Note (1) — 57.—Of Constantinoppel.

(1.) “Pera, which the Greeks call Kalathan, and the Infidels call it the same.”—The Genoese were already established at Constantinople when Manuel I. ascended the throne (1143). Besides the emporium of Copario in the city of Constantinople, they possessed Orcu in the suburb of Galata (Heyd, Le Colonie Commer., etc., i, 330; Desimone, I Genovesi, etc., 217 et seq.), which they occupied during the reign of the Angelos dynasty, remaining there so long as the Latin Empire lasted, but without ever successfully rivalling the Venetians. After the restoration of the Greek Empire at Constantinople by Michel VIII. in 1261, their fortunes changed in consequence of the great privileges that were accorded to them by the emperor, which included the cession of the suburb of Galata, soon to become the central depôt of all their settlements in Greece, on the shores of the Black Sea and of the Sea of Azoff, a transfer which probably accounts for the appearance of “Mæotis palus, nunc Galatia”, in the list of new names supplied by Codinus (Hieroclis Synecdemus, etc., 313).