Literary Cryptograms and the Cretan Academies

Abstract

Recent researches into the history of the Cretan Academies have added a new dimension to our understanding of the extraordinary flowering of scholarship and literature termed the Cretan Renaissance. We now know that the small island of Crete, dominated for so many centuries by Venetian overlords, had developed by 1560–1632 a resident intelligenzia capable of furnishing three Academies: the Vivi of Rethymno, founded in January 1562 by Francesco Barozzi; the Stravaganti of Irakleio, founded in 1591 by Andrea Cornaro; and the Sterili of Chania, granted a meeting-hall in August 1632 and additional protection by a decree of December 1637.