Lot 5
  • 5

Nikos Engonopoulos Greek, 1910-85

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Description

  • Nikos Engonopoulos
  • Krokondilos Kladas
  • signed and dated 83 l.r.
  • oil on canvas
  • 55 by 45cm., 21½ by 17¾ in.

Provenance

Private Collection, Athens

Catalogue Note

Krokondilos ("crocodile") Kladas was part of the Kladas clan of Mani. When the Ottomans conquered all of Greece except for Mani, the Kladas clan surrendered to them and were given castles and land in Vardounia. In 1477, the Kladas clan led the resistance that drove an Ottoman invading force out of Mani. The Venetian allies of Krokondilos Kladas signed a treaty with the Turks, leaving Mani to fight by themselves. Kladas and many other leading Maniots fled to Venetian-held Koroni.

On the 9th October 1480, Kladas and his followers gathered an army and captured the Turkish held castles of Oitylo and Megali Mani. The Ottoman government was enraged. Kladas' former Venetian allies placed a price of 10,000 ducats on his head because he had nearly ruined their treaty.

An army sent by the Sultan was defeated between Passavas and Oitylo during February of 1481. Later that month a biggger force under Mohammed Bey drove Kladas to Porto Kagio. A Spanish galley came and rescued Kladas before the Turks caught him. In Europe he served as a mercenary but soon he returned to Mani. He was killed in battle near Monemvasia in 1490.