lots was left out on Wiki.
Marco Antonio Bragadin, also
Marcantonio Bragadin (21 April 1523 – 17 August 1571), was a Venetian lawyer and military officer of the
Republic of Venice.
Famagusta's defenders made terms with the Ottomans before the city was taken by force, since the traditional laws of war allowed for negotiation before the city's defenses were successfully breached, whereas after a city fell by storm all lives and property in the city would be forfeit. The Ottoman commander
Lala Mustafa Pasha agreed that, in return for the city's surrender, all Westerners in the city could exit under their own flag and be guaranteed safe passage to
Venice-held Crete; Greeks could leave immediately, or wait two years to decide whether to remain in Famagusta under Ottoman rule, or depart the city for any destination of their choice. For the next four days, evacuation proceeded smoothly. Then, at the surrender ceremony on August 5
[3] where Bragadin offered the vacated city to
Mustafa, the Ottoman general accused him of murdering Turkish prisoners and hiding munitions. Suddenly, Mustafa pulled a knife and cut off Bragadin's right ear, then ordered his guards to cut off the other ear and his nose.
There followed a massacre of all Christians still in the city, with Bragadin himself most brutally abused.
[4] After being left in prison for two weeks, his earlier wounds festering, he was dragged round the walls with "sacks of earth and stone" on his back; next, he was tied to a chair and hoisted to the
yardarm of the Turkish flagship, where he was exposed to the taunts of the sailors.
[5] Finally, he was taken to his place of execution in the main square, tied naked to a column, and
flayed alive.
[6] Bragadin's
quartered body was then distributed as a war trophy among the army, and his skin was stuffed with straw and sewn, reinvested with his military insignia, and exhibited riding an
ox in a mocking procession along the streets of Famagusta.
Venetian chronicles claim the
Turks lost some 52,000 men in five major assaults,
[16] including the first son of the Turk commander,
Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha. The Venetian garrison lost nearly 8,000 soldiers and was reduced to just nine hundred soldiers, many of them wounded and starving (like the local civilians who in the last month were continuously begging Bragadin to surrender).
Bragadin's skin was later stolen from Constantinople's arsenal in 1580 by the young Venetian seaman Girolamo Polidori. He brought it back to Venice, where it was received as a returning hero. The skin was preserved first in the church of
San Gregorio, then interred with full honors in the
Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo,
[7] where it still is.
[8]
Turks on Cyprus -
The Turks decided to conquer Cyprus and on 27 June 1570 the invasion force, some 350–400 ships and 80,000–150,000 men, set sail for Cyprus. They besieged and destroyed the capital
Nicosia and other Venetian fortifications. The incomplete
Venetian walls of Nicosia were of no use in stopping the powerful Ottoman Army, and as many as 20,000 members of the garrison and citizens of the city were massacred
; 2,000 boys were spared to be sent as sexual slaves to Constantinople.[3]
Lala rode Marcantonio like a horse, in front of his soldiers on cobblestone; until his knees were bloody. (lots of the torture was left out)
Mustafa pulled a knife and cut off Bragadin's right ear, then ordered his guards to cut off the other ear and his nose. There followed a massacre of all Christians still in the city, with Bragadin himself most brutally abused. After being left in prison for two weeks, his earlier wounds festering, he was "dragged round the walls with sacks of earth and stone on his back; next, tied to a chair, he was hoisted to the yardarm of the Turkish flagship and exposed to the taunts of the sailors. Finally he was taken to the place of execution in the main square, tied naked to a column, and flayed alive."
[1] Bragadin's quartered body was then distributed as a war trophy among the army, and his skin was stuffed with straw and sewn, reinvested with his military insignia, and exhibited riding an ox in a mocking procession along the streets of Famagusta. The macabre trophy, together with the severed heads of general Alvise Martinengo, Gianantonio Querini and
castellan Andrea Bragadin, was hoisted upon the masthead pennant of the personal galley of the Ottoman commander, Amir al-bahr Mustafa Pasha, to be brought to Constantinople as a gift for Sultan Selim II.
Marco Antonio Bragadin, also Marcantonio Bragadin (21 April 1523 – 17 August 1571) was a Venetian lawyer and military officer of the Republic of Venice. Bragadin joined the Fanti da Mar (marine infantry) Corps of the Republic of Venice. In 1569, he was appointed Captain-General of Famagusta in...
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