Cem Sultan

Cem Sultan was an Ottoman prince who contested the throne with his elder brother Bayezid II after the death of Mehmed II in 1481. Defeated in Anatolia, he sought protection from the Knights Hospitaller and was then held for years as a valuable political hostage by rulers in France and Italy. He died in Naples in 1495 while accompanying the French invasion of Italy.

After losing the succession struggle, Cem eventually came into the custody of the Knights Hospitaller and then the papacy, becoming a valuable diplomatic hostage. European rulers repeatedly used the possibility of releasing him as leverage against Bayezid II. Cem died in 1495 while accompanying the French invasion of Italy, and his long captivity became one of the most unusual international episodes of late fifteenth-century Ottoman politics.

In Simon Turney’s The Assassin’s Tale, He remains committed to killing Cem Sultan, whose failed bid for the Ottoman throne set the tragedy of his family in motion. In Simon Turney’s The Thief’s Tale, During the reign of Bayezid II, a stolen object exposes Skiouros to a conspiracy connected to the succession struggle with Cem Sultan.