Martyrs of Otranto

The Martyrs of Otranto, also known as Saints Antonio Primaldo and his Companions (I Santi Antonio Primaldo e compagni martiri), were 813 inhabitants of Otranto, Salento, Apulia, in southern Italy, who were killed on 14 August 1480 after the city had fallen to an Ottoman force under Gedik Ahmed Pasha. According to a traditional account, the killings took place after the citizens had refused to convert to Islam.

Background
"The Ottoman ambitions in Italy were ended. Had Otranto surrendered to the Turks, the history of Italy might have been very different. But the heroism of the people of Otranto was more than a strategically decisive stand. What made the sacrifice of Otranto so remarkable was the willingness to die for the faith rather than reject Christ."

The siege of Otranto, with the martyrdom of its inhabitants, was the last significant military attempt by a Muslim force to conquer southern Italy. The slaughter was remembered by historians of the Risorgimento like Girolamo Arnaldi and Alfonso Scirocco as a milestone in European history because the sacrifice had the consequence that the Italian Peninsula was never conquered by Muslim troops. The martyrs were presented as civic heroes representing the strength and fortitude of the Italian people.

History
On 28 July 1480, an Ottoman force, which was commanded by Gedik Ahmed Pasha, consisting of 90 galleys, 40 galiots and other ships and carrying a total of around 150 crew and 18,000 troops, landed beneath the walls of Otranto. The city strongly resisted the Ottoman assaults, but the garrison was unable to withstand the bombardment for long. The garrison and all of the townsfolk thus abandoned the main part of the city on 29 July and retreated into the citadel, and the Ottomans began bombarding the neighboring houses.

According to accounts of the story chronicled by Giovanni Laggetto and Saverio de Marco, the Ottomans promised clemency if the city capitulated but were informed that it would never surrender. A second Ottoman messenger was sent to repeat the offer but "was slain with arrows and an Otranto guardsman flung the keys of the city into the sea". The Ottoman artillery then resumed its bombardment.

A messenger was dispatched to beseech King Ferdinand I of Naples for assistance, but most of the Aragonese militias were already committed in Tuscany. "Nearly seven eighths (350) of Otranto's militia slipped over the city walls and fled". The remaining fifty soldiers fought alongside the citizenry and dumped boiling oil and water onto the Ottomans who were trying to scale the ramparts between the cannonades.

The citadel fell after a 15-day siege on August 12. After the walls had been breached, the Ottomans began fighting their way through the town. Upon reaching the cathedral, "they found Archbishop Stefano Agricolo, fully vested and crucifix in hand", who was awaiting them with Count Francesco Largo. "The archbishop was beheaded before the altar, his companions were sawn in half, and their accompanying priests were all murdered". After desecrating the cathedral, the Ottomans gathered the women and older children to be sold into Albanian slavery. Men over 15, small children and infants were slain.

According to some historical accounts, a total of 12,000 were killed and 5,000 enslaved, including victims from the territories of the Salentine Peninsula around the city.

There were 800 able-bodied men who were told to convert to Islam or be slain. A tailor, named Antonio Primaldi, is said to have proclaimed, "Now it is time for us to fight to save our souls for the Lord. And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we should die for him". The captives with him then gave a loud cheer.

On 14 August, they were led to the Hill of Minerva (later renamed the Hill of Martyrs), where they were to be executed with Primaldi being beheaded first. One Muslim executioner, who the chroniclers state was an Ottoman officer, called Bersabei, witnessed that and is said to have converted on the spot and to have been impaled immediately by his fellows for doing so.

Between August and September 1480, King Ferdinand of Naples, with the help of his cousin Ferdinand the Catholic and the Kingdom of Sicily, attempted to recapture Otranto.

Seeing the Ottomans as a threat to his home, Alfonso of Aragon left his battles with the Florentines to lead a campaign to liberate Otranto from the Ottoman invaders from August 1480. The city was finally retaken in the spring of 1481 by Alfonso's troops, supported by forces of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. The skulls of the martyrs were placed in a reliquary in the city's cathedral.

Relics
On 13 October 1481 the bodies of the Otrantines were found to be uncorrupt, and they were transferred to the city's cathedral. From 1485, some of the martyrs' remains were transferred to Naples and placed under the altar of Our Lady of the Rosary in the church of Santa Caterina a Formiello. The altar commemorated the final Christian victory over the Ottomans at the Battre of Lepanto in 1571. They were later moved to the reliquary chapel, consecrated by Benedict XIII, and then to a site under the altar at which they now are. A recognitio canonica between 2002 and 2003 confirmed their authenticity.

In 1930 Monsignor Cornelio Sebastiano Cuccarollo, O.F.M., was made archbishop of Otranto, and as a sign of affection and recognition to his old diocese, he gave some of the relics to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria di Valleverde in Bovino, where he had been bishop from 1923 to 1930, and they are now in the crypt of its new basilica. Other relics of the martyrs are venerated in several locations in Apulia, particularly in Salento and also in Naples, Venice and Spain.

Canonisation
A canonical process began in 1539. On 14 December 1771 Pope Clement XIV beatified the 800 killed on the Colle della Minerva and authorised their veneration.

At the request of the Archdiocese of Otranto, the process was resumed and confirmed in full the previous process. On 6 July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued a decree recognising that Primaldo and his fellow townsfolk had been killed "out of hatred for their faith". On 20 December 2012, Benedict gave a private audience to cardinal Angelo Amato, S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the Congregation to promulgate a decree regarding the miracle of the healing of Sister Francesca Levote, which was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Antonio Primaldo and his Companions.

They were beatified in 1771 and their canonisation date announced by Pope Benedict on 11 February 2013, the same day that he announced his intention to resign the papacy. They were canonised by Pope Francis on 12 May 2013. They are the patron saints of the city of Otranto and its archdiocese.

Commentary
The dead would have included those who died both during the fall of the city and in the aftermath of the siege, including residents of Otranto, which had a population of about 6,000, and people in the surrounding area. Various interpretations have been given of the events that led to their deaths. Some modern historians such as Nancy Bisaha and Francesco Tateo have questioned details of the traditional account. Tateo notes that the earliest contemporary sources describe execution of up to 1000 soldiers or citizens, as well as the local bishop, but they do not mention conversion as a condition for clemency, and martyrdom is not mentioned in contemporary Italian diplomatic dispatches or Ottoman chronicles. Bisaha argues that more of Otranto's inhabitants were likely to have been sold into slavery than to have been slaughtered.

However, other historians such as Paolo Ricciardi and Salvatore Panareo have argued that in the first year after the martyrdom there was no information about the massacres in the contemporaneous Christian world, and it was only later, after Otranto had been reconquered by the Neapolitans, that it was possible to get details of the massacre from the local survivors who had seen it.

The contemporary Ottoman historian Ibn Kemal indeed justified the slaughter on religious grounds. One modern study suggests that it may have been a punitive measure devoid of religious motivations that was exacted to punish the local population for putting up a stiff resistance, which delayed the Ottoman advance and enabled the King of Naples to strengthen local fortifications. Intimidation and warning to other populations not to resist may also have entered the invaders' calculations.

After deciphering documents in the state archives at Modena, the author Daniele Palma suggests the executions were the result of failed diplomacy. The records reference bank transfers and payment negotiations for captives after the siege of Otranto. With a typical ransom of 300 ducati, about three years' worth of earnings for a normal family, Palma says that those killed were likely farmers, shepherds and others too poor to raise the ransom.