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and dated November 19, 1573. It is the most detailed and the longest of all the accounts, occupying 100 pages 4to, and the fullest in names and dates. It is in fact almost a diary of the siege. Gatto was serving at Famagusta as Ensign to Capt. Carlo Ragonasco : on July 5 he got his company, on July 30 he was wounded by a musket-ball in the shoulder. Special information is due to him on (1) the coining of the well-known siege-pieces inscribed "Pro regni Cypri praesidio, Venetorum fides in-violabilis," "bisanti di ramo da diece soldi l'uno, e soldi da quattro quattrini " : (2) the composition and use of Greek fire (cf. T. A. Archer, The Crusade of Richard 7, p. 72): (3) the victualling of the garrison : (4) the journey to Constantinople, and the inhuman treatment of the captives. The voyage took from Sept. 22 to Nov. 2; their imprisonment was rigorous, their treatment cruel until May 1572, when- the efforts of Giacomo Malatesta, Marchese di Ronco-Freddo, procured some alleviation of their condition. But we hear nothing of the writer's release or subsequent fate. The "LAMENT OF CYPRUS." We are greatly indebted to M. Simos Menardos for the publication (Athens, 1906) under the title Θρήνος τής Κνπρον, of a MS. discovered in 1903 at Phasoulla in the district of Limasol. It contained 777 Saturnian verses (στίχοι πολιτικοί, rhyming lines of 15 syllables), the work of a contemporary ποιητάρις, who describes the siege and fall of Nicosia, and the opening scenes of the siege of Famagusta. It is a rude production, of more glossological than historical value, but the writer saw what he described, and lost two children, whom the Turks took as slaves. And it is the only account we have from the hand of an Orthodox native. It mentions among the churches of the capital turned into mosques the royal church of Hagia Sophia; Hagia Caterina, οπόνταν πισκοπάτον ; the Eleousa, near the last ; and the Hodegetria, οττόνν καθολικάτον. 166 Prefatory Note

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