Etienne de Lusignan

Étienne de Lusignan , also Éstienne or Stefano Lusignan (* 1537 in Nicosia , † 1590 in Rome ), was a Cypriot clergyman, bishop and historian. He was the author of a Chronicle of Cyprus , which was printed in 1573 by Alessandro Benaccio in Bologna . This Chorograffia et breve historia universale dell'Isola de Cipro principiando al tempo di Noè per in sino al 1572 covers, as the title suggests, the time between Noah and the year 1572.

Étienne, called Jacques before entering the order, was a descendant of King Jacob I of Cyprus . He was one of the numerous sons of Jason de Lusignan, the governor of Limassol . This in turn was a son of Philippe de Lusignan, the Seigneur of Psimolopho, a son of the said king. As a young man, Jacques joined the Dominican Order , now called Étienne, and dealt with Iulianos, an Armenian bishop. From 1564 to 1568 he was vicar in Limassol under the bishops Andrea Mocenigo and Serafim Fortibraccia .

In 1570 he lived in a monastery in Naples and began to write his Chorograffia et breve historia universale . During this time Cyprus fell to the Ottomans , and “Stefano Lusignano”, as his name was in Italy, tried to buy relatives out of captivity. From Naples he went to a monastery in Bologna , where he published his work in 1573. In 1575 he went to Padua , where he had Giovanni Longo create the famous map for his book; he dedicated this to the last Latin Archbishop of Cyprus Filippo Mocenigo . Lusignan taught Greek at Paduan University.

In Rome he met the French ambassador who, in 1577, gave him the opportunity to travel to Paris , where he again lived in a convent for ten years. In 1578 he was raised by the Pope to titular bishop of Limassol. He spent the last years of his life in Rome.

Works

• Chorograffia et breve historia universale dell'Isola de Cipro principiando al tempo di Noè per in sino al 1572 , Alessandro Benacci, Bologna 1573 ( digitized version )
• Basilicon philactirion , Paris 1587. ( digitized version )
• Les droicts, autoritez et prerogatiues que pretendent au royaume de Hierusalem, les Princes et Seigneurs Spirituels et Temporels cy apres nommez: le Pape, Patriarche, Empereur, Rois de France, Angleterre, Arragon, Naples, Hongrie, Cypre et Armenie, les Republiques de Venise, et Genes, les Ducs d'Anjou, Bourbon, Sauoye, Lorraine et Montferrat, les Comtes de Brie [n] ne, Laual et autres , Guillaume le Noir, 1586. ( digitized version )

literature

• Chris Schabel: Étienne de Lusignan's Chorograffia and the Ecclesiastical History of Frankish Cyprus: Notes on a Recent Reprint and English Translation , in: Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 18–19 (2002–2003) 339–353.
• Paul W. Wallace, Andreas G. Orphanides (Eds.): Sources for the History of Cyprus , Vol. X: Lusignan's chorography and brief general history of the island of Cyprus (AD 1573) , University at Albany, State University of New York , 1990.

Remarks

1. ↑ Louis de Mas Latrie : Histoire de l'île de Chypre sous le régne des princes de la maison de Lusignan , Imprimerie impériale, Paris 1852–1861, vol. 1, p. 419, note 1.
2. ↑ Angel Nicolaou Konnari, Chris Schabel: Lemesos. A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest , Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015, p. 324.