Candia – Daily Life in Venetian Crete in Zuanne Papadopoli’s L’Occio (1690s)

The 1669 loss of Candia, present-day Heraklion and Venice’s last stronghold on Crete, was a decisive turning point in the Mediterranean political and military balance of the early modern era in a context inherently traversed by intercon- nections between Latins, Greeks and Muslims. Despite the strong elements of continuity between life during Venetian and Ottoman rule, it is undeniable that material and cultural practices related to political administration and religion in- troduced new and rupturing elements to the cityscape. This chapter aims to ana- lyse the perceived disruption of everyday life brought about first by the Ottoman siege of the island and then by the exile status of one of its inhabitants, Zuanne Papadopoli. An intriguing embodiment of Veneto-Cretan culture, Papadopoli was a member of the local nobility of non-Venetian descent that had become an integral part of the Venetian administration in Crete. His memoirs, which go under the title L’Occio (Idleness), are the source employed in this paper, a valu- able ‘micro-historical’ gateway to the author’s mindset and experience. Through comparison and visualisation, the chapter shows how Papadopoli stands at the intersection of micro- and macro-history, becoming a chronicler of excellence of everyday life in Candia around the mid-seventeenth century.