Travels in the Island of Cyprus

The Abbé Giovanni Mariti wrote an account of the condition of Cyprus in 1769, almost 100 years after the final conquest of the island by the Ottoman Turks. Mariti travelled widely around the island in the seven years during which he served there as a consular official, and as well as recounting his own visits to towns, villages and monasteries, he describes contemporary events such as the outbreak of plague in 1760 and the failed insurrection against the Turks in 1764. This English translation, first published in 1895, also provides contemporary eyewitness accounts of the sieges of Nicosia and Famagusta which ended Venetian rule in 1570-1, and of the torture and death of the Venetian commander of Famagusta, Marcantonio Bragadino, a story which has passed into legend.