The War of Cyprus in Venetian Apocalyptic Oracles

170 only in the context of an assumed apocalyptic significance delegated to Selim and his War of Cyprus.

171 turmoil since its foundation (see Chapter 1).⁴⁹⁵ Writing in 1539, Nicolò Zen, who would hold several offices as public servant throughout his life (including Minister of Waterways, Commissioner of Fortresses and reorganizer of the Arsenal), contrasted great powers, which began “without pomp, without concern for vain glory or needless expenses,” with the moral state of his time’s Venetians, who, Zen unmistakably alludes, “think only of idleness and pleasure, and then they come to value architects, songs, sounds, players, palaces, clothes, and having put arms aside.”⁴⁹⁶ Zen’s words paraphrase what some Venetians saw as a moral decay, a divorce from the traditional self-restraint, which was thought to have once governed the lives of Venice’s citizens. Then, when the peace was broken between the Serenità and the Ottoman Empire and the future was expected to hold scarcity of all kinds and, most importantly, bloodshed even perhaps in the terraferma, it seemed that time had come for Venice to pay for its sins.

Francesco Sansovino’s⁴⁹⁷ Lettera, o vero discorso sopra le predittioni le quali pronosticano la nostra futura felicità per la guerra del Turco l'anno 1570 (henceforth Lettera) and the Venetian alchemist Giovanni Battista Nazari’s⁴⁹⁸ Discorso della future et sperata vittoria contra il Turco (henceforth Discorso) of the same year give voice to exactly these fears and to an excitement about eschatological connotations the War of Cyprus invoked in the

495 Tafuri, Venice and the Renaissance, 1-13.

496 Ibid., 2.

497 Francesco Sansovino (1521-86) was the son of sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino (see Chapter 1).

Francesco was a man of letters and received humanist education in Bologna and Padua. His best-known work is Venetia, città nobilissima et singolare… (1581), which is quoted several times in Chapter 1 of this

dissertation.

498 Not much is known about Giovanni Battista Nazari except that he was an alchemist living in Brescia and his Della tramutatione metallica… (1572) was one of the most influential manuals for alchemist of its time.

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172 Venetian public. The Lettera, which undertakes to record, as its title promises, existing prophecies that could be interpreted as referential to the year 1570, begins with a strikingly dim conviction:

By the accidents that occur in [our] day[s], and which, with miraculous concordance unite everything together to the same end, it is seen that the Majesty of God wants a last king, [which] I do not call the Signoria (because it is not legitimate neither is it reasonable) but the tyranny of the House of Osman.⁴⁹⁹

Sansovino immediately explains what he means by this: “This infidel [...] is worth punishment from the Avenger God of unjust Princes when he moves without any foundation or reason to violate his infidel faith [by] breaking the treaties, on which, one can say, the ink has hardly dried”.⁵⁰⁰ Thus, Selim II, who “has become twice infidel” (divenuto doppiamente infedele) in violating the law of Islam by breaking the recently signed treaties with Venice, will in fact be the “last king” inasmuch as it is him in whom the House of Osman will end. However, this did not give reason for nonchalant joy and happiness as the expiry of the Ottoman dynasty inherently carried apocalyptic associations. The “Book of Daniel’s” prophesied “four empires,”

which would define the history of the world, received a new interpretation (among others, by the notable political philosopher Jean Bodin in the 1560s) from the beginning of the sixteenth century, namely that the last empire was the Ottoman Empire (e.g. Martin Luther saw in the

“Turks” the fourth beast of Daniel 7)⁵⁰¹ or that four pagan empires would be followed by a

499 M. Francesco Sansovino, Lettera o vero discorso sopra le predittioni fatte in diversi tempi da diverse persone le quail pronosticano la nostra futura felicità, per la guerra del Turco l’anno 1570 (Venice: 1570), fol. A2r.

500 Ibid., fol. A2r.

501 Miyamoto, “The Influence of Medieval Prophecies on Views of the Turks,” 135.

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173 fifth, this time a universal one,⁵⁰² which might be the continuation of ancient Rome, and that this was evidently the Ottomans.⁵⁰³ (The universal imperial claims of the Ottoman Empire, in Nazari’s fears, are already present in the presumed epithetic title of Selim II, who “call[s]

himself the Emperor of Emperors, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Lord of the Earthly Paradise and Jerusalem, Prince of Princes, [etc.]”.)⁵⁰⁴ Thus the advent of the last monarch of the last earthly “kingdom” would clearly bring on Apocalypse. However, before the world sees the Ottoman Empire pass, Venice in the year 1570, “which is very calamitous by the scarcity not only of bread but also of every other thing that human life necessitates,”⁵⁰⁵ will have to suffer even greater hardships. Who knows at what scale this war will be fought?

The Drago [dragon], in Nazari’s words, “threatens to devour Cyprus, Italy, and all the rest of Christendom.”⁵⁰⁶ Nazari’s argument for why all this suffering has to take place under the reign of Selim II (Perche tanto si sia ingrandito il Turco secondo) is more explicitly referential to his “beloved patria” (patria mia diletta),⁵⁰⁷ which, in the context of an assumed Christian moral decline has drawn the wrath of God upon itself:

502 Valensi, “The Making of a Political Paradigm,” 180.

503 “If there is anywhere in the world any majesty of empire and of true monarchy, it must radiate from the sultan. [...] It will be more appropriate, certainly, to interpret the prophecy of Daniel as applied to the sultan of the Turks.” Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, trans. Beatrice Reynolds (New York:

Columbia University Press, 1945), 291-93.

504 Giovanni Battista Nazari, Discorso della future et sperata vittoria contra il Turco (Venice: Sigismondo Bordogna, 1570), fol. A2r.

505 Sansovino, Lettera o vero discorso, fol. A2v.

506 Nazari, Discorso della future et sperata vittoria contra il Turco, fol. A4v.

507 Ibid., fol. A1v.

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174 The iniquity has grown much among our predecessors, and pride was much too,

and their pomposity, iniquity and impiousness, which altogether fuelled the wrath of the Great God to want (as is just) to punish the said sins by examining the iniquity of the fathers, and of the sons of three and four generations.⁵⁰⁸

According to Sansovino and Nazari, even though the War of Cyprus broke out at the time when the whole of Christendom had come to deserve divine punishment, in 1570 the tide could eventually turn in Christianity’s favor, as has been prophesied by so many an oracle. Sansovino claims that there had been three oracles of the “Turks” all sharing the same view about their future: Mohammed (here labelled as a Mago) prophesied that his “law” (legge) would last for a thousand years (predisse che la sua legge durerebbe mille anni), which term was just reaching its timely end. The second prophecy pointed to the fifteenth sultan in whom the House of Osman would meet its demise, and that this sultan was Selim II (Selim è il quintodecimo). Such prognostications are symptomatic of the time’s miscalculations in expecting any sultan to be the last in the row of Ottoman rulers. For instance, Heinrich Müller in his Türkische Historien (1563) also claims that all prophecies about the Ottomans show there would be no more than twelve emperors, and, according to his calculations, Süleyman was the eleventh.⁵⁰⁹ Although the eleventh in the row of Ottoman sultans was Selim II, the number of rulers was often miscalculated,⁵¹⁰ and from the beginning of his reign Selim was thought to be the one in whom the Ottoman dynasty would meet its fate. This is well illustrated where Sansovino inserts that

508 Ibid., fol. A2r.

509 Miyamoto, “The Influence of Medieval Prophecies on Views of the Turks,” 138.

510 Paolo Giovio’s portrait of the Ottoman Sultans, the Commentario de le cose de’ Turchi (1531), shows as well that the number of rulers was often miscalculated in the West. Giovio does not count Osman as one of the sultans, while considers Mustafa Çelebi (1393-1422) as a ruler under the name Calepino, who, despite never being a sultan was often added to Ottoman genealogies in the West.

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175 a “very famous” Armenian astrologer once told Sultan Süleyman that the empire would fall during his reign (predetto a Solimano passato, ch’il suo Regno mancherebbe nella sua persona), which the sultan objected by saying that it would take place during his successor’s reign (Non in me ma nel mio successore). Sansovino claims he had heard this story from a

“trustworthy person” who had spent eight or ten years in Constantinople and was a good friend of Rüstem Pasha.⁵¹¹ It is impossible to know who Sansovino’s source was, but given the word for word copies of the text in at least three different vernaculars in the 1570s, his clue is perhaps worth following up, even if speculatively. The “trustworthy person” Sansovino mentions could be Jean de la Vigne, who was not at all friends with Rüstem Pasha,⁵¹² but nevertheless held frequent meetings with him during the ten years of his service as the Constantinopolitan ambassador of Henry II of Valois. De la Vigne was in correspondence with his friend and colleague the French ambassador resident in Venice, Dominique du Gabre. The “French connection” may be justified by the fact that one year later the French humanist Michel Jove reproduced the same conversation between the astrologer and the sultan in his Vray Discours de la bataille des armes Christienne & Turquesque (1571).⁵¹³

511 Sansovino, Lettera o vero discorso, fol. A3v.

512 Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571) vol. 4, 697.

513 Here I quote the 1579 English translation: “And it might wel be applied which the Hebrewes or Iewes doe affirme of the Monarchie of Turkes, the which (say they) ought to take end at the fifteenth Lord the which is Selim, reigning at this present. A famous Astrologian of Armenica, saide unto Soliman, that the raigne of the house of the Ottoman should ende in his personne, to the which he answeared: Not in me, but in my successour, of the which the Turkes are in great doubt, according to a prophesie which thay haue saying, Our Empire shall come, a kingdome shall take it, figured by a red apple.” Anon., A Discourse of the bloody and cruell Battaile, of late loste by the great Turke Sultan Selim (London: Three Cranes in the Vintree by Thomas Dawson, 1579), B4-C1.

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176 The third prophecy is in fact one we find recorded in the Prognoma sive praesagium Mehemetanorum (1545) by Bartholomeus Georgijević, a former Ottoman slave, whose sixteenth-century best-seller turcica records the following (also copied verbatim in Sansovino’s Lettera):

The prophecy of the infidels in Turkish language:

Its interpretation follows.

Our emperor shall come, and will capture the kingdom of the foreign prince, and capture the red apple, bring it into his possession. If the Christian sword shall not arise within seven years, he shall rule for twelve year. He shall build the houses, plant vines, fence the garden, bring up children and after twelve years (since he had taken the apple into his possession) the Christian’s sword shall appear, who shall drive the Turks into flight.

It is to be noted that the prophecy is not to be read in the Koran, but in other books which have great authority and reverence. For they have all our prophets and many of theirs.⁵¹⁴

In Sansovino’s analysis, given the major historical facts about the Ottoman Empire, the prophecy suggests the year 1573 when the Ottoman Empire ceases to exist,⁵¹⁵ and the prognostications listed by Nazari point to various years from 1570 to 1583, though most of them to 1570. Georgijević’s prophecy copied by Sansovino is clearly a borrowing from the Pseudo-Methodius (13:17-18), where it referred to Christians and described the universal peace that would precede the terror inflicted upon Christians before the End:

[...] and moreover the Lord speaks thus in the Gospel: “For as in the days of Noah there were men eating and drinking, marrying and giving marriage, so it will be at the last day. In that peace, therefore, men will sit upon the earth with joy and gladness, eating and drinking to themselves, marrying and giving

514 Miyamoto, “The Influence of Medieval Prophecies on Views of the Turks,” 140.

515 Sansovino, Lettera o vero discorso, fol. A3v.

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177 marriage, jumping for joy and rejoicing, and constructing buildings, and there

will be no fear or worry in their hearts.⁵¹⁶

Although the genuineness of the Ottoman prophecy recorded by Georgijević is uncertain, and, consequently whether it was known in the Ottoman Empire at all is questionable, from either viewpoints the approaching end of the Ottoman dynasty, despite the “gran futura felicità”⁵¹⁷ and “universale pace”⁵¹⁸ expected by Nazari and Sansovino respectively seemed temporary, beyond which the inevitable Last Judgement would strike.

Zaccharia di Tommasi’s ⁵¹⁹I Felici Pronostichi da verificarsi, contro a’ Infedeli a Favor della Chiesa Christiana (1572)⁵²⁰ (henceforth Pronostichi) takes the narrative of the War of Cyprus even further toward an obvious eschatological end. Tommasi dedicates one of his canzoni to the topic of the War of Cyprus (Canzon sopra la Guera di Cipro), which reasserts what Sansovino’s and Nazari’s texts suggested. Tommasi in his prognostication admits that Venice’s victory is uncertain: “Surely, I hope to sing of your victory / In a happy and light-hearted style / Now that this time you might not have one [victory].”⁵²¹ As the time of this piece’s composition is uncertain (this volume was printed in 1572, but Joseph von Hammer

516 The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius: An Alexandrian World Chronicle, ed. Benjamin Garstad (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 131.

517 Sansovino, Lettera o vero discorso, fol. Bv.

518 Nazari, Discorso della future et sperata vittoria contra il Turco, fol. D3v.

519 Literally nothing is known about the poet except that he dedicated his “prognostications” to Doge Alvise Mocenigo (1570-77) and the Senate.

520 Zaccharia di Tommasi, I felici pronostichi, da verificarsi, contro a’ indefeli a favor della chiesa Christiana (Venice: Nicolò Beuilacqua, 1572).

521 Di Tommasi, I felici pronostichi, fol. F1r.

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178 lists it in his Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches with the publication date of 1571),⁵²² it is possible that Tommasi intended to write a vaticina ex eventu after 1571 or that the prognostication is a genuine one and was written during the war. In either case, the end of the poem is laden with strong eschatological expectations, whereby it is suggested that even if this particular battle is lost, Venice will eventually partake in the making of a universal empire, which will bring back, as is implied, Constantine’s time (Del verde Imperiale allor secondo / Di Constantine, le tempie t’ornerai).⁵²³ Tommasi envisions the “ferocious lion” of Venice re-united with the eagle (E al feroce Leon nelle tue Insegne / Congionta si vedrà l’ Aquila altera),⁵²⁴ and that all will join under the “green insignia” that is a reference to the “verde Imperiale” mentioned previously. The Pronostichi, clearly, exploits the double interpretability of this imagery: given the customary eagle figure featured in any empire’s coat of arms, the imperial eagle could be referential to that of Constantine the Great, who is explicitly named only a few lines earlier, and thus a strong implication to reclaiming Constantinople. At the same time, it could be interpreted as a reference to Philip II’s Habsburg Empire, which, as is well known, eventually did join forces with Venice in the Holy League (another indication of the text’s possible post eventu composition). But the intended complexity of the imagery should be understood in its entirety. The poem closes with a prayer to God against the “unjust people, who do not believe in your spirit” and for “victory and integral peace”⁵²⁵ for the Christians, and so it becomes obvious that in a subtle way what is alluded here is the ultimate re-conquest

522 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches: Grossentheils aus bisher unbenützten Handschriften und Archiven vol. 10 (C. A. Hartleben’s Verlage: Pest, 1829), 129.

523 Ibid.

524 Ibid.

525 Ibid. F1v.

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179 of Constantinople from the Ottomans in a joint effort with the Habsburgs, that is the fulfilment of a commonly known apocalyptic prophecy.

In document Submitted to the Medieval Studies Department and the Doctoral School of History at (Pldal 171-180)