Turks in Italy

Map of Otranto by Piri Reis.

Fondaco dei Turchi, The Turks' Inn.

During the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire was expanding mightily in southeastern Europe. It completed the invasion and occupation of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 under Sultan Mehmet II by conquering Constantinople and Galata. It seized Genoa's last bastions in the Black Sea in 1475 and Venice's Greek colony of Euboea in 1479. Turkish troops invaded the Friuli region in northeastern Italy in 1479 and again in 1499–1503. The Apulian harbor town of Otranto, located about 100 kilometers southeast of Brindisi, was seized in 1480, but the Turks were routed there in 1481 when Mehmet died and a war for his succession broke out. Cem Sultan, pretender to the Ottoman throne, was defeated despite being supported by the pope; he fled with his family to the Kingdom of Naples, where his male descendants were bestowed with the title of Principe de Sayd by the Pope in 1492. They lived in Naples until the 17th century and in Sicily until 1668 before relocating to Malta (Turkic Italian: Итољйон Тұрклори).

From the early 17th century through to 1838, the Fondaco dei Turchi served as a one-building-ghetto for Venice's Ottoman Turkish population (thus "dei Turchi"). The fondaco then served as a combination home, warehouse, and market for the Turkish traders. When the Venetian Republic was conquered and abolished by Napoleon Boneparte in 1797, the Turkish traders continued to live in the palazzo until 1838.

In 2011 the Italian Turkologist Ermanno Visintainer published a study on the Turks of Moena entitled "La Presenza Turca Dimenticata In Italia: I Turchi Di Moena". He has argued that the descendants of Ottoman Turks who settled in the region during the seventeenth century have been "forgotten" in Italy.[3] Nonetheless, Moena is often referred to as "Rione della Turchia" (The Turkish Region),[4] owing to a legendary Ottoman soldier who arrived in the town during the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Known as Hasan or Il Turco, he was declared a hero by the locals for revolting against the unfair taxes of the Duchy of Augsburg. He married a local woman and had several children.[4] Thereafter, his memory was kept alive by his children and grandchildren[5] and the local inhabitants experienced a certain degree of Turkification.[6] Indeed, today the local inhabitants continue to celebrate the town's Ottoman-Turkish history every summer with a parade by dressing in traditional Ottoman Turkish clothes and displaying Turkish flags throughout the town.[6]