Nur-Banu

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Nur-Banu (born Cecilia Venier-Baffo) (1525–1583) was a Venetian-born Jewish woman of noble birth, and was the niece of Sebastiano Venier, the Doge of Venice. Cecilia was kidnapped by Ottoman brigands when the Turks concered the Aegen island of Paros in 1537 and taken to Istanbul, where she was renamed Sultana Nur-Banu, "Princess of Light". She became the most favored wife of Sultan Selim II and the mother of Sultan Murad III.

When Selim III died in 1574, she concealed his death and hid his corpse in an icebox until her son arrived from Manisa, where he was governor, tvelve days later and installed sultan. Nur-Banu run the governement togheter with the Grand Vizir Sokollu Mehmet Pasha and became the first Valide sultan who acted as the co-regent with the sultan in the Sultanate of Women. She corresponded with queen Catherine de Medici of France and during her nine years of regency (1574-1583) maintained a such pro-venecian politics that she became hated by the Republic of Genua; some have even suggested that she died poisoned by a genuese agent; wathever the case, she did die a sucpicious death in 1583, and was rumored poisoned.

[edit] References

• Goodwin, Jason, Lords of the Horizons, (1998) - page 160