Famagusta Maritima.pdf

Famagusta Maritima: Mariners, Merchants, Pilgrims and Mercenaries, 2019

During the 14th century, Famagusta was not only known for the marketing of the agricultural and luxury products of Cyprus, nor solely for the transportation of Eastern goods to the West, and vice versa; slavery and slave trading were also important components of the economy of the city and in creating networked links to other geographical locations. Slaves were used in the residences and workplaces of Famagusta but were also traded and transported by merchants. This study aims to open a discussion on this trading activity in Famagusta and identify possible destinations that these slaves were transported to, through the evidence of 14th-century notarial acts registered in Famagusta.

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2015

The harbour of all this sea and realm: crusader to Venetian famagusta / edited by michael J.K. Walsh, Tamás Kiss, nicholas Coureas.-1st edition. pages cm.-(Ceu medievalia, issn 1587-6470; 17) includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-6155225963 (hardbound) 1. famagusta (Cyprus)-Civilization. 2. famagusta (Cyprus)-history. 3. material culture-Cyprus-famagusta-history. 4.

In "Montréal Architectural Review" | vol. 1, pp. 67-87 | Montréal: McGill University, 2014

This article discusses and interprets the development, urban topography and main signifiers of the port city of Famagusta, Cyprus between the 14th and 16th centuries. It traces the city’s three distinct patterns of development, directly paralleling the three administrations in the years constituting the late Lusignan, Genoese and Venetian periods.

The fortifications of Famagusta, the largest port of Renaissance Cyprus, initially rose between 1308 and 1372 on orders from the Lusignan, the island’s ruling French family, and following Papal indulgences for their hastened completion. The chain of sociopolitical events that shaped Famagusta’s history under the subsequent rules of Genoa (1373-1464) and Venice (1489-1571) necessitated substantial modifications to the physical disposition of the city’s waterfront castle, walls, fifteen towers and three gates. This paper interprets the defensive structures of Famagusta both as barriers that fragmented the city and its surrounding area into distinct territories, and as a network of interconnected spaces that gave the city its unified character and urban form. The city’s fortifications are shown to have not only functioned as inseparable parts of its military history, but also to have shaped the everyday life experiences of its diversified ethno-linguistic populace, and to have commanded Famagusta’s changing tyche or fortune.

Levant, 2021

At Dreamer’s Bay on the Akrotiri Peninsula of Cyprus lie remains of what has been interpreted as a, perhaps the main, port for Roman and early Byzantine Kourion. New research reveals a significantly different picture. This was not a nucleated port town as sometimes assumed, but a concentration of maritime facilities with a variety of functions, including an artificially enhanced (but still mediocre) harbour, and shoreline installations partly facilitating Kourion’s commerce in commodities like wine and oil. It was also partly an industrial landscape focused on stone quarries above the bay and, perhaps equally important, a proposed watering and victualling stop for long-haul shipping between the Aegean, Egypt and the Levant. Dreamer’s Bay was hardly a distinct ‘site’ or ‘place’, but rather a commercial/industrial zone forming part of an integrated landscape of settlement and activity spanning the entire peninsula, which itself constituted a major maritime crossroads in the eastern Mediterranean.

Studies on the maritime activities of Greeks in the sixteenth century, published in the last decades, have renewed research interest in this field, leading to the revision of the views of earlier researchers who describe Greek merchant shipping in the sixteenth century as an economic activity supported by a few boats, with which Greeks served local fishing and transporting activities, fearful of venturing beyond the safety of the coasts. Thanks to new bibliography it is documented the more active presence of subjects of Venice and foreigners in the maritime life of the State. The present study is part of a personal research project by the undersigned, aimed at compiling a typology of the participation of Greek subjects of Venice in maritime trade. As I see it, prerequisite for achieving this goal is the existence of a series of specific case studies. Some of these are proposed, in general outline, in this paper, referring to the years after the third Venetian-Ottoman war.

Cyprus was an important medieval emporium, which maintained its commercial importance after the Ottoman conquest. The aims of this study are: to identify the consuls of Venice in Cyprus and their dragomans; to list the items of trade exported by the Venetians and the disagreements experienced between the merchants of Venice or the consuls in Cyprus and the Cyprus administrators in the first part of 17th century; and to investigate what the Venetian presence meant to the daily lives of the Cypriots. In addition, an attempt is made to illustrate Ottoman– Venetian relations from the Ottoman point of view, and to describe the role that the sea captains of Venice played in Ottoman trade between Cyprus and Istanbul in the second half of the 18th century. Finally, the Venetian consulate in Cyprus is compared with the one in Aleppo at the end of 18th century. The evidence used is derived principally from the records of the Nicosia cadi's court and of the Ottoman Prime Ministry archives in Istanbul.

This paper argues that the Genoese in Famagusta endeavoured to maintain commercial realtions with the Mamluks and to avoid involvement in conflicts between the Mamluks and the Lusignan kingdom of Cyprus. The decline of Famagusta under Genoese rule as well as the overall decline in Genoa's share of eastern Mediterranean commerce did not assist in the development of lively commercial relations, while the activites of Catalan and other pirates who found a market for their plunder, including seized Muslim ships, in Famagusta also caused hostility, with the Mamluks retaliating against Genoese merchants in Syria.