The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (33 page)

This story has an all-but-incredible coda, whose truth would appear to be confirmed by recently uncovered evidence. According to one version of this story, some years earlier Bragadin had organised the payment of a ransom for the release of an Italian from Verona who had been taken prisoner by the Turks. Upon hearing what had happened to Bragadin, this man had sworn to do all he could to redeem Bragadin’s fate. Nine years later, after a peace treaty had been signed between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, he travelled to Constantinople, where he learned that Bragadin’s skin was kept as a trophy in the Turkish Arsenal. Either by ingenuity or bribery, or both, he contrived to steal the skin and carried it back to Venice, where he presented it to Bragadin’s family. (The other version of this story has the skin being removed by one Girolamo Polidoro, a survivor of the
siege of Famagusta.) According to the nineteenth-century American writer and popular historian of Italy, Francis Marion Crawford, ‘It is related that the skin was found soft as silk and was easily folded into a small space; it is preserved in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo.’ In 1961 the lead casket reputed to hold Bragadin’s skin was opened and found to contain several remnant scraps of tanned human skin.

As these stories suggest, the siege of Famagusta and the fate of Bragadin would enter the folklore of
La Serenissima:
here was the exemplar of Venetian resistance and honour betrayed – though perhaps more significant was the fact that these twin events unquestionably marked the end of Venice’s glorious imperial period and the beginning of a lengthy twilight.

*
Coincidentally these happened to be the same waters where Mark Antony had fought the Battle of Actium in 31
BC,
when his desertion by the fleet of his lover Cleopatra had resulted in his defeat.

*
The Ruthenians were an Eastern Slavic people who occupied much of Western Russia and the Ukraine.

†
The sultans chief minister.

*
An early form of musket fired by gunpowder, which discharged a metal ball or scatter-shot.

*
According to the prevailing rules of war, the commander of a besieged city was initially given the opportunity to surrender. If he refused, in the event of the besieging forces breaking into the city their soldiers were permitted to wreak three days of uncontrolled vengeance on those within.

Part Three

The Long Decline

13

The Battle of Lepanto

F
OLLOWING THE DEBACLE
of the Holy League’s attempt to relieve Cyprus from Ottoman aggression, there was no avoiding the serious nature of the threat now facing western Europe. Either the Holy League prevailed, or all was lost. Pope Pius V decided to act decisively, and persuaded Philip II of Spain of the need to cooperate with Venice. Giovanni Andrea Doria was replaced, and Philip II appointed his illegitimate half-brother, the dashing twenty-six-year-old Don Juan of Austria, as captain-general of the fleet of the Holy League, with the assurance that the opinions of the newly appointed Venetian commander Sebastiano Venier and the papal commander Marcantonio Colonna would be taken into account in all major decisions. Filled with a new resolve, the 250 ships of the Holy League fleet assembled off Sicily at the port of Messina (just as Famagusta was surrendering). The formidable task facing Don Juan was to search out and engage the Turkish fleet, and he set sail for the entrance to the Adriatic, where the Turks were known to be operating.

It was now that news reached the commander of the Ottoman fleet, Ali Pasha, that Famagusta had fallen. And when this was followed quickly by intelligence that the Venetian fleet under Venier had sailed for Messina,Ali Pasha decided to sail at once for the Adriatic, at the head of which stood a defenceless Venice. He began by launching attacks on Corfu and the Dalmatian coast. However, when he heard of the approach of the combined Holy League fleet, he decided against possibly being cut off in the Adriatic and withdrew to the safe anchorage of Lepanto (modern Nafpaktos), on the north shore at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. On 4 October 1571, when the Holy League fleet put in at Kefalonia, they
learned of the fall of Famagusta and the outrage on Bragadin, uniting the allies in widespread anger. However, differences between the allies remained, and the same day there was a volatile incident on Venier’s galley when a Spanish liaison officer and his men insulted some Venetian sailors, resulting in drawn swords and a fight during which some men were killed. Venier immediately arrested the Spaniards and had them hanged from the masthead. News of this incident so enraged Don Juan that he ordered Venier’s arrest. Fortunately, cooler minds prevailed before any harm could be done, and the order was not despatched. Had Venier been arrested, the alliance would certainly have collapsed on the spot, with the 1oo Venetian galleys refusing to participate in any further action. Ironically, it may well have been Giovanni Andrea Doria who was responsible for averting this catastrophe. Philip II had allowed Doria to join the Spanish contingent, with secret orders for him to keep an eye on the impulsive Don Juan, making sure that he did not recklessly jeopardise the Spanish fleet.

Don Juan now set sail south, determined to confront the Ottoman fleet, arriving off Lepanto on 6 October. The sight of the Holy League fleet offshore had a galvanising effect on Ali Pasha. Both fleets were of similar size, but Ali Pasha was convinced that the Ottoman fleet had the advantage. The Turks had remained undefeated since the Battle of Preveza, more than thirty years previously. Here was his chance to gain glory by destroying the Holy League fleet, leaving the way open for an Ottoman invasion of Europe. The scene was set for the most decisive naval battle in western history since the Battle of Actium, which had taken place 1,600 years previously just fifty miles to the north.

As dawn broke on 7 October it was seen that Ali Pasha had arranged his fleet in a long crescent extending from the northern shore out into the waters at the entrance to the gulf, thus ensuring that he could not easily be outflanked. As the two fleets rowed in line towards one another, Don Juan had two galleons towed ahead of his fleet; his intention was that the gunfire from their cannon would interrupt the Ottoman line of advance. This tactic succeeded well beyond his estimation when it was seen that the Ottoman captains mistook the galleons for unarmed supply vessels, and several galleys broke line to move in for the kill. The two galleons opened fire and more than half a dozen Ottoman galleys were sunk, to
say nothing of the consequent confusion arising from the break in their line as they manoeuvred around the galleon.

Just before II a.m. the two lines began coming together, first in the north where the Turkish galleys closed with the left wing of the Holy League fleet. This was the Venetian contingent of more than 100 galleys, and fierce fighting broke out as the two lines rammed and engaged, the combatants leaping onto the enemy’s decks, swords clanging against scimitars above a howl of cries, with the occasional detonation and cloud of smoke from cannon fire. Gradually the Venetians managed to force the Ottoman vessels back against the shore. In the shallow waters before the beaches the Turkish soldiers began abandoning their galleys and scrambling ashore, only to be pursued by the Venetians. The Turkish retreat quickly degenerated into flight, as the soldiers tried to escape across the salt flats for the safety of the hills, while being cut down by the pursuing Venetians.

The fighting between the central sections of the two lines of galleys was fiercer. These squadrons were commanded by Ali Pasha and Don Juan respectively, with the two commanders visible amidst the thicket of hand-to-hand fighting and the blast of arquebuses. After an hour or so of desperate combat, Ali Pasha’s bodyguard of 400 highly trained Janissaries had managed to fight their way aboard Don Juan’s flagship, the
Real
(Royal), only to be repulsed, before another wave made it aboard. This too was eventually driven back, and the Spanish soldiers now scrambled forward onto the Ottoman flagship, the
Sultana
(named after the sultan’s wife). Here, amidst the confusion of yells and savage fighting, Ali Pasha was hit on the head by a cannonball, knocking him to the ground dead. Don Juan ordered his body to be carried aboard the
Real
, but the joyous Spanish soldiers hacked off his head and jammed it onto a pike, waving it in the air for all to see as they yelled encouragement to their comrades. The Turks, seeing their commander dead and their flagship taken, began retreating across the decks of their galleys, fleeing as best they could.

Meanwhile the southern wing of the Holy League fleet was in trouble. This was under the command of Giovanni Andrea Doria, who had found his sixty galleys outnumbered by the approaching 100 Ottoman galleys. Fearing that he was about to be outflanked, he contravened his explicit orders and separated his wing from the main body of Don Juan’s fleet,
rowing his galleys south to counter any outflanking manoeuvre. The Turkish commander, Uluch Ali, immediately exploited this blunder, switching the direction of his galleys with the intention of passing inside, through the gap in the line of the Holy League fleet. This would leave him free to attack the exposed rear of the allied line. Uluch Ali’s galleys were soon cutting through the galleys straggling at the edge of Don Juan’s exposed central line. A squadron of sixteen galleys, which had been held in reserve behind the main line of the Holy League fleet, surged forward to stem Uluch Ali’s advance and were soon engaged in fierce fighting. But to no avail: the Turkish galleys swept through, leaving the Christian galleys cut to pieces, drifting in the water, manned only by dead oarsmen, their decks littered with slaughtered soldiery.

At this stage, the victorious Don Juan was able to disengage his galleys from the fighting and come to the rescue. Uluch Ali saw that he was outnumbered and cut off, abandoning his intention to attack the rear of the Holy League fleet. With all speed he began making his way north towards the shelter of the islands off the coast, where he made good his escape from the battle.

This was the last of the Turkish resistance, and when the Turkish galleys in the main line saw what had happened they turned tail, heading back towards Lepanto. Within five hours the battle had been won by Don Juan’s Holy League fleet, and Europe was saved. The loss of life amongst the Christian ranks had been heavy, but the Ottomans had suffered a devastating slaughter. Amongst the Holy League fleet probably 7,500 men died, with many wounded (amongst these, on one of the Spanish galleys, was the twenty-four-year-old Miguel de Cervantes, the future author of
Don Quixote
, who would remember the battle as the greatest experience of his life). The Holy League fleet lost fifty galleys, whilst the Ottoman losses included more than 200 vessels; probably around 30,000 Turks died and nearly 7,000 were taken prisoner. At the same time, the Holy League soldiers were able to free as many as 15,000 mostly Christian slaves from the Turkish galleys. News of the victory at Lepanto did not reach Venice until 18 October, some days after news of the fall of Famagusta and the outrages perpetrated on Bragadin. Within an hour the city had put aside its atmosphere of mourning, humiliation and fear, launching with gusto into celebrations
inspired as much by relief as by joy. The church bells rang out over the rooftops, the crowds crammed into the piazza before the Doge’s Palace, and as night fell the people danced with abandon amidst streets and buildings illuminated by thousands of trembling candles.

Yet what precisely had this victory achieved? Uluch Ali had eventually made it back to Constantinople with half his galleys intact, and these would become the core of a new Ottoman fleet that was constructed in record time. When the Venetians sent emissaries to Constantinople to negotiate a new peace in 1573, Grand Vizier Sokollu told them, ‘In wresting Cyprus from you we deprived you of an arm; in defeating our fleet you have only shaved our beard.’ Of the Republic’s larger possessions in the eastern Mediterranean, only Crete now remained, with Venice no longer controlling any trade routes to the Levant; whilst in the western Mediterranean the Ottoman navy and its Barbary allies continued to menace European shipping – as late as 1575 Cervantes would be captured by Barbary pirates on his way home to Spain, and would be carried back to Algiers to spend five years as a slave. Despite this ongoing menace, the victory at Lepanto did establish an important precedent. This can be seen in the funeral oration that had been delivered at San Marco to honour those who had died in the battle: ‘They have taught us by their example that the Turks are not insuperable, as we had previously believed them to be.’ This crucial psychological point, along with the very fact that the European powers could muster a fleet, put an end to the possibility of a full-scale Ottoman invasion. Europe would remain a Christian continent.

Despite the decline of its eastern trade, for a while Venice continued to prosper as never before. Islands such as Crete and Corfu remained a valued source of income, while once again the reopened alum trade with the Anatolian mainland flourished. Consequently the city’s population would go on rising until it reached an all-time peak of 190,000 in 1575, when it was the plague rather than economic forces that brought about its reduction. The public debt may have been reduced at a stroke by the conversion to the Silver Standard, but those amongst the wealthy who continued to hold long-term bonds in the public debt still received more in interest on these bonds than they paid in income tax; the rich got richer, also receiving income from their mainland estates. The mainland territory
of the Veneto was now stabilised, and income from cities such as Padua, Vicenza and Treviso contributed to keep taxes low in Venice itself.