Jacopo Ligozzi Verona 1547 - 1627 Florence

The Solaks were an elite corps of archers specially chosen from the ranks of the Janissaries for their skill with the bow and for their ferocity.  Their uniforms were particularly sumptuous and they were fitted out in damask or white satin, with white felt toques decorated with large and costly feathers.  As the inscription on this drawing indicates, the Solaks were specially attached to the Sultan himself ¹.  Nicolay describes them in detail: 

“Quando il gran Turco va fuor della terra, ò alla Moschea, marciano in questo ordine à due à due intorno al sua persona, ciò è un’ordine dalla banda destra, che sono mancini & un’altra à sinestra che sono diritti; osservando tale ordine affine che, s’egli avvenisse, che ò per necessità, ò per piacere del Signore, bisognasse loro scoccare non voltassero le spalle al padrone. Imperoche tengono questo per gra[n]de irreverenza, vergogna, & dispregio, & per tal cagione sono chiamati Solachi ò Czolachari, che vuol dire mancini.  [When the Great Turk goes about, or to the mosque, they march in order, two by two about his person, that is to say one rank from the right group, who are left-handed, and another from the left, who are right-handed; maintaining such ranks until, if it happens whether out of need or at the pleasure of the Lord, it becomes necessary to shoot their arrows, they do not turn their back on their Master.   Because they do this with such great insolence, pride and scorn, and for this reason they are called “Solachi” or “Czolachari,”  that is to say ‘lefties.’]"²  

1  Trans: “Sulacchi, they are those that walk in front of the Great Lord with bows and arrows.”

2  The Turkish word for left-handed is “Solak”.  See N. de Nicolay, p. 86.