John VIII ( sr, Ivan VIII; in Italian, Giovanni Bruni sq, Gjon Bruni) (died 7 October 1571) served as an

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

Antivari Bar (Montenegrin language, Montenegrin and Serbian language, Serbian: Бар, ; sq, Tivar; it, Antivari or ''Antibari'') is a coastal town and seaport in southern Montenegro. It is the capital of the Bar Municipality and a center for tourism ...

in the mid-16th century. Originally from

Ulcinj Ulcinj ( cyrl, Улцињ, ; ) is a town on the southern coast of Montenegro and the capital of Ulcinj Municipality. It has an urban population of 10,707 (2011), the majority being Albanians. As one of the oldest settlements in the Adriatic coast ...

(present-day

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

), from the Albanian Bruni family.

Pope Julius II Pope Julius II ( la, Iulius II; it, Giulio II; born Giuliano della Rovere; 5 December 144321 February 1513) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1503 to his death in February 1513. Nicknamed the Warrior Pope or th ...

appointed John as Archbishop of Antivari (Bar) in 1551 because of his rare virtues and executive abilities. Archbishop John VIII (Giovanni Bruni) participated in the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento, Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italian Peninsula, Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation ...

between 1551 and 1552, and between 1562 and 1563, at which sessions he spoke with distinction. He was the fiercest opponent of the surrender of the city of

Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

to the Turks. However, the Venetian governor of Bar, Count

Alessandro Donato Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Alessandro * Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter * Alessandro Baricco ...

, and the Venetian military commander

Giovanni Guidaccioni Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...

, decided that surrender was unavoidable. One source claims that they had sent the Archbishop and 600 soldiers on a galley to

Ali Pasha Ali Pasha was the name of numerous Ottoman pashas named Ali. It is most commonly used to refer to Ali Pasha of Ioannina. People * Çandarlı Ali Pasha (died 1406), Ottoman grand vizier (1387–1406) * Hadım Ali Pasha (died 1511), Ottoman grand v ...

(Ali Müezzinzade Pasha), the admiral of the besieging Ottoman fleet, who offered to purchase the Archbishop for 25,000 Venetian

sequins A sequin () is a small, typically shiny, generally disk-shaped ornament. Sequins are also referred to as paillettes, spangles, or ''diamanté'' (also spelled ''diamante''). Although the words sequins, paillettes, lentejuelas, and spangles can ...

; but any such offer was never finalised. Like many other people from Bar and Ulcinj whom the Ottoman forces had captured when those cities fell to their attacks and were surrendered to them in August 1571, the Archbishop was one of the slaves who rowed in an Ottoman galley at the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October. On 7 October 1571, during the

Battle of Lepanto The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement that took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic states (comprising Spain and its Italian territories, several independent Italian states, and the Soverei ...

, some sources claim that the Turks had Archbishop John VIII (Giovanni Bruni) decapitated. Another source states that Christians executed him, mistaking him for a Turk.

References

1571 deaths People from Ulcinj Archbishops of Antivari Year of birth unknown Albanian Roman Catholics {{RC-archbishop-stub