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having united itself with the Venetians were Barbarossa, or Redbeard; Il Giuoff Cephalonia, disembarked, and made a deo, the Jew; Scirocco, Southeaster (a great show of besieging the chief fortress stormy wind in those waters, the creber of the island; but always half-heartedly, procellis Africus of Virgil); Il Moro, the and in readiness to weigh anchor and Moor; Cacciadiavoli, Hunt-the-devils, make off at a moment's notice, according etc. Except when these names describe to the secret instructions of the Spanish personal qualities or peculiarities as in Court. The flight of King Frederick the case of Il Giudeo and Barbarossa · from Naples, and the quarrel between they were corruptions of Moslem appelFrance and Spain as to the division of the lations. Thus Camall was the Italian verspoil, are well known, and form no part sion of Kamal-rais; Curtogalt was Kurdof our present subject, except in so far ogly; the terrible title of Cacciadiavoli as they offer irrefragable proof of the was, thinks De Hammer, partly corrupted real ends covered by the pretext of war from Cassim or Quâsim; Oruccio was against the Turks and the pirates. Even Oürudje; Ariadeno (Barbarossa) a transCæsar Borgia used the same pretence to formation of Kair-ed-Din; Dragut was cloak for a moment his ambitious aims in Torghûd; Lucciali, Uluge-Aly, etc. Tuscany. He gave out that he was about to collect forces, by land and sea, against the Moslems; and he was the more readily believed because all the littoral popula- Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Ionian seas, tions knew by bitter experience how needful such an enterprise was. But, instead of succoring the dwellers on the Maremman coast, Cæsar Borgia, Duke of Valentino, and commander-in-chief of the Papal armies, used both men and ships to despoil the lord of Piombino of his territories, including the island of Elba. In June, 1501, the squadron under the command of Mosca was summoned from Cività Vecchia to blockade Piombino; and in the following August, Giacopo d'Appiano, lord of Piombino, fled to France, and the garrison surrendered to Borgia.

And, meanwhile, what were the foes to whose tender mercies the commerce, the property, the liberties, and the lives of inoffensive populations were left almost defenceless? It has been stated that the special characteristic of the period from A.D. 1500 to 1560 was the elevation of pirate chiefs by the Porte to positions of great power and dignity. They were made rulers over Tunis, Tripoli, Tangiers, Alexandria, and over the larger islands from the Ionian Sea to Jerba; and were, moreover, appointed admirals, or commanders of squadrons, of the Ottoman Empire. These men were almost without exception the most truculent ruffians imaginable, recruited from the scum of the galleys. Some of them were renegades, and all were treacherous and rapacious, to the injury of Moslem as well as Christian, when it suited their purpose. The names by which many of them were known in the Mediterranean, and whose very sound struck the inhabitants of its smiling shores with panic terror, are curious and suggestive. Among them

That these desperadoes should for more than half a century have infested the waters and desolated the shores of the

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is only to be explained by the discords and jealousies which divided Christian princes and rulers. France and Spain played off the Turk against one another in their struggle for supremacy in the peninsula. Meanwhile ruin and misery befell the littoral populations, and thousands of Christian men, women, and children languished in cruel captivity. Their "most Christian" and " most Catholic Majesties were, indirectly, purveyors of slaves to the Sublime Porte and to all the petty tyrants of northern Africa. A brief notice of the facta et gesta of some of the leading pirates will be the best means, compatible with the space at our command, of illustrating what an intolerable scourge Moslem piracy had become in the sixteenth century.

Kamal-rais, called by the Italians Camalì, in the year 1502, ruled over Santamaura or Leucadia, one of the most important of the Ionian Islands, and from that centre, with a powerful fleet, devastated the neighboring shores, and crippled maritime commerce. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the metropolis of the island (to which it gives its name, Santa Maura) was a strongly fortified place. It was surrounded by a strong wall, flanked by massive turrets, furnished with a large quantity of artillery, and strengthened besides by a rectangular castle of oblong shape, protected by five large round towers, and four smaller square ones.

At the foot of the escarpments were deep moats filled with sea-water. Between the island and the coast of Acarnania there is only a very narrow canal, over which, by means of sundry little islets and rocks, a bridge was carried,

connecting it with the mainland. A curious memorial of the condition of the fortress of Santamaura in those days exists in the church of the Frari at Venice, where, on the monument to Benedetto Capello, a view of it is sculptured in basrelief. In the same church, too, the commandant of the Papal fleet who directed the expedition against Camall, which we are about to describe, lives again on the canvas of Titian. The commandant, or commissary, as was his official_title, was no other than Giacopo Pesaro, Bishop of Pafo; and he is represented in Titian's magnificent picture as kneeling before St. Peter, who regards him benevolently for his services to Christendom against the Turks. The custom of employing ecclesiastics in military enterprises was not peculiar to the Papal court. As late as the days of Louis XIV., bishops and cardinals commanded French ships of war.

Bishop Pesaro, then, having joined his forces with those of the Venetian republic, proceeded to the Ionian Sea for the purpose of attacking Camall. The general of the Venetian forces was Benedetto Pesaro, the bishop's brother. It was desired to surround the island of Santamaura by the combined fleets; but this being impossible by reason of the bridge already described, the two commanders agreed that the Roman vessels should hold the channel between the island and the mainland, cutting off all communication on that side, and that the Venetians should invest the place from the side of the open sea as far as the port of Demata. On August 23, 1502, the Roman commissary, with twelve galleys, favored by a south wind, glided in rapidly between the island and mainland, until they came to the shallow water at the extremity of the narrow canal. Here twelve pirate galleys awaited them, hoping either to take them by surprise, or at least to conquer them singly as they issued into the narrow channel. But the Romans, prudent as well as valorous, came on cautiously, taking frequent soundings, and keeping close together in a double line. As soon as they came in sight of the enemy, they pushed forward with such vigor of oars and such a furious fire from their big guns, that the Turkish galleys fled precipitately towards the shore; the pirates, throwing themselves into the water, escaped by swimming or wading; and their twelve ships were abandoned as a prey to the victors. On the other side the Venetians came up and landed their infantry and several pieces of artillery of large calibre;

whilst the Romans, who had also landed after securing the pirate galleys, attacked the castle and cut the water conduits. The garrison, consisting of four hundred Spahis, one hundred Janissaries, and two thousand natives, nearly all pirates, made a desperate resistance. On the mainland, on the side of the Epirus, appeared one thousand cavalry soldiers with a handful of infantry, sent to the assistance of the garrison by the Turkish governor. But no sooner did they show themselves at the head of the bridge across the canal, than they were assailed by such a tremendous fire of grape-shot from the Roman ships as compelled them to make off precipitately, and they were seen no more. This circumstance discouraged the garrison, and after a seven days' siege, and the making of an important breach in the fortress, they came out to the gate to discuss the terms of capitulation. The place could no longer be defended, and must be yielded up; but they demanded to go out with their lives and property. The Venetian general was willing to give fair terms to the regular soldiery of the fortress; but considering the pirates to be outside the pale of honorable warfare, he desired they should be left to be dealt with at his discretion. The pirates, being almost as furious aginst the regular Turkish soldiers as against the enemy, began to make a tumult, and threatened to proceed to violent excesses; whereupon, exasperated by their insolence, the Christian soldiery rushed past the gate and took the place by storm. A number of Christian prisoners - natives of Puglia, Sicily, and Calabria - found within it were released from their chains, and the leading pirates were hanged by the neck from the battlements; amongst them was Kamal-rais, called by the Italians Camall. "So much for the first!" says Padre Gugliel motti.

But poetical justice of this striking sort by no means overtook all the Moslem corsairs. Curtogalì (Kurd-ogly), for example, met with a different fate."

In 1516 there reigned over the country called by the Romans Byzacena (part of Tunis) from Algiers to the confines of Tripoli, Abu-Abd-Allah-Mohammed, of the dynasty of the Hafsit, a Moslem of Berber race, and entirely independent of the Ottoman Empire. This prince was on friendly terms with the Genoese. He had signed treaties of friendship and commerce with them, and favored their trade, their coral-fisheries, their storehouses, because they brought important revenues

was no reason for him to trouble his head. On the contrary, he would joyfully await them on their return either with custom dues, or tribute of the fifth, as the case might be." A delightful programme; only that the Genoese, with whom, as has been said, Abdallah had made solemn treaties, did not wholly appreciate this lofty impartiality to the detriment of their commerce. They consequently resolved to assail Curtogalì under cover of the Papal banner, and so as not openly to manifest hostility against the ruler of Tunis. Their ships, together with those of the pope and a strong contingent belonging to the Knights of St. John, attacked Biserta on August 4, 1516, set free a number of Christian prisoners, and gained a rich booty from the pirate ships, which were found laid up in the port, the crews having taken themselves off at the approach of the allied fleet. Thence the latter cruised along the African coast as far as Jerba; and having burnt many of the enemies' vessels, taken a large share of spoil, and captured three brigantines, they returned triumphantly at the end of the month to the Italian harbors.

to his exchequer, and helped to supply state of mind. "He desired," says our his markets to the great satisfaction of author, "peace with all, and prosperity the native population. Things being thus, for his own interests. Friendly to the Curtogall, with a piratical squadron, ap- merchants with their commerce, friendly pears on Abdallah's coasts, and demands to the pirates with their spoils. Let all hospitality. Now Curtogall was a notori- hold firmly by the law: the former conous pirate; but he was also, none the less tentedly paying the custom dues, the lat for that, in favor with the sultan of Tur- ter cheerfully handing over a fifth part of key, by whom he was subsequently ad- their robberies, and Abdallah, their comvanced to high honors. Abdallah re- mon friend, would ever continue in peace ceived him very willingly for several with them all. Outside of his ports the reasons: because he was a Mussulman, merchants and the pirates might fall tobecause he was welcomed by the popu-gether by the ears if they would; that lace, and because, according to the precepts of the Koran, the pirate delivered up to him, as ruler of the country, a clear fifth part of the spoil wrested from Christian vessels. Curtogalì was soon established at Biserta (the ancient HippoZarythus, called by the Arabs Benzert) almost as an independent prince, with thirty ships and a horde of nearly six thousand robbers at his command. Benzert is is situated on a promontory of the Tunisian coast just opposite the mouth of the Tyrrhene Sea. From this point Curtogall could strike with his right hand at Trapani in Sicily, with his left at Cagliari in Sardinia, and swoop straight forward upon the Tiber, Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Liguria. Within three months he had already seized upon a Genoese guardship, devastated a part of the Ligurian coast, taken eighteen Sicilian vessels laden with corn, and threatened the Tuscan Maremma with an ever-increasing swarm of galleys manned by the most formidable and desperate corsairs. Pope Leo X. issued stringent orders to the governors of all the Papal provinces to raise troops, occupy roads and bridges, patrol the shore, keep up a constant correspondence by day and night between the points most open to attack, and, in short, take the most active measures for the defence of the country against their dreaded foes. Dreaded in the fullest sense of the word they were. The mere menace of their coming sufficed to keep whole provinces in agitation. The city of Rome itself was alarmed; prayers were put up in all the churches, and the pontiff with his court, and a large body of secular and regular clergy carrying the most sacred relics, went on foot in public processions from church to church to im plore the divine protection against the pirates.

Meanwhile, however, Abdallah, ruler of Tunis, continued to harbor and favor Curtogali. Padre Guglielmotti has an amusing description of Abdallah's conduct and

The result of these exploits was that Abdallah, perceiving that his policy of "each of you for yourselves, and all of you for me," was no longer tenable, made fresh treaties with the Genoese, promising to favor their commerce, and to protect their merchant vessels against all and sundry, along the coasts of Tunis. And so Genoa gained some advantage from her spirited effort. Not so Rome. Curtogall, finding that Abdallah's interests were seriously involved in keeping faith with the Genoese, relinquished all present hope of attacking their vessels from Tunisian ports. But all the more ferociously did he direct his projects of vengeance against Rome. To this end he conceived a plan of singular audacity, and one which, if carried out, might strangely have changed several pages of European history. This plan was noth

ing less than to kidnap the pope, and carry him off prisoner! And it was, moreover, within an ace of succeeding. Here is Padre Guglielmotti's account of the matter, founded on contemporary doc

uments:

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Pope Leo, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and still a young man, was accustomed every autumn to leave Rome with a few familiar friends and followers, and to put aside grave thoughts, and give rest to his weary mind, by the pleasures of hunting and fishing, which he pursued throughout the country and on the shore. One of his favorite resorts for this purpose was the Castle of the Magliana, five miles distant from Rome on the banks of the Tiber. It is now a squalid and deserted ruin.... But in the days of Pope Leo it was a sumptuous edifice, as I have seen for myself in the designs of Sangallo, and as all may read in the documents of that time.... From thence the pope was wont to ride out privately to Porto, Ostia, Ardea, or Laurento, to descend to the shore, and embark in a little fishing-boat, and to divert himself, now at sea with net or hook, now on land with hound and hawk. In this year (1516) he left Rome on the eighteenth of September, and remained out of it two months, visiting the cities of the Maremma and hawking and fishing in various places." (Roscoe in his "Life of Leo X." falls into some inaccuracies respecting this excursion. In the first place he says that the pope, after hearing of the death of his brother, Giuliano de' Medici, at Florence, "retired to Cività Lavinia," as though seeking privacy in his grief; and secondly he asserts that the pope left Rome "a few days after he had received intelligence of this event," which occurred in March. Now we have the irrefragable testimony of Paris de Grassis in his diary that the pope left Rome on September 18.) Padre Guglielmotti goes on: "Leo proceeded to Palo, and along the shores near the mouth of the Tiber, and to the suburban cities, as far as the Laurentian coast below Cività Lavinia. At this latter place Curtogalì lay in ambush awaiting him, with eighteen ships, and his men partly on board, and partly ashore, to catch the pope between them. By good fortune some one got scent of the plot, and the whole company drew bridle in time, turned about, and fled at full gallop to Rome, which they reached in safety on October 28. Paris de Grassis, who knew all, although he was not of the hunting party, says no explicit word of this adventure. He merely

writes of hunting, fishing, and a sudden return to the city. This was then a cowardly and vile plot. Such it is proved to be by the testimony of sundry historians, and by the conspiracy discovered six months later." *

There seems to be no doubt that Curtogall had a secret understanding_with some traitor or traitors in the Papal court. Nor is this at all inconceivable to those who know how, as Padre Guglielmotti says, the most ardent passions, the fiercest struggles between France and Spain, independence and servitude, nobles and populace, Sienna and Florence, and many more, all were focussed, so to speak, around the "fatal house of Medici." Curtogalì, disappointed in his enterprise of kidnapping the pope, vented his fury on the surrounding country.

Six years later we find this pirate chief commanding a division of the Turkish fleet which was sent against Rhodes, then the seat and stronghold of the Knights of Jerusalem. Guglielmotti's account of that famous siege - although necessarily much compressed-is very interesting. But we have not space to do more than allude to it here. Our present business is with Curtogalì.

On December 20,

But

1522, the place capitulated, on the 24th the Turks made a triumphal entry into Rhodes. The sultan Soliman rode a magnificent courser, and was surrounded by a brilliant staff with all imaginable "pride, pomp, and circumstance." the Moslem sovereign was not insensible to the sorrowful position of his vanquished adversaries. As he rode on to take possession of the fortress which the grand master, Prince Philippe Villiers l'Ile Adam, had so long ruled over and so valiantly defended, Soliman said in a low voice to those nearest to him, "It weighs upon me somewhat that I should be coming hither to-day to chase this aged Christian warrior from his house." The two great antagonists desired to see each other. They met, Philip surrounded by his knights, and Soliman by a guard of Janissaries. The old Christian and the young Turkish warrior were so struck and impressed by each other's aspect, and doubtless by the rush of thoughts which their meeting under such circumstances gave rise to, that for a few moments they remained silent, gazing at each other without uttering a word. The first to

The conspiracy of Cardinal Petrucci and others of the Roman Curia to poison Leo, and for which Petrucci and some subordinate instruments of his attempted crime suffered death.

break this singular and impressive pause | tian armies commanded by Charles V. in was our acquaintance Curtogalì, and there- person. The Moslems made a valorous upon ensued the usual speeches, and com- defence, but were overpowered and compliments, and ceremonies between the Turkish and Christian leaders. But although cloaked with some chivalric courtesy, the defeat of the knights was none the less hard and bitter to endure. At the commencement of the following year, they left the island, never to return. The last to embark was the old Prince Philippe Villiers. He was closely followed by his herald, who, at a sign from the grand master, raised his trumpet to his mouth and blew the strain familiar to the knights called "Salute and Farewell." That very same trumpet of the last adieu is still preserved in the museum at Malta, mute forevermore. Of Curtogall we here take leave. Our last view of him is as prince or governor of Rhodes, triumphant over his Christian enemies, and high in power among his Moslem countrymen.

The story of Il Giudeo, the Jew, contains some touches of humanity rare in these bloody chronicles, and the end of it is strangely pathetic. This man was, as his name implies, a Jewish renegade. He was born at Smyrna, and acquired great riches by his piracies. The Arabs called him Sinam, the Turks Ciefut Pasha, and the Italians Il Giudeo. After the conquest of Rhodes, the pirates infested the Mediterranean like a pack of hungry wolves; and Il Giudeo surpassed them all in astuteness and in an intimate knowledge of every creek and hiding-place along the coasts and among the islands. Monte Argentaro, Elba, Ponza, he knew them all, and could play at hide-and-seek among them with his swift, treacherous galleys. He had a fleet of thirty-four of them, and ravaged the coasts of Sicily, Naples, and the Roman States. For the most part he was successful and almost unmolested in his marauding expeditions. But once three ships belonging to the Knights of Rhodes, and commanded by Captain Paolo Vettori, made a raid upon the robbers and captured some pirate galleys off Gianutri, a tiny islet of the Tuscan Archipelago. But this was a comparatively unimportant check to Il Giu

¡deo.

None the less for it did he scour the Mediterranean to his own great profit and the terror of the littoral populations. In 1533 we find him triumphantly carrying off from near Messina three vessels belonging to Andrea Doria, laden with silk - a very rich prize. In 1535 he defended La Goletta with a body of six thousand picked Turkish troops against the Chris

pelled to fly to Tunis, where Barbarossa was then reigning, having forcibly seized that kingdom from the descendant of the ancient Berber dynasty of the Hafsìt. Within the city of Tunis at that time were upwards of ten thousand Christian slaves taken by the pirates. These were Spaniards, French, Germans, and, more numerous than all, Italians; people of both sexes and all ages and conditions, merchants, soldiers, knights, sailors, priests. These unfortunates, on the first approach of the Christian army, had been huddled into some underground caverns called the gune, originally intended for storing grain. Barbarossa, seeing the fortune of war go against him, absolutely proposed to massacre all these helpless wretches, and was with difficulty dissuaded from his atrocious intention. Il Giudeo chiefly opposed it, and it was mainly owing to his intercession that the prisoners' lives were saved. This of La Goletta was a great and important victory for the Christian arms. Besides putting the enemy to flight and confusion, the Christians captured all the Moslem ships, without losing one on their side. Amongst the prisoners taken was Il Giudeo's favorite child, a boy of ten years old, who is stated to have been serving as a sort of cabin-boy on board one of the captured Moorish vessels. The child fell to the share of the prince of Piombino, who caused him to be baptized, had him educated in all the accomplishments of a gentleman of that day, and brought him up in his own house, where he lived honored and beloved by all."

Meanwhile Il Giudeo was advanced to even greater honors by the sultan. Escaped from the disaster of La Goletta and of Tunis, he was nominated admiral of the fleet of the Red Sea; the principal scope of which was to harass and oppose the Portuguese, whose progress in the Indies was giving umbrage to Soliman. Il Giudeo's headquarters were at Suez. He was enormously wealthy, powerful, and honored. But the terrible pirate had a heart. It is evident that his apostasy had not cancelled the strong parental affection so characteristic of his race, and of the teachings of the Hebrew religion; and he never ceased to lament the loss of his son. Nearly ten years after the disaster of Tunis, Barbarossa - another celebrated and especially truculent Moslem pirate-attacked the island of Elba,

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