Possibly it may have belonged to the
Sommaripa of Andros from 1541 to 1566, when that dynasty was dethroned.
These conclusions are confirmed by the travellers and geographers
who wrote about the Levant between that date and the loss of Tenos.
Porcacchi[408], in 1572, mentions Mykonos, without saying to whom it
belonged. One of the Argyroi, barons of Santorin, who, in 1581, gave
Crusius the information about the Cyclades which he embodied in his
_Turco-Græcia_[409], had nothing to say about Mykonos, except that it
contained one castle and some hamlets, while he specially mentioned
that Tenos and Cerigo were “under Venice.” Botero[410], in 1605, giving
a full list of the Venetian possessions in the Levant, includes the
Ionian Islands and Tenos alone. Neither the French ambassador, Louis des
Hayes[411], who visited Greece in 1630, nor the sieur du Loir[412], who
sailed with him, is more explicit, though both describe Crete, Cerigo,
and Tenos as the sole Venetian islands in the Ægean. Thévenot[413],
in 1656, and Boschini[414], ten years later, tell us that Mykonos was
“almost depopulated” because of corsairs, but are likewise silent as to
its ownership. Baudrand, in his _Geographia_[415], remarked, however,
that it had been _sub dominio Turcarum à sæculo et ultra, cum antea
Venetis pareret_, an account which appears to me to coincide with the
real facts. But both Spon[416] and Wheler[417] censured the geographer
for his statement that it had been Venetian, so completely had the
Venetian tradition faded at the time of their visit in 1675. At that
period, as they inform us, the Sultan’s galleys never failed to come
there every year to collect the capitation tax, and the governor of
the island was a Greek sent by the Turks from Constantinople. Both
travellers surmised, however, that the island might perhaps have changed
hands during the Candian war, when it was neglected. Their surmise
is rendered probable by the remark of Sebastiani[418], who visited
it in 1666, during that long struggle. For he says that it was then
ecclesiastically under the jurisdiction of the Catholic bishop of Tenos,
who had begged the Venetian admiral, Comaro, to give his deputy in
Mykonos the old Venetian church of San Marco for the use of the twenty
Latin inhabitants. Randolph[419] confirms their story of its subjection
to the Sultan, for he tells of a visit paid to the island by the Capitan
Pasha in 1680. Piacenza[420] reiterates their criticism of Baudrand, and
mentions that the atlases of the Mediterranean erroneously described it
as _insula altera hoc in tractu maritimo Reipublicæ Venetæ obsequium
præstans_, whereas it was really “under the Turkish yoke.” Dapper[421]
takes the same view. After mentioning that Tenos “is the last Venetian
island in this quarter of the Levant” he adds that “there are authors
who allege that Mykonos is in subjection to Venice.” Finally, in 1700,
Tournefort[422] found the island dependent on the Capitan Pasha, to whom