Suleyman the Magnificent: Christopher de Bellaigue (1534)
Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Lion House
There was no shortage of extraordinary rulers in the sixteenth century: Ivan the Terrible towered over Russia, England had its own Gloriana, Elizabeth I, Charles V governed the vast Holy Roman Empire, while in India, the Emperor Akbar transformed Mughal culture. But every one of these mighty potentates cowered in the shadow of the man who ruled the Ottoman Empire between 1520 and 1566 - Suleyman the Magnificent, ‘lord of lords, master of the celestial conjunction’ and territories that stretched from Baghdad to Bulgaria.
Feared and admired in equal measure, Suleyman was the Sultan who got closest to the ‘golden apple’, the fabled pot of gold at the end of Islamic rainbow representing unlimited wealth and power, and ultimately, the defeat of Christian forces and domination of the heart of Europe.
He conquered the island of Rhodes and much of Hungary, only facing defeat at the gates of Vienna in 1529. To the south and west, he expanded his empire to cover much of the Middle East and North Africa at the expense of the Persian Safavids, while his navy, under the brilliant Admiral Barbarossa, fought Portuguese forces for trade routes in the Indian Ocean.
In his compelling new book, The Lion House, the award-winning writer and expert on the Islamic world, Christopher de Ballaigue takes us deep inside the Ottoman corridors of power in this dramatic period of their history.
Focusing on the wide and rich range of primary sources, he tells the extraordinary stories of the major figures at Suleyman’s court and their interactions with foreign powers with vivid intensity and immediacy. In his capital Istanbul, remnants of the Christian, Byzantine past lay all around. In the ancient church of St John, elephants, tigers and other exotic beasts roamed where the monks once celebrated mass, locals got used to hearing their howls and screams. The Lion House, as it was called, is a metaphor for the splendid but vicious world of the court where everyone was out for themselves and trust was in very short supply.
Fittingly, in this episode we travel back to the Islamic year 941 which straddles 1534/5 of our own calendar, a particularly deadly year in Suleyman’s reign when the loss of several influential people allowed him to consolidate his power and enter a new phase of his rule. Christopher took me on this travel through time the other day.
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Show Notes
Scene One: Transylvania. The death of Alvise Gritti, son of the Venetian Doge, merchant, millionaire and chief procurer of everything from guns to parmesan at the Ottoman Court, at the hands of the Hungarians.
Scene Two: Baghdad. Having recently taken the city, Suleyman awakes from a nightmare in which his treasurer Iskender Celebi, who has recently been hung on the Sultan’s order, tries to strangle him.
Scene Three: Baghdad. Suleyman receives a letter from his beloved wife Hurrem, back in Istanbul, reminding him of the delights of home.
Memento: The extraordinary solid gold quadruple crown made in Venice for the Sultan, valued at 144,000 ducats and dripping with unimaginable jewels.
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Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Christopher de Ballaigue
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Unseen Histories
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About Christopher de Bellaigue
Christopher de Bellaigue is the award-winning author of five books, including The Islamic Enlightenment, which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2017.
As a reporter in the 1990s and 2000s, he covered the politics and invasions that shaped Turkey, the Middle East and South Asia for, among others, the Economist, Guardian and New York Review of Books. He has also made television and radio programmes and has lectured at universities and in boardrooms around the world.
Featured Images
Representation of the Turkish Empire by the Flemish geographer and scholar Abraham Ortelius (1527-98)
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