Ioannis Vilaras

[1] Vilaras is remembered primarily as a modern Greek poet, non-native Albanian speaker but fluent, according to François Pouqueville, who also describes him as bright.

[2] Vilaras was born on the island of Kythira, then part of the Venetian Republic, and studied medicine in Padova, Italy.

He later moved to Ioannina, his father's home city, where he was connected with Ali Pasha and became friends with Athanasios Psalidas.

After the fall of Ioannina to the Turks, he fled to Tsepelovo in Zagori, where he died three years later, in 1823.

His most famous work is the Romeiki glosa (Ρομεηκη γλοσα [sic]), written in Corfu in 1814, which was different from the mainstream ways of Greek writing.