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Historical person
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.
Cem’s life has the structure of a political adventure but was defined by confinement and exploitation. Historical fiction can follow him through Ottoman succession warfare, Rhodes, papal Rome and the courts of Renaissance Europe, where threats to release or support him shaped diplomacy. Portrayals often make him a romantic exile, although his value to his captors depended less on personal freedom than on the danger his claim posed to Bayezid.
Series
The Ottoman Cycle follows the Greek brothers Skiouros and Lykaion after conscription separates them within the recently conquered city of Constantinople. One escapes into the streets while the other enters the Janissaries, placing their relationship on opposite sides of the political and religious order created by Mehmed II…
All books in this series
