Alter egos: Mediterranean agents negotiating identity at the dawn of the Franco-Ottoman alliance

This essay seeks to shed light on the role of a range of Mediterranean agents involved in fostering the nascent Franco-Ottoman relationship up to 1535, when the first French residential ambassador was sent to Constantinople, and in responding to these operatives’ actions. It seeks to broaden our view of the Franco-Ottoman alliance in its early days, beyond its leaders to investigate the work of agents of differing ethnic and cultural backgrounds who acted as their alter-egos, in this case, focussing upon those for the French king. It thus investigates how individuals from diverse Mediterranean locales acted as diplomatic agents for François I to foster the alliance, and at the same time, negotiated their own status and identity through it. The unofficial nature of most of their work, and their identity as ‘other’ than French, was advantageous to the burgeoning relationship and also complicated the critique of this alliance that could be made by other polities, particularly those in the Habsburg network. The essay explores several dynamics of alterity, as multiple operatives and observers around the region sought to make sense of behaviours and actions that they read as ‘other’ and drawing upon a wide range of historical Mediterranean sources in order to broaden perspectives of agency, voice and resistance.