Foca

Foca is a town and region in Turkey's Izmir Province, on the Aegean coast. The town of Foca is arranged at around 69 km northwest of Izmir's downtown area. The area additionally has a township with its own district named Yenifoca, also along the shore and at a separation of 20 km from Foca appropriate. Therefore, Foca itself is locally regularly called as Eskifoca in day by day speech. The old city of Phocaea is situated between the two present day Focas.

Foca was assumed control by the Genoese in 1275 as a fief from the Byzantine head, and was a functioning Port amid the Middle Ages, mainly because of the district's rich alum saves. The alum mines of Foça were yielded before by the Byzantines in 1267 to the Genoese siblings Benedetto and Manuele Zaccaria. The Genoese controlled the city notwithstanding amid the Ottoman time because of the rent they had picked up from the Byzantines in 1275.

Another essential Byzantine admission to the Genoese through endowment was the close-by island of Lesbos, given to the Gattilusio family because of the marriage between Francesco I Gattilusio and Maria Palaiologina, sister of Byzantine ruler John V Palaiologos in 1355. The belonging of the Gattilusio family in the end developed to incorporate, among others, the islands of Imbros, Samothrace, Lemnos and Thasos, and the city of Aenos present day Enez in Turkey. From this position, they were intensely engaged with the mining and promoting of alum, helpful in material creation and a productive exchange controlled by the Genoese.