CHAPTER 11
The first Venetians were Roman citizens, refugees of the empire’s collapse in the West, and loyal subjects of its emperors, who still reigned in Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire was in every way the parent of Venice, and as the centuries passed, the child grew to independence, maturity, and strength. There were, of course, quarrels, but Byzantium and Venice were simply too closely related to forever go their separate ways. By 1400 the Byzantine Empire, then over a thousand years old, had grown withered, weak, and sick. The Republic of Venice, approaching the pinnacle of its own power and glory, was forced to grapple with the painful realities of the decline and death of its parent.
Once, long ago, Roman emperors had executed grand plans of expansion and progress. Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus prayed only that the empire would not fall during his lifetime. His prayer was answered, although only just. In Manuel’s day the length and breadth of the largest empire in Western history had been whittled down to the city of Constantinople. The capital and the empire had become synonymous. Various groups held the districts and islands outside the walls of the emperor’s city. The Genoese had their independent walled colony at Galata, just across the harbor from Constantinople, as well as several other islands, including Lesbos and Chios. Various Greek despots and princelings ruled over their own small patches of territory. The greatest power in the region, though, was the Ottoman Empire, which had fully recovered from the blow it had received in 1402 at the hands of Timur. Sultan Murad II (1421–44), reigning in the Ottoman capital of Adrianople, was determined to wipe away the last remnants of the Christian Byzantine Empire. In 1422 he began sieges of both Constantinople and Thessalonica. The latter, long known as the second city of the Byzantine Empire, had been restored to the Byzantines by Suleiman in 1403, but Murad meant to have it back.
Venice’s foreign policy in the East during the early fifteenth century can best be understood as a strategy of defiant struggle against the collapse of the old order. Although Constantinople had little left to offer Venice, save a port along the way to the Black Sea, the Venetians nonetheless treated the emperors there with every deference and respect, despite their unpleasant encounter with the debtor John V a few decades earlier. Every five years they dutifully sought an imperial chrysobull—an elaborate gold-sealed document bestowing privileges on the Venetians and permission to do business throughout the Byzantine Empire. Although the emperors still owed Venice a great deal of money (a fact noted in the chrysobulls themselves), the Venetians could not bring themselves to treat the successors of the Roman emperors as petty despots, outward appearances notwithstanding.
To conduct profitable business in the East, the Venetians needed safe and secure shipping lanes and ports. Since 1204 they had adopted a policy of acquiring Greek islands and colonies along the trade routes to Constantinople and Syria. This policy was stepped up as the Turks dismembered the Byzantine Empire. The Venetian Senate had no illusion that it could challenge Turkish power as it spread across Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Albania. But it was determined to retain Venetian maritime access to the markets of the East. Venice controlled most of the Dalmatian coast, the island of Corfu, the cities of Modon and Coron, Negroponte, many Greek port towns such as Nauplia, numerous Aegean islands, and, of course, Crete. They naturally took pride in any victory over the Turks, who continued to march relentlessly toward western Europe. Venetians reveled in the Crusade history of their republic—no state in Europe had so frequently crusaded. But they could not fight every battle. Wars continued to rage throughout Europe, and no one, except the popes, the Venetians, and the states on the ever-advancing Ottoman border, seemed to notice the danger posed by the Turks.
Murad’s siege of Constantinople in 1422 set more than a hundred thousand Turkish troops against a Byzantine defense force of less than ten thousand. But Constantinople’s defenders had the mammoth triple land walls of the ancient city, which had repelled every invader since their construction in the fifth century. The Ottoman siege lasted four months before Murad finally called it off. The city’s survival seemed a miracle. Indeed, the Byzantine Greeks attributed it to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who had always been the special protectress of Constantinople. Some claimed to have seen an angel on horseback riding along the walls of the city, deflecting every attack.
Unfortunately, Thessalonica had no such angelic defender, and the people of the city feared what would happen to them when their city again fell to the Turks. The Byzantine governor there—the title was Despot—was the son of Emperor Manuel II, a young man named Andronicus, who was crippled by leprosy or perhaps elephantiasis. Rather than lose his city, he sent an intriguing offer to the Senate in Venice. If the Venetians would commit to the protection and provisioning of Thessalonica, they could have the city as their own. The senators did not take long to accept the offer, but it was an emotional, not a practical, choice. To have the second city of the Byzantine Empire, the coveted jewel of Macedonia, offered to Venice seemed impossible to turn down. Even the senators emphasized that they accepted Thessalonica “for the honor of the Christian faith and not out of ambition for dominion.” It also helped that the new doge, Francesco Foscari, favored a bold expansion of the Venetian empire. He had championed Venice’s entry into the war against Milan—a war that was still raging across northern Italy—and favored a strong Venetian response to Turkish aggression in Greece. Naturally, he also supported the acquisition of Thessalonica. Its successful defense would certainly bring honor to Venice, although whether it would do the same for its profit was an open question.
Once a thriving commercial center, Thessalonica had been reduced by the Turkish siege into a starving, ramshackle husk sheltering some twenty-five thousand residents who had been unable to flee. On September 14, 1423, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, the city of Thessalonica formally became a part of the Venetian empire. The Greek citizens lined the streets leading to the harbor to cheer and welcome the Venetians, who brought with them troops, weapons, and most important, food. The banner of St. Mark was solemnly hung from the city’s walls and planted in the central square. But matters in Greece were worse than previously thought. Back in Venice, even while the roads and canals echoed with celebrations, word arrived that the Turks had stepped up their efforts to capture Thessalonica. More ships, more men, more money, and much more food were needed to sustain it. The Senate sent everything requested. It also sent an ambassador, Nicolò Giorgio, to the court of Sultan Murad to negotiate peace. Giorgio explained that the Venetians had taken the city in order to keep it out of the hands of other, less honorable Christians—a clear reference to the troublesome Genoese. The sultan was unamused. He arrested Giorgio and demanded the immediate surrender of Thessalonica. The senators in Venice were outraged. They dispatched more war vessels to Thessalonica “so that the said Turk and the whole world should be made aware that the arrest of the ambassador was and remained a serious and scandalous offense, that Venice prized the city of Thessalonica and had no intention of relinquishing it.”
The struggle over Thessalonica dragged on for years, costing the Venetians dearly in both treasure and blood. And yet, for all their efforts, the Venetians could not reconcile the sultan to their ownership of Thessalonica or even attain a level of cooperation from the city’s own citizens. Ingratitude mixed liberally with loud complaint was the near constant refrain from the Greeks of Thessalonica. They avoided helping with the defense of their city, but regularly berated the Venetian governors for not providing sufficient food and amenities to meet their needs. The old Greek prejudice against Venetians always ran strongest when Greeks were at their weakest, so it is not surprising that it was given full vent in the streets of Thessalonica. Although the Venetians had guaranteed their property, civil rights, and the independence of their Church, the Greek citizens still complained that it was irksome to have so many Venetians moving freely about the city. In June 1425 they sent an official delegation to Doge Foscari complaining about the Venetian duke of Thessalonica, Bernabò Loredan, and his captain, Giacomo Dandolo. They insisted that the doge order his men to keep their distance from the Greeks. They also demanded more food and more money, which they believed the Venetians should spend on repairing Thessalonica’s walls and other buildings. The doge tried to comply, offering higher prices for independent merchants to deliver food to Thessalonica, but it was not enough to please the Greeks.
In 1426 Sultan Murad ordered his army of some thirty thousand troops to storm the walls of Thessalonica. Along those walls the Venetians had stationed seven hundred crossbowmen, who rained a blizzard of deadly bolts down on the attackers. They were assisted by five galleys in the harbor, which may have brought small cannons as well. The battle raged throughout the morning, until at last the Turkish commanders sounded the retreat. More than two thousand Turks lay dead on the fields outside the city. Yet the Greeks within remained unimpressed. Indeed, they had only begun to plumb the well of their ingratitude. Leading Greeks began to advocate surrender to the Turks. Some of them remembered the old days of Turkish rule, between 1387 and 1402, and claimed that it was in every way preferable to Venetian government. Although they admitted that the Turks could be cruel overlords, the Venetians were impertinent sailors who could not bring dinner on time. To quell the unrest, the Venetian authorities arrested and exiled some of the most vocal advocates of surrender. The sickly former Despot, Andronicus, was sent back to Constantinople, where he became a monk in the monastery of Christ Pantocrator.
But resentment in Thessalonica continued to grow. A second delegation of Greeks arrived in Venice in 1429, bringing with them a detailed list of thirty-one grievances against the Venetians. Most of these dealt with the amount of food that Venice was providing and the means of its distribution in the city. But they also demanded that Greek residents be allowed to leave the city if they no longer wished to live there. The Senate apologized for the food difficulties and promised to rectify them, but refused to allow Thessalonica’s citizens to abandon their city. The Turks were not invincible; indeed the Venetians had repelled them only a few years earlier. The Senate continued to insist that Thessalonica could be saved.
Unfortunately, only the Venetians still believed this. The captain of Thessalonica, Giacomo Dandolo, went to Adrianople to try again to negotiate peace with the sultan. Like Giorgio before him, Dandolo was put in chains and thrown into a Turkish prison, where he died a few weeks later. Venice had no choice but to declare war. The Genoese, always eager to assist any foe of Venice, quickly allied themselves with the Turkish sultan.
The final attack on Thessalonica came in March 1430. The sultan himself led a massive army of more than a hundred thousand men out of Adrianople and against the battered city. He did not mean to return without the matter settled once and for all. With him he brought enormous siege engines pulled by camels, whole battalions of archers, and as many rock-throwing cannons as he could find. Greeks who had earlier fled the city assured Murad that the population had no desire to defend itself against his benevolent rule. The arrival of his forces, they said, would be a signal for the citizens to kill their Venetian masters and open wide the gates to the Turks. No doubt these Greeks correctly gauged their countrymen’s desires, but not their will to challenge the well-armed Venetians, who were under orders to defend the city at all costs. Once again the Venetians were forced to take on the job with little help from the Greeks. Indeed, they had to post guards to watch over the Greeks, some of whom were caught digging tunnels to escape and to allow the Turks to enter.
On March 29 the assault began. The Turkish archers fired so continuously that one defender claimed that it was impossible to raise a hand above the fortifications without having it pierced by an arrow. The “man-made thunder” of the cannons echoed across the battlefield, keeping the defenders from repeating their crossbow attacks, which had worked so well in 1426. The Turkish soldiers pressed forward, raising scaling ladders onto the battered walls. The Venetians fought hard, but the sheer number of Turks was simply overwhelming. Finally, a lone Turk, armed only with a dagger clenched in his teeth, climbed a ladder and found a single wounded Venetian defending a tower. He killed him, hacked off his head, and threw it down to his companions, urging them to join him on the wall. The attackers scrambled up and over the walls and began a bloody sack of Thessalonica that would not long be forgotten. Churches were despoiled, women raped, and every Christian who could be found was enslaved or put to the sword. The Venetians fought with grit and resolve. More than two hundred of them perished, including the son of the Duke of Thessalonica. When it became clear, though, that all was lost, the Venetians fled to the harbor, where they boarded their vessels and sailed home. They would travel many miles before escaping the terrified screams of Thessalonica and the smoke of its immolation.
The loss of Thessalonica was a bitter defeat for Venetians at a time when their other war in Italy was going reasonably well. After seven long years, the loss of hundreds of Venetian lives, and spending more than 700,000 gold ducats, they had nothing to show for their efforts at Thessalonica save the hatred of those they had tried to save. It was time to make peace. In September 1430 they concluded a treaty with Murad in which they agreed to relinquish their claim to Thessalonica and pay a sizable sum of money. In return the sultan promised to respect Venice’s Greek holdings and to keep Turkish warships out of the Aegean Sea. The trade routes, at least, were safe.
The extraordinary violence unleashed at Thessalonica convinced Emperor John VIII Palaeologus (1425–48) that Constantinople could survive only if another major Crusade was launched to force the Turks out of Europe. The West had been sending Crusades to defend Byzantium for centuries—indeed, the First Crusade had been called in 1095 for precisely that reason. But since then the Orthodox Greeks had acquired a reputation in the Catholic West as enemies of the Christian faith, a people who would rather make deals with Muslim conquerors than defend the lands of Christendom. Their behavior at Thessalonica did nothing to challenge that judgment. The Greeks’ refusal to accept the authority of the pope over the Church only added to their image in Western eyes as prideful, arrogant, and rebellious—not the sort that one is inspired to save from ruin. John therefore believed that if Byzantium was to be saved, it was necessary to end the schism between the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. For centuries, Greeks had maintained their disagreements with Rome because no ecumenical council had ruled on the matters in dispute. They did not accept the authority of the pope to pronounce judgment on them. The key, then, was to call a council that would be truly ecumenical, one that no Greek could gainsay.
As it happened, the decade of the 1430s was a particularly good time to call such a council. A church reform movement in Europe, known as conciliarism, had grown out of the universities and was spreading across the West. Conciliarists argued that councils of bishops and other prelates should be called regularly to advise and instruct the pope; some conciliarists even argued that councils should replace papal authority altogether. In 1431 the Council of Basel convened and was soon taken over by conciliarists, who hoped to see papal power severely curtailed. Ironically, a weakened pope was the last thing that Emperor John VIII wanted to see. For his plan to work, he needed a pope in the old medieval mold, one that could rouse the soldiery of Europe to take up arms against the Turks and save their Christian brothers and sisters in the East. Pope Eugenius IV (1431–47), himself a Venetian of the wealthy Correr family, understood this well enough. He opened negotiations with John regarding the prospect of a new council, a fully ecumenical council that would bring the Christians of the world together to heal the schism and, not incidentally, shut down the conciliarists at Basel into the bargain.
Venice assisted with these negotiations, ferrying Byzantine ambassadors back and forth to Italy and offering encouragement. Church schism was not a major issue for the Venetians, who had long ago come to terms with the fact that although they were themselves obedient Catholics, their Eastern trading partners were not. But Venice did support any initiative that would bring Europeans together to fight the Ottoman Turks. Thessalonica had taught Venice that it did not pay to go it alone. The Turks were simply too powerful, and when the war ended, the harm fell solely on Venice. Crusading remained a powerful aspect of Venetian identity, but Venetians were no longer willing to charge off to fight the infidel while the rest of Europe watched.
At last the plans were set. In 1437 Eugenius IV transferred the Council at Basel to Ferrara and called the prelates and leaders of Christendom to attend. In effect, this closed down the Council of Basel, which had been a thorn in the side of the papacy for six years. The few moderates left at Basel headed for Ferrara, leaving behind only the most radical conciliarists. These declared Eugenius’s bull of transfer invalid and even sent envoys to Constantinople to invite John to come to Basel instead, promising him full support. The emperor rejected this dubious offer. He was going to meet the pope, the only man who could call a Crusade. More than six hundred Greek prelates, including Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople, and Emperor John boarded papal galleys and made their way west. The council at Ferrara would indeed be ecumenical.
Although the galleys flew the papal flag, they were nonetheless Venetian and so quickly joined the regular Venetian merchant convoys heading back home. The aged Greek clergy and sumptuous imperial court could not travel quickly, so they wintered at Venetian Modon before heading up the Adriatic and arriving in Venice on February 8, 1438. The Venetians were ready for them. This visit was something special. Not only had the emperor himself come to the lagoon, but he had brought with him his court, his clergy, and indeed almost all the high officials still left in the once-great empire. The government of ancient Rome had landed in Venice. They had come to heal Christendom, to restore the rent garment of Christ as the first step toward turning aside the centuries-long ascendancy of the Muslim world. Modern observers, with our perfect hindsight, might scoff at the pageantry and proud words of the moment, passing them off as a futile attempt to save a doomed relic of the medieval world. But it did not look that way in 1438. There was real optimism, real hope, and a real belief that God would soon deliver his people. For the Venetians, this was compounded by a filial devotion to their parent state, which even in its darkest hour sought out God’s will.
On February 9 Doge Francesco Foscari boarded the magnificent ducal galley, itself a floating palace, known as the bucintoro. Banners bearing the imperial eagle of Byzantium streamed along the sides of the vessel, while from the prow waved the winged lion of St. Mark. The richly dressed oarsmen wore caps with both state symbols figuring prominently. The bucintoro was not the only vessel in the Bacino. The entire sea was filled with boats ranging from large merchant vessels to small gondolas. Brass horns and strings played music, while the bells of the city rang in celebration. The doge crossed from his vessel to that of the emperor, who waited on an ornate throne, with his brother, Demetrios, seated to his right. Foscari removed his ducal corno and bowed low before the emperor. Then, at his invitation, the doge of Venice took the lower throne to the left of the emperor. Cheers arose from the ships and shores of Venice, celebrating the arrival of the Byzantine emperor and his government in so grand a fashion that one might imagine that they still ruled an empire. The rich vessels then rowed to the Molo, where more ceremonies and celebrations took place. Then the mass of boats moved slowly down the Grand Canal, as spectators hailed the Byzantine dignitaries with flags and handkerchiefs from the windows and doors of the magnificent palazzi. When the boats reached the Rialto markets, the merchants and bankers joined in the celebration. So that the emperor’s ship could pass, they even raised the wooden Rialto Bridge—something rarely done given the disruption to the businesses planted on it. Finally, the watery parade docked at the ornate Byzantine-style palace built by Giacomo Palmier in the thirteenth century and purchased by the Venetian government in 1381 (the modern Fondaco dei Turchi). There the emperor and his court would lodge during their stay in Venice.
The Byzantine dignitaries were overwhelmed—not only by the welcome, but also by the sheer wealth of Venice. They quickly made themselves comfortable. Although the Venetian government had voted a thousand ducats for their upkeep, the Byzantines quickly burned through that. Indeed, before they were finally ready to say good-bye, they had accumulated more than three thousand ducats in bills. During his two-and-a-half-week stay Emperor John received numerous envoys from Europe’s leaders. He even heard from the conciliarists at Basel, who again urged him to come to their council rather than that of the pope. As before, he politely declined. Finally, on February 27, the mob of Byzantine political and religious leaders boarded their vessels and left Venice, bound for Ferrara.
For more than a year the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic prelates, theologians, and philosophers hammered out their differences at the church council. It was a grand affair. An international collection of well over a thousand leaders of the Christian faith converged upon Ferrara from as far away as Egypt and Ethiopia. For the first time in centuries all five of the ancient patriarchates of Christianity were assembled. Fearing a plague in the area, the council left Ferrara in late 1438 and reconvened in Florence. The grandeur of the event was not lost on the cradle of the Renaissance. Indeed, the artist Benozzo Gozzoli even depicted the richly adorned Emperor John VIII as one of the Magi in his famous fresco in the Medici Chapel. Across the Alps in Basel, the once-fashionable council withered as its attendees excused themselves one by one to take part in the events of Ferrara and Florence. With only a single cardinal and eleven bishops remaining, the Council of Basel deposed Pope Eugenius IV and elected Duke Amadeo of Savoy as Pope Felix V. Scarcely anyone noticed. Felix was never recognized as pope outside Switzerland and his own Savoy. Many of those he appointed as cardinals declined the honor. Amadeo held on to his papal title for ten years before finally submitting to the pope in Rome, thus ending the last papal schism in the history of the Catholic Church.
At last the work of the theologians, prelates, and politicians in Florence was complete. Amid great celebration Pope Eugenius and Emperor John formally signed the document of union on July 5, 1439. The long separation between the Greek and Latin sides of Christianity had finally come to an end—at least on paper. The emperor and his clergy were sincere enough, but they misjudged the power of certain factions in the Byzantine East, some of whom would accept no union with the West, no matter the conditions. Yet those problems still lay in the future. For the moment, Christians rejoiced that East and West were reunited and looked forward to a new Crusade to drive the Turks from Europe.
The sultan had not been idle while the West debated its theological differences. To the contrary, he mobilized a large army to threaten Constantinople in John’s absence, hoping to capture it before any Crusade could materialize. The Byzantine delegates made their way back to the threatened city in various groups. Emperor John was among the last to return. He remained in Florence for a month and then traveled to Venice, where he was warmly welcomed and so decided to stay a bit longer. Since East and West were reunited, Doge Foscari suggested that they pray together in the church of San Marco at a Mass to be sung by Greek clergy according to the Orthodox rite. Although the Venetians meant to celebrate the union and honor the Greeks, it was a difficult pill for some of them to swallow. Until recently, Greek clergy were accustomed to ritually purifying altars that had been used by Catholics.
John left Venice in October 1439, arriving back in Constantinople in February 1440. He brought news of Christian unity and much-needed aid from Europe. Yet, some of his subjects—particularly the monks—responded to the news with anger and resentment. It is a mistake (although a common one) to assume that all or even most of the Greeks rejected the Council of Florence/Ferrara and the union agreed upon by their emperor and patriarch. In fact, most Greeks accepted it willingly and with much hope. It was only after the fall of Constantinople that the fictional cry “Better the Turkish turban than the Roman miter!” was uttered or put to paper. But a vocal minority of Greeks did oppose the union with the Catholic Church and they fought every effort of the Byzantine government and Orthodox ecclesiastical authorities to implement the decrees of the ecumenical council.
Back in Rome, Pope Eugenius kept his word. He immediately called a Crusade to rescue the Byzantines, and a tithe was proclaimed across western Europe to fund the effort. Because of the Hundred Years’ War, the kingdoms of England and France found it difficult to participate, although Duke Philip of Burgundy joined with many French knights. The bulk of the Crusade’s forces came from Poland, Wallachia, and Hungary—those kingdoms most at risk from Turkish invasion. Led by John Hunyadi of Transylvania and King Ladislas of Hungary, the Crusade of Varna (as it came to be called) set forth into southeastern Europe in 1444 with more than twenty thousand men.
Venice, too, joined the Crusade, with a fleet of eight war galleys commanded by the Captain General of the Sea, Alvise Loredan. They met up with four galleys belonging to Philip and ten from Pope Eugenius and headed eastward with the plan to sail to the Black Sea and up the Danube River to assist the foot soldiers marching east. The ten papal vessels, however, were in reality Venetian galleys manned by Venetian crusaders, although commanded by Cardinal Francesco Condulmer and flying the papal standard. In other words, the pope had contracted his entire fleet from Venice. Unfortunately for the Venetians, the pope does not appear to have believed in paying for it. The Senate complained bitterly that Venice had spent enormous amounts of money on the Crusade, yet the pope continued to delay spending anything at all, even for his own vessels. Unable to wait any longer, the Venetian crusaders sailed out of the lagoon flying two flags, hoping that the pope would make good on his promises.
The Crusade of Varna began well. The army of eastern European crusaders marched into Turkish territory and captured the cities of Nish and Sofia. Sultan Murad, who was busy with matters in Asia Minor, offered a ten-year truce with all Christian powers in return for the removal of the Crusade from his domain. King Ladislas, eager to neutralize the Turkish threat to his own kingdom even for a decade, quickly accepted the offer in July 1444. Meanwhile, the Venetian Crusade vessels had arrived at Gallipoli, where they received news of the truce. They were ordered by the Senate to hold their position there at the Hellespont. This they did. However, two hundred miles to the northeast the land-based Crusade army was torn by widespread dissatisfaction with the truce. Many soldiers complained that they were trading away their hard-won victories only for a short-term promise of peace. Finally, the cardinal-legate on the Crusade absolved King Ladislas of his oath of truce that he had sworn to the sultan. In September the crusaders crossed the Danube and continued their march against the Ottomans. When Murad heard of this in Asia Minor, he was enraged. He ordered his forces in Europe to be assembled, and he personally traveled to the suburbs of Constantinople, where he crossed the Bosporus and met up with his army. The Venetian crusaders, still holding at the Hellespont, knew nothing of the crusader army’s decision to break the truce and so they did nothing to impede the sultan’s trip westward. After taking command of his forces, the sultan engaged the land army of the Crusade at the city of Varna in Bulgaria. He destroyed it utterly. The cardinal-legate and the king of Hungary were killed in the bloody battle, and thousands more crusaders were captured and decapitated. Only a few Christians survived to make their way home. As for the Venetian fleet, it remained at the Hellespont, completely unaware that the Crusade was over.
Most Europeans blamed the disaster at Varna on those crusaders who had broken their truce with the sultan. But the pope also took the opportunity to blame Venice. Had the Venetians moved against the sultan as he crossed the Bosporus, the pope maintained, Murad would not have been able to return to Europe and command his forces against the Crusade. Instead, the Venetians stood idly by while the Turkish leader rushed off to crush the Christian forces. Eugenius refused to pay for the Venetian vessels and men he had contracted. The Senate responded that its crusaders in the fleet at Gallipoli had done all that they could do, given the situation. They did not know that the Crusade army had foolishly broken the truce with Murad. The Venetian crusaders had spent a difficult winter holding the Hellespont while enduring Turkish attacks. It was not right, the Senate insisted, that the pope should refuse to pay what he had promised, especially to such faithful crusaders.
Once again the Venetians were betrayed by the fickle nature of crusading in the late medieval world. Not only had the pope refused to honor his commitments, but Venice was once again at war with the Turks. The Genoese living in the Galata suburb of Constantinople had been ideally positioned to stop the crossing of Murad, but they had done nothing, remaining completely out of the Crusade effort. Venice, on the other hand, had joined the Crusade and thereby found itself at odds with both sultan and pope. Although it still had not been paid, the Venetian fleet remained off Gallipoli threatening Turkish operations until Venice finally concluded a new peace treaty with the sultan in February 1446.
Emperor John VIII died in 1448 and was succeeded by his brother, Constantine XI (1448–53), a pious and honorable man who humbly took the crown of a ruined empire. In 1451 Sultan Murad also died, leaving the powerful Ottoman Empire to his nineteen-year-old son, Mehmed II, whom history would name “the Conqueror.” Mehmed believed that the Ottoman Empire represented the new, divinely ordained order. As such, it was destined to erase the last remnants of the ancient Roman Empire and take its place as the ruler of the world. As Rome’s capital, Constantinople must become the seat of the sultanate.
Mehmed did not wait long to move his plans forward. He raised tens of thousands of Turkish troops and ordered them to assemble at Constantinople. In April 1452 Mehmed began constructing a great fortress, Rumeli Hisari, just north of the city where it commanded the Bosporus strait, designed specifically to stop enemy sea traffic between the Black Sea and Constantinople. With its completion and the arrival of some hundred thousand Turkish soldiers, Mehmed had effectively encircled the Byzantine capital on both land and sea. It was not the largest force that had ever besieged Constantinople, but it remained impressive. And Mehmed also brought something altogether new: large gunpowder artillery. The triple land walls raised by Theodosius II had stood impregnable for a thousand years, but their architects could never have envisioned the danger of powerful cannons firing day and night for weeks on end. Truly, the old world was passing away.
In Venice the plight of Constantinople was a source of serious concern. Constantine XI sent envoys to the lagoon in early 1452, begging for aid. He urgently needed gunpowder and breastplates and begged the Venetians to send warships to Constantinople as soon as possible. The senators sent the requested supplies at once, but the military aid was more difficult. Venice had become a major Italian power and its ongoing war with Milan continued to drain its military and economic resources. The senators assured the Byzantine envoys that Venice would help, but urged them to persuade Florence and the papacy to join the effort as well. Several months later the Senate sent a letter to Pope Nicholas V (1447–55) asking him to call a Crusade and to move with all speed to defend the Christians of the East. They also urged those cardinals who were Venetian to argue in the Roman curia for the rescue of Constantinople. Nicholas did what he could on such short notice. He sent two hundred archers from Naples as well as Cardinal Isidore, the former Greek Orthodox archbishop of Kiev, as his legate. Spirits soared in Constantinople at the arrival of the pope’s men. As a symbol of their determination to remain united, on December 12, 1452, a Mass was concelebrated in Hagia Sophia using the Orthodox and Catholic liturgies. It was the first time that the union had come to the greatest church in the Byzantine world. It would remain there for as long as Hagia Sophia remained Christian.
Events at Constantinople upset Venetians not just emotionally, but economically as well. Access to the Black Sea, especially the markets of Tana (modern Tanais), was a major element in continued Venetian prosperity. And the only passage to the Black Sea ran through the Bosporus strait and past Constantinople. When Mehmed completed Rumeli Hisari, he announced that no vessels were to sail past it without first receiving permission and paying a toll. Powerful cannons mounted on the fortress underscored his demand. Several Venetian vessels managed to run the gauntlet, probably before the Turks had an opportunity to properly sight their guns. In August 1452, though, a Venetian merchant vessel carrying barley was struck by the cannons and sank. The commander, Antonio Rizzo, and some thirty crewmen were brought in chains to the sultan. Mehmed ordered Rizzo to be impaled along the roadside and the remainder of the Venetians decapitated. The truce had clearly come to an end.
Great Constantinople, which had once teemed with almost one million inhabitants, now had only fifty thousand people living among its broken ruins. Only the walls remained in good repair. Most of the residents were women and children. Less than five thousand Greek fighting men could be found to defend their capital. They were assisted by about two thousand foreigners, largely consisting of Venetians, with some Cretans, Genoese, and other Italians in the mix as well. The Venetian defenders were a stew of expatriates living in Constantinople and ships’ crews who just happened to be there when the siege began. Among them was Nicolò Barbaro, a ship’s surgeon who later wrote his memoirs of the event, as well as several ships’ captains, including Gabriele Trevisan, Alvise Diedo, and Giacomo Coco.
In December 1452 the Venetian baillie, Girolamo Minotto, called a meeting of his councillors and other leading Venetians in the city. He put before them a simple question: Should they remain in Constantinople and fight, or board their vessels and flee? When the vote was counted, the decision was clear: The Venetians would stand with the Byzantines. Minotto decreed that no Venetian vessel should leave Constantinople until the siege was lifted. He immediately sent letters home informing the Venetian government of the danger and their resolve to meet it.
When Minotto’s letters arrived in February 1453, the Venetian Senate moved swiftly. It ordered a squadron of fifteen war vessels to be prepared for departure in April. The fleet would be commanded by Captain General Giacomo Loredan, who was to make all haste to Constantinople and assist with its defense. The Senate also sent ambassadors to Rome and to other monarchs urging them to send to Constantinople whatever aid they could. Yet only Pope Nicholas V responded to Venice’s call. He sent three Genoese vessels laden with arms and provisions in March and offered to fund several galleys from Venice. The preparation of the warships in Venice, though, met with infuriating delays. Finally, the Senate ordered Loredan to sail with five vessels and to pick up additional ones from Corfu, Modon, Crete, and other Venetian colonies along the way to Constantinople. Help was coming, but events were moving fast.
Back in Constantinople the emperor pleaded with the Genoese residents of Galata, the walled suburb across the harbor from the capital, to join the Christian defenders, but they refused. They insisted on Genoa’s neutrality in the matter, hoping to keep their lucrative positions with whoever won the contest. The Venetians, on the other hand, fully committed their wealth and lives to Constantinople’s defense. The Senate had already sent an ambassador to Sultan Mehmed II, insisting that he withdraw from the city. Recognizing that Byzantium hardly posed a threat to the Turks, the Venetians argued that their long-standing residency in Constantinople essentially made the city a colony of the Venetian empire. The implication was clear: The capture of Constantinople would not end a war, but start one against a powerful adversary. Emperor Constantine XI underscored that assertion when he allowed some one thousand Venetians to parade along Constantinople’s land walls, waving their standards bearing the winged lion of St. Mark for the Turks to see. Indeed, the emperor himself remarked that Constantinople had come to belong more to Venice than to the Greeks.
None of that mattered to Mehmed. His guns continued to fire, and the defenders kept up their desperate resistance. On April 12 Mehmed ordered his fleet to break the defensive chain and take the Golden Horn, the harbor that lay between Constantinople and Galata. But the Venetians won the day, repulsing the Turkish attack and saving the chain. Mehmed was not so easily discouraged. On the night of April 22 the Turks managed to haul more than seventy smaller craft over the hills of Galata and deposit them directly into the secured harbor. The Genoese, who watched the whole operation, did nothing. In the morning, the surprised defenders rushed to their vessels. Giacomo Coco led a naval attack that was betrayed by a Genoese spy, and the Turks quickly overwhelmed him. Coco’s vessel was blasted by cannon fire, killing him and his crew.
What happened to the promised aid from the West? The Genoese ships sent by the pope were stalled at Chios by winds from the north. Because Captain General Loredan’s fleet had to be cobbled together along the way, its progress was seriously delayed. It limped toward Negroponte, where Loredan tried to coordinate additional rendezvous with local governors and the home government. He hoped to make Constantinople by June. On May 3 Emperor Constantine sent a lone vessel to slip past the Turkish blockade to see if help was coming. The scouts returned with the disappointing news that nothing was on the horizon. The city’s defenders would just have to hold out longer.
But their time had run out. By mid-May the sultan had assembled his full forces and the walls had been battered for nearly a month. On May 28, as they watched the Turkish forces draw up in ranks, the defenders recognized that the main assault was finally coming. Minotto assembled the Venetians and ordered them to the walls. “For the love of God and for the sake of the City [Constantinople] and the honor of the Christian faith,” he exhorted them, “let every man be of stout heart and ready to die at his station.”
The attack came before dawn on May 29, 1453. Mehmed sent wave upon wave of warriors against the walls, starting with those of low quality and finishing with his elite Janissaries. Fierce and terrible fighting raged for hours. Finally, at a point on the northern portion of the land wall, the Genoese commander, Giovanni Giustiniani, fell wounded in battle. Concluding that all was lost, he insisted that his men retreat, bearing him to their vessels so that he could escape. Giustiniani’s flight set off a panic along the walls that allowed the Janissaries to press in. The Venetian forces were surrounded and captured. Seeing that “the City” was taken, Constantine XI, the last emperor of the Roman Empire, tore off his imperial purple and plunged into the fray near the Gate of St. Romanus. It was a noble end to an ancient empire.
As was the custom, Sultan Mehmed II allowed his victorious troops to sack the city of Constantinople for three days. They found little wealth, but many people to kill, capture, rape, or enslave. The Venetian leader, Girolamo Minotto, was arrested and, along with his son and seven other Venetian patricians, executed. He had warned his countrymen that their lives were staked on the defense of Byzantium, and he bravely gave his own when the time came. Hundreds of Venetians and thousands of Greeks were rounded up by the Turks and executed or sold into slavery. A handful of well-off Venetians were able to purchase their lives and return home, bearing heartbreaking stories of bravery and defeat.
The fall of Constantinople shook western Europe in a way that is hard for us to imagine today. Although the Byzantine Empire had long been weak, the frequent and unfulfilled prophecies of its impending doom had led many to assume that it would weather this storm, too. The destruction of the last Christian empire in the East meant that western Europe now truly stood alone against the powerful Muslim world. Mehmed certainly did not mince words. After conquering Constantinople, he promised to unite the younger and elder sisters under his rule—a clear reference to Rome. No European doubted that the Turks would be coming soon.
For Venetians, the events of May 29, 1453, were not just frightening, but devastating. It was not simply that the Ottoman sultan now controlled the straits, or that he had killed hundreds of Venetian citizens, or even that he had seized hundreds of thousands of ducats’ worth of Venetian property. All of these were upsetting, of course. But it was the intangible sense of lost heritage—lost history—that cut the deepest wound. During joyous and lavish ceremonies just fifteen years earlier the Venetians had celebrated and honored the Byzantine emperor with real filial devotion. Now all of that was gone. The aged and infirm parent of the Republic of Venice had at last passed away.