Who was Georgio Scala?

Abstract

The recorded reflections of this captive offer the historian interesting insights which shed light on the preoccupations and fears of all those who had the misfortune of being taken as captives and reduced to human chattels. Abducted, and taken as a slave by a galley of the knights of St John in 1590, 17-years old Georgio Scala must have also experienced similar thoughts and anxieties. However, in a world which considered the slave trade to be legal and profitable economic activity, our protagonist was only one the thousands who shared this same fate. What, therefore, makes his story extraordinary, so extraordinary as to merit a deeper investigation? Can the close scrutiny of this man's life offer novel perspectives the rather neglected' story of those who constituted the human prize of the Christian forces in the early modern Mediterranean world? What new insights may he gleaned from these sources which provide important information not only on corsairing activities, but on various social aspects regarding the sixteenth-century way of life?