behind lepanto

6/5/2023

Enlarge the timeline. It shows the threat to Catholicism posed by Islam. See Muslim Spain beginning in the 700s and the growth of the Ottoman Empire after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which is why Lepanto in 1571, halting the advance of the Ottoman Turks, is significant. Rome is a strategic location, the center, so promised.

1 Comment

Josef Ketzer

6/7/2023 04:56:50 pm

Well, Lepanto... There are numerous very informative videos on this topic on YouTube, Kings and Generals, SandRhoman History, etc. etc., so I won't go into military details. But some, as I presume, interesting paraphernalia: Pope St. Pius V. established a moveable feast, Our Lady of Victory, to commemorate Lepanto, to be celebrated on the first Sunday in October, it was after only two years renamed Our Lady of the Rosary by Pope Innocent XIII. And following the victory of Prince Eugen against the Ottomans at Peterwardein (Hungary) in 1716, when the Hapsburg dynasty's realm reached its peak, this feast was established for the whole Catholic Church. Finally in 1913 it was put always on October 7th.
Anyway, at the turn of the 17th/18th century, the high times of the Ottoman Empire were already running out. Sultan Mohammed IV. (1641 - 1693) even didn't want to risk the second siege of Vienna (1683), his vezir Kara Mustafa, who had persuaded him, always wore a silken rope around his neck during the campaign that he was always reminded what fate would await him in case of failure. And so it came! Austria's counter attack was extremely successful, but of course also due to Prince Eugen, by many military historians counted among the 10 world best strategists. In reality, "The Ottoman Century" was the 16th, minted by Turkey's greatest sultan Soliman the Magnificent. In this century, the 1st siege of Vienna took place (1529), also repelled, and, although I am talking here of the Ottoman peak, there happened another triumph of defiant Catholicism, when, after the Knights Hospitaller had been chased away by the Muslim Turks in 1522 from Rhodes, they were able to "hold the fort" during the Great Siege of 1565 on their new homeland, the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta (10,000 knights and Maltese vs 30,000 to 40.000 Turkish). Commander of the defenders was Grandmaster Jean de la Valette, after him until today the nation's capital La Valetta is named). Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. gave Malta as a fief to the Knights Hospitaller, but I don't know, if it's really a historical fact that they were obliged to give him in return every year the sculpture of a falcon, or if this is only a romantic invention of mystery writer Dashiell Hammett ☺️🕵️‍♂️...
I close here with wishes for a Blessed Corpus Christi!

behind lepanto

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