Ottoman conquest of Otranto: Difference between revisions
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==Aftermath== |
==Aftermath== |
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{{See also|Portuguese expedition to Otranto}} |
{{See also|Portuguese expedition to Otranto}} |
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The number of citizens, said to have been nearly 20,000, had decreased to 8,000 by the end of the century.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Andrews |first1=Robert. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P9QjDraE3zkC&dq=800+beheaded+otranto+rough+guides&pg=PT49 |title=Puglia Rough Guides Snapshot Italy |last2=Belford |first2=Ros |last3=Buckley |first3=Jonathan Buckley |last4=Dunford |first4=Martin |last5=Jepson |first5=Tim |last6=Ratcliffe |first6=Lucy |last7=Woolfrey |first7=Celia |publisher=Rough Guides |year=2012 |isbn=9781409362333 |location=United Kingdom |language=}}</ref> 500 [[Sipahi]]s settled in Otranto by [[Gedik Ahmet Pasha]] went into the service of |
The number of citizens, which is said to have been nearly 20,000, had decreased to 8,000 by the end of the century.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Andrews |first1=Robert. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P9QjDraE3zkC&dq=800+beheaded+otranto+rough+guides&pg=PT49 |title=Puglia Rough Guides Snapshot Italy |last2=Belford |first2=Ros |last3=Buckley |first3=Jonathan Buckley |last4=Dunford |first4=Martin |last5=Jepson |first5=Tim |last6=Ratcliffe |first6=Lucy |last7=Woolfrey |first7=Celia |publisher=Rough Guides |year=2012 |isbn=9781409362333 |location=United Kingdom |language=}}</ref> The 500 [[Sipahi]]s settled in Otranto by [[Gedik Ahmet Pasha]] went into the service of Ferdinand when the control of the region passed to the Kingdom of Naples. With those 500 Sipahis, the kingdom dominated during other wars in Italy. |
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The Ottomans |
The Ottomans also briefly held Otranto once more after they conquered it in 1537.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=7vDVDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22ottoman%22+%22conquered%22+%22otranto%22&pg=PA74 The Sultans of the Ottoman Empire By Doç. Dr. Raşit GÜNDOĞDU]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ITWFAAAAIAAJ Discovering Turkey Page 63]</ref> |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
Revision as of 16:10, 17 May 2023
Battle of Otranto | |||||||
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Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe and Ottoman–Hungarian Wars | |||||||
![]() Castle of Otranto | |||||||
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Gedik Ahmed Pasha | |||||||
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Garrisoned forces surrender |
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Otranto_cathedral_martyrs.jpg/250px-Otranto_cathedral_martyrs.jpg)
The Ottoman invasion of Otranto occurred between 1480 and 1481 in the city of Otranto, in Apulia, southern Italy. Forces of the Ottoman Empire invaded and laid siege to the city and captured it on 11 August 1480. The Ottomans established their first outpost in Italy.[4] According to a traditional account, more than 800 inhabitants were beheaded after the city had been captured.[5][6] The Martyrs of Otranto are still celebrated in Italy. A year later, the Ottoman garrison surrendered the city after a siege by Christian forces, uncertainty upon the death of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and the intervention of papal forces that were led by Paolo Fregoso of Genoa.
Background
The attack on Otranto was part of an abortive Ottoman attempt to invade and conquer Italy, especially Rome. In the summer of 1480, a force of nearly 20,000 Ottomans, under the command of Gedik Ahmed Pasha, invaded southern Italy. The first part of the plan was to capture the port city of Otranto. The 15-year war between]] the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Sultanate, the two dominant powers in terms of trade and military force, over the Mediterranean Sea, including the Black Sea, had just resulted in the Treaty of Constantinople. Sultan Mehmed II had declared himself "Kaysar-i Rûm" after he had taken Constantinople in 1453. He restored the Greek Orthodox Church but banned the Catholic Church.
Invasion of Italy
Siege
On 28 July, an Ottoman fleet of 128 ships, including 28 galleys, arrived near the Neapolitan city of Otranto. Many of the troops had come from the 1480 Siege of Rhodes. The garrison and the citizens of Otranto retreated to the city's castle. On 11 August, after a 15-day siege, Gedik Ahmed ordered the final assault. When the walls were breached the Ottomans methodically passed to house to house and sacked, looted and set it on fire. Upon reaching the cathedral, "they found Archbishop Stefano Agricolo, fully vested and crucifix in hand" to be awaiting them with Count Francesco Largo, the garrison commander, nd Bishop Stefano Pendinelli, who distributed the Eucharist and sat with the women and children of Otranto while a Dominican friar led the faithful in prayer. A total of 12,000 were killed and 5,000 were enslaved, including victims from the territories of the Salentine Peninsula around the city, and the cathedral was turned into a mosque.[7]
Martyrs of Otranto
The Martyrs of Otranto were collectively canonised as saints by the Roman Catholic Church on 12 May 2013.[8] Their remains are claimed to be stored today in Otranto Cathedral and in the Church of Santa Caterina a Formiello, in Naples.
The traditional Christian historiography has come under criticism by later historians.[9] Recent scholarship has questioned whether conversion was imposed as a condition for clemency.[9] Although one contemporary Ottoman account justifies the massacre on religious grounds, Ilenia Romana Cassetta writes that it seems rather to have been a punitive action whose goal was intimidation.[10]
Stalled advance
In August, 70 ships of the fleet attacked Vieste. On 12 September, the Monastero di San Nicholas di Casole, which had accommodated one of the richer libraries of Europe, was destroyed. By October, attacks had been conducted against the coastal cities of Lecce, Taranto and Brindisi.
However, the lack of supplies made the Ottoman commander, Gedik Ahmed Pasha, not consolidate his force's advance. Instead he returned with most of his troops to Albania and left a garrison of 800 infantry and 500 sipahi behind to defend Otranto. It was assumed that he would return with his army after the winter.
Catholic response
Since only 27 years had passed since the Fall of Constantinople, there was some fear that Rome would suffer the same fate. Plans were made for the Pope and the citizens to evacuate the city. Pope Sixtus IV repeated his 1471 call for a crusade. Several Italian city-states, Hungary and France responded positively. The Republic of Venice did not do so, as it had signed an expensive peace treaty with the Ottomans in 1479.
In April 1481, Sixtus IV called for an Italian crusade to liberate the city, and Christian forces besieged Otranto in May. An army was raised by King Ferdinand I of Naples, to be led by his son Alfonso, Duke of Calabria. A contingent of troops was provided by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
Recapture
Between August and September, King Ferdinand of Naples, with the help of his cousin Ferdinand the Catholic and the Kingdom of Sicily, attempted to recapture Otranto.[11] The Christian forces besieged the city on 1 May 1481. Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror was preparing for a new campaign on Italy but lost his life on 3 May. The succession issues prevented the Ottomans from sending reinforcements to Otranto. After negotiation with the Christian forces, the Ottomans surrendered in August, left Otranto in September 1481 and ended the 13-month occupation.
Aftermath
The number of citizens, which is said to have been nearly 20,000, had decreased to 8,000 by the end of the century.[12] The 500 Sipahis settled in Otranto by Gedik Ahmet Pasha went into the service of Ferdinand when the control of the region passed to the Kingdom of Naples. With those 500 Sipahis, the kingdom dominated during other wars in Italy.
The Ottomans also briefly held Otranto once more after they conquered it in 1537.[13][14]
See also
- History of Islam in southern Italy
- Martyrs of Otranto
- Da Vinci's Demons (fictional work, part of which portrays the invasion)
References
- ^ Encyclopædia Americana, Volume 9
- ^ The Ottoman Empire: A Short History Page 44
- ^ Csaba Csorba; János Estók; Konrád Salamon (1999). Magyarország Képes Története. Budapest, Hungary: Magyar Könyvklub. p. 62. ISBN 963-548-961-7.
- ^ Savvides, Alexios, and Photeine Perra. "Hospitallers and Ottomans Between the Two Great Sieges of Rhodes (1480–1522/1523) 1." In The 1522 Siege of Rhodes, pp. 11-39. Routledge, 2022.
- ^ "Pope canonises 800 Italian Ottoman victims of Otranto". BBC News. 12 May 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ "HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS". www.vatican.va. 12 May 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ Paolo Ricciardi, Gli Eroi della Patria e i Martiri della Fede: Otranto 1480–1481, Vol. 1, Editrice Salentina, 2009
- ^ "Martyrs of Otranto, entire village that chose death instead of renouncing their faith". Rome Reports. Archived from the original on 7 June 2013. Retrieved 10 May 2013.
- ^ a b Nancy Bisaha (2004). Creating East And West: Renaissance Humanists And the Ottoman Turks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 158.
Recently, though, historians have begun to question the veracity of these tales of mass slaughter and martyrdom. Francesco Tateo argues that the earliest contemporary sources do not support the story of the eight hundred martyrs; such tales of religious persecution and conscious self-sacrifice for the Christian faith appeared only two or more decades following the siege. The earliest and most reliable sources describe the execution of eight hundred to one thousand soldiers or citizens and the local bishop, but none mention a conversion as a condition of clemency. Even more telling, neither a contemporary Turkish chronicle nor Italian diplomatic reports mention martyrdom. One would imagine that if such a report were circulating, humanists and preachers would have seized on it. It seems likely that more inhabitants of Otranto were taken out of Italy and sold into slavery than were slaughtered.
- ^ Ilenia Romana Cassetta, ELETTRA ercolino, "La Prise d'Otrante (1480–81), entre sources chrétiennes et turques", in Turcica, 34, 2002 pp. 255–273, pp. 259–260: "L'unique historien qui décrit la chute de la ville et le meurtre d'un grand nombre d'habitants est Ibn Kemal. Il justifie le massacre des chrétiens par des motivations religieuses. En réalité, cet événement semble avoir eu davantage un caractère punitif et d'intimidation qu'une connotation religieuse." (p. 259)
- ^ G. Conte, Una flotta siciliana ad Otranto (1480), in "Archivio Storico Pugliese", a. LXVII, 2014
- ^ Andrews, Robert.; Belford, Ros; Buckley, Jonathan Buckley; Dunford, Martin; Jepson, Tim; Ratcliffe, Lucy; Woolfrey, Celia (2012). Puglia Rough Guides Snapshot Italy. United Kingdom: Rough Guides. ISBN 9781409362333.
- ^ The Sultans of the Ottoman Empire By Doç. Dr. Raşit GÜNDOĞDU
- ^ Discovering Turkey Page 63
Further reading
- Hubert Houben, ed. La conquista turca di Otranto (1480) tra storia e mito: atti del convegno internazionale di studio, Otranto–Muro Leccese, 28–31 marzo 2007. 2 vols. Galatina, 2008.
External links
- En.otrantopoint.com
- Zum.de
- Borghitalia.it
- Castellipuglia.org
- Uni-mannheim.de
- Cronologia.leonardo.it
- Museomuro.it
- How the Eight Hundred Men of Otranto Saved Rome