by Lina Ellina
Katerina was the only real friend Marina had. At least, the only one whose door she could knock on – or more precisely, her parents’ door. Katerina’s parents had always been fond of down-to-earth Marina and considered her a good influence on their up-in-the-clouds daughter. What is more, they felt compelled to try and fill the void of parental support in Marina’s life.
Her cell rang for the third continuous time, and Marina turned it off. She had nothing more to say to him - ever. All she needed was a good night’s sleep. Then she could decide what she wanted to do with her life.
[1]A card game whose origin probably goes back to the Lusignan period
7 - On board Miramare, 1467
In Captain Zanetti’s cabin later that evening, father and son were discussing the situation in Cyprus and the developments in the Ottoman-Venetian war over the maritime hegemony of the Aegean and the Adriatic Sea.
“But we can’t be losing the war in Albania. Skanderberg has succeeded in lifting the siege of Croia!” Marin cried out.
The captain looked at Marin and nodded. He had always tried to conceal his weakness for his eldest son, who reminded him so much of himself in his youth, and it was more than just the physical resemblance. Despite his artistic and sensitive nature that he inherited from his mother, Marin’s drive to learn and achieve – which he got from his father – set him apart from his siblings. Ever since he was a child and Marco Polo was his hero, he loved discussing current affairs with his father who traveled the world.
His beard hadn’t started growing yet when the captain put in plain words to him about how Venice’s location, diplomacy, and Arsenal had transformed the Serenissima into Europe’s gateway between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic civilization. Its location on the Adriatic favored trade with the East, and their skilled diplomatic efforts and intelligence services gave the Venetians an advantage over their European counterparts. Of paramount importance to the Queen of the Sea in building its maritime empire, a navy of 3,300 ships, was also the construction of the Arsenal, a complex of state-owned shipyards and armories clustered together - the reason why Venice was capable of standing up to the vast Ottoman Empire for three hundred years and through seven wars.
“News is not good, Marin. As if the plague outbreak amongst the Albanians was not enough, the word is that Skanderberg died of malaria in Lissus. I doubt anyone can replace his influence on the Albanian lords in our favor.” The captain got up and stood in front of the porthole. He looked at the rough Sea of Candia[1] in the darkness of the moonless, foggy night and straightened his tight waistcoat.
“Surely, you’re not worried father. Venice is strong. It’s an empire! And not just at sea. She’s got eight thousand cavalry enrolled,” Marin said with the enthusiastic idealism of youth.
“Empires have fallen before,” his father murmured and downed his wine. “Look at the fall of Constantinople. Venice is still joggling trying to reestablish the status quo, but the truth is that the Turks have altered the political map, and we’ll have to learn to live with this.” He paced up and down, looked over his shoulder, and added, “besides, we are fools!”
Marin furrowed an eyebrow.
“We are cutting down trees for charcoal. Soon, we won’t have any trees left to build ships,” the captain prophesied.
A knock on the cabin’s door put an abrupt end to their conversation.
“Captain! Captain! There’s storm coming,” a deckhand cried out, and both men dashed to the deck. Storms in the Sea of Candia were never to be taken lightly, especially in the dead of winter.
[1]Crete
8 - Rovigo, 2010
Lorenzo called the vice mayor’s office, the head of the delegation for the twinning process with the Municipality of Famagusta, for an appointment. Because of a cancellation, the vice mayor could receive him already that same afternoon, a polite female voice informed him, and Lorenzo wondered if that was a good omen.
“Aha... signor Zanetti from Ca’ Lorenzo with the luscious cappellacci di zucca!” The silver-haired politician with a matching moustache walked to the door and shook hands with him.
Lorenzo was happily surprised he remembered him.
“What can I do for you?” asked the vice mayor.
Elaborating on his search proved to be less daunting than Lorenzo had originally feared. A friendly and supportive figure, the vice mayor got on the phone and first called his assistant in and then spoke with the Honorary Consul of Italy in Cyprus, a personal friend of his, requesting all possible assistance in Lorenzo’s search.
“Consul Mantovani is Cypriot but speaks fluent Italian.”
“Mantovani… That sounds like a name from our region,” Lorenzo observed.
“Indeed. Mr. Mantovani’s ancestors were of Venetian origin. In fact, he has been able to trace them as far back as 1634 when they first moved to Cyprus. Who knows? You might as well.”
The vice mayor gave Lorenzo a list of more contacts, more personal friends of his, who might be of some assistance. He told Lorenzo to feel free to use his name as a reference.
When Raffaella, his assistant, joined them in the office, the vice mayor made the introductions and asked her to assist Mr. Zanetti with his request. He then turned to his guest.
“Well, Lorenzo, I wish you the best of luck with your quest.” He shook his hand firmly and offered a sincere smile. Lorenzo thanked him, invited him and his family for dinner, and followed Raffaella to her office where she carefully heard his briefing on his search efforts at the ufficio anagrafe[1] and promised to help him with the archives of the provincia.
“Before you put your hopes up too high, signor Zanetti...”
“Please, call me Lorenzo,” he said smoothly.
“Fine... Lorenzo...,” she said, tilting her head to the side and fluttering her eyelashes. “I should warn you that you’d be lucky to come across the information you are looking for on property acquisition during this time period. Records dating so far back are hardly ever consistent. You will need to be patient. This can be a time consuming process,” Raffaella said and offered him an encouraging smile.
[1]Registry office
9 - Lemesos, 2010
Katerina’s sympathetic parents invited Marina to stay with them for as long as necessary, but she didn’t want to take advantage of their hospitality. In her wakeful night, Marina decided she needed a change here and now. The next morning, she got a new cell phone number that she gave only to her mother and Katerina and made them both swear not to give it to George. She then drove back to Lefkosia while George was at work, sneaked into the apartment, and packed her things. On her way out, she dropped her keys into the letterbox.
Marina was not just moving out of the apartment; she was moving out of his life and away from Lefkosia. Equipped with Chrysses Aggelies, a local search and find newspaper, she made several appointments to see apartments for rent while driving back to Lemesos.
She was lucky it only took her a few days to find a small studio in the attic of a building, which once boasted of being a mansion at the beginning of the previous century, on St. Andrews Street, one of Lemesos oldest streets and an integral part of the city’s history. In no time, Marina was thrilled to live within walking distance from the seafront promenade on this busy, narrow, jostling street with its quaint buildings and overhanging terraces, under which a cornucopia of small shops, galleries, cafés, restaurants, and bars, vie for attention.
10 - Episkopi, 1467
It had been almost four weeks since they left the lagoon for the open sea. Marin was standing on deck, leaning on the balustrade, and watching the few docked fishing boats and the small village market come into full view, as the sweaty oarsmen gradually brought the galley into Episkopi Bay. There was excitement among the crew, as Captain Zanetti dexterously navigated the galley to a berth.
If it had been any other voyage, Marin would have ridden to Limassol with the other crew members to trade products, watch a wrestling fight, or seek out a juggler’s performanc
e. A typical outing to Limassol would include a decent meal at one of the harbor’s taverns by the castle, a few drinks, dancing with a local beauty, and whatever else chance might bring his way - but not this time.
When all the checks were carried out, the captain assigned guard duty to deter the threat of a pirate assault, although this was more of a precautionary measure. Pirates preferred the busy port of Limassol where looting brought them substantially more riches. Father and son disembarked as soon as Marin’s trunk was loaded onto the horse-drawn carriage that was awaiting them, courtesy of Andrea Cornaro. Marin set foot on land and took a deep breath of the cold, moist winter air. This is it, he thought. It’s happening!
The captain gave his first officer some last minute instructions, and they set off for the Cornaro sugar mill without delay. They passed by a priest entering a humble Byzantine church with the typical dome, at the small village market, where servants were buying fresh produce at the few stalls. They rode through the vast sugar cane plantations where weather-beaten paroikoi and perperiarii were cutting the sugar cane and loading it onto horse-drawn carriages to be carried to the mill. Although sugar cane is best harvested in the dry season, the demand for it dictated the lengthening of the harvesting period.
His father had explained to him, how in the feudal system introduced by the Franks, Cypriots were divided into three major classes, the paroikoi, or the serfs, the perperiarii, who were still bound to the land like the serfs, but who had bought their limited freedom paying fifteen hyperpyra to their master, and the lefteroi, or the free citizens, who bought their freedom or were set free by some kind of favor. In the new Frankish regime, there was no place for the archontes, the local Greek landowning aristocracy, although, over time, some of them managed to obtain royal privileges and a place in the court of the nobles. Some middle-class Greek town-dwellers were even recruited into the royal administration, thus raising their social and financial status, but these were just a few.
“Look around, Marin. As far as the eye can see and beyond, all this land belongs to the Cornaro,” his father explained. He had told him so before, but Marin’s brain was only now beginning to grasp the enormity of the responsibility he was entrusted with.
When they finally arrived at the mill, Marin looked at the stone-built structure on the western banks of the Kouris River and then across the river at their rivals at Colossi castle. Although the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem[1], better known as Hospitallers, had moved their headquarters to Rhodes[2], they maintained their military presence at Colossi castle as well as their profitable sugar mill production.
Jacomo, the lanky, albino mill foreman with the ratty white-blonde beard, greeted them at the entrance and showed them into Andrea Cornaro’s office. He ordered a serf, a girl who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, to prepare some sage tea for the guests while he sought out Andrea.
The albino first looked in the stoke room, where the fires for the cauldrons in the boiling hall above were lit, but there was no sign of Andrea. He walked out of the premises, for there was no direct access to the other rooms. The boiling hall was partially over the stoke room, as a means to ensure the soot was separated from the sugar. He walked up the external stairway that led to the boiling hall where he found Andrea leaning against the limestone wall, inspecting the work carried out and wearing a pensive face with his arms folded in front of his chest.
“Captain Alexandro Zanetti and his son are here to see you, Sir.” Jacomo raised his voice above the factory noise to apprise him of the captain’s visit.
Andrea cast his gaze on a ragged serf who drained the sweat from his forehead with his frayed sleeve and ran his filthy fingers through his sticky hair before filling the huge copper cauldron with chopped and crushed sugar cane for the cane juice to be boiled and refined.
“Uh, yes! Thank you, Jacomo,” Andrea said and walked briskly to his office, passing by the animal driven mill and the workshop. He cast a quick glance at the small army of serfs who were filling funnel-shaped clay sugar molds and molasses pots to be placed on top of other vessels. In this way, the syrup was separated and flowed through the holes in the bottom, so that crystalline sugar would be formed to a loaf and could be removed from the molds. Andrea marched by a throng of female serfs who freed the dried out sugar from its casing to be sold in the shape of a hat.
A couple of minutes later, Andrea joined them in his office, a spacious room filled with shelves packed with mill records that had accumulated over the years. Andrea hadn’t been there for months, but a quick review of the latest ledger entries had left him discontented. Despite Jacomo’s efforts, the production seemed to have been unable to match the increasing demand.
“Alexandro!” the man with the auburn hair, the vigilant grey-green eyes, and the thick eyebrows exclaimed and embraced the captain.
“Consigliere, it’s good to see you again. I trust you are well,” the captain said respectfully. “This is my son Marin,” he introduced him with pride in his voice. Marin bowed his head briefly and extended his arm, but Andrea embraced him, instead.
“Welcome to Cyprus, your new home. I hope you’ll like it here.” Andrea scrutinized the young man’s expression, but the latter didn’t flinch. Does he have what it takes, he wondered? Andrea made a mental note of the flash in the young man’s alert eyes and the vigor in his movement.
“I’m looking forward to that, uncle,” Marin replied assertively.
Andrea invited them both to have a seat. “I hope your journey was not rough,” he said when he took a seat behind his heavy oak desk embellished with carved Greco-Roman designs. Marin thought he recognized the athletic figure of Hermes, or Mercury, the patron of commerce.
“Nothing worth mentioning,” Alexandro replied, although it had taken everyone’s skills on board to sail through the prodigious storm they ran into. “I hope business has been good as usual,” the captain, a man of few words, skillfully cut to the chase.
Andrea’s bushy eyebrows rose and went down again. “On the whole, yes. We have managed to include most of the royal courts in our clientele. Even common people are now turning to sugar which is neither as rare nor as expensive as honey. The demand has, therefore, grown, but we haven’t been able to raise productivity at the same pace yet. We even bought more slaves to boost the output, but that hasn’t brought the expected outcome. Meanwhile, competition in Western Europe has been noticeably on the rise with sugar mills mushrooming. Thanks to advisers from Sicily and capital from Genoa, they have managed to break our monopolies.”
Andrea paused wistfully and rubbed his right sideburn with his forefinger. “We might even need to reevaluate our options... look into new ventures. And with Giovanni dead, there’s no firm hand to supervise the estates... Now, Marin,” he turned and faced the young man, “your father must have briefed you on the political state of affairs here in Cyprus.”
“I understand that the king might feel vulnerable,” Marin said, measuring his words.
“Indeed. James is striving to keep the Turks off his shores. At the same time, Charlotte is exerting herself to gain support from wherever she can in order to get the throne back. Even though the Pope has declined to take any action, the threat of a coalition among the Savoyards, the Genoese, and the Milanese is very real. Not to mention the Florentines or the Catalans,” Andrea continued his monolog.
Marin made quick mental associations. Charlotte’s husband was the duke of Savoy. The Genoese had a score to settle after they lost Famagusta to the new king, and the Milanese, the Florentines, and the Catalans wanted to see their strong financial interests on the island secured. A bit like a chess game, he thought, where you need to predict the opponent’s moves.
“The king is also seeking alliance through marriage, and I need to... assist him in his choice,” Andrea said meaningfully. “And here, my dear boy, is where you come into play. I simply cannot be in two places at the same time. I need someone I can trust to run this business and look after the esta
tes for me. Someone with his eyes and ears open for potential profitable ventures while I’m away in Nicosia and while Marco is away in Venice.”
Marin was listening to Andrea Cornaro with the deepest veneration, thankful for this exhilarating new life that lay before him. “Show me how I can run this business and I’ll have my eyes and ears open day and night. I won’t fail you, uncle,” he said keenly. Not so many twenty-one-year-olds of ignoble birth gained so much status in one day.
Andrea shook his head and smiled. “All in good time, lad. First, you should rest, and then Jacomo, the foreman, will assist you with anything you need. We must safeguard the secret of sugar production at all costs, so there’s nothing I can give you in writing. You need to learn every single detail through observing and memorizing.”
“That’s fine. I’ve a good memory,” Marin assured him.
Andrea turned to his cousin and asked, “When are you sailing, captain?”
“As soon as we load the cargo and the supplies and my men get a day’s rest,” the captain replied.
“Excellent. Then we shall dine together tonight.”
[1]They sought refuge in Cyprus after the capture of Acre in 1291.
[2] When they found themselves enmeshed in the politics of the island
11 - Rovigo, 2010
Lorenzo’s delving into the census, land registry and probate records over the next couple of months shed little, if any, light on his quest. He came across two references in the court archives to a Maria Zanetti, who was prosecuted for gossiping in 1462 and of scolding her husband, Maffeo, in 1463. A reference of greater significance was one recorded in the land registry. It concerned a property acquisition by a certain Alexandro Zanetti in 1469. An extensive search showed that this vast plot of land was divided into shares over the centuries, and Lorenzo’s family house formed a tiny fraction of it. The name Marin Zanetti, however, was not mentioned anywhere.