Awesome deluge of water & lightening in Constantinople -1573

Awesome deluge of water and lightening storms, that happened to Constantinople, causing the ruins of major buildings of unfathomable value, where the life of the great lord was in danger.

With the Peace agreement of the lordship of Venice and the great Turk.

	Sir, in my last letters I promised to give you a recount of the most notable things that happened in Constantinople. To which I do not want to fail the present occasion to investigate in Italy  for the obligations I have to your house, as well as your merits and virtues. You will hear then sir, that what happened then was an awesome case, and worthy to be communicated to everyone in the whole world, as new to the memory of men. It was on the 29th of last month, that it started raining, terribly and continuously and lasted until the evening of the following Wednesday. From Tuesday evening until Wednesday, the thunder and lightening didn’t stop roaring, (TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: the next word used is the old English word “faggot” or “faggettes” in French, which means a bundle of sticks. strangely they use this to describe fireballs raining down on the city from the sky. Could they be describing a fasces in use?) “fireballs/faggots” fell from the sky, we counted 80 causing tremendous damage all over. And the truth is that it seemed like God wanted to destroy through marine “waves”(TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: the French word used means “energy waves” in general, which also include sound, energy, electromagnetic, water, etc. Normally the word for "water waves" would be called a "Vagues" not "Ondes", so I wanted to make that distinction.), and exterminate through celestial fire for the vengeance of our errors; because in the whole country the waters flooded so bad that it took away whole houses, destroyed vineyards, farm buildings, with more than 6,000 burrows of wheat, not counting the infinite amount of people and other goods consumed by such a deluge. This overflow that was going over the wall of the Lord’s arsenal, took away all the boats that were there, it seemed like the windows of heaven were once again opening for our final ruin. The galleys went and crashed against a number of round vessels that were anchored and were all destroyed, and everything was floating.

(Translator’s note: I separated these two parts to distinguish the two narratives, the original document just runs through it all in one paragraph.)

That night the lord was found on the site called the 7 Towers, our lord God spared him greatly, since despite the affliction the water caused, if he hadn’t been rescued a little later he would have been dead like the other ones: but Fagat Aga Chief of the Janissaries (TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Ottoman ground forces) predicted the great danger where his master was, so he went with a horse hiking through the water up to the gorge taking the horse with him to give to his master: but on his way back he found that the water had risen impetuously and the horse stumbled and fell to the bottom. In the face of all this, Fagat never lost courage, and with the help of his spurs and a great cry the horse came back up full force and swam to where the bottom was shallower, and couldn’t go back to where he left his Lord, finally he reached the place where the “Ramouillans” were with the Lord’s vessel, who didn’t know anything about the danger he was in. And very rapidly the said Fagat jumped into the vessel and with the power of oars went through hill (where waters have never been) to reach their master faster, so much so that when they got to the 7 Towers the water had reached the first floor of the palace, and the Lord was full of fear, and deprived of any hope to be rescued he hit under a window for which he would be extracted from by the vessel and taken to the Sirail (TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Means Harem), barely alive, for the great fear that he had conceived: as soon as he went onto the vessel he saw in front of his eyes the palace taken by the water waves: great signal of God’s mercy only for the Monarch of infidels, maybe in the future to advise him of separating from the fake law of Mohamed. Those who out of necessity went to help their Lord were compensated by ample gifts and were risen in rank. In between other notable things that happened in this deluge, was that the great part of the mountain was taken by the violence of the water, and that it was discovered a portico supported by four beautiful columns with a cross on top that had been buried so many years in the said mountain, admired by everyone: but some think that at the fall of the Greek Empire, this portico was buried by the barbarians as they despised the Christians.

	Damage of this deluge was considered to be enormous exceeding 3 million in gold and a loss of an infinite number of people. And because the word in town was that the Lord had been drowned, but the day after the deluge had stopped he appeared in public, going straight to the main mosque to give grace to his false prophet Mohamed.


Articles of the Treaty Between the Venetian Lords and the Turk

	The treaty states all prisoners and slaves from both sides will be freed.

	The Turk was obliged to restore all seized merchandise of the merchants.

	As well as giving away Naples of “Romania” and Malvaisie, which fortresses have been dismantled.

	Negotiating this the Venetian Lords agreed to give $300,000 coins in three years, therefore $100,000 coins a years, and that trade and commerce was free as it was before.

Link to Original Document:
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k100862g.r=Merveilleux%20deluge%20d%27eaux%20et%20de%20foudres%2C%20advenu%20à%20Constantinople%20avec%20les%20convenances%20de%20paix%20entre%20la%20Seigneurie%20de%20Venize%20et%20ledit%20grand%20Turc?rk=21459;2