Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 73-74. (Budapest, 1975)
TANULMÁNYOK - Schultheisz Emil—Tardy Lajos: Egy reneszánsz-korbeli orvosdiplomata (angol nyelven)
Before its complete establishment the Ottoman Empire was several times on the verge of collapse. In 1402 Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) defeated Sultan BayaZyd, but in a relatively short time the then still very flexible Ottoman administrative and military système was restored and continued expanding in all directions. It met the strongest resistance not in the European states, engaged in continuous conflict with each other, but in the other powers of Asia, also confessing the faith of Mohammed, and in Georgia. The Ottomans fought long wars of alternating success with the Karamanid khans, their most dangerous rivals after the collapse of the Seljuk Empire, who also wanted to make use of European, first of all Hungarian help against the Ottomans. An even greater rival of Sultan Mehmed (Mohammed) II was the Turkoman Uzun Hasan, who considered himself heir of Timur, became the ruler of Persia, declared the Sultan his vassal and demanded a yearly tribute from him. All the more or less independent Asiatic neighbours, Christian or Mahommedan, of the Ottomans sought support against Mehmed II in the rule of Uzun Hasan. In 1458 the last Emperor of Trebizond, David Komnenos, gave the hand of the daughter of his predecessor-brother, Kalo-Johannes, to Uzun Hasan, thus establishing a close connection between the small Hellene stata and the Turkoman Khan sitting on the throne of Persia. For some time Georgia too was drawn into this relationship, especially as Trebizond had long been able to exist only under the protection of the rulers of Georgia. Receiving news of the successes of Uzun Hasan the European states threatened by the Turks abandoned their fond idea of a Crusade, to replace it with the conception of an alliance with the anti-Ottoman Asiatic states. This kept up the spirit of hope and confidence. In the summer of 1454 the then Bishop of Siena, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, the later Pius II wrote to Bishop János Vitéz, the Chancellor of Hungary, that the time has come to form a league of two continents, calling in one camp the Mohammedan Karamanids the Orthodox Georgians and the European Catholic powers. 11 Aeneas Silvius —already as Pope Pius II —in 1459 convened the Congress of Mantua with the aim of realizing this common action. It would not be without interest to describe in details why the Asiatic powers, or rather the representatives of Uzun Hasan and the rulers of Georgia met an atmosphere full of unjustified distrust, taking the place of the enthusiasm of the beginning. Here it is sufficient to say that the idea of the common EuropeanAsian action did not materialize, though in the following one and a half decades the extensive successes of the Ottomans gave a new, stronger impetus to the bold plans, forged mainly by the Signoria of Venice and Uzun Hasan. The ruler of Persia had contacts with the largest Venetian patrician houses and knew the position of the prosperous citystata, greatly endangered by the expanding Turks. At the end of 1403 Venice sent to Persia its non official envoy, Lazzaro Querini, who spent there many years. In 1404 and 1405 emissaries 11 Der Briefwechsel des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini. Hsg. R. Wolkan. Wien, 1918, 551 p.
