The Grand Turk Page 14
When the rosebud in the garden dons its coat
It fashions the buttons from rosebuds.
When in speech the tongue weaves roses and buds together
Its words are as nothing compared to her sweet lips.
When you stroll through the garden with a hundred coy deceits
The jasmine branches are so amazed at the sight that they sway with you.
When the dogwood sees the roses strewn in your path
Then it too strews its roses before you.
Until that rose-cheeked beauty comes to see the garden,
O Avni, may the ground be always damp with the tears of your eyes!
The most notable poet in Mehmet’s court was Ahmet Pasha, a decendant of the Prophet Mohammed, but even his work is lacking in originality. The same is true of two women poets of Mehmet’s reign, Zeynep Hatun and Mihri Hatun. Zeynep Hatun, who was notorious for her many scandalous love affairs, wrote a divan in Turkish and Persian that she dedicated to Mehmet II. Mihri Hatun, known as ‘the Sappho of the Ottomans’, wrote love poems that her contemporary biographer Aşık Çelebi described as purely platonic, for ‘not the slightest cloud darkened her reputation for virtue’. ‘Despite this poetic love,’ he writes, ‘this woman of the world ceded to the desires of no one, no lover’s hand touched the treasure of her maidenly charms, and no arm excepting her amber-scented necklace embraced her pure neck, for she lived and died a virgin.’
Several Italian artists were at one time or another resident at Mehmet’s court in Topkapı Sarayı. Early in 1461 Mehmet entered into correspondence with the condottiere Sigismondo Pandolpho Malatesta, lord of Rimini, whom Pope Pius II called the ‘prince of wickedness’. Mehmet asked that an artist be sent to do his portrait, and Malatesta sent the painter and medallist Matteo de’Pasti of Verona, a student of Pisanello who had long been resident at his court in Rimini. Matteo set off for Istanbul in September 1461, bearing with him two presents from Malatesta for Mehmet. One of these was a manuscript of De re militari, an illustrated work on warfare by Roberto Valturio, a humanist scholar in Malatesta’s court; the other was a detailed map of the Adriatic. Matteo’s ship was stopped off Crete by the Venetians, who arrested him and brought him to Venice, where the Council of Ten questioned him about his purpose in going to Istanbul, for Malatesta was suspected of planning to form an alliance with the sultan. Matteo was freed by the Venetians and by early January 1462 he was back in Rimini, having been prevented from reaching Istanbul. Nevertheless, Matteo did do a medallion portrait of Mehmet, in collaboration with the Burgundian painter Jean Tricaudet, though there is no evidence that either of the artists was ever in Istanbul.
Late in the 1470s Mehmet corresponded with King Ferrante of Naples, asking him to send an artist to do his portrait. Ferrante sent the painter Costanzo da Ferrara, who arrived in Istanbul in 1477 or 1478, remaining for a year or two. Costanzo did two versions of a medallion portrait of Mehmet, the first of which is now at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. The obverse of this medallion, dated 1481, is a bust of the sultan and the reverse shows him on horseback, both in left profile. The second version, which is the same except for minor details, was reproduced in many castings.
During the summer of 1479 Mehmet wrote to Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, inviting him to the circumcision of one of his grandchildren and also requesting that the Venetians send him ‘a good painter’. The doge politely declined the invitation to the circumcision, but, in consultation with the Signoria, he sent the painter Gentile Bellini to Istanbul. Apparently, Bellini’s visit to Istanbul was prompted by a letter written by Giovanni-Maria Angiolello, who writes in his Historia turchesca of the great pleasure that Sultan Mehmet took in looking at paintings. Angiolello says, ‘It was I who wrote to the illustrious government of Venice that they should send one of their best painters to Constantinople, and there was sent Gentile Bellini, a very expert painter, whom Muhammed [Mehmet] used to see freely.’
Bellini arrived in Istanbul in the autumn of 1479 and remained until the beginning of 1481. The only authenticated work from his stay is his famous portrait of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, now in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The portrait shows Mehmet in three-quarters left profile, with deep-set brown eyes, a particularly long and thin scimitar of a nose projecting over his tightly shut thin red lips, reminding one observer of ‘a parrot about to eat ripe cherries’, a reddish-brown beard pointed at the chin, his head covered by a multi-layered white turban with a red conical top, wearing a red kaftan with a broad fur collar.
Other works attributed to Bellini and dated from his stay in Istanbul include a double portrait of Mehmet and a young man, now in a private collection in Switzerland, and sketches of a janissary and a young woman, now in the British Museum. An album in the library of Istanbul University contains a miniature of the Virgin and Child that may have been painted by Bellini, since it is similar to a painting in the Berlin Museum signed by Bellini. Anecdotal evidence indicates that Bellini painted frescoes on the walls of a pavilion that Mehmet had erected in Topkapı Sarayı, probably the Fatih Köşkü in the Third Court, but these have vanished.
The Florentine artist Bertoldo di Giovanni was commissioned by Lorenzo de’Medici to do a medallion portrait of Sultan Mehmet, which was completed in 1480. The obverse shows Mehmet in left profile and may have been copied from Bellini’s portrait of the sultan. The reverse shows the figure of the sultan riding in a chariot drawn by two horses led by the running god Mars. The sultan is holding a rope that encircles three nude women carried on the rear of the chariot, each of them wearing a crown, inscriptions identifying them as Asia, Trebizond and Greece, the three empires conquered by Mehmet. The inscription on the obverse reads ‘Mehmet, Emperor of Asia, Trebizond and Greater Greece’, the latter term meaning the European dominions of the Byzantine Empire in its prime.
The Topkapı Sarayı Museum has a miniature watercolour portrait of the Conqueror ascribed to the Turkish artist Sinan Bey, who is believed to have studied with an Italian master. The portrait shows Mehmet in left profile seated in the oriental fashion, grasping a handkerchief in his left hand and with his right hand holding a rose up to his nose, the faintest of smiles lighting up his face.
Mehmet’s chief architect, known in Turkish as Atik Sinan, was probably a Greek known as Christodoulos. Mehmet commissioned him to build Fatih Camii, the Mosque of the Conqueror, whose plan derived from that of the Great Church of Haghia Sophia, basically a cube covered by a dome. Mehmet’s interest in other styles of architecture besides Turkish is evident in a remark of Angiolello, who says that the Conqueror built in the gardens of the Saray three pavalions, ‘one in the Persian-Karaman style, another alla turchesca, and a third alla greca’. The second and third of these can no longer be identified, but the first is certainly Çinili Köşk, the Tiled Pavilion, a building entirely Persian in its design and decoration.
Mehmet wrote to Sigismondo Pandolpho Malatesta asking for the services of the builder and sculptor Matteo de’Pasti, a follower of the great architect Leon Battista Alberti. When de’Pasti was prevented from reaching Istanbul by the Venetians, Mehmet contacted other disciples of Alberti, including Antonio Averlino, known as Filarete. It is possible that Filarete may have been involved in the design and construction of some of the buildings in Topkapı Sarayı. The Italian humanist Francesco Filelfo wrote to George Amiroutzes on 30 July 1465 to say that Filarete was about to sail to Istanbul, where he may have stayed on, since Italian sources do not mention him after that time. The symmetrical plan of Topkapı Sarayı resembles that of Filarete’s Ospedale Maggiori in Milan, which appears in his Trattato di architettura, a copy of which was found in the library of King Matthias Corvinus. Mehmet also invited the Bolognese architect Aristotele Fioravanti to Istanbul, but the Italian went instead to Moscow, where he worked on the Kremlin.
Mehmet’s grand vezir Mahmut Pasha rivalled the sultan himself as a patron of literature, though in Islamic letters rather than in Greek classics. As Hoca Saded
din wrote of Mahmut Pasha, referring to the ulema, or learned class of the empire: ‘The books and treatises written with his name bear witness to his inclination and care for the ulema.’ The works of only two of the scholars he supported have survived, those of the poet Enveri and the historian Şükrüllah.
Enveri composed a work entitled Düsturname (Book of the Vezir), completed in 1464, which he dedicated to his patron: ‘For the exalted Mahmut Pasha/I composed the Düsturname.’ The book is a verse epic in three parts, with the first giving the history of Muslim dynasties from the Prophet to the Ottomans, the second recounting the reign of the fourteenth-century emir Umur Bey of Aydın, and the third a history of the Ottoman sultans up to 1464, the last two sections devoted to the exploits of Mahmut Pasha. Enveri also wrote another work entitled Teferrücname, probably an account of the Ottoman campaign in Wallachia in 1462, but this has not survived.
Şükrüllah composed a world history in Persian entitled Behcetü’t-Tevarih (The Beauty of Histories), which he dedicated to his patron Mahmut Pasha, ‘the beam of the pillars of the kingdom, the flame in the skies of the Vezirate, the one who repairs the affairs of men, the Sultan of Vezirs in the world, the advisor of Beys and Sultans…’. The book is divided into twelve sections, giving the history of the world since the Creation, with emphasis on Muslim dynasties, the last section devoted to the Ottoman Empire.
The historian Tursun Beg, author of The History of Mehmed the Conqueror, also enjoyed the patronage of Mahmut Pasha. Tursun served as Mahmut’s secretary for twelve years, which he says ‘were the most pleasant of my life and passed with the fruits of [Mahmut Pasha’s] culture and the profits of his company’. Tursun was always at Mahmut’s side in the many campaigns that the grand vezir commanded, which gave him a unique perspective in describing these expeditions. He also served as secretary of the Divan, so that he had an insider’s view of internal politics in the reign of Mehmet the Conqueror. Halil Inalcık and Rhoads Murphey, in their translation of The History of Mehmed the Conqueror, write that ‘Tursun Beg’s history was written in the official literary prose style which was in the process of development in Ottoman government circles at that time; it can thus be regarded as one of the first and most important examples of fifteenth-century Ottoman historical writing’.
Other scholars who benefited from Mahmut Pasha’s patronage included the poets Hamidi, Halimi, Saruca Kemal, Hayati, Nizami and Cemali, all of whom wrote works in praise of the grand vezir. Mahmut Pasha also patronised distinguished scholars and promising students, particularly through the schools he founded, one of his protégés being the future grand vezir Karamani Mehmet Pasha. Tursun Beg, in the introduction to his history, quotes Mahmut Pasha as saying: ‘It is said that the best morals for Sultans, which are necessary for happiness in this and the next world and for proximity to God, prescribe the welcoming of and proximity to scholars and mystics.’
Mahmut Pasha founded two libraries, one attached to the medrese of his mosque complex in Istanbul and the other at his estate in Hasköy, twelve miles east of Edirne. The library of Mahmut Pasha’s medrese was one of the first two Ottoman libraries in Istanbul, the other being that of Sultan Mehmet at his mosque complex in Eyüp.
Theoharis Stavrides, in his biography of Mahmut Pasha, writes: ‘The contents of the libraries of his schools were geared towards the curriculum of that educational institution, which put emphasis on religious and legal studies, as well as on science and philosophy.’ One of the extant manuscripts known to have been in Mahmut Pasha’s personal library is al-Ağrad at-Tibbiya ve’l-mahabis al-Alaiya, a book on medicine by Ismail ibn Huseyin al-Jurjani (d. 1136), copied in AH 862 (AD 1458). According to Süheyl Ünver, several of the books from Mahmut Pasha’s personal library had gilded labels and headings as well as decorations, indicating that he was a collector of beautiful volumes. Mahmut Pasha wrote under the pen name of Adni in his Divan, which contains poems in both Turkish and Persian. His poetry is in the form of gazels, poems of five or more distichs, such as this example from the Divan:She made her lock of hair, as dark as the night, a curtain over her moon face.
Is there a day in which she does not turn the lover’s morning into night?
Both the sultan and the greatest of his grand vezirs were men of culture and patrons of the arts, and the Conqueror’s court in Istanbul rivalled in its brilliance that of Western princes of the European Renaissance. The Florentine humanist Giannozzo Manetti, writing two years after the Conquest, hailed Mehmet as ‘the young leader of the Turks, young in age, great in spirit, even greater in power’.
The Conqueror’s court reached its peak in 1465, which Mehmet spent taking his ease in the House of Felicity. After his description of Mehmet’s activities during his vacation from the wars he had fought in since his childhood, Kritoboulos concludes the account of this pleasant and fruitful year, the only tranquil period in the Conqueror’s tumultuous life, by noting: ‘While the Sultan busied himself and was occupied with this and similar studies, the whole summer passed, and the autumn; and so was ended the 6973rd year in all, being the fifteenth of the Sultan’s reign [AD 1465].’
9
The Conquest of Negroponte
After his year’s rest in Istanbul, Mehmet resumed his march of conquest in the spring of 1466, leading a campaign into Albania, where Skanderbeg, with Venetian reinforcements, was still holding out in his mountain fortress at Kruje. Kritoboulos describes the devastating total war waged by Mehmet in attacking the Albanians, whom he calls Illyrians.
He himself with the whole army moved in first into their lower lands, where the cavalry could act. This region he entirely overran and plundered…devastating the country, burning the crops or else gathering them in for himself, and destroying and annihilating. And the Illyrians took their children, wives, stocks and every other movable up into the high and inaccessible mountain fastnesses.
According to Kritoboulos, Mehmet ordered his light infantry and spearmen up into the mountains to pursue the Albanians, followed by the heavily armed units, until they finally trapped their quarry on the heights.
Then, with a mighty shout, the light infantry, the heavy infantry and the spearmen charged the Illyrians, and having put them to flight, they pursued with all their might, and overtook and killed them. And some they captured alive. But some of them, hard pressed by the heavy infantry, hurled themselves from the precipices and crags, and were destroyed… A very great number of the Illyrians lost their lives, some in the fighting, and others were executed after being captured, for so the Sultan ordered. And there were captured in these mountains about twenty thousand children, and women, and men. Of the rest of the Illyrians, some were in the fortresses, and some in other mountain ranges where they had fled with their leader, Alexander [Skanderbeg].
The advance guard of the Ottoman army under Balaban Bey then laid siege to Kruje, whose citadel was defended by 1,000 men under Baldassare Perducci and Gian-Maria Contarini, the Venetian commander in Albania, while Skanderbeg occupied a fortified camp near the lower city. Balaban’s troops suffered heavy losses in several assaults on the citadel, while at the same time they were attacked from the rear by Skanderbeg’s men.
When Mehmet arrived with the main Turkish army he saw that he would not be able to take Kruje without a prolonged and bloody campaign. And so he left Balaban to continue the siege while he withdrew with the main army to build a fortress some thirty miles to the south at Elbasan, which would be used as the main Turkish base for future campaigns in Albania. Mehmet then headed back to Edirne with the main army, leaving a garrison of 400 of his best troops in Elbasan.
A flood of Albanian refugees fleeing to southern Italy led to false reports that Skanderbeg had been defeated by Mehmet, who supposedly put thousands of Albanians to the sword and enslaved the rest. These reports prompted Pope Paul II to make another appeal to the Christian princes of Europe to unite against Mehmet, and late in 1466 he wrote to Duke Philip of Burgundy.
My dearest son: Scanderbeg, stalwart athl
ete of Christ, ruler of the great part of Albania, who has fought for our faith for more than twenty years, has been attacked by vast Turkish forces and now defeated in battle, stripped of all his dominions, and driven defenselesss and destitute to our shores. The Albanians, his fellow warriors, have been put to the sword, some of them reduced to abject slavery… Evils without number encompass them, but the Turkish ruler, victorious, proud, monstrous, equipped with greater forces than before, rushes forward to claim one land after another.
Late in the autumn of 1466 Skanderbeg made a hurried trip to Italy in search of aid against the Turks, particularly from the Pope. On 12 December the Mantuan ambassador reported the Albanian prince’s arrival in Rome: ‘The lord Scanderbeg arrived here Friday, and the households of the cardinals were sent out to meet him. He is a man of advanced age, past sixty; he has come with a few horses, a poor man. I understand he will seek aid.’
The Milanese ambassadors to Rome reported that the Pope was reluctant to give the Albanian prince substantial aid against the Turks while there was the threat of internal war in Italy, and they noted that Paul had asked Skanderbeg to write to his envoy in Venice of ‘how the pope refuses to give him any subvention to be used against the Turk in Albania unless he first sees such security in Italy that there is no likelihood of war here, and that all the other Italian powers are in accord on this, except that the Vatican seems rather to be holding back’.
On 7 January 1467 Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga wrote to his father, Marquis Lodovico II of Mantua, to report that he had attended a secret consistory that morning on the matter of aid to Skanderbeg, to whom the Pope was willing to give only 5,000 ducats. Cardinal Gonzaga wrote to his father again five days later to report that he had been to another consistory that morning, at which the Pope had discussed ‘the affairs of Scanderbeg, to whom will be given only the five thousand ducats’. Gonzaga went on to note that the Pope’s reluctance to give more aid was due to his uncertainty concerning internal affairs in Italy, and also because he was waiting to see how much help Skanderbeg would get from King Ferrante in Naples. Meanwhile, according to Gonzaga, Skanderbeg was waiting in Rome in hope of a larger contribution from the Pope, ‘but his Holiness wants to see what shape the affairs of Italy are going to take, for if there is to be a war, he intends that his first expenditure should be for his own protection… In the meantime Skanderbeg is much aggrieved and well nigh desperate.’