Ioan Iacob Heraclid
✓ Source-basedfallingRuler of Moldavia (1511-1563)
Iacob Heraclid, born Basilicò and also known as Iacobus Heraclides, Heraclid Despotul, or Despot Vodă, was a Greek Maltese soldier, adventurer and intellectual, who reigned as Prince of Moldavia from November 1561 to November 1563.
Photos 7
Title page of De Marini quod Terovanum vocant in Christophe Plantin's French edition, 1555. Heraclid is credited as "Jacques Basilic Marchet"
Olbracht Łaski's castle in Kesmark (Kežmarok), where Despot planned his attack on Moldavia
John Sigismund Zápolya paying homage to Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566. From a late 16th-century muraqqa
Aerial view over Suceava's princely citadel from the western side. Areni field once stretched on the left-hand side and in the background
Lăpușneanu and his consort Ruxandra with the severed heads of boyars. 1872 etching by Theodor Aman
Attributed portrait of Basilicus Melitensis, displayed at Birgu; may actually depict Cosimo II de' MediciHistorical Figures born in the 1510s 6
About this person
Iacob Heraclid, born Basilicò and also known as Iacobus Heraclides, Heraclid Despotul, or Despot Vodă, 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.
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