The Alum of Maroneia Among the Various Alum Deposits Exploited By

Appendix three

the alum of Maroneia

Among the various alum deposits exploited by the Genoese in the late medieval eastern Mediterranean, particular ambiguity surrounds the status and location of the mines identified with the port of Maroneia on the Thracian coast. Recent research suggests that the alum exported from Maroneia was extracted around modern Sapes, identifying this location with the alum mining site of Chapsylar, active in the sixteenth century and described by the traveller Pierre Belon in 1553.1 Following Belon’s erroneous equation of names, this site had previously been identified with Kypsella (Ipsala), on the east bank of the Maritza north of Ainos.2 However, from his topographical description it is clear that Chapsylar actually lay in the mountains some distance west of the Maritza and not far from Komotini, placing it squarely in the hinterland of Maroneia.3 The productivity of the alum mines in this region in the Ottoman period was considerable, peaking at about 11,760 kantars a year.4 It is likely that by the mid-fifteenth century the Gattilusio lords held rights over the exploitation of these mines. In the early fifteenth century Giovanni Adorno, podestà of New Phokaia, possessed interests in the alum trade at Maroneia as well as at New Phokaia, Chios, and Scorpiata in north-western Anatolia.5 It was presumably these interests that led him to solicit the grant of the nearby port of Peritheorion as part of his reward for military assistance to Murad II.6 In the contract concluded in 1437 for the sale of alum to two Florentine merchants, the Genoese contractors who made the sale are described as ‘appaltatorum aluminum

1 Chryssa Karadima-Matsa, Francine Blondé and Maurice Picon, ‘L’alun de Macédoine’, L’alun de Méditerranée, ed. Philippe Borgard, Jean-Pierre Brun and Maurice Picon (Naples and Aix-en-Provence 2005), pp. 69–75 at pp. 71–3. 2 E.g. David Jacoby, ‘Production et commerce de l’alun oriental en Méditerranée, XIe– XVe siècles’, L’alun de Méditerranée, ed. Philippe Borgard, Jean-Pierre Brun and Maurice Picon (Naples and Aix-en-Provence 2005), pp. 219–67 at pp. 241, 263. 3 Pierre Belon, Voyage au Levant: les observations de Pierre Belon du Mans de plusieurs singularités et choses mémorables, trouvées en Grèce, Turquie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays étranges (1553), ed. Alexandra Merle (Paris 2001), pp. 195–7. 4 Suraiya Faroqhi, ‘Alum production and alum trade in the Ottoman Empire (about 1560–1830’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 71 (1979), pp. 153–75 at pp. 159–60, 163. 5 ASG, NA 627 (Niccolò Garumbero 1), unnumbered document dated 1 Mar 1424. 6 Enrico Basso, ‘Genovesi e Turchi nell’Egeo medievale: Murad II e la “Societas Folie Nove” ’, Quaderni Medievale 36 (1993), pp. 31–52, reprinted in Genova: un impero sul mare, (Cagliari 1994), pp. 63–84 at pp. 50–2; Doukas, Ducas Istoria Turco-Bizantina (1341–1462), ed. Vasile Grecu (Bucharest 1958), pp. 209–11, 227. 420 appendix three totius Thurcie, Grecie et totius insule Mitheleni et Marronie partis Grecie’.7 The fact that Maroneia is specifically singled out and not simply assumed to be included within ‘Grecia’ indicates that it was not covered by the concession from the Ottomans by which the Genoese were entitled to exploit other deposits in the Balkans and Anatolia. The likely implication of this is that it was a concession from a different authority. The form of words suggests that there were two cat- egories of alum concession at issue here: those of Turkey and Greece, in the gift of the sultan, and those of Mytilene and Maroneia, in the gift of the Gattilusio. This division corresponds with references in the document to the Ottoman sultan and the lord of Mytilene as the two individuals whose repudiation of their agreements with the appaltatores would invalidate the contract. No other ruler is mentioned under this clause, suggesting that if Maroneia’s alum concession was not part of the Ottoman appalto it must have been under Gattilusio authority. Maroneia was evidently included along with the other mines under Genoese control in the great cartel created in 1449 and dominated by Francesco Draperio.8 Prior to this a concession there had apparently been in the hands of Draperio himself, who also held the appalto of Greece and Turkey. However, it seems likely that his holdings in Maroneia remained distinct from the larger appalto, since in 1452 Draperio, in severe financial difficulties, surrendered many of his rights to income from alum concessions and other sources, but excepted his alum interests in Maroneia and in the Turkish emirate of Karaman.9 This continuing separa- tion of rights to the resources of Maroneia from the Ottoman concession covering the rest of the Balkans reinforces the supposition that the deposits of Maroneia, like those of Karaman, were in the gift of an authority other than the Ottoman sultan, most likely the Gattilusio lords. It is not clear what the basis of this control was. Maroneia itself was apparently under Ottoman control in this period. In 1444, during planning for the Crusade of Varna, it was one of the ports in the northern Aegean, along with Thessalonike, Gallipoli and Panidos, which Venice hoped to conquer and retain.10 It has been suggested that the territory governed by the lord of Ainos extended over the deposits in the hinterland of Maroneia, thus encompassing a broad belt of land extending at least forty miles or so westward from Ainos itself.11 However, there is no indication in other sources that the mainland possessions of the lords of Ainos extended beyond that port and its immediate environs, while some imply that they did not. Visiting Ainos, Ciriaco of Ancona described his host Palamede as ruler of that city and of Samothrake, a characterisation which would not sit easily

7 Joseph Müller, Documenti sulle Relazioni delle Città Toscane coll’Oriente Cristiano e coi Turchi, fino all’anno MDXXXI (Florence 1879), pp. 169–72 (no. 119); above, p. 181. 8 See above, pp. 181–3. 9 ASG, NA 764 (Bernardo de Ferrari 1), nos. II/14 (187), II/17 (365); Giustina Olgiati, ‘Il commercio dell’allume nei domini dei Gattilusio nel XV secolo’, Πρακτικά Συνεδρίου, Οι Γατελούζοι της Λέσβου 9 Σεπτεμβρίου 1994 Μυτιλήνη, ed. Andreas Mazarakis (Athens 1996), pp. 373–398 at pp. 382–3. 10 ASV, SS 16, f. 104r–v. 11 Jacoby, ‘Production’, pp. 240–1.