Rome. Gem, a former pretender to the Ottoman throne following the events of Otranto, arrives in the papal entourage. Having lost the contest, he had taken refuge years earlier in Rhodes, where the Knights of St. John had been paid by Sultan Bayezid to keep the dangerous rival outside the Empire’s borders. He was then sold to the French, and finally to the papacy, where he would also be depicted in a painting by Pinturicchio.
