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promoted an anti-French alliance in the time of Charles VIII and was
then to ally herself with Louis XII against Ludovico il Moro. Suspicions
even hung in the air about her in connection with the landing by the
Turks at Otranto, or a few years later in 1484 when a naval squadron
was intercepted, that, in violation of the blockade decreed by Isabella of
Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, was taking supplies to the Moors in
the port of Almeria (p. 40). Or even against Lorenzo de’ Medici who went
as far as to coin a medal to celebrate Mehmed II’s action at Otranto. And
again, for example, we might think of the behaviour of Frederick II
Gonzaga, considered a man for sale, a traitor due to his about-turns
between the French and the Emperor in the years 1526-1527.
For many Italians of the time, the Turks were preferable. They were
preferred by the Pisans in comparison to the Florentines: they would
have handed themselves to the Turk or they would have had themselves
killed rather than be brought under the Florentine yoke again, on the
sidelines of the arrival of Charles VIII. Even for the people of Puglia, who
had known Turkish domination in Otranto, they were preferable to the
French: in 1499, while the danger of Louis XII hung over them, a
Neapolitan ambassador declared to the cardinal Ascanio Sforza: «we
prefer the Turks to the French, because the Turks leave us in our
homes, provided that we pay them a tribute; but the French do not do
the same» (p. 73). And what can be said of Ludovico il Moro who,
commenting on the situation of Naples when it was threatened by
Charles VIII in 1494, admitted: «if I were in King Alfonso II of Aragons’s
place, I would not only call on the Turks, but the devil as well» (p. 56).
He who had previously attempted an alliance by a female route, asking,
as a widower that he then was, for the hand of the daughter of Bayezid
II in marriage. He later really did make the appeal in 1499, invoking the
aid of the Sultan against Venice, the ally of the French, in an attempt
to drive off Louis XII who was by then master of Milan. His Ottoman
plans were discovered and Ludovico il Moro was mocked especially in
Venetian circles: besides, his nickname lent itself easily to jokes and
derision. It was even said of Pope Alessandro VI Borgia that «it was
better the government of the Turk than of the priests» (p. 84).
Without going quite so far, even the Popes indeed appealed to the
Turks, while in between times they announced crusades, as was the
case of Pope Pius II, the humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini, and
Alessandro VI, the worldly Rodrigo Borgia. All this serving to
demonstrate that in this game one group or other belonging to
Christendom or Islam was completely unimportant. The former became
Pope in 1458, a few years after the fall of Constantinople, and, in a fit
of pessimism, he dreamed up an unscrupulous manoeuvre: «now the
empire of the Turks is beginning» he declared, expressing his concern
about Ottoman successes against the Byzantines (p. 17). What would

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVI - Aprile 2019 n.45
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)