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In 1489, when Cyprus came under Venetian rule, Nicosia became their administrative center. The Venetian governors saw it as a necessity for all the cities of Cyprus to be fortified due to the Ottoman threat.
Venice formally annexed the Kingdom of Cyprus in 1489, following the abdication of Catherine. The Venetians fortified Nicosia by building the Walls of Nicosia, and used it as an important commercial hub. Throughout Venetian rule, the Ottoman Empire frequently raided Cyprus.
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- From The French Hands to The Ones of Venice
- The Reasons Behind The Acquisition of Cyprus by The Venetian Republic
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- Events of Significance
According to Georgios Boustronios, who lived the events, the house of Lusignan kept the throne of Cyprus for 232 years, until the time of Jacques the bastard [Jacques II]. Jean III died in 1458 leaving his daughter Charlotte heir to his crown. In 1460 her bastard brother Jacques revolted against Charlotte and simultaneously he was approved as king ...
There are obvious reasons for which the Venetians extracted Cyprus from the French: 1. Venetians wanted to exploit the feudal system using the local serfs as costless work labour to extract the rich agricultural products of the island such as grain, sugar, cotton, silk and salt, and gain massive profits. 2. Famagusta and Larnaca ports could be used...
The new administration kept paying the 8,000 golden ducats tribute to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate, and then to their successors, the Ottomans, until the year 1517. Due to the harsh and cruel Venetian administration, according to Mas Latrie (19th cent.), there had been emigrations towards the Ottoman Minor Asia [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890].
According to Archbishop Constantius (1766) “Force, sophistry, threats were daily used against the Orthodox: they were daily oppressed, and their clergy harassed” [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895].
The Venetians and the Greeks had four episcopal sees according to Martin von Baumgarten: Nicosia, Famagusta, Limassol and Paphos, of which in every one of them there’s both a Greek and Latin bishop. According to Elias de Pesaro in 1563, the churches had no bells at that time [Claude Delaval Cobham, 1895]. Tommaso Porcacchi writes about the minoriti...
According to Papacostas’s research (2016), what we do know from a number of Venetian reports, however, is that several dozen and possibly as many as fifty or more Greek monasteries were operating on the island at that time. Cypriot monasteries appealed to Venice for grants and tax exemptions, and their requests were often favourably answered. The i...
The Plague
One of the great disasters regularly striking Cyprus from the mid 13th century onward through the end of the 17th was the plague. Plague, really a disease of rats and similar rodents, passed to humans by their fleas. Frequently new plagues have found their way to the Middle East, and Cyprus, via land and sea routes from central Asia or India [Ronald Jennings, 1992]. According to Arbel (1984), the plagues that struck Cyprus during the Venetian Rule were not as destructive as the ones who struc...
Malaria
Malaria is an exceptionally far-reaching disease, long-standing in Cyprus. Certain coastal areas of Cyprus became malarial, most notably Famagusta. After its pestiferous nature became known in the 14th century, it declined rapidly. Of the towns on the island, only Nicosia and Kyrenia seemed at large from malaria. In Cyprus, sizeable salt lakes in the vicinity of Limassol and Larnaca fed by winter rainfall and snow in the Troodos and incorporated dimensions that fluctuated with the season. The...
Excessive heat
Regarding the heat, he writes: “Ophthalmia is very common here. It generally begins on the longest day of the year and lasts beyond the autumnal equinox. It begins with a fever, which lasts two or three days, and violent headaches. Then the fever grows less, and a flux attacks the eyes with pain and inflammation and lasts for twenty or thirty days. If one is observant and careful the affection disappears of itself. Men and women, adults and children, are equally liable to it” [Claude Delaval...
Regarding the products of the island, Pietro Casola (1494) singled out the sugar, cotton, and carobs [Ronald Jennings, 1992]. Many years later Mariti claimed that during this period, the cultivation of olives was abandoned for that of cotton [Giovanni Mariti, 1791]. According to Martin von Baumgarten in 1508, salt was exported yielding great profit...
According to Mas Latrie (19th cent.), the Greek schools that were in use during the Frankish Rule were forced to shut down and were replaced by schools teaching the Italian language [Athanasios Sakellarios, 1890].
1491 > Earthquake: On 25 April 1491, a very severe earthquake did great damage to Nicosia districts while knocking down one of the two seaside walls of Pafos and part of the castle at Limassol. After the earthquake of 1491 Pietro Casola (1494) found in Limassol all the churches but one in ruins and no good houses anywhere. The few people appeared i...
Qaitbay was born between 1416 and 1418 in Circassia, located in the Caucasus. His skill in archery and horsemanship attracted the attention of a slave merchant who purchased him ( Black Sea slave trade ) and brought him to Cairo when he was already over twenty years of age.
When Qaytbay visited the city of Alexandria in AH 882 / AD 1477 to survey its walls, towers and fortifications, he ordered the construction of a citadel to protect the most important ports on the coast of northern Egypt.
Upon this incident, the Venetians captured Cyprus in 1489. During the Egyptian campaign of Sultan Selim I, the Çukurova region was taken over. As Yavuz eliminated the Mamluks and seized Syria, ...
The Citadel of Qaytbay is considered to be one of the most important defensive fortifications on the Mediterranean coast. When Qaytbay visited the city of Alexandria in AH 882 / AD 1477 to survey its walls, towers and fortifications, he ordered the construction of a citadel to protect the most important ports on the coast of northern Egypt.
