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Tag Archives: Ottaviano Bon
drinking on the job
Drinking, and fighting in heavy armor, high speed horse chases, bowstring accuracy, and axe-swinging don’t apparently mix well together. The Battle of Nicopolis was the last great battle of the Crusades; and with it also marked the beginning of the … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Augustine Just War, Battle of Nicopolis, Evliya Effendi, Evliya Etendi, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Michel Pintoin, Morand-Metivier, Ottaviano Bon, Phillippe de Mezieres, Sam Huntington, Sultan Bayazid, Sultan Beyezid
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no naughty bits
The life of a eunuch. Its from a bygone era, but one not form a so-distant past. In Ottoman Turkey, the eunuch, both white and black enjoyed a certain status of the social scale, and those scales seemed to be … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Evliya Effendi, George Antoine Rochegrosse, Jean Claude Flechet, John Mole, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Baltimore, Ottaviano Bon, The Black Eunuchs Ottoman, The White Eunuchs Ottoman, Thomas Dallam
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messy antics
Passion unchained. Does absolute power equate with absolute bliss? For the Sultan’s of the Ottoman Empire for the most part; the effort to reconcile two antagonistic ideas seemed to almost take a perverse pleasure. Seraglio life could be characterized as … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Georges Antoine Rochegrosse, Grand Seraglio, Jean Claude Flechet, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Michel Baudier, Ottaviano Bon, Ottoman Turkey history, Sir Paul Rycaut, Sultan Ibrahim I
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caucasian cream of the crop
In selecting a concubine, a Sultan held a regular weekly levee at which the virgins of the harem were brought in for his inspection; he dropped a hankerchief at the feet of the one who pleased him most, indicating she … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Alan Aldiss, Antonio Maria Fabres y Costa, Evliya Effendi, Georges Jules Victor Clairin, Grand Seraglio, Jean Claude Flechet, John Mole, Khurrem roxelana, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Baltimore, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Michel Baudier, Ottaviano Bon, Paul Alexandre Alfred Leroy, Roxelana and Suleiman, Sultan Ibrahim I, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Thomas Dallam
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dinner is served: lonely at the top in the HMS Sultan
The social life in the Grand Seraglio was not all it had been cracked up to be. The power exercised there by the Sultan was absolute to be sure. But did it bring bliss? … When the Sultan got back … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Evliya Effendi, Franz Xavier Simm, Grand Seraglio, Jean-Claude Flachat, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Baltimore, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Ottaviano Bon, Ottoman Empire Sultans, Suleiman the Magnificent
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suspicious minds
Good to walk around with a mirror just to see who may be sneaking up on you. Hard to find a Sultan who wasn’t suspicious and didn’t keep a food tester on the payroll. And lets not talk about the … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Aya Sofia mosque, Conquest of Constantinople, Fabbi Fabbio, Gentile Bellini, Grand Seraglio Istanbul, Hagia Sophia church, Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant, Jean Leon Gerome, Jean-Claude Flachat, john frederick lewis, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Baltimore, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Ottaviano Bon, Selim III sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, Valide Sultans
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who’s the fairest sultan of all
The Grand Seraglio. As opposed to Seraglio Minor. Yes that Grand Seraglio with the violence, the death and the sex fueled only the passion thatsix thousand concubines can command and the wayward restlessness of the Janissary guards. Frontier justice and … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Ahmed I and Mustafa, Grand Seraglio, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Baltimore, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Michel Baudier, Mustafa the cage, Ottaviano Bon, Radu the Handsome, Sultan Ahmed I, sultan murad IV, Sultan Osman
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within these walls what secrets…
The Grand Seraglio. Within its walls the Turkist Sultans sought an answer to a an old question: Can absolute power bring absolute bliss? Within the confines of what is today the Topakapi Museum, the Sultan’s residence the answer between the … Continue reading
Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion
Tagged Gentile Bellini, Grand Seraglio, Janissary Corps, john frederick lewis, Lady Mary Whortley, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Mahmud II, Michel Baudier, Murad IV, Ottaviano Bon, Pierre Auguste Renoir
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vintage violence
Janissaries were uneducated except in violence and were fanatically conservative. In 1763, when Lord Baltimore passed through Constantinople, he observed that the Corps was still carrying bows and arrows, sabers and lances, having never got used to firearms. Sultan Selim … Continue reading
seraglio: methodical despotism
The Grand Seraglio. The search for absolute bliss backed up by absolute power with all the variations of sex, death, and violence could muster. The price to pay for approaching utopian conditions in a sort of Islamic version of the … Continue reading