On the other side, Giovanni Bruni and his nephew Nicolò were galley slaves, most likely forced to help row the Sultana, the Ottoman flagship. After the battle they found themselves at the mercy of victorious Spanish soldiers eager for booty. According to a papal investigation, “although he shouted ‘I’m a bishop, I’m a Christian’, they refused to believe him, and instead they killed him with a pike.” Malcolm adds: “At the moment of Giovanni’s death, his brother [Gasparo] may have been less than a hundred yards away”, for the two flagships had been locked in mortal combat during the battle. Gasparo emerged wounded but alive, the sole survivor of his generation, his birthplace conquered. He ended his days as commendatore of the Knights of Malta.
The Turks rebuilt their fleet within a year, and were strong enough to capture the Spanish stronghold of Tunis only three years after Lepanto. Thereafter, however, they remained on the defensive in the Mediterranean, as naval campaigns were colossally expensive and both sides were preoccupied elsewhere. This was by no means the end of the Bruti-Bruni clan’s role in the web of diplomacy that preserved an uneasy peace until the “Long Ottoman War” with the Habsburgs in the 1590s. The theatre in which that war took place was quite different from the warm waters of the Adriatic and Aegean: the mountains and plains of Hungary, Transylvania and Wallachia. Malcolm’s narrative ranges widely across the continent, from Avignon to Moldavia, embracing a colourful cast including Tartars, Cossacks, Huguenots and Jesuits.
Gasparo Bruni’s son Antonio and Antonio Bruti’s sons, Bartolomeo and Cristoforo, to mention only the most prominent younger members of the dynasty, continued the tradition of service in the Venetian cause. Bartolomeo, indeed, rose to even greater heights of influence than his father and uncles, only to end his days strangled on the orders of a Moldavian despot. In 1596 Bartolomeo’s nephew Pasquale was the dragoman for Edward Barton, the English ambassador in Istanbul, as he accompanied Sultan Mehmed III on a Hungarian expedition. On this “peace mission” the last Bruti perished in Belgrade at the hands of Hasan Pasha, beylerbeyi (governor) of Rumeli, the province comprising much of the Ottoman Empire in Europe.
Meanwhile Antonio Bruni bequeathed a remarkable treatise on Rumeli, which distilled the accumulated experience of his kin. It was Malcom’s discovery of this forgotten yet fascinating text, to the existence of which he was alerted by references in a 16th-century bestseller (L’Ottomanno by Bruni’s friend Lazaro Soranzo), that triggered his interest in the author and led him to chronicle the impact of the clash of civilisations on one extended family.
At Lausanne last month, negotiations with Iran were short-circuited by impatient politicians, led by Barack Obama, intent on a deal at any price and prepared to lie about what had been agreed. The West has once again been outmanoeuvred in its pursuit of the chimera of playing off Persia, the great power of the Shia, against the Sunni Arabs and Turks. We could have done with a Bruti or Bruni: diplomats, dragomans and dealers with a foot in both camps but a firm allegiance to Christendom. From Lepanto to Lausanne, the threat of holy war still casts a long shadow.
The Turks rebuilt their fleet within a year, and were strong enough to capture the Spanish stronghold of Tunis only three years after Lepanto. Thereafter, however, they remained on the defensive in the Mediterranean, as naval campaigns were colossally expensive and both sides were preoccupied elsewhere. This was by no means the end of the Bruti-Bruni clan’s role in the web of diplomacy that preserved an uneasy peace until the “Long Ottoman War” with the Habsburgs in the 1590s. The theatre in which that war took place was quite different from the warm waters of the Adriatic and Aegean: the mountains and plains of Hungary, Transylvania and Wallachia. Malcolm’s narrative ranges widely across the continent, from Avignon to Moldavia, embracing a colourful cast including Tartars, Cossacks, Huguenots and Jesuits.
Gasparo Bruni’s son Antonio and Antonio Bruti’s sons, Bartolomeo and Cristoforo, to mention only the most prominent younger members of the dynasty, continued the tradition of service in the Venetian cause. Bartolomeo, indeed, rose to even greater heights of influence than his father and uncles, only to end his days strangled on the orders of a Moldavian despot. In 1596 Bartolomeo’s nephew Pasquale was the dragoman for Edward Barton, the English ambassador in Istanbul, as he accompanied Sultan Mehmed III on a Hungarian expedition. On this “peace mission” the last Bruti perished in Belgrade at the hands of Hasan Pasha, beylerbeyi (governor) of Rumeli, the province comprising much of the Ottoman Empire in Europe.
Meanwhile Antonio Bruni bequeathed a remarkable treatise on Rumeli, which distilled the accumulated experience of his kin. It was Malcom’s discovery of this forgotten yet fascinating text, to the existence of which he was alerted by references in a 16th-century bestseller (L’Ottomanno by Bruni’s friend Lazaro Soranzo), that triggered his interest in the author and led him to chronicle the impact of the clash of civilisations on one extended family.
At Lausanne last month, negotiations with Iran were short-circuited by impatient politicians, led by Barack Obama, intent on a deal at any price and prepared to lie about what had been agreed. The West has once again been outmanoeuvred in its pursuit of the chimera of playing off Persia, the great power of the Shia, against the Sunni Arabs and Turks. We could have done with a Bruti or Bruni: diplomats, dragomans and dealers with a foot in both camps but a firm allegiance to Christendom. From Lepanto to Lausanne, the threat of holy war still casts a long shadow.
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