autonomous ruler. His southward expansion brought under his command castles which since Crusading days had dominated strategic roads and sites. The acquisition of the rich Biqa increased his income enough to enable him to organize a trained disciplined army, with a core of pro- fessional soldiers, to supplement the old irregulars whose chances of standing against Janissaries were nil. The income left was enough to employ spies in his rivals 5 and enemies' courts and to bribe Ottoman officials. Another source of revenue was the trade he encouraged especially with the Florentines, whose ships offered Lebanese silk, soap, olive oil, wheat and other cereals a lucrative foreign market. In 1608 the lord of Lebanon signed with Ferdinand I, the Medici grand duke of Tuscany, whose capital was Florence, a treaty containing a secret military article clearly directed against the Ottomans. Thereupon the sultan, prompted by the Turkish governor of Damascus, resolved to take action against his audacious vassal and put an end to his separatist and expansionist policy.
An army from Damascus was unable to surmount the mountain barrier, but the appearance of a fleet of sixty galleys to blockade the coast prompted a prudent retire- ment. Fakhr-al-Din spent the years from 1613 to 1618 in instructive travels in Italy and Sicily but was disappointed in his hope of returning home at the head of an expeditionary force provided by the European powers and the pope. On his return to Lebanon he re-established his rule and even extended his realm. In 1624 the sultan acknowledged Fakhr-al-Din as lord of the Arab lands from Aleppo to the borders of Egypt, under Ottoman suzerainty. This diminu- tive man, whose enemies described him as so short that if an egg dropped from his pocket to the ground it wouldn't break, was the only one able to maintain order, administer justice and insure regular taxes for himself and the sultan.
During his remaining eleven years Fakhr-al-Din was free to pursue his ambitious dream of modernizing Lebanon.
