognised their natural unwillingness to offend the Sultan and advised Dorino, if he did send aid, to pretend that he was merely protecting Genoese interests at Pera. The Greek Emperor was able to raise a loan, if he received no actual assistance, at Ænos[605]; but in 1450, at last, Lesbos was attacked. Murad despatched a large fleet under Baltaoghli, the first in the list of Turkish admirals, against the island, and his men carried off more than 3000 souls, slaughtered many cattle, destroyed the flourishing city of Kallone, and inflicted damage to the amount of more than 150,000 ducats. It was probably on this occasion that the lady of Lesbos, Orietta d’Oria, performed the prodigy of valour that won her a niche in the literary Pantheon of her native city besides the men of her father’s house. At the time of the invasion, she seems to have been in the town of Molivos, the ancient Methymna, whose inhabitants, exhausted from lack of food, were on the point of surrendering, when she appeared among them in full armour, and led them to victory against the astonished Turks. Thereupon Dorino was able to secure by a timely present and the increase of his tribute to 2000 gold pieces a renewal of the peace which he protested that he had never broken. He was, however, under no illusions as to the durability of this truce. He wrote to Genoa, asking for assistance, reminding the Republic that he was of Genoese origin and that he had often aided her to the best of his power with men, ships, and money. Unless, therefore, she could protect him, he would be reluctantly compelled to look elsewhere for help. At the same time, after the fashion of the Christian princes of the Levant on the eve of the Turkish conquest, he announced his intention of sending an expedition to obtain his rights from the Emperor John IV of Trebizond, who had also maltreated the Genoese of Caffa, and begged the Republic to receive and revictual his galleys in her Black Sea ports. This last request was granted[606].
The Turkish conquest of Constantinople, although it sounded the death-knell of the Latin states in the Levant, was of momentary benefit to the Gattilusj. They had been close relatives and good friends of the Greek Imperial family, and one of them, a certain Laudisio, had distinguished himself in the defence of the city[607]; but, when all was over, they hastened to profit by its fall. The two islands of Lemnos and Imbros, from their position near the mouth of the Dardanelles, have always possessed great strategic importance. Under the Latin Empire, Lemnos had been the fief of the Lord High Admiral, who bore the title of Grand-duke; under the Palaiologoi it had been either the appanage of an Imperial prince, or had been entrusted to the government of some great noble. So greatly was it coveted, that Alfonso V of Aragon had made it the price of his aid for the relief of Constantinople[608], while during the siege Constantine had promised it to Giustiniani, if the Turks were repulsed[609]. When the news of the disaster reached these islands, the Byzantine authorities fled on board Italian ships, while many of the inhabitants sought refuge in Chios or in the Venetian colonies. There was, however, one leading personage in Imbros, who was resolved to remain and make terms with the victors. This was Kritoboulos, the future historian of Mohammed II, who bribed the Turkish Admiral, Hamza, not to attack the islands and through his mediation managed to send representatives of the Greek church and the local nobility with a present to the Sultan’s court at Adrianople, begging him to allow them to be administered as before. It chanced that at this moment envoys of the Gattilusj were at Adrianople, for on the fall of Constantinople both Dorino and Palamede had hastened to placate and congratulate the terrible Sultan, and to crave the grant of Lemnos and Imbros. Dorino, although he was still lord of Lesbos in name and continued to sign state documents, had been bed-ridden since 1449, and his eldest surviving son, Domenico, governed as regent. Domenico and one of Palamede’s councillors were supported by the two emissaries of Kritoboulos, and the Sultan was pleased to confer Lemnos upon the lord of Lesbos, Imbros upon him of Ænos. At the same time Mohammed ordered the former to pay an annual tribute of 3000 gold pieces for Lesbos and 2325 for Lemnos; that of Imbros was assessed at 1200 gold pieces. Thus, by the irony of fate, only nine years before its annihilation, the dominion of the Gattilusj reached its greatest extent. Indeed, there was a party in Skyros also which advocated annexation to Lesbos, but there the majority wisely preferred the nearer and more powerful lion of St Mark, which waved over Eubœa[610].
The Gattilusj were now well aware that they only existed on sufferance, and they were more careful than ever not to offend their master. Domenico paid more than one visit of obeisance to the Turkish court; and when, in June, 1455, the Turkish admiral, on his way to Rhodes, anchored off Lesbos, the historian Doukas[611], the prince’s secretary, was sent on board with a handsome present of garments of silk and of woven wool six in number, 6000 pieces of silver, 20 oxen, 50 sheep, more than 800 measures of wine, 2 bushels of biscuit and one of bread, more than 1000 lbs. of cheese, and fruit without measure, as well as gifts in proportion to their rank for the members of the admiral’s staff. Under these circumstances, it was no wonder that Hamza treated the lord of Lesbos “like a brother,” and refrained from entering the harbour, for fear of alarming the islanders.
Scarcely had the Turkish fleet left, when, on June 30, 1455, Dorino I died, leaving his dominion of Lesbos, Foglia Vecchia, Thasos, and Lemnos to his eldest surviving son, Domenico, for whom the younger, Nicolò, acted as governor in the last-named island. Before a month had passed, the fleet hove in sight of Mytilene on its homeward voyage, and was invited to anchor in the harbour, where the serviceable Doukas again visited the admiral, whom he kept in good humour by a sumptuous banquet and sped on his way with a sigh of relief on the morrow. But the historian had before him a more delicate mission—that of paying the annual tribute for Lesbos and Lemnos to Mohammed II. Starting from Lesbos on August 1, he found the Sultan at Adrianople, kissed hands in token of homage and remained seated in his presence, till His Majesty’s morning meal was over. When, however, he went to hand the money to the Sultan’s ministers next day, they ingeniously asked him after the health of his master. The historian replied that he was well and sent his greeting, whereupon the Ottomans answered, that they meant the old prince. Doukas explained that Dorino had been dead 40 days, and that his successor had already been practically prince for six years, during which time he had once or twice come in person to do homage and congratulate the Great Turk. The ministers thereupon cut short the conversation with the remark that no one had the right to assume the title of lord of Lesbos (borne till his death by Dorino), until he had come and received his principality from the hands of his Most Mighty suzerain. “Go therefore,” they said, “and return with thy master; for if he come not, he knows what the future has in store for him.” The terrified envoy hastened back to Lesbos, and set out with Domenico and several leading men of both races in the island to do homage to Mohammed. The Sultan had, however, meanwhile changed his headquarters, for the plague was then ravaging Thrace, and it was not till the Lesbian deputation reached the Bulgarian village of Zlatica that they came up with him. After the usual bakshîsh to the influential Pashas, Mahmûd and Said Achmet, they were admitted to the presence, and Domenico humbly kissed the hand of his suzerain. But on the morrow a message was conveyed to Domenico, that the Sultan wished to have the island of Thasos. Argument was useless, and the island, which had belonged for some 20, or perhaps even 35, years to the Gattilusj, was ceded to Mohammed. This sacrifice only whetted the appetite of the Sultan; on the morrow a second message announced that the tribute for Lesbos would be doubled. At this Domenico plucked up courage to reply, that, if the Sultan wished to take the whole of Lesbos, it was in his power to do so; but that to pay twice the previous tribute was beyond its present ruler’s resources. At the same time, he begged the Sultan’s ministers to intervene on his behalf. They represented the facts to their master, and the latter agreed to a compromise, by which Lesbos should thenceforth pay 4000 gold pieces, instead of 3000. Then, at last they decked Domenico with a gold-embroidered robe and his companions with silken garments; the Lesbians signed the oath of allegiance and set out on their homeward journey, “thanking God, who had delivered them out of the hands of the monster.”