Jacopo Ligozzi Verona 1547 - 1627 Florence

Private Collection, England;
With Trinity Fine Art, London, by 1998

The inscription on this drawing identifies the figure as a Pasha (Bassà in the Italian of the day), a high official in the Ottoman empire.  This was normally a much higher rank than the Chiaus, which was a sort of Imperial envoy, also mentioned in the inscription, although a contemporary of Ligozzi makes reference to a Chiaus Pasha.  William Harebrowne, the English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte during the reign of Elizabeth I, describing the various salaries of high Ottoman officials noted that the Sultan paid the "Chiaus Pasha, captain of the pensioners, one hundred and twenty aspers the day, and amounteth to, by the year, in sterling money, two hundred threescore and two pounds, sixteen shillings."   The other term in the inscription, "spaì" was the contemporary Italian spelling of the Turkish work sipahi which was an elite unit of the Ottoman cavalry.  As the requirement for membership in this corp was the ownership of land (and pure Turkish ancestry), the term was sometimes used for that class as a whole.