Early Life
An Italian polyglot born in Dalmatia, Graziani had been in service to several European powers: he was an interpreter for the English diplomatic mission in the Ottoman Empire, and then an envoy of both Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II and the Spanish Viceroy of Naples to the Porte, negotiating the release of Christian sailors captured by Barbary pirates.
The sultan awarded Graziani the title of Duke of Paros and Naxos in 1616 ; he became a close ally of the Doges and, like his predecessor and rival Radu Mihnea, a self-declared admirer of the Serenissime system of government; Graziani also married into a family of Venetian patricians.
Read more about this topic: Gaspar Graziani
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“In early days, I tried not to give librarians any trouble, which was where I made my primary mistake. Librarians like to be given trouble; they exist for it, they are geared to it. For the location of a mislaid volume, an uncatalogued item, your good librarian has a ferret’s nose. Give her a scent and she jumps the leash, her eye bright with battle.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“Peasants are a rude lot, and hard: life has hardened their hearts, but they are thick and awkward only in appearance; you have to know them. No one is more sensitive to what gives man the right to call himself a man: good-heartedness, bravery and virile brotherhood.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)