DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.803#0070
64 THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
find mention of it in the wars of the Greek Emperors,
. the Turks, and the Venetians. It was taken in 1427
by the Sultan Morat; afterwards by the Spaniards:
it then belonged to the Venetians; and in 1455 was
taken by Mohammed the Second. Mohammed, as
Chalcocondylas relates, when he had finished the war
with the despot of the Morea, four years after, sur-
veyed the city and Acropolis with admiration *. In
1464 the Venetians surprised the city, but quitted it
with their plunder; leaving it to the Turk, with whose
empire it remained till 1687, when it was again
taken by the Venetians; but retaken by the Turks a
short time after.
The English reader, who would enter into more
minute inquiries as to the history and vicissitudes of
Athens, may consult Meursius de Fortuna Athena-
rum, the various histories of Greece, Chandler's
Travels in Greece, Colonel Leake's Topography of
Athens, and Wilkins' Atheniensia.
Dr. Chandler, having noticed the landing of the
Venetians at the Piraeus in 1464, says, " It is re-
markable, that after these events Athens was again
in a manner forgotten. So lately as about the middle
of the sixteenth century, the city was commonly be-
lieved to have been utterly destroyed, and not to
exist, except in a few huts of poor fishermen.; Crusius,
a learned and inquisitive German, procured more
authentic information from his Greek correspondents
residing in Turkey, which he published in 1584, to
awaken curiosity, and to promote further discoveries.
One of these letters is from a native of Nauplia, a
town near Argos, in the Morea. The writer says,
" that he had been often at Athens, and that it still
* ■—t'oti lin vrsBi'iair o pairiXtvc, xai rnv ts axgawoXiv QtwpsM*
h Savpari Woturo.', Chalcocondylas de Rebus Turc. lib. is*
p.242.
find mention of it in the wars of the Greek Emperors,
. the Turks, and the Venetians. It was taken in 1427
by the Sultan Morat; afterwards by the Spaniards:
it then belonged to the Venetians; and in 1455 was
taken by Mohammed the Second. Mohammed, as
Chalcocondylas relates, when he had finished the war
with the despot of the Morea, four years after, sur-
veyed the city and Acropolis with admiration *. In
1464 the Venetians surprised the city, but quitted it
with their plunder; leaving it to the Turk, with whose
empire it remained till 1687, when it was again
taken by the Venetians; but retaken by the Turks a
short time after.
The English reader, who would enter into more
minute inquiries as to the history and vicissitudes of
Athens, may consult Meursius de Fortuna Athena-
rum, the various histories of Greece, Chandler's
Travels in Greece, Colonel Leake's Topography of
Athens, and Wilkins' Atheniensia.
Dr. Chandler, having noticed the landing of the
Venetians at the Piraeus in 1464, says, " It is re-
markable, that after these events Athens was again
in a manner forgotten. So lately as about the middle
of the sixteenth century, the city was commonly be-
lieved to have been utterly destroyed, and not to
exist, except in a few huts of poor fishermen.; Crusius,
a learned and inquisitive German, procured more
authentic information from his Greek correspondents
residing in Turkey, which he published in 1584, to
awaken curiosity, and to promote further discoveries.
One of these letters is from a native of Nauplia, a
town near Argos, in the Morea. The writer says,
" that he had been often at Athens, and that it still
* ■—t'oti lin vrsBi'iair o pairiXtvc, xai rnv ts axgawoXiv QtwpsM*
h Savpari Woturo.', Chalcocondylas de Rebus Turc. lib. is*
p.242.