Introduction: When, where from and why the Greeks migrate to the Italian peninsula

The Italian peninsula receives the majority of the Greek migrants that depart for the West from the 15th century onward. Most of them settle in Italy after the fall of Constantinople, in 1453. However, many Greeks had already migrated to Italy since the time of the Byzantine Empire. They either migrated following the settlement policy of the Byzantine Empire, or on the occasion of the "dialogue" of the Western with the Eastern Orthodox Church, or even during the period of the decline of the Empire, as the Turkish threat became more and more apparent.

Still, Italy did not constitute a united state at that time. It was divide in small states that fought one another, trying to predominate over larger parts of the peninsula. Quite often, powerful European princes would intervene and conquer parts of the Italian territory. At the end of the 15th century, the king of France, Charles VII, invades the Italian peninsula, inaugurating the policy of foreign interventions in the region. In 1519, Charles V, who possesses the Hapsburg territories in central and northern Europe as well as the kingdom of Spain, is crowned Empire and claims the domination of Italy from his main adversary, the French king Francis II The Greeks migrate to the various states of the Italian peninsula, which do not only have different princes but in most cases are under the influence or the direct suzerainty of foreign European powers.

The Greeks settle in the Italian peninsula successively, in different periods and for various reasons. The Byzantines that settle in Italy around 1453 do not meet a strange place because the Italian peninsula had a considerable number of Byzantine colonies founded in the course of many centuries. Moreover, Italy is very close to the Greek region; closer than any other country of the Christian West. Scholars and members of eminent Byzantine families, common mercenaries (Italian: stradioti), urban and rural populations, all migrate to Italy from the 15th until the 17th century. These people migrate first of all to escape from the Turkish rule. Some of them have revolted against the Turks on the incitement of the Spanish, the Venetians, or that of the Russians in the 18th century, and they fear the Turkish reprisal. Others come from the Venetian ruled regions of Greece, which fall one by one in the hands of the Turks during the 15th, the 16th and 17th centuries. From the 18th century, mainly after 1750 onward, the Greeks migrate to ports of the Italian peninsula in order to be employed in trade activities.

Byzantine scholars choose Italy because they know that it is a place where they can proceed with their intellectual activities. It is the period during which the Italian scholars begin to study the ancient Greek texts with passion. In the Italian universities it is the humanities that flourish. The Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-39) had offered these scholars the possibility to approach scholars of the West. Many of them choose to stay on the Italian peninsula for ideological reasons (as unionists) or professional reasons (to teach or work as copiers of manuscripts). Moreover, many scholars carry with them ancient Greek manuscripts, which they copy and translate in Italian. Some of them teach Greek in the Italian academies and universities, mainly in Florence, Milan, Rome and Padova. The scholars keep relations with princes, superior Catholic clergymen or even with the Pope, but also with the intellectual representatives of Italy that often work under their protection. That is the reason for which they live in the court or the residence of their protector and are not immediately integrated in the Greek colony of the Italian cities they settle in. In addition, they usually move from one region to another, e.g. from Rome to Padova, depending on the need for university professors.

Scholars and descendants of old Byzantine families migrate to the kingdom of Neapolis since the 15th century. This kingdom comprises southern Italy and (during the periods 1443-1458 and approximately 1733-1799) Sicily also. Both southern Italy and Sicily are under the rule of Spain. The Spanish grant feuds to the members of eminent Byzantine families that come to the West as they see their economic and social power decline, They also offer them high offices in the mercenary armies in order to reinforce their power in the region. Moreover, many Greek and Albanian mercenaries, the stradioti, serve in the army of the Neapolis kingdom during the 15th century and take advantage of the professional opportunities that the Spanish army offers them.

In the middle of the 15th century a great number of the Greek-Albanian population from Northern Epirus migrate to Calabria and Sicily in order to escape from the Turks after the death of their leader Georgios Kastriotis or Skenterbeis, who was an ally of the Spanish. Bova, Messene, and later Mezzojuso will become important Greek colonies. During the same period, people from Chimara of Epirus settle in the eastern part of the kingdom, today's Terra di Otranto (Apulia). Greek colonies are created or re-created in Bari, Barletta and Brindisi. During the 16th and 17th century, groups of Greeks arrive in the kingdom because they were forced to abandon their region after unsuccessful revolts against the Turks. These revolts were incited and supported by Western princes as they aspired to territorial and consequently economic benefits in the Ottoman Empire.

Thus, on the occupation of Koroni by the Turks in 1534, Greeks from Patrai, Androussa, Methoni, Koroni and some other regions of the southwestern Peloponnese arrive in Neapolis on Spanish ships. During the two previous years, the Greeks had joined forces with the Spanish against the Turks. In a similar way, in the 1670's people from Mani arrive in waves in the eastern part of the kingdom of Neapolis, Apulia, after many years of negotiations with the Spanish. After the victory of the Turks on the Venetians in 1669, the situation becomes crucial for the Mani people which had developed strong anti-Turkish activity between 1640 and 1660. The situation of many Mani families became even more difficult due to the strifes between big Mani families. In spite of their reservations, the Spanish, in their effort to establish their domination in the region saw in the tough, mountaineer population a good ally.

At the end of the 17th century, merchants arrive in Neapolis from different parts of the Greek world despite the fact that the kingdom is distinguished mostly for its feudalistic structures and mercenary army than its mercantile economy. Apart from the Peloponnese and Epirus populations, from the 16th to the 19th century, Greeks from Crete -on its occupation by the Turks in 1669-, Smyrna, Constantinople, Macedonia, the Ionian islands, the Cyclades, the islands of Samos, Chios, the Dodecanese and Cyprus migrate to the kingdom of Neapolis.

Thus, during the period we study, the kingdom of Neapolis had a considerable number of Greek settlements in the countryside and the cities. However, it was mainly the Greek colony of Neapolis that thrived. Neapolis offered hospitality to Byzantine scholars and to Greeks of high social class. It was also the place where certain Greek merchants developed their activities.

The Greeks migrate to the northwestern part of the Italian peninsula, in Tuscany, between the 16th and 19th century. For the greatest part of the period that we study (1530-1735), the region is under the rule of the Italian family Medici which managed to unite the small states of Tuscany into the Grand Duchy.

The Greek colony of Livorno, the Tyrrhenian port, was significant. The first migrants arrive in Livorno in the second half of the 16th century. The Grand Duke, Cosimo I, which is crowned in 1561, needs the Greeks to fight piracy and to develop the commercial relationships of his country with the East. At the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, the Greeks are recruited in the mercenary battalion of "Santo Stefano of Pisa", which is constituted by Ferdinand I. This battalion takes part in the operations against the pirates of North Africa. In the 18th century, the impetus that is given to trade makes merchants and craftsmen of Greece settle in Livorno. Most of them come from Epirus, Central Greece and the Ionian islands, since the commercial relationships of these regions with Livorno had already started to develop because of the geographic proximity. In the 18th century, Greeks from other places of the Greek world, such as the Peloponnese, the Dodecanese, the eastern Aegean sea, Crete and other regions arrive in Livorno.

In the 1670's and 1680's people from Mani migrate to the countryside of Tuscany in order to escape from the oppression of the Turks and from the deadly hatred and strifes between Mani families. The Mani people arrive in Tuscany in waves and settle in the so-called "marshy land" of Tuscany. The princes hope that they will be able to use the settlers for the cultivation of this hazardous and thus unexploited land. However, many of the settlers are forced to move to the city of Livorno and to the kingdom of Neapolis because of the sordid living conditions and the hostile attitude of the natives.

In the 1670's, people from Mani migrate to the island of Corsica, after the defeat of the Venetians in the war against the Turks. At that time and until 1768, Corsica constitutes a possession of the Genoese democracy in northwestern Italy. Genoa aims at reinforcing the rural population of the island and intends to have the Mani people as loyal allies against the natives which refuse to subjugate to the Genoese domination. In 1676, after an agreement with the Genoese, a group of Mani people arrive at the port of Genoa; then they are transferred to Corsica. Initially, the new migrants settle on the west coast of the island.

Genoa had a Greek colony since the 13th century which faded with time. At the end of the 17th and during the 18th century the Greek colony of Genoa was reconstituted by merchants from Cephalonia and Chios. However, this colony was never an object of study by historians.

Apart from the settlements of scholars in the capital of Italy, Rome, there is insufficient information on the migrations of the Greek to the papal state of central Italy. There is little information on the port of Ancona in the Adriatic sea. According to this evidence, during the Byzantine epoch, in the beginning of the 12th century, half of the population of Ancona was Greek. In the mid-16th century, Greeks from Epirus (Argyrokastron, Arta, Avlona), but also from Koroni, Athens, Rhodes, Cyprus, Servia and Kastoria live in Ancona. These migrants are employed mainly in trade, since the 16th century is the period of trade prosperity in Ancona.

In the 18th century, and particularly in the second half, many Greeks arrive at the most northern part of the Italian peninsula. They settle in the north Adriatic port of Trieste, which is free since 1719, in order to be employed in trade. It is the period of the great development of trade between the Ottoman Empire and Austria after the treaties of Karlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718). By 1748, the settlement of Greeks in Trieste is limited and scarce. Later on, the empress Maria Teresa will be interested in making profit from the settlement of experienced Levantine merchants on the territories of her Empire.

During the years that follow, the number of migrants increases. Around 1750, over than a third of Greeks that live in Trieste, come from the Ionian islands that are under the Venetian rule. The rest have come from the Peloponnese, Missolonghi, Crete, Mytilene, Cyprus, Constantinople, Smyrna and other important commercial ports of the Ottoman Empire. Between 1770 and 1776, over than a third of the families that settle in Trieste come from the Peloponnese and migrate in order to escape from the Turkish reprisal, after their unsuccessful revolt against the Turks on the incitement of Russia (the so-called Orlov events). At the same period, Trieste also receives an unknown number of Greeks from Smyrna.

Between 1775 and 1785, the Greek population in Trieste doubles due to the arrival of migrants for which it is planned to settle in the neighbouring region, Aquileia, after the Orlov events, according to the privileges that the empress Maria Teresa had conferred to them; however the plan was not successfully carried out.

The plan of the Venetians for the settlement of 70 refugee families on the coast city of the region Istria, Pola, by giving them arable land failed too. This attempt was made around 1540 after the occupation of the Venetian possessions of Nauplion and Monemvasia by the Turks. In 1585, the Greeks abandon Pola under the strong reaction of the native habitants.

Finally, people from Rhodes along with the battalion of the Ioannina Knights arrive on the island of Malta since the battalion was obliged to yield Rhodes to the Turks in 1522. Malta was conceded to the Ioannina Knights by the Spanish king.