In that year the chief of the rival tribe of the Ak-koinloos, named Uzun Hassan, who had established himself at Diarbekr, succeeded in defeating Jehan Shah in a battle in which the latter fell. The Ak-koinloos were now masters of Persia, and Uzun Hassan carried his victorious arms against Sultan Abouseyd, the reigning prince of the house of Timour, who also fell before him.
Malcolm’s account of the reign of Uzun Hassan is very meagre. He was the chief of the Ak-koinlu, or Turks, of the tribe of White Sheep, and established a powerful principality at Diarbekr. He defeated and killed Jehan Shah and his son Hassan Aly, whom he had taken prisoner, with all his family. The dynasty which Uzun Hassan founded is termed Bâyenderee; the family date their rise from the reign of Timour, who made them grants of land in Armenia and Mesopotamia. Hassan, after defeating his rival, engaged in a war with Sultan Abouseyd. He owed his triumph to his skill and activity in a predatory warfare, and at last having taken his enemy prisoner, made himself master of a great part of the dominions of the house of Timour. Malcolm says: “Uzun Hassan, after making himself master of Persia, turned his arms in the direction of Turkey; but his career was arrested by the superior genius of the Turkish emperor, Mahomet II; he suffered a signal defeat, which terminated his schemes of ambition. He died after a reign of eleven years, at the age of seventy. All authors agree in ascribing valour and wisdom to this prince. We are told by an European ambassador, who resided at his court, that he was a tall thin man, of a very open countenance, and that his army amounted to fifty thousand horse, a great proportion of which were of very indifferent quality.” He adds that this ambassador was an envoy from Venice, sent by that Republic to solicit the aid of Uzun Hassan against the Ottoman. The personage alluded to by Malcolm must have been M. Josafat Barbaro, the successor of M. Caterino Zeno.
Uzun Hassan had already been in collision with the Turks, having, when ruler of Diarbekr, undertaken to defend Calo Johannes of the noble house of the Comneni, one of the last of the Christian emperors of Trebizond, against Mahomet II. This alliance had been cemented by his marriage with the beautiful princess Despina, daughter of Calo Johannes, in which manner he was connected with some of the princely families of Venice, so that the way for an embassy was easily paved. The Venetians might hope much from the ambitious and turbulent character of the Persian prince; and in this they were not disappointed, as it needed but little persuasion to induce the hitherto almost invincible soldier to take up arms against his hereditary foe. Worn out by a state of anarchy, rival chiefs and tribes struggling for power before the land had fully risen again after the blast of foreign conquest had passed over it, the ancient glory of Persia had paled before the brighter light of its rival; but the old hatred still remained, with the will, if not the power, to oppose the Turkish arms. An embassy to Uzun Hassan being determined on, the difficult task of sending an envoy still remained. The duty would be a hazardous one, as any one proceeding from Venice to Persia would have to run the gauntlet of the Turks. The sister of Queen Despina had married Nicolo Crespo, the Duke of the Archipelago, whose four daughters were in turn wedded to four of the merchant princes of Venice, one of whom was M. Caterino Zeno, a man of courage and talent. He, of all others, appeared the fittest to undertake this honourable but perilous mission, and the patriotism of Zeno induced him to overlook the dangers he would run in traversing hostile and almost unknown regions before reaching his destination. He was rewarded for his courage by arriving safely in the presence of the king, though not without meeting serious obstacles in his journey through Caramania.
Zeno was well received by the monarch; and, being supported in his arguments by his aunt, the Queen Despina, succeeded in inducing Uzun Hassan to take up arms against the Turk.
In 1472 the Persians marched into the Turkish dominions and ravaged them, but a flying column under Mustafà, the second son of Mahomet II, routed a force of Persians under one of Uzun Hassan’s generals. In the following year the Grand Turk invaded Persia with an immense army, but met with a severe check while endeavouring to cross the Euphrates near Malatia, and was forced to retreat. Uzun Hassan, however, following up his success too rashly, was routed by the Turks at Tabeada. M. Caterino Zeno was then sent as ambassador from Uzun Hassan to various Christian princes, among others to Poland and Hungary, to incite them to take up arms against the Ottoman. M. Josafat Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini were sent from Venice to take his place at the Persian Court; but no arguments could again induce the Persian monarch to meet the Turks in the field.
The account of Zeno’s Travels in Ramusio’s collection was prepared from Zeno’s letters, as the editor was never able to get possession of a copy of Zeno’s book. For this reason the geographical details in these Travels are not so explicit as in the others, and Ramusio has in his book put Zeno’s narrative after several others, although in date he was the first. It is supplemented by a sketch of Persian history subsequent to M. Caterino’s embassy, taken from other sources. MM. Barbaro and Contarini succeeded Zeno. The account of their travels will form a separate work.
The second author in this collection is a M. Giovan Maria Angiolello, who was in the service of the Turks, and present in their campaign against the Persians. He describes, shortly, the rise of Uzun Hassan, and gives a full description of the Turkish invasion from the Turkish point of view, and the details of the march. Unghermaumet’s rebellion against his father Uzun Hassan is also mentioned by him as well as by Zeno. After the death of Uzun Hassan and his son Yakoob, Persia fell into a state of anarchy caused by the civil wars between various members of the dominant Akkoinloo family; from this the country rose at length, through the process of a revolution, almost without a parallel in the history of the world. Not only was there a change in the dynasty and form of government, but the empire was revived in a native Persian family, and an end was put to the long foreign domination. More than all, the very religion of the people was essentially altered: a fact which, by widening the gulf which separated them from their surrounding enemies, consolidated the empire and created a nationality. The family which now rose on the ruins of the Ak-koinlu power traced their descent from Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, through Mussa, the Seventh Imaum:—
