the disintegration of the empire 81
however valuable, a single strategic base seems not to have been
enough for Benedetto Zaccaria’s bold plan. he thus set about creating an
impermeable strategic triangle, which would also include the kingdom of
cyprus and cilician armenia.
in september 1288 an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded
with the cypriot King henry ii,94 and in december leon iii granted the
genoese a privilege to trade while paying steeply reduced customs duties,
having welcomed the admiral as liberating the armenians from “Babylo-
nian slavery.”95 his successor hethum ii was even more generous when
he renewed the privilege in 1289.96
thus the expedition’s main purpose had been accomplished: genoese
merchants could again travel between ayas and tabriz, and even on more
advantageous terms than before. liberated by admiral Zaccaria, cilician
armenia once more entered the ilkhanid orbit and resumed its function
as the Westernmost entrance to the silk road.97
half of the century; “While deriving advantages from business arrangements with christian
and muslim rulers in syria and egypt, genoa was not indifferent to the idea of a crusader
conquest of egypt. from a commercial vantage point, such an achievement would offer
prospects of maximization of profits, resulting from european control of egyptian transit
routes. Judging by their involvement in anti-egyptian crusades, the genoese must have
been conscious of those implications. in 1218–1219 they were among the troops besieg-
ing damietta; after its surrender, they wasted no time in converging in numbers on that
important egyptian center. in 1249, genoese transports carried the crusaders of louis ix
to another successful assault against damietta. in 1250, following the disastrous outcome
of the french push to cairo, genoa’s representatives, along with other italian merchants,
opposed vehemently the restitution of damietta to the muslims.”
94 doria/imperiale di sant’angelo, p. 91, emphasises its scope: In dicta conventione
exceptati non erant reges et principes, cum quibus conventiones antea habebamus; cf. caro,
Genua, ii, pp. 127–128, lopez, Genova, pp. 142–143.
95 the armenian original is published together with latin and french translations by
saint martin, “décret,” pp. 111–121, and by É. dulaurier in RHC DA, i, pp. 745–754; cf. histori-
cal commentaries by desimoni, “actes,” p. 435, Brătianu, Recherches, p. 161, caro, Genua,
ii, pp. 127–128, lopez, Genova, pp. 144–145, papacostea, “gênes,” p. 220, ciocîltan, “genoa,”
p. 293.
96 the text of this privilege is not preserved; doria/imperiale di sant’angelo, pp. 294–
295, suggests how it built upon the previous terms: Antonius [= hethum ii] impetravit
etiam quod homines Janue possent ascendere in Turchiam cum ballis et mercibus pro satis
minori pretio quam solvere soliti erant.
97 Qalāwūn’s successor, sultan al-malik al-ashraf Khalīl, sent hethum ii a threaten-
ing letter in 1291, upbraiding him severely for his disloyalty: Et post desolationem civitatis
Achon [= acre] et civitatis Tyri, nulla remansit terra cujus montes non humilia venit in poten-
tia [mea]; sed cum civitas Assisi [= sis] capta fuit, vinculis ferreis te constrinxit. Et nihil ab
hujusmodi malo te potuit liberare, nisi personaliter venias cum tributo duo annorum, quod
Tartaris mittebas qui te graverunt et errare fecerunt (cotton/luard, p. 219); the genoese are
not mentioned as the real driving force behind armenia’s change of allegiance, since they
had resumed amicable relations with the mamluks the preceding year.