Between Herodotus and the Poison Maiden. Laonikos Chalkokondyles and the Death of King Ladislaus of Durazzo

The paper focuses on the mid-15th century Byzantine historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles and on how, in his historical work on the rise of the Ottoman Empire, he deals with western countries and western sources. More specifically, the quite extended account of the death of Ladislaus of Durazzo, King of Naples (1377-1414), is analyzed as case study. In describing this episode, Laonikos reports a (not historically grounded) version which is partly inspired by Herodotus – Laonikos’ major classical model throughout the entire work –, and above all by the Medieval folkloric motive of the Poison Maiden, i.e. a young woman endowed with a ‘serpentine’ nature, deadly to whoever has a (sexual) contact with her. According to Laonikos’ version, King Ladislaus, while sieging Florence, is poisoned by a Florentine maiden after having intercourse with her, a fact which causes the death of both the king and the maiden. In the paper, several Western versions of the same episode, written both in Latin and in vernacular, are discussed, in order to better understand the genesis of Laonikos’ account.