Francesco Zurolo
Francesco Zurolo, also called Francesco Zurlo, in some ancient transcriptions Francisci Zuroli or Francesco Zurulo, he was an Italian baron of Oppido Lucano and feudal lord of Pietragalla and Casalaspro.
He was a member of the noble Zurolo family or Zurlo family.
He was also the military leader and captain of the city of Otranto, together with Giovanni Antonio Delli Falconi, during the siege of the Ottoman Turks, during the early stages of the Ottoman conquest of the city; he died heroically with his soldiers shortly after a breach in the walls, where he was killed by the Turkish soldiers.
By his will, he was the posthumous founder of the convent Santa Maria del Gesù known as Sant'Antonino in Oppido Lucano">complex of Santa Maria del Gesù known as Sant'Antonino in Oppido Lucano and also thanks and by will of one of his daughters, Caterina Zurolo, who fulfilled the wishes of her father who died in battle. The complex saw its construction in 1482.
Biography
Zurolo family
The chronicle of the Zurolo family or Zurlo family has been recorded since the earliest times and has enjoyed, with varying fortunes, nobility in the Kingdom of Naples and in particular in Campania, Apulia, Salento, Basilicata, and Molise.Personal life and barony in the Kingdom of Naples
Francesco Zurolo was the son of Giacomo Zurolo and Francesca Brancaccio. He had brothers and sisters, among whom we remember: Caterina, Ettore, Beatrice, Pietro, Elisabetta and Lucrezia.He married Cassandra Caracciolo with whom he had daughters: Lucrezia, Caterina and Ughetta.
Francesco Zurolo feudal lord and baron of Pietragalla, Casalaspro and Oppido Lucano.
The Battle of Otranto
Background to the War of Otranto
During the Ottoman Empire's period of expansion, Mehmet II shortly after conquering Constantinople, decided to invade the Christian kingdoms of Western Europe. Between 1476 and 1478, various Turkish forces were sent into northern Italy, including raids into Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Istria. Peace was then established between the two nations in 1479.Between May and August 1480, a new Turkish fleet was sent to conquer the island of Rhodes and the Southern Sporades, led by Gedik Ahmed Pasha. The Knights of St. John, however, managed to repel the siege, and the invading army was forced to retreat again.
Despite the various failures of the Turkish forces, a new army of Turkish soldiers almost immediately set out from the Albanian coastal city of Vlora and arrived in Puglia.
In anticipation of the Turkish invasion of Apulia, Zurolo was appointed by Ferrante of Aragon commander of the square of the city of Otranto, together with another captain, Giovanni Antonio Delli Falconi, who brought with him a handful of his most faithful followers from the city of Pulsano.File:"Ein Gesamtkunstwerk aus 10 Millionen Mosaiksteinen bedeckt die Bodenflächen der Kathedrale" 01.jpg|thumb|The facade of the cathedral basilica of Santa Maria Annunziata, where the Otrantines took refuge during the Turkish siege, was violated by the attackers after the capture, with the destruction of the sacred frescoes except that of the Madonna, which once deconsecrated was transformed into a mosque. In 1481, after the liberation of Otranto by the troops of Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, in 1482 it was extensively remodeled and the facade rebuilt.|left
The Turkish invasion of Apulia and Otranto
At the end of July 1480, the invasion of Apulia was supposed to take place near Bari or Brindisi, rather than Otranto, either because the Ottoman fleet was driven by a strong windstorm towards that other city or because the defenses of these other two coastal cities were better.The invaders landed in an area near the Alimini Lakes, now called Baia dei Turchi, in memory of that invasion. Furthermore, the army split into two parts: one continued its raids in the area surrounding the city, while the other began raiding the surrounding areas first, immediately after their arrival and almost immediately after the siege.
Otranto was invaded on Friday, in the early hours of 28 July, by about 18,000 Turks, led by Gedik Ahmed Pasha, composed of an army of 150 warships, divided into: 90 galleys, 15 maones, 40 schooners and other ships, with them also the agha of the janissaries and the bailo of Negroponte. The defending army had at its disposal about 5.000 men, practically all the inhabitants of the city, poorly armed, and a small group of mercenaries all commanded by Captain Francesco Zurolo, finally there were few and antiquated weapons at their disposal and an obsolete defensive system.
On 29 July, near the village near the city, the first looting began and subsequently the first clashes with the soldiers of the Otrantina garrison, who almost immediately gave the order to abandon it and retreat with the provisions inside the fortification, whose doors were then closed to the enemy.File:SCF NA 25 06 2019 09.jpg|thumb|In the fourth chapel on the left, called the chapel of the Blessed Martyrs of Otranto, in the church of Santa Caterina in Forniello, are the remains of the martyrs of Otranto, transferred under the altar, between 1900 and 1901. The work depicts the martyrdom of the 813 Otrantines, edited by the Lecce painter Luigi Scorrano, taken from the painting by Giovanni Bellini, commissioned by Mehmet II.
Failed diplomacy
Ahmet sent several mediators to ask for the surrender of Otranto, but the people rose up against the first mediator who avoided lynching, a certain Turcman or Turciman: a citizen of Otranto out of contempt threw the keys of the city on the seashore; other sources state that in reality it was the two captains who threw the keys into the well of the city, after having refused the diplomatic offer of unconditional surrender. Other mediators managed to escape death and communicated to the Pasha the refusal of Otranto to convert and surrender. Another messenger, perhaps the bearer of an ultimatum, did not even manage to get close to Otranto because he was pierced by an arrow at the gates of the city.It seems that Gedik himself approached the walls of Otranto with a ship, but was almost killed by a cannon shot, exploded with orders from commander Zurolo.
A messenger was dispatched to beseech King Ferdinand I of Naples for assistance, but most of the Aragonese militias were already committed in Tuscany.
Attack of Otranto
Ahmed Pasha, after having failed all diplomatic attempts, gave the order to bombard the enemy walls for 3 days, on 9, 10 and 11 August, during which the walls were only slightly reinforced by the defenders.Nearly seven eighths of Otranto's militia slipped over the city walls and fled. The remaining fifty soldiers fought alongside the citizens and poured boiling oil and water on the Ottomans who attempted to scale the ramparts amidst the cannon fire.
Despite the Turks' vast numerical superiority, the defenders fought with courage and faith, encouraged by the commander himself. During these 3 days, the Turkish soldiers who were captured by the defenders were killed by slaughter, some hanged and others impaled, on the orders of Zurolo, to scare the attackers. The Turks then managed to break through the walls with their batteries and open a gap at a point, where the door called La Porticella was located. On the day of the last battle, when the invaders managed to open the breach in the walls, despite having been seriously wounded in the arm during an assault the previous day, Francesco rushed armed together with his son and other brave men in an attempt to repel the invaders, dying shortly thereafter.
Giovanni Antonio Delli Falconi died the following day, still in defense of the city.
Otranto and Salentine Peninsula
The Fate of the Otrantines
During the early stages of the siege, one night, the citizens gathered in the cathedral, led by Ladislaus De Marco, and decided in a joint session to resist to the last. When the city's defenses collapsed, some of them attempted to create a defensive line, but it too quickly fell, and most of the civilians gathered in the cathedral.Archbishop Stefano Agercolo or Agricoli de Pendinellis, the priests, and the remaining 800 male citizens of Otranto did not surrender when the Turks arrived in the city and took refuge in the cathedral. When Gedik burst into the cathedral and ordered the Otrantines to abandon their faith in Christ, they refused to renounce him, and for this reason they were led to the hill of Minerva now known as the Hill of Martyrs and beheaded, in violation of Islamic law.
The Martyrdom of the 813 Citizens
The first citizen to be killed was the elderly tailor Antonio Pezzulla, known as Il Primaldo, who openly shouted against the invaders that he would die for Jesus Christ. Among the various Otrantians, Macario Nachira, a cultured Basilian monk from an ancient and noble family from Uggiano la Chiesa. The massacre took place before the eyes of the young men and women who would later be enslaved.Their bodies remained unburied until 15 August 1451,.
On Gedik's orders, the cathedral was first turned into a stable, out of contempt, and then transformed into a mosque. The monastery of San Nicola di Casole was then destroyed, while the small church of San Pietro, located within the city limits, was also looted.
After the desecration of the cathedral, some boys, girls, and elderly women were enslaved, while small children and infants were massacred. The slaves were then deported to the Albanian city of Vlora, from where they were sent to Turkey.
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.
Gedik returned to Albania and stationed about 4.000 soldiers who renovated the walls of the city fortress, also improving the defenses and the moat.
Ottoman raids continued in other neighboring areas of Puglia until their reconquest by Neapolitan troops the following year.
The reconquest of the city and Puglia
After the death of Mehmet II on 3 May 1481, events precipitated by the Ottoman occupation.After the Neapolitan reconquest, the Otrantines almost immediately returned to work restoring and strengthening the city walls. They then converted the Otranto Cathedral, which had been largely desecrated. The convents of the Dominican Fathers and that of San Francesco degli Osservanti were later rebuilt, and, at the end of the 14th century, that of the Capuchin Fathers. Unfortunately, the monastery of San Nicola di Casole was never restored after being sacked and destroyed; its ruins still remain. Other minor religious and civil structures were subsequently renovated in subsequent years.File:Affresco realizzato dall’artista Giovanni Todisco e conservato nel convento di Sant’Antonio ad Oppido Lucano, rappresentante il barone e cavaliere Francesco Zurolo.png|thumb|Fresco depicting Francesco Zurolo also known as Francesco Zurlo †1480, convent and church of Santa Maria del Gesù, commonly known as Sant'Antonio.
Different versions of his death and that of his son
There are several versions of hisdeath: in one, he was captured by the Turks and sawn in two; he dies fighting in the defense of the walls probably mutilated, a fact that would have given rise to the first version.The reprisal was particularly bloody: 800 people were beheaded after 15 days of resistance: commander Zurolo fell almost immediately after a breach was made in the city, on the bastions of the walls during the enemy's last assault. Shortly after, captain Delli Falconi also died.
Even on the fate of the son the sources disagree: according to some he fell heroically together with his father, according to others he was taken prisoner to Turkey, where they made him deny Christ. Francesco Zurolo's son is mistakenly confused with another unknown knight, who died together with the captain himself, since the brave leader had no male children.
Burial
In the church of Santa Caterina a Formiello in Naples there are two display cases containing some mortal remains-skulls of the heroic defenders of Otranto - are on display, under the altar of the fourth chapel, their number is 240, in them there are also those of the two brave captains recovered and transferred by will of Alfonso II d'Aragon.Posthumous sponsor
He was founder, posthumously – after his death in 1480, who when he was still alive made a will and, among other things, issued a testamentary disposition, naming his daughter Caterina Zurolo, to execute after his death the construction work in Oppido Lucano, currently in Tolve, a hamlet of the town, of a religious complex, consisting of a convent with the annexed church of Sant' Antonio to Oppido Lucano; the aforementioned works began in 1482 as denoted by the foundation stone: "MCCCCLXXXII | FRANCISCO ZVRVLO | FECIT".Dedications
- There is a fresco created by the Italian artist Giovanni Todisco, in around 1611, in one of the internal rooms of the convent of Santa Maria del Gesù known as Sant'Antonio, in Oppido Lucano, representing the baron and knight Francesco Zurolo with the halberd held in the right hand and with a scroll in the left, wearing late medieval plate-type armor and helmet.
- In the historic center of Otranto, near the Romanesque cathedral, the streets are almost all dedicated to the heroes of the Battle of Otranto. Among these there is also one dedicated to "Francesco Zurlo – captain 1480".