Dukes of The Archipelago - Background and Establishment of The Duchy

Background and Establishment of The Duchy

The Italian city states, especially the Republic of Genoa, Pisa, and the Republic of Venice, had been interested in the islands of the Aegean long before the Fourth Crusade. There were Italian trading colonies in Constantinople and Italian pirates frequently attacked settlements in the Aegean in the 12th century. After the collapse and partitioning of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, in which the Venetians played a major role, Venetian interests in the Aegean could be more thoroughly realized.

The Duchy of the Archipelago was created in 1207 by Marco Sanudo, a participant in the Crusade and a nephew of the former Venetian doge Enrico Dandolo, who had led the Venetian fleet to Constantinople. This was an independent venture, without the consent of the Latin emperor Henry of Flanders. Sanudo was accompanied by Marino Dandolo and Andrea and Geremia Ghisi, as well as Ravano dalle Carceri, lord of Euboea, and Filocalo Navigajoso, lord of Lemnos. He arranged for the loan of eight galleys from the Venetian Arsenal, set anchor in the harbor of Potamidides, in the southwest of Naxos, and largely captured the island.

The Greek Orthodox Naxiotes continued to resist, however, and established a base inland, around the fortress of Apalyros/Apalire. The latter fell to Sanudo after five or six weeks' siege, despite the assistance rendered to the Greeks by the Genoese, Venice's main competitors.

With the entire island occupied in 1210, Sanudo and his associaties soon conquered Melos and the rest of the islands of the Cyclades, and he established himself as Duke of Naxia, or Duke of the Archipelago, with his headquarters on Naxos. Sanudo rebuilt a strong fortress and divided the island into 56 provinces, which he shared out as fiefs among the leaders of his men, most of whom were highly autonomous and apparently paid their own expenses. Carceri and Navigaoiso had been granted their island domains by Henry of Flanders and were technically vassals of the Latin Empire; Sanudo himself recognized the Latin Empire's authority rather than making the Duchy a vassal of Venice.

The conqueror himself ruled for twenty years (1207–27). He held in his personal possession Paros, Antiparos, Melos, Sifnos, Kithnos, Ios, Amorgos, Kimolos, Sikinos, Syros, and Pholegandros. Other islands included Andros (held by Dandolo), Tinos, Mykonos, Skiathos, Skyros, Skopelos, Serifos, Cea (held by the Ghisi brothers), Thera (held by Jacopo Barozzi), Anaphe (held by Leonardo Foscolo), Kythera (or Cerigo held by Marco Venier), and Antikythera (or Cerigotto, held by Jacopo Viaro).