Zante; Cephalonia. Zakynthos; Kefallonia

VENETIAN SCHOOL, 17^TH CENTURY

Zante; Cephalonia. 

Zakynthos; Kefallonia  

Oil on canvas, inscribed, a pair

69 x 119 cms

271/8 x 427/8 inches

Overall framed size 77.7 x 127.8 cms

                                 303/8 x 503/8 inches

The Venetian Empire’s possessions in the Ionian Sea constituted Cephalonia, Paxos, Ithaca, Zakynthos, Levkas, Kithira and Corfu. Jan Morris, in The Venetian Empire; A Sea Voyage, writes of Zakinthos (Zante) that: “…after 1500 (it) took the place of Methoni as principal port of call on the eastern route…and on it the Venetians built what is said to have been the loveliest of all their colonial towns, a perfect set-piece around a bay: hardly a stone remains of it, for it was utterly destroyed in the great earthquake of 1953. Cephalonia had a great castle and in later years a dear little opera house, visited frequently by companies from Venice…All these islands remained Venetian until the fall of the Republic in 1797, and the Venetian style was deeply imprinted on them. Venice kept these islands western islands, during the long Turkish domination of Greece, and to this day the Greek patois of the mainland is full of Turkish idioms, but the patois of the Ionians is thick with Italianisms.

Throughout the Ionians Venetian rule was to be remembered, all in all, affectionately. It had kept them from the Turks, it had respected the Orthodox faith, it had brought periods of prosperity, it had given the islands the most beautiful towns in Greece. But most important of all, more by diffidence than design it had preserved in trust the Hellenism of the islands… after the fall of Crete, artists, scholars, and thinkers came from every part of the Greek world came to the Ionians...these islands were the bastions of Helleneism, the place where the Greek dimension was kept in being.”

Zante, also known as Zacinto, Zakynthos and Zacinthos and Cephalonia (Cefalonia, Kephalonia, Kefalonia, Kefallonia, Kefalinia and Kephallenia) were part of the Venetian Empire that controlled much of the Mediterranean. The former lies about 20 kilometers west of the Greek mainland and is the third largest of the Ionian Islands with an area of just over 400 square kilometers. The latter is about 15 kilometers to the north of its neighbour and is the largest in the group and the sixth largest in Greece. Its name derives from pre-Mycenaean times and in mythology it comes from Zacynthus, grandson of Zeus and Helectra and the son of Dardanus, a renowned Arcadian chief who founded Troy. In some of the oldest Greek myths it was said that it was a favourite resting place for Apollo who could sit in the shade playing his lyre and eulogising the island’s beauty in song.

The island features in Homer’s the Iliad and the Odyssey which is where the legend of the connection to Dardanus appears. This influence was supplanted by King Arkesios of Kefalonia before being conquered by the Ithacan Odysseus. Zakynthos is again mentioned by Homer in the Catalogue of Ships which were involved in the Trojan War sided with the Greeks. Homer goes on to reference twenty Zakynthos nobles among the 108 who were suitors to Penelope. 

 During the First Peloponnesian War, Zakynthos was allied to the Athenians and the island was particularly important for Athens as it was a reliable source of tar which was essential for the Athenian triremes and afforded considerably superior protection against rot and worms compared to pitch.

The sweeping attacks in Europe by the Vandals reached Zakynthos in 459 AD and they plundered the island. From the 7^th to 12^th centuries it was part of the Theme of Cephallenia under the Byzantines and then after 1185, under the Frankish Crusaders, it became part of the diocese of the County Palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos.

At the end of the 12^th century and with the decline of the Byzantine empire, a period of instability ensued in the eastern Mediterranean and the island of Zante (Zakynthos) was ruled by the successive powers of the Orsini, the Angioni and then the Tocchi. In 1478 the Ottoman Turks gained control of the island and with a period of stability and through shrewd economic and martial administration it expanded its territory into part of mainland Greece. This success brought it to the attention of the Venetians who were extending their control of the eastern Mediterranean trade routes and they conquered the island in 1482, making it part of the Republic of Venice. In 1492 the Venetian Government began to consolidate its influence by relocating many of its citizens to the island to further their influence and control. The Venetians’ colonial approach though was comparatively benign for the period and they encouraged harmony between the two cultures and allowed religious and social freedom and this allowed it to be part of the Venetian Empire for over 300 years. The coexistence between the two cultures fostered a strong identity of its own which is evident in the architecture earning it the sobriquets the “The Flower of the Levant” and “The Venice of Greece.” 

The origin of Cephalonia’s name has been derived from an association with Cephalus (or Kephalos) who appears in mythology as supporting the Mycenaens in a regional war. Some historians also put it as being the mythological site of Ithaca rather than the smaller island which is called that today. In classical times it was ruled by four city states from the 6^th century BC onwards and it appears only sporadically in writings of the time. It was allied to the Athenians in the Pelaponnesian War and as the island is situated near to the entrance to the Bay of Corinth, it held a strategically important role.

It featured again when it contributed soldiers to the invasion of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great but in 218 BC it was conquered by Philip V of Macedonia and then in 189 BC by the Romans from whence it became less strategically important and its wealth and influence waned. The Emperor Hadrian later gave the island to Athens.

During the Byzantine era it regained its strategic influence in the fight against the expanding Muslim influence in the Levant as it acted as a base and bulwark against incursions into the Adriatic. Christian expansion into the Muslim-controlled Med was advancing by the 1060s and with the diminishing power of the Byzantine Empire its influence was subsiding. The Norman Robert Guiscard had invaded Sicily and completed its conquest by 1091 in addition to the Byzantine province in southern Italy and neighbouring Lombardy. This concerned the Byzantines and it augmented the rift developing between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Papacy upsetting the delicate balance that Constantinople had managed to maintain. Robert’s invasion of Albania was a prelude to Norman conquest of the whole of Byzantium. The latter, unable to stave off this threat, approached Venice and particularly its merchants who relied on access to the Adriatic. The Venetian fleet inflicted serious damage on that of the Normans and by the time they had re-equipped their fleet, Robert was in poor health and elderly and he died on campaign in Kephalonia in 1085. However this setback for the Normans was only a deferment and he island suffered further attacks by the Normans until it was eventually captured in 1185 when it became, like Zakynthos, part of the County Palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos. This state of affairs persisted until conquest by the Ottomans in 1479.

In 1500, the island was captured by a Venetian army who introduced a number of its citizens and soldiers. However, by the second half of the 16^th century, the English started to appear more in the Levant and this was not solely for the benefit of trade. The antipathy between Catholic Spain and much of Europe and Protestant England meant that Elizabeth 1 was seeking allies with a mutual interest in reducing the power of Spain. In 1578, her spymaster Walsingham wrote that the time was prudent to send an agent bearing letters from the queen to the Ottoman sultan so in 1580, a Turkey Company was founded to promote this trade with Ottoman territories. The purpose was an attempt to bypass the monopoly that the Venetians had with the eastern Mediterranean on exotic wares and in conjunction with this push by English merchants into the area, the Queen increased tariffs on Venetian ships. The Turkey Company, which later became the Levant Company, was made up of buccaneers as well as merchantmen, a combination for which the reign of Elizabeth was notorious. Not only were the English sourcing items from the east directly themselves but they also became involved in exporting their cloth to the Ottomans which previously had been the preserve of the Venetians.

Initially the English, along with the Dutch, had been primarily interested in sourcing spices from the east such as ginger and pepper but the Venetian-ruled islands of Kephalonia and Zante had things growing on them that the English had been obsessed with since the Middle Ages: raisins, sultanas and currants. The English were so successful in usurping the Venetian monopoly of trade in these crops that they were soon procuring directly the majority of what the islands produced. The Venetians’ attempts to thwart this trade between the English and islanders by prohibiting it were, for the most part, completely ignored. The English ships were often closer to outright piracy than traders and often attacked Venetian ships, building a fearsome reputation with their technologically superior and more manoeuvrable ships.

Despite these interruptions to stability it remained part of the Venetian Republic until the empire was dismantled following the Treaty of Campoformio which awarded the Ionian Islands to France in 1797 becoming part of the French Département of Ithaque. However, their tenure endured for only a year when it was attacked by a combined Turkish and Russian fleet when it became part of the Ottoman Empire backed by Russian force. Following the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, the Ionian Islands reverted to France but, as a consequence of the war between France and Britain in 1809 and the subsequent blockade of the island group, Zakynthos fell to the British, swiftly followed by Cephalonia and Ithaca. The 1815 Treaty of Paris recognised the islands as a British protectorate. In 1864 the islands became fully integrated into the Greek state as part of British support for the Danish Prince William becoming King George I of the Hellenes.

Bibliography:

The Great Sea; A Human History of the Mediterranean – David Abulafia

The Venetian Empire; A Sea Voyage – Jan Morris

kalimera-greece.eu

kefalonia-island.gr

greeka.com

e-zakynthos.com