Legacies of Byzantium in Venetian Cyprus (1489–1571): Exploring the History of Families and Ideas

The discourse about the Venetian dominion in Cyprus (1489-1571) is mainly associated, not surprisingly, with the entire framework of the Latin presence in the island, including institutions, religion, as well as material heritage. This overwhelming presence of the Western dimension in historiography has somehow overshadowed the existence of various traces connecting this specific historical period with the rich reservoir of Byzantine influences on the island.
Such influences are linked to Cyprus's earlier Byzantine past, but also to its geographical proximity to the Byzantine Empire, which collapsed definitively during the 15th century. In our paper, we focus on the presence of well-known Byzantine families in Cyprus under Venetian rule. Integrating scattered findings of earlier scholarship with new evidence from research in the Venetian State Archives, we identify the most important among these families and we examine the historical roots of their presence on the island. A special focus is also given to their notable role during the Venetian rule, when they occasionally assumed various positions of local authority, or just acted as poles of influence for the Greek population of the island, while showing generally loyalty to the rulers. The final part of the presentation is dedicated to the particularly interesting impact of some members of these families in the turbulent last years of Venetian rule, when intensive preparations for the defensive fortification of Cyprus alternated with scattered outbreaks of tension in the relations of the local population with the Venetian authorities. In the most famous of these incidents, the suppressed rebellion of Iakovos Diassorinos in 1563, we note the verbal coherence of the ideological basis that Diassorinos seemingly adopted with ideas that had been formulated for the first time during the last years of the Byzantine period and that would play a decisive role in later historical instances.