ABSTRACT
Vitsentzos Kornaros's chivalric poem Erotokritos (c. 1600–1610) is the major work of Cretan Renaissance literature and represents a rich compendium of the syncretic culture of Venetian Crete. Erotokritos is modelled on one of the most popular fifteenth-century European romances, Pierre de la Cépède's Paris et Vienne, and testifies to the transposition of Western courtly values in early modern Greece. The protagonist Erotokritos, literally “tormented by love”, embodies all the features of the perfect Renaissance hero: he is a courtly lover, a cultured knight, and an excellent singer. Music—love song in particular—is crucial in constructing the hero's identity: it represents the only vehicle for the expression of love's anguish, from which the protagonist is named, and also the foremost medium of communication between Erotokritos and his lady, Aretousa. In this chapter, I analyse how music is experienced, visualised, and sensed in the romance and how song becomes an object of erotic desire for Aretusa. I then discuss the material aspects of Erotokritos's song-making, focusing especially on the objects and spaces related to his musical activity, such as Erotokritos's handwritten copy of his own songs, an actual chansonnier, and his akrivokamera, an elegant and decorated studiolo, placed in the palace gardens. In the fictional world of Kornaros's poem, materiality plays a key role in shaping and communicating the identity of the protagonist. Erotokritos's voice and songs are embodied in the pages of his songbook, and, together with collectables and the fine furniture of his studiolo, represent the main tools for his self-fashioning as a nobleman and refined intellectual.
