FROM DRACULIA’S “AGENT” TO THE ATHLETA OF THE PAPACY
FROM DRACULIA’S “AGENT” TO THE ATHLETA OF THE PAPACY

Summary/Abstract: On July 1, 1475, before word spread about the Ottoman conquest of Genoese Caffa in the Crimea (June 6, 1475), Sultan Mehmed II’s answer to the defeat suffered by his army at Vaslui (January 10), Pope Sixtus IV issued an encyclical in support of Stephen III of Moldavia, the victor at Vaslui. The encyclical was preserved only in the copy sent to margrave of Mantua, Ludovico III il Turco Gonzaga. Sixtus IV asked the margrave to support Stephen. Ludovico was a Catholic prince and had to act accordingly. The pope had been informed by the new doge of Venice Pietro Mocenigo of the great threat faced by Stephen’s Moldavia. The same doge had used Stephen’s victory of Vaslui to conclude a truce with Mehmed, which allowed the sultan to take Caffa. The pope made no mention of such a Venetian-Ottoman arrangement.

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