Restoration, Reconstruction and Union: memories of home in the stratiot poetry of Antonio Molino

Abstract

The paper explores the notion of home in the stratiot poetry authored by 16th-century Venetian comedy author and composer Antonio Molino. Rooted in the life of the stratiots and their struggles against the Ottomans, this poetry allegedly reflects the diasporic memory of Greek stratiots, although it is apparently framed by the genre and preferences of Molino’s theatre audience. By analysing the memoryscape of notions of home which Molino linked to the Greek stratiots of his time, the paper reveals that his poetry projects, in fact, were the more tangible political ambitions of the Republic of Venice to convert the stratiots from Orthodox Christianity to Roman Catholicism, reinforce their Venetian identity and use their memory in its own aspiration to the Byzantine imperial legacy – all highly topical on the eve of the Venetian conflict with the Ottomans over Cyprus (1571–1573).