TO THE REPRESENTATIVE OF JESUS IN ROME, HIS HOLINESS CLEMENT VII.
AN ABOMINABLE ACT HAS BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST YOUR PERSON AND AGAINST YOUR CHURCH.
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MERCIFUl, AND THE COMPASSIONATE: I, SULEYMAN, WILL SEND MY FLEET TO ANCONA AS A SIGN OF MY PROTECTION AFTER YOUR APPEAL.
I AM SULEYMAN CONQUEROR OF CONQUERORS, SLAVE OF GOD. PROTECTOR OF MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS AND JEWS. IN MY NAME, THE HUTBE IS READ IN MECCA AND MEDINA PRAYERS ARE RECITED FOR ME IN THE SYNAGOGUES AND CHURCHES OF JERUSALEM AND ISTANBUL. IN IRAN, CENTRAL ASIA AND MESOPOTAMIA, I AM THE SHAH. IN CHRISTIAN LANDS I AM CAESAR. IN EGYPT, MY ADMIRALS SEND FLEETS TO THE SEAS OF EUROPE, AFRICA AND INDIA. I AM HE, WHO TOOK THE CROWN AND THRONE OF HUNGARY AND GRANTED THEM TO A GIFTED SLAVE. THE VOLVODA PYOTR OF RUSSIA, RAISED HIS HEAD IN REVOLT BUT MY HORSE'S HOOF GROUND HIM INTO THE DUST THUS SPEAKS SULEYMANN. AS GOD IS HIS WITNESS.
Author's note: The following signature is based on a photograph of Suleyman's Signature made from a document on file in Instanbul (where I went as part of my research into Suleyman's life.
Very interesting. Was this letter written to the pope in Latin? Can we have more information on the significance of Ascona?
ReplyDeleteJeanne
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
ReplyDeleteAll communiques between The Sublime Porte and the Vatican were in Latin and in French.
Ascona is indeed interesting because Sultana Roxelana's partner in the shipping business was Graca Mendes Nazy. a Portuguese Sephardic Jewess. Her nephew was one of Suleyman's most brilliant bankers and diplomats, Yusuf Nazy.
At the port of Ascona many ships owned by Graca Mendes Nazy carried Jewish and Christian refugees to Istanbul and its environs. Technically they held a laissez-passe from the Sultan himself thus making them citizens to all effects of his Empire, and therefore inviolate.
Graca Mendes Nazy was a shipping tycoon in merchant shipping, thanks to the backing of Suleyman and most importantly his Sultana Roxelana.
What Suleyman is referring to in his letter to His Holiness Clenent VII is another matter.
He was ready to dispatch his fleet led by none other than Barbarossa to Ascona, then Papal land in order to ensure the protection of the city from attack and plunder. It would also have served as a warning against further attacks on the Pope.
Contessa Isabella Vacani
This all reminds me of a parable whose origins are not clear precisely because it is a parable beloved and told by (some of the best) Jews and Muslims and Christians. Actually I first heard it from my high school German teacher, a Pennsylvania-German Protestant who told me it was a medieval German story. He was partly correct; this story was told in Medieval Germany, but it was imported to Germany by Christian Crusaders who learned it from Jews and Muslims in Palestine:
ReplyDeleteA Father (God) had three sons (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), and he loved them all equally - equally because true Love cannot be measured.
But His three sons all were jealous of each other, each one jealous to be the one most beloved by their Father. And they began to become hostile to one another, and to fight against one another, over the
question (THEIR question, not their Father's) of "Which one of us does our Father love best?"
So, the Father wore a ring, and on His ring there were some words inscribed in a language which none of the three sons could read. Only the Father could read what was written on His ring.
The Father said to his three sons,
"I have made some copies of my ring! And now I give a ring to each of you, my sons - a ring which looks just like My True Ring, with the same words inscribed on it. Now I want you all to know, that one of you might have my TRUE ring!
But I will let you all think about it for a long time, to debate among yourselves, which one of you has MY true ring? All three of your rings look alike, so can you guess which one of you has MY TRUE RING?
I will teach you a lesson, by allowing you to debate this question among yourselves, until I tell you the answer."
And then the three sons of the Father began to argue with each other, about which one of them had their Father's True Ring. And over the years, they often came to blows, to violence, and they wounded each other over this disagreement, for many years.
But then, after a while, the three sons got tired of fighting. And they began to understand how much they had in common - because they began to talk to each other and understand each other. And they were brothers after all. And they began to understand that they needed each other, and that they would be stronger if they became friends - as brothers should be - supporting each other against the REAL enemies who HATE the Father!
(Today their "enemies" would be materialists, cynical believers in economics, Marxists, neo-Nazis, GW Bush, President Ahmajenidad of Iran, Hollywood, the European Union, antisemites, "politically correct" hack intellectuals, and today's Government of Britain which has passed a law to allow cloning of Humans, and anti-semites and anti-Muslims and anti-Christians...)
...and then the three Brothers - all wounded from their wars against each other - came to their Father, and they all said to him:
"Father, please tell us, WHICH ONE of us has your True Ring?"
And the Father said:
"The mysterious words written on all of your rings, are the same words written on MY ring! All three of your rings are mere copies of MY ring! And the words on my ring - and on your copies of my ring - say: "He who loves his Brother, has the True Ring."
Author's Note:
ReplyDeleteOop! I made a typo. The port is ANCONA in the Marche region of Italy Not Ascona which is in Ticino, Switzerland.
During the Renaissance ANCONA and the Marche region belong to the POPE.
Contessa Isabella Vacani
John, that is a sublime story. Thanks for telling us. I am mot grateful
ReplyDeleteCiao.
Contessa Isabella Vacani regarding John Ball's story of the Three Brothers..