Giovanni Paolo Marana or sometimes Jean-Paul Marana 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. 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.
Works
Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy
La Congiura di Raffaello della Torre con le mosse della Savoia contro la Republica di Genova, In Lione : Alla spese dell'auctore, 1682.
Lettre d'un Sicilien à un de ses amis, Paris, A. Quantin, 1883. -
L'espion du Grand-Seigneur, et ses relations secrètes envoyées au divan de Constantinople, et découvertes à Paris, pendant le règne de Louis le Grand: contenant les événements les plus considérables arrivés pendant la vie de Louis le Grand, Amsterdam: H. Wetstein and H. Des Bordes, 1684.
Dialogo fra Genova, et Algieri, città fulminate dal Giove Gallico, Amsterdamo : Desbordes, 1685. -
Dialogue De Genes et d'Algers Villes foudroyées, Par les Armes Invincibles de Louis Le Grand L'Année 1684 : Avec plusieurs particularitez historiques touchant le juste ressentiment de ce Monarque, et ses prétensions sur la Ville de Genes, avec les réponces des Genois, Amsterdam: Desbordes, 1685.
