Terms

Moor A word of Latin origin (Mauri), used in medieval and early modern Europe, without rigor, for Arabs, Berbers, European Muslims and Black people. It was applied to the Muslim inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula after the conquest of 711. In English, from the... Lieutenant Military rank of one who assists and replaces the captain in command of a unit, the second officer below him. English took the word from the French lieutenant, which literally means 'the one who holds another's place', and the Latin root is... Duke In the Venice of the play, the Duke is the doge, head of the Republic of Venice, an office that existed from 697 to 1797. Doge comes from the Latin dux, the same root as duke. He was elected for life, through a complex voting process. Over time his real power... Witchcraft Belief that a person could, with herbs, potions (the so-called love philters) or enchantments, bend another's will and provoke passion. In the Middle Ages, witches and herbalists prepared these mixtures, sometimes with toxic plants such as belladonna. In... Senate The main legislative body of the Republic of Venice, created around 1229 under the name Consiglio dei Pregadi, 'Council of the Invited'. The name Senate was given to it only at the end of the fourteenth century. It dealt with taxes, trade, foreign... Turkish fleet Armed force of the Ottoman Empire, a power that dominated the eastern Mediterranean and contested the sea with Venice. On June 27, 1570, a force of hundreds of ships set out for Cyprus, then a Venetian possession. The war ended in March 1573, with a treaty by... Cyprus Island of the eastern Mediterranean that Venice came to control in 1489, when Queen Caterina Cornaro abdicated. For the Republic it was above all a military base, and its cities, such as Nicosia and Famagusta, received walls and bastions designed to resist... Sibyl Prophetess of ancient Greek and Roman antiquity, who announced divine messages in a state of ecstatic trance. The most important for the Romans was the Sibyl of Cumae, near Naples, who according to legend sold the Sibylline Books to Tarquin the Proud, the... Horns In the European imagination of the early modern period, the cuckolded husband was the cuckold, said to wear horns. The image comes from the stag which, defeated by a rival, loses its females. It was a source of public mockery against the husband. The... Willow Song English folk ballad, preserved in a manuscript of the British Library (Add. MS 15117), in eight stanzas. The willow was, in tradition, an emblem of mourning and of rejected love. In the older version, the singer is a man who suffers from the cruelty and...