The Sons of Lucifer and the Children of Neptune: The Anti-Ottoman and Anti-Islamic Polemical Works of Gerasimos Vlachos

The aim of this paper is to publish and analyze a short encomium by the Cretan scholar Gerasimos Vlachos († 1685). Entitled Trionfo del Illustrissimo et Eccelentissimo Signor Alvise Mocenico Secondo Procurator di San Marco et Dignissimo Capitan General da Mar, the encomium was delivered in the monastery of Saint Catherine in Candia, on 25 November 1649. Mentioned only in passing by the scholars dealing with Vlachos, it is part of one of the Greek manuscripts of the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest –  BAR ms. gr. 889; including (mainly) homilies preached in Candia between October 1649 and May 1650, this codex is one of the oldest autographs of “padre Don Girassimo Vlacho Greco di Creta predicatore”. The Trionfo celebrates the successful defence – led by Alvise Mocenigo – of the vital Martinengo bastion of Candia during the first stages of the Cretan War (July / August 1649). Therefore, one is provided with the possibility to look into the earliest depiction of the Ottoman Empire by a leading Greek scholar of the time.

 
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