As the European power with the oldest and most extensive exposure to the Muslim states, Venice reacted calmly to the fall of Constantinople. The Doge of the day signed a treaty with the Conqueror and sent one of his best artists, Gentile Bellini, to paint sexy ladies on his bedroom wall. And Venice’s patricians made an optimistic assessment of the trading opportunities that might come their way as a result of the change of ownership in Constantinople. Did the Turks not need to buy and sell, like anyone else? Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Lion House animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those brought into orbit around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife.

An engrossing book... This is history turned into drama and poetry, awesomely spectacular yet also intensely intimate Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, iNews The Sultan’s access to human capital, on the other hand, is the result of his immense territorial wealth. He needs only scrape a little fat off the land, and presto, a vast fighting machine materialises. His huge realm, Minio explains, ‘is parcelled out among diverse people, who are like feudatories, and all these are obliged to bring a certain number of cavalry to campaign without the Sultan paying them anything. Bearing in mind the vast lands he controls, it can be easily believed that he is capable of making armies composed of innumerable people.’ Mind you, a great story about Sulieman the legend and his murderous chums is infinitely better than no story at all, which is where I suspect most English speakers are in their knowledge of the Sultan and where I was before I started this book. Conclusion Reading Lion House is a great way to get a feel for the high politics and high flying politicians of the early 16th century Mediterranean world. I’ve been to Turkey a few times but never really got a sense of the Ottoman sultans who ruled the world from Istanbul. The Lion House is an excellent way into this world and makes me want to visit again, COVID and family permitting...This account really grips... it does so by bringing out the fascinating individuals, the adventure, the lurid details, the barbarities, the opulence and squalor and near misses of the story Melanie McDonagh, Evening Standard In fact, because the prose treads so delicately around the story I had the strange sensation that I was reading the scene setting bits of a historical fiction novel, one that never quite gets to the action. At times it felt like re-reading a Dorothy Dunnett book from her excellent “The House of Niccolo” series but with all the emotion and most of the action scenes deleted.

To enjoy this book you have to accept that you are being recounted a story, and not necessarily getting the authoritative account. This is linked to my comment on writing style above: while I’m satisfied that it is a reliable narrative based on primary sources I don’t know exactly where those sources stop and De Bellaigue takes over. If the idea of that bothers you 3, you may find the book a little frustrating at times. But when I adjusted to the rhythm of the book I very much enjoyed being carried along by the verbal flow. What are my takeaways? And then there’s Venice’s pragmatism. If Martin Luther is reviling the Pope from a pub in Wittenberg, Venice receives the news without indignation, cheerfully resolved to turn it to her advantage.In the meantime her sailors must contend daily with Turkish whims, paying tribute, eyeballing corsairs, pleading for grain. The book describes how one of his sons, Alvise Gritti, settled in what today is Istanbul and befriended both Suleiman and Ibrahim. Eventually, in 1534, Alvise was captured and killed during a shady military assault on Transylvania. Before that, it could be said that a single, sophisticated family enjoyed influence in both great maritime powers. Alvise Gritti “the Beyoglu” or “Son of a Bey” (1480-1534), son of the Doge of Venice and the wealthiest and most powerful merchant of Istanbul, viewed as #3 in the Empire to the Sultan and Ibrahim Pasha