FILIARCHI

TRATTATO DELLA GUERRA, ET DELL’UNIONE DE PRENCIPI CHRISTIANI CONTRA I TURCHI & GLI ALTI INFEDILI.

Venice, 1572

Cosimo FILIARCHI

In 1572, Filiarchi travelled to Venice in the entourage of Cardinal Pier Donato Cesi, a member of the papal legation that had negotiated with Venice and Spain to form the Holy League which defeated the Turks at Lepanto. Greatly impressed by this victory, which seemed to him the prelude to a great crusade, Filiarchi wrote on 1 september 1572 to Cesi, dedicating to him this exhortatory treatise, his first work. Making numerous references to the scriptures and to classical history, it is largely concerned with the Church role in a crusade, were one to be launched. There are chapters on the pope s duties and powers as defender of the Chruch, on the origin and rise of the Turks, on why a war against the Turks is just, on the necessity of unity amongst the Christian princes, on the need for a Christian army to come under the command of a single General, on the question of wether the members of the clergy should be able to fight, on soldiers who are taken prisoner by the Turks, and so on.