Italian women have also risen to a place of prominence in the royal harem. This was notably true in the case of the beautiful Safia, a Venetian captive girl, who had been brought into the seraglio of Sultan Murad III., who succeeded Selim his father in the year 1574. Murad was not strong, and was easily deceived by sycophants and ruled by women. Among the latter was Safia, sometimes known as Baffo, belonging to the family of Baffo of Venice. Baffo proceeded to rule her royal lord in the interests of her native land. Venice, after Suleyman's death, had become restless of Turkish rule, and proceeded successfully to throw it off. Baffo never forgot her origin, and ruled with a high hand, not only as Khasseki-Sultan, but also as Valideh. She set her son Mohammed III. on the throne as successor to her husband, even though the consummation could be reached only by the slaying of nineteen of the one hundred and two sons of Murad. Foreign women will probably never again play so large a rôle in Turkish affairs. The present sultan is said, however, to be fond of the social attractions of European women. He is probably the first Turkish sultan who has invited a European lady to dine with him. The Turkish sultans have long lived in much magnificence. The old seraglio, or imperial residence (from the word _seray_, a palace), was beautifully situated "among the groves of plane and cypress that clothe the apex of the triangle upon which the ancient city of Constantinople is built." Now, however, the sultans have left these precincts around which clustered so many memories of the horrible tragedies enacted there, memories which even the magnificence of the place could not destroy, and established their present residence, equal in natural beauty to the old, but removed from the dirt and the memories, which had at length gathered about the old seraglio. The women's quarters are situated in the innermost portion of the seraglio. Here are from three to twelve hundred women; at times there are even more. These women are all foreigners. Indeed, all the guards and attendants of the palace are of foreign blood. The sultan and his children are the only Turks dwelling in the inner departments of the royal palaces; and both he and they are born of foreign mothers. The women's departments are carefully guarded. There were specially appointed officers in the old seraglio as guards of the queens and their children. These were the Baltajis, or "halberdiers," who were four hundred in number. They, however, really attended the royal women only when the sultan took with him some members of his harem to bear him company on a journey or a campaign.