The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (16 page)

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Some sources suggest that Carmagnola was merely promised rule over ‘a city within the territory of Milan’, though it is likely that by this stage he may well have harboured a secret ambition to rule Milan itself (as indeed did the young
condomere
Francesco Sforza, who would in fact wrest the dukedom from the Visconti family some twenty years later).

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As the historian W. Carew Hazlitt explained: ‘It was common practice for the most exalted personages to become bedfellows. We find Charles VIII of France and the Duke of Orleans so resting together.’ In similar medieval fashion, the servants of the bedchamber and the master’s dogs would have slept at the foot of the bed.

5

‘We are Venetians, then Christians’

W
HILE
V
ENICE CONTINUED
with its war in mainland Italy, events at the very eastern limit of mainland Europe were moving towards a climax. Here, arguably the most significant event in Venetian history was taking place nearly 1,500 miles sailing distance from the lagoon. This was an event that would transform Europe, putting an end to an era which had lasted for more than a thousand years. In doing so, it would reveal to the world (and perhaps even to the Venetians themselves) the basic motive and driving force of their Republic, a motive that would eventually permeate the entire continent of Europe, and arguably continues to do so to this day.

By the early decades of the fifteenth century the Ottoman Empire had overrun much of the territory of the Byzantine Empire (which less than two centuries previously had covered most of the Balkans and much of Anatolia). Any minor hindrance to the advance of the Ottoman forces was treated with the utmost severity. The conquest of Salonica in 1430 had, according to the few survivors, seen the Turks ‘destroy the place to its foundations’, the soldiers behaving ‘like wild animals’ and the city ‘filled with wailing and despair’ as ‘men, women, children, people of all ages, bound like animals’ were marched off into slavery.

Less than twenty years later, the nineteen-year-old Mehmet II had become sultan of the Ottoman empire, and had publicly declared his intention to make Constantinople his capital. The Byzantine emperor Constantine XI immediately sent out a desperate appeal to Venice for help; but Venice was too involved in its mainland war with Milan – which was proving a huge drain on its finances, manpower and navy – and declined the invitation to
act on its own. Instead, Venice intimated that it would contribute to the defence of Constantinople if other Christian forces joined together in a Holy League against the Moslems. However, given the weakness and disarray of the pope, the Holy Roman Emperor and other European rulers, this could only have been achieved with any speed if Venice had directed all its powers to stressing the utmost urgency of the situation for all concerned, which it refused to do. Despite Venice’s parlous finances, its attitude to Emperor Constantine’s plea was all but suicidally short-sighted, as Venice relied crucially upon its trade with the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean, both of which would stand under serious threat if Constantinople should fall to the Ottomans.

Step-by-step Mehmet II now set about achieving his declared aim. According to the Venetian doctor Nicolò Barbaro, who kept a diary of events in Constantinople during this time:

During the month of March 1452, Mehmet II began building a superb castle six miles north of Constantinople towards the mouth of the Black Sea. It had fourteen towers, with the five main towers lined with lead and built with thick walls.

This massive castle was completed in just five months, and overlooked the Bosphorus at its narrowest point, where it is just over 600 yards wide. All were aware of what was happening, and as Barbaro recorded, ‘It was made with the express purpose of taking Constantinople.’ Mehmet named it Bogazkesen, meaning ‘strait cutter’ (more ominously,
bogaz
also meant ‘throat)’,
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and:

He issued a decree that all ships sailing from the Black Sea into these Straits must haul down their sails and send a boat to make contact with the officer in charge of the castle. Only he could give permission for them to pass, otherwise they would be sunk … Every ship would have to pay the officer a toll.

On 26 November, a Venetian merchant ship captained by Antonio Rizzo laden with provisions from the Black Sea for depleted Constantinople attempted to run the blockade, but was holed by a cannonball fired from the walls of Bogazkesen, and its crew were taken prisoner. Most of these were summarily beheaded, though some were permitted to go free so that they could spread word of the fate that had befallen their crewmates. And in two instances this had indeed been exemplary: Mehmet II had ordered Captain Rizzo to suffer death by impalement on a stake, while the young son of the ship’s clerk had been despatched to serve as a member of the sultan’s harem.

This was an act of war, and when news of the incident reached Venice the Council of Ten belatedly stirred into action. A squadron of five galleys under the command of Gabriele Trevisano was despatched to Constantinople, though even these did not carry their full compliment of fighting men, owing to the war with Milan. And when they arrived in Constantinople in December, the emperor was disconcerted to learn that Trevisano intended to leave after just ten days – his orders were to take on board as many Venetian merchants as wished to leave, and then carry out patrols protecting Venetian merchant shipping. The resident Venetian merchants were so disgusted at this that they refused to leave, at the same time boarding the galleys, to prevent them from leaving too. A message was despatched back to Venice explaining, in Trevisano’s defence, that he had not disobeyed orders, but had simply been prevented from carrying them out by outraged Venetian citizens.

By this time Constantinople was already in a desperate state. Yet not everyone appeared to care. Indicative of this is the reaction of a Hungarian named Orban, the greatest cannon-founder of his time, who arrived to offer his services in defence of the city. When Constantine XI was unable to employ him, pleading that he had neither the raw materials to build a cannon nor sufficient funds to pay him, Orban simply offered his services to Mehmet II. The grateful sultan sent Orban to the foundry at Adrianople, where he cast an enormous twenty-seven-foot cannon capable of firing 1,200-pound cannon balls over a distance of half a mile. This was named the ‘basilic’ (king), and was the most powerful cannon the world had yet seen. It would take three months to build, and would then set out on the
150-mile journey towards Constantinople, hauled by sixty oxen. Even so, it remained to be seen whether it would be capable of breaching the formidable walls, which stretched for more than fourteen miles, encircling the city by land and sea. The walls lining the three sides of the city surrounded by water were considered unassailable. The walls on the landward side to the west of the city contained both an inner and outer ring of defences, were more than twenty feet thick in places and were reinforced by scores of vast towers nearly forty feet high. These defences had withstood all attempts to breach them for almost a thousand years.

On 29 January 1453 a welcome relief squadron arrived at Constantinople under the command of the Genoese Giovanni Longo, a relative of the distinguished Doria family. With him he brought 700 soldiers recruited in Rhodes and Chios. Owing to Longo’s renown as a commander of cities under siege, the grateful Constantine XI placed him in charge of the four miles of walls, including no fewer than sixteen turreted gates, which constituted the city’s landward defences. Mindful of the ever-increasing emergency of the situation, Girolamo Minotto, the Venetian
bailo
(chief representative of the permanent colony of Venetian merchants in Constantinople), now despatched a desperate letter to Venice. This was swiftly followed by similar letters to the pope, the kings of Hungary and Naples and the Holy Roman Emperor, begging them to send reinforcements before it was too late. No action was forthcoming from these leaders of Western Christendom. Minotto’s letter to Venice arrived on 19 February and demanded immediate action, ‘in view of the immense peril which now threatens Constantinople’. The Senate swiftly voted to send a second fleet consisting of fifteen galleys, each carrying 400 men. There was just one snag: the city had neither the men nor the available galleys. Nothing could be done without raising further taxes, which would be required before the galleys could even be fitted out in the Arsenale and men trained or seconded from the mainland war. It would be almost three months before this fleet finally embarked from Venice under the command of Giacomo Loredan.

Meanwhile, many in Constantinople were becoming tired of waiting for assistance from the West, and less than a month after Minotto had sent his letters appealing to the Western leaders, seven Venetian ships under the command of Pietro Davanzo carrying 700 passengers sneaked out of
the Golden Horn under cover of darkness and made their way to freedom. Despite the morale-sapping effect of this flight, none of the Greeks and Italians remaining in the city made any attempt to follow them.

Things soon took a turn for the worse. These were described by the Venetian physician Nicolò Barbaro, who was in Constantinople at the time and kept a diary of events as they unfolded: ‘On the fifth of April, an hour after daybreak Mehmet II arrived before the walls of Constantinople with an army of around a hundred and sixty thousand men, which encamped about two and a half miles from the city.’ The long-expected siege of Constantinople had begun. The following day, in a well-drilled exercise, ‘the Turkish Emperor marched with half his army to within a mile of the walls of the city’. Then a day later ‘he advanced with most of his army to within a quarter of a mile of the walls, and they then spread in a long line encompassing the whole length of the city walls on the landward side’.

Mehmet II issued the traditional call to Constantine promising that he and all the inhabitants of the city would be spared if they surrendered at once. Constantine XI rejected this offer and watched from the western walls as Mehmet had his tent pitched outside the Military Gate of San Romano.
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The city’s defenders lining the castellated walls peered down as the Turkish soldiers began digging in, erecting earthworks to protect their positions. Then, in a gruesome reminder of what fate they could expect at Turkish hands, now that they had turned down the offer of surrender, the Sultan ordered thirty-six Byzantine soldiers who had been captured at a nearby fort to be impaled before the walls, their pitiful shrieks and cries all too audible up on the ramparts during the long hours of agony that they endured before dying.

After this, the siege began in earnest, as Barboro related:

On the eleventh of April, Mehmet II placed his line of cannon opposite the walls, especially at their weakest part of the city, seemingly intent upon a swift victory. He placed these cannon in four strategic places … One of the cannons which he stationed opposite
the Gate of San Romano was capable of firing a ball that weighed around twelve hundred pounds and was thirteen
quarte
[around twelve feet] in circumference, which gives some idea of the terrible damage which it inflicted where it landed.

In all there were a dozen Turkish cannon of various sizes, and the next day they launched into their bombardment of the city walls, a deafening thunder that would continue ‘with ceaseless monotony’ throughout the coming weeks. Simultaneously the next stage of the Ottoman strategy was put into place:

In the early afternoon of the twelth of April, the Turkish fleet moved towards the harbour of Constantinople, their oars rowing with great purpose. Finally, they dropped anchor at the anchorage known as ‘The Columns’, the sailors on their ships letting out blood-curdling cries, sounding drums and trumpets so as to fill our soldiers on the city walls with great fear, and cause consternation amongst the men of our fleet in harbour in the Golden Horn. Their entire fleet consisted of over 145 ships, and when they anchored we Christians began wondering what they were going to do. For the rest of the day and into the night they went silent, and their ships made no movement, while our soldiers on the walls were placed on alert.

As the defenders watched anxiously from the walls, it gradually became clear that the Ottoman fleet was not poised to attack, but had begun a blockade of the Golden Horn, cutting off the city’s harbour from access to the Bosphorus, and thence the Black Sea to the north and the Sea of Marmara to the south.

Just four days later this blockade was put to the test:

During the afternoon of the twentieth day of April, four large ships hove in sight to the south on the sea of Marmara. They had evidently come from the West by way of the Dardanelles, and looked as if they had come from Genoa with the aim of bringing supplies to Constantinople.

Looking down from the walls of Constantinople, Barbaro described the ensuing scene:

The four Genoese ships approached the city walls aided by a fresh southerly breeze, but no sooner were they close to the walls than the wind suddenly dropped and they found themselves helplessly becalmed. No sooner were they becalmed than the Ottoman fleet stirred into activity, with shouts and the sounding of drums as they rowed towards them at full speed.

The Genoese ships did their best to elude the attackers, but in the end were forced to confront them, as more and more citizens of Constantinople lined the walls looking down at the Bosphorus. Owing to the inept tactics of the Turkish admiral Baltoghlu, the Genoese ships eventually managed to outwit the Turkish fleet, pouring ‘Greek Fire’
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onto the surface of the sea so that it drifted downstream and engulfed the pursuing Turkish triremes in flames.

Later, under cover of darkness, the Genoese ships raised sail and reached the safety of the chain-boom stretched across the Gold Horn. This was quickly lowered, allowing them to reach the sanctuary of the harbour. The captains of the four Genoese ships were immediately led to Constantine XI, who proceeded to question them about the situation in the West, but they had no meaningful news. They brought no reply to the letters he had despatched in the last days of January to the pope, the kings of Hungary and Naples and the Holy Roman Emperor. And there was no news from Venice. Nonetheless, Constantine still placed great hopes in the letter that his
bailo
Minotto had despatched to the Republic. Surely this would have reached one of the fortified Venetian trading posts in the Aegean, which formed a chain of communication through to the Adriatic and thence to Venice itself. The Venetians must have been stirred into action by now.
After all, the plight of Constantinople mattered almost as much to the Republic as it did to the Byzantines. On 3 May, Constantine XI summoned the Venetian commanders to his presence, addressing them: