His own Calvinism wavered at the court of Mikołaj "the Red" Radziwiłł: Heraclid turned to Radical Reformation, and adopted a Unitarian position, without abjuring publicly.

He also formulated a political program which announced Romanian nationalism, promising to conquer Wallachia and Transylvania; he saw himself as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, and made several attempts to capture parts of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom in conjunction with the Habsburgs.

His Reformation project only survived through the small learning center he had set up at Cotnari, being dismantled in the 1580s; his family was decimated and scattered, though one adoptive son, Cyprian Bazylik, achieved fame in his own right.

In separate and conflicting notices, he suggested that his place of birth was Rhodes or Samos, in the Ottoman Eyalet of the Archipelago; elsewhere, he also claimed Genoese Chios or Venetian Crete as his homeland.

[8] Despot's family is known to have included a Greek scribe, Iakobos Diassorinos, who was Heraclid's cousin and political partner; an uncle, Constantine, had fallen prisoner to the Ottomans during the siege of Coron.

[41] His participation in the siege of Thérouanne inspired him to write a book in Latin (De Marini quod Terovanum vocant atque Hedini expugnatione), which he dedicated to the Emperor's son and main successor, Philip II.

[53] Duke Albert also gave Heraclid a warm welcome, but the latter only spent some two months in Prussia, leaving upon obtaining a recommendation to the court of Chancellor Mikołaj "the Red" Radziwiłł, in Lithuania.

The general viewpoints, summarized by Maria Crăciun, are that he was either a Lutheran, a Calvinist, or an opportunist with no clear commitments; a number of authors also list him as one of the Unitarians or Polish Brethren, with some noting that he came to these positions only after going through more mainstream Protestantism.

[59] Graziani reported on views allegedly held by Despot, commenting on his anticlericalism, his derision of all forms of mass, refusal to believe in transubstantiation, and dedication to Bible study.

[65] Historian Șerban Papacostea argues that Demetrios settled in Moldavia long before Despot, contributing to the spread of Reformation ideas in that country before being chased out by Lăpușneanu's violent repression.

[75] By May, Lăpușneanu had alienated more of his boyars and probably even the Moldavian Orthodox Metropolis: a delegation representing both traveled to Kesmark, hoping to persuade Ferdinand and Maximilian to intervene, and also expressing support for Despot's candidacy.

[92] In his biography of Heraclid, Johann Sommer noted that arquebus firepower won the day: "most of [the Moldavians] had never before even seen those handheld bombards, and so they and their horses could catch sound of them without the greatest distress.

[98] Despot immediately canceled Lăpușneanu's program of forced conversions to Orthodoxy and restored Protestant churches to their owners, being celebrated as a protector by the Hungarian, Saxon, and Armenian communities of Moldavia.

[100] Shortly after his takeover, Despot wrote Ferdinand to convince him never to back Lăpușneanu, exposing the latter as an indiscriminate murderer and Orthodox fanatic, and dwelling on his impalement of seven Protestant missionaries.

[102] He reassured locals that he was fundamentally anti-Ottoman, promising them that he would restore Moldavian rule in the Budjak, also announcing that he intended to annex Wallachia and then "Greece"—described by some historians as a "Dacian" plan.

[103] According to Iorga, there was a more discreet note to this program: though his proclamations described the Danube as a frontier, Despot's "grand apotheosis" was to be a restoration of the Byzantine Empire, with himself as "Emperor of all Eastern Christendom".

[113] He also defied the Crimean Khanate, reducing the Moldavian annual tribute to a gift consisting of two honey barrels, and made a public show of his contempt for Ottoman merchants.

[126] Heraclid made repeated attempts to establish Moldavia as an educational center of Eastern European Reformation, inviting Lestarchus, Jonas, Rheticus, and Peucer to come and teach there.

[129] As Crăciun notes, it remains a matter of scholarly debate whether Cotnari should be viewed as Moldavia's first institution of higher learning, a local replica of the Platonic Academy, or a mere school.

[134] One point of the program which was consistently pursued by Despot was the repression of Moldavian Catholicism: his transfer of Catholic property into Lutheran hands was recorded by Giovanni Botero and Jan Dymitr Solikowski.

[152] He now also intended to place a "son of Basarab" on the Wallachian throne, as a puppet ruler; historians agree that this is a reference to Banul Mărăcine[153] or Nicolaus Bassaraba,[154] two exiled Craiovești.

[157] In tandem, Zápolya made efforts to convince the Porte that Heraclid was a Habsburg loyalist who conspired with Emperor Ferdinand, noting that "this Despot has manned the forts with Germans and Hungarians", and that "all bandits from Transylvania and Poland gathered under him".

[16] Nevertheless, the itinerant jurist Simon Wirt recorded a rumor that Despot (referred to as Desparity) had persuaded Suleiman the Magnificent to arrest Lăpușneanu and make him a galley slave.

His physician, Dyonisus d'Avalos, claimed that just hours before his death, he renounced and denounced Reformation as a whole, deploring his own role in the "mockery of the divine religion" and voicing the wish to withdraw to a monastery.

[228] While Cyprian Bazylik withdrew from politics, to experience great success as a composer and prose writer,[229] impostors claiming to be Despot's brother or son appeared in Venetian territories or under Habsburg rule.

[244] He also created here a book collection, including precious manuscript copies of the classics, such as a gilded-letter version of Cicero's works, from De re publica to Epistulae ad Atticum.

[249] The state mint put out Despot's own version of the Lăpușneanu gold dinar and Ferdinand's silver Ort, though its main products were bronze and copper pennies inspired by the Ottoman mangır.

[262] Several historical sources associated with the Knights Hospitaller have enshrined the legend of a Basilicus Melitensis, identified as a 15th- or 16th-century ruler "of Wallachia"; in Mifsud Bonnici's biographical dictionary, he appears as Basilio ta' Vallachia.

[263] According to Pippidi, the story itself is a distant retelling of Despot's career in Moldavia, while the portraits are part of the invented tradition: they depict the 17th-century Cosimo II de' Medici and the 18th-century Constantin Brâncoveanu; inscriptions identifying them as "Basilicus" were probably added before 1850.

Here and in the successor Kingdom of Romania, interest in Heraclid's life was revived by a series of literary works—though, as Gostyński observed in 1945, "generally, Romanian historians' opinion on Despot Vodă [remains] unfavorable.