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Gedik Ahmet Pasha
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Gedik Ahmet Pasha was a distinguished Ottoman grand vizier, as well as an army and navy commander during the reigns of the Sultans Mehmed The Conqueror (between 1451 – 1481) and Beyazid II (between 1481-1512).

His background remains largely unknown. Some sources claim that he was of Albanian descent, but this theory is almost exclusively based on his refusal to participate in a campaign to İşkodra ( Shkoder ) in one occasion and could have other explanations than a reticence in combatting his own kinsmen. He undertook virtually all his construction enterprises in Anatolia , and their preferences in this domain usually give a clue on the respective origins of Ottoman statesmen.

Leading the Ottoman Army, he defeated the last Anatolian Turkish Beylik (principality) resisting Ottoman expansion in Anatolia, that of the Karamanoğlu (Karamanids). Karamanids had been the strongest principality in Anatolia for nearly 200 years, even stronger than the Ottomans in the beginning and, as such, effectively succeeding the Anatolian Selçuk Sultanate , especially since they held the city of Konya, the former Selçuk capital, among their possessions. In this sense, Gedik Ahmet Pasha's victory against the Karamanoglu in 1471, conquering their territory as well as the Mediterranean coastal region around Ermenek , Mennan and Silifke , has been crucial for the future of the Ottomans .

Gedik Ahmet Pasha also fought against Venetians in the Mediterranean and after that he was dispatched by the Sultan to the aid of the Crimean Khanate against Genoese forces
in 1475. In Crimea, he conquered Caffa , Azak , Mangup castles as well as the coastal regions of Crimea. He rescued the Khan of Crimea Meñli I Giray from the Genoese forces. As a result of this campaign, Crimea and Circassia entered into the Ottoman sphere of influence.

In 1479, in a daring move, Sultan Mehmet II ordered him to lead the Ottoman Navy in the Mediterranean Sea as part of the war against Naples and Milan . During his campaign, Gedik Ahmet Pasha conquered islands of Aya Mavra , Kefalonya and Zanta . Since he had conquered İstanbul ( Constantinople , the second Rome ) in 1453, Mehmed II saw himself as the inheritor of the Roman Empire and was seriously envisaging the conquest of Italy, thus reuniting Roman lands under his dynasty. As part of this plan Gedik Ahmet Pasha was sent with a naval force to the heel of the Italian peninsula and he successfully conquered Otranto (Italy) in 1480 .