Magna Greece
Detail of the monument to the martyrs in Otranto
sangue otrantino
saporito come menta e petrusino,
sangue forte e fino
contro il turco malandrino.
Otrantini blood,
pungent as parsley and mint,
strong blood and fine
against the wicked Turk. (*)
On August 14, 1480 eight hundred men from Otranto, a small town in the Southern Italian region of Apulia, were driven before their captors up the Hill of the Minerva to be beheaded. Their crime was the refusal to convert to Islam. At about 200 men per-day, the last remaining men of Otranto were mercilessly slaughtered as prescribed by the Qur’an.
The victims were captured after the pillaging of Otranto by the Ottoman Turks. Despite heroic efforts the stalwart defense was no match against the invading hordes of Mehemt the Conqueror. Hopelessly outnumbered and poorly armed the defenders were eventually overwhelmed during the siege. When the walls were breached on August 11 the Turks poured in and raped and murdered as they pleased.
Coat of arms of Otranto
According to some sources, as many as 12,000 townspeople were slain and another five thousand sold into slavery in the seraglios of Albania. With a foothold in the Salento peninsula the Ottomans wreaked havoc and destruction through Apulia until their expulsion by the Neapolitan and Hungarian forces led by Duke Alfonso of Calabria in 1481.
After the Turks were driven from Southern Italy, the remains of the martyrs were gathered and interred in reliquaries in the city’s Cathedral, where they can still be seen today. The Hill of the Minerva has since been christened the Hill of the Martyrs in their honor.
(* A lullaby the women of Otranto sing to their babies. Reprinted from Otranto, a novel by Maria Corti, Italica Press New York, 1993)
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