210 benjamin arbel
effects. For example, during the Ottoman invasion of Corfu in 1537, women,
children, and old people, the so-called inutili (useless, ineffective), were
refused admission into the fortress for lack of space and victuals, which
were reserved for the castle’s defenders. Consequently, they were either
killed or taken into slavery in great numbers, a trauma that created anger
and frustration among Venice’s Corfiot subjects and also doubts as to the
Republic’s ability to protect them against similar future attacks.323
Peasants were expected to flee into the urban centers that were ready
to receive them (especially if they were able-bodied), to enlist as rowers
in the galleys, or find refuge in the mountains. On the vulnerable coasts
of Dalmatia a whole system of fortifications was designed to offer shel-
ter to the inhabitants and their livestock against raids and plundering.
It included castles, fortified houses, redoubts, and perimeter defenses
built in proximity to inhabited areas.324 On the islands, a few old castles
were maintained to offer shelter to the inhabitants of the countryside and
their livestock in case of emergency. The old Castle of Sant’ Angelo in
the mountains of northwestern Corfu was occasionally repaired for this
purpose,325 and the old fortresses on the mountain range of northern
Cyprus were expected to fulfill a similar function.326 In any case, such
arrangements were hardly able to prevent big invading armies from mak-
ing havoc of these areas.
The Navy
The size of the navy in peacetime was fixed in 1523 at 25 galleys, but it
generally comprised no more than 24, of which 18 were commissioned
in Venice and 6 in Crete and Cyprus. Cyprus had a small squadron of
2–4 galleys to protect its coasts and the commercial shipping, and a few
other colonies, such as Cerigo and Zante, also had one or two galleys
“of the guard,” as they were called.327 By the end of the 16th century the
peacetime navy already numbered 33 galleys, four of which were manned
in Crete. This navy was comprised of several squadrons: two galleys,
headed by the Capitano contra Uscocchi, operated in the northern Adriatic
323 Karapidakis, Civis fidelis, pp. 61–62.
324 Praga, History of Dalmatia, pp. 163–64.
325 See the index in Pagratis, ed., Oi εκθέσεις, under “Castello Sant’Angelo.”
326 Benjamin Arbel, “Entre mythe et histoire: la légende noire de la domination
vénitienne à Chypre,” Etudes balkaniques. Cahiers Pierre Belon 5 (1998), 95–96 and n. 41
repr. in Arbel, Cyprus, article no. XIV.
327 Arbel, “Colonie d’oltremare,” p. 966.