192 | Fleeing “the Vomit of Infidelity”
Asked then about the reason why she embarked with her daughters, as
she claimed, on the aforementioned galley.
She answered: I boarded the galley with my daughters in order to go to
Christian lands, as I have already said. Because, although by all appearances I
lived and professed the Christian rite, while I was in Milos I had made a vow
to become a nun. And when I arrived here I did so.
Asked if she and the other women—her daughters and the servants—still
are staying in the same house.
She answered: After I became a nun, I went to the Monastery of our Lady,
called Antivouniotissa; and my two daughters took husbands. Margherita
married Signor Santo Burlion, citizen of Corfu, and Anna married Signor
Zorzi, son of Signor Dimo Trivoli, also a citizen. And my other daughter, Cat-
terina, I keep with me in the monastery.
Asked about her will, as well as her intention concerning both the rite and
everything else, and the possibility of returning to her husband.
She answered: I was the wife of the aforementioned Turk Hassan, but now
he is dead. And my will and my intention was and is to live as a Christian, and
to become a nun, and to marry my daughters here, as has happened. As I said,
having abandoned everything I owned to come to Christendom, my intention
is to remain here forever.Suggestions for Further Reading
Baer, Marc. “Islamic Conversion Narratives of Women: Social Change and Gendered
Religious Hierarchy in Early Modern Ottoman Istanbul.” Gender and History 16
(2004): 425–458. This article is an excellent discussion of women’s conversion in
the Ottoman Empire.
Dursteler, Eric R. Renegade Women: Gender, Identity and Boundaries in the Early Mod-
ern Mediterranean. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. This first at-
tempt to study women from a Mediterranean perspective includes the full version
of the Gozzadini women’s story.
Jennings, Ronald C. “Women in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial Records: The
Sharia Court of Anatolian Kayseri.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of
the Orient 18 (1975): 53–114. This is a foundational work on women and Ottoman
courts.
Laiou, Sophia. “Christian Women in an Ottoman World: Interpersonal and Family
Cases Brought before the Shariɇa Courts during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries (Cases Involving the Greek Community).” In Women in the Ottoman
Balkans: Gender Culture, and History, edited by Amila Buturović and İrvin Cemil
Schick, 243–271. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007. This is an excellent discussion of how
non-Muslim women in the Ottoman Empire used its courts to their benefit.
Zilfi, Madeline C., ed. Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the
Early Modern Era. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1997. This is an important collection
on women’s lives in the Ottoman Empire.