Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Friedrich August Flückiger
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    to the East about a.d. 1160-1173, also refers to it yielding mastich, which in fact has always been one of its most important productions, and from the earliest times intimately connected with its history. In the middle ages, the mastich of Scio was held as a monopoly by the Greek emperors, one of whom, Michael Paleologus in 1261, permitted the Genoese to settle in the island. His successor Andronicus II. conceded in 1304 the administration of the island to Benedetto Zaccaria, a rich patrician of Genoa and the proprietor of the alum works of Fokia (the ancient Pliocsea), north-west of Smyrna, for ten years, renouncing all tribute during that period. The concession was very lucrative, a large revenue being derived from the Contrata del Mastico or Mastich district; and the Zaccaria family taking advantage of the weakness of the emperor determined to hold it as long as possible. In fact they made themselves the real sovereigns of Scio and of some of the adjacent islands, and retained their position until expelled by Andronicus III. in 1329.1 The island was retaken by the Genoese under Simone Vignosi in 1346; and then by a remarkable series of events became the property of an association called the Maona. Many of the noblest families of Genoa enrolled themselves in this corporation and settled in the island of Scio ; and in order to express the community of interest that governed their proceedings, some of them relinquished their family names and assumed the general name of Giustiniani,2 This extraordinary society played a part exactly comparable to that of the late East India Company. In Genoa .it had its “ Officium Chii”; it had its own constitution and mint, and it engaged in wars with the emperors of Constantinople, the Venetians and the Turks, who in turn attacked and ravaged the mastich island and adjacent possessions. The Giustinianis regulated very strictly the culture of the lentisk and the gathering and export of its produce, and cruelly punished all offenders. The annual export of the drug was 300 to 400 quintals,3 which were immediately assigned to the four regions with which the Maona chiefly traded. These were Romania (i.e. Greece, Constanti- nople and the Crimea), Occidente (Italy, France, Spain and Germany), Vera Turchia (Asia Minor), and Oriente (Syria, Egypt and Northern Africa). In 1364, a quintal was sold for 40 lire ; in 1417, the price was fixed at 25 lire. In the 16th century, the whole income from the drug was 30,000 ducats (£13,750) 4 a large sum for that period. In 1566, the Giustinianis definitively lost their beautiful island, the Turks under Piali Pasha taking it by force of arms under pretext that the customary tribute was not duly paid.5 A few years before that 1 Friar Jordanus who visited Scio circa 1330 (?) noticed the production of mastich, and also the loss of the island by Martino Zaccaria.—Mirabilia dcscripta, or JFcmdcrs of the East, edited by Col. Yule for the Hakluyt Society, 1863. 2 Probably partly for the reason that the Giustiniani palace in Genoa had become the property of the Society. 3 An incidental notice showing the value of the trade occurs in the letter of Columbus (himself a Genoese) announcing the result of his first voyage to the Indies. In stating what may be obtained from the island of Hispaniola, he mentions—gold and spices . . and mastich, hitherto found only in Greece in the island of Scio, and which the Sig- noria sells at its own price, as much as their Highnesses [Ferdinand and Isabella] shall command to be shipped. The letter bears date 15 Feb. 1493. — Letters of Christ. Columbus (Hakluyt Society) 1870. p. 15. 4 The ducat being reckoned at 9s. 2d. 5 For further particulars respecting the history of Scio, the Maona, and the trade of the Genoese in the Levant, see Hopf in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopddr>'e, vol. 68 (Leipzig 1859) art. Giustiniani; also Heyd, Colonie commerciali degli Itallaniin Oriente i. (1866). ’