Solomon ben Nathan Ashkenazi

Origins and early life

Solomon ben Nathan Ashkenazi was born about 1520 at Udine in the Venetian territory, into a Jewish family of German origin, and he remained a Jew throughout his life, trained as a rabbi as well as a physician.

Work and career

He studied medicine at Padua, entered the service of King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland as his personal doctor, and after the king's death moved to Constantinople, where he became physician to the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and then one of the most trusted Ottoman negotiators of his generation. He was the principal architect of the peace of 1573 that ended the war of Cyprus between the Ottoman Empire and Venice, conducting the secret negotiations with the Venetian bailo, and Venice rewarded him with a pension.

In the same year the Venetian Senate had decreed the expulsion of all Jews from the republic; Ashkenazi used his standing at the Porte to have the decree revoked on 19 July 1573, saving the Jewish community of Venice. He also intervened decisively in the Polish royal election of 1573 in favour of Henry of Valois, the future Henry III of France, by making the Ottoman position known to the Polish nobility. Venice later received him as Ottoman ambassador, with high honours and after considerable opposition to accepting a Jew in that role. His wife Bula Eskenazi cured Sultan Mehmed III of smallpox. He died at Constantinople in 1602.