"The Galley Slave’s Backward Glance: Juan Latino’s Epic of the Battle of Lepanto"

Juan Latino (ca. 1517 – ca. 1594) was a former slave from sub-Saharan Africa who became a respected Latin professor in Granada. His landmark publication debut, an epic on the Battle of Lepanto, commemorates the triumph of a Catholic coalition over the Ottoman navy in this epochal galley clash of 1571. My talk considers how the interactive Latin pedagogy built into this poem complicates prevailing conceptions of relations between Christians and Muslims. I also consider how Latino’s classical allusions invite moral and tactical scrutiny of the slave trafficking that sustained Mediterranean warfare at sea.