1434 (37 page)

Chapter 7: To Venice of Niccol
ò
da Conti

• 1.
  “Geography of the Mediterranean”
        The first two paragraphs of this chapter are a paraphrase of the celebrated French historian and politician Fernand Braudel's marvelous work
  The Mediterranean in the
  Time of Philip II.
  I have referred to this masterpiece time and again, for in my view Braudel is perhaps the greatest European historian, capable of summarizing a vast array of disparate facts into a coherent and readable whole.
  
• 2.
  Norwich,
  Venice: The Greatness
  ; Hibbert,
  Biography of a City
  ; Lorenzetti,
  Venice and Its Lagoon
  ; Brion,
  Masque of Italy
  . See also
  Venice and the Islands
  (London: 1956), p. 22.
  
• 3.
  Ibid.
  
• 4.
  I am indebted to a number of writers who are household names. Norwich,
  Venice
  is a classic. Norwich, in his own words, is an “unashamed populariser”—a great achievement. Those who denigrate popularizers have no idea how difficult popularizing is. Another popularizer who is also erudite and who writes in a charming style is Jan Morris. My descriptions of life on Venetian galleys and of harbors within the Venetian Empire are taken largely from her
  Venetian Empire.
  
• 5.
  Descriptions of the Venetian Empire
  Morris,
  Venetian Empire,
  has colorful descriptions not only of the Venetian in the eastern Mediterranean but also of life aboard Venetian galleys. She brings to life the tough and skillful traders and seamen who made Venice. I have extensively paraphrased her book from p. 135 onward. Also Norwich,
  Venice
  , pp. 39–41.
  
• 6.
  Croatans—see Thompson,
  Friar's Map
  at pages 171–174
  
• 7.
  See European Journal of Human Genetics, II, p. 535–542, entitles “
  Y chromosomal heritage of Croatian population and its island isolates,
  Lavorka Bara, Marijana Perii and colleagues. The DNA reports referred to is on our website, www.gavinmenzies.net.
  
• 8.
  Morris,
  Venetian Empire,
  p. 107; Brion,
  Mask of Italy,
  pp. 86, 91; and Alazard,
  Venise
  , p. 73.
  
• 9.
  Morris,
  Venetian Empire,
  pp. 160–61. See also J. A. Cuddon,
  Jugoslavia: The Companion Guide
  (London: 1968) pp. 140–41.
  
• 10.
  Brion, a
  Mask of Italy,
  pp. 80–83; and Braudel,
  Wheels of Commerce
  , pp. 99–168.
  
• 11.
  Luca Paccioli, “Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita,” in Brion,
  Mask of Italy,
  p. 91; Alazard,
  Venise,
  pp. 72–73; and Braudel,
  Wheels of Commerce,
  pp. 141–68 and 390–424.
  
• 12.
  Brion,
  Masque of Italy,
  p. 83; and Hibbert,
  Biography,
  pp. 36–48.
  
• 13.
  Hibbert,
  Biography,
  pp. 36–40.
  
• 14.
  Brion,
  Masque of Italy,
  p. 83. See also Mas Latric,
  Commerce et expeditions militaire Collection des Documents inedits,
  vol. 3 (Paris: 1880).
  
• 15.
  Hutton,
  Venice and Venetia,
  pp. 30–41. Electa (authors Eugenia Bianchi, Nadia Righi, and Maria Cristina Terzaghi) has produced a beautifully illustrated guide,
  Piazza San Marco and Museums,
  from which I have extensively quoted. 63 shows the world map in the map room of the Doges' Palace. See descriptions in Hibbert,
  Biography,
  pp. 57–58.
  
• 16.
  Brion,
  Masque of Italy,
  with a different translation, p. 84; Norwich,
  Venice
  See also Peter Lauritzen,
  Venice
  (New York 1978), p. 87.
  
• 17.
  F. M. Rogers,
  The Travels of an Infante, Dom Pedro of Portugal
  (Cambridge, Mass.: arvard University Press, 1961), pp. 45–48, 325.
  
• 18.
  Hall,
  Empires of the Monsoon,
  pp. 88, 124.
  
• 19.
  Hutton,
  Venice and Venetia,
  pp. 261, 127. (Vittore Pisano). Olschki, p. 101.
  
• 20.
  Olschki, “Asiatic Exoticism,” p. 105, n. 69.
  
• 21.
  Origo, “Domestic Enemy.”
  

(Subsidiary Notes for Chapter 7)

a) Pisanello's Drawings in Venice and Florence 1419–1438

Antonio di Bartolomeo Pisano, (later known as Pisanello), was born probably in Verona before 1395. He was painting murals in the Doges' Palace before 1419 in association with or in succession to Gentile de Fabriano. In 1432 he was painting in Rome at Saint John Lateran, and between 1432 and 1438 he painted in Florence. He also painted in Mantua for the Gonzagas, in Ferrara for the Este family, and for the Catholic Church in Verona. He made medals for the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg and for the Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus (who attended the Council of Florence in 1438). Pisanello is noted for the power of his sketches from real life. He was one of the greatest exponents of drawing of all time—in the view of some experts almost of the caliber of Leonardo da Vinci. Many consider the quality of his drawings exceeds that of his paintings.

b) The Mongolian General

The Louvre keeps a box of comments for each of Pisanello's sketches. I have read the comments of various experts who have attempted an explanation of where and when Pisanello saw the Mongolian general or whether he saw another sketch or portrait from which he copied. The various opinions are collated and refuted one by one by “D” in a five-page opinion entitled “Pisanello: Quatre têtes d'hommes coiffés d'un bonnet, de profile ou de trois quarts,” which includes a bibliography of the twelve experts. I assume D was an expert working at the Louvre; his or her opinion is on our website. As may be seen, D does not consider that the Mongol general was part of the entourage of the Byzantine or Holy Roman Emperor and is unable to offer a solution as to where Pisanello saw him. D also advances an opinion on the second Mongol, whom, as he rightly says, has a retroussé nose.

c) Pisanello's Mandarin Hat

On the
1434
website's extended notes (chap. 7) is a portrait of a wealthy Chinese in a hat (
Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
15 (Jan. 1920), as reported in JSTOR). He wears a typical mandarin hat—black with flaps at the side and front (the front flap can only be clearly seen by viewing the original). These hats are very distinctive, shown in many Chinese paintings of the Ming dynasty and reproduced on the PBS documentary
1421.
They were not worn by any other peoples than Chinese, as far as I am aware. So despite the retroussé nose, in my opinion the figure beneath the Mongol general can only be a mandarin.

d) Pisanello's Dragon-Carrying Ship

This dragon has three claws. In China in the Ming dynasty, five-clawed dragons were for the emperor's use; the imperial family and courtiers were granted four claws or fewer. This drawing, therefore, accords with a dragon ornament owned by a Chinese courtier.

e) Pisanello's Drawing of “Macchina idraulica” (Deganhart 147)

As far as I am aware, this is the first European drawing of a piston pump—preceding Taccola and Leonardo. In the 1430s the piston pump was unknown in Europe but had been in use in China for two hundred years. Pisanello's drawing also shows a bucket pump called in Italy
tartari.

f) Pisanello's Drawings of Guns with Triple Barrels (Deganhart 139)

Triple-barreled guns were unknown in Italy when Pisanello made this sketch but were in use in China (see chap. 19).

Chapter 8: Paolo Toscanelli's Florence

• 1.
  I strongly suspect that Brunelleschi and Toscanelli also met the Chinese ambassador and Chinese mathematicians and astronomers in Zhu Di's reign between 1408 and 1413. Chinese records show Zhu Di's emissaries did travel to Rome and Florence in that period, but I have been unable to find any Italian records in support or to give corroborative evidence. Papal records at this time were in a complete mess because of the schism. The Vatican library has no record of Eugenius IV records while in exile in Florence and Ferrara. I have been unable to find records of the Avignon papacy and have not searched records of the Spanish pope. My guess is that if the records eventually turn up, they will be among those of the Council of Constance (1415–1418), when the triple papacy came to an end and Martin V became sole pope.
        Brunelleschi could have obtained his knowledge of spherical trigonometry from the Arabs and of reversible hoists and pinhole cameras from the Romans—but all this and articulated barges and “Chinese” methods of improving mortar at the same time?
  
• 2.
  I have read many books on the Renaissance, as may be expected. Some are brilliantly written. My favorites, from which I have quoted extensively, are: Plumb,
  The Horizon Book of the Renaissance
  (see pp. 14–19 for Italy after the fall of Rome); Hibbert,
  Rise and Fall
  (see pp. 32–39 for economic growth and emergence of the Medici's); Hollingsworth,
  Patronage
  (see pp. 48–55 for Cosimo de' Medici's patronage of Renaissance scholars and in particular the San Lorenzo sacristy); Bruckner,
  Renaissance Florence
  (see pp. 1–6 for Florence's economic development, notably the River Arno, pp. 42–43 for the role of slaves in economic development; and pp. 216–18 for early communication among social groups); Carmichael,
  Plague and the Poor
  (see pp. 122–26 for control of the plague by means of printed edicts); and Jardine,
  Worldly Goods
  (for spreading Renaissance ideas). The next two paragraphs are summaries and extensive quotes from these authors. Their descriptions are extraordinarily vivid and so
  revealing that in my view it would be a waste of everyone's time for me to try and improve on them.
  
• 3.
  Plumb,
  Horizon Book of the Renaissance
  , jacket copy.
  
• 4.
  This paragraph is a summary of Plumb's magnificent book, with many direct quotes. Plumb, it seems to me, has brilliantly highlighted the reasons for divisions of Europe after the fall of Rome.
  Horizon Book of the Renaissance.
  
• 5.
  Bernard Berenson,
  Essays in the Study of Sienese Painting.
  
• 6.
  Leonard
  Olschki, “Asiatic Exoticism.”
  
• 7.
  Ibid., p. 105
  
• 8.
  Hibbert,
  Rise and Fall;
  Plumb,
  Horizon Book of the Renaissance
  ; Hollingsworth,
  Patronage;
  Bruckner,
  Renaissance Florence.
  
• 9.
  Origo,
  Merchant of Prato.
  
• 10.
  Rise and Fall;
  and Hibbert, Hollingsworth,
  Patronage.
  
• 11.
  Timothy J. McGee, “Dinner Music for the Florentine Signoria, 1350–1450,
  Speculum,
  74, no. 1 (Jan. 1999): 95, Viewable on JSTOR.
  
• 12.
  Rise and Fall;
  and Hibbert, Hollingsworth,
  Patronage,
  pp. 48–55.
  
• 13.
  Hollingsworth,
  Patronage,
  p. 50.
  
• 14.
  Brown, “Laetentur Caeli.”
  
• 15.
  Beck, “Leona Battista Alberti.” Toscanelli cometary observations also in G. Celoria,
  Sulle osservazioni de comete Fatte da Paulo dal Pozzi Toscanelli
  (Milan: 1921).
  

Chapter 9: Toscanelli Meets the Chinese Ambassador

• 1.
  Markham,
  Journals of Christopher Columbus
        The overwhelming majority of historians consider the letters to Canon Martins and Christopher Columbus to be genuine. In 1905 the French historian Henri Vignaud made an attempt to say that they were forged but as far as I know, no other scholar has supported Vignaud. Recent studies described in chapter 12 show that Toscanelli's writing on his cometary observations is the same as the letters. Moreover, every statement in Toscanelli's letters can be substantiated—for the reasons in chapter 11. If Toscanelli's letters were forgeries, then Waldseemüller's “Green Globe,” and map of 1507 would be as well. A host of academics down the centuries and across Europe would have to be party to the forgery. The middle part of Toscanelli's letter to Canon Martins has been found by Harrisse in the Biblioteca Colombina in Seville. This is a copy made by Columbus himself of the letter from Toscanelli to Canon Martins.
  
• 2.
  Johnson,
  The Papacy,
  pp. 18, 100–3, 106, 115–19, 125.
  
• 3.
  G Lorenzetti,
  Venice and Its Lagoon
  , pp. 623–58, (map at 660): Palaces 15, 32, 35, 40, 42, 43, 66, and 84 (numbers as shown on map).
  
• 4.
  Same as note 1
  
• 5.
  These words were frequently interchangeable in medieval Europe.
  
• 6.
  See detailed notes for chapter 13 that summarise the cooperation between Toscanelli, Alberti, Nicholas of Cusa, and Regiomontanus. For Uzielli, See Zinner,
  Regiomontanus,
  p. 59.
  
• 7.
  Ibid.
  
• 8.
  Mr A. G. Self and F. H. H. Guillemard
        See notes 6 to 12 for chapter 10
  
• 9.
  I have seen Schöner's 1520 globe in the basement of the German Historical Museum, Nuremberg, courtesy of the curator. It is not on public display, unlike Behaim's 1492 globe, also in that museum.