The Siege of Nicosia of 1570 in the Poetic Armenian Vision of The Lament of the Island of Cyprus and in the Italian Historical Narratives

Abstract

The siege of Nicosia (1570) was but the first stage of the conflict known in history as the Fourth Ottoman-Venetian war. The article discusses the similarities and the differences in the way in which the event is shown in a little known Armenian thrênos entitled The Lament of the Island of Cyprus (1570) and in the major contemporary narratives, mostly Italian. The author of the poem was present on Cyprus during the initial stages of the conflict, and on the whole the poem is true to the historical facts, but its most obvious characteristic is its moralizing tone, which is also found in the Italian prose narratives of the siege.