HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
uses Google technology and indexes only and selectively internet - libraries having books with free public access
 
  Previous Next  

CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 128

View PDF version of this page

of which churches we shall speak. The monasteries of monks and nuns of S. Bene udict, and S. Bernard, of S. Giuliano (Orosachieri, Croisière, Porte-croix, who cany alwayad. a little silver crass in their hand, and are dressed in blue), of the Certosa, and the four imuwndicant Orders, the church of the knights of the Temple, and of the knights of S. John anpid many others. Of the Greeks too very many convents of monks and nuns of S. Basil; so I that the churches in this city amounted to 250 and perhaps 300. ρ This city was great, in cirenmference three leagues or nine miles. It is tme itjriwas not iinite full, bnt it had many gardens and large ones. Bnt in 1567 the Signory ofü Venice wishing to fortify it reduced it to one league or three miles, and left three gates alis it had before, and levelled with the ground the two thirds of the city all round, leaving trihe third part in the middle. Thus were destroyed very many houses and palaces and eighty i shnrches of all kinds, and they reduced the city to the shape you will see on the opposite page]. This city hail a citadel which was built by king Jacques I., and in those dalys when there was no artillery it was strong and well supplied ; and within there was not! >ing but the Royal Court and the Monastery of S. Dominic, and the water flowed round •'it in the fosses. When the Venetians took the island they destroyed this citadel and the pa lace and the two drawbridges, and left only the walls, part of which they again pulled down in building the new fortifications. ^ And the palace, which was partly restored by 21. Gabriel Cornaro, was agnini rained. However one may still see some traces of that citadel. In the same way they destroyed that royal monastery, to which were1 attached two cloisters full of oranges and paved with fine marbles, and the church adorned with the grand tombs of the Royal House, find other princes and lords, and on its walls and floor with many fine, broad and large marbles. These Kings were buried there, Ughetto, Ugo, Pietrino, Giacomo, Giano, with their Avives and -sons and daughters: Princes of Galilee, of Antioch : Louis, son of the king of France, Seneschals, Constables, Admirals and Chamberlains of Jerusalem and Cyprus: Counts, Barons and Lords of Thabaria, Thoron, Saetto, Cesarea, Barati, Tripoli, Zaffo, di Buchas, and otlurs. Then sixteen Archbishops, Bishops and Patriarchs. Then the dormitories, refectory, hospice, paved with marble : it had too the other offices necessary to such a monastery, for in the time of the kings it held eighty monks. Then it had the chamber of the king on one side, md that of the queen on the other, which they visited often. And there died king John md his wife Helena. Joined to it, or rather enclosed in it, was the Patriarchal residence which the Patriarchs of Jerusalem λνΐιο were of this Order bnilt ; hut it is now many yea's since this was destroyed, and by a Patriarch. This is all which was inside the citadel. In tlie same city they pulled down also another Latin monastery, whih was first tenanted by the monks of S. Bernard, afterwards by the Zoccolanti ; so I neeunot stay to describe it, how fine it was and how solid, when one thinks to what Order it firt belonged. They destroyed also another convent of the nuns of S. Thodoro of the same Orer; and two belonging to the Greeks, one of monks built by queen Helena, and the otherof nuns, the first was called Manchana, the second Pallnriotissa. They pulled down too oter fine Latin churches and the ooirrent of S. Anna, which was first tenanted by the nuns ο S. Benedict, and then abandoned. In all eighty churches, of all sorts and Orders. And toy made the city round, as in the plan below,with eleven bastions, all made of mere earth: len when the Turks reached it they were not completely furnished with walls, nor were th fosses made (Jr. v. p. 82 a). The torrent used to pass through the middle of the city, entàng it at one point, and leaving it at three {FT. V. p. 144), and now in fortifying it in 1567 thr cut off the stream outside (p. 56 a). 130 EXCERPTA CYPRIA.

View PDF version of this page


  Previous First Next