Alexander Mavrokordatos the Exaporite

'[Keeper] of the Secrets'),[1] was a member of the Greek Mavrocordatos family, a doctor of philosophy and medicine, and Dragoman of the Porte to Sultan Mehmed IV in 1673 — notably employed in negotiations with the Habsburg monarchy during the Great Turkish War.

[5] Likewise, while some sources record that he was born in Chios, where his family hailed from, most authorities put it in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire;[6][7] and this seems to be confirmed by Alexander's own usage of the sobriquet Constantinopolitanus during his studies in Italy.

[8] Alexander's father was the silk merchant Nikolaos Mavrokordatos—some early sources erroneously give his name as Pantelis or Pantoleon[8]—the impoverished scion of a Chian aristocratic family who had come to Constantinople to seek his fortune,[9] and the wealthy heiress Loxandra Scarlatou.

[10][12] She had been married previously to Alexandru Coconul, Prince of Wallachia, after whose death in 1632 she inherited a large fortune;[13] according to some accounts, however, the Wallachian sent her back to Constantinople when Loxandra was disfigured by smallpox just days before the wedding.

[10] In 1656, Mavrokordatos was sent for studies to Italy, first on grammar and humanities at the Pontifical Greek College of Saint Athanasius in Rome, which he attended from 30 May 1657 to 8 June 1660, when he had to depart due to ill health.

[20] From Rome he moved to the University of Padua for studies in philosophy and medicine, where he distinguished himself by his eloquence and erudition, but where he was also expelled from due to his difficult character.

[21] His doctoral thesis about the circulation of blood (De instrumento respirationis et circulatione sanguinis), which he published at Florence in 1664, was well received, and was later republished five times.

[28] Almost immediately he was recalled to advise the Grand Vizier Sarı Süleyman Pasha on official affairs; his interim successor, a Venetian renegade, was dismissed as incompetent.