The death of Suleyman and the accession of his brother Musa in 1410
sealed the fate of the Marquess. Early in the spring a very large
Turkish army appeared before the old castle. Boudonitza was strong,
and its Marquess a resolute man, so that for a long time the siege was
in vain. “Giacomo,” says the Venetian document composed by his son,
“preferred, like the high-minded and true Christian that he was, to die
rather than surrender the place.” But there was treachery within the
castle walls; betrayed by one of his servants, the Marquess fell, like
another Leonidas, bravely defending the mediæval Thermopylæ against
the new Persian invasion. Even then, his sons, “following in their
father’s footsteps,” held the castle some time longer in the hope that
Venice would remember her distant children in their distress. The Senate
did, indeed, order the Captain of the Gulf to make inquiries whether
Boudonitza still resisted and in that case to send succour to its gallant
defenders—the cautious Government added—“with as little expense as
possible.” But before the watchmen on the keep could descry the Captain
sailing up the Atalante channel, all was over; both food and ammunition
had given out and the Zorzi were constrained to surrender, on condition
that their lives and property were spared. The Turks broke their
promises, deprived their prisoners of their goods, expelled them from the
home of their ancestors, and dragged young Nicolò to the Sultan’s Court
at Adrianople[364].
Considerable confusion prevails in this last act of the history of
Boudonitza, owing to the fact that the two leading personages, the
brother and eldest son of the late Marquess, bore the same name of
Nicolò. Hopf has accordingly adopted two different versions in his three
accounts of these events. On a review of the documentary evidence, it
would seem that the brother, the Baron of Karystos, was not at Boudonitza
during the siege, and that, on the capture of his nephew, he proclaimed
himself Marquess. Venice recognised his title, and instructed her envoy
to Musa to include him in her treaty with the Sultan and to procure at
the same time the release of the late Marquess’s son. Accordingly, in
the peace of 1411, Musa promised, for love of Venice and seeing that
he passed as a Venetian, to harass him no more, on condition that he
paid the tribute established. Not only so, but the Marquess’s ships and
merchandise were allowed to enter the Turkish dominions on payment of
a fixed duty[365]. Thus temporarily restored, the Marquisate remained
in the possession of the uncle, from whom the nephew, even after his
release, either could not, or cared not to claim it. He withdrew to
Venice, and, many years later, received as the reward of his father’s
heroic defence of Boudonitza, the post of _châtelain_ of Pteleon, near
the mouth of the Gulf of Volo, the last Venetian outpost on the mainland
of North-Eastern Greece—a position which he held for eight years[366].