Domenico Ottomano

Domenico di San Tommaso (2 January 1642 – 25 October 1676), born Osman, also known as Domenico Ottomano or Padre Ottomano, was an Ottoman friar of the Dominican Order who was claimed to be the firstborn son of sultan Ibrahim. He was the son of Zafire Hatun, a woman in the Ottoman Imperial Harem, and whether or not he was actually fathered by Ibrahim remains unclear. During his early childhood, he and his mother were captured and taken to Hospitaller Malta, where he was raised, converted to Christianity and joined the Dominicans. In his adulthood, he lived in the Papal States and France and he travelled to other Italian states, where he was received as a prince by political and religious leaders despite his apparent desire to lead a modest monastic life.

During the late stages of the Cretan War – which had commenced as a result of his capture by the Hospitallers – Ottomano was at the centre of an ambitious political scheme devised in Venice and Rome which sought to use him as a pretender to the Ottoman throne in a bid to change the outcome of the Siege of Candia and to instigate a wider revolt with the goal of replacing the Ottoman Empire with a Christian empire. In 1668–1669, he traveled to Candia and Zante in an attempt to implement this scheme, but failed to secure any meaningful support and the plan fell apart. He lived the rest of his life in Rome and Malta, where he died at the age of 34.