Principal Characters: A Presentation
The Emperor
Constantine XI Dragases (after his Serbian mother Helena Dragas) descends from a long line of imperial rulers of the Palaiologos dynasty that recovered Constantinople in the mid 13th century from alien Frankish lords, who had been ruling Constantinople for half a century after taking it during the Fourth Crusade. He’s the eighth child of ten. Although he rules the city in the absence of his emperor brother John between 1440-43, he probably never imagines that he is one day going to be its officially appointed head. The death of John changes all that. Even so, Constantine can only, and in competition with another brother, claim the imperial title through arbitration by his arch enemy, the Turkish sultan Murad II.
Once emperor his political position is difficult to say the least. On the one hand he has to oblige the sultan in order to sustain the truce concluded after the latter’s latest unsuccessful attempt in 1422 to conquer the city. On the other hand he has to take steps to protect it from simply being engulfed within the relentlessly expanding Ottoman empire. To do so, Constantine, in spite of the resistance among his people, must rely on the continued support of the Aragonese Kingdom of Catalonia, the City Republics of Genoa and Venice, as well as the Papal State, all of which have vested commercial and military interests in the eastern Mediterranean. Consequently, he has no choice but to uphold the union of the Orthodox and the Catholic churches agreed in writing at a Church council held in Florence a decade earlier. But this union is not only bitterly resented by the common people. Considered heresy and treason, it has its fierce opponents among the upper clergy, yes, even among Constantine’s own generals and ministers.
With hindsight it’s easy to see that Constantine and the people backing his views were right in considering the union an absolute political necessity. But what could he have done to win the others – still piously holding on to the millenarian Nicene creed – over to his side? His was a time when miracles authored by God were not only prophesied but fervently believed in. To the people everything seemed to indicate that the time of Christ’s promised second coming was imminent.
In the historical documents Constantine comes across as an experienced military leader and a responsible monarch eager to secure a modicum of safety, prosperity and peace for his sadly reduced and war-ravaged people. But there is also something melancholy, even lonely about him. Two wives die young without securing him an heir – he had loved them both. As we enter the scene he has, aged fifty, been forced to relinquish the hope of finding a third wife. Like so many other people of his status in society, his personality at times has a tendency to disappear behind its official and ceremonial embodiment.
As a man of honour – obliged by the noble institution and tradition created by the first of the Constantines more than a thousand years earlier – he knows that in the last instance he will have no choice but to make the city’s destiny his own. I thus envisage his imperial crown to also be a wreath of thorns. Not that he consciously tries to emulate our Lord and Saviour; as the plot thickens, though, he willy-nilly seems to grow into his sandals.
Old, dilapidated, a mere shadow of its former glory, Constantinople remains the city of God parexcellence, the very pillar on which the Holy Trinity rests. Moreover it is precisely the definition of the Trinity that lays at the heart of the endless theological disputes between the two churches, at a time when not only Islamic fundamentalists, but many Christians too, found it worthwhile to sometimes die for their faith. I find one quote attributed to the emperor especially pertinent in this regard: “What would posterity think of us if we didn’t even put up a fight to defend our holy churches?”
Legend has it that Constantine during the decisive great battle was petrified by an angel and laid to rest as a marble statue under the Golden Gate. Ever since he is abiding the time when Christians will again unite. He will then come alive, rise to the occasion and drive the Moslems out of Europe. Lord Byron and other prominent people of his day hoped the moment had come during the Greek war for independence – he gave his own life for the cause while trying to swim across the Bosporus.
To Byron and other romantic characters (to this very day) the last of the Constantines was an indisputable hero, the double-headed eagle incarnate. In truth, he did obey the dramaturgic rules incumbent upon a hero of a Greek tragedy and could subsequently see his maker eye to eye. Posterity too has exonerated him. What he himself felt deep at heart about the whole thing is, perhaps, an altogether different matter, parts of which might be glimpsed through the cracks of this story.
The Commander – Giovanni Giustiniani Longo
(all three names are alternately used in
reference to him throughout the book)
A Genoese noble man, blond, blue-eyed, in his mid-thirties, of Norman descent on his mother’s side. His influential family (its Coat of Arms carries an eagle similar to that of the empire) is represented both in the actual Republic of Genoa, and in the Aegean island of Chios, at this time under Genoese rule.
Charged with two, perhaps three, different missions – one of state, one of family obligation and one of entirely private character – he has above all been entrusted with the Herculean task of protecting the city’s Genoese population and securing the Genoese trading town of Pera across the Golden Horn, a mere stone’s throw from Constantinople itself. Giustiniani is the pivotal point in this account of the siege. Without him there simply wouldn’t be any defence of Constantinople, and he is well aware of this. But although Pera is a point of utmost strategic interest to the Genoese by and large, Giustiniani’s own position is ambiguous. True, he has, at his own expense, brought seven hundred mercenary fighters to reinforce the depleted domestic troops. But if this mission has indeed been sanctioned by the Grand Council back in Genoa, how come Pera itself has received orders (or has decided by its own volition) to remain neutral in the case of a military conflict with the Turks? It seems the Genoese are trying to simultaneously play at least two different hands. Doing so they also appear willing to sacrifice Giustiniani himself if need be.
His agenda is not obvious, and it’s hard to guess in how many plots he is actually involved. One thing is for sure, though. The camaraderie which the ruthless siege forces upon the city’s defenders brings him ever closer to the emperor, who’s moral example in the midst of crisis makes a great impression upon him. An indivisible bond and a sense of mutual obligation between the two men is created. As time goes by Giustiniani finds himself more and more deeply involved in the “to be or not to be” of the celestial city. Tried to the utmost by the enemy and the wrath of God, maybe he too could in the end have been persuaded to become a tragic hero. But then we haven’t taken that fair, foreign woman into account. She has a very different idea in her head, and the corresponding strength of heart to see things through.
State Secretary Francis
Is a childhood friend of Emperor Constantine and a key player behind the scenes. As a man of learning and, above all, diplomacy, he can be petty and scheming if he deems it necessary. But he can also exercise his reason and act accordingly. All his life he has striven to merit the respect and esteem he a priori enjoys with Constantine, and he does have the vanity of a courtier. Nonetheless, his loyalty to his friend and master is genuine. The empire to him, though presently reduced to a very small point in space, is an eternal truth which in the end must prevail. But even though this is his true feeling, his levelheadedness luckily gets the better of him and he clearly realises that wishes, dreams and the belief in miracles won’t save the city from falling into the hands of the enemy.
As the drama opens Francis has been intensely preoccupied trying to rally the Christian powers to their aid. He has also tried to find his master a suitable new wife, but perhaps he has committed a major tactical error by single-handedly withdrawing the marriage proposal Constantine (then only a despot of Mistra in the Peloponnese) made to the only remaining daughter of the Duke of Venice. It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that the old Doge doesn’t exactly find it endearing to learn that the Byzantine Secretary of State suddenly, after Constantine has become crowned emperor, considers him, the head of the mighty Venetian Republic, too low in rank to come into question as a father-in-law.
Constantine has given Francis more or less carte blanche in finding him a suitable bride, but as time goes by, and the Venetians stubbornly refuse to show up at the scene of action, Constantine grows weary. It dawns on him that Doge Foscari – despite the Venetian Council of Ten meanwhile deciding in favour of a military intervention – probably does everything he can to delay the entire operation until it will be too late.
Constantine then begins to distrust his old friend and State Secretary’s political judgment. Francis himself is devastated by what he feels to be his master’s lack of appreciation for his unswerving loyalty to him and his family. This is also one of the reasons why he loathes their own local Grand Duke, Lucas Notaras. In Francis’ eyes the emperor has been duped by this man, whom Francis considers deceitful, disloyal, and only simulating patriotism and noble bravery to the galleries, while in reality not giving a damn about the fate of the city and its population.
Lucas Notaras, Megadux
Is a member of a noble and influential family of long standing within the empire. He prides himself with the title Grand Duke. In this capacity he is also Prime Minister and Chief Admiral of the Fleet – a position of some consequence as Constantinople becomes exposed to a series of fierce naval attacks. Whether or not he is at heart set against the union of the two churches is not clear. Even though Francis regards him as a traitor to the unionist cause, Notaras’ family has entertained privileged relations with the Catholic Republic of Venice for the better part of two centuries; he even has a second, Venetian, citizenship. In spite of this he has made himself rather popular among the sworn anti-unionists in the city, who are fond of attributing to him the saying: “I’d rather see the Sultan’s turban than the Pope’s mitre in Constantinople.”
Neither the emperor, nor Francis, have ever heard him say so in person. It might just have been an emotional outburst, subsequently, and maliciously, quoted out of context, since Notaras is known to be temperamental, at times paying scant attention to the decorum of his position. But this lack of diplomatic caution certainly has not ingratiated him with Francis, who continues to consider him a menace to them all.
Francis’ aversion on the other hand might be interpreted as his bad conscience for frivolously having waved a marriage proposal in the face of the Doge, only to pull it back when the latter readied himself to swallow the bait. It is possible that it is thanks to Lucas Notaras alone that so many Venetian galleys have in fact remained in the harbour, and that the Venetian population, fearing and loathing the Genoese both in the city and at Pera, and not really loving the Greeks either, could at all be persuaded to participate in the city’s defence.
The Turkish Princess
Hadije, once wife to the late Sultan Murad II, is to this story what mercurial salt is to the hermetic process, the yeast to the dough, the fermentation to the grape: she is the secret agent that brings about the transformation of substances. Her provenance is shrouded in mystery. Where does she really come from? Who sent her? What is her purpose?
To Hadije herself, the outcome of certain key events have been obvious long before they actually occur. This is one reason why at first she must sound like a cry in the wilderness. Once brought within the ambit of the city she has to fight the incredulity of all those who see nothing but a devilishly seductive embodiment of the enemy, hence of evil, in her appearance. But even though, from the outset, she has the cards stacked against her (and although her bosom is stacked slightly more in her favour), she manages to drive home an overwhelmingly strong point, namely that the memento mori mustn’t prevent us from realising that it is, above all, the exuberance of life we as human beings are meant to nourish and protect to the best of our capacity, and that dying for a lofty cause, however noble per se, may in the end prove to be an illusion without redemption.
With Hadije – or Felicia as her Christian name will be – the unforeseen factor enters the story, working as a catalyst, thus bringing the process to its last and perhaps inevitable consequence. I do charge her with la forza del destino, and she is the architect of treason, if you will. But in this capacity she is also a representation of the eternally feminine and that tenacious natural life which, no matter what, will always find a way.
The love story between her and the commander in chief is one of those that are simply bound to happen over and over again in the course of human history. In the semi-eternal light of archangels and apocalypses it is perhaps a banal story, meaning one we have heard many times before. But at the same time it is the symbol of an inner battle that bears the fatal hallmark of irresistible attraction combined with the determination of an indomitable soul. Whether or not she is in the end “right” in what she is doing is a moot point. It is not for nothing that the saying is so often repeated: “All is fair in love and war”.
Doge Foscari
Francesco Foscari, descending from an ancient noble family, was elected Doge in Venice in 1423, thereby temporarily defeating a man destined to become his life-long political adversary, Peter Loredan, who ultimately brought him down. As our story begins to unfold, Foscari is already 80 years old and marked by a life of endless political intrigue. During his long tenure Venice has been precipitated into numerous, and in the end very costly armed conflicts with the city state of Milan, first under the rule of Filippo Visconti, then by Francesco Sforza, a condottiere born in Venice who in 1447 became the implacable enemy of his native city by marrying Filippo Visconti’s only remaining natural heir, Bianca Maria.
However, it wasn’t just Foscari’s obsession with terra firma domination on the plains of Po that made him reluctant to engage in overseas activities and send military aid to Constantinople. There was also his sense of hurt pride for having been rejected as an imperial father-in-law (see presentation of Secretary Francis above). In addition, his only son, accused of having conspired against the republic and, to this end, to have committed murder, was exiled from Venice to Crete. Foscari senior tries everything in his power to have his reputation restored and dreams of the day when the prodigal son will be able to return home to eventually – although the title as yet is not heritable – succeed him as Doge of Venice.
The dazzling last act of this real-life political drama inspired two prominent 19th century artists to dramatise the destinies of father and son. Lord Byron wrote a play on the theme of double and mutually exclusive loyalities – in this case the artful preservation of virtue and truth in a republic as opposed to the natural but potentially corrupt promotion of family interests – and Giuseppe Verdi composed a today all but forgotten opera named I due Foscari.
Around this time northern Italy witnessed the appearance of the first Tarot deck in western history, designed by an artist working for the court of Milan (still today this first deck bears the name of Visconti-Sforza, indicating that it was indeed produced in the late 1440s). Foscari – haphazardly coming into possession of these cards – becomes deeply puzzled by their enigmatic symbolism and he consults the humanists around him to elucidate him on the subject. Shortly after he is seen turning into something of a magus, dabbling in occult sciences in the hope of not only being able to foretell the future, but to actually change the course of destiny.
Pope Nicholaus V
Exhibits many of the paradoxes of the highly talented renaissance man. As a learned humanist he allegedly possesses a private library comprising over nine thousand books – one of his close friends even says: “What he does not know is outside the range of human knowledge”. At the same time he can be a prelate of the most appalling bigotry, hurling intolerant decrees in all directions. One of his most infamous bulls, for example, gives the Portuguese the formal right to ruthlessly oppress, convert and then enslave all pagan populations they come across in their attempts to colonise the world. Simultaneously he envisages a morally irreproachable world of united Christians, but refuses to consider adjusting the dogmatic pillars of Catholicism even an inch. He advocates another crusade yet somehow fails to see what tremendous strategic importance the preservation of a Christian Constantinople, in the midst of a hostile Moslem world, would be to Rome itself. Although he eventually orders some ships to sail to the besieged city, it takes forever to get them under way since he refuses to pay his dues to his Venetian creditors.
As a man in constant self-contradiction it is no wonder he falls under the spell of Ramon Lull’s magic wheel, inviting man to reflect on apparently irreconcilable opposites, such as: is it possible to be at the same time a good Catholic and a liar? In this spirit he also entertains a lengthy correspondence with Foscari, whom he suspects of not always being altogether sincere in his professed affirmation of the formal supremacy of the Papal State in matters mundane and religious.
It takes one to know one...
Mehmet the Sultan
To introduce to the reader the legendary Mehmet II, nemesis of Constantinople, I find no words better than the ones uttered by the awestruck State Secretary Francis at a state visit to the kingdom of Trebizond on the Black Sea coast:
“– Your Majesty. With all due respect. We should perhaps do well in reminding ourselves that for every head cut off from the Lernian hydra two new ones emerged. The new Sultan is such a hydra. Although hardly twenty years of age he has developed several heads. One is belligerent, another deviously diplomatic.
A third loves hunting, a fourth one speaks Persian, Hebrew, Greek and Latin fluently. A fifth knows the entire Islamic jurisprudence by heart, a sixth is accurately informed about the fathers of our church. A seventh drinks copious amounts of wine while the yet another studies maps, siege engines and weapons of mass destruction. The scope of his general intelligence and single-minded ambition is matched only by the fierceness of his many passions. He already has children but is said to prefer hardly mature boys to satisfy his lusts. He is, as you can understand, a perfect monster, but one to whom the designation of neither intelligence nor discipline can be denied. Above all, he’s the most formidable, the most ruthless and implacable opponent to our Christian world since Tamerlane. And he will never give up the ambition to conquer every area within his reach still in Christian hands. Therefore, most venerable Majesty of the glorious House of the Comneni, I dare to disagree with the optimism expressed among our many friends around this table. Instead we should all concentrate on how to best unite and counter this formidable new threat to our peace and prosperity.”
Bishop Leonard and Cardinal Isidore
Appear in this story as a couple of theological detectives. Leonard is born to Greek parents of what he himself refers to as “humble origins” on the island of Chios, at the time governed by the Genoese. Chios furthermore is the island on which the family of Giovanni Giustiniani – the right hand of the emperor during the siege – is in power. Leonard is consequently better informed than most others about the various motives that might have played a role in Giustiniani’s decision to come to the rescue of the city.
As a young man Leonard becomes a Catholic and joins the Dominican order. Subsequent studies in Italy and contacts within the papal sphere make him eminently suited to mediate between the two churches, and a part of his mission to Constantinople is to make sure the Greeks are not in theory alone celebrating the Laetentur Coeli (“may the heavens rejoice”), which is the visible and audible liturgical expression of the unity of the two churches, concluded at the church Council in Ferrara and Florence in 1438.
Cardinal Isidorus, also Greek born and the former Metropolitan (Arch Bishop) of Kiev is the official papal legate to Constantinople and the highest ranking Catholic church official to be present during the siege. Both he and Cardinal Isidorus are forced to conclude that this new article of faith remains a paper construction as far as the divine worship by the people of Constantinople is concerned. At a high mass in Hagia Sophia on December 12, 1452, the hymn is recited, but the service is poorly attended. Lucas Notaras, the Megadux, is present but shows open hostility; the emperor himself seems listless.
The learned George Scholarius, also and better known under his monastic name Brother Gennadi, is conspicuously absent.
Brother Gennadi
Is the monk whom both Leonard and Isidorus suspect of conspiring against both the pope and the emperor. In spite of his erudition he is a very popular figure advocating blind faith in God and his capacity to work miracles when need be. For him to alter the millenarian creed in any way simply does not come into question. He is a typical example of the illuminated, inspired fanatic always to be found in communities held together by strong religious and traditional beliefs. It goes without saying that he is also an ascetic, carrying out countless daily prostrations and practising self-mortification by means of a knotted whip. In the eyes of the people he is the haggard prophet incarnate. That is one thing. But Isidore and Leonard from early on suspect his divine madness is not only simulated, but also that there is definite method to it. In the midst of the turmoil they do everything in their power to find out what he is, in reality, up to. When they finally do find out what is in the making, it has become too late to kill either him or the messenger.
Iannis Papanikolaou and his family
With the possible exception of the city itself, I believe Iannis and his family are the centre of gravity in this drama. In a way one could also say that they are the city. They are also the only members of the common people to detach themselves from the staffage in this account, and their role in so doing is crucial.
Iannis, the father, is a fisherman and it could well have stayed at that if he did not also possess a poet’s soul. This soul in turn is linked to being a child at heart, which also could have been just fine had the circumstances been just a bit more favourable for poets and children. As it is he becomes entangled in a power-plot that his reason cannot fathom. Nonetheless he remains confident that he is participating in events that by far surpasses ordinary human understanding. To him this drama, no matter how fantastic, is real, and he is immensely proud to have been singled out to be the first to receive into the city of God our Lord and Saviour.
Iannis’ wife and two children all carry names associated with imperial dynasties since times immemorial. There is the mother, Irene, who clearly sees that her husband’s penchant for story-telling sometimes gets the better of his veracity. She herself struggles to keep family and home together under very trying circumstances while remaining calm and resourceful in critical moments. She has to her aid the clever eleven year old daughter Anna, whom she calls Princess and has promised a regal marriage in the fullness of time.
The eight year old Manuel, the namesake of so many legendary emperors, has inherited his father’s psychic disposition. In addition he is from time to time afflicted with epileptic seizures. He too sees things hidden to the ordinary mortal eye, and his mother and older sister are not only worried about his physical health, but about his mental state too.
It would be fair to surmise that young Manuel, based on the evidence, is the one closest to God of all the men and women involved in this apocalyptic battle. It is through his eyes that I would finally like to view this story, namely as an instant in time and space where fact and fiction have temporarily been suspended in a higher union, not to say – reality.
**
The City
Consecrated by Emperor Constantine I in AD 330 as the new capital of Rome, it subsequently became the capital of the Byzantine empire. It was to remain so through a checkered history of more than 1100 years until finally conquered by the Turkish Ottomans in 1453. The city, which ever since has remained in Turkish hands, was officially renamed Istanbul in 1950.
Through its famous basilica, the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), raised at a time when Rome lay in ruins after having been sacked and violated by one barbarian tribe after the other, Constantinople in the Middle Ages became known as the epitome of Christianity on Earth. Jerusalem would have been another candidate, but it was never on par with Constantinople in terms of architectural and artistic splendour.Secondly, it was never lastingly held by Christians.
Constantinople was able to withstand so many protracted sieges first and foremost because of its strategic and protected location – the Golden Horn is not only an excellent natural harbour; once the famous floating boom across its inlet was in place it could also be easily defended. The city itself, heavily fortified, is located at the southern end of the Bosporus which makes it both easily accessible and an excellent point for control and surveillance of all maritime traffic through the narrow straits that connect the Mediterranean with the Black Sea.
In the 5th century, during the reign of emperor Theodosius, the original city walls were declared obsolete and a magnificent new defence system, designed by master engineer Anthemius, was erected further to the west, along the line where its remnants now cut right through modern Istanbul.
Ironically the weakest link in that chain is still today an open wound in the cityscape. A multi-lane highway runs through the completely leveled walls in both directions. The remaining ramparts on both sides are used as outdoor toilets, aptly garnished with general rubbish, crushed bottles, cans and condoms. A part of the wall system a bit higher up on the eastern side serves as a refuge for male prostitution. A highway bridge runs perpendicularly to the wall. Under it, the gypsies have taken shelter and hang around in improvised lounges consisting of discarded furniture, as an alternative venue to occupying their make-shift shacks nearby. To be honest, it’s not one of the more quaint places of the city, and it is not frequented by tourists.
Nonetheless it was right here that the destiny of Constantinople was decided. It was right here – on a rainy day in September, overwhelmed by the humdrum of the megapolis – that I was granted a secret glimpse of the city as she might have presented herself to a single witness during one foggy evening, full of strange omens, decay and despair, at the end of the month of May, 1453. And it was right here that the idea came to me to write the story of her fall as I see it.
This, strangely, was the image that opened the gate to the hidden chambers of imagination:
“Fields, orchards, churches, monasteries, houses, villas, palaces, squares, streets and alleys – all enveloped in the same thick moisture, slowly depositing itself on every roof, dripping down, drop by drop, as though descending the insides of a gigantic watery time glass: tick, tock, tick, tock, like a clock still moving but showing no time. In once bustling loggias and open court yards made slippery by fungus and lichen, vast mosaic frescoes majestically sunk into a sea of no return. Neptunes, tritons, sirens and dolphins, dispossessed of their pagan innocence and exuberant gaiety, gaping empty-eyed at the forlorn silence over and around as they disappear into the depths of oblivion. Neptune’s horses, the very emblem of the Meltemmia at the height of summer, dragged out of sight by a giant octopus; the sirens dissolving into foam. Strewn all over the floors, flowers massacred in the prime of youth, left to wither and litter the cool marble turned sickly green and sulphurously yellow in a misplaced autumn. Red roses nipped in their bud and thrown to the ground by showers of hail, rain, pumice and sand. All exquisite art, all venerable tradition, covered in debris, disintegrating, rotting, sinking, and, most disheartening of them all, a magnificent statue of Nike, split in two by a falling beam infested with snails.”
Lars Holger Holm
No comments:
Post a Comment