Papers: Venetian Chronicles by Alexandru Simon
Transylvanian Review, 2009
Crusading and Church Union are two of the most debated medieval concepts. In the former ‘borderla... more Crusading and Church Union are two of the most debated medieval concepts. In the former ‘borderlands of Christendom’ they have also peculiar modern nationalist meanings. Like modern nationalism, both were coined outside of the borderlands, in the great centers of civilization Rome and Constantinople. At the end of the Middle Ages, the two centres and systems underwent dramatic crisis that altered their fate for good. The Papacy experienced its ‘Babylonian captivity’, whereas Byzantium, eroded by Latins, Greeks and Muslims alike, turned into the ‘small empire’ that fell in 1453. These evolutions increased the ‘freedoms’ of the borderlands. Between the Angevine supremacy of the 1300s and the great ‘Oriental’, respectively ‘European’ rise of the House of Habsburg, respectively of the Ottoman Empire, East-Central Europe (i.e. Christendom’s south-eastern borderlands) underwent a series of changes that equally support ‘the survival of the Middle Ages’ and ‘the dawn of the Modern Age’. The studies collected in this volume attempt to recapture these contradictory features and provide a wide range of explanations for some of the ‘paradoxes’.
Italy and Europe's Eastern Border (1204-1669) (ed. by Iulian-Mihai Damian, Ioan-Aurel Pop, Mihailo St. Popovic and Alexandru Simon), p. 237-258, 2012
Papers by Alexandru Simon
Revista istorică, Nov 21, 2023
Acta terrae septemcastrensis, Dec 1, 2020
Analele ştiinţifice ale Universităţii "Al.I. Cuza" din Iaşi. Istorie, 2024
Mercenaries and Crusaders (=Memoria Hungariae, 15), ed. Attila Bárány., 2024
Few treatises have attracted the attention received by Giovanni Mario Filelfo’s Amyris (c. 1476).... more Few treatises have attracted the attention received by Giovanni Mario Filelfo’s Amyris (c. 1476). Few errant warrior poets have enjoyed the fame bestowed upon Michael <Tarchaniota> Marullus (1450s-1500). Even though they shared – through warfare and verses – the Eastern reigns of Matthias Corvinus and Mehmed II precisely in the mid 1470s, Amyris (its aim and its impact) and Marullus (his career and his messages) were seldom viewed and analyzed together. Their “official careers” did not give grounds for such togetherness. Their backgrounds and their paths were however quite similar. Giovanni Mario (Gianmario) Filelfo (1426-1480) was the son of the reputed Philorhomaios anthropos Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481), […] a clearing house for Greek intellectuals in Quattrocento Italy, second in this role only to Cardinal Bessarion […] (John Monfasani). Michael Marullus, a self-proclaimed Costantinopolitanus, found safe haven on the Ragusan and Venetian shores of the Adriatic after the Ottoman fall of Byzantium. Both Marullus and Filelfo Jr were to return to the East, where Filelfo Jr too had – certainly – been born (to a Byzantine mother, in Genoese Pera). Both served as mercenaries with the sword (Marullus) and the feather (Filelfo Jr) and both then refuted – in written above-all – their masters, Dracula allegedly, in the case of Michael Marullus, and Sultan Mehmed II (via a wealthy merchant from Ancona named Othman Lillo Ferducci), in Gianmario Filelfo’s case). These are some of the documentary grounds that call for a closer inspection of the lives and of the works of the two “Greek-Latin” humanists from the second half of the fifteenth century.
Anuarul Institutului de Istorie »A.D. Xenopol« - Iaşi, 2012
Studii şi Materiale de Istorie Medie (SMIM), 2008
Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai - Theologia Orthodoxa, 2010
Academia letters, Jul 13, 2021
Presses universitaires du Midi eBooks, 2015
In the summer of 1476, Mehmed II had attacked Moldavia. Neither he nor his opponents accomplished... more In the summer of 1476, Mehmed II had attacked Moldavia. Neither he nor his opponents accomplished their goals. Still, it was his army and not the crusaders who was hastly retreating. In early September, Venice’s envoy in Moldavia, Emmanuele Gerardo thought that Moldavia had outlived rather well (i.e. cheap) the clash with the Porte. This was relative. Plagues, destructions, famine and death had struck her population too. Most damage had been inflicted by Basarab III Laiotă’s Walachians, who h..
Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti, 2021
Roughly a week before Ali Mihaloğlu, the bey of Vidin and Smederevo, raided Oradea (7-8 February ... more Roughly a week before Ali Mihaloğlu, the bey of Vidin and Smederevo, raided Oradea (7-8 February 1474), the connecting area between Hungary proper and the Voivodate of Transylvania, the Commune of Dubrovnik/Ragusa, at that time vassal to both Ottoman sultan Mehmed II and to Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, informed Venetian Doge Nicolò Marcello, ruler of her Adriatic neighbour, about the most recent developments at the Porte, as well as at both the Porte&#39;s Asian and European borders (31 January 1474). From the latest news on Usun Hassan, still viewed by some as Christendom&#39;s main anti-Ottoman hope (in spite of the crippling losses he had suffered in August 1473), the commune moved on – in her message to Venice (earlier Usun’s main supporter) – to the combats in Vlachia Maior (Wallachia proper), recently invaded by Stephen III the Great of Moldavia (8-30 November 1473). The information had likewise been provided by the Ragusan envoys to the Porte, who had just returned to the Adriatic, after departing from Constantinople (Istanbul) on 28 December 1473. With Venice waging an increasingly desperate war against Mehmed (for ten years and counting), the task of conveying Ottoman inside information was very delicate for tribute paying Dubrovnik. The Ragusan message is the only extant known source to state that Stephen III the Great had won Wallachia from Radu III the Handsome for the benefit of Vlad III the Impaller. The rest of the known sources (however chronicles, not documents) claim that Stephen enthroned Basarab III Laiotă as ruler of Wallachia (Laiotă was his Wallachian ruler of choice until autumn 1474). Ragusa’s Venetian message bluntly contradicts the known contemporary data on Stephen III’s intervention in Wallachia in November 1473 and on the subsequent events, data preserved only in the chronicles of Stephen III (chiefly in the Moldavian-German Chronicle intended for Habsburg subjects, around 1499-1500) and in the writings of Jan Długosz (notoriously hostile towards the Hunyadi)
Anuarul Institutului de Istorie »A.D. Xenopol« - Iaşi, 2011
Anuarul Institutului de Istorie »A.D. Xenopol« - Iaşi, 2009
Radovi : Radovi Zavoda za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskoga fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Dec 15, 2010
Sigismund of Luxembourg (13681437), king of Hungary, Roman German king and finally emperor of th... more Sigismund of Luxembourg (13681437), king of Hungary, Roman German king and finally emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, is not only a prominent figure of the late Middle Ages in Catholic Western Europe; always close were also his contacts with the Orthodox World ...
![Research paper thumbnail of Catedralele Cetăţii Albe, Armenopolis-ul Moldovei [The Cathedrals of Cetatea Albă (Akkerman / Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi / Moncastro), Moldavia’s Armenopolis]]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/115110448/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Spațiul sacru în orașul medieval: perspective arheologice și istorice, ed. Maria Crîngaci Ţiplic (Cluj-Napoca: Mega, 2021), pp. 35-57., 2021
Because of the plagues that tormented Rome during the Jubilee Year of
1475, Moldavia’s main harbo... more Because of the plagues that tormented Rome during the Jubilee Year of
1475, Moldavia’s main harbour, Cetatea Albă, was transformed – alike Bologna – into an “alternative pilgrimage site” by Pope Sixtus IV, eager to promote the recent victories of Stephen III of Moldavia, Christendom’s Greek rite athlete (certainly since April 1476), against Sultan Mehmed II.. In the name of the anti -Ottoman crusade, the Papal bulla Redemptor Noster (January 1476) stipulated that the pilgrims had to visit the two cathedral churches of Cetatea Albă (duas ecclesias cathedrales), an uncanonical “rarity”, encountered semi -officially at the inner borders of the Latin rite world, in Bergamo or in Dublin (nevertheless in both cases the designation cathedral did not cover two distinct Episcopal seats / <arch-> bishoprics). The identity of one of the two cathedrals mentioned by Sixtus IV is obvious: the seat of the Latin rite bishop of Mo<n>castro, whose titular prelate, probably named Stephen, then served as Stephen III’s envoy to Ita ly in the spring of 1476. The identity of the other cathedral is probalmatic. The bishopric of Asprokastron (another designation for Cetatea Albă) was used – in quite dubious manner – by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to legitimize the Metropolitanate of Moldavia (1401) and consequently the Greek rite rule of the voivodes of Moldavia. Nonetheless, the individuality – both Latin and Greek – of Cetatea Albă had caused major problems for the rulers of Moldavia, chiefly during the domestic conflicts of the 1430s–1450s, which left a profound impact on Stephen III’s rule. By recalling the Greek rite as – well – individuality of Cetatea Albă, Pope Sixtus IV, who placed the cathedrals at the Dniestr Mounds second only in entire Christendom to those in the Holy Land and in Compostela, risked to antagonize Stephen III, Venice’s favourite, growingly nervous because of the lack of substantial Roman financial and monarchic support. An alternative identification of the second cathedral can therefore be voiced. The cathedral could have belonged to the Armenians, already a major target for the Papacy, both in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea area. Contemporary sources list the Armenians of Moldavia as both loyal to Stephen III and in control of a sizeable part of Cetatea Albă and its hinterland. Moreover, in the summer of 1476, the Armenians fought alongside the Wallachian troops of Stephen III against the armies of Mehmed II, who once again also attacked Cetatea Albă, the main Pontic target of the Porte a fter the Ottoman conquest of Crimean Caffa in mid-1475. At that time (1475–1476), because of his matrimonial ties (his wife was – since 1472 – Mary of Crimean Theodoro) and because of the Central-European and Balkan interests of his suzerain, King Matthias Corvinus, Stephen of Moldavia’s main aims seem to have been focused precisely on the Black Sea area, where the Armenians could have been and were most useful, especially after the victory of Mehmed II over the Turkmen khan Usun Hassan (1473). Considering these, as well as other elements (related for – instance – to the apparently highly loyal, pro-Stephen III, conduct of the Armenians during the eventually fatal Ottoman siege of Cetatea Albă in 1484), the relation between Stephen III and the Armenians (a relation that almost collapsed in 1479, because of the divergent attitude of the parties towards the recently concluded Ottoman-Venetian peace) justifies the hypothesis that the second cathedral of Cetatea Albă, mentioned by Pope Sixtus IV in 1476, actually belonged to the Armenians and not to the Greek rite Christians.
Anuarul Institutului de Istorie »A.D. Xenopol« - Iaşi, 2013
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Papers: Venetian Chronicles by Alexandru Simon
Papers by Alexandru Simon
1475, Moldavia’s main harbour, Cetatea Albă, was transformed – alike Bologna – into an “alternative pilgrimage site” by Pope Sixtus IV, eager to promote the recent victories of Stephen III of Moldavia, Christendom’s Greek rite athlete (certainly since April 1476), against Sultan Mehmed II.. In the name of the anti -Ottoman crusade, the Papal bulla Redemptor Noster (January 1476) stipulated that the pilgrims had to visit the two cathedral churches of Cetatea Albă (duas ecclesias cathedrales), an uncanonical “rarity”, encountered semi -officially at the inner borders of the Latin rite world, in Bergamo or in Dublin (nevertheless in both cases the designation cathedral did not cover two distinct Episcopal seats / <arch-> bishoprics). The identity of one of the two cathedrals mentioned by Sixtus IV is obvious: the seat of the Latin rite bishop of Mo<n>castro, whose titular prelate, probably named Stephen, then served as Stephen III’s envoy to Ita ly in the spring of 1476. The identity of the other cathedral is probalmatic. The bishopric of Asprokastron (another designation for Cetatea Albă) was used – in quite dubious manner – by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to legitimize the Metropolitanate of Moldavia (1401) and consequently the Greek rite rule of the voivodes of Moldavia. Nonetheless, the individuality – both Latin and Greek – of Cetatea Albă had caused major problems for the rulers of Moldavia, chiefly during the domestic conflicts of the 1430s–1450s, which left a profound impact on Stephen III’s rule. By recalling the Greek rite as – well – individuality of Cetatea Albă, Pope Sixtus IV, who placed the cathedrals at the Dniestr Mounds second only in entire Christendom to those in the Holy Land and in Compostela, risked to antagonize Stephen III, Venice’s favourite, growingly nervous because of the lack of substantial Roman financial and monarchic support. An alternative identification of the second cathedral can therefore be voiced. The cathedral could have belonged to the Armenians, already a major target for the Papacy, both in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea area. Contemporary sources list the Armenians of Moldavia as both loyal to Stephen III and in control of a sizeable part of Cetatea Albă and its hinterland. Moreover, in the summer of 1476, the Armenians fought alongside the Wallachian troops of Stephen III against the armies of Mehmed II, who once again also attacked Cetatea Albă, the main Pontic target of the Porte a fter the Ottoman conquest of Crimean Caffa in mid-1475. At that time (1475–1476), because of his matrimonial ties (his wife was – since 1472 – Mary of Crimean Theodoro) and because of the Central-European and Balkan interests of his suzerain, King Matthias Corvinus, Stephen of Moldavia’s main aims seem to have been focused precisely on the Black Sea area, where the Armenians could have been and were most useful, especially after the victory of Mehmed II over the Turkmen khan Usun Hassan (1473). Considering these, as well as other elements (related for – instance – to the apparently highly loyal, pro-Stephen III, conduct of the Armenians during the eventually fatal Ottoman siege of Cetatea Albă in 1484), the relation between Stephen III and the Armenians (a relation that almost collapsed in 1479, because of the divergent attitude of the parties towards the recently concluded Ottoman-Venetian peace) justifies the hypothesis that the second cathedral of Cetatea Albă, mentioned by Pope Sixtus IV in 1476, actually belonged to the Armenians and not to the Greek rite Christians.
1475, Moldavia’s main harbour, Cetatea Albă, was transformed – alike Bologna – into an “alternative pilgrimage site” by Pope Sixtus IV, eager to promote the recent victories of Stephen III of Moldavia, Christendom’s Greek rite athlete (certainly since April 1476), against Sultan Mehmed II.. In the name of the anti -Ottoman crusade, the Papal bulla Redemptor Noster (January 1476) stipulated that the pilgrims had to visit the two cathedral churches of Cetatea Albă (duas ecclesias cathedrales), an uncanonical “rarity”, encountered semi -officially at the inner borders of the Latin rite world, in Bergamo or in Dublin (nevertheless in both cases the designation cathedral did not cover two distinct Episcopal seats / <arch-> bishoprics). The identity of one of the two cathedrals mentioned by Sixtus IV is obvious: the seat of the Latin rite bishop of Mo<n>castro, whose titular prelate, probably named Stephen, then served as Stephen III’s envoy to Ita ly in the spring of 1476. The identity of the other cathedral is probalmatic. The bishopric of Asprokastron (another designation for Cetatea Albă) was used – in quite dubious manner – by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to legitimize the Metropolitanate of Moldavia (1401) and consequently the Greek rite rule of the voivodes of Moldavia. Nonetheless, the individuality – both Latin and Greek – of Cetatea Albă had caused major problems for the rulers of Moldavia, chiefly during the domestic conflicts of the 1430s–1450s, which left a profound impact on Stephen III’s rule. By recalling the Greek rite as – well – individuality of Cetatea Albă, Pope Sixtus IV, who placed the cathedrals at the Dniestr Mounds second only in entire Christendom to those in the Holy Land and in Compostela, risked to antagonize Stephen III, Venice’s favourite, growingly nervous because of the lack of substantial Roman financial and monarchic support. An alternative identification of the second cathedral can therefore be voiced. The cathedral could have belonged to the Armenians, already a major target for the Papacy, both in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea area. Contemporary sources list the Armenians of Moldavia as both loyal to Stephen III and in control of a sizeable part of Cetatea Albă and its hinterland. Moreover, in the summer of 1476, the Armenians fought alongside the Wallachian troops of Stephen III against the armies of Mehmed II, who once again also attacked Cetatea Albă, the main Pontic target of the Porte a fter the Ottoman conquest of Crimean Caffa in mid-1475. At that time (1475–1476), because of his matrimonial ties (his wife was – since 1472 – Mary of Crimean Theodoro) and because of the Central-European and Balkan interests of his suzerain, King Matthias Corvinus, Stephen of Moldavia’s main aims seem to have been focused precisely on the Black Sea area, where the Armenians could have been and were most useful, especially after the victory of Mehmed II over the Turkmen khan Usun Hassan (1473). Considering these, as well as other elements (related for – instance – to the apparently highly loyal, pro-Stephen III, conduct of the Armenians during the eventually fatal Ottoman siege of Cetatea Albă in 1484), the relation between Stephen III and the Armenians (a relation that almost collapsed in 1479, because of the divergent attitude of the parties towards the recently concluded Ottoman-Venetian peace) justifies the hypothesis that the second cathedral of Cetatea Albă, mentioned by Pope Sixtus IV in 1476, actually belonged to the Armenians and not to the Greek rite Christians.
Acestea fiind spuse, paginile care urmează sunt rezultatul nu doar al unei aniversări/ celebrări/ comemorări (terminologia este, dacă nu variabilă, atunci maleabilă), ci al unei succesiuni de aniversări/ celebrări/ comemorări: (1) 525 de ani de la prima atestare documentară a Bisericii Sfânta Parascheva din Feleac (1488-2013), (2) 650 de ani de la prima atestare documentară a satului Feleac (1367-2017) şi (3) – într-un final – 655 de ani de la întâia menţiune scrisă a pomenitei aşezări (1367-2022). Între ele, s-au aşezat: (4) Centenarul Marii Unirii (1918-2018), prin care românii au recuperat rămăşiţele marilor imperii, (5) Centenarul Păcii de la Trianon (1920-2020), care a consfinţit („a legalizat”) apartenenţa Transilvaniei la Regatul României, şi (6) împlinirea a 80 de ani de la Diktat-ul (numit şi Arbitrajul) de la Viena (1940-2020) prin care o (altă) graniţă maghiaro-română a fost trasă – pentru cel puţin patru ani – între oraşul Cluj şi satul Feleac, dar şi (7) 700 de ani de la acordarea de către Carol-Robert de Anjou (1316) a statutului de oraş liber regal (ungar) Clujului. Cândva, chiar dacă nu ne va fi prea uşor să o facem, va trebui să ne întrebăm la ce ar fi condus această serie – mare – aniversară dacă nu intervenea „pauza” impusă de COVID în primăvara anului 2020. În cazul de faţă, întrebarea este legitimă şi deoarece, peste un an, s-au împlinit 100 de ani de la înfiinţarea Eparhiei Ortodoxe a Vadului, Feleacului şi Clujului (la 1921, atât Vadul, cât şi Feleacul erau sate greco-catolice, iar, în oraşul Cluj, românii, indiferent de confesiunea lor, reprezentau o minoritate).
concepts. In the former ‘borderlands of Christendom’ they have also peculiar modern nationalist meanings. Like modern nationalism, both were coined outside of the borderlands, in the great centers of civilization Rome and Constantinople. At the end of the Middle Ages, the two centres and systems underwent dramatic crisis that altered their fate for good. The Papacy experienced its ‘Babylonian captivity’, whereas Byzantium, eroded by Latins, Greeks and Muslims alike, turned into the ‘small empire’ that fell in 1453. These evolutions increased the ‘freedoms’ of the borderlands. Between the Angevine supremacy of the 1300s and the great ‘Oriental’, respectively ‘European’ rise of the House of Habsburg, respectively of the Ottoman Empire, East-Central Europe (i.e. Christendom’s south-eastern borderlands) underwent a series of changes that equally support ‘the survival of the Middle Ages’ and ‘the dawn of the Modern Age’. The studies collected in this volume attempt to recapture these contradictory features and provide a wide range of explanations for some of the ‘paradoxes’.