The title of this book was inspired by the account of Genoese nobleman Anselmo Adorno who, en route from Brugge to the Holy Land in 1470, visited Cyprus and remarked: “Est alia civitas, secunda insule, Famagusta maritima, duas partes in mari habens, muris fortibus et castro munita” (“There is another city, the second of the island, sea-girt Famagusta, having two sides facing the sea, furnished with strong walls and a citadel”).1
The serene and prosperous port and city of Famagusta before the siege of 1570–1571 as depicted in the Codex Maggi (1578), by Carlo Maggi (Carolus Magius). Detail of miniature no. 10, Partie de l’île de Chypre, port et ville de Famagouste
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, Reserve 4-AD-134; facsimile: bnf.fr.
Maritime Famagusta’s historic ships can still be found throughout the city—incised onto the interiors of towering defensive walls, superimposed onto timeworn frescoes in ruined churches, and even carved onto the sides of domestic homes. They are ubiquitous too in locally-held private collections of postcards and magazines featuring black-and-white photographs harking back to the vessels and mariners of an imperial age.2 Specialized websites direct the curious maritime historian to etchings, copperplates and oil paintings of the majestic, or often quite humble, ships that have plied the sea-lanes to and from Famagusta for more than a millennium. In addition, travelers have bequeathed us their priceless commentaries, some with eyewitness veracity and others entirely imagined, on Famagusta, its harbor, associated cosmopolitanism, vibrant trade, almost immoral wealth and eventual vulnerability. We can only speculate as to the quality and quantity of Famagusta’s wrecks, still undocumented, littering the seabed and guarding aspects of the great city’s history as yet untold. The knowledge painstakingly identified and then extracted from numerous archives, teased from fragmented paintings and fading photographs, deduced from numerous conversations, and speculated upon via the contemplation of as yet unseen archaeological sites, has allowed us to situate Famagusta within chronologies of conflict and systems of commerce and belief, as well as subsequent networks of history and the literary/artistic imagination. The aggregation of the painstaking research of 13 scholars and the conclusions that they have arrived at makes up Famagusta Maritima: Mariners, Merchant, Pilgrims and Mercenaries.
This is not the first time I have focused on these maritime communities. Writings of mine have appeared in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology,3 Mediterranean Studies,4 Journal of Intercultural Studies5 and Mariner’s Mirror.6 I have attempted to facilitate further discussion in a recent book chapter7 and have collated research by other scholars in the following edited books: Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta: Studies in Art, Architecture and History (Ashgate, 2012); The Harbour of All This Sea and Realm: Crusader to Venetian Famagusta (Central European University Press, 2014); City of Empires: Ottoman and British Famagusta, 1571–1960 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016) and The Armenian Church of Famagusta and the Complexity of Cypriot Heritage: Prayers Long Silent (Palgrave, 2017). On each of these occasions I alluded to the maritime history of Famagusta and emphasized the need for an independent, in-depth study of the city and its relationship with the sea. This need eventually led to a specialized workshop held at the University of Padua in 2017, The Lives of Places: Maritime Famagusta, where the present collection had its genesis.
The Lives of Cities: Maritime Famagusta, held at the University of Padua, November 20, 2017
Author’s Collection
Cited in Gilles Grivaud, ed., Excerpta Cypria nova, volume premier: Voyageurs occidentaux à Chypre au XVème siècle, Sources et études de l’histoire de Chypre 15 (Nicosia: Centre de Recherches Scientifiques, 1990): 82. Author’s translation and emphasis added (with the assistance of Nicholas Coureas).
The value of local interest and expertise should never be overlooked by the researcher. This study of Famagusta has been greatly aided by the Walled City Association (MASDER) and certain individuals such as Erdal Eryener whose private collection of photographs is mesmerizing. In it we see Famagusta Harbor from the earliest dredging work to the era of the Suez Crisis; from the time of sailing vessels to that of nuclear submarines (1961); from the arrival of elegant vessels, such as the Turkish battleship Hamidiye, to the first flights over the city by the Royal Air Force.
Michael J. K. Walsh, “‘On of the Princypalle Havenes of the See’: The Port of Famagusta and Ship Graffiti in the Church of St. George of the Greeks, Cyprus,” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 37, no. 1 (2008): 115–129.
Michael J. K. Walsh, “Martyrs and Mariners: Some Surviving Art of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Famagusta, Northern Cyprus,” Mediterranean Studies 15, no. 1 (2006): 21–41.
Michael J. K. Walsh, “‘The Vile Embroidery of Ruin’: Historic Famagusta between Ottoman and British Empires in fin de siècle Cyprus: 1878–1901,” Journal of Intercultural Studies 31, no. 3 (2010): 247–269.
Michael J. K. Walsh, “Othello, ‘Turning Turk’ and Cornelis de Bruyn’s Copperplate of the Ottoman Port of Famagusta in the Seventeenth Century,” Mariners Mirror 98, no. 4 (2012): 448–466.
Michael J. K. Walsh, “‘The Age of Ruins’: Whatever Happened to Venetian Famagusta?” in The Northern Face of Cyprus: New Studies in Cypriot Archaeology and Art History, ed. Latife Summerer and Hazar Kaba (Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari, 2016), 393–416.