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- Title
I SERBI E LA GUERRA AL TURCO NELLE EPISTOLE DI FRANCESCO FILELFO.
- Authors
COSTANZA, SALVATORE
- Abstract
The Italian humanist Francesco Filelfo (Tolentino 1398 - Florence 1481) wrote a monumental collection of Letters in 48 books. He studied Greek rhetoric in Constantinople in the 1420s and became a pupil of the eminent Byzantine scholar John Chrysoloras, whose daughter Theodora Chrysolorina was his first wife. The young man was highly integrated into the Byzantine upper classes. The heir and joint emperor John VIII Palaiologos appointed him as his personal advisor. On behalf of John, Filelfo attended the international congress in Buda in 1423. He had a chance to personally meet with the King of Hungary and Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Despot of Serbia Stefan Lazarević and many European leaders during his stay in Central Europe. On his return to Constantinople, he also went to Kovin, where Latin merchants, probably from Dalmatia, advised him not to pursue his travels through Serbian territories occupied by Turks. Filelfo was always proud to have traveled around the Balkans. As a consequence of his youthful experience in Eastern Europe, he proposed himself to Roman popes, kings and European leaders as a very good advisor about the war against the Ottoman Empire. He also prided himself on being a master of rhetoric, combining the persuasiveness of a rhetorician and his great knowledge of the places where this war was fought. Thus, he often called for a crusade against the Turks by sending letters to leading personalities of his time. He had a clear view of Ottoman expansion under Sultan Mehmed II, with special regard to the political situation in the Western Balkans. He recalls the key events in Serbian history, such as the Battle of Kosovo polje (1389), where Lazar lost his life or the defense of Belgrade in the heroic siege in 1456. He also gives a rather detailed account of the fall of the fortress of Smederevo in 1459. Radivoj Ostojić of Bosnia and his brother Thomas were responsible for the surrender of this strategic fortress on the Danube to the Turks. The author also dwells upon the beheading of Radivoj and his nephew Stefan Tomašević, the Serbian Despot in 1459 and last Bosnian king. They were executed in the presence of Sultan Mehmed in 1463. According to Filelfo, it is out of the question to make deals with the Turks as a consequence of this disaster. Indeed, there is no solution outside of winning the war against these treacherous enemies. We also remark that Filelfo regularly refers to the Serbs as Triballi. He finds this ethnonym in Byzantine sources. He also remembers Triballus, a mythical ancestor of Serbs, in a genealogy dating back to the cyclops Polyphemus and his beloved Galatea. This ancient myth gathered from classical Greek sources (Timaios of Tauromenion, Appian of Alexandria) stresses the family ties between Serbs and other European peoples such as Hungarians, the French and Italians. All this ascertained, Filelfo's bulwark rhetoric suggests that a crusade against the Ottomans is the only way to get Balkan freedom back. The Italian humanist is convinced that, with joint efforts, Serbs, Hungarians and Middle-European peoples can achieve this extraordinary success.
- Publication
Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta, 2022, Issue 59, p185
- ISSN
0584-9888
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2298/ZRVI2259185C