Note (1) — 8.—Of serpents and vipers.

(1.) “Italians of Genoa.”—It is not known when the Genoese founded a colony at Samsoun, which they called Simisso. Heyd (d. Ital. Handelscolon, etc., in the Zeitschrift f. d. gesam. Staatswissenschaft., xviii, 710) justly observes, that they must have been there previously to the year 1317, because the existence of a Genoese consul at Simisso at that date, is proved by the records of Gazaria. In the Regulations for Gazaria, 1449 (Zap. Odess., v, p. 629), no mention whatever is made of a consul being at Simisso; I cannot therefore agree with M. Heyd that the consulate was maintained until 1461, when Mahomet II drove the Genoese out of Samastris (Amastris), their principal port, and took possession of Sinope, where, to the year 1449, those Italians still had a consul (ibid., 809). The Genoese were driven out of Samsoun, in all probability in 1419, when that quarter of the town “occupied by infidels” was taken by Mahomet I (Hammer, ii, 180, 472, note xiv). At this period Schiltberger was still in Asia, and he appears to have been aware that the Genoese were obliged to quit the town. At any rate, in saying that the Italians of Genoa were still in possession of it, in the reign of Bajazet, he probably wished to intimate that they had quitted it at a later period.—Bruun.