Name Giovanni Marana | Died 1693 | |
Books Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy | ||
Giovanni Paolo Marana or sometimes Jean-Paul Marana (1642 - 1693) was a noble Genoese, who participated in 1672 in an unsuccessful conspiracy for passing the town of Savona under the rule of the Dukes of Savoy, moved to France in 1683.
Contents
In the early 1670s, the Republic of Genoa was threatened by Louis XIV. Giovanni Paolo Marana, son of a jeweler, was 27 years old at the time and was convinced that the Republic is threatened with invasion by the sea, and in this respect made false plans that he submitted to the palace of the Doge. The hoax was discovered and it comes to the state inquisitors; civil inquisition in cities such as Genoa and Venice was unrelated to religious Inquisition. Marana was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment. In prison, he worked on the translation of the complete works of Seneca, as well as an encoded system of writing.
Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy
Marana is the author of Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy, an epistolary novel which judges the history and manners of Europe and especially of France of his time, from an Oriental perspective. This book was published in Italian in 1684 and in French in 1686.
The French writer and philosopher Montesquieu also drew on this book in his Persian Letters, an epistolary novel published in 1721 criticizing the existing absolute monarchy in France at his own time.