Iacob Heraclid (or Eraclid; ; 1527 – November 5, 1563), born Basilicò and also known as Iacobus Heraclides, Heraclid Despotul, or Despot Vodă ("The Voivode Despot"), was a Greek Maltese soldier, adventurer and intellectual, who reigned as Prince of Moldavia from November 1561 to November 1563. He is remembered as a pioneer of the Protestant faith in Eastern Europe, a champion of Renaissance humanism, and a founder of academic life in Moldavia. Active within the Greek diaspora in several countries, he was a student of Hermodorus Lestarchus, and worked as a scribe alongside his cousin, Iakobos Diassorinos. Heraclid forged his genealogy several times, claiming to be a member of the Branković dynasty; he was more reliably related to the Byzantine nobility in Rhodes, and claimed the titular lordship of Samos. In the late 1540s and early '50s, he studied medicine at the University of Montpellier, and married a local. A duelist and alleged infanticide, Heraclid fled over the border with the Holy Roman Empire before he could be executed for murder. He was slowly won over by the Reformation, serving the Protestant princes of the Upper Saxon Circle.
During his travels in the Habsburg Netherlands, Heraclid was admitted to the court of Emperor Charles V, serving under him in the Last Italian War. He was made a Count Palatine and became a recognized authority on military matters, authoring several books in Neo-Latin. Returning to civilian life, he focused his attention on missionary activity, and networked with the leading Lutherans in Wittenberg, though he began sympathizing more with Calvinism. With recommendations from Philip Melanchthon, he traveled through Northern Europe and had a spell teaching mathematics at the University of Rostock. He eventually reached Poland and Lithuania by way of Prussia, focusing on a project to unite the local Evangelical and Calvinist Churches. His own Calvinism wavered at the court of Mikołaj "the Red" Radziwiłł: Heraclid turned to Radical Reformation, and adopted a Unitarian position, without abjuring publicly.
Networking between the Habsburg monarchy and Polish nobility, "Despot" was able to credibly claim the throne of Moldavia. Involved in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate the titular Prince, Alexandru Lăpușneanu, he returned with a mercenary army, winning at Verbia and taking Suceava. Upon gaining control of the country, he issued an edict of toleration, which favored the brief ascendancy of Moldavian Protestants. Heraclid never explicitly stated his affiliation, appeasing the dominant Moldavian Orthodox Church and performing the duties of an Orthodox monarch. He also formulated a political program which announced Romanian nationalism, promising to conquer Wallachia and Transylvania; he saw himself as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, and made several attempts to capture parts of the Transylvania in conjunction with the Habsburgs. Proclaiming himself a "King" or "Palatine" rather than a Prince, he invested efforts in a dynastic union with Wallachia, which he then briefly invaded. Despot's long-term goal was to obtain independence from the Ottoman Empire following a European-led "crusade".
Several religious controversies contributed to social unrest in Moldavia. Despot's prohibition of divorce, his lapses into Protestant iconoclasm and his fiscal policies all served to alienate the public; this conflict was aggravated by his plan to marry a Calvinist, which opened the prospect of a Protestant dynasty. Weakened by Despot's disputes with Olbracht Łaski and the Zaporozhian Cossacks, the regime was brought down by the pretender Ștefan Tomșa. After a months-long siege in Suceava, Despot surrendered and was immediately killed, probably by Tomșa's own hand. His Reformation project only survived through the small learning center he had set up at Cotnari, being dismantled in the 1580s; his family was decimated and scattered, though one adoptive son, Cyprian Bazylik, achieved fame in his own right. Despot's reign was cursed by the early Moldavian historians, but his overall contribution to Moldavia's Westernization, particularly cultural, is viewed by later scholars as meritorious. He reemerged as a favorite subject in modern Romanian literature, inspiring an 1879 drama by Vasile Alecsandri, and also appears in Maltese literature.
Biography Origins It is certain that the future Prince of Moldavia was an ethnic Greek, but his exact origin is unclear. Despot was a noted forger, described by Romanian scholar Andrei Pippidi as an "ingenious charlatan" and "professional impostor".Pippidi (2000), pp. 181, 183 Historian Nicolae Iorga also mentions that Despot, an "unusual figure", claimed "rights to all princely thrones in existence."Iorga (1925), p. 2 In his quest for recognition, he provided several conflicting accounts on his origins and early life, while also inventing a succession of conflicting genealogies. In separate and conflicting notices, he suggested that his place of birth was Rhodes or Samos, in the Ottoman Eyalet of the Archipelago; elsewhere, he also claimed Genoese Chios or Venetian Crete as his homeland.Pippidi (2000), pp. 179–181 At least one witness heard him say that he was originally from the Kingdom of Sicily.Pippidi (2000), p. 180
His family tree, published by Heraclid himself at Corona in 1558, claimed that he descended from Polycrates the Samian and the Branković dynasty, rulers of the Serbian Despotate.Pippidi (2000), p. 181 In 1562, the French diplomat Antoine de Petronel recorded Heraclid as a claimant "Despot of Serbia".Kenneth Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571. Volume IV. The Sixteenth Century from Julius III to Pius V, pp. 833–834. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1984. Later in life, Heraclid more explicitly pretended that he was a nephew of Moldavia's Stephen the Great,Giurescu, p. 64; Pungă, p. 95; Theodorescu, p. 26 while adding that he descended from the House of Lusignan.Iorga (1898), p. 33 Pippidi identifies some reliable parts in Despot's genealogy, referring to his kinship with the Byzantine nobility of Rhodes and with potentates from the Duchy of Naxos—possibly including Nicholas III dalle Carceri, mistakenly identified by Despot as "Alexios".
Overall, Heraclid appears to have had a strong connection with Hospitaller Malta, with Maltese sources generally referring to him as Basilicus Melitensis or Basilico Maltese ("Basilicus the Maltese"). Giovanni Francesco Abela and Giuseppe Buonfiglio record his name under the Italian version, Basilicò; Pippidi reconstructs this as Jacob Basilicos.Pippidi (2000), pp. 179–182 Another Neo-Latin source names him as Iacobus Vasilico di Marcheto.Jurcoi, p. 53; Pippidi (2000), p. 182 One account in the Maltese series suggests that Heraclid was born at Birkirkara, and, according to Pippidi, this should be regarded as certain.Pippidi (2000), pp. 177, 182 The Maltese origin is nuanced by Buonfiglio: he recounts that Basilicò was a Maltese Greek who claimed Rhodian descent. Based on this clue, Pippidi proposes that the Heraclides family had escaped to Malta during the taking of Rhodes, with the future Despot Vodă being born in exile in 1527.Pippidi (2000), pp. 179–180, 182 The future Prince's symbolic affiliation with Rhodes is also verified by other details: in 1548, he presented himself as belonging to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Rhodes.Pippidi (2000), p. 182 Pippidi argues that he only came to depict himself as owner of Samos because, "unlike Rhodes or Malta, it was available, having been deserted by its inhabitants".
One note from Despot's papers may indicate that he was the great-grandson of Caloiani Vasilico, who served the Byzantine Empire as a diplomat, shortly before the Fall of Constantinople, while also involving himself in trade with Moldavia.Pippidi (2000), pp. 181–182 The latter tradition was perhaps continued by Despot's father, John Heraclides. Scholar Aleksander Kraushar once hypothesized that Despot was not in fact a son of John, but rather of shipowner Basilikos, who had helped John escape; in this reading, the Heraclides clan adopted Iacob upon Basilikos' death. According to historian Marie Kesterska Sergescu, "Kraushar's information stands to be corrected" by Iorga's later discoveries.Kesterska Sergescu, p. 260 Iacob himself circulated two accounts of John's life and death, claiming that he had been decapitated by the Ottomans, or alternatively by Moldavia's Prince Ștefăniță. The latter variant is viewed as more plausible by Pippidi, who notes that Despot named Hârlău as his father's place of death, and intended to consecrate a church on that spot.
According to some readings of sources, John had another son, Demetrios, who would later play a role in Despot's Moldavian career.Neagoe, p. 197 Other authors describe the same Demetrios as an unrelated SerbCrăciun, pp. 134–135; Gonța, p. 252; Pungă, p. 97 or Greek.Iorga (1898), p. 34 Historian Matei Cazacu identifies him with Dimitrije Ljubavić, a deacon and pioneer typographer who was primarily active in Wallachia. According to this author, the two men were companions and blood brothers, rather than siblings.Cazacu, p. 67 An enemy of Despot, Ferenc Forgách, counted two Basilicò brothers, one of whom was a burglar; the other lived in Venetian Cyprus. Despot's family is known to have included a Greek scribe, Iakobos Diassorinos, who was Heraclid's cousin and political partner; an uncle, Constantine, had fallen prisoner to the Ottomans during the siege of Coron.Pippidi (2000), pp. 180–181
Scribe, student, fugitive
A passing mention by poet-chronicler Christian Schesaeus suggests that Despot's first language of instruction was "Argolic" Greek, and that his earliest travels took him to Italy.Diaconescu, pp. 169, 176; Jurcoi, p. 50 In adulthood, he could speak as many as six languages, which may or may not have included "Vlach".Jurcoi, pp. 51–52 Several accounts of the period suggest that he was educated in Chios by Hermodorus Lestarchus, who introduced him to Renaissance humanism.Crăciun, pp. 100, 130; Jurcoi, pp. 49–51 In his record of oral history, the 18th-century author Ion Neculce alleges that Heraclid became a servant of the Brankovićes, with whom he "was not relatives". He claims that Despot passed himself as Jovan Branković's nephew when it could obtain him a share of the family's inheritance, and also alleges that he stole and forged Branković's personal papers.Neculce, pp. 14–15 This story would place young Heraclid in the Republic of Venice or the Papal States.Jurcoi, p. 50; Neculce, p. 15 Antonio Maria Graziani, a diplomat of the Holy See, additionally argues that Heraclid had spent time as a copyist in the Vatican Library, though he may be confusing him with Diassorinos.Jurcoi, pp. 50–51 Iorga draws a slightly different conclusion: noting that both Despot and Diassorinos were scribes and calligraphers, he argues that they only worked for the Bibliotheca Regia in Vienna.Jurcoi, p. 51
Iorga proposes that Heraclid also spent some of his formative years in Habsburg Spain. According to scholar Eugen Denize, the hypothesis is unverified, but plausible—given Despot's familiarity with Spanish politics.Denize (1996), p. 53 He was later spotted in the Kingdom of France, meeting and befriending Justus Jonas, who probably introduced him to Reformation ideology.Crăciun, p. 262; Jurcoi, p. 54 In 1548, he enlisted at the University of Montpellier, where he trained as a physician.Denize (1996), p. 53; Jurcoi, pp. 52–54. See also Pippidi (2000), p. 182 A university colleague, Carolus Clusius, left notes regarding his encounters with Despot, whom he names as Jacques Marchetti. Clusius depicts Despot as a philanderer and duelist, who married Gilette d'André, widow of a former rival. He accuses the future Prince of infanticide: he had arranged for a wardrobe to fall on his adoptive child.Jurcoi, pp. 52–53. See also Iorga (1925), p. 2