Baron de la Fage
Baron de la Fage | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | Saint-Pierre-de-la-Fage, Languedoc, Kingdom of France |
| Died | 1592 Istanbul, Ottoman Empire |
Baron de la Fage was a French renegade to Islam. He served as a spy for the Ottoman Empire in multiple European countries. At the same time, the baron occasionally spied for Elizabeth I, though this did not conflict with his allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan. He was often described as a trickster and a fraud, explicating the baron's efficiency in his tasks.
Life
[edit]Background
[edit]Very little is known about Baron de la Fage's background other than that he descended from a noble family which were considered to be one of the most influential in the region of Languedoc. He was born in Saint-Pierre-de-la-Fage (part of the de la Fage barony) in the Kingdom of France.[1]
Travels to Italy
[edit]Baron de la Fage was sent to Italy in 1591 by the Ottoman Sultan Murad III as a spy. Under the pretext of purportedly reverting to Christianity, he made his way to the country and exerted great effort to gain valuable information and intelligence, especially on spies operating within Ottoman territory. He became good friends with the Henry IV-appointed French ambassador to Tuscany and the Grand Duke of Tuscany while he was in Florence, to the point where he was given favours and gifts by both. After his time in Florence, Baron de la Fage travelled to Rome, where he was able to meet with Pope Innocent IX and his cardinals in the heart of the Christian world. He told them that a large amount of influential Ottoman converts yearned to rejoin Christianity. The governor of Eğriboz, de la Fage alleged, could be enticed to switch sides and to surrender the castle under his charge to the Habsburgs without resistance. Additionally, the baron informed the Pope that a significant number of Ottoman galleys commanded by Muslim captains who were of Christian birth could be taken over with enough support by Christian countries. The baron was successful in persuading the Pope and his cardinals to carry out his suggestions. Baron de la Fage, in a state of bravado due to his success, returned to Istanbul, where he mockingly displayed brevets and safe conduct letters signed by Cardinal Lucio Sanseverino (which had been issued by the Pope) to those around him. This was seen as a major blow to the Catholics.[2]
After his short stay in the Ottoman Empire, he once again returned to Italy (specifically Venice) to gather intelligence for the Sultan. He tried unsuccessfully to extract money from the Habsburg ambassador to Venice, Francisco de Vera. Continuing on his journey through Italy, the baron convinced two Italians, a Spaniard, and a Frenchman of noble descent like himself to accompany him on a tour of the Ottoman Empire and persuaded them to travel to the Eastern Mediterranean. Upon hearing this, Habsburg diplomat de Vera stepped in and warned the young men that de la Fage intended to either force them to convert to Islam, or sell them as slaves into the Ottoman slave trade. As a result, the young men were talked out of going ahead with the journey. Even though ten years had passed, in 1602, the Spanish ambassador to Venice, one of the main figures in Habsburg intelligence, still recalled this event in Madrid, explicating the baron's "colourful personality".[3]
Return to the Ottoman Empire
[edit]On his way back to the Ottoman Empire, he defrauded the captain of the ship that had embarked for Kotor in the Montenegro vilayet and took 450 escudos as well as other goods from the captain which the baron had obtained by promising to buy horses for the captain. Once he had made it to Istanbul, the baron used the intelligence he gathered and exposed many spies and double agents in Ottoman lands to the Sultan. Notable figures included David Passi, a Marrano spymaster who worked as a double agent for the Ottomans and Habsburgs, and his right-hand man, Guillermo de Saboya. Other spies Baron de la Fage exposed were Juan Sequi from Mallorca (one of the foremost Habsburg spy in Istanbul) and Ramazan, a captain of a ship who had recently converted to Islam. Despite being subjected to torture, Ramazan and de Saboya rejected all of the accusations made against them by the baron. Soon afterwards, de Saboya died while imprisoned. In addition, Baron de la Fage found out that Venetian merchant Marco Antonio Estanga (also known as Bartolomeo Pusterla), one of the most important long-time agent of the Habsburgs, was a spy as well. This prompted the Ottoman state to claim his vast assets, and Estanga would die only a few years later in 1593.[4]
Death
[edit]Baron de la Fage died in the fall of 1492 in Istanbul from the plague, only one and a half months after de Saboya's death.[4]
Citations
[edit]- ^ AGS, E K 1675, fol. 142, 167b (15 August 1592), 172 (5 September 1592), 83 (24 October 1592); K 1677, fol. 5 (2 February 1602).
- ^ Gürkan 2017, pp. 77–78.
- ^ Gürkan 2017, p. 78.
- ^ a b Gürkan, Emrah S. (2012). Espionage in the 16th century Mediterranean: Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean go-betweens and the Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry (PDF) (PhD thesis). Georgetown: Georgetown University. pp. 446–447.
References
[edit]- Gürkan, Emrah S. (2017). Uyar, Can (ed.). Sultanın Casusları: 16. Yüzyılda İstihbarat, Sabotaj ve Rüşvet Ağları [The Sultan's Spies: Intelligence, Sabotage and Bribery Networks in the 16th Century] (in Turkish). Istanbul: Kronik Kitap. ISBN 9789752430006.