The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (19 page)

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 athlete 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.’

Skanderbeg finally left Rome on 14 February 1467, according to Lorenzo da Pesaro. Pesaro noted that ‘Scanderbeg departed today in despair, for he had not received any money from the pope. A cardinal gave him two hundred ducats… In jeering tones he said to a cardinal the other day that he would rather make war against the Church than on the Turk.’ Five days later Pesaro wrote that Skanderbeg left Rome ‘saying that he did not believe one could find greater cruelty anywhere in the world than among these priests!’. It seems that Skanderbeg’s departure from Rome was delayed because he could not pay his bill at the inn where he had been staying. After he had received 200 ducats from the cardinal he paid his bill, which left him only forty ducats when he set out for Naples. But at the last moment the Pope had a change of heart and gave Skanderbeg 2,300 ducats, ‘and so he went away’.

Skanderbeg fared somewhat better in Naples, where King Ferrante immediately gave him a small subsidy along with provisions and arms. He then returned to Albania, where he raised a force for the relief of Kruje, which was still being besieged by Balaban. Early in the spring of 1467 Skanderbeg defeated and killed Balaban, whose forces fled in disorder, after which he went on to put the Turkish fortress at Elbasan under siege.

Meanwhile, the Venetians had taken advantage of Mehmet’s absence in Albania to renew their offensive against the Turks, sending a fleet into the Aegean under Vettore Capello in 1466. Capello attacked and occupied the islands of Imbros and Lemnos, after which he sailed back and put Patras under siege. Ömer Bey, Mehmet’s commander in Greece, led a force to relieve the Turkish garrison in Patras, where he was was initially defeated by the Venetians and forced to flee. But then Ömer turned on his pursuers and routed them, forcing the Venetians to lift their siege of Patras and abort the rest of their campaign.

Their defeat at Patras led the Venetians to seek peace with Mehmet, and in December 1466 they sent Giovanni Capello to Istanbul, where he entered into negotiations with Mahmut Pasha. Mahmut demanded the return of Imbros and Tenedos as well as the payment of an annual tribute by Venice, and when Capello rejected this demand he was dismissed and returned to Venice.

Mehmet launched another expedition into Albania early in the spring of 1467. The campaign stemmed from the sultan’s rage when he learned that Skanderbeg had forced the Ottoman army to lift its siege of Kruje, according to Kritoboulos. He writes that when Mehmet arrived in Albania ‘he ravaged the whole of it rapidly, and subdued its revolted people, killing many of them. He devastated and plundered whatever he could get hold of, burning, devastating, ruining, and annihilating.’ Kritoboulos goes on to tell of how Mehmet pursued Skanderbeg, ‘who took refuge in the inaccessible fortresses in the mountains, in his customary retreats and abodes in the hills… The Sultan gave his soldiers permission to plunder and slaughter all the prisoners, and he sent up into the mountains the largest and most warlike part of the army, under Mahmud. He himself with the rest of the army, went on ravaging the rest of the country.’ But Skanderbeg, ‘when he learned that the mountains had been captured by the army, hastily fled, nor have I learned whither. And the Sultan, after ravaging and plundering the countryside, marched again to Kroues [Kruje]. On reaching there he camped before it, dug a trench, and completely surrounded the town with his army, placed his cannon in position, and besieged it.’

Mehmet withdrew his forces in the late summer of 1467, leaving Kruje and four other fortified towns - Shkoder, Drisht, Lezhe and Durres - in the hands of the Albanians and their Venetian allies. Skanderbeg made his way to Lezhe (Alessio), on the northern coast of Albania, where following a brief illness he died on 17 January 1478, after which he was buried in the church of St Nicholas. According to tradition, Skanderbeg’s last words were a plea to Venice, his ‘most loyal and powerful ally’, to protect Albania as well as his young son John.

Mehmet’s return to Istanbul was delayed by a terrible outbreak of the plague in the southern Balkans, which Kritoboulos writes of at the very end of his
History of Mehmed the Conqueror
, leading to the supposition that he himself was a victim of the epidemic.