"Italian women in the Ottoman harem
Thursday, November 24, 2005
SPOT1 Possibly far more foreign women than Turkish women entered the harem. The policy seems to have been directed at preventing Turkish families from becoming too involved in palace affairs or too influential, so having a foreign woman with few, if any, ties was to be desired SPOT2 The most important women in the period known as 'the reign of women' were two Venetians -- Nurbanu and Safiye -- and much of what we know about their activities comes from the observations of Venetian ambassadors of the time "
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