the black death in early ottoman territories - Bilkent University

elatives and friends ensured him of information from every place where Venetian
merchants went about their business. 138 Venice had fought a long war with the
Ottomans (1463-79) and was going to fight yet another one in 1499, so it was
hardly surprising the Venetians kept a watchful eye on their dangerous ally.
Managing their relations with the Ottomans for the Venetians also meant
safeguarding their vital commercial interests in the eastern Mediterranean, which
they had defended against the Genoese by means of their naval supremacy. The
Ottomans had become a threat to the remaining Venetian outposts with their
powerful fleet. Against this background, it is hardly surprising that the Venetians
became avid observers of the Ottomans, not only Marino Sanudo, but also his
contemporaries Girolamo Priuli 139 and Domenico Malipiero 140 . In view of
Venetian alertness, not only in matters pertaining the Ottomans, but also for
plague, which they sought to keep out of their city and galleys, the diaries could be
considered a promising source of information on Ottoman plague. Therefore, all
fifty seven volumes were systematically checked using as basis the index for
Bursa, Edirne and Istanbul. 141
138
Sanudo not only received information from abroad, but was very well informed about the affairs
of state of la Signoria and its strategical efforts, being an undersecretary of the marine (savii ai
ordeni). see : Frederic C. Lane. 1987. Studies in Venetian Social and Economic History. Edited by
Benjamin G. Kohl and Reinhold C. Mueller. London: variorum reprints. VIII - page 147.
Moreover, his brother Antonio Sanudo was member of the Council of Ten (Cao di X) , the senior
ruling organ of Venice and he would take his brother's position after the latter's death in 1531.
"In questa matina noto, questa note passata esser morto sier Antonio Sanudo, fo Cao di X, et erra di
la Zonta dil ditto Conseio, mio fradello, di anni 71 1/2, stato do mexi e più amalato... io resto, di
anni 65 in 66, perhochè naqui 1466 a dì 22 mazo. E più zoveni de mi vivi, che vien a Conseio,
numero 14, che prego Dio viva longamente, et a la fin mi doni vita eterna."
139
Girolamo Priuli. I diarii di Girolamo Priuli. ed. by L.A. Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores
-Raccolta degli Storici Italiani dal cinquecento al millecinquento. vol. XXIV - part III. Bologna:
Nicola Zanichelli, 1921/1922.
140
Domenico Malipiero. Annali veneti dall' anno 1457 al 1500. edited by Gio, Pietro Vieusseux.
Firenze. 1843.
141
It would have been impossible to perform data mining on the whole series of diaries which
contain about thirty thousand pages.
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