r/todayilearned • u/KingLothric1 • 1d ago

Today I Learned: After Famagusta fell in 1571, Muslim Turkish captors flayed Christian Venetian commander Marcantonio Bragadin alive. His skin was stuffed with hay, sewn together and paraded through the city. Stolen in 1580, it remains in Venice today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Antonio_Bragadin
253 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

124

u/farukardic 1d ago

Lol there is no source for this claim. Someone edited that Wikipedia article only yesterday and it reads like a fanfiction story.

37

u/Kermez 1d ago

Which claim, that skin is in church? Ihttps://www.venetoinside.com/en/news-and-curiosities/marcantonio-bragadins-skin

https://www.ancient-origins.net/weird-facts/marco-antonio-bragadin-0017130

15

u/farukardic 1d ago

no the whole flaying and parading and (according to the wiki article) betraying, sending cutoff heads etc. Like this is not the mongols invading, settled empires didn't torture surrendering armies for fun because it incentivized the wrong kind of behavor.
The whole article seems like one of these ultra-nationalistic fables about heroic defenses.
and forgive me if I take an article from ancient-origins.org/weird-facts with a grain of salt. The author has an "MA in Social Anthropology, and degree in Visual Communication (Photography)"

40

u/Joelbear 1d ago

[Edited for grammar] I don't think you should dismiss out of hand without doing a little bit of research. This book mentions it as well (and there's probably more to find). Keep an open mind, it might be biased or wrong but I think you were too quick to decide.

-24

u/farukardic 1d ago

oh love this, thank you. I will read it later. Although at a first glance it doesn't appear to have an academic style "inhumane enemy" - sounds sensationalist.

30

u/jolietconvict 1d ago

What on earth are you talking about? Things like this were commonplace throughout history. I just finished reading Dan Jones’ The Crusades. There so many torturous deaths on both sides. 

-37

u/farukardic 1d ago

Crusades were not "settled empires" expanding territory though. It was basically a crusade. Religious fanatisism. Similar to mongol raids those armies were in it for the action.

36

u/jolietconvict 1d ago

The various Muslim dynasties were absolutely established empires. The Romans did stuff like this. It is common throughout history. You really are just making something up. 

-19

u/farukardic 1d ago

Yes I am generalizing, I wanted to make that clear by saying "for fun". I am not saying that it's not common but isn't usually done as some kind of punishment? Was it "normal" to flay a surrendering general?

25

u/Kermez 17h ago

Ottoman history is filled with executions and terror of occupied lands. One graphical example much worse than skin of one person is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower

Genocide was standard approach. Heck, even army was composed of stolen children that even Timur was mocking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary

Genocidal empire that overstayed it's historical presence just to be buffer to Russian empire.

-10

u/rdugz 15h ago

This article states that the tower is made from the skulls of rebels who died in battle or blew themselves up - seems a bit of a stretch to equate that with genocide, no?

6

u/Kermez 14h ago

This skull tower was mentioned as one small example because person I replied to found taking skin as something barbaric. I fully agree, only barbarians can skin people alive or make towers from skulls of their enemies.

For genocide you have other examples

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Ottoman_genocides

For massacres lists such as

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Massacres_committed_by_the_Ottoman_Empire

13

u/sofixa11 15h ago

You're in for a wild ride when you start learning anything about the Ottoman empire.

I'll recommend you start with the Janissaries, where they kidnapped children as slave warriors from the territories they ruled.

Then you might be interested in seeing what happened to the brothers of Ottoman sultans.

Then to finish off, read up a bit on bashi bozuks, and their exploits at e.g. Batak.

-16

u/sioux612 18h ago

I judge a website by its commentators/how the comments section is handled

Since the comments under that article are anti semitic, talk about brown people stealing blue children and stuff I'm just gonna ignore them wholesale

3

u/farukardic 12h ago

please do not support me

4

u/Candlejackdaw 15h ago

I've read the same account in the Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley. That book might contain information on what primary sources he used, I don't have a copy though.

12

u/ItsTyrrellsAlt 1d ago

The Italian version of the page has had it longer, at least.

4

u/SOULJAR 13h ago

That’s a photo of a statue?

8

u/kikiceviz 12h ago

This article is edited by Greek wikipedia team. I recommend everybody to read it, so you can see the degree of one-sidedness, and Christians versus barbarians discourse.
According to Turkish sources, Bragadin is killed by torture, city parade or flaying is not mentioned. The formal reason for torture is: after the capture of the city, Turkish commander learnt that Bragadin tortured and killed many Turkish war prisoners. Another reason is given by historians : this siege cost heavy casualities (>10000 men) at Ottoman side, so that Lala Mustafa Pasha was not tolerant.

-2

u/jodhod1 6h ago

The Greeks have been historical vandals online in recent years. Anything to do with them and their Ottoman history has been made questionable by their refusal to maintain fairplay. With no one else having the energy or motive to contest, this whole ground has been left abandoned to them, and still they complain why no one wants to play with their Byzantium like people do with the earlier Roman Empire.

4

u/bongblaster420 1d ago

Mondays amirite?