A Forgotten Page from the Adventurous Life of Guatelli Pasha
On Oxford’s historic High Street, the city’s principal thoroughfare, there once stood at No. 90, immediately adjoining University College, the bookshop and publishing house of Joseph Vincent and his family. This three-storey building boasts a curious history; for in 1655 it housed the apothecary of Arthur Tillyard, who, in a remarkable innovation for the time, served Turkish coffee to Oxford students on the first floor. It was here that Christopher Wren, the future architect of St Paul’s Cathedral, first tasted Turkish coffee during his undergraduate days; indeed, the gatherings held in these rooms would eventually lead to the founding of the Royal Society.
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| Oxford’s historic High Street (© Emre ARACI) |
By the nineteenth century, the top floor of the building had been let to the mother of John Ruskin, the writer and art critic, who occupied it between 1836 and 1840 while her son was studying at Christ Church, so that she might better oversee his fragile health. Thus it was that Ruskin himself became a frequent visitor to the premises.
Joseph Vincent, following in his father’s footsteps, purchased Oxford’s local newspaper, the Oxford University and City Herald, in 1852 and continued to publish it from this address. This weekly paper, filled with local and international news, job advertisements, and concert announcements, appeared every Saturday, and one may imagine how many Oxford professors and students would have read it, shelved it in their libraries, or carried it about with them in their satchels. As Vincent gathered all manner of colourful news from across the world for his columns, he, like every provincial newspaper editor, would regularly scan both local and foreign publications, selecting curious items to present directly to his readers.
In September 1859, while once again trawling through various journals, he came across precisely the sort of story he sought in Galignani’s Messenger. This English-language daily, published in Paris by the Galignani family — booksellers and publishers whose activity stretched back to 1520 and whose shop at 224 Rue de Rivoli remains open to this day — provided a perfect tale.
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| Oxford University Herald, 17 September 1859 (© British Newspaper Archive) |
The story ranged from Istanbul to Geneva and concerned the chief musician of Sultan Abdülmecid. Vincent duly reprinted it verbatim in the fifth page of his newspaper, dated 17 September 1859 (Issue 2760). It reported that the Sultan’s Italian-born bandmaster had arrived in Geneva the previous week, accompanied by his beautiful Circassian wife. According to a letter from Constantinople, the lady’s name was given — in the spelling of the foreign newspaper — as "Sersefras," though this was surely intended to be "Serefraz," a name meaning "noble of bearing and open of brow." Serefraz Hanım, it was noted, had once been among the Sultan’s favoured concubines.
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| "Serefraz accompanied by two maids and a kavass, set off towards Ortaköy" (© Emre ARACI) |
One day, Serefraz summoned her carriage and, accompanied by two maids and a kavass, set off towards Ortaköy. Upon arrival, they halted before a particular waterside mansion she had indicated. Leaving the kavass on guard at the door, she entered the house with her maids. She was shown into one of the grand, sumptuously appointed reception rooms. Dismissing her maids, she was left alone — and after a considerable time had passed without any sound or sign of her, the concerned attendants ventured back in, only to discover that Serefraz had vanished without trace. The details of the incident at the waterside mansion were immediately reported to the Chief Eunuch of the Harem. Witnesses claimed to have seen several individuals, dressed in European attire, briefly appear in a boat moored at the mansion’s quay before disappearing quite suddenly.
It became evident that Serefraz, having disguised herself, had made her escape by slipping into a waiting boat at the quay. At the same time, it was noticed that a certain handsome Italian — none other than Guatelli, who also served as Director of Music at the Palace — had likewise vanished.
The fugitive’s house was searched, and it was discovered that all the valuable gifts bestowed upon him by the Sultan — gold, silver, and jewels — had been taken. It was said that the beautiful Serefraz possessed a magnificent singing voice, one which the Sultan had greatly admired. Now, having fled with an Italian maestro to Geneva, it could hardly be considered impossible that she might one day grace the stages of Europe’s theatres.
Thus did Galignani’s Messenger announce to the world the dramatic flight of Callisto Guatelli and the Circassian lady Serefraz. Nor was it only the Galignani family’s newspaper that carried the story; the affair was reported across dozens of journals and newspapers, from The Times of London to minor publications as far afield as Australia.
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| "Had the matter perhaps been discussed in the oak-panelled dining halls of the colleges?" |
One wonders what the readers of the Oxford University Herald might have thought on that September weekend. Had the matter perhaps been discussed by students strolling along Addison’s Walk, that leafy path which embraces the Cherwell at Magdalen College? Had the gardeners of Merton joined in the gossip? And, in the oak-panelled, candlelit dining halls of the colleges, during formal dinners taken in black academic gowns, whether at High Table or among the students’ benches, had the names of Serefraz and Guatelli been mentioned? Might this tale, almost echoing the spirit of a Mozart opera, have ignited, however faintly, a spark within the heart of some young scholar to dream, one day, of journeying to Constantinople?
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| Callisto Guatelli Pasha |
In its next issue, dated 16 July 1859, the Journal de Constantinople remained silent on the subject. It merely announced, in a few lines, that by order of the Sultan, Guatelli had been relieved of his duties as Director of the Imperial Band (Muzika-i Hümâyun), his place being taken by Bartolomeo Pisani, and that a restructuring of the management at the Naum Theatre had likewise been carried out. If the episode truly occurred as reported, one wonders whether anyone glimpsed Guatelli in the summer of 1859, walking with Madame Serefraz along the promenades of Geneva or most likely Genoa. Though we cannot say with certainty, we do know that Guatelli regained his favour at the Ottoman court within a few months. Indeed, the Evening Mail of 16 November 1859, in its report from its Constantinople correspondent, was quick to inform London’s evening readers that Signor Guatelli had reappeared and resumed his duties.
Although the tombstone of Callisto Guatelli in the Feriköy Latin Catholic Cemetery in Istanbul records his birth year as 1818, the baptismal registers of Parma Cathedral reveal that he was, in fact, born on 26 September 1819, in the historic city of Parma in northern Italy, once ruled by the Dukes of Parma. At that time, the throne was occupied by Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the Austrian-born second wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Duchess, moreover, contributed to the development of the city’s music school — today known as the Arrigo Boito Conservatoire — by offering financial assistance to its students. Among those who enrolled at the institution was young Callisto Guatelli, who entered in 1830 to study singing and double bass.
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| Parma's historic Conservatorio di Musica where Guatelli was a pupil in the 1830s |
After graduating in 1837, he worked as a chorus master in various Italian opera houses, including the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. Yet he had scarcely turned twenty-six when, within the space of a few weeks, an event occurred that would alter the course of his life:
Guatelli boarded a steamship of the Austrian Lloyd Company at the port of Trieste, and on Monday, 13 October 1845, he disembarked in a land he had never before set foot in — an exotic country whose skyline was pierced by the shadows of minarets.
What might the twenty-six-year-old Guatelli have felt as he stepped ashore at the Galata quay? Could he have foreseen that from that day onwards he would become a resident of Constantinople, spending the remaining fifty-five years of his life in that fabled city?
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| Guatelli disembarked at the Port of Constantinople on 13 October 1845 |
A few days after his arrival in the city, Callisto Guatelli’s name appeared for the first time in the local press. On 16 October 1845, the Journal de Constantinople announced the new company engaged for the 1845–1846 season at the Naum Theatre in Pera, listing Signor Guatelli under the titles Maestro al cembalo and Directeur de l’Opéra. He was now to stage Italian operas in Constantinople, and the season was to open with Rossini’s Semiramide. Yet one of Guatelli’s lesser-known contributions to the history of opera in the city was his production of Verdi’s Ernani — the first staging of a Verdi opera at the Pera Theatre. Despite the considerable challenges the opera posed for Pera, its Constantinople premiere took place on the evening of 31 January 1846, and the local newspapers were full of praise.
Guatelli was active not only as a conductor but also as a composer, and he did not hesitate to intervene in the operas he staged. During the 1846–1847 season, when Bellini’s I Puritani was performed, Guatelli, seeking to temper the opera’s excessive pathos and spare the audience from undue sentimentality, replaced the original tragic ending with a wedding scene — a decision that caused considerable confusion. According to Der Humorist, a periodical dated 21 January 1847, “Herr Guatelli modestly substituted his own finale for Bellini’s”.
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| Naum Theatre was Constantinople's grand Italian Opera House, 1860s (© Emre ARACI) |
It was not long before Guatelli’s path crossed with that of the Ottoman court. On 18 December 1846, he gave a solo piano recital before Sultan Abdülmecid at the old Çırağan Palace. Thus began his half-century of service to successive Ottoman sultans. Over the years, he would not only give music lessons to many members of the dynasty but also commemorate them in salon pieces he composed in their honour — works that would later be published by the Lucca firm in Italy.
Guatelli Pasha composed some of the Ottoman Empire’s most colourful, lively, and melodic marches — among them the Marche de l’Exposition Ottomane, whose string arrangement I prepared and recorded in London many years ago. He also took a keen interest in traditional Turkish music, arranging pieces for the piano. His Arie nazionali e Canti popolari Orientali antichi e moderni (Ancient and Modern National Airs and Popular Oriental Songs), composed for piano and published in two volumes by Breitkopf & Härtel, found its way even into the library of Brahms.
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| Guatelli's celebrated Marche de l’Exposition Ottomane (Istanbul Rare Books Library) |
According to the 1885 Eastern Trade Directory, Guatelli’s profession was listed as Professeur de Chant and Directeur des Musiques Impériales Ottomanes, his address given as "Rue Topdjilar" — the street that linked Karaköy to Tophane, known today as Necatibey Caddesi. When Callisto Guatelli died in Istanbul in March 1900, he was eighty-one years old.
“He worshipped the enchantment of Istanbul,” wrote Mahmud Ragıp Gazimihal in his History of Turkish Military Music, “and surely lived in the noble atmosphere he so admired. It is said that, so greatly was he loved, many sought to imitate his style of dress and beard”.
In these few words, Gazimihal perhaps captured the essence of Guatelli Pasha’s life with rare succinctness and beauty.
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| Guatelli's grave at the Latin Catholic Cemetery at Feriköy, Istanbul (photo © Emre ARACI) |
And so, this forgotten page from Guatelli Pasha’s adventurous life carried me from Oxford’s High Street to the Latin Catholic Cemetery at Feriköy. Beyond the garden wall, the traffic was gridlocked, car horns blaring — yet by his grave, adorned with violet flowers, that I had brought for him, only the bright, joyful themes of the Marche de l’Exposition Ottomane seemed to reach my ears.
© Emre Aracı 2025. All rights reserved.
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