Two Centuries After. A Turkish view of the Venetian Remains in Negropont
6,00 €
When sultan Mehmed II captured Negropont in 1470 he executed all males of military age, enslaved everyone else, and left the city empty of its pre-war population. He resettled it with Turks and probably encouraged the return of Jews who had lost their homes in the Giudecca when it was taken over a few years earlier to make room for defense works. Despite this complete substitution of population, the town still seemed noticeably Venetian to the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi two centuries later. His account describes a curious mix- ture of conventional Ottoman features and of Venetian elements which he sometimes finds puzzling. Evliya›s text is especially valuable owing to the razing of almost all the mediaeval remains of Negropont during a campaign of urban renewal.
When sultan Mehmed II captured Negropont in 1470 he executed all males of military age, enslaved everyone else, and left the city empty of its pre-war population. He resettled it with Turks and probably encouraged the return of Jews who had lost their homes in the Giudecca when it was taken over a few years earlier to make room for defense works. Despite this complete substitution of population, the town still seemed noticeably Venetian to the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi two centuries later. His account describes a curious mix- ture of conventional Ottoman features and of Venetian elements which he sometimes finds puzzling. Evliya›s text is especially valuable owing to the razing of almost all the mediaeval remains of Negropont during a campaign of urban renewal.