The Diary of Cesare Vitali

Among the numerous testimonies concerning the 1821 Greek Revolution, Cesare Vitali’s account has not yet been investigated and his figure is still relatively unknown. Doctor and vice-consul of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies in Athens during the crucial years of the Greek Independence Wars, Cesare Vitali witnessed all of the political turmoil associated with the city: from the first attempt of liberation from the Ottoman conquerors (April 1821) to the dramatic events that led to the siege of Athens and the surrender of the Acropolis in May 1827. The CHS fellowship in Philhellenism, offered on the occasion of the celebration of the 200 years (1821-2021) since the outbreak of the Greek Revolution, gave me the opportunity to fully address the case of Cesare Vitali and to study his diary in detail, which has now been published for the first time in the prestigious series “Quaderni” of the Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici “B. Lavagnini”.