There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends towards catastrophe.
Castle of Otranto, H. Walpole
“Here in the south, as I am sure you know,” said the priest, who was a little, pink-faced gnome of a man with thick-rimmed glasses, “we have an expression:
Mamma li turchi!
One tells it to little children to get them to behave. But to our way of thinking the Turk is not just a bogeyman, but a historical enemy.”
It was the middle of the afternoon, and it was very cool in the priest’s church. If I was not yet cool, however, I realized I was in for one of those long explanations that would eventually catch up with my repose in his temple of cool.
“The year was 1480 and the date was the 28 July when the Pasha launched an attack on our town. He brought his ships up to the port and landed beneath the walls of the city. The garrison was unable to resist the bombardment for long, and abandoned the main part of the city on the following day. They retreated, along with the townsfolk, into the citadel whilst the Turks began bombarding the neighboring houses.
The Pasha’s terms were ostensibly generous. “If you surrender,” he told them, “you will forfeit the town but I will let you to live.”
“The Christian’s response to the Pasha’s demands was firm. “Non arrendiamci,” they said. “We will not surrender to an infidel.”
When a second messenger was sent to the walls to repeat the demands, he was met with arrows from the walls. To settle the issue, the leaders of the castle defense climbed to the top of the tower and threw the keys of the city into the sea. “Venite a trovarci se osate! Come and get us if you dare!”
After a fifteen-day siege, the Pasha ordered the final assault. His soldiers broke through the defenses and captured the citadel. When the walls were breached, the Turks fought their way through the town. Upon reaching the cathedral they found the Archbishop, fully vested and crucifix in hand, awaiting them. “Who dares enter the house of God with swords drawn?”
“Abjure the Christian faith,” said the Pasha’s men, taunting the archbishop. “Throw away your crucifix and embrace Islam.”
“I cannot renounce my faith any more than deny the truth of Christ’s suffering,” said the archbishop. “For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.”
The Turks showed no mercy. The archbishop’s head was cut off before his weeping congregation. Here the chronicler relates that the crown of his head was separated from the head in such a way that blood, white with the brain, and the brain no less red from the blood dyed the floor of the cathedral.”
If I chose to express my shock, the priest did not appear to notice.
Ignoring me, he went on:
“The archbishop’s two companions, the bishop and the count were to meet a similar fate. “Abjure the Christian faith,” said the Pasha’s men. “Throw down your crucifixes and embrace Islam.”
When they refused, their bodies were slowly sawn in half. As was the custom, all the priests were murdered and the cathedral was stripped of its symbols and turned into a stable for horses.
After desecrating the Cathedral, the Turks gathered the women and older children to be sold into slavery. Here the chronicler relates another atrocity. Men over fifteen years old, small children, and infants were slain.
Those who were left were gathered into the market place. “You have but one choice,” the Pasha told them, “to convert to Islam or die.”
Lest they needed any further persuasion the Pasha instructed an apostate priest to preach to the remaining Christians. “Abandon the Christian faith,” said the former priest. “Spurn the Church, and become Muslims. In return, you will be honored by the Pasha and receive many benefits.”
There among the faithful, was one, a certain tailor named Pezzulla, who was a brave man and true to his faith. Pezzulla urged on his compatriots. “Now it is time for us to fight to save our souls for the Lord,” he said. “And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we should die for him.” To which the other captives with him gave a loud cheer.
“We, too,” they said, “are willing to die a thousand times for Christ.”
The angry Pasha pronounced his sentence: death.
On a day like today in the middle of August, two weeks into the siege, the chronicler tells that they were led to the Hill of Minerva, which we now know as the Hill of Martyrs.
“Here it is,” said the priest, showing me a little map on the back of a card. “You can visit it afterwards,” he said, before going on in a quieter voice:
“The first to be beheaded was Pezzulla. After the blade decapitated him, here the chronicler relates that his body remained stubbornly and astonishingly upright on its feet. Not until all had been decapitated could the executioners force Pezzulla’s corpse to lie prone.
His executioner was a man called Berserbei. Berserbei was so impressed by this he converted on the spot. “This crime is too terrible,” he said. “I will not sacrifice any more Christians on my sword.”
His fellow Muslims and former comrades grew angry. “Why do you mock us?” they said.
“Have you not seen this miracle with your own eyes?” said Berserbei.
But the Muslims did not see it; they set upon Berserbei and turned his own weapon on him.”
“I beg your pardon,” I said.
“They turned his own weapon on him,” repeated the priest. “They impaled him on his own sword.”
I looked into the priest’s eyes, but I could not see any irony there.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“After the siege”, the Priest went on again calmer, “the Pasha attacked other towns in the territory. He took Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto. But the Christians fought back and returned to lay siege to our town.
After a second assault, if memory serves me, in September of the following year, they breached the walls and set upon the Turks. Here the chronicler relates that none of the Turkish garrison survived.”
“They got their just desserts,” I said.
The priest nodded.
“There is something else, however, something that is not related in the chronicle, but in another perhaps later account.
“In the aftermath of victory, the new archbishop was determined that the martyrs should be not be forgotten. He ordered his men to open up the mass grave and collect the bones of the victims of the Pasha’s aggression.
When they had done this, the archbishop asked:
“How many bones can you count?”
The men went away and counted the bones. “There are too many bones,” they said. “We have lost count.”
The archbishop insisted:
“How many did you count?”
“More than two hundred.”
“Go away and count the bones once more.”
They came back to him again. “How many bones did you count?”
“Sua Santità,” they replied, “there are more than two hundred and fifty bones.”
Again, the archbishop told them to go away. Finally, they came back with the number that satisfied him.
“Sua Santità, we have counted more than eight hundred bones.”
“That indeed is a number fit for our martyrs.”
“Now,” said the archbishop, “since the apostles were twelve and Christ was one, we will carve a stone in memory of the eight hundred and thirteen martyrs.”
When the priest finished his story, he asked me if I would leave a contribution for his coffers.
“Truthfully,” I said, as I placed several thousand lira notes in his money box, “I am not a Turk, but would you marry me in your church?”
The priest laughed.
“Only if you convert to Catholicism,” he said. I did not know which had made me feel more uncomfortable, the reliquary with the skulls and bones of the eight hundred and thirteen martyrs or the power of the priest’s conviction that Catholicism was still the only form of Christianity.