Fig. 2: The artist crossing the Pindus Mountains from Ioannina to Trikkala in 1819 by Louis Dupré from his Voyage â Athènes et â Constantinople (1825).
In essence the travellers and writers who saw Ali Pasha fall into two categories, before and after Byron. There were a number of foreigners in Ioannina at the turn of the century and the French and British had a significant presence. The first group of writers, few in number, were connected to diplomatic or military affairs. After Lord Byron’s visit in 1809, Ioannina was established on the tourist trail and all the subsequent travel writers walk in the shadow of his poetic description and express philhellenic sentiments. Most of the precursors were French diplomats, soldiers and even prisoners. Notable among them are Guillaume de Vaudoncourt of the French Army who assisted Ali in his defences and François Pouqueville who had been captured by the Turks and became French ambassador to Ali, 1806–14. He travelled and made a study of Albania with his British counterpart William Leake. During 1801 Leake was in the employ of the Turks to help as a military attaché. In 1804 he made a survey of Albania for the British and Turkish allies, and from 1807 to 1810 he was British ambassador to Ali.
After Byron, Edward Gally Knight, a poetic imitator of Byron, traveller, activist for Greek liberation and later an MP, followed close in his footsteps. Sir Henry Holland, physician, was there between 1812 and 1813, at the same time as the Danish archaeologist Peter Oluf Brønsted whose excavating party in Greece had included the architect, Charles Robert Cockerell. Cockerell visited Epirus with the scholar, the Rev. Thomas Smart Hughes. His Travels in Sicily, Greece, and Albania (1820) was illustrated with drawings by Cockerell and translated into French and German. Another acquaintance of Cockerell’s received by Ali Pasha was the French painter Louis Dupré who made a tour of Greece with three other English travellers in 1819, who also acted as his patrons and publishers. Dupré is particularly admired for his paintings of individuals and their costumes and weapons. An exception to the norm was Ibrahim Manzour, soldier of fortune and author, and convert to Islam otherwise known as Samson Cerfbeer de Médelsheim, born in Strasbourg. He wrote his own Mémoires of life at Ali’s court from his experience as his military advisor from 1814 to 1817. Edward Everett was the first American to visit Ali’s court in the early summer of 1819. A fervent philhellene and activist in the Greek cause, he travelled to Epirus during his tour of Europe and Turkey on completion of his studies at Göttingen University in Germany, he went on to become a diplomat, President of Harvard and a Secretary of State.
François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville (1770–1838): French physician, diplomat, writer, explorer and ardent philhellene. A fierce critic of Ali Pasha and those who accepted his hospitality, such as Lord Byron, he had declared Napoleon as the forerunner of the Greek freedom movement as early as 1805. He met Thomas Hughes in Ioannina and the two men became close friends and travelled Greece together. His writings on geography and topography were the basis for the work of many later French geographers and are comparable to that of Leake. His philhellenic writings were extremely influential and inspired painters such as Ary Scheffer and Francesco Hayez. Pouqueville was the recipient of the Order of the Redeemer of Greece.
Fig. 2: The artist crossing the Pindus Mountains from Ioannina to Trikkala in 1819 by Louis Dupré from his Voyage â Athènes et â Constantinople (1825).
William Martin Leake FRS (1777–1860): Brilliant topographer, military officer and traveller to the Greek lands. During his early military career he served in the West Indies. Later he acted as a land surveyor for the Royal Artillery within the Ottoman Empire, which gave him the opportunity to develop a deep interest in antiquities and topography. He was the first to record measurements of the Peloponnese for the purpose of creating accurate maps. His unique approach included an interaction between the physical reality of his day and his knowledge of Ancient Greek literature, especially the geographer Pausanias. Upon his retirement from the Army in 1815, Leake pursued his scientific interests further and helped establish the Royal Geographical Society. His highly regarded Topography of Athens was a groundbreaking work and his detailed and extensive travel writings continue to be studied as a valuable record of the period.
Lord George Gordon Byron (1788–1824): Author of The Lament of Tasso, Prometheus, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, The Giaour, Manfred, The Siege of Corinth and the dramatic work Cain. He was seen as the embodiment of the Romantic ideal, hence the phrase Byronic hero. Samuel Taylor Coleridge saw in ‘his eyes the open portals of the sun’. Byron was probably the most famous amongst the many philhellenes discussed in this book and much of his work was influenced and defined by Greece. When Byron died in Missolonghi the news spread like dynamite all over Europe and America, shocking public opinion and giving strength to the Greek fight for independence.
John Cameron ‘Cam’ Hobhouse (Lord Broughton, 1786–1869): Radical politician, author and close friend of Byron’s from their Cambridge years. He accompanied Byron on his travels and recorded his experiences in A Journey through Albania, and other provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople during the years 1809 and 1810. He wrote notes for the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold and upon completion in 1818 Byron dedicated the entire poem to him in a long literary address that stressed that Hobhouse was ‘a friend often tried and never found wanting’.
Sir Henry Holland FRS (1788–1873): Physician, traveller and writer. He travelled to Iceland and the Mediterranean and his travel writings gained him much attention. His expedition to Iceland took place in 1810 in the company of fellow-physician Richard Bright and the mineralogist and geologist George Mackenzie. They took the smallpox vaccine to Iceland and later Holland wrote a thesis on the diseases of Iceland in Latin for Edinburgh University. He served as consultant physician to several Prime Ministers, including George Canning, Physician in Ordinary to Queen Victoria and President of the Royal College of Physicians, while also giving medical advice to his cousin, the novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Gaskell.
Rev. Thomas Smart Hughes (1786–1847): Important theologian, thinker and scholar of Greek. Hughes travelled through Greece with Charles Robert Cockerell, RA, who illustrated his well-known record of their journey Travels to Greece and Albania. Subsequently he authored several notable theological works and continued the History of England by David Hume and Tobias Smollett, producing volumes 14–21. Hughes wrote passionately about Greek freedom, especially after the Massacre of Chios. Hughes is the author of the poem Belshazzar’s Feast, which inspired the apocalyptic vision of John Martin’s eponymous painting.