Mathieu Grenet: Tripoli as seen by a captive (1660s)

Antoine Quartier’s The Religious Slave and His Adventures (1690) offers a rare European account of 17th-century Tripoli. Quartier’s observations, though brief, provide insights into Tripoli’s urban, political, and economic landscape under Ottoman rule, highlighting its coastal prosperity contrasted with a desert and mountainous hinterland. The city’s cosmopolitan population—comprising Arabs, Turks, renegades, Jews, and captives—reflects its role as a Mediterranean trade hub. Quartier’s narrative underscores the captives’ diverse experiences, the rise of renegade elites, and Tripoli’s strategic significance within the Ottoman Empire, challenging stereotypes of North African "decadence." His w... »