Magiaristàn

Year 932 of the Hegira (corresponding to the spring of 1526 for the Christians of the Western world) had just begun when war was signalled by the horses’ raised tails in the first courtyard of the Grand Seraglio of Constantinople. From Bosnia to Egypt, throughout the cities belonging to the Ottoman Empire, the town criers recruited makeshift archers and cavalry by promising money and spoils of war, while the beys of Rumelia and Anatolia were assembling their regular troops. On 23rd April, one hundred thousand soldiers and nearly as many raiders left the capital to march on Magyaristan, the land of the Hungarians, whose young king had dared to defy the Sultan Suleiman. Thanks to an anthology selected by Gianni Guadalupi, this volume details the battles and clashes between two cultures. An original view of a country travelled over by janissaries and black hussars endlessly at war, illustrated in great detail by brightly-coloured miniatures of Turkish origin reproducing the war events.