Giovanni Maria Angiolello

Giovanni Maria Angiolello was a Venetian merchant and author who wrote an important historical report on the Aq Qoyunlū and early Safavid Persia.

A scion of a noble family, Giovanni Maria was as a youth engaged in the defense of Negroponte, the Venetian fortress in Greece. After the fortress fell to the Ottomans in 1470, Angiolello ended in Ottoman captivity. As a member of the European nobility first he was attached to the household of Mostafa Chelebi, and after his death, to the court where he served the sultans Mehmed II the Conqueror and Bayazit II. During the reign of Mehmed II, Angiolello held a post of a daftardār (treasurer) at the Ottoman court and participated in the Ottoman military campaigns.

His career after 1483 is less known. He returned to Vicenza where he founded the family and became an official. It I assumed that he was engaged in two missions, perhaps for the Venetian Republic to Persia (1482, 1499-1515) in the capacity of a merchant or an agent.

He wrote a chronicle entitled “Historia Turchesca” covering the period of Turkish history between 1300 and 1514.