The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (18 page)

By this time there was no threat from the Turkish fleet, which had been anchored in the Bosphorus, as it had made its way to Constantinople:

where all the sailors had disembarked, leaving their ships beached on the shore without even anyone to guard them, as they were all running like dogs into the city in the hope of seizing gold, jewels and treasure, or to capture some rich merchant for ransom. They particularly sought out the monasteries, where all the nuns were carried off and ravished, prior to being sold off as slaves for the markets of Anatolia. Likewise all the young women they could capture were also ravished and then sold off for whatever price they would fetch, although some of these women, and also some married women, preferred to throw themselves down wells and drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks.

Taking advantage of a northerly breeze, Diedo led his Venetian ships, together with the following Genoese, down towards the mouth of the Bosphorus and the open sea. His flotilla had by now been joined by all the other Venetian warships in the harbour. As the straggling fleet of escaping ships sailed away from the doomed city, Barbaro (who had made it onto one of Diedo’s ships) described the last of Constantinople:

According to the practice of the Turks, once their soldiers had taken a house or a church or a monastery they raised a flag with their emblem on it, so that no one else would come and pillage it. However, some houses flew as many as ten flags, because the Turks were so excited at their great victory. As far as I could estimate, there were over 200,000 Turkish flags flying from the rooftops and the towers
all over the city … whilst it was evident that the great slaughter of Christians continued as we had seen it before, with blood flowing through the gutters like rainwater after a summer storm. Meanwhile the corpses of Turks and Christians alike had been thrown into the water, where they floated out to sea like melons bobbing along a canal.

So the Venetians made good their escape. But what had become of Giacomo Loredan and the Venetian fleet that had supposedly been sent to relieve the city – the fleet that the searching brigantine from Constantinople had been unable to find?

Loredan had set sail with fifteen galleys sometime before 9 May, accompanied by Bartolomeo Marcello, who had been appointed as Venice’s ambassador to Mehmet II. But far from being instructed to proceed with full speed, even at this late stage, Loredan had in fact been ordered to put in at Corfu to collect another galley and then to proceed to Negropont, where he would rendezvous with two further galleys. Only then was he to sail for Tenedos, at the mouth of the Dardanelles, where he would link up with a Venetian flotilla under Admiral Alvise Longo, which had been sent ahead to gather intelligence on the strength and disposition of the Ottoman fleet. Loredan was then to sail for Constantinople, taking great care not to engage any Ottoman ships on the way.

It is at this point that the duplicity of Venetian policy becomes evident. Plainly the Senate hoped that the Venetian fleet would arrive too late. In this event, ambassador Marcello was instructed to present himself before Mehmet II and explain that Venice had only peaceful intentions towards the Ottomans, and that the purpose of Loredan’s fleet was merely to protect Venetian trading interests and escort any of the city’s merchantmen out of harm’s way. If, on the other hand, Constantinople had not fallen, Marcello had instructions to advise Mehmet to agree to peace talks, while Loredan pressed similar advice upon Constantine XI, urging him to accept any offer made by Mehmet II, regardless of the conditions. In either case, Venice’s immediate and short-sighted aim was simply to ensure continuance of the Republic’s trade.

News of the fall of Constantinople reached Venice precisely a month after the event, on 29 June, when trading on the Rialto immediately came
to a halt. The merchants in the market place were well aware of the momentous significance of this event, even if their legislators (many of whom were also merchants) chose not to be. The progress of Admiral Loredan, ambassador Marcello and their accompanying fleet had been so slow that by this date they were still making their long way towards Constantinople. On 9 July further directions reached them from Venice. In the light of the definite news that Constantinople had fallen, there was to be a change of plan. Loredan was to make sure that any remnant Venetian shipping bound from the Levant for Constantinople was diverted to Modane in the Peleponnese, whilst he himself was to proceed at once to secure the defence of Negropont and order the reinforcement of all Venetian trading posts in the Aegean. At the same time Marcello was to continue on to Constantinople, where he was to negotiate an agreement with Mehmet II aimed at re-establishing the Venetian colony in the city and ensuring the continuance of the Republic’s trading privileges. Marcello was also authorised to spend 1,500 golden ducats on ‘presents’ to the sultan and any of his officials who might assist in the signing of such an agreement. All this, regardless of the fact that many hundreds of Venetians including several dozen from amongst the most distinguished noble families had lost their lives at the fall of Constantinople, after which, to add insult to injury, Mehmet had personally ordered the public beheading of the Venetian
bailo
, Minotto, and his son. And as if this was not enough, Venice had also lost property in the city worth more than 300,000 ducats, a loss that resulted in several of the Republic’s most distinguished merchants going bankrupt.

The Venetian Senate’s justification for this betrayal of an empire, of their religion and even of their own countrymen was summed up in an infamous public declaration of their present policy:
‘Siamo Veneziani, poi Cristiani’
(‘We are Venetians, then Christians’). From now on the Republic would pursue a foreign policy guided by commercial principles alone. In the Venetian imperial age, conscience would be utterly overruled by expediency.

Despite Mehmet II’s contempt for such self-serving hypocrisy, he consented to open negotiations with ambassador Marcello, which dragged on for months on end. After a long process of cat-and-mouse, Mehmet
eventually agreed in April 1454 to let the Venetians re-establish a trading colony in Constantinople, and the Senate appointed Marcello as its first resident
bailo
, a post accepted with some trepidation.

But the Venetians had made an irreparable miscalculation. Their Levantine trade was no longer conducted in vitalising competition with their fellow city state, namely Genoa, nor was it able to take advantage of the ailing Byzantine Empire. Instead it was now wholly dependent upon the whim of the powerful and expansive Mehmet II, who soon made his position transparently clear. As early as 1458 the Venetian protectorate of the Duchy of Naxos (which included all the central Aegean islands of the Cyclades) was forced to become a tributary of the Ottoman Empire, and the following year the Turks took Tenedos. Four years years later the Ottomans seized the strategic Venetian colony of Argos in the eastern Peloponnese. The Venetian trading empire was now coming under increasing encroachment.

*
It is now known as Rumeli Hisan, meaning Roman castle, as it was built on the site of an ancient Roman fort; its impressive ruins still stand on the hillside overlooking the Bosphorus.

*
Often known simply as the 5th Military Gate. Confusingly, there was also a Civil Gate of San Romano half a mile or so to the south.

*
What we know as ‘Greek Fire’ was probably first concocted by alchemists in Constantinople in the seventh century. It was a particularly effective naval weapon and was used with great effect in the waters of the Bosphorus. Thought to have been a mixture of bitumen, petroleum and other inflammables, the liquid floated on the surface of the sea, could be ignited and remained alight even in fairly choppy seas, setting fire to any ships it came up against.

*
At this time a modest Venetian merchant could maintain his house, his family and his servants for around 200 ducats a year.

†
Some contemporary sources suggested that Halil Pasha, a man known for his tolerance of Christians, may in fact have been bribed by the Byzantines. Although this seems unlikely, such a story was soon being circulated by Halil Pasha’s enemies. In fact, his family had become inordinately powerful and rich in the service of the sultans, to the point where Halil Pasha was said to have been richer than the sultan himself. At any rate, a week after this council meeting Mehmet II had Halil Pasha executed and ordered his possessions to be seized.

*
According to the prevailing rules of war, such behaviour by the soldiery was condoned at the end of any siege in Europe and further afield. Customarily it was allowed to continue for three days – though in this case Mehmet II ordered an end to the looting after just one day.

6

Father and Son

T
HE FALL OF
Constantinople in 1453 emphasised the split between East and West, which had first come into being more than a thousand years previously when the Roman Empire had split in two, leading to the establishment of the (Byzantine) Orthodox Church and the (Roman) Catholic Church. Now this was to be replaced by the division between the Moslem East and the Christian West, which roughly followed the same tectonic fault-line through the Balkans, a feature that has continued to this day. Although it had been a long time coming, the final demise of Constantinople can be blamed on Venetian short-sightedness, prompted by what it saw as its own self-interest.

Indicative of Venice’s moral malaise was the fact that Doge Francesco Foscari, elected despite Tomasso Mocenigo’s deathbed warning, had now been in office for thirty years, the longest any man had ever held this post. The administration was in a rut, and the Republic had now been at war almost continuously on the mainland since Foscari had become doge; financially the city’s coffers were drained, and its commerce with the eastern Mediterranean was severely reduced. From the very inception of Foscari’s rule, things had not augured well. He was the first doge to have secured his election by deception and widespread bribery. Such practices were not unknown in gaining the city’s highest office, but the choice of Foscari in 1423 was generally reckoned to have been the first in which fraudulence proved crucial. During his previous occupancy of the post of procurator, in charge of the city’s charitable fund for impoverished nobles, his scrutiny of the neglected accounts had uncovered an overlooked surplus of 30,000 ducats. This he had judiciously distributed amongst various noble families,
thus ensuring their support when it came to the election. Even so, it was generally assumed that the popular Pietro Loredan would quickly emerge as victor amongst the list of candidates. However, Foscari’s supporters amongst the forty-one noble electors had secretly decided upon a deceptive strategy. During the early ballots they voted for a candidate whom they knew to be detested by Loredan’s supporters, causing them to vote for Loredan in order to exclude their bête noire. Then, on the tenth ballot, Foscari’s supporters suddenly switched their votes to their genuine choice, enabling him to secure more than the necessary twenty-five votes.

The newly elected fifty-year-old Foscari was in fact a man of considerable intellect and ability – he had been a leader of the Council of Ten no fewer than three times. Mocenigo’s characterisation of him as an ‘arrogant windbag’ and an ‘impetuous rabble-rouser’ was mainly directed at his declared intention to pursue the ruinous war against Milan. Indeed, Foscari had soon fulfilled Mocenigo’s worst forebodings, launching into a long and expensive campaign in Lombardy. Meanwhile the Loredan family had not forgiven him for his deception, and swore to do all they could to oppose him.

Foscari eventually attempted to heal this breach in the time-honoured fashion, by arranging a marriage between the two families. But during the engagement a dispute led to this being broken off, such that it only ended up making matters worse. Foscari was well aware of Pietro Loredan’s continuing popularity, which grew considerably after he led the Republic’s army to a crucial victory in the Po delta during the war. However, in 1439 Pietro fell ill and died under circumstances that were never fully explained. Opposition to Foscari had now lost its able and popular leader; and although there was no proof of Foscari’s involvement in Loredan’s death, many suspected that he had been poisoned at the doge’s behest.

Foscari was now able to consolidate his position, and two years later arranged for his son Jacopo to be married to Lucrezia Contarini. This cemented an alliance with one of the most prestigious noble families: Foscari was the first of his family to become doge, whereas the Contarinis had already produced three doges. Foscari was determined that the marriage of his son should be remembered as a historic event, and despite the city’s straitened circumstances his extravagance ensured this would be so. His
son Jacopo was also noted for his extravagance. Unlike the sons of most noble families of the period, Jacopo had not received a practical education in mercantile trading, but had been privately tutored in the new humanism by the Renaissance scholar Francesco Barbaro (a relative of Nicolò, the physician who would record the fall of Constantinople). Jacopo had studied Greek and Latin texts intended to instil in him an understanding of the nobility of the ancieńt philosophers and legislators. However, his education appears instead to have given him something of a superiority complex, and he soon joined a number of like-minded young nobles in a recently formed exclusive society known as the Campagna della Calza, whose members disported themselves in a uniform that consisted of
calza
(multicoloured stockings) and crimson velvet robes lined with silver brocade, and who rode horses clad in similar fashion attended by six liveried grooms.