Crosscurrents and Confluences: An Annotated Edition and Translation of Latin Poetry on the Battle of Lepanto (1571)

FAIN: RQ-50431-10

University of Georgia (Athens, GA 30602-0001)
Elizabeth Rebecca Wright (Project Director: November 2009 to June 2013)

An edition and translation of Latin poetry written in response to the 1571 Battle of Lepanto. (24 months)

The project unites a specialist on Renaissance Spain (Wright) with two classics scholars (Spence and Lemons) to cast new light on the cultural impact of the Battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571). Working closely together, they will prepare an annotated translation of Latin poetry that circulated immediately after this epochal naval battle in Italy, Spain, and Spanish America. Their bilingual, Latin-English edition is under contract with the I Tatti Renaissance Library of Harvard University Press. Part I of the volume will present a selection of the numerous Latin poems that circulated in Italy. Part II will feature two poets from Spanish realms who responded to the short Latin poems that appeared in Italy with Vergilian epics. None of these works is currently available in English translation or in a scholarly edition. A website will supplement the edition with images, maps, and links.

Associated Products

“Scrutinizing Early Modern Warfare in Latin Hexameters: The Austrias Carmen of Joannes Latinus (Juan Latino).” (Book Section)
Title: “Scrutinizing Early Modern Warfare in Latin Hexameters: The Austrias Carmen of Joannes Latinus (Juan Latino).”
Author: Wright, Elizabeth R.
Editor: Middlebrook, Leah
Editor: Cascardi, Anthony
Abstract: In 1573, Joannes Latinus (Juan Latino)—a former slave who rose to prominence in mid-sixteenth century Granada as a Latin educator— issued a volume of commemorative poetry about the Battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571). In this epochal naval clash, the Holy League Alliance comprised of Venice, Spain, and the Papacy attained an unexpected and resounding victory over the feared Ottoman navy. By publishing his Lepanto commemoration, Latinus became the first writer born in sub-Saharan Africa to publish a book of poems in Europe. The cornerstone of this volume is a two-book Vergilian epic, the Austrias Carmen. An examination of this poem reveals signposts of modernity’s fraught emergence in the Mediterranean. Most immediately, Latinus’s vivid Latin hexameters record how the Holy League Alliance’s aggressive deployment of newer weapons technologies overwhelmed the Ottoman navy, which relied on the traditional military skills of its famed archers. Throughout the poem, the freedman taps into the natural connection between epic poiesis and imperial ideology in order to reflect on cultural and political flashpoints Lepanto revealed. In a celebratory vein, the poetic voice hails the naval victory as the dawn of a new European imperium anchored in the Roman church and Spanish military power. Yet a web of allusions to the Aeneid mourns the high costs of empire building. In one particularly deft imitation of Vergil’s epic, the poetic voice exposes the tactically and morally dubious infighting that divided the Spanish forces, as soldiers and their commanders sought to claim captured Ottoman combatants as slaves. This reflection on the victors’ inglorious transformation from fighters to slave traders strikes a marked contrast to other Spanish poets of Lepanto, who do not directly narrate this post-battle contest.
Year: 2012
Secondary URL: http://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/books/445/poiesis-and-modernity-in-the-old-and-new-worlds
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Book Title: Poiesis and Modernity in the Old and New Worlds,
ISBN: 9780826518354

“Ancient Epic and the Renaissance” (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: “Ancient Epic and the Renaissance”
Author: Spence, Sarah
Abstract: Spence devoted a Spring 2012 course to study and analysis of the poems edited and translated in our project. The course was cross-listed in the departments of Classics and Comparative Literature (catalogue numbers CLAS 4220/6220 and CMLT 4070/6070, respectively), and included both undergraduates and graduate students.
Year: 2012
Audience: K - 12

“Latin Poets and the Battle of Lepanto,” (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: “Latin Poets and the Battle of Lepanto,”
Author: Wright, Elizabeth R.
Author: Spence, Sarah
Author: Lemons, Andrew
Abstract: A joint presentation on the entire research project for a mixed public that included undergraduates, graduates, faculty colleagues and interested members of the wider Athens Georgia community.
Date Range: March 23, 2012

Reflections on Emerging Modernity: Notes from an Interdisciplinary Collaboration (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Reflections on Emerging Modernity: Notes from an Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Author: Spence, Sarah
Author: Wright, Elizabeth R.
Abstract: Joint presentation to the University of Georgia, Department of Romance Languages, colloquium. We conducted it in a workshop fashion, sharing texts and interpretations, while inviting the public to contribute.
Date Range: October 10, 2010

Modern War, Ancient Form: Lesson from Lepanto for a Latin Seminar in Post-Bellum Granada. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Modern War, Ancient Form: Lesson from Lepanto for a Latin Seminar in Post-Bellum Granada.
Author: Wright, Elizabeth R.
Abstract: An invited lecture delivered for the special colloquium, "Rivalry and Rhetoric in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Envisioning Empire in the Old World."
Date: 10/28/2012
Conference Name: UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

“A Lesson on Lepanto for post-Bellum Granada (ca. 1571): the Austrias Carmen of Joannes Latinus.” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “A Lesson on Lepanto for post-Bellum Granada (ca. 1571): the Austrias Carmen of Joannes Latinus.”
Author: Wright, Elizabeth R.
Abstract: Invited speaker at the International Conference: “Turks". The role of Islamic culture in Early Modern European Literature - from the Fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Battle of Vienna (1683).
Date: 8/27/2010
Conference Name: University of Copenhagen.

“Adversarios o vecinos: los vencidos de Lepanto vistos desde Granada,” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Adversarios o vecinos: los vencidos de Lepanto vistos desde Granada,”
Author: Wright, Elizabeth R.
Abstract: Wright delivered a Plenary lecture at the largest conference of Spanish "Golden Age" scholars.
Date: 7-13-2011
Conference Name: Asociación Internacional del Siglo de Oro (AISO), 9th Triennial Congress, Poitiers, France

Battle of Lepanto (Book)
Title: Battle of Lepanto
Editor: Spence, Sarah
Editor: Lemons, Andrew
Editor: Elizabeth R. Wright
Abstract: The defeat of the Ottomans by the Holy League fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) was among the most celebrated international events of the sixteenth century. This volume anthologizes the work of twenty-two poets from diverse social and geographical backgrounds who composed Latin poetry, often modeled on Vergil and other Roman poets, in response to the news of the battle, the largest Mediterranean naval encounter since antiquity. Among the poems included is the two-book Austrias Carmen by the remarkable Juan Latino, a black African former slave who became a professor of Latin in Granada. The poems, including two previously unpublished, are here translated into English for the first time, along with fresh editions of the Latin texts.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/battle-of-lepanto/oclc/859252930&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat listing
Secondary URL: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674725423
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Cambridge, MA, and London, England: The I Tatti renaissance Library, Harvard University Press
Type: Translation
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9780674725423
Translator: Andrew Lemons
Translator: Elizabeth R. Wright
Translator: Sarah Spence
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

The Epic of Juan Latino: Dilemmas of Race and Religion in Renaissance Spain (Book)
Title: The Epic of Juan Latino: Dilemmas of Race and Religion in Renaissance Spain
Author: Elizabeth R. Wright
Abstract: In The Epic of Juan Latino, Elizabeth R. Wright tells the story of Renaissance Europe’s first black poet and his epic poem on the naval battle of Lepanto, Austrias Carmen (The Song of John of Austria). Piecing together the surviving evidence, Wright traces Latino’s life in Granada, Iberia’s last Muslim metropolis, from his early clandestine education as a slave in a noble household to his distinguished career as a schoolmaster at the University of Granada. When intensifying racial discrimination and the chaos of the Morisco Revolt threatened Latino’s hard-won status, he set out to secure his position by publishing an epic poem in Latin verse, the Austrias Carmen, that would demonstrate his mastery of Europe’s international literary language and celebrate his own African heritage. Through Latino’s remarkable, hitherto untold story, Wright illuminates the racial and religious tensions of sixteenth-century Spain and the position of black Africans within Spain’s nascent empire and within the emerging African diaspora.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/epic-of-juan-latino-dilemmas-of-race-and-religion-in-renaissance-spain/oclc/928487466&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: WorldCat listing
Secondary URL: http://www.utppublishing.com/The-Epic-of-Juan-Latino-Dilemmas-of-Race-and-Religion-in-Renaissance-Spain.html
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Toronto, Canada; Buffalo, NY; and London, England: University of Toronto Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781442637528
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Epic Temptation: Lope de Vega’s Battle of Lepanto.” I (Book Section)
Title: Epic Temptation: Lope de Vega’s Battle of Lepanto.” I
Author: Wright, Elizabeth
Editor: Kimberly Lynn and Erin Rowe,
Abstract: Examination of how "poetry of Lepanto" informed playwrighting practice of Lope de Vega at a formative career stage, circa 1600.
Year: 2017
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Title: The Early Modern Hispanic World: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Approaches

Christians and Muslims in the Battle of Lepanto: the Mediterranean Crosscurrents and Confluences of Juan Latino’s Song of John of Austria. (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Christians and Muslims in the Battle of Lepanto: the Mediterranean Crosscurrents and Confluences of Juan Latino’s Song of John of Austria.
Abstract: Invited lecture based on the insights from the NEH-funded scholarly edition and translation, exploring how the Mediterranean religious divide shaped poems that recounted the Battle of Lepanto.
Author: Elizabeth Wright
Date: 11/10/2016
Location: Hamilton College, Department of Hispanic Studies, Clinton, NY. .

Eastward Bound from Lepanto: Race and the Ethics of Empire Building. (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Eastward Bound from Lepanto: Race and the Ethics of Empire Building.
Abstract: Keynote lecture for the Colloquium, Epic New Worlds: Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana (1569–2019), sponsored by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies.
Author: Elizabeth Wright
Date: 10/4/2019
Location: University of Toronto

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