Petros Lantzas

Did You Know?

• An archival document suggests Petros Lantzas may have been the illegitimate son of Venetian Captain General Benedetto da Pesaro, not a Lanza at all.
• In 1574, an anonymous letter to the Venetian provveditore accused Lantzas of selling munitions to the Turks for his own profit and called for his assassination.

Early years

Petros Lantzas was born on Corfu, then part of the Republic of Venice. The Lantza family, of western European origin, had been settled on Corfu for several centuries. Before moving to Corfu, they were likely among the Albanian aristocratic families near Butrint and allied with John Zenevisi in the late 14th century. After the Ottoman conquest in the 15th century, they settled in Corfu.

Russian historian Vladimir Lamansky noted a comita Lanza in Venetian records from 1394 who was an ally of Zenevisi and had close relations with Venice; this figure may be the same as Gjin (Ghin) Lanza, listed among Albanian noblemen considered Venetian allies. Murzaku (2009) proposed that Pietro Lanza was a native of Himara. Andrea Lanza, Petros's grandfather, was appointed castelanno in 1499 and governor of Parga in 1500. His father was a priest on Corfu.

His son Georgios served as governor of Parga in 1544–1545. Contemporary sources variously describe Lantzas as Greek, as part of the local Greek Corfiot nobility, or avoid characterizing him as part of the local Corfiot Greek population. During the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1570–1573, he supported the rebellion of Emmanuel Mormoris in Ottoman-ruled Epirus, raiding Turkish ships near Lepanto and Preveza and attacking inland as far as Delvinë. After the successful siege of Sopot on 10 June 1570, he continued his activities with support from the Greek element of Epirus.

On 22 November 1571, he supported the Venetians in the successful siege of Margariti castle. At the war's end in 1573, the Venetians appointed him governor of Parga.

In Spanish service

Lantzas then served the Spanish as a corsair and spy. In July 1576, he went to Himara, where the local population was willing to revolt; together with Himara rebels, he successfully attacked the Ottoman fortress of Sopot. His assignment included supervising Ottoman and Venetian military movements and directing the shipment of weapons, provisions, spies, and saboteurs to Epirus, Constantinople, and other Ottoman territories. He led pirate raids against Ottoman ships, and from 1577, by orders of the governor of Bari and Otranto, began attacking Venetian ships, causing diplomatic tensions between Habsburg Spain and Venice.

Venice attempted to assassinate him. In 1578, he was dismissed as captain of the royal frigates but continued serving the Viceroys of Naples into the first decade of the 17th century. That same year, under his guidance, plans were proposed to the Viceroy of Naples and King Philip II for a military intervention supporting a Greek insurrection in Cyprus, occupied by the Ottomans since 1571. Later, he proposed moving to Constantinople for clandestine operations; in 1608, he devised a plan to assassinate the Ottoman sultan by placing a present containing explosives before him. Lantzas died on 26 February 1613 during a trip to Ragusa on the Adriatic shore.