The siege of Shkodra, Marin Barleti

Title: The siege of Shkodra (hard cover)
Original: De obsidione Scodrensi
Category: History
Author: Marin Barleti
Translated into english: David Hosaflook
Publisher: Onufri
Year: 2012
Pgs: 368
Weight: 0.793 kg.
ISBN: 978-99956-87-77-9

Over the book

The year is 1478. Europe is under attack. Ten years after the death of their champion, Scanderbeg, the Albanians and the Venetians continue to resist the Turks, defending their fatherland and buying time for Western Europe to prepare for the coming onslaught.

History has long overlooked the heroic contribution of the Albanians to slowing the Ottoman machine intent on conquering all of Europe. Marin Barleti gives the world a thrilling firsthand account – simple men and women fighting for their families, fields and faith.

Watch from the castle's parapets and see Turkish hordes whitewashing the fields below with their tents and squadrons. Learn how janissaries were trained and how new military cannons were ushered into the history of warfare.

See how the outnumbered citizens foiled the invaders' furious attacks. Even though the sultan is defeated and forced to retreat, he maintains the siege of Shkodra until the Venetian Senate cedes it to as an ultimatum for peace.

The crest – fallen citizens of Shkodra choose emigration over subjugation, sailing across the Adriatic to safe harbor in Venice. With the Albanian coastline under his control, the sultan can finally set his control, the sultan can finally set his attention upon Western Europe.

Comments on the book

"One of the most remarkable episodes in the struggle between the West and the Crescent."

Franz Babinger, premier historian of the Ottoman Empire

"Monumental"

Ismail Kadare, albanian autor, candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature

"Ottoman "shok-and-awe". Extraordinary!"

Roger Crowley, best – selling autor of historical narrative

"The albanians attracted the prime forces of the Ottoman Empire when it was at its zenith and impeded the westward advance of its hordes."

Gazmend Shpuza, professor of Ottoman history, Tirana University

"The massive fortress on the hill of Rozafa... was seen as the key to the Adriatic."

David Abulafia, professor of history, Cambridge University

"Gripping! A seminar source of Balkan history."

Robert Elsie, writer and specialist in Albanian studies

Over the author

Marin Barleti (ca. 1450-1512), known also as Marinus Barletius, is considered Albania's first and foremost historian. A Catholic priest and citizen of Shkodra, he witnessed the first Ottoman siege and fought in the second.

When Shkodra was finally ceded to the Turks by the Venetians, Barleti, like many of his compatriots, emigrated to Italy and settled in Padua, where he became rector of the parish church of St. Stephan.

Though the Siege of Shkodra was his first work, he is best known for his second, The History of Scanderbeg. Barleti captured the imagination of the sixteenth – century Europian reader who, with the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1529 was becoming increasingly obsessed by the prospect of a Turkish conquest of Western Europe.

Included in this volume are a foreword by David Abulafia, Aleks Buda's historical introduction, Works by Barleti's contemporaries Merula and Becikemi, passages from Ottoman chroniclers, and new maps and historical commentary by translator – editor David Hosaflook.