Antonio Primaldo and his companion martyrs also known as the Martyrs of Otranto were 813 inhabitants of the Salentine city of Otranto in southern Italy who were killed on August 14 1480. The mass execution is often explained as taking place after the Otrantins refused to convert to Islam when the city fell to an Ottoman force under Gedik Ahmed Pasha. The contemporary Turkish historian Ibn Kemal indeed justified the slaughter on religious grounds.
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