Note 603 — Chapter VI · THE RULING INSTITUTION: AS GOVERNMENT

La Broquière, 182, estimated the sultan’s revenue in 1433 at 2,500,000 ducats. Chalcocondyles, 171, overestimated it at 8,000,000 ducats about the year 1465. Alvise Sagudino (quoted in Schéfer’s edition of Spandugino, p. lv) reckoned it in 1496 at 3,300,000 ducats; Andrea Gritti, father of Alvise, made it 5,000,000 in 1503 (ibid. lviii); Spandugino’s estimate, under Bayezid, was 3,600,000 (ibid. 132). Mocenigo, 54, set Selim I’s income at 3,130,000, besides 800,000 from the Persian conquests, all spent in Persia. Minio (1522), 71, estimated the revenue as 3,000,000. Zeno (1524), 95, called it 4,500,000, and the expenses 3,000,000. Bragadin (1526), 106, says that the treasury had an income of 12,000,000, of which the sultan took 4,500,000 (the larger amount would no doubt include the feudal income). Minio (1527), 115, states the income as 7,000,000. Zeno (1530), 121, gives 6,000,000 or more for the income, 4,000,000 for the expenses. Giovio (Commentaries, 73) sets the revenue at 6,000,000, and the expenses at 4,000,000 or 5,000,000. Postel, iii. 68, gives 4,000,000 on Alvise Gritti’s authority, though he apportions it differently from Junis Bey. D’Ohsson, vii. 258, says that Suleiman’s revenues rose to 26,000,000 piasters. At 40 aspers to the piaster and 50 aspers to the ducat, this gives about 20,000,000 ducats, which is far too much.