“Advocating Greece’s Liberation in the Seventeenth Century: John Milton and Leonard Philaras”

This lecture will explore John Milton’s relationship with the Greek ambassador and scholar, Leonard Philaras. Drawing on archival research from the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, France, and England, the lecture will focus on Philaras’s radical European network, ranging from Venice to Moscow, and his extraordinary efforts to bring about a revolutionary uprising in Ottoman-ruled Greece. Milton is widely considered to be the first English Philhellene, as evidenced by one of his letters to Philaras from June 1652 in which he passionately supports the cause of liberating Greece from Ottoman rule. The lecture will focus on the development of Milton’s political Philhellenism and the vital role that Philaras played in changing Milton’s attitudes towards contemporary Greece.