This book will provide more understanding about the historical relationship between Christians and Muslims in the 16th Century. In addition to Hungarian and Latin texts, many of the documents used are translated from 16th Century Ottoman Turkish. Modern Turkish texts also contribute a significant amount of reference material for this work. Isabella Sforza Zapolya (1520 - 1559) was a remarkable woman, though almost unknown. The eldest child of King Sigismund Stary of Poland and Queen Bona Sforza, Isabella grew up in Wawel Castle in Krakow, Poland. She was given a humanist education and was fluent in Latin, Polish, Italian and Hungarian. Isabella was widowed after a year of marriage to John Zapolya I, King of Hungary, just fifteen days after the birth of his son, who became the King of Transylvania. After she was widowed, Sultan Suleyman promised Isabella that he would protect her and her son. During Isabella's life, he never broke that promise. Exchanges between two cultures and the crossing of boundaries around gender, class, religion, race and geography are constant in the lives of Isabella and Sultan Suleyman. The history that has most frequently been related by western historians regarding the Ottoman Empire has relegated them to the status of the other. This book is Turkish friendly without glossing over harsh truths about all of the players in a treacherous, bloody struggle for power.
Alicia McNary Forsey taught at the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley as Professor of Church History for thirteen years. She remains a visiting scholar of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. A life-long Unitarian Universalist, Reverend Forsey has always had a passion for religious studies. She is also on the adjunct faculty of the Humanist Institute, and co-teacher of Class 16 (a three-year certificate program) for the Humanist Institute.
Her new book, Queen Isabella Sforza Szapolyai of Transylvania and Sultan Suleyman of the Ottoman Empire: A Case of Sixteenth-Century Muslim-Christian Collaboration, is about the life of Isabella Sforza Szapolyai, Queen of Transylvania and mother of the only Unitarian king in history. The book uncovers the relationship between Islam and Christianity in Transylvania during the Sixteenth Century using documents archived at the Prime Minister's Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, Turkey.
Rev. Forsey has a B.A., M.Div., and Ph.D. in religious studies, with the Ph.D. concentrating on the intellectual history of Unitarianism.
