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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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GIOVANNI MARITI
Travels in the Island of Cyprus
page 46

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damaged by these same guns. Continuing the round of the walls you come upon two other gates, that of St Dominic, now called the Paphos gate, and that of the Provveditore, the Cerines gate. They are not as fine as the Famagusta gate, for they were never finished. The ditches round the city were not entirely dug out, nor the revetment of the wall completed, when the host of Selim began the siege. Between the Fama-gusta and Paphos gates, on a bastion in which Suleiman, the present Governor of Cyprus, has made a garden, there are several tombs. One more beautiful than the rest, of fine marbles, is said to cover the grave of the man who first planted the banner of Othman on the walls, the city was attacked several times at this point. From the walls one sees scattered over the country round the city several villages and hamlets. The nearest are Caimachli, Pano-Caimachli, Palluriotissa, which was within the older circuit; St Marina, whence the fiercest bombard-ment was made; St Veneranda, where there was also a battery ; St Demetri, in which were camped the cavalry of Mustafa Pasha; Tracone and Altalassa. Their nearness to the capital make them the most populous and best cultivated of the island. The inhabitants not only till the ground but spin cotton and weave cloth for sale in Nicosia. Among the buildings the chief is St Sofia. This was the Cathedral church, in which the Kings of Cyprus were crowned. The plan comprises three great aisles, the style is Gothic. It contains many sepulchral stones of the house of Lusignan, and of other old Cypriots and noble Venetians : most of them are illegible, the letters being worn away, and some tombs which contained a body laid at length have been ill-used, so that the design cannot be recognised. I had an opportunity of seeing all this through the iron gratings where a small gift to the keeper allowed me to stand at my ease. The choir, as it stood when it was used for Christian worship, together with all the altars, were destroyed when the 42 Concerning the City of Nicosia, Capital [CH.

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