NUR-BANU

'Nur-Banu' (born ''Cecilia Venier-Baffo'') (1525–1583) was a Venetian-born Jewish woman of noble birth, and was the daughter of Nicolo Venier, the Doge of Venice. Her mother was a member of Baffos.Cecilia was caught by Ottoman when the Turks concerned the Aegean (Egean) island of Paros in 1537 and taken to Istanbul, where she was renamed Sultana Nur-Banu, "Princess of Light". She became the most favored wife of Sultan Selim II, and the mother of Sultan Murad III.
When Selim II died in 1574, she concealed his death and hid his corpse in an icebox until her son arrived from Manisa, where he was governor, twelve days later and became the sultan.
Nur-Banu ran the government together with the Grand Vizir Sokollu Mehmet Pasha and became the first Valide sultan who acted as the co-regent with the sultan in the Sultanate of Women. She corresponded with queen Catherine de' Medici of France, and during her nine years of regency (1574-1583) maintained such a pro-venetian politics that she became hated by the Republic of Genoa; some have even suggested that she was poisoned by a Genoese agent. Whatever the case, she did die a suspicious death in 1583. She is known to struggle with Safiye Sultan, the wife of Murad III.

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★ Goodwin, Jason, ''Lords of the Horizons'', (1998) - page 160