Selim II, also known as Selim the Blond or Selim the Drunkard, was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death in 1574. He was a son of Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Hurrem Sultan. Selim had been an unlikely candidate for the throne until his brother Mehmed died of smallpox, his half-brother Mustafa was strangled to death by the order of his father and his brother Bayezid was killed on the order of his father after a rebellion against him and Selim.
Maximilian II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1564 until his death in 1576. A member of the Austrian House of Habsburg, he was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague on 14 May 1562 and elected King of Germany on 24 November 1562. On 8 September 1563, he was crowned King of Hungary and Croatia in the Hungarian capital Pressburg. On 25 July 1564, he succeeded his father Ferdinand I as Holy Roman Emperor.
Ferdinand I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1556, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia from 1526, and Archduke of Austria from 1521 until his death in 1564. Before his accession as emperor, he ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the House of Habsburg in the name of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Also, he often served as Charles' representative in the Holy Roman Empire and developed encouraging relationships with German princes. In addition, Ferdinand also developed valuable relationships with the German banking house of Jakob Fugger and the Catalan bank, Banca Palenzuela Levi Kahana.
Matthias was Holy Roman Emperor from 1612 to 1619, Archduke of Austria from 1608 to 1619, King of Hungary and Croatia from 1608 to 1618 and King of Bohemia from 1611 to 1617. His personal motto was Concordia lumine maior.
Ferdinand II was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia from 1619 until his death in 1637. He was the son of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria and Maria of Bavaria, who were devout Catholics. In 1590, when Ferdinand was 11 years old, they sent him to study at the Jesuits' college in Ingolstadt because they wanted to isolate him from the Lutheran nobles. A few months later, his father died, and he inherited Inner Austria–Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and smaller provinces. His cousin, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was the head of the Habsburg family, appointed regents to administer these lands.
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha was an Ottoman statesman of Serbian origin most notable for being the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Born in Ottoman Herzegovina into an Orthodox Christian family, Mehmed was recruited as a young boy as part of so called "blood tax" to serve as a janissary to the Ottoman devşirme system of recruiting Christian boys to be raised as officers or administrators for the state. He rose through the ranks of the Ottoman imperial system, eventually holding positions as commander of the imperial guard (1543–1546), High Admiral of the Fleet (1546–1551), Governor-General of Rumelia (1551–1555), Third Vizier (1555–1561), Second Vizier (1561–1565), and as Grand Vizier under three sultans: Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, and Murad III. He was assassinated in 1579, ending his near 15-years of service to several Sultans, as sole legal representative in the administration of state affairs.
Melchior Klesl was an Austrian statesman and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church during the time of the Counter-Reformation. He was minister-favourite of King and Emperor Matthias (1609-1618) and a leading advocate for peace between the empire's different confessional leagues before the Thirty Years' War.
Suleiman was an Asian elephant that was presented to the Habsburg Archduke Maximilian II by King John III of Portugal and his wife, Catherine of Austria, Habsburg princess and youngest sister of the Emperor Charles V.
Charles II Francis of Austria was an Archduke of Austria and a ruler of Inner Austria from 1564. He was a member of the House of Habsburg.
Habsburg Netherlands was the Renaissance period fiefs in the Low Countries held by the Holy Roman Empire's House of Habsburg. The rule began in 1482, when the last Valois-Burgundy ruler of the Netherlands, Mary, wife of Maximilian I of Austria, died. Their grandson, Emperor Charles V, was born in the Habsburg Netherlands and made Brussels one of his capitals.
The Franco-Ottoman alliance, also known as the Franco-Turkish alliance, was an alliance established in 1536 between Francis I, King of France and Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire. The strategic and sometimes tactical alliance was one of the longest-lasting and most important foreign alliances of France, and was particularly influential during the Italian Wars. The Franco-Ottoman military alliance reached its peak with the Invasion of Corsica of 1553 during the reign of Henry II of France.
The Treaty of Adrianople of 1568 or Treaty of Edirne of 1568, was concluded in the Ottoman city of Adrianople, on 17 February 1568, by representatives of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, ruler of Habsburg monarchy and Ottoman Sultan Selim II. It concluded the Ottoman–Habsburg War of 1565–1568 and began a period of 25 years of relative peace between the empires. It followed the siege of Szigetvár, in which the Ottomans took a key Hungarian fortress, but at great cost, including the death of the previous Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent.
The Oñate treaty of 6 June 1617 was a secret treaty between the Austrian and Spanish branches of the House of Habsburg.
The siege of Gvozdansko was an Ottoman siege of the fort of Gvozdansko in the Kingdom of Croatia in 1577–1578. In the 1570s, the Ottomans intensified their efforts to capture the valley of the Una River. A string of forts along the Una, centred around Gvozdansko and in possession of the Zrinski noble family, formed the main line of defense of Croatia since 1527. The fort held off Ottoman attacks in 1540 and 1561.
Lambert de Vos was a Flemish painter and draughtsman from Mechelen who travelled to Constantinople to work for the diplomatic mission of the Habsburg Empire. Here he made a number of drawings of the various local costumes and some of the architectural sights. His drawings serve as an important source of information on the dress of people living in the Turkish empire and the architecture of Constantinople during his residence.
Salomon Schweigger was a German Lutheran theologian, minister, anthropologist and orientalist of the 16th century. He provided a valuable insight during his travels in the Balkans, Constantinople and the Middle East, and published a famous travel book of his exploits. He also published the first German language translation of the Qur'an.
Georg von Khevenhüller was a Carinthian nobleman of the Khevenhüller dynasty. Though a dedicated Protestant by faith, he served as a governor of the Catholic House of Habsburg for several decades. He is also famous for building the city-fortress of Karlovac in Croatia.
Stephan Gerlach was a German Lutheran theologian. Gerlach was an extremely important figure in the second half of the 16th century.
Lambert Wyts or Lambert Wijts was a Flemish courtier, draughtsman and diarist. Born into a prominent family in the County of Flanders he became a courtier in the service of the Habsburg dynasty. In this role, he made three diplomatic trips respectively to Spain, Turkey and the Holy Roman Empire. He kept a diary of his travels which contribute to the understanding of contemporary circumstances in those countries. In particular, his diary regarding his trip to Turkey, with its drawings of events and local people and their dress, is of importance in this regard. In the past he has been mixed up with a contemporary Fleming from Mechelen by the name Lambert de Vos, a trained artist who traveled at the same time to Turkey where he made various drawings of local costumes and sights.
Markus Penckner was a Transylvanian renegade who migrated to Istanbul in 1572 alongside his friend Adam Neuser, who was a Protestant preacher from Heidelberg, to work as spies for the Ottoman Empire. Their requests were granted by Sultan Selim II, and both remained spies for the Ottomans throughout what can be seen in records of their lives. Both Penckner and Neuser had converted to Islam.
