In his Modern Greece: A Short History, C. M. Woodhouse (1984) has a chapter devoted to the period from 1453 to 1800, to which he gives the bleak title: ‘The Dark Age of Greece’. The implications are clear enough just from the dates, but since the time that book was first published in 1968, views of, and attitudes to, the centuries of Ottoman rule over the Greek-speaking people have undergone considerable modification. A number of myths have been exploded and more subtle and variegated accounts of the period are now available, from various disciplinary perspectives. Of course Woodhouse also mentions those western-ruled regions, such as Crete, that did not fall to Ottoman rule for another one or two centuries after 1453. But as far as culture is concerned, he offers a rather one-sided view. After trotting out the familiar story of the Venetians’ oppression and exploitation of the local population of Cyprus, he goes on:

The extent of social and cultural relations between Venetians and native Cretans was, as we now know, much greater and much more significant than Woodhouse was prepared to believe. Indeed, we can justifiably talk of a Cretan Renaissance, the outcome of a lengthy social and cultural symbiosis, which enabled the spirit, ideas and values of the Italian Renaissance to be transmitted on Cretan soil and to inspire poets, intellectuals, artists and musicians. Erotokritos was by no means the sole work of literary distinction composed in Crete in those years.