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42. Some sources suggest that he was whipped every day. My account is based on Stirling-Maxwell, who in turn bases his reconstruction on Paolo Paruta, Storia della guerra di Cipro, part of his contemporary Historia Venetiana, published in 1605, and on Nestor Martinengo, taken prisoner at Famagusta, and whose Relazione di tutto il suceso di Famagusta was published in Venice in 1572. All these sources reflect viewpoints acceptable to Venice, but there is no reason to doubt their accuracy. I have not been able to find an Ottoman source that covered these events in any detail. See Stirling-Maxwell, Don John, vol. I, p. 370.

43. C. D. Cobham (ed.), The Sieges of Nicosia and Famagusta: With a Sketch of the Earlier History of Cyprus, edited from Midgley’s translation of Bishop Graziani’s History of the War of Cyprus (1624), London: St. Vincent’s Press, 1899, p. 17; and The Sieges of Nicosia and Famagusta in Cyprus Related by Uberto Foglietta, trans. Claude Delaval Cobham, London: Waterlow and Sons, 1903.

44. Flaying was seen to be the ultimate degradation, partly for its cruelty but also for its slow stripping of identity. It was rare among the Ottomans, where other cruel punishments were more common. It was no doubt for the shock effect that Lala Mustafa ordered this frightful form of lingering death. The point of reference here is the story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses of Apollo ordering the flaying of his rival Marsyas. The scene was depicted most graphically by Titian in c. 1575, and also by Raphael, Giulio Romano, Melchior Meier, and in numerous engravings. The horror felt at the flaying process was evident in Arthur Golding’s 1567 translation of the Metamorphoses:

For all his crying ore his earses quite pulled was his skin

Nought else was he then but one whole wounde. The grisly bloud did spin

From every part, his sinewes lay discovered to the eye, The quivering veynes without a skin lay beating nakedly. The panting bowels in his bulke ye might have numbred well, and in his brest the shere small strings a man might tell.

See Jonathan Sawday, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture, London: Routledge, 1995, pp. 186–7. It was noted that Bragadino did not cry out but murmured the words of faith until he fell silent.

45. See the dispatch from Don John to Philip II, describing the taking of Galera, reprinted as Appendix I in Stirling-Maxwell, Don John, vol. 2, pp. 364–71: “In the place itself the defence was so obstinate that it was necessary to take it house by house and the taking of it lasted from nine in the morning, fighting going on the whole while in the houses, in the streets and on the roofs, the women fighting as well and bravely as their husbands.”

46. This was Stirling-Maxwell’s conclusion about the battle: “Although in numbers, both of men and vessels, the Sultan’s fleet was superior to the fleet of the league, this superiority was more than counterbalanced by other important advantages possessed by the Christians. The artillery of the West was of greater power and far better served than the ordnance of the East.” See ibid., vol. I, p. 423.

47. My translation from M. Antonio Arroyo, Relación del progresso della armada de la Santa Liga (Milan, 1576), cited ibid., vol. I, p. 410. Maxwell translates Hermanos as “Friends,” but “Brothers” makes better sense.

48. Putti blowing onto the Christian ships to fill the sails were shown in paintings of Lepanto.

49. Some of the commanders on the wings had already made the decision for themselves and gave the galleasses a wide berth.

50. Of the 170 Ottoman galleys captured most were so badly damaged as to be useless. See Stirling-Maxwell, Don John, vol. I, pp. 430–31.

51. Ibid., p. 407, citing Girolomo Diedo, Lettere di principe, vol. III, p. 266.

52. See Stirling-Maxwell, Don John, vol. I, p. 427.

53. Ibid., pp. 445–6.

54. Fray Josef de Sigüenza, Historia del Orden de San Geronimo (1605), cited ibid., p. 448.

55. As he wrote to Don John six days later, “I thought I should never