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Biography
Cecilia was the natural daughter of Nicolò Venier, Lord of Paros, by Violante Baffo.
She was captured when the Turks conquered the Aegean (Egean) island of Paros, where she was born, during the 1537 war, abducted from there and taken to the royal harem of Prince Selim in Istanbul, where she was renamed Sultana Nur-Banu, "Princess of Light". She became the most favored wife of Sultan Selim II, who was put on the throne in 1566, and the mother of Sultan Murad III.
When Selim II died in 1574, she concealed his death and hid his corpse in an icebox until her son Murad arrived from Manisa, where he was governor, twelve days later and became the sultan.
Nur-Banu managed the government together with the Grand Vizir Sokollu Mehmet Pasha and became the first Valide Sultan (Sultaness Mother) who acted as co-regent with the sultan in the Sultanate of Women. She corresponded with queen Catherine de' Medici of France, and during her nine years of regency (1574-1583), she maintained such a pro-venetian politics that she became hated by the Republic of Genoa; some have even suggested that she was poisoned by a Genoese agent. Wathever the case, she did die a suspicious death in her Palace in the Yeni Qapu Quarter, Istanbul (Constantinople), "21st of the month of du l-qa'da 991" (7 December 1583).
She was related to Safiye Sultan, who became the Valide Sultan of her son.
References
- Ancestry of Sultana Nur-Banu (Cecilia Venier-Baffo)
- Goodwin, Jason, Lords of the Horizons, (1998) - page 160
External links
Sucession
| Preceded by Hürrem |
Valide Sultan 1574 - 1583 |
Succeeded by Safiye Sultan |
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