At the beginning of the 17th century, the second Duke of Bracciano ordered a sumptuous white marble table: the Orsini table.

In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the heart of History", Jean des Cars tells you the story of this masterpiece, a true symbol of Franco-Italian diplomacy. 

In 1571, the Republic of Venice won the Battle of Lepanto against the Ottoman Empire, the first Duke of Bracciano was at the heart of the fighting.

Thirty-one years later, the Duke Virginio Orisni had a piece of furniture made, the decorations of which refer to this victory.

In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the heart of history", Jean des Cars reveals the secrets of the Orsini table. 

In 1602, the second Duke of Bracciano, Virginio Orsini, ordered from the workshops of Romolo del Tadda in Florence a magnificent white marble table inlaid with hard stones, the famous Florentine pietra dura.

The decoration and the designs of the table are intended to recall the bravery of the first Duke of Bracciano, Paolo Giordano Orsini, the father of Virginio, at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. But what were the stakes of this famous battle and why Virginio is he so involved in this memory?

The Battle of Lepanto: a West-East clash 

In the second half of the 16th century, part of the western world was worried about the Ottoman push both on land and in the Mediterranean.

Venice, while trading with Constantinople, began to feel threatened.

The Pope shares this sentiment, the Spain of Philip II too.

On the banks of the Bosphorus, a new Sultan ascended the throne in 1566. His name is Selim.

His grandfather, Selim the Terrible, conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and imposed his authority over Mecca, becoming the spiritual leader of all Sunni Muslims.

His father, Suleyman, whom we call Suleiman the Magnificent, took over Croatia and Hungary.

He entered the Balkans, and conquered as far as the Venetian lands.

He wrested Baghdad and Mesopotamia from the Shah of Persia, occupied Yemen and drove the Spaniards from all their garrisons in North Africa.

Soliman considered himself the heir to the Roman emperors, dating all his edicts from their capital Constantinople, which became his. 

With such a conquering grandfather and father, Sultan Selim could only continue the expansion of the Empire and the strengthening of the Islamic faith.

His first act of Sultan seems to prove it: he summons Sinan, the architect of his father who built the Süleymaniye, that is to say the mosque of Soliman, the most beautiful in Constantinople.

He asks this man over 70 years old to build an even more beautiful one in Adrianople, his favorite city.

This mosque is considered to be Sinan's masterpiece.

Selim's gesture was clear, he wanted to reassure his people.

Yet he himself wasn't quite sure he was up to the task.

He refused to give audience on the throne where his father sat, he sat in another superb room a little lower in the palace, on a chair upholstered in silk, gold and precious stones because he said he was not worthy of sit where his father was sitting. 

The gossip of the Venetian diplomats was then unleashed against him.

He was a heavy eater and drinker, fat from overeating and lack of exercise.

They did not observe religion since they drank wine which it accompanied with cold meats and lobsters, foodstuffs prohibited by the Koran.

Westerners were convinced that the new Sultan was a drunkard and a good-for-nothing!

It reassured them.

But the Sultan was not alone.

He ruled with five viziers, products of a system that in the Ottoman Empire was called "the harvest". 

Every four or five years, the officers of the Janissaries, a very powerful military order made up of slaves of European origin, visited Christian villages in the Balkan provinces of the Empire.

They would choose the most promising children and take them to Constantinople.

On average, one boy was taken from every forty families.

As soon as they arrived in Constantinople, they were circumcised and converted to Islam.

After an apprenticeship, they in turn became janissaries and the most talented entered the Topkapi Palace directly to serve the Sultan under his control.

In adulthood, they became high officials or military commanders of the Empire.

The five viziers of Selim were all from this "harvest".

The first, Mehemet Pasha, the grand vizier, was a Bosnian Serb, the second Perteu Pasha, was an Albanian and a minister.

The third, Piali Pasha, another minister, was Hungarian by birth.

The fourth, Ahmet Pasha, a Bosnian of very low extraction, had been a favorite, perhaps the Pasha's lover, and he was still his favorite drinking mate.

The fifth, Lala Mustapha Pasha, Bosnian, was Selim's treasurer.

It was with these five men that Selim envisioned the next Ottoman war against Venice with the intention of seizing Cyprus, a Greek island colonized by the Venetians.

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The Venetian diplomats in Constantinople, of course, have very knowledgeable spies.

They learn of the Sultan's plans to seize Cyprus.

They know he is arming a fleet for this purpose.

Immediately informed, Pope Pius V decrees that it is time to carry out a project he had dreamed of for a long time.

The Christian Powers would unite to confront the Infidels at sea with overwhelming force and end once and for all the threat to Christendom.

But it will not be easy to get the members of the Christian Alliance, the Santa Lega to agree.

Relations between Venice and Spain were appalling.

However, the Christian fleet will include Spanish, Venetian, Papal, Maltese, Genoese and other Italian principalities ships.

It should be noted that the France of Charles IX is not part of it.

Indeed, King Francis I had entered into an alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent.

He was, along with the Doge of Venice, the only Christian ruler with an ambassador in Constantinople.

This was still the case in 1570-1571 and when Sultan Selim landed in Cyprus, he wrote to Charles IX to warn him: for him, he was an ally. 

So, no French in the Santa Lega but a motley armada with strong Venetian dominance although under the direction of a Spaniard, don Juan of Austria.

This one is an illegitimate son of Charles V, born in 1547 in Regensburg.

His mother is Barbara Blomberg, daughter of a wealthy merchant from that town.

He was first brought up, without knowing his origins, by simple people, near Madrid before being admitted as a page to the Court of Charles V.

In 1559, Philippe II recognized him as his half-brother.

Don Juan then embarked on a brilliant military career and quickly demonstrated his great abilities.

In 1566, his half-brother appointed him commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet.

Four years later, he led operations against pirates and a Moriscos revolt in Granada.

It is he whom Philippe II will designate, in agreement with the Pope, to command the Christian armada. 

Don Juan of Austria reached Messina on August 23, 1571. It was there that his entire fleet gathered.

On September 26, the allies arrived in Corfu.

Don Juan has 208 galleys, 109 of which are Venetian, 26,000 infantry, 6 galleys, larger than the galleys and 24 other ships.

Several Orsini will participate in this famous battle.

Orazio Orsini, who commands the lead ship of the papal fleet, and Virginio both died from arquebus shots.

Paolo Giordano Orsini, the first Duke of Bracciano, is on board the flagship of the Lomellini, of the Tuscans.

He will be at the heart of the fighting.

The confrontation between the Ottoman fleet and the Christian fleet will take place in the Gulf of Patras, a little west of Lepanto and off Missolonghi. 

The Ottoman force is more important: it includes 300 ships.

The confrontation takes place on October 7, 1571. The Turks advance very quickly before the Christian fleet is really in order of battle.

But the wind drops abruptly.

The Ottomans were forced to lower their sails and paddle forward, leaving Don Juan of Austria time to complete the training of his fleet.

The royal galley, that of Colonna in the papal fleet, sees the galley of Kapudan Pasha, head of the Ottoman operations, arrive on it, before he spurs that of don Juan of Austria.

The two leaders are face to face.

The galley of Admiral Ali Pasha is quickly in an unfavorable position.

The engagement will last a long time, but the Ottoman resistance eventually gives way.

Ali Pasha will die fighting.

Her head is cut off and hoisted on a pike so that all Ottomans can see her and be demoralized. 

Don Juan, who is at the back of the ship, sword in hand, is immediately informed that the enemy galley is taken.

He gives the order to shout "Victory!"

Immediately, this cry spread to all the galleys around.

All the Christian flagships are concentrated there, that of the Prince of Parma, the Prince of Urbino and the Lomellini with Paolo Giordano Orsini.

A huge melee ensues.

The Ottoman galleys are defeated.

After the fight, the looting will begin.

Historian Alessandro Barbero describes the end of the battle to us: "When the sun goes down, the flames that consume the debris of the last Turkish galleys set the horizon ablaze. Christians continue to pursue the last remaining vessels that had not yet left. rendered in the midst of a sea strewn with clothing, turbans, quivers, arrows, bows, drums, timpani, oars, tables, crates, suitcases, and above all, bodies humans. "

Among the wounded Spanish fighters is Cervantes.

The future author of "Don Quixote" loses the use of one hand.

Only night will put an end to the massacres.

The Battle of Lepanto is undoubtedly a huge victory for the Christian fleet over an Ottoman fleet that was ultimately poorly motivated and ill-prepared.

But the Venetians will not benefit from this success since at the end of the war, the Sultan will remain master of Cyprus, thus controlling the eastern Mediterranean and the last Spanish bases in the Maghreb.

The real benefits of victory

After the victory, the booty will be distributed among the various winners.

In the captured galleys, a large quantity of gold and silver, cannons, artillery pieces and more than 3,486 slaves were found.

Luckily, almost half of the booty is already in the hands of the Spaniards and the other half in those of the Venetians and subjects of the Pope.

So there will only be a few adjustments to complete the sharing.

It is Don Juan who takes the greatest part to the detriment of other princes.

Their resentment will remain.

Prince Caracciolo will say: "The booty is distributed with great subtlety, more according to the practices of shopkeepers than of princes". 

Paolo Giordano Orsini was entitled, like the others, to his share of the plunder.

He had captured the "Cadi Papasso", the justice of the peace of the Ottoman Fleet, extremely learned and speaking several languages.

Orsini brings him back to Rome where his prisoner has enormous success.

Orsini ends up offering it to Cardinal Medici who, in turn, thinks of offering it to the Pope.

If the victory of Lepanto did not have territorial benefits since Cyprus remains in the hands of the Ottomans, it had a huge psychological impact: it proved that the Ottomans are not invincible.

The event has a huge impact in the Christian world.

The son of Paolo Giordano, one of the heroes of Lepanto, Virginio Orsini, will also continue to fight against the Ottoman Empire a few years later, but on land this time, during the long war from 1593 to 1606. In 1594, at the head of a cavalry of 400 men, Virginio commands the first contingent of the Pope participating in a campaign against the Turks in Hungary.

He is involved in the takeover of the city of Györ, in northern Hungary.

It is on his return from this expedition that he will order in 1602, as I told you at the beginning of this story, the pietra dura table which in reality celebrates not only his father in Lepanto, but also him. - even in Hungary, both conquerors of the Ottomans.

The Orsini table

Virginio Orsini therefore ordered from the Romolo del Tadda workshops in Florence a pietra dura table, to the glory of the Orsini.

The result is a true masterpiece.

It is large: 2.64 meters by 1.37 meters. It is made of white Carrara marble, but not dazzling white.

It is of "ordinario" quality, in French this word translates as "veined".

It is voluntary.

This marble wonderfully evokes a sky not blue but dotted with clouds, in whitish shades on which the butterflies and the fluttering birds, which decorate the table, will stand out in an ideal way.

A large central motif unfolds along the length.

It has the shape of a large vase and in this vase, a bouquet of flowers is encircled by the ducal crown of Bracciano. 

The crown, an instrument of power par excellence, confirms that this motif is both symbolic and naturalistic.

From this vase, above the crown, emerges a Florentine iris framed by buttercups and branches of blue hyacinths.

The blue of the hyacinths is in lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, like all the blues of this magnificent table.

On either side of the crown, roses from France, red, with five petals, which appear on the Orsini coat of arms.

The red is an encrustation of Mediterranean coral.

All around this vase, flutter butterflies and birds which hold flowers or fruits in their beaks.

Some of them carry an olive branch.

It symbolizes peace after victory.

Olive leaves are inlays of jasper. 

At the four corners of the central plateau, four magnificent bouquets of lilies and roses, tulips, cornflowers and other flowers still spring from four blue vases, also in lapis lazuli.

They are placed at the four corners of the frieze that surrounds the central rectangle.

Four war trophies decorate this frieze lengthwise, two on each side.

They praise the warlike exploits of the Orsini, representing flags taken from the Ottomans;

their moon crescents are inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Still in the frieze, in the middle of the two lengths and two widths, the four elements symbolize the balance of the Orsini: a dolphin for the water, a salamander for the fire, a snake for the Earth and a chameleon for the air. .

The whole is very beautiful.

The blue of the lapis lazuli gives rhythm to each of the decorations as well as the coral red for the tulips, cherries, roses and butterfly wings.

We do not know what the base of the table was when it was handed over to the Orsini.

We changed it later.

It was modified in 1657. These are two bronze dolphins probably symbolizing the sea on which the battle of Lepanto took place which support the white marble plateau.

But the Orsini table will soon have a new destiny.

It will become a diplomatic gift.

Bibliographic resources: 

François Farges (Scientific Direction),

Precious Stones

, exhibition catalog

(Van Cleef & Arpels - Flammarion, 2020)

Alessandro Barbero,

The Battle of the Three Empires, Lepanto, 1571

(Translated from Italian by Patricia Farazzi and Michel Valensi, Champs collection, Flammarion, 2014)

Diane Ribardière,

The Princess of the Ursins, Lady of Iron and Velvet

(Perrin, 1988 and 1998) 

"At the heart of History" is a Europe 1 Studio podcast

Author and presentation: Jean des Cars


Production: Timothée Magot


Director: Jean-François Bussière 


Distribution and editing: Clémence Olivier and Salomé Journo 


Graphics: Karelle Villais

This episode was produced in partnership with the National Museum of Natural History on the occasion of the "Precious Stones" exhibition that you will be able to discover in Paris as soon as the museums reopen their doors.