In November 2016, I travelled to Greece along with my friend Mr Justice Grazio Mercieca. We drove straight from Athens down to the southernmost point of the Peloponnese. We were heading to the rock of Monemvasia, or Malvasia. We were eager to see for ourselves what could have been the last in a string of events that persuaded Suleiman the Magnificent, the Law Giver, Sultan of the mighty Ottoman Empire, to unleash with unprecedented anger his military might against Malta in 1565.

This particular episode in the history of the Order of the Knights Hospitaliers of St John in Malta consisted in a rare military expedition, a venture well beyond the naval and logistical reach of the Order, and this notwithstanding, it had the full support and approval of Grand Master Jean de Valette – a military expedition undertaken only some seven months before the start of the Great Siege on May 28, 1565.

Cover of book by Haris A. Kalligas, Monemvasia: A Byzantine City State.

Monemvasia is a sizeable rock, approximately three times the size of the island of Filfla, barely habitable, which was severed from the mainland by an earthquake around 300BC. It juts out of the sea, only a few hundred metres from the shore, with the only access being from an elevated passageway over the shallow waters that leads to the main entrance. The greater part of it is a plateau, about 100 metres above sea level. It is scarcely 300 metres in width and some 1,000 metres in length. A small walled Byzantine town lies on its southeastern slope. As the trend goes, this town has today become a refuge to those wealthy enough to own an exclusive summer residence on the Peloponnese riviera.

This rock was at one time part of the Byzantine empire. At the very top of it, you can still visit the restored remains of the church of Santa Sophia, standing among the ruins of what was once a Byzantine settlement, and later, an Ottoman garrison. This church met the same fate of Agia Sophia in Constantinople. When the rock fell into Ottoman hands, it became a mosque. Nothing really grows on this rock, but as its name denotes, it held strategic importance. Monemvasia, in Greek means ‘the main gate’. Due to its importance it was also known as the Gibraltar of the Eastern Mediterranean.

A historical detail of some importance, and which is in some respect connected to our story, lies in the arrival of the Ottomans in Monemvasia. After a series of wars with the Ottomans, in 1540 the Venetians ceded to the Gran Porte their last two remaining possessions on mainland Greece, costing them Naupulia and Monemvasia. Historians agree that this act of cession was not free from accusations of betrayal and treachery.

Probably, someone who was unable to accept the presence of Ottoman rule in Monemvasia was an old Venetian by the name of Antonio da Ravenna, who once served as a Venetian bombardier on Monemvasia. This Antonio da Ravenna, the person at the centre of our story, persuaded Grand Master de Valette to embark on one of the most eccentric of military missions of the Order, and only when the Great Siege was looming on the horizon.

This military adventure is to be taken within the context of a series of events that must have provoked the ire of the Great Sultan against the Order. One such event was that which led to defeat of the Spanish fleet in 1559, after Philip II, son of Charles V, was persuaded by Juan de La Cerda, viceroy of Sicily, and de Valette, to embark on the taking of the island of Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia. Bruce Ware Allen, in his The Great Siege of Malta, gives a good account of this episode. According to this author, it should have served as a good trouncing of Turgut, alias Dragut. Instead, the Christian fleet was humiliated. What is more, this was the battle that marked the military prowess of Piali Pasha at sea. Piali Kapudan Pasha, husband of Sulemein’s niece, was to command the naval fleet during the Great Siege of Malta some six years later.

After Djerba, there were other numerous provocative episodes. Il corso was a mixture of warfare and industry. Of all the Maltese corsairs, Mathurin de Lescut, alias Romegas, was the most outstanding. He had much to do with provoking the anger of the Gran Porte. It was Romegas who captured the Sultan’s galley, the Sultana, off the coast of western Greece.

At the time of the Great Siege, the Sultana was still anchored in Grand Harbour and its sight must have surely infuriated the besiegers. David Abulifia in his The Great White Sea sustains that the capture of the Sultana happened some time in June 1564. A number of authors believe that its capture was what persuaded Suleiman to besiege Malta. But there was yet another exploit: the attempt to take the rock of Monemvasia in September of 1564.

Francesco Balbi Di Corregio’s The Siege of Malta 1565, translated by Ernle Bradford, acknowledges that the Gran Porte may have been provoked to act as it did in June 1565. In it he writes: “To add fuel to the flames, he then learned the commander Romegas, captain of the two galleys, had seized a merchantman off the coast of Alexandria , the ship was on its way to Mecca, carrying a lady of high rank, who was taken prisoner along with the others. It has been said that she was the aunt of Ali, the chief Pasha, but others maintained that she was the nurse of the Sultan’s favourite wife. Whatever may be truth of it, both these two influential figures in the Turkish court were continually urging the destruction of Malta upon the Sultan.”

Jean Parisot de Valette. Photo: Wikipedia

These events are invariably mentioned by most authors, albeit with some factual nuances. Most authors agree that Sulieman was being continually goaded by his wife Roxanne and his daughter Mirimah to unleash his wrath on Malta. One of the few authors who mentions Monemvasia, and who first introduced me to it, is Tony Rothman, whose essay entitled The Great Siege Of Malta was published in the online historical magazine History Today in 2007. Francesco Balbi gives the matter particular attention. Referring to what he had come to know from a knight who had managed to penetrate the chambers of the principal pashas at great risk of losing his life, he reports:

“Being at Constantinople on the orders of the Grand Master he learned, so he said, of the Sultan’s anger against the Order of St John, of how it has increased since, in the early days of Jean de La Valette’s grand mastership, a most determined attempt had been made by the knights to seize the island of Malvasia, an important stronghold in the archipelago. The Grand Master, determined to inflict the greatest possible damage on the enemy of the Christian faith and of his Order, had hoped to capture the island with only a few men with no great cost.

“Malvasia had only recently fallen within the power of the Turks – rather through the treacherous conduct of certain ministers of the Venetian Republic, and others in whom the Republic trusted, than due to the great fear of arms on the part of the Turks. The Grand Master did not let the matter rest, but immediately sent off two galleys, a galeot and three frigates; these he had been assured would be enough for the operation. When the sultan learned of the expedition, he was furious as if he had, in fact, lost the island.”

One of the most eccentric of military missions of the Order

Rothman adds some details to the story which do not feature in Balbi’s account on the matter. In the abovementioned essay, Rothman describes the whole affair as “a diversionary attack”. He also mentions that the force to Monemvasia was led by Romegas, though as we shall see, some contend that it was Parisotto, de Valette’s nephew. Rothman does agree with Balbi that the Sultan was incensed when he heard of the daring attempt to take the rock, notwithstanding that that the whole operation misfired.

Of great interest is a brilliantly written and lavishly illustrated book by Haris A. Kalligas, entitled Monemvasia: Byzantine City State. This is the book that first introduced me to the old Antonio de Ravenna. It contains a detailed account of this enterprise:

“It is possible that the Turkish officials developed the feeling that they were not threatened any longer now that the whole of Morea belonged to them and left unguarded the entrance to the rock from the bridge while the iron gate to the tower defending the rock remained open all the time. This detail had been observed by an old man, Antonio da Ravenna, who had served under the Venetians as a bombardier in Monemvasia and found refuge in Malta after the surrender. He took care to inform the Grand Master, Jean Parisot de la Valette, who was interested in establishing a naval base in the Aegean to defend Christendom. Antonio persuaded him that the seizure of Monemvasia was a simple enterprise; It sufficed to transport at the most 200 men and land them on the rock since the garrison was not more than 120 men, which indeed it was.

“Near the entrance to the island there was a small church, and from it was easy to reach a cave, which could shelter as many as 500 men. Having been a hunter and consequently having explored the whole area of the rock, he knew of the existence near the cave of a pathway, which had been out of use, but which led to the upper city. The Grand Master agreed to use Antonio as a guide, and issued in September 1564 a bull granting him 300 scudi every year as long as he was alive, and after his death half the amount to his wife and five children.

“A flotilla of six vessels was prepared with absolute secrecy and sailed to Antikythira, then called Cirgotto. Their command was taken over by Parisotto, the nephew of then Grand Master who would also assume eventually command of the fortress. Terrible weather broke up, with storms and huge waves which lasted for 10 whole days, and a frigate and two brigs were sunk and many sailors drowned. The galleys made it at last on September 20 to the port of Yerakas, the Porto delle Botte, to the North of Monemvasia. There they got two boats belonging to Greeks and a renegade from the fortress, who confirmed all the information Antonio had offered, except his claim that there was another possibility to reach the Upper City apart from passing through the Lower City to reach the ascent, which had three strongly fortified gates.

Chapel of Santa Sofia on Monemvasia.

“However, one of the Greeks recognised Antonio and assured that that he would be able to guide them. The next evening, with the help of two boats of the Greeks, and other auxiliary vessels, the commander, 60 cavalieri, 10 soldiers archibusieri, and a squad of sailors with ladders and other implements which would help climbing over fortifications and rocks, disembarked to the mainland. They easily reached the bridge, which was unguarded, and they passed it and the gate of the tower, which was wide open, without any hindrance. Following Antonio’s instructions, they reached the small church and the cave. Antonio left them there and went out in search for the fissure through which he had got up and down and through which they would be able to reach the wall of the city.

“Old Antonio could not, however, detect the pathway, despite the fact that the rock was amply lit by the moonlight. He tried to persuade them to stay in the cave, because he was confident of finding the way in the daylight, but the commander got scared that they might be noticed and cut off, and all the participants voted for abandoning the enterprise. They were back in Malta in the beginning of October. The Grand Master was furious against his nephew, who refused to persevere with the operation, by transporting his forces back to the port and leaving Antonio on the rock with two or three worthy cavalieri and come back when the passage would have been found.

“The abandoned ascent, which during the Byzantine rule formed part of the two main connections to the Upper City with the bridge and the port, was sealed with a high wall soon after the attempt of the Knights of Malta, and, on account of the reddish colour that the lower part acquired, was called the Venetian mura rossa.”

The expeditionary force must have returned to Malta as if vanquished, notwithstanding that the enemy was not engaged. Whoever was in command must have also been well aware that on his return he would have to face the rage of a Grand Master renowned for his mercurial temper when it came to acts of cowardice. From Kalligas’s account of the whole affair, one can gather that the reason for aborting the mission was made up of a brew of causes. Bad weather, possibly bad planning, fear of being caught and forfeiting the element of surprise attack. What is more, it seems da Ravenna was not as acquainted with the terrain as he led de Valette to believe him to be.

One can only guess what were the true reasons that persuaded the Grand Master to approve the enterprise. As already pointed out, Rothman insists that it was a “diversionary attack”. It could also be that the rock indeed held a strategic importance. Even Balbi acknowledges that the rock was “an important stronghold in the archipelago”. It was not without good reason that the Ottomans laid claim to the rock. Kalligas states that the Order “was interested in establishing a naval base on the Aegean to defend Christendom”. Though this hypothesis cannot be discarded, it was, however, going to be a somewhat arduous logistical task for the Order to hold on to this rock since it was some 500 miles away by sea from the Order’s main administrative base in Malta. What is more, the whole of Morea, as the Peloponnese peninsula was known at that time, was in the hands of the Ottomans.

One must also keep in mind that de Valette himself, who in his early 20s was present during the evacuation of Rhodes, would have still been nostalgically attached to that part of the Mediterranean. Therefore, he must have found da Ravenna’s proposal attractive. The latter, on his part, may have had a different attachment to Monemvasia, possibly, that of regaining what he had lost some 20 years or so before, when Monemvasia was ceded by the Venetians to the Ottomans in 1540. However, as we shall come to see, da Ravenna was a native of Crete, from the town of Candia.

From Kalligas’s account two important details emerge. Notwithstanding the total failure of the enterprise, the Ottomans had come to know about the attempt. So much so that after this exploit, they built an outer wall called the rossa mura to fortify their defences, probably to avert future enemy landings. It seems that da Ravenna, who was already old, probably failed to live long enough to enjoy the pension bestowed upon him by the Grand Master, having been sadly abandoned and left behind on the rock, a matter that de Valette did not take lightly.

However, after the Monemvasia debacle, da Ravenna resurfaces in an episode, told in an extremely well-researched and voluminous study by Kenneth Meyer Setton, entitled The Papacy and the Levant 1204-1571. Here enters Marc Antonio Bragadin, a Venetian lawyer and military officer of the Republic of Venice. He was appointed Captain-General of Famagusta in Cyprus. The Republic of Venice was disconcerted by the attempt of the Order to take Monemvasia. They feared that the Gran Porte may have suspected their hidden hand behind the whole affair, when in truth, at least on this occasion, they had nothing to do with it. On the other hand, Venice wanted to avoid embarking on a war of words with the Order and the Spanish Crown.

And so Setton writes: “On the day of Bragadin’s election as provveditore in Cyprus, various members of the Senate wanted the colonial government of Crete to take action against one Antonio da Ravenna, an inhabitant of Candia ‘[ilqual] habbia operato per far pigliar dalle galee di Malta la fortezza di Malvasia’. Antonio’s wife and sons was to be made to leave Crete immediately, although they may have not been involved in his attempt to help the Hospitallers to take from the Turks the important fortress of Monemvasia on the southeastern coast of Morea. The desire of more fearful members of the Senate to secure Antonio’s condemnation and banishment from Venice and Venetian territories everywhere was, however, defeated by the customary device of postponing the decision. While trying to keep out of trouble with the Turks, the Venetians were anxious also to avoid altercation with the Hospitallers – and the Spanish – in view of the armed conflict which would apparently soon fill the sea-lanes east and south of Sicily.”

From this passage we come to know that after all, the old resilient Antonio, who we had last seen stranded on the rock, had found his way to Crete, were he had a family waiting for him. Furthermore, we are given to understand that the Monemvasia affair had ballooned into an international diplomatic affair. Who would have imagined that at his age the old Antonio was to put the serenissima in a corner, balancing its diplomacy between the Hapsburgs in the west and the Gran Porte in the east... and all this for a rock!

(To be concluded)