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Creating East and West
Renaissance Humanists and the
Ottoman 'lurks
Naney Bisaha
PENN
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
Philadelphia
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Copyright ©2004 University ofPennsylvania Press
Allrights reserved
Printed inthe United States ofAmerica on acid-free paper
10 9 765 4 3 2 I
Published by
University ofPennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-40II
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in -Publication Data
Bisaha, Nancy.
Creating East andWest: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks/ Nancy Bisaha.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8122-3806-0 (alk.paper)
1.East andWest. 2.Humanists. 3.Turkey-History-Ottoman Empire, 1288-1918. I.
Title.
CB251.B572004
956.1'0151'004-dc22 2004043021
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For myparents)
J
Joseph Bisaha (I929 - I988)
and
J.
Victoria Bisaha
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Contents
TIME LINE OF IZEY EVENTS IN THE OTTOMAN ADVANCE IX
INTRODUCTION
I. CRUSADE AND CHARLEMAGNE:
MEDIEVAL INFLUENCES 13
2. THE NEW BARBARIAN: REDEFINING THE TURIZS IN
CLASSICAL TERMS 43
3. STRADDLING EAST AND WEST: BYZANTIUM AND GREEIZ
REFUGEES 94
4. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES AND INTERPRETATIONS 135
EPILOGUE: THE RENAISSANCE LEGACY 174
NOTES 189
BIBLIOGRAPHY 273
INDEX 301
ACIZNOWLEDGMENTS 307
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Time Line of Key Events in the
Ottoman Advance
1302 Death of Osman, founder of the Ottoman Dynasty
Ottomans allywith Byzantine Empire and begin establishing
afoothold in Europe
Battle of Kosovo
Crusade of Nicopolis defeated by Ottoman forces
1400-1402 Byzantine emperor Manuel II visits Western courts seeking
aid against the Ottomans
1439 Union between Eastern Orthodox and Latin churches pro
claimed at the Council of Florence
1444 Crusade ofVarna defeated byOttoman forces under Murad II
1451-81 Reign of Sultan Mehmed II
1453 Constantinople besieged and captured byMehmed II
1458-64 Reign of Pope Pius II; Congress of Mantua (1459-60) and
aborted crusade that ends in Ancona with Pius's death
1463 Bosnia annexed by Ottoman Empire
1463-79 Venice at war with Ottoman Empire
1470 Loss ofVenetian colony of Negroponte to Ottoman forces
1480 Rhodes successfully defended by Knights of Saint John;
Otranto in southern Italy fallsto Ottoman invaders
1481 Otranto recovered by Christian forces
1499-1503 Venice at war with Ottoman Empire
1529 Vienna besieged by Suleiman I; successfully defended by
Christian forces
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Introduction
INTHESPRINGOF 1453MEHMEDII, the clever and ambitious young sul
tan of the Ottoman Empire, was laying siege to Constantinople, the still
formidable capital of the waning Byzantine Empire. Despite some help
from Western European fighters primarily from Venice and Genoa, the
Greeks were heavily outnumbered: approximately seven thousand fighting
men within the cityfaced an army ofeighty thousand camped without and
armed with powerful cannons. Despite the city's redoubtable three sets of
land walls and seaward walls, the courageous leadership of its emperor,
and the military expertise of its soldiers and sailors, Constantinople could
not resist Mehmed's overwhelming assault power. Mter an intense, yet
brief siege the city fell to the Ottomans on 29 May and was brutally
sacked.' In keeping with Islamic tradition, athree-day pillage was granted
to the soldiers. Hundreds of citizens and soldiers managed to escape by
ship, but most of the population were enslaved and their houses and
churches looted." Approximately four thousand inhabitants were killed in
the siege; countless women and boys were raped. The last Byzantine em
peror, Constantine XI Palaeologus Dragases, died while attempting to de
fend the walls of his city, dramatically hurling himself into the fray rather
than fleeing, according to several accounts. (Mehmed reportedly had his
head stuffed and sent around to Muslim courts to regale them with his
victory.) Afewhours after the citywastaken, Mehmed entered in triumph.
In only seven weeks the twenty-one-year-old sultan had accomplished a
feat that had eluded numerous commanders before him. Given itsstrategic
and symbolic import, the city became the new capital of the Ottoman
Empire.
Western powers slowlymustering reliefforces, secure in the beliefthat
the city could withstand a siege of several months, were stunned by the
news. The broader populace, particularly in Italy, was equally horrified;
Roman citizens were so shocked that they refused to believe the news at
first." Accounts circulating in the West fed popular anxiety by depicting
the sack as one of the bloodiest and most inhumane acts of history. The
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2 Introduction
Venetian Senate, for example, exaggerated tales of casualties by reporting
that all inhabitants over the age of six had been slaughtered. Numerous
laments were penned in Latin and the vernacular alike, and rumors
abounded that Mehmed would not be content with the prize ofthe "new
Rome" and would soon attempt to conquer the old Rome."
Humanists asagroup responded to news of the sackwith great emo
tion. Calling the Turks "the most inhuman barbarians [immanes barbariJ
and the most savage enemies of the faith," Cardinal Bessarion exclaimed,
"Men have been butchered like cattle, women abducted, virgins ravished,
and children snatched from the arms of their parents. If any survived so
great a slaughter, they have been enslaved in chains so that they might be
ransomed for aprice, or subjected to every kind of torture, or reduced to
the most humiliating servitude.?" In addition to the loss oflife, humanists
lamented the desecration of churches and the irreparable damage to fa
mous buildings and libraries. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius
II) labeled the fall of Constantinople a "second death for Homer and a
second destruction of Plato."> Hence, in the midst of a golden age of
learning and the arts, Renaissance Europeans battled fears that a hostile,
Islamic enemy to the East could at any moment destroy their world and
hurl them back to the "dark ages."
The events and rhetoric surrounding II September 2001 serve as a
grim reminder of just how powerful the perceived opposition between
East and West continues to be-both for the Muslim extremists who
planned the attacks and for the American and European politicians who
responded with broad insinuations about the savagery ofthe Muslim East.
Before this date, intellectuals had an open forum to argue leisurely about
whether stark divisions ofanykind mirror cultural realities, man-made and
simplistic as they are? Recent events, however, have revealed how easily
such reductive rhetoric isresurrected, be it the West asthe Great Satan or
evilcrusader, the East as the intolerant and cunning foe, or the "clash of
civilizations.t " The broad appeal of such biting sophistry ispart and parcel
of deeply rooted cultural constructs.
The myth of East and West as polar opposites was introduced over
two thousand years ago bythe Greeks and adapted bythe Romans." From
about the eleventh century on, Europeans used the terms "Christian" and
"Infidel" to articulate this renewed sense of cultural division.'? By the
modern colonial period Western European powers had come to view
themselves as superior to Eastern peoples both militarily and culturally.
Today, ofcourse, the question ofEast and West isreceiving renewed atten-
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