In his public and private projects he employed architects' irrigation engineers and agricultural experts he brought from Italy. Documents show that he invited missions from Tuscany to instruct the Lebanese farmer in improved methods of tilling the soil and made requests for cattle to improve the local breed. He embellished and fortified Beirut, where he built an elaborate residence with a magni- ficent garden. In this period the Capuchin mission entered Sidon and established centres in Beirut, Tripoli, Aleppo, Damascus and in certain villages of the Lebanon. The Jesuits and Carmelites entered the country about the same time. Fakhr-al-Din was on friendly terms with European missionaries, merchants and consuls, all of whom enjoyed the capitulations initiated by Sulayman. Consular reports show he protected European merchants in Sidon against pirates. Throughout his career he had Maronite counsellors and was sympathetic to Christians. Though he 'was never known to pray, nor ever seen in a mosque', he probably professed Islam openly and practised Druzism privately.
Fakhr-al-Din's prosperity, military might and negotia- tions with Europeans once again aroused the sultan's sus- picions. In 1633 the governor of Damascus was sent against him with a vast army supported by a fleet. The amir's subordinates began to desert him, his son fell in battle and his Italian allies ignored his pleas for aid. He fled to the mountains and hid for months in an almost inaccessible cave, but was at last discovered and led in chains to Con- stantinople, where he and his three sons were held as hostages. News that his relatives and followers were flouting authority doomed the hostages and they were beheaded in April 1635. The independent greater Lebanon of which he dreamed and which he successfully initiated was not to be fully realized until 1943.
Lebanon entered upon a period of anarchy following the death of Fakhr-al-Din. The Manids were persecuted by rival families and Ottoman governors and by 1697 the
