The cruelty and tyranny of Turkish sultans in renaissance novellas

Abstract

The subject of analysis in this paper consists of two renaissance novellas: the author of the first novella is the Italian renaissance writer Matteo Bandello, while François de Belleforest is the author of its French translation/adaptation and the author of the second novella which will be analyzed, and which was inspired by a renaissance tragedy. The main theme of both of the stories is the elimination of a potential pretender to the throne of the Ottoman empire: the first story details the fratricide which took place when Mehmed II took the throne, while the other tells of Suleiman the Magnificent's execution of his son Mustafa because of an alleged betrayal. After pointing out the basic characteristics of Bandella's renaissance novella, as well as the newly made "tragic tale" subgenre it belongs to, special attention will be paid to the ways in which Bandello and de Belleforest tell of historical events: storied of the cruelty and depravity of Turkish sultans are a special - even if only literary - way of dealing with the objective threat which the Ottoman empire posed to Europe. Aside from the visible ideological motives, in the case of these authors, and especially François de Belleforest, there is a detectable tendency towards approaching the genre of tragedy. In this case, tragedy is, first and foremost understood as the display of pathetic and painful images; which is displayed through the aesthetic of suffering and the emphasis on such images within the narrative.