The Ottoman Invasion of Italy

In the summer of 1480, a force of nearly 20,000 Ottoman Turks under the command of Gedik Ahmed Pasha attacked and captured Otranto in southern Italy. In response, Pope Sixtus IV issued his second call for a Crusade, and this time, several Christian monarchs answered him.

In May of 1481, a Christian army composed of Napolitans and Hungarians besieged Otranto. Two days after the siege began, Sultan Mehmed II died, and the resulting sucession crisis prevented the Turks from sending reinforcements to Italy. Thus, Otranto fell, and its Turkish garrison surrendered.

This incident was most notable because Gedik Ahmed Pasha supposedly unleashed an anti-Christian persecution on Otranto. The Archbishop Stefano Agricoli, along with other prominent men were brutally executed, and, according to legend, 813 Christians who refused to convert to Islam were put to death. History and mythology has remembered them as the 'Martyrs of Otranto'; bones belonging to some of the victims are still venerated in the Otranto Cathedral as well as a church in Naples.