Jem Sultan : the adventures of a captive Turkish prince in Renaissance Europe

379 Pages·2004·12.902 MB·English

by  John Freely

JEM SULTAN
The Adventures of
a Captive Turkish Prince
in Renaissance Europe
JOHN FREELY
HarperCollinsPz^/zs^ers
HarperCollins Publishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London w6 8jb
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPwfr/is/iers 2004
1
Copyright © John Freely 2004
John Freely asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
isbn 0 00 715066 0
Set in PostScript Linotype Minion
with Spectrum display by
Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd,
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers.
For Toots, Brendan and Ulrike
in memory of our journey together in search of Jem

Note on Turkish Spelling and Pronunciation
Throughout this book, modern Turkish spelling has been used
for most Turkish names and for things that are specifically Turk­
ish, with a few exceptions for Turkish words that have made
their way into English. Modern Turkish is rigorously logical and
phonetic, and the few letters that are pronounced differently than
in English are indicated below. Turkish is very slightly accented,
mostly on the last syllable, but all syllables should be clearly and
almost evenly accented.
Vowels are pronounced as in French or German, i.e.: a as in
father, e as in met, i as in machine, o as in oh, u as in mute. In
addition, there are three other vowels that do not occur in English;
these are: i pronounced as the u in but, 6 as in German or the
oy as in annoy, ii as in German or as the ui in suit.
Consonants are pronounced as in English, except the following:
c as j in jam, e.g.: cami (mosque) = jahmy
9 as ch in chat, e.g.: forba (soup) = chorba
g as in get, never as in gem
g is almost silent and tends to lengthen the preceding vowel
5 as in sugar, e.g.: fe$me (fountain) = cheshme

I would like to express my gratitude to those who helped me in
various ways in my work on this book: Anthony E. Baker, Ulrike
Ammicht and Dolores Freely for their photographs; Emin Saatci
for help with translations; Ulrike Ammicht for help with transla­
tions and computer graphics; Sinan Ozay for his help with com­
puter problems; Ronald Newburgh for the photograph of Jem’s
flfcfe; Dr Anthony Greenwood, Director of the American Research
Center in Istanbul, and Professor Gun Kut, Head Librarian of
Bosphorus University, for making all of the resources of their
libraries available for my research; Meral Bayiilgen, and Professor
Talat Halman for translating poems; Roderick Conway-Morris
and Roderick O’Connor for many illuminating discussions about
Jem; Marcel Chaussade for sharing with me his knowledge of
Jem’s life in Bourganeuf. Marcel in particular is to be thanked
for having preserved the local traditions concerning Jem and for
bringing them to life in the museum he has created in the Tower
of Zizim. I would also like to express my thanks to my agent
Derek Johns and my editor Michael Fishwick for their help in
bringing this book into being, and to Kate Johnson for her very
helpful editorial suggestions. I am also grateful to Cem Kozlu of
Turkish Airlines, and to Peter and Rose Lauritzen for their hospi­
tality at the Palazzo da Silva in Venice.

PROLOGUE xvu
1 The Grand Turk l
2 Death of the Conqueror 23
3 Flight into Egypt 39
4 Escape to Rhodes 58
5 The Castle of the Knights 71
6 Across the Mediterranean 89
7 La Belle Helene 103
8 La Dame a la Licorne 118
9 The Tower at Bourganeuf 135
10 Sold to the Pope? 152
11 From Bourganeuf to Rome 163
12 A Prisoner in the Vatican 182
13 A New Pope 199
14 In the Court of the Borgias 215
15 The French Invade Italy 236
16 A Captive of the French King 250
17 From Rome to Naples 267
18 From Naples to Istanbul 280