Köprülü Mehmed Pasha

Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (c. 1575–1661) was an Albanian-born Ottoman statesman and founder of the Köprülü dynasty of grand viziers. He rose through imperial service to pasha rank, holding several provincial governorships, until in September 1656 Valide Sultan Turhan appointed him grand vizier amid naval defeat and court plots and granted him sweeping powers.

The Venetian blockade of the Dardanelles had cut off supplies to Ottoman forces in Crete. In 1657 he suppressed a cavalry revolt in Constantinople and broke the blockade; he then purged corrupt officials and campaigned in Transylvania in 1658. He died in Edirne in 1661, having secured the vizierate for his son Fazıl Ahmed.