Pius II (Sienese Enea Silvio Piccolomini), after realizing the substantial failure of the anti-Ottoman alliance at the European and Italian levels due to local and national interests, prepared the Epistle to Mohammed. In essence, he proposed that Mohammed II convert to Christianity. Mohammed II was an Ottoman, a people of Mongolian origin who converted to Islam after arriving in Turkey, so the idea was not unlikely, given that it would open the doors of Europe to the Ottoman Empire, whose greed for Italy was all too evident. The epistle was shocking: just a few drops of holy water and the deal would be done, but it remained stuck among the papers of the papal secretariat. Mohammed II would only read a copy several years later. The reasons for the blockage remain a mystery. Had the Sultan accepted the letter, it would have opened the doors of Rome and perhaps Europe to the Ottomans, but it would also have opened the doors of the entire Middle East to the Pope.
