Iōannīs Vīlaras (Kythira 1771 – Tsepelovo nr Iōannina 1823) was the son of a wealthy doctor from Iōannina. After primary education he moved to Italy in 1793 to study medicine in Padua and Bologna. He co-signed a petition in 1797, together with other Greeks in Venice – calling themselves the “truly democratic class” of the nation – in support of France as the founder “of the sacred principles of liberty and equality”.

In 1797 Vīlaras received his degree in medicine and returned to Iōannina, where he was appointed as the personal physician of Veli Pasha, the son of Ali Pasha, whom he followed on his military campaigns. In this military environment he kept notes for a Greek-Albanian grammar with dialogues, in order to facilitate contacts with his Albanian-speaking environment. In Larisa he wrote Romeīkī Glosa (Ρομεηκη γλόσα, “The Romaic [Greek] language”, printed in Corfu in 1814), outlining his radical opinions on the institution of the demotic language.

In 1816 the doctor-philosopher was back in Iōannina, where – disappointed by the limited impact of his ideas – he devoted himself to medicine, botany and pharmaceutics. An intellectual circle formed around him that was profoundly influenced by Enlightenment thought and the ideas of the French Revolution. The anonymous authors of the radical texts of the Rosanglogallos (Ρωσσαγλογάλλος, “Russianenglishfrenchman”) and the Ellīnikī Nomarchia (Ελληνική Νομαρχία, “Hellenic Nomarchy/The Greek rule of law”) were most likely members of this circle.

From 1818 onwards Vīlaras actively participated in the Filikī Etaireia and in the national insurrection of 1821. The suffering caused by the fall of Iōannina hastened his death at the age of 52, which left his wife and two sons destitute.

Vīlaras also wrote the unpublished study Grafī Romeou pros Romeon gia tī glosa tous (Γραφη Ρομεου προς Ρομεον για τη γλοσα τους, “Writing from a Greek to a Greek about their language”, 1821), and various poetic and fictional fragments. With his militant linguistic opinion and his idea of popular cultural empowerment he was among the forerunners of the Greek literary and poetic revival around Dionysios Solōmos.