Byzantine Cyprus, until 1191
Nominally, Cyprus and Italy were politically united until 476, and even afterwards if we consider the token subordination of the Gothic Kings Odoacar and Theodoric to the (Eastern) Roman Emperors. In Justinian's reign in the 6th century, after General Belisarius' reconquest of major sections of Italy in the long Gothic Wars, Italy again came under the same political umbrella as Cyprus. Following the disruptions of the Persian War and the Arab invasions in the 7th century, however, Cyprus began a strange period as a neutral territory between Byzantium and Islam that lasted, with brief interruptions, from 688 to 965. Then, until the fall of Bari in 1071, Cyprus and a dwindling section of southern Italy once again shared Constantinople as their political centre. Ecclesiastically, however, Cyprus fell outside the sphere of papal Rome and was decidedly Eastern in focus, following what eventually became Greek Orthodoxy in liturgy and tradition.
Trade must have brought some Italians, perhaps from Amalfi, to Cyprus in the late 10th and 11th centuries, if only for a stopover on their way to Middle Eastern destinations. With the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century and the establishment of the Crusader States, however, Cyprus found itself in an envious geographical position on the trade routes between East and West. Our information is sparse, but it is probable that the Italian period of Cypriot history began shortly after 1100 when Italian merchants are attested on the island. Two Genoese brothers are known to have been in Cyprus in the 1170s, when they joined the Byzantine navy, and in the early 1180s a church in Sicily was granted lands in Cyprus, but by far the most important Italian presence in Cyprus was that of the Venetians. Even with the limited information we have for the 12th century, we know that Venetians used Cypriot ports already around 1100, that Venetians were granted - and had therefore probably sought - free trading privileges in Cyprus around 1136, and that these were confirmed by the Emperor in 1147. There is little doubt that already by 1150 Cyprus was an important trading centre for Venetian shipping. A Venetian company conducting trade with Egypt was actually based in Limassol in 1139, and there are references to Venetian merchants in Paphos as early as 1143. Until the rise of Famagusta in the later 13th century, well after the Frankish conquest, Limassol and Paphos were the leading ports of Cyprus, and their vitality may be largely due to the Venetians. Paphos, the island's second port at the time, is probably the source of the Venetian name Baffo. We also know from chronicles of Richard the Lionheart's conquest that, when he landed in Limassol in 1191, there was already an entire Latin community in that town, almost certainly Venetians.
By 1191 Venetian property on Cyprus was both more extensive and more widespread than one would imagine with the scanty evidence presented above. The chance creation and survival of a report from around 1240 lists Venetian properties in pre-1191 Cyprus that were confiscated at some point, although we are unsure by whom, when, why, or in what proportion. The list of seized properties, already staggering, may even be incomplete; it seems that at least one Venetian, Andrea Remigo da Baffo, still had property on Cyprus, and this may be just the tip of an iceberg. We have details of hundreds of confiscated properties, including locations, names of Venetian owners, and, sometimes, the names of the new owners. A large portion of the property lay in Limassol itself, where the community had a baptistery and two churches of the Latin rite, one of which, San Marco, was probably used as the Latin Cathedral of Limassol in the Frankish period and whose foundations can still be seen. The other, St George, may be the site of King Richard's wedding to Berengaria, and perhaps the remains are those visible in Limassol Castle. The Venetian colony in Limassol had over 100 houses and almost 50 shops. They even ran a bath complex, a hospice, and a cemetery.
A smaller community of Venetians lived in Paphos, as expected, where they had a church, but, surprisingly, there were Venetians in land-locked Nicosia. Not only did they have a church in the capital, but the house of the Sabatini family, which had many properties in the city, even became the first royal palace of the Lusignans. That many Venetians lived in Nicosia should alert us to the fact that they did not simply engage in international trade. True, Limassol was the largest centre, but even the rural area around Limassol was full of Venetian estates, even a number of entire villages owned by the Italians, like Pyrgos and Monagroulli. This permanent rural community, which extended into the mountains on the south, was engaged in agriculture. It had at least two rural churches, one of which still survives in a much ruined state near Ayios Konstantinos.
In 1184 a usurper, Isaac Comnenus, seized control of Cyprus and proclaimed himself Emperor, a coup dՎtat that the West later used as a pretext for the 1191 conquest, foreshadowing the events of 1974. Interestingly, when Isaac prepared for the Byzantine attempt to retake the island, he made an alliance with Norman Sicily. The Sicilian Admiral Margaritone helped defend Cyprus against the Byzantines in 1187, but, unfortunately for Isaac, Margaritone departed in 1188 and King William II of Sicily died in 1189.
In 1191, the French-speaking King Richard of England defeated Isaac and conquered the island during the Third Crusade en route from Messina to the Holy Land. The following year, after a short period of rule by the Knights Templar, Richard sold Cyprus to Guy de Lusignan, a Frenchman by blood. As King of Jerusalem, Guy had lost the Battle of Hattin and, with it, his capital city to Saladin in 1187. Guy and his brother Aimery established a kingdom with French-speaking nobles that lasted until 1489. From most perspectives, 1191 is a decisive break in the history of Cyprus, inaugurating a French period. From the Italian point of view, however, 1191 does not exactly mark the beginning of the Latin period of Cypriot history. The Italian presence on pre-conquest Cyprus was already permanent, organised, and significant, and the development of the town of Limassol, in particular, owes much to the Venetians.
Early Frankish Cyprus, 1191-1374
Politically, Frankish Cyprus went through three distinct phases of Italian intervention of increasing intensity: the Sicilian, the Genoese, and, finally, the Venetian. Guy de Lusignan (1192-4) died as Lord of Cyprus, and it was only his brother, Aimery (1194-1205), who made Cyprus into a kingdom. To do this, Aimery appealed to the German Emperor Henry VI for a crown, and Cyprus became a client kingdom in 1197. Through marriage Henry had added the Kingdom of Sicily to his Empire, and his son Frederick II was firmly based in Sicily and Southern Italy. Frederick's status of overlord had little practical meaning until the minority of Cyprus' King Henry I (1218-53), when a dispute over the regency between Henry's mother, Queen Alice of Champagne, and her uncles, Philip and John of Ibelin - themselves probably of Italian extraction ultimately - corresponded with Frederick's planned crusade. Frederick had married the Queen of Jerusalem, and their son, Conrad, would be King of Jerusalem. Perhaps through Alice's design, Frederick stopped first in Cyprus in 1228, to claim the regency and the revenues that went with it. Frederick thus hoped to create a vast Mediterranean empire. The effort was a failure, but the result for Cyprus was the Civil War that lasted on and off until 1233, with the Ibelin faction against the imperial allies. Although this is often seen as a German intervention into Cypriot affairs, Frederick's troops were largely Italian, and in the later phases his marshal was an Italian, Ricardo Filangieri. It was only through an alliance with another Italian power, Genoa, and, in 1233, the arrival of a Genoese fleet in Kyrenia, that the Ibelins were able to put an end to the war.
Pope Innocent IV dissolved Cyprus' client relationship with the Empire in 1247, but this did not end Sicilian designs on Cyprus. After Charles of Anjou conquered Sicily and Southern Italy in 1266, he purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1277 at a time when the kings of Cyprus were also kings of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, after 1267, descendents of King Hugh III's (1267-84) rival claimant to the throne of Cyprus, Hugh of Brienne, attempted to stir up trouble in the West. An unfriendly rivalry between the kings of Cyprus and Sicily over Jerusalem lasted until the middle of the 14th century. Then, after the great revolt of 1282 known as the Sicilian Vespers and the resulting war between the Angevins and Aragon, the Treaty of Caltabellotta of 1302 stipulated that Aragon might receive Cyprus in exchange for returning the island of Sicily to Charles II of Anjou. Luckily for the Lusignans, this never happened, and Charles II had to be content with ruling Southern Italy from Naples. In the 14th century, however, Robert of Anjou continued to call himself King of Jerusalem and he may have been encouraging the Brienne faction's claim to Cyprus. As a result, King Hugh IV (1324-59) worked hard at an alliance with the Aragonese against the Kingdom of Naples' claims to Jerusalem, even going so far as to persecute Queen Sancia of Naples' friends the Franciscans.
As we shall see, the second major Italian political phase on Cyprus in the Middle Ages lasted from 1374 to 1464. As suggested by their military role in the Civil War, the Genoese were already an important factor in Cypriot politics in the early 13th century. From 1203 we hear of Genoese in Cyprus, and Queen Alice granted them their first privileges in 1218: free trade, exemptions from duties and taxes, protection of property, the right to have a Genoese podesta (in Nicosia), and land in Limassol and Famagusta. In 1232, to help end the Civil War, Henry I allowed the Genoese to be under their podesta's and not local jurisdiction in most cases. Some historians look upon these moves as the start of a bad relationship that ended in the Genoese invasion a century and a half later. There is much truth to this claim. Although Genoa often supplied Cyprus with warships in the 13th century, she dragged the island into its violent rivalry with Venice on numerous occasions, especially when Italian interests in Acre and Tyre overlapped with Cypriot interests. Kings of Cyprus learned that to favour one Italian city was likely to annoy the other.
During Henry II's reign (1285-1324) relations with Genoa declined. Until then there were not so many Genoese permanent residents on the island, although the community had amassed some significant property. Now, however, Genoese subjects came as refugees from Syria. Genoese communities increased in size in all the cities, although Famagusta grew most in importance and the podesta was transferred there as a result. Genoa was already upset with Cyprus' attitude toward its conflict with Venice, and Henry did nothing to improve things when he gave privileges to others, including the Pisans. The Genoese asked for even more privileges in the late 1280's, but Henry and Genoa failed to come to a new trade agreement. During the war between Genoa and Venice in the 1290s, Cyprus favoured Venice in the skirmishes that took place around Cyprus. After the Genoese victory in the war, they requested that Henry pay an indemnity, but Henry refused. The Genoese then moved to boycott the island, and Henry retaliated. At this point Genoese pirates, partly connected with the war with Venice, began to threaten Cyprus' new prosperity, even raiding the island on occasion. This prosperity in turn depended in part on a papal ban on trade with Egypt, which Henry sometimes enforced by seizing Genoese shipping. Numerous Genoese pirates were executed in 1303. Another execution in 1306 prompted reprisals from a Genoese relative of the victim. Cyprus and Genoa almost went to war in 1305, but Henry made no effort to soothe things. Henry's antagonistic attitude toward powerful Genoa was probably the main reason for his brother Amaury's coup dՎtat the following year.
Amaury (1306-10) made efforts to improve relations with Genoa, but after his murder and Henry's return to power, tensions again mounted. Henry refused to repay the balance of a large loan his brother had taken from Genoa, and Genoa seriously considered invasion. Following continued Genoese piracy and plundering expeditions near Paphos in the early 1310s, and more confiscations of cargos from Henry, the King supposedly imprisoned all 460 Genoese inhabitants of Nicosia in 1316, and only released them in 1320. Finally Genoa and Henry's successor Hugh IV concluded a peace treaty in 1329, although it was not until a new treaty of 1338 that Genoese piracy ceased to be a major preoccupation. By then, however, the Pope was granting the Genoese exemptions to the ban on trade with the Muslims, which was lifted entirely in 1344.
There were Genoese living in Limassol, Nicosia, and Paphos, in at least the former two possessing a church, ovens, and baths - with a fortified tower in Limassol. The bulk of the population dwelled in Famagusta, although part of the Genoese community's population was made of White Genoese, refugees from Syria who claimed Genoese rights and privileges, but who were not Genoese by blood. The perks of the White Genoese caused problems with the Cypriot authorities. We are particularly well informed about the period around 1300 because of the survival and publication of the records of the Genoese notaries Lamberto di Sambuceto and Giovanni de Rocha, documents that shed light on many aspects of the commercial history of Famagusta around this time.
Although there were apparently still Venetians on Cyprus from before 1191, they received their first trading privileges in the Frankish period in 1306 from Amaury, who was anxious to establish good relations with anyone who could support his precarious rule. The Venetian presence grew, and relations with Cyprus were usually cordial. Venice and Cyprus were among the allies of the naval leagues against the Turks in the middle decades of the 14th century. Peter I spent time in Venice on more than one occasion in the 1360s drumming up support for his crusading activities, and the Venetians provided ships for Peter's crusade to Alexandria in 1365, although they were not pleased with the results. Just as with the White Genoese, there were problems with White Venetians claiming Venetian citizenship and therefore privileges, but in general things went more smoothly with Venice than with Genoa.
Pisa was, after Genoa and Venice, the third most important Italian trading city of the time, and Pisans were not absent from Cyprus. Already in 1192 Guy de Lusignan was considering granting privileges to Pisans, by 1210 we hear of Pisan residents on the island, and before 1250 Limassol had its own Pisan community. Of course Pisans gradually settled in Famagusta with the fall of the crusader states, but their interest in the Eastern Mediterranean was not so intense as that of the other two cities.
In addition, besides some merchants from Piacenza, Sicily, Southern Italy and elsewhere, there were more than a few Florentines. Florentines in Cyprus were often tied to the great banking houses of the Peruzzi and the Bardi, who actively engaged in money-lending on the island, even providing services to a Latin bishop and the Duke of Bourbon. Where the published documentary evidence is rich, around 1300, we find frequent mentions of Florentine loans and of Florentine witnesses to other transactions. The Bardi and Peruzzi saw other opportunities too. When Cyprus suffered a drought in 1294-96, after the great wave of refugees from Latin Syria in 1291, there was danger of severe famine. The Florentine bankers imported huge shipments of grain from Apulia in the years that followed.
The Bardi and the Peruzzi continued their activities in Cyprus until the banking disaster following King Edward III of England's defaulting on his loans in 1345. One Bardi employee, Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, composed his classic trade manual, La pratica della Mercatura, largely based on his experiences while residing on Cyprus for several years in the 1320s and 1330s. Florentine familiarity with Cyprus was such that, in the 100 tales of his masterly Decameron of ca. 1350, Boccaccio involved Cyprus in some way in no less than nine of them. Florentine activity on Cyprus continued after 1345, but following the Genoese invasion, most of this was transferred to Alexandria.
When they were in need of ships, Florentines like the Peruzzi often employed the services of Anconitan and Ragusan ships. Anconitans are attested on Cyprus from at least 1272, and the published documentary evidence from around 1300 shows that they were engaged primarily in the cotton trade, although the classic Cypriot exports, sugar and salt, and a great number of other commodities were important. There was even a small community of Anconitans living on the island at the time, and Ancona had a consul stationed in Famagusta. Pegolotti's book provides much information about the Ancona-Cyprus trade, which was still extensive in the 1320s and 1330s. The activities of Ancona on Cyprus were still frequent in the 1360s, when Anconitans are known to have been living in Limassol as well as Famagusta.
The maritime empires of Genoa and Venice meant that these cities drew Cyprus closer to non-Italian areas under their control, such as Venetian Crete and Genoese Chios. In the 13th and the first half of the 14th centuries, Ragusa on the Dalmatian coast - today's Dubrovnik, Croatia - was ruled by Venice. In the 14th century this city had diplomatic relations with Cyprus and conducted trade with the island, both independently and in association with Ancona and Florence. Already in 1283 we hear of the Ragusan slave trade involving Cyprus, and in the documents of circa 1300 wheat and, especially, cotton are prominent.
Commerce was not the only tie between Cyprus and Italy in these years; there were also ecclesiastical and cultural links. While the Papacy resided in Rome a good portion of the Cypriot higher clergy was Italian, including a few prominent archbishops of Nicosia. The zealous reforming Archbishop Hugh of Fagiano, a Premonstratensian from near Pisa, failed to gain the cooperation of anyone in Cyprus, and retired to his homeland in disgust in the early 1260s, setting up a monastery called Nicosia. Later in the century the Franciscan John of Ancona ruled, and in the early 14th century it was a Roman, the Dominican John of Conti. With the Papacy in Avignon there was a decline in Italian appointments, it seems, but this was reversed in the 15th century with the return to Rome.
In the 1260s no less a figure than Thomas Aquinas devoted a political treatise to the King of Cyprus, and Dante mentions Cyprus in the Divine Comedy. It was the reign of King Hugh IV in the 14th century that represents the true beginning of strong cultural links with Italy, foreshadowing what was to come in the 15th century. For example, Boccaccio describes how Hugh pestered him into composing a work on the pagan gods, and Boccaccio spent over two decades writing his Genealogia deorum gentilium, the standard work on the subject for centuries. The great Greek Cypriot scholar George Lapithis corresponded with the famous Italian Greek monk Barlaam the Calabrian, and the physician of Hugh's son King Peter I, Guido da Bagnolo, was a friend of Petrarch's.
In 1365 Peter (1359-69) led the last great victorious crusade, taking and sacking Alexandria. Perhaps because of the disruption of Genoese (and Venetian) trading interests in the area that resulted, the Genoese invaded Cyprus a few years later. The immediate cause of the invasion stemmed from a violent incident between Genoese and Venetian citizens in Famagusta. The Italian merchant communities had been involved in such violent incidents for over half a century. Some Genoese were killed in rioting in Famagusta in 1310, and there was more trouble with the Genoese in 1331. In 1349 an argument between a Sicilian and a Venetian in Famagusta turned ugly, but the Venetians left it to Hugh IV to deal with the Cypriots and others who had damaged their property and injured some 30 Venetians, which is indicative of the differing attitudes of the Genoese and Venetians toward the crown. Genoa, on the other hand, nearly went to war with Cyprus in 1343-44 and 1364-65, in the latter case because of another violent episode. After this last, Peter I was forced to placate Genoa with extensive new privileges to avoid having to abandon his cherished crusade, including the right to build an administrative loggia in Famagusta and the right to intervene militarily in case the Cypriots went back on their word. Although the differences between Venice, Genoa, and Cyprus concerning the war with Egypt seemed to have been resolved by treaty in 1370, we should not be surprised that a disagreement between citizens of the two Italian cities led to a Genoese invasion in the 1370s.
The violence began after the coronation of Peter II (1369-82) as King of Jerusalem in St Nicholas Cathedral in Famagusta in October of 1372. Struggles between Genoese and Venetians in Famagusta occurred in the 1340s and 1360s. Now they quarrelled over a seemingly trivial element of the ceremonies, and the Cypriots took the side of the Venetians in the chaos that followed. In rioting Genoese property was destroyed and lives were lost, but since Peter blamed the Genoese for the incident, they received no redress. From there things escalated rapidly: many Genoese left the island, the city prepared for war, and it issued demands that could hardly be met in full. The Cypriots, for their part, were not disposed to give in and excluded Genoese ships from Cyprus. Despite intense papal and Hospitaller efforts to find a peaceful solution, an advance fleet sailed from Genoa in early 1373. Genoese pillaging was met with reprisals against the Genoese remaining in Cyprus, until the situation deteriorated to the point that the Cypriots actually handed over the port of Satalia on the south coast of Asia Minor to the Turks rather than lose it to Genoa. Limassol, the city that owed much of its rise to Genoa's rivals the Venetians, was burned and Paphos captured.
The main Genoese fleet of 36 galleys and over 14.000 men arrived in late 1373 to join the seven galleys that had come earlier. The Cypriots decided to negotiate, but through Genoese deceit King Peter II, his uncle Prince John of Antioch, and his mother Eleanor of Aragon were imprisoned. Peter's uncle Prince James, however, refused to be lured into a trap and continued the fight. Nicosia was pillaged, but James inflicted great losses on the Genoese until the Genoese decided that total victory might be beyond their means. For their part, the Cypriots realised that they could not win the war and saw that continued destruction of the countryside and cities would only worsen matters.
The negotiated settlement was harsh for the Cypriots, who agreed to pay a huge indemnity in instalments, offer many important hostages to Genoa, and cede Famagusta to Genoa as further security for payment. James accepted voluntary exile wherever he wished, but again through trickery the Genoese had him brought to Genoa where the future King James I remained for many years. Although the Cyprus economy did not collapse by any means, the war signalled the end of the era of extra affluence that had been based on its strategic trading position.
Late Frankish Cyprus 1374-1474
The invasion and partition of Cyprus in 1374, exactly 600 years before the most recent invasion and partition, ushered in a new Italian phase of Cypriot history in more ways than one. Not only was Famagusta under the direct rule of Genoa, but the death or exile of much of the French-speaking population as a result of the war radically changed the demographic make-up of the nobility. From now on Italians, Greeks, and others played an increasingly predominant role in society. Accompanying this we also see the gradual rise of the Italian language - even its influence on Greek - helped in part by James' long captivity in Genoa and that of his son, Janus, named after the Roman god of Genoa.
It is probably not coincidental that the University of Padua became virtually the institution of higher learning for Cypriots. Although Cypriots are attested at the university as early as the mid-1300s, it is the scholarship that Peter of Caffron set up in 1393 for Cypriots in Padua that provided the impetus for the great increase in the Cypriot student population there in the 15th and 16th centuries. Since Venice conquered Padua in 1406, and the institution became almost the official university for Venice, intellectual ties between the Cypriot elite and Venice were already strong in the early 15th century. Even a member of the royal family, Cardinal Lancelot of Lusignan, studied at the university from 1428, before ending his days in the service of the Duke of Savoy from 1442 to 1451. (Hugh of Lusignan also became cardinal and spent time in Italy.) This can only have served to further encourage both the rise of the Italian language in Cyprus at the expense of French and, eventually, the influence of Venice over Genoa. The Cypriot presence in Padua became so strong that there was an official Cypriot Nation in the university. This lasted well beyond the Turkish conquest of 1571, and a manuscript of the Cypriot Nation's statutes, written by a Greek in the 17th century, survives in the Padua University Library.
Nevertheless Genoa now had a colony in Famagusta, with a Genoese bishop and a substantial Genoese community, although the Greek population outnumbered them. For his release from captivity in 1383, James (1382-98) was forced, among other things, to give up sovereignty of the city and the surrounding area, what has been described as a state within a state, now ruled by a captain. The Genoese also now required major international shipping to go through Famagusta. Still, in the 15th century the city did not enjoy the prosperity it had had in the 14th. Other trading groups stayed away from the port, reducing its income. Some of the population emigrated, and in 1394 an Italian visitor, Nicolo da Martoni, noted that a great part, almost a third, is uninhabited, and the houses are destroyed, and this has been done since the date of the Genoese lordship. The bishop's revenues were only half what they had been before the war, and there were complaints that the city was unhealthy. Moreover, defence against external threats from the Cypriot troops, Catalan pirates, and Mameluke invaders cost money, even if the island did have a military value. By 1447 Genoa decided to turn the administration of the colony over to the Banco di San Giorgio of Genoa. Famagusta continued to decline, however, and even some citizens chose to leave and join the Genoese communities in Limassol and Nicosia instead.
The Cypriots tried and failed to retake Famagusta, already in Peter II's reign. James' son Janus (1398-1432), who was born and raised in Genoa and not allowed to leave until 1391, laid siege to the town in 1401, but gave up in 1403 upon the arrival of a Genoese fleet. Finally, at the death of Janus' son John II (1432-58), the legitimate heir was John's daughter Charlotte, whose second husband was Louis, the son of the Duke of Savoy. John's illegitimate son, James the Bastard, decided to take Cyprus by force. In 1464, after a long siege, he succeeded both in ending Genoese rule in Famagusta and in driving Louis and Charlotte into exile. This relief from the domination of one Italian state was short-lived, however, because three other Italian entities cast their gaze on the island: Savoy, Venice, and Naples. From the West Charlotte continued her efforts, and in the end left her claim to the Duke of Savoy. James, now King James II, married the Venetian Caterina Cornaro, whose family already had significant interests in the Cypriot sugar industry. It was arranged that the Venetian state would be Caterina's heir, should she die childless, but James III was born in 1473, the year of James II's death. With such an unstable situation the party of the Kingdom of Naples took the opportunity to murder Caterina's uncle and advisor, Andrew, and attempted a coup, only to be stopped by the Venetian fleet. With the death of the infant James III in 1474, Venice de facto came into power, already considering the island a colony, to which it sent a provveditore as its highest officer. De jure it looked as if Venice would simply inherit the island at Caterina's death, but when Charlotte's party failed an assassination attempt against Caterina in 1479, this helped persuade Venice that Caterina ought to be coaxed into abdicating earlier in favour of direct Venetian rule. This she did in 1489, living out her days in Asolo.
Venetian Rule, 1474-1571
In almost all guides, lay histories, and textbooks, and in most general scholarly works on the history of Cyprus, the Venetian period is painted with the darkest possible colours. For over half a century, however, almost all serious research into the sources has shown that for the most part the opposite holds. True, it was a colonial rule by a commercial state, Cyprus was in part a military outpost, and it was still a government of the 15th and 16th centuries, but by the standards of the time the Venetian era on Cyprus was very beneficial for the inhabitants. Internal security and the advantages of being in a great trading empire led to increased trade in the traditional Cypriot products, grain, salt, sugar, and cotton, bringing profits to Venetians and an increasing number of the middle and upper classes of Cypriots, Greek and Latin alike. Many Cypriots actually transferred to Venice, such as the Greek Cypriot members of the Hellenic Fraternity of Venice, while others worked on ships in the trade routes. Meanwhile the lot of Greek serfs and the Greek clergy was improved as well. The most telling and important proof against the myth of general decay is the great increase in population in the Venetian period, more than doubling, and this was accompanied by the growth of the cities and the expansion of arable land. This growth, moreover, is best seen in context: the last century of Lusignan rule that preceded it, and the first centuries of Turkish rule that followed, were marked by demographic decline.
Venetian Cyprus was governed by a council, the Regimento, headed by the luogotenente, who had two advisors. The Captain of Famagusta was the military leader, unless Venice thought it necessary to send a provveditore. By 1480 the language of government, at least its communication with Venice, changed from French to Italian. In many other respects, however, the earlier system of government was retained, but as with Genoese Famagusta, the Venetians controlled Cypriot ecclesiastical appointments during their rule.
Venetian rule was accompanied by the Italian Renaissance, until then only superficially present in Cyprus. Art historians have identified an Italo-Byzantine style of painting, found in wall paintings and icons. Greek artists continued to follow Byzantine models, while showing an awareness of Italian developments. Good examples are in Galata and Kalopanayiotis. Renaissance architectural details are to be found in many structures of the period, although for Greek churches the Franco-Byzantine style was not eclipsed. Pure Renaissance elements are in the hospice attached to the Augustinian convent in Nicosia and in the palace of Famagusta, for example, but the greatest works are the classical fortifications in Kyrenia, Famagusta, and, above all, Nicosia. The walls of Nicosia, designed by Ascanio Savorgnano and constructed just before the Turkish invasion of 1570, form a perfect circle with eleven evenly-spaced arrowhead bastions. The Famagusta Gate, with its heavy rustication, takes the viewer on an imaginary journey to Italy.
In literature the poetry of Petrarch influenced 16th century Greek Cypriot works, but for most surviving works Italian was now the dominant language of learning and literature. Cypriot schools were linked to the Venetian network. Upon completion of their higher studies in Italy, especially Padua, several Cypriots of varying backgrounds chose to stay as professors, authors, and editors of medieval works for printing, whereas others returned to play a role in the government bureaucracy. In 1531 a commission was set up for the Italian translation of the important Cypriot legal code the Assizes des bourgeois, accomplished by Florio Bustron in 1534. More importantly, the 16th century was the Italian century in Cypriot historiography. Florio Bustron himself composed an important chronicle in Italian. The similar chronicle known as Amadi was also written in Italian, perhaps largely translated from earlier French sources now lost. One version of the 15th century Greek Cypriot chronicle of Leontios Machairas was translated into Italian as the Chronicle of Strambali. A Dominican friar from a cadet line of the royal family, Etienne de Lusignan, began to compose his important Chorograffia et breve historia dell' isola de Cipro in 1570 in Naples, having left Cyprus before the Ottoman conquest on a voyage. There are other, less significant Cypriot chronicles in Italian, as well as numerous Italian-language accounts of the conquest itself.
Peaceful rule meant uneventful rule. The Turks raided Limassol in 1539, but the city was by then ruined and mostly deserted. The only real disaster came at the end, with the Turkish Conquest. Before that, however, there were a few years of internal unrest, perhaps exacerbated by the increased international tension. Jacob Diassorinos led a Greek rebellion in 1563, but he was quickly executed. The Counter Reformation came to Cyprus when the last archbishop of Nicosia, Filippo Mocenigo, annoyed the Greeks by attempting to implement the harsher decisions of the Council of Trent. The authorities executed the ringleaders of riots that occurred in 1566 during a food shortage, when it was thought that Venice was exporting grain. The Ottomans encouraged conspiracies and rebellions, holding out promises of better years to come under Turkish rule. Meanwhile, the complete restructuring of Nicosia and its defences in the last three years of the Venetian period caused further hardships for the lower classes.
Moreover, the new walls of Nicosia did not work. The Lieutenant Niccolo Dandolo led Venetians and Cypriots of all types in defending the city for six weeks in the summer of 1570, but the capital fell and the defenders were slaughtered. Then it was Famagusta's turn. There the Captain, Marcantonio Bragadino, was in charge, and for almost a year the city held out, until the remaining members of the Venetian and Cypriot garrison surrendered on the condition that their lives be spared. Instead they too were slaughtered, except that Bragadino merely lost his nose and ears. Two weeks later, however, he was flayed alive. His skin was stuffed with straw and sent to Constantinople as a trophy, but the Venetians managed to retrieve it in 1580 and bring it back to Venice. Thus ended almost two centuries of practically continuous Italian rule in all or parts of Cyprus.