»Inonderiano tutti doi la turchia como un mare«: lumea creștină, Persia și proiectele anti-otomane într-un episod din secolul al XVI-lea
»Inonderiano tutti doi la Turchiacomo un mare«: Christendom, Safavid Persia and the projects for an anti-ottoman alliance in a 1547 document

Summary/Abstract: The starting point of this paper is a dialogue between the grand vizier, Rüstem pasha, and the Habsburg ambassador to Constantinople, Gerhard Veltwyck. During Veltwyck’s audience, the grand vizier recalled an unpleasant memory of a previous encounter with another Habsburg emissary, the Polish nobleman Hieronymus Laski. Laski tried to gain the upper hand in negotiations by claiming that the Habsburg emperor had already sealed a treaty with the shah of Persia. As a result, the two emperors were going to attack the Ottomans from both sides, at the same time. To make his threat more vivid, Laski used the metaphor of the sea: “inonderianotuttidoi la Turchiacomo un mare”. Taking this visual image, the article analysis how the supposed alliance between Christendom and Safavid Persia was used as a diplomatic tool during the 1545-1547 Habsburg-Ottoman negotiations. On one side, the Habsburgs had the option to emphasise the Safavid card, as Laski had done, or to play it down, which was Veltwyck’s more diplomatic approach. On the other side, the Ottomans were rather less intimated by this alleged alliance and more curious to find out what the Western Christians knew about the shah’s military strength.

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