Alamanno da Costa

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Alamanno da Costa (active 1193–1224, died before 1229) was a Genoese admiral. He became the count of Syracuse in the Kingdom of Sicily, and led naval expeditions throughout the eastern Mediterranean. He was an important figure in Genoa's longstanding conflict with Pisa and in the origin of its conflict with Venice. The historian Ernst Kantorowicz called him a "famous prince of pirates".[1]

Early free-lance career

Alamanno came from Genoa's mercantile class, and the earliest record of him dates from 1193, when he joined an accomende, a commercial partnership, directed towards Sicily.[2] In 1204, Alamanno and his son Benvenuto, on their own initiative, set out aboard the Carroccia in search of the Pisan corsair Leopardo.[2] The Carroccia and Leopardo were both classed as navi—broad-beamed, lateen-rigged ships.[3] The former had on board 500 armed men, and the latter probably half as many. The inventory taken after Alamanno successfully captured the Leopardo and integrated her into his force lists 280 suits of armour among the booty. Presumably this represents the number of marines she carried.[4]

In 1162 the

Enrico Pescatore, attacked Syracuse, which had only recently been occupied by Pisa.[7] On 6 August, after a six-day siege, during which Alamanno destroyed two Pisan ships, the city fell.[2] Alamanno was acclaimed count in the name of Genoa.[2]

Count of Syracuse

Alamanno took the pompous and probably self-appointed title "

by the grace of God, the king and the commune of Genoa, Count of Syracuse [comes Siracuse] and familiaris of the lord king".[1][6] As historian David Abulafia asserts, "it [is] hard to understand what say the Genoese had in the appointment of the counts of a foreign kingdom", yet during the minority of the Sicilian king Frederick I they seem to have had a say.[8] During his tenure, Sicily fell under Genoese hegemony, acting as a trading post, waystation and granary for the republic.[2] It also became a centre of piracy. Alamanno's claim on Syracuse was not recognised by King Frederick I, who was also the Emperor Frederick II.[1] He was thus excluded from the treaty between Genoa and Marseille in 1208, which excluded all "corsairs who reside in or work out of Sicily" (cursales qui in Siciliam morantur vel consuetudinem).[1]

Alamanno was in a close alliance with Enrico Pescatore, to whom he lent the use of the Leopardo.

Outremer. The Genoese convinced him to augment this force with more galleys and smaller vessels, as well as sixteen more navi, apparently the most powerful ship class, before attacking the Pisan fleet at Syracuse. The latter contained some nine navi, twelve galleys and fourteen other ships the chronicler refers to merely as buciisque et barchis (bucios and barche).[10]

Activities in the East

Naval assault at the siege of Damietta, from a 13th-century illustrated manuscript of Matthew Paris's chronicle

In 1216, Alamanno assisted Enrico in an attempt to conquer

fall of Damietta.[2]

In 1220 Frederick II began asserting royal rights in Syracuse, attempting to throw out the Genoese, and proclaiming the city "most faithful" (fidelissima).

William VI of Montferrat in the reconquest of the Kingdom of Thessalonica in exchange for "one hundred knights or knight's fees" (centum militias seu militaria feuda) or one thousand marks of silver, guaranteed by Honorius.[2] He probably died during the expedition. He was certainly deceased by 1229, when the podestà of Genoa, Iacopo di Balduino, wrote to the judge of Logudoro, Marianus II, ordering him not to give assistance to Caroccino, the illegitimate son of Alamanno, accused of "acts of piracy after the fashion of his father" (exercere pyraticam more patris).[2]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Cheyette 1970, p. 46.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oreste 1960.
  3. ^ Dotson 2006, p. 65. The Italian term nave derives from the Latin navis, which also gives rise to the French nef. It was a general term meaning "ship", but modern historians use it in a more technical sense.
  4. Ogerio Pane
    .
  5. ^ a b Pryor 1999, p. 424. Enrico first began trying to conquer Crete in 1205, when he embarked on a campaign in the eastern Mediterranean, in which he first utilised the Leopardo.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Abulafia 2004, pp. 1064–65.
  7. ^ Dotson 2006, p. 68. These Pisans were described as pirati by Ogerio, but the word was a mere pejorative, although the Pisans did prey on Genoese shipping.
  8. ^ Abulafia 1988, p. 103.
  9. ^ Dotson 2006, p. 67.
  10. ^ a b c Dotson 2006, p. 68–69.
  11. ^ Abulafia 1988, p. 142.

Sources

  • Abulafia, David (1988). Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Abulafia, David (2004). "Syracuse". In Christopher Kleinheinz (ed.). Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Taylor & Francis. pp. 1064–65.
  • Cheyette, Fredric L. (1970). "The Sovereign and the Pirates, 1332". Speculum. 45 (1): 40–68.
    S2CID 159666608
    .
  • Dotson, John E. (2006). "Ship Types and Fleet Composition at Genoa and Venice in the Early Thirteenth Century". In John H. Pryor (ed.). Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 63–76.
  • Oreste, Giuseppe (1960). "Alamanno da Costa". In Alberto Maria Ghisalberti (ed.). Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 1. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia italiana. Retrieved 25 April 2013.
  • Pryor, John H. (1999). "The Maritime Republics". In David Abulafia (ed.). The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. V. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 419–46.


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alamanno_da_Costa&oldid=1220098231"