venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 145
Venice allowed local elites to organize in councils that were granted
authority to deal with local affairs under the supervision of the Venetian
governors. In the Aegean Sea there were varying patterns and degrees of
colonial control. Some territories were held by Venetian patricians under
Venice’s protection, others were formally part of the Duchy of the Archi-
pelago (the Duchy of Naxos), but the Duchy itself, especially during the
last century of its existence, was a Venetian protectorate. During the 15th
and 16th centuries, the Duchy, which had been founded in 1207 by Marco
Sanuto, was ruled by the Crispo family, which, though related to strong
patrician families, was not Venetian itself. The dukes claimed to be the
feudal overlords of other islands of the Aegean Archipelago, including
those ruled by Venetian families, such as Serifos (partly, and from 1430
entirely, held by the Michiel), Paros (held by the Venier and later by the
Sagredo), Antiparos (held by the Loredan and later by the Pisani), Nio
(Ios, held by the Pisani between 1508–37), Amorgos (held by Venetian
families from Crete, then by the Querini), Stampalia (Astipalaia, from 1413,
held by the Querini), Santorini (held by the Barozzi and, from 1480, by the
Pisani), Namfio (Anafi, held by the Brabaro between 1466–1528 and later,
until 1537, by the Pisani), Gia (Kea, Keos, Tzia, held by the Premarin), and
Scarpanto (Karpathos, held by the Corner). As from 1419 until the early
16th century, in their treaties with the Ottomans, the Venetians insisted
on including a formal recognition on the part of the sultan of their
overlordship of the Duchy of Naxos, whose rulers were to be treated as
Venetians.44 Moreover, until the Ottoman war of 1537–41, Venice nearly
always refused to recognize the claims of the Dukes of the Archipelago to
be suzerains of all the other Latin lords in the area and considered itself
the supreme authority there, including over the Duchy of Naxos itself.
Venice recognized the validity of feudal law of Romania in matters per-
taining to rights of succession in these islands but insisted that claims in
44 Georg Martin Thomas, Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum, 2 vols (Venice, 1880–99),
2:319 (1419), 2:345 (1430), 2:368 (1446), 2:383 (1451); Romanin, Storia documentata, 4:384
(1454); Diana G. Wright and Pierre Mackay, “When the Serenissima and the Gran Turco
Make Love: The Peace Treaty of 1478,” Studi veneziani 53 (2007), 273 (1478); Aldo Gallotta,
“Il trattato turco-veneto del 12 gennaio 1482,” Studia turcologica memoriae Alexii Bombaci
dicata (Naples, 1982), p. 233 (1482); Sanudo, I diarii, 5:43; and Mahmut H. Şakiroğlu,
“1503 Tarihli Türk-Venedik Andlaşmasι,” VIII Türk Tarih Kongresi III. Cilt’ten Ayrιbasιn
(Ankara, 1983), pp. 1559–69, and illustrations on pp. 479–83. See also Camillo Manfroni,
I Colonizzatori italiani durante il medioevo e il Rinascimento, Vol. II: Dal Secolo XIV al XVI,
con un appendice sulle vicende delle colonie veneziane fino al secolo XVIII, 2 vols (Rome,
1933), p. 233; Slot, Archipelagus, pp. 38–39.