Alfredo MANTOVANO
How the Eight
Hundred Men of Otranto Saved Rome
from: Il Foglio,
August 14, 2007.
"Ready to die a thousand times for Him..."
On
July 6, 2007, Benedict XVI received a visit from the prefect of the congregation
for the causes of saints, cardinal José Saraiva Martins, and authorized the
publication of the decree of authentication for the martyrdom of blessed Antonio
Primaldo and his lay companions, "killed out of hatred for the faith" in Otranto
on August 14, 1480.
Antonio Primaldo's is the only name that has come
down to us. His companions in martyrdom were eight hundred unknown fishermen,
craftsmen, shepherds, and farmers from a small town, whose blood, five centuries
ago, was shed solely because they were Christian.
Eight hundred men, who
five centuries ago suffered the treatment reserved in 2004 for the American
antenna repairman Nick Berg, captured by Islamic terrorists in Iraq and killed
to the cry of "Allah is great!" His executioner, after cutting his jugular, drew
the blade around his neck until his head was detached, and then held this up as
a trophy. Exactly as the Ottoman executioner did in 1480 to each of the eight
hundred men from Otranto.
There is a prologue to this mass execution. In
the early morning hours of July 29, 1480, from the walls of Otranto there could
be seen on the horizon an approaching fleet composed of 90 galleys, 15
galleasses, and 48 galliots, with 18,000 soldiers on board. The armada was led
by the pasha Ahmed, under the orders of Mohammed II, called Fatih, the
Conqueror, the sultan who in 1451, at just 21 years of age, had become head of
the Ottoman tribe, which had replaced the mosaic of Islamic emirates a century
and a half earlier.
In 1453, at the head of an army of 260,000 Turks,
Mohammed II had conquered Byzantium, the "second Rome," and from that moment he
developed the plan of wiping out the "first Rome," Rome true and proper, and of
turning Saint Peter's basilica into a stall for his horses.
In June of
1480, he judged the time was right to go into action: he lifted the siege from
Rhodes, which was defended courageously by its knights, and directed his fleet
toward the Adriatic Sea. His intention was to land at Brindisi, which had an
excellent, spacious harbor: from Brindisi, he planned to move northward up Italy
until he reached the see of the papacy. But a strong contrary wind forced the
ships to touch ground fifty miles to the south, and to disembark in a place
called Roca, a few kilometers from Otranto.
1.
Otranto was - and
is - the easternmost city in Italy. It has a rich history: the immediate
vicinity was probably inhabited in the Paleolithic period, and certainly from
the Neolithic age. It was then populated by the Messapi, a race prior to the
Greeks that was conquered by them, migrated to Magna Graecia, and fell into the
hands of the Romans, becoming a Roman town.
The importance of its harbor
had given it the role of a bridge between East and West, a role consolidated on
the cultural and political level by the presence of an important monastery of
Basilian monks, the monastery of San Nicola in Casole, of which a couple of
columns remain on the road that leads to Leuca.
In 1095, in its splendid
cathedral church built between 1080 and 1088, the blessing was imparted to the
twelve thousand crusaders who, under the command of prince Boemondo I
d'Altavilla, were leaving to liberate and protect the Holy Sepulcher in
Jerusalem. And on his return from the Holy Land, it was in Otranto that saint
Francis of Assisi landed in 1219, and was received with great honor.
When
the Ottomans disembarked, the city's garrison numbered just 400 men at arms, so
the captains of the guard quickly sent a missive asking for help to the king of
Naples, Ferrante d'Aragona.
With the castle under siege and all the
city's inhabitants inside it, the pasha Ahmed, through a messenger, proposed a
surrender with advantageous conditions: if they did not resist, the men and
women would be set free and would not face any sort of punishment. The response
came from one of the city's leading citizens, Ladislao De Marco: if the
assailants wanted Otranto, he let it be understood, they would have to take it
by force.
It was intimated to the messenger that he should not come
back, and when a second messenger arrived with the same proposal for a
surrender, he was riddled with arrows. To remove any doubt, the captains took
the keys to the city gates, mounted a tower, and in the sight of the people cast
them into the sea. During the night, many of the soldiers of the guard lowered
themselves over the city walls with ropes and fled. Only the inhabitants
remained to defend Otranto.
What followed was a relentless siege: the
Turkish bombardment rained down upon the city hundreds of huge stones (many of
these can still be seen along the streets of the city's historic center). After
fourteen days, at dawn on August 12, the Ottomans focused their fire on one of
the weakest points along the walls: they opened a breach and poured into the
streets, massacring anyone in their path, and came to the cathedral, where many
had taken refuge. They broke down the doors and flooded into the temple, where
they found the archbishop, Stefano, who was there in his pontifical vestments
and with the crucifix in his hand. To the order that he no longer speak the name
of Christ, because from that moment Mohammed was in command, the archbishop
responded by exhorting the assailants to conversion, and at this his head was
cut off with a scimitar.
On August 13, Ahmed asked for and obtained a
list of the captured inhabitants, excluding the women and the boys under the age
of 15.
2.
This is the account by Saverio de Marco in the
"Compendiosa istoria degli ottocento martiri otrantini [A brief history of the
eight hundred martyrs of Otranto]" published in 1905:
"About one hundred
men were presented to the pasha, who had at his side a miserable priest named
Giovanni from Calabria, an apostate from the faith. He employed his satanic
eloquence for the goal of persuading the Christians that they should abandon
Christ and embrace Mohammedanism, sure of the good graces of Ahmed, who would
grant them their lives, possessions, and all the benefits they enjoyed in their
homeland: otherwise they would all be massacred. Among those heroes was a man
named Antonio Primaldo, a tailor, advanced in age but full of religion and
fervor. In the name of all, he replied: ‘Would that all believed in Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, and were ready to die a thousand times for him'."
The first of the chroniclers, Giovanni Michele Laggetto, adds, in the
"Historia della guerra di Otranto del 1480 [Story of the war of Otranto in
1480]," transcribed from an ancient manuscript and published in 1924:
"And turning to the Christians, Primaldo spoke these words: ‘My
brothers, until today we have fought in defense of our homeland, to save our
lives, and for our earthly governors; now it is time for us to fight to save our
souls for our Lord. And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we
should die for him, remaining firm and constant in the faith, and with this
earthly death we will earn eternal life and the glory of martyrdom.' At these
words, all began to shout with one voice and with great fervor that they wanted
to die a thousand times, by any sort of death, rather than renounce Christ."
Ahmed condemned all the eight hundred prisoners to death. The following
morning, they were led with ropes tied around their necks and their hands bound
behind their backs to the Hill of Minerva, a few hundred meters outside of the
city. De Marco writes: "All of them repeated their profession of the faith and
the generous response they had given at first, so the tyrant commanded that the
decapitation should proceed, and, before the others, the head of the elderly
Primaldo should be cut off. Primaldo was hateful to him, because he never
stopped acting as an apostle toward his fellows. And before placing his head
upon the stone, he told his companions that he saw heaven opened and the
comforting angels; that they should be strong in the faith and look to heaven,
already open to receive them. He bowed his head and it was cut off, but his
corpse stood back up on its feet, and despite the efforts of the butchers, it
remained erect and unmoving, until all were decapitated. The marvelous and
astonishing event would have been a lesson of salvation for those infidels, if
they had not been rebels against the light that enlightens every man who lives
in the world. Only one of the butchers, named Berlabei, believed courageously in
the miracle and, declaring himself a Christian in a loud voice, was condemned to
be impaled."
During the beatification process for the eight hundred, in
1539, four eyewitnesses spoke of the prodigy of Antonio Primaldo, who remained
standing after being decapitated, and of the conversion and martyrdom of the
executioner. This is the account of one of the four, Francesco Cerra, who in
1539 was 72 years old: "Antonio Primaldo was the first to be slaughtered, and
without his head he remained upright on his feet, nor could any of the efforts
of the enemy knock him down, until all were killed. The butcher, stunned by the
miracle, confessed that the Catholic faith was the true one, and insisted on
becoming a Christian, and for this the pasha condemned him to death by
impaling."
Five hundred years later, on October 5, 1980, John Paul II
visited Otranto to remember the sacrifice of the eight hundred. It was a
splendid, sunny morning on the plain below the Hill of Minerva, which was
renamed the Hill of the Martyrs in 1480. The Polish pope took the occasion to
issue an invitation as relevant today as it was then: "Let us not forget the
martyrs of our times. Let us not behave as if they did not exist."
The
pope exhorted his hearers to look overseas, and expressly recalled the
sufferings of the people of Albania, subjected to one of the most ferocious
realizations of communism, although no one was paying attention to them at the
time. He emphasized that "the blessed martyrs of Otranto have left us two
essential gifts: love for one's earthly homeland and the authenticity of the
Christian faith. The Christian loves his earthly homeland. Love of country is a
Christian virtue."
3.
The sacrifice of the eight hundred men of
Otranto was not important solely on the level of faith. The city's two-week
resistance permitted the army of the king of Naples to organize and to approach
that area, blocking the eighteen thousand Ottomans from invading the entire
region of Puglia.
The chroniclers of the time do not exaggerate when
they affirm that the safety of southern Italy was guaranteed by Otranto: and not
only that, if it is true that news of the city's fall initially induced the
reigning pope, Sixtus IV, to plan to move to Avignon, in the fear that the
Ottomans might draw nearer to Rome.
The pope renounced this intention
when king Ferrante of Naples charged his son Alfonso, the duke of Calabria, to
move to Puglia, and entrusted to him the task of reconquering Otranto. This took
place on September 13, 1481, after Ahmed had returned to Turkey and Mohammed II
had died.
What makes this extraordinary episode so significant, even for
today's European, is that in the history of Christianity there has never been a
lack of witnesses to the faith and to civic values, nor has there been a lack of
men who have courageously confronted extreme trials. But there has never been an
episode of such vast collective proportions: an entire city that at first
battles as it is able and survives for a number of days under siege, and then
firmly rejects the proposal to abjure the faith. On the Hill of Minerva, apart
from the elderly Antonio Primaldo, no other individual personality emerged, if
it is true that the names of the other eight hundred martyrs are unknown: proof
of the fact that it was not individual heroes, but rather an entire population
that faced the trial.
All of this also took place because of the
indifference of the political leaders of Europe at the time, in the face of the
Ottoman menace.
In 1459, pope Pius II had convened a congress in Mantua
to which he invited the heads of the Christian states, and in the introductory
address had outlined their faults in the face of the Turkish onslaught. But
although it was decided at that meeting that war should be waged to contain the
onslaught, nothing happened afterward, because of the opposition of Venice and
the disinterest of Germany and France.
After the Muslims conquered the
island of Negroponte, which belonged to Venice, a new alliance proposed by Pope
Paul II was undermined by the lords of Milan and Florence, who were eager to
gain from the critical situation in which Venice found itself.
During
the next decade, with Sixtus IV who became pontiff in 1471, there was the
assassination of Galeazzo Sforza, the duke of Milan; the anti-Roman alliance in
1474 among Milan, Venice, and Florence; the Florentine Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478
and the war that followed between the pope and the king of Naples on one side,
and Florence, Milan, Venice, and France on the other... All of this brought
great advantage to the Ottomans, as Ludwig von Pastor writes in his "History of
the Popes": "Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had warned Ferrante not join in the
games and ambitions of the foreigners, was the very one who appealed to Venice
to strike an agreement with the Turks and spur them on to assault the Adriatic
coast of the kingdom of Naples, for the purpose of upsetting the plans of
Ferdinando and his son. [...] Venice, which signed a truce with the Turks in
1479, adhered to the plan of Lorenzo the Magnificent in the hope of turning
toward Puglia the Muslim tide that at any moment could attack Dalmatia, where
the Venetian flag of Saint Mark was raised. [...] And the men of Lorenzo the
Magnificent did not even hesitate [...] to solicit Mohammed II to invade the
territory of the king of Naples, reminding him of the various injuries he had
received from him. But the sultan had no need of this advice: he had been
waiting for 21 years for the right moment to land in Italy, and until then it
had been Venice, his direct adversary on the sea, that had been preventing
this."
4.
Even if history never exactly repeats itself, it is
nevertheless not arbitrary to gather analogies and comparisons from its
developments: exactly one thousand years after 480, the year of the birth of
Saint Benedict of Norcia - a humble monk to whose work Europe owes so much of
its identity - other lowly men understood Europe better than their leaders did,
men who were more ready to fight each other than to confront the common enemy.
When the inhabitants of Otranto found themselves facing the Ottoman
scimitars, they did not find in the disinterest of their kings a reason to quit
themselves; strong in the culture in which they had been raised, although many
of them had never learned the alphabet, they were convinced that resisting and
not abjuring the faith was the most natural choice. Try talking today with a
Western soldier who has returned from a mission in Iraq or Afghanistan: what one
hears most frequently is their amazement at the discussions and the endless
disagreements over our presence in those regions. For these soldiers, it is
natural that they should go to help those in need of support, and guarantee the
security of reconstruction against terrorist attacks.
In Otranto in
1480, no one displayed rainbow pacifist flags, nor invoked international
resolutions, nor asked for a meeting of the municipal council so that the zone
might be declared as demilitarized; no one chained himself beneath the city
walls to "construct peace."
For two weeks, the fifteen thousand
inhabitants of the city boiled oil and water, until they had none left, and
poured it over the walls onto the assailants. And when the eight hundred adult
men still alive were captured, they went willingly to meet the same fate that
the Iraqis, Afghans, Americans, English, Italians, and others meet in Iraq and
Afghanistan when they are kidnapped by terrorists. Eight hundred heads were cut
off one after another, with no politically correct newsmen to censor the
account. If today we have thorough knowledge of this extraordinary event, it is
because those who described it were objective and rigorous.
Today Europe
is under attack not - as in the preceding historical episode - by an
institutionally organized Islamic phalanx, but by a patchwork of
non-governmental organizations of ultra-fundamentalist Muslims. Keeping in mind
this structural difference, it is not out of place to ask how much there is
today in the West, in Europe, in Italy, of that "naturalness" that led an entire
community to "defend the peace of their land" to the point of making the
ultimate sacrifice.
The question is not out of place, if one considers
that a truly decisive element in the struggle against terrorism is the solidity
of the social body, or in any case of a large part of it, in the face of the
threat and of its most bloodthirsty manifestations. The memory of Otranto does
not merely emphasize that there are times when resistance is a duty, but even
before this it reminds us of who we are and from what community we come.
It is important to recall that in 1571, ninety years after the martyrdom
of Otranto, a fleet of ships supplied by Christian states arrested the
Turko-Islamic advance into the Mediterranean, in the sea battle of Lepanto.
The scenario had not improved in Europe: France was in league with the
German Protestant princes in opposition to the Hapsburgs, and took satisfaction
in the pressure that the Turks were applying against the Hapsburg Empire in the
Mediterranean. Paris and Venice had not moved a finger to defend the Knights of
Malta from the naval siege conducted against them by Suleiman the Magnificent.
This means that the victory of Lepanto was not the fruit of the convergence of
political interests; on the contrary, it was accomplished in spite of the
divergences. The extraordinary thing about Lepanto is that in spite of
everything, for once the princes, politicians, and military commanders were able
to set aside their divisions and unite to defend Europe.
This union was
realized above all because the European politics of the sixteenth century
preserved what was essentially a shared vision of the world, founded upon
Christianity and the natural law. And if today so many agnostic minds inhabit
Europe in complete freedom, this is in part because there were those who in
their day gave their time, energy, and even their lives for the good cause, when
the victory of the enemy would have put Italy - and possibly Spain - into Muslim
hands.
5.
Otranto teaches us that a culturally homogeneous
civilization - or even one predominantly animated by realistic principles - is
capable of reacting in a substantially unified manner in defense of its own
peace, and can do this without trampling upon its own identity and dignity.
Today, Roman-Germanic Christendom no longer exists as a homogeneous
civilization. Nor is the thesis valid according to which Christendom, as long as
it existed, was a mirror image of the Islamic community. Three structural
differences prevent any sort of overlapping or analogy with respect to the
Islamic "umma": in Christendom, there was a distinction between the political
and religious spheres, there was a foundation of natural law, and there was
respect for the conscience of the human person. Reflection on what happened in
1480 nevertheless permits us to identify three pillars around which unity can be
restored: the reference to natural law, the rediscovery of the Christian roots
of Europe, and love of country, which was explicitly evoked by John Paul II as
an inheritance from the martyrs of Otranto.
In Sacred Scripture, when
God informed Abraham of his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis
18:16 ff.), Abraham tried to intercede, and asked him: "Will you sweep away the
innocent with the guilty? Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city;
would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it for the sake of the fifty
innocent people within it?" Having received God's assurance that he would pardon
the entire city for the sake of those fifty just men, Abraham continues, in a
sort of gutsy negotiation: and if there were only 45, 40, 30, 20, or only 10?
God's reply is the same: "For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it." But
there were not 50, or 45, or 30, or 20, or even 10; and the two cities were
destroyed.
This page of Scripture is terrifying because of the fate of
annihilation that it projects for civilizations that reject the values that are
inscribed in human nature. It is a page that has been sorrowfully reread over
and over, especially in the twentieth century, in the face of the ravages of
Nazism and communist socialism. But it just as comforting to those who maintain
that the centrality of man and adherence to principles is not only the point of
departure, but also the strategy for anyone who wants to practice politics.
In 1480, that passage from Genesis found a unique application: Europe,
and in particular its most important city, Rome, were spared from destruction
not "for the sake," but rather "through the sacrifice" of eight hundred unknown
fishermen, craftsmen, shepherds, and farmers of a marginal city.
It is
striking that what happened in Otranto did not receive, and has still not
received, the widespread recognition that it deserves. The Church itself waited
for five centuries, and for an extraordinary pontiff like Karol Wojtyla, to
beatify those eight hundred men. Benedict XVI's July 6, 2007 decree authorizes
the view that their "martyrdom" really took place, historically and
theologically.
This is the premise for their canonization, which will
follow when a miracle has been certified. The Church, including that of Otranto,
maintains a necessary caution on this point, but everyone knows that the
intercession of the eight hundred has already procured many miracles; all that
is lacking is official recognition.
The martyrs of Otranto are in no
hurry: their bones, arranged in a number of reliquaries, are waiting to greet
those who visit the cathedral, in the chapel located to the right of the main
altar.
They remind us that it is not only faith that has a price, but
civilization does, too: a price that cannot be measured, and is paradoxically
compatible with having received faith and civilization as inestimable gifts.
This price is asked of everyone in a different way, but there is no
place for sales or liquidations.
Publishing date:
12/10/2007
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