Brief notes on Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici

For nearly a hundred years the name Medici held prominence if not dominance in the city of Florence. Despite exile, coups, a theocratic insurrection and repeated widespread incompetence in the family itself, the name built and maintained a strong presence in Florence, Italy and Europe. But the name was not just the family and its members, it was also a bank and by extension a valued currency and a form of credit.

Modern British popular historian Christopher Hibbert tells us that the contemporary French-Burgund historian Phillipe de Commines described the Medici he knew,

"... as not merely the most profitable organization in Europe but as the greatest commercial house that there had ever been anywhere. 'The Medici name gave their servants and agents so much credit ... that what I have seen in Flanders and England almost passes belief.'" [p.89]*

They were financiers for the papacy off and on, for monarchs all over, for several wars and, again and again, were asked to subsidize several acts of the Florentine Signoria. It was probably Cosimo de Medici in the 1420's who firmly established the dominance of the family's business and political influence in Florence. He was exiled from the city in 1433, but this caused such a flight of capital from Florence that the ban was lifted the following year and Cosimo made a triumphant return to even greater prominence. The banks by then were into everything. Their houses imported and exported jewelery, wool, silk, furs, finished goods like brocades and tapestries, as well as sugar, pepper, almonds, olive oil, lemons. One of the biggest trades was in alum, a mineral salt used in glassmaking, as well as tanning hides and making fast dyes, essential to current modes of cloth manufacture. [p. 88]*

Cosimo seemed a genius at finding and hiring gifted traders and managers, establishing trade houses in cities and capitals all across Europe. Beyond Florence and Rome, there were stations in Venice, Pisa, Bologna, Antwerp, Lübeck, Bruges, Lyons, Avignon, Geneva, Naples, Cologne and London. By 1470 the average had nine or ten employees, busy all day. Some had many more. And then there was the retinues, the messengers, the advisers that grew in numbers, the guards.

This grew and grew for decades. When Cosimo died in 1464, the Signoria named him father of the city. The greatest of all that would carry the name, perhaps, was Lorenzo, grandson of the great Cosimo. After his father Piero called 'the gouty', died in 1469, Lorenzo assumed control at the age of 20. In 1471 he is said to have calculated how much the family had given away since 1434 to charity, taxes and to build bridges, buildings and pave roads. A sum he thought amounted to 663,000 Florins, recalculated to some $460 million in 1971 dollars. He himself was not as good as his grandfather at managing these monetary surpluses.

Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts like his father and grandfather. He was a great intellect and interested in everything according to contemporaries. Also a great manager of people and institutions, as well as public and foreign affairs. He had maintained such a fine balance of alliances in Italy that when he died in 1492, Italy would lose that peace that had become an expected agent again for trade after centuries of disruptions.
_________________________________________
* Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, originally pub 1974, this edition Perennial/Harper Collins, New York 2003

Capturing Moctezuma: Another Myth Gone Down? late 1519

The capitulation of Moctezuma was probably not quite as simple as Cortes and even the later recollections of the local Mexica would remember and relate. The versions of Cortes and Diaz differ on central points. Other recollections and manuscripts reveal inconsistencies among the different versions and compared with other portions of the overall tale, a strange lack of information about the details of this capture and complete capitulation is apparent.

Camilla Townshend helpfully provides a guide first, to underscore the inconsistencies among the versions and second, to posit motives for Cortes, Moctezuma and the other parties directly engaged. A generation later the locals tried to understand why Moctezuma had given up so completely. Perhaps he had been temporizing with his enemies - he always did - waiting for a time to strike. He welcomed guests and treated them to what could be offered and when they would leave satisfied, then he would strike. But the time never came. So the later Mexica would tell themselves.
Townshend goes farther and makes a clear case for a combination of motives for the great ruler, based on a basic analysis of the local political situation. For example, Moctezuma knew,

"... the Spaniards generally won their battles.... The heartland of the empire accepted the arrogance of their Mexica neighbors in exchange for peace and the privilege of living close to power. If the Mexica could not deliver a quick victory on the outskirts of their own capital, they were politically doomed. If the emperor's army could not win quickly and easily here - and he knew for certain from his spies and generals that it could not - then they could not fight." [p. 90]

Townshend quotes both Cortes' secretary Gomara and, Diaz affirmatively in this. On the one hand, Gomara said both that it would be dishonorable for Moctezuma to fight and lose near the capital and also, that Moctezuma did not want more trouble for himself. This of course, would imply that those other locals would immediately rise against him - the Otomi, the Tlaxcala - even if he did win against the Spaniards. She quotes Diaz to affirm that Moctezuma knew they would attack in the surrounding towns as well. Perhaps, as she states, the locals or Moctezuma already had a longer view in mind: the Spaniards had come already and would likely come again.[pp. 90-91]

Next, our guide shows a series of disputes over the the first version of the quick capture of Moctezuma. She says it probably didn't happen, despite both the record of Cortes and the later Nahua remembrances of the Codex Florentinus. She even supplies motives for the early acceptance of Cortes' claim that Moctezuma had been captured at all. It would do no good for people like Gomara and Diaz to dispute such a tale. The problem with the story of the quick capture is that there are also a number of sources which say that Moctezuma continued being rather busy being emperor even after the Spaniards had arrived and been brought in and housed and fed and given tours and ready access to the great ruler and his ministers. Meanwhile,

"... Moctezuma continued to live in various palaces, to go on hunting expeditions, to meet regularly with his advisers, and to give all orders regarding the operation of the kingdom. And except when Malintzin was present, his supposed captors never knew what he and his companions were talking about." [p. 93]

Townshend acknowledges in a footnote here,  that 'Francis Brooks wrote a pathbreaking article' on this notion - that Moctezuma was largely unfettered at this time - in "Motecuzoma Xocoyotl, Hernan Cortes, and Bernal Diaz del Castillo: The Construction of an Arrest," Hispanic American Historical Review 75 (1995).

She also cites further sources for discrepancy in the Chronicle of Andrés de Tapia (a participant), the priest named Motolinia who came later and who left the capture out of his story, as well, and the later court cases that came up  in subsequent decades.
Andres de Tapia's story she singles out as revealing several details of Moctezuma's relative freedom. There is the wealth in Moctezuma's dinner cupboard when the Spaniards were there, that Moctezuma had sent local messengers to find out about still more newcomers who came ashore in the new year, as well as the close-quarters and general busyness of the Spaniards themselves while they were there in the city. [pp. 94-95]

The motive of Cortes was much more straightforward. The goal of Spanish conquerors of the previous generations (a tactic used against Moslem princes up until the retaking of Granada in 1492), was to first capture the leader, make him beholden to the Spanish - by persuasion, coercion or force -while still being held responsible for his holdings. This is what Cortes wanted. The fact it did not turn out that way with Moctezuma as chosen captive-leader would cause many problems for Cortes. But it was also what Cortes wanted, in a different way.
A year later when Motecuzoma was dead, Cortes wrote to his king Charles V, telling him that this great local king had given up and ceded all his lands to Charles in Spain. This was a legal move, because once a king can be said to rule, then he can come in and take possession of the land and use its resources to battle insurgents or put down disturbances. But first, they had to say it was now a possession of the king, in Spain. This, what appears today as a kind of sleight of hand, was precisely how the legal understanding worked in Spain in the sixteenth century. Again, not at all how the locals in mesoamerican saw themselves and their relations with others. They continued to sacrifice to their gods.
___________________________________________
quotes and pagination from Malintzin's Choices: an Indian Woman In The Conquest of Mexico, Camilla Townshend, University of New Mexico Press, as part of the series Dialogos, 2006

Defense Document Offered In Inquisition Case: December 30, 1511

In Lu Ann Homza's excellent book, The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614, Inquisitors in the Holy Office of Inquisition called one Maria Gonzalez to confess. But this was no ordinary confession, but a confession for knowledge of other people. This followed a request (below) by the defense lawyer in her case to ask for such testimony on this day in 1511. He does this in such a way that shows this lawyer's deference or allegiance to the current tribunal court of the inquisition and not to his client. It is the process that stems from this act of due vigilance, in fact, "...not out of rigor, but equity...", as the defense lawyer puts it, that will lead to changing the sentence of Maria Gonzalez from 'perpetual prison' to, death by hanging, as she was since then found guilty of lying, a capital crime for a heretic.

"Very Reverend Lords,

I, Alonso de Vaena, appear before your Reverend Fathers as the defense lawyer for María González, wife of Pedro de Villareal, merchant, resident of Ciudad Real. I say that my party has confessed all the offenses she remembers having committed against our Holy Catholic Faith, and asks for penance for them. The chief prosecutor insists that my party, María González, is being silent and hiding other people who committed the crimes with her. This assertion is not believable. But because the naming of others is usually included in these matters and is natural, and is even more natural in women, I ask your Reverend Fathers to order her to name such people as the law allows, secretly or publicly, not out of rigor, but equity. On account of which I beg for testimony, [and ask] that justice be done and consciences charged."

With lawyers like these, it's no wonder people left, if they could.
___________________________________________________
page 50, The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2006

Count of Forli Is Dead! Long Live Caterina Sforza! A Brief Digest: 1484-88

The last five years of the life of Girolamo Riario both proved nearly impossible, but also made Caterina his wife prove just what she was capable of and surprised all Italy. These are just a few notes from Elizabeth Lev's startling and penetrating biography of her in those tumultuous times.
Of course there has to be the reminders of the weak character of Girolamo Riario (p. 84) and an intro of Thomasso Feo. (p 85)

The story of the civil war in Rome as Sixtus IV lay dying, became a kind of awful harvest - and sowing of still more awful harvests to come - after the conflicts with Naples and Ferrara in 1482. After that, when we see Girolamo Riario again, he is in the center of the opposing Colonna and Orsini clans. Members of the Orsini family had long been allies and brought many services to Girolamo. They were to become his hated enemies however, by the time that Riario left Rome and stopped being captain general to pope Sixtus IV. Several miserable attempts at reconciling the two clans (pp 86-90) in Rome were made, both houses that still held the most power in that city, but also those that hated each other the most. A feud that went back to before the popes moved to Avignon, two centuries before was coming to a head again.

When Sixtus died, Riario had to leave the city as the 'unfavored' clans - the Colonna and their allies - poured into the city, looting and ransacking. [pp 84-90]

Caterina saw all this and took Castell San Angello as the one place in the city that could be most easily held by arms and also, as the central strategic point in the city between the Vatican buildings and the secular government buildings. Here was where she could keep the Castell's cannon pointed in either direction, and guard the all-important Ponte Vecchio. [p 91] This story and its resolution spread all over Europe. Lev's depiction is clear and direct: lines on motives, scenes, outcomes and interim periods of waiting, all show realistic colors, people, circumstances.

After, having retreated to Forli from Rome, Girolamo retired almost entirely from public appearaces. The story of Thomasso Feo picks up again as Caterina installs him as the captain of the Ravaldino. Whoever controlled this fortress controlled Forli and the lands around it. Communication had become too difficult to maintain, as trusted riders and messengers were frequently lost to the dangers ignited between so many different factions. All of these forces infiltrated throughout urban centers and across the Italian countryside. [pp 110-14]

Girolamo Riario was finally killed in 1488, in his own home. Girolamo ended up getting the Orsini sent out of the city after several betrayals. [pp 120-22] In the resulting coup against the Count, he was thrown out the window of his favorite parlour, down into the town's courtyard. Caterina, her children, her mother and sister were all captured and held as hostages: until Caterina found a solution. The harrowing account of this is masterfully told, by Lev. The result would nearly destroy the house of Orsini. [pp 125-40]

______________________________________________--
all notes, pagination from Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

more news late 2013

the US Congressional budget agreement mentioned last week, was signed by the President today. It left out unemployment insurance for 1.3 million people. Everybody talks about how terrible Congress is this week. There is much remaining left, still yet to be agreed on and paid for. But the hostage tactics remain employed by the far right who refuse to go along with any more spending without cuts in still other areas. But the military departments did get a 'sweeping'  exemption from such cuts that will still be effecting millions of jobs in other sectors throughout the country. Seems they err on the side of stupid, in too many ways, as a policy. Military strikes in Yemen and bombings in Baghdad this week will force more forces there, more heightened tensions. More stories from Syria and now South Sudan, as well as the Central African Republic. Overnight, still more reports of major bombings, in Beirut, and in Kabul, for instance.

In Iowa, the state government decided to expand it's own medicare system and accept federal funding to implement the Affordable Health Care Act, but 'on it's own terms'. Will other states follow?  five min audio from NPR.

A look at famed Chungking Mansions in Honk Kong by some inhabitants.

and here's Edward Snowden's remarks on the bbc channel 4

nice, even a whirlwind look at how 1913 art world broke with traditions, leading up to a kind of dramatization of the Rite of Spring premier in May. The hour audio here spends fast.

But I have to face it, I pulled together these links just as an excuse to put up a link for a radio show. On Radio6 of the bbc this week is a two-hour broadcast of the remaining members of the british punk band The Clash, playing favorite songs which was first presented on Boxing Day there, the day after Christmas. Click on the lower listen link on top of the leftside of the picture... incudes news updates of heavy rains in Britain tonight and tomorrow and this recording will only be there a week.

some news on Christmas Eve, 2013

• UN investigators find evidence of mass killing, as conflict in South Sudan escalates. After a week of fighting and, perhaps a coup attempt, there are many sides vying for power in a population that is heavily armed and militarized.
• The AP reports that the new US Health Care Law is not the first with start-up troubles. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, even President Bush's Medicare Part D, suffered harsh criticism and early lack of popular support.
• US Domestic needs for the poor increase this season with food stamp cuts and unemployment checks dropped from the spending bill last week. This send millions more into complete economic uncertainty.
• NPR had a probing story. Looking at the effects of the failure of the credit markets five years ago on Recreational Vehicle sales and manufacturing. Reporters look into the lives of men, formerly in that industry, today. Many jobs in the Pacific northwest, just in this industry, were lost that aren't coming back.
• This is the report and interview this week with Edward Snowden by Barton Gellman for the Washington Post. People will be talking about and referring to this article for awhile. 

some good news 14dec2013

Today is the first day of the twelve days of Christmas.

It is also the first anniversary of the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where twenty children and six teachers were killed.

Sunday is the funeral of Nelson Mandela who died December 6. This last week has been full of the celebrations of this great man's life, honoring his achievements and those of his countrymen for moving past the policies and some of the cultural prejudices of white rule and that apartheid which controlled generations of people, on all sides in those lands. Lots of courageous people who now step boldly into the future without the guiding hand of their most famous son and father.

Some things actually got a bit better since the last month and last year, and even the year before that, or more.

Last week the US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) went ahead after years of threatening to forego the current 'gentleman's agreement' of 'limiting the filibuster' in the Senate, thereby needing a supermajority in Congress for confirmations of presidential appointees. This was something the minority Republican party has thus used in holding up nominations and appointments for several years, preventing over eighty Obama administration appointees from going to work. So this week, Harry Reid led several votes in the Senate for federal district judges, bureau department heads and other leaders of basic functions of what used to be understood as being good government. The Republicans responded angrily and with threats of how they will treat the Dems when they are in the majority. If that ever happens.

This week it was announced that both legislative houses in the US have found a compromise plan [!?*&!] for a future budget framework. This is big news since Congress haven't passed a basic, legitimate budgetary framework for years.

Today it snowed in Egypt.

China made a soft land on the moon. Rover called Jade Rabbit gets ready to take off.

Protests in Kiev over presidential rebuff of stronger economic ties with EU, grow and last for three weeks. The people are angry and fed up with this president and would like greater economic freedom with European countries. Described as a battle over the soul of the Ukranian people, the state itself and the government of Russia are merely players in deciding whether Ukraine is European or is it Russian. For centuries the great plains of the Ukraine have been taken and retaken by Russians, Germans, Poles and Austrio-Hungarians. It has been Russia's central link to the Black Sea, it has been ruled by Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants and Atheists. It has always been rich farmland, the best place to hunt and clearly the preferred getaway for east europeans, when they could. US Senator John McCain went there today to tell them he loves them and find out what he can.

More 'serious people' are bearing witness that the NSA surveillance revelations are 'worth talking about', on a national scale. Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker makes a case.

some bad news early dec2013

Some things aren't getting any better.

It snowed in Jerusalem, too, but floods in Gaza cause 40,000 to evacuate. Coping with winter in Lebanon for Syrian refugees remains very difficult in this season that should be all about helping the poor and needy.

Another drone in Yemen kills a bunch of people. This is the third drone attack there this week.

In surprising increases of horrific tales coming from the Central African Republic, hospitals are now saying they are being overwhelmed with injuries in ominous tales of violence that have been growing for weeks.

There has also been explosions in the north of Kenya, and in the capital, Nairobi with many killed and wounded.

A week ago there was an attack on an airport in northern Nigeria where dozens of military members were killed by militant insurgents.

A story of Syrian refugees happier in a Turkish jail.

Kim Jong Un has his uncle, once his closest advisor, executed for being a traitor.

All last week, npr taked about how military veterans with 'other than honorable discharges' are not treated. Six stories here in this holiday season that is supposed to be about helping the poor and needy.

Marked: Saved on 25nov13

• Historic deal struck between Iran and six nations aimed at curbing uranium enrichment in that country in order to relieve sanctions. PM of Israel Netanyahu calls it a #baddeal and 'a historic mistake'. Just a couple weeks ago US Secretary of State Kerry had said 'we've talked more in the last thirty hours than we have in the last thirty years.'
• Some weeks later the Syrian Chemical weapons will be disposed of at sea
• massive cleanup of the Super Typhoon Haiyan in The Phillipine Islands continues
• there is a great podcast of emptywheel and digby talking about surveillance revelations

early dec2013 ellipsis

To explain the brief pause here of the last three weeks, an old phrase can describe it simply. The ink well had a leak; the stylus was eaten by worms. The tool this time was the computer that gained a virus that attacked the operating system. Within a couple days it had taken over and so I abandoned this interface entirely until it might be fixed. Now it's fixed and virus free.

Lots of notes were gathered especially over the last week continuing the Caterina Sforza story, while many things happened in the current world as well. They deserve their own posts.

Montezuma Captured: A Nahuatl Remembrance: November 14, 1519

The last great ruler of the Mexica, Motecuhzoma was captured mid-November by Spanish forces in the capital city. The stories of Nahua elders that friar Sahagun put down decades later, give a vivid tangible account.

"When the Spaniards entered the Royal House, they placed Motecuhzoma under guard and kept him under their vigilance. They also placed a guard over Itzcuauhtzin [the lord of Tlatelolco], but the other lords were permitted to depart.

Then the Spaniards fired one of their cannons, and this caused great confusion in the city. The people scattered in every direction; they fled without rhyme or reason; they ran off as if they were being pursued. It was as if they had eaten the mushrooms that confuse the mind, or seen some dreadful apparition. They were all overcome by terror, as if their hearts had fainted. And when night fell, the panic spread through the city and their fears would not let them sleep.

In the morning the Spaniards told Motecuhzoma what they needed in the way of supplies: tortillas, fried chickens, hen's eggs, pure water, firewood and charcoal. Also: large, clean cooking pots, water jars, pitchers, dishes and other pottery. Motecuhzoma ordered that it be sent to them. The chiefs who received this order were angry with the king and no longer revered or respected him. But they furnished the Spaniards with all the provisions they needed -- food, beverages and water, and fodder for the horses." [page sixty-five - sixty-six]

He would no longer be his own master til the end of his days.
________________________________________________
 The Broken Spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico, translated, edited with an introduction by Miguel León-Portilla, expanded and with a postscript, Boston, Beacon Press, 2006.

Battle of Campo Morto: August 20, 1482

In the spring of 1482, the Venetians began retaking some salt marshes around Commachio. Over the previous dozen years, south of the Po river delta, the duke of Ferrara, Ercole d'Este had, bit by bit, taken over and begun to run what the Venetians had always claimed was their monopoly on salt.  This was seen as a dispute that was also an act of aggression, with two separate claimants.

Alfonso II of Naples, heir to his father's throne, and as the loyal brother of the wife of the Duke, took his army north to defend his sister and brother-in-law. No one to trifle with, after spending the previous year fighting the Turks in southern Italy, he had seasoned troops. But on the road north, he was stopped and not allowed to cross papal lands in order to get close enough to give relief to the embattled Duke. Outraged at this affront to his dignity, Alfonso turned instead to the nearby rich papal lands, near Rome, and began laying waste to the countryside. The pope was understandably horrified.

Girolamo Riario the captain-general of the papal forces was summoned to defend Rome. He amassed his army inside the city walls near the Appian Gate, on the southern side of the city, and waited. Skirmishes in the countryside, other armies assembled, Girolamo stayed in Rome, on the grounds of the Saint John Lateran church. This was the church [and a link to a virtual tour] where Peter and the other early popes first celebrated mass in Rome. Lev tells us that contemporary storyteller Stefano Infessura even heard that the soldiers of the captain-general were gambling and telling obscene stories in the nave. And worse. Lev, our storyteller, assumes that her heroine, Caterina, the wife of the dissembling Girolamo, must have 'burned with shame', but shows no evidence for it. Months dragged on.

"At the beginning of these tensions Caterina had offered to go to Milan with her husband to "calm and pacify these issues," but nothing came of it. From that letter in January 1482, Caterina wrote nothing more until the final battle of the Salt War played out in August of that year." 

That 'letter' refers to those of Caterina Sforza, collected in a three volume set by Pier Desiderius Pasolini and published in Rome, by Loescher in 1893 and kept in the Milan State Archives. I mention this and the existence of her letters, because our author does and because absence of evidence doesn't make her case. Instead, she helpfully does explain what women of Caterina's station did in those times when their menfolk were or should be at war.

"Like many other women of her age unable to intervene in earthly affairs, she invoked divine assistance. And because Caterina always threw herself wholeheartedly into her endeavors, she did more than light a few candles. According to her eighteenth-century biographer Antonio Burriel, her pale figure, emaciated from fasting, knelt for hours in a penitent's robes at the altar or distributed alms to the poor. She certainly prayed for peace, but probably also that her husband would desist from destroying the last shreds of respectability he enjoyed in Rome." [p.75]

Because I can't read the letters in the Milan archives, this is the only real criticism I might have on occasion, reading Ms Lev's biography of Sforza. As an example, saying that Caterina 'probably had' prayed that her husband 'would desist from destroying the last shreds of respectability he enjoyed...' without seeing the originals, leads a little much. Or later, that "... nothing of substance existed within..." her husband. [p. 77]  Again, I would not be aware of this as a topic without Lev's excellent biography, which is also duly, plentifully cited. But this statement and others like them, posit too much of Caterina's innermost thoughts and motives into such a narrative, with little more than modern supposition for such conjecture. It helps drive the narrative but does so by blurring cultural norms and expectations that we moderns may not share with Italian nobles of the renaissance period.

It also makes such 500 year old expectations of how people should act, normative, rather than, as in the case of Caterina Sforza, exceptional, as she very much was. Maybe there isn't the evidence to know what she thought about her husband this summer of 1482. In that case, we shouldn't make it seem certain with abstract ideas like shame and failing honor, or duty. Even if, or especially since, the eighteenth century biographer Pier Desiderio Pasolini was the source for such beliefs and we have no letters of hers to back it up. Lev notes in her introduction the difficulties she had with Pasolini's work. In other areas the author does point out when judgemental, interior thoughts are projected by others, as she does in the case of Stefano Infessura [p. 78-79].

By August, the pope had asked Venice for someone else to break the stalemate. Roberto Malatesta, a mercenery hired by Venice came to Rome and, together with Girolamo's, that is, the pope's forces, marched in parade thru the city. When the day of the battle came, Alfonso's forces had grown to include many of the Colonna, and Savelli families of Rome. Girolamo and the pope had grown very unpopular indeed in the city, by all accounts.
Lev tells us the battle lasted from Four til Eleven o'clock on August 20, 1482 and would be the most bloody Italian battle in a decade. Malatesta's army bravely stood their ground and did great damage to and soundly defeated those forces of Alfonso of Naples. Girolamo had stayed back, 'guarding the tents'. The pope had to accept that Malatetsa was the victor and he was awarded the honors. Like an ancient Roman General, Malatesta was paraded through Rome with a long train of Cardinals behind him, and the people came out and cheered their liberator. But he had contracted dysentery and died within a month.

Girolamo tried to take credit and was ignored. When Malatesta died, as lord of Rimini, his infant son became the new lord there. When Girolamo, desperate for a victory, galloped off to take control of Rimini,  he was stopped by forces from Florence. So, Girolamo returned, empty-handed. Naples had been humiliated, as well as Ferrara. Venice could continue to maintain the works near Commachio. Faenza, still independent, now had a weaker ally in the duke of Ferrara, and greater reason to fear 'empty-handed' Count Girolamo Riario.
______________________________________
Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

Summer Travels, Troubling Portents; From Forli to Venice and Rome:1481

One way to describe the picture of Girolamo Riario that becomes clear is through his failures. Failures it seems true, by his own recurring examples, in Elizabeth Lev's biography of his wife Caterina Sforza. Failures measured by what may have been important then, with regard to personal status and the hierarchical, the political, and the military, the guards, the horses, real-estate, dice. Time after time, especially toward the end he is seen, again and again not measuring up. Because his position in that world was so very powerful and he, seemed never able to fill the shoes of the office, but also, he just as often seemed to make things worse, it seems even easier to condemn his rather dramatic fall from grace. A series of dramatic examples were part of Caterina's life too, and she, somehow managed to not just act extraordinarily, but even save him and all the wealth they'd accumulated and retire to Forli.

So in that sense it may be fitting to draw Girolamo so darkly. On the other hand it makes the 'perfection' of Caterina stand out that much brighter. Always happy, obedient and acting just as she should in all offices and appearances, and then when circumstances forced the issue, she could then triumph over her husband's failings and save them both anyway, despite his mismanagement. But this is the story of the slow downfall of Girolamo Riario that Elizabeth Lev tells.

A thread of that tapestry starts with Ferrara in that summer that the Count and Countess went to Forli, in 1481. In August that same year they took a bunch of their belongings and went to nearby Imola, which they also were lord and lady to. Passing around Faenza the small town between them. Both Forli and Imola were part of the inheritance for Caterina, but they were also newly won for the papal lands of pope Sixtus IV, Girolamo's uncle. Previously, her father the duke of Milan had wanted to cement relations with this pope and his family. The idea was to form an alliance between Milan in securing these as papal lands. The region known as Romagna lay between Venice and everywhere else, near to Florence, halfway to Naples, bordered the important city of Bologna and could suport the eastern coast if needed to. A strong papacy, acting in the interests of Milan and hopefully France as well, could act as a strong check on any of the other strong impulses vying for control of central Italy there. Ferrara, sat on the edge of all this.

The couple stayed only a month in Imola but, the Count set in motion a number of building projects in the style of the Florentines there, and a massive project to pave the muddy roads. He also decided to take the entourage to Venice with his wife Caterina eight months pregnant.

"A mighty baggage train of thirty-six mules and twenty-one carts announced the arrival of the couple in Ravenna, and on September 8 [1481] they cruised into Venice on special gondolas constructed for the arrival of exalted guests." [p. 70]

Lev reports that Lorenzo de'Medici knew that Girolamo was asking Venice for help in squeezing Ercole d'Este, the duke of Ferrara. If the Venetians could help him, they could keep Reggio or all they took from Ferrara. He only wanted Faenza, the small town disrupting the route between Forli and Imola, between what were now his holdings. The Venetians threw parties for them, gave him honorable titles but would not commit on any future plans. All this Lev, says came from the personal archives of Lorenzo de'Medici in the Florence state archives. [p. 71]

When the couple returned to Forli in late September, they took a route that went around Ferrara. Even so, before they got home they were attacked. It was called the Artisan Uprising but Lev says they were acting on the impetus of the duke of Ferrara and Lorenzo de'Medici.  Instead, the local loyal captain Gian Francesco Maruzzi, Il Tolentino quashed the tumult and the next day, Girolamo went to mass with three hundred armed guards. [p. 72]

This is really only the first chapter of the story of what would become the War on Ferrara and the slow demise of Girolamo Riario. Continuing home, as the summer travel turned fall, they left children and treasure in Imola, the safer town. By the end of October, and within a few days of their arrival back in Rome, Caterina gave birth to a healthy baby girl, named for her grandmother Bianca. Girolamo waited until November to give the order to hang those implicated in the uprising back in Forli. [p.73]
_________________________________________________
quotes and pagination from Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

Otranto Seized By Turks, 1480; Riarios Go To Forli, 1481

It was late in July, 1480 that 128 Turkish ships swarmed near Otranto, Italy, the eastern most harbor on the easternmost edge of the Italian peninsula. Within two weeks the Turks had taken Otranto and beheaded 800 men who, it is said, would not renounce their Christian faith. This fleet of Turks would stay in Italy all winter, and into the spring, taking town after town until finally withdrawing in April, 1481. Ferdinand I, the king of Naples struck a truce, which was also partly settled by Alfonso II, his son with his army that had retaken Otranto.

Earlier this year, on February 28, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI stepped down to the shock of the Catholic World. One of his last requests as pope was to set in motion the necessary processes to canonize those 800 'martyrs of Otranto'.  It thus became one of the first things that the new pope Francis I had on his schedule to perform after celebrating the Easter holidays and becoming pope. He is reported  (by Al Jazeera and also slightly differently by the guardian) to have said,  in the May12 ceremony that

"While we venerate the martyrs of Otrante, ask God to support the many Christians who ... still suffer from violence and to give them the courage to be devout and to respond to evil with goodness." He also commented on abortion, saying legislation should be introduced to "protect all human beings from the first moment of their existence."

The AlJazeera report cited above, said the pope had said, "... Christians who ... still suffer from violence and give them the courage and fate to respond to evil with goodness." Which is an interesting difference in translated speech in the modern age.
_________________________________________________

The news of the attack, of course, in 1480, shocked everyone. The pope called for a crusade. Naples responded affirmatively, and even Florence said it would help. France and Hungary sent money and troops. The pope's captain general, Girolamo Riario himself likely stayed in Rome. He's not heard mentioned in the efforts against the Turks. Venice could not afford to commit actual troops as they had signed a truce the year before with the sultan's ministers. This would be remembered as more evidence of Venetian duplicity.

In August, some seventy ships attacked Vieste and in September, a monastery that held a huge library was destroyed. In October, Pino Ordelaffi was killed by his own people. Despite the chaos stirred up by the loss of more and more Christian towns on south-eastern Italy, the pope secured Forli for his captain general who immediately sent Gian Francesco Maruzzi to act as it's temporary captain. It was a good thing, too. This loyal captain for Girolama Riario would save his chief, time and again over the next few years. The relatives of Pino Ordelaffi tried to retake Forli, but Maruzzi, called 'Il Tolentino' quickly seized them and had the conspirators hung, He spent the rest of the year installing new security measures and keeping his ear to the ground hoping to make things ready for a springtime visit by it's new owners. [p. 63]

Treasure was heaped up, horses harnessed, troops amassed, the attendants, courtiers, ministers, ladies-in-waiting were gathered together with the family, including the two baby boys of Caterina and Girolamo and all set off for Forli soon after Easter, 1481. Caterina was five months pregnant, so all sizes of clothing had to be brought along with jewelry and dinnerware. All the silverware of course, to receive guests and impress the people of Forli had to be mustered as well. Many carriages, many horses, many armed guards arrived in procession, including many members of the Roman nobility as part of the great retinue of the Count. These men were not fighting against the Turks in and near Otranto.

"The arrival of the Riarios was the grandest procession in the history of Forli. Nobles carrying banners and lances marched at the head, as brass horns announced their passage ... pennants proudly proclaimed the artisan trades, and the leading citizen of each of the four neighborhoods of Forli marched in the throng.... Caterina, Girolamo, and their children were resplendent in multicoloured silks... soldiers wore silver cloaks over their armor, ... the knights ... in gold brocade. The people of Forli crowded the alleys and climbed onto balconies to catch a glimpse of the splendid retinue, which included members of the ancient noble Roman houses of Orsini, Colonna and Savelli. Decked ... in fine pearls, rare jewels, and sumptuous fabrics, the rainbow of courtiers looked more than worthy of their renowned heritage." [pp. 64-65]

When they all arrived, there was a great celebration lasting many days. But after initially playing his part, the Count himself soon withdrew from the crowds. A tour of much of the treasure brought from Rome was offered for locals to come and see more of the richness of their new lords.  That same May, news arrived in Italy that Mehmet II, famed Ottoman sultan of the Turks, the conqueror of Constantinople, had died. All of Italy rejoiced. The Turks had run out of food and supplies, so they struck a truce with the king of Naples and many withdrew leaving a sizable contingent to protect their interests. When a great festival was held in July, 1481 in Forli, jousts and a mock battle based on the siege at Otranto were held. The Count promised the people he would ban some taxes and lower others to further rejoicing of the people. [p. 67]
________________________________________
quotes and pagination from Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

Cortes Meets Motecuhzoma: November 8, 1519

The meeting between Motecuhzoma and Cortes that Bernal Diaz said happened on this day was at first accepted at face-value. The two met, it was historic, dramatic, consequential and has loomed large for both parties and many others, down to the current day. Cortes had been wanting this day to come for some months and he would also want it to be remembered in a certain way. The locals had their varying recollections, and Bernal Diaz had his version, too. But those stories that came from the sixteenth century had accepted the initial story told by Cortes with little in any means for scrutiny or understanding of the immediate environment, the temporal context of the day and these prior months of Spanish advancement in Mesoamerica.

Matthew Restall gives a great breakdown of the meeting between Cortes and Motecuhzoma as one centerpiece in his fifth chapter of Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. There was an attempted handshake, according to Cortes and a gift by him of a great necklace. Cortes says he tried to hug the great leader but was stopped by his guards from touching him. Restall points out that Gomara in the official biography of Cortes 'glosses over this and said they saluted each other.' Bernal Diaz said they both 'bowed deeply' toward each other, but Restall says that neither Cortes nor Gomara mention this.
Further, Restall points out that the bowing and the direct address of Motecuhzoma to Cortes, as told by the locals of friar Sahagun decades later, broke with the strict adherence to the leader's own protocol. No one was allowed to look directly at the great leader unless he gave permission. But Restall says, the way they tell it "... suggests that Moctezuma took the initiative in breaking the taboo, permitting Cortes to look right at him, attempting to meet him at a cultural  halfway point."  He sees the same thing in the Spanish versions of this meeting but says they put a greater emphasis on Montezuma essentially "submitting to Cortes ... prostrated himself". [p. 80]

There really is no way to square these overlapping circles. One can only set the accounts beside each other and compare them and think through the events that led them to this point. Like any encounter. Unless another way is found to hear them or witness it, some other definitive document or some type of time machine that could take us back to the event. As we recall and remember and set things down, it's human nature, we also ammend, reformulate, focus on specific items and re-interpret, for whatever reasons. As time goes by. We want stories to be remembered that make us look good. We want them to show the best aspects of people we like, or are like us. We want to see people putting their best foot forward, to try to do 'good' things. Cortes said he was doing it for God and King and for his men. These basic motives were themselves, we know, subject to quite a bit of manipulation. Then and later.

What compelled Moctezuma that day to go meet Cortes down on the causeway? He didn't have to. Was it curiosity? A mixture of political pressure, a sense of superiority that such a great leader might after all, have? A need perhaps, to show dominance toward this stranger, who Moctezuma might well expect to use at some point for his own advantage. Perhaps even against the long-term enemy of the Tlaxcala or others toward the coast. Perhaps they might act as decent buffers against these soldiers from the ocean, for awhile. But first, what sort of people were they? They were obviously people. After all the evidence of how they ate and lived, this had to be obvious. We also, as we have to eat, as humans, we want to know the truth, as well as somehow, to see justice done. Whatever that is and for whoever that is. But then there are divisions, if not over what happened, and what is to be done, but then over what it all means.

Many years later, historians and officials wanted in hindsight, for their own reasons, to see Montezuma giving away the empire, even accepting that he had been beat or that he thought the Europeans were gods or otherwise invincible. Maybe he did, but probably, he didn't. But truly, the two leaders did not understand each other, coming from two very different cultures and with very different assumptions about what was to be gained in such a meeting. Different ideas about what the future could look like from this point on could develop.
Finding out what lay in common between them depended on the translators of Aguilar and Malintzin to explain every subtlety in every conversation. These conversations between the two would continue for several days. Malintzin knew the subtleties of the Nahua elite from the point of view of a child but not those of the Mexica. Aguilar knew how wily Cortes could be but had failures in diplomacy himself.
It is entirely possible that Motecuhzoma did not realize the danger he was in, especially considering how many diverging and converging forces he was used to balancing in his great realm over a seventeen year reign. His days as leader would soon come to an end.
______________________________________________
quotes from Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall, New York, Oxford University Press Inc., 2004

Diaz Sees Mexico From The Inside: November 7, 1519

On the morning of November 7, Bernal Diaz says, they at last came to the great City of Motecuhzoma's capital. It was in fact, a group of many cities (like Iztapalapa), some built on the water and some on land. Giant causeways connected the various parts of the sprawling urban clusters, on which that morning, many people had already gathered to go about their work as well as come to see the newcomers. But there were just as many it seemed on the water, in canoes going every which way. Carrying flowers and feathers in great multitudes, alongside brightly painted buildings or massive white limestone constructions, that looked to be growing on top of each other, covered by vines and flowers, swarming with birds, stretching up into the sky. Like a dream, he says, they moved through a wondrous world that none of them had expected or could have foreseen.

"The next morning we arrived at a broad causeway, and we headed for Iztapalapa. When we saw so many cities and towns built in the water, and other great towns on dry land, and that causeway so straight and level as it went to Mexcio, we were amazed. We said it looked like the enchanted things they tell of in the book of Amadis because of the great towers and cus and buildings that are in the water, all built of stonemasonry. Some of our soldiers even asked if what we saw was not a dream, and it is not to be wondered at that I write here in this way, because there is so much to ponder that I do not know how to describe it: seeing things never heard of nor even dreamed of as we were seeing ... when we entered that town of Iztapalapa, seeing the palace where we were lodged, how large and well built it was, of very fine stonework, and the wood from cedar and other fine-smelling trees, with great courtyards and rooms, things wonderful to see, covered with decorated cotton awnings. After having looked carefully at all that, we went to the orchard and garden, which was such a wonderful thing to see and to pass through that I never grew tired of experiencing the variety of trees and the scent each one had, the terraces full of roses and flowers, the many fruit trees and native rose gardens, a pond of fresh water, and ... through an opening they had made, large canoes could enter the garden from the lake without landing, everything very whitened and bright with all kinds of stone and pictures on it that gave much to ponder, and birds of many kinds and species that came into the pond. I say again that I was there looking at it, and I believed that never in the world had lands like these been discovered.... Now all this is fallen down, ruined; there is nothing." [pp. 189-90]

And as an old man, Diaz remembered what was lost.

The book of Amadis was a popular book in the day. Camilla Townsend says [ch. 1, note 24, p. 235] in her book Malintzin's Choices that "... the tale of Amadis was a thirteenth-century story, but Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo had published an edition of the work in 1508 in Zaragoza...". This book was known by some of the companions of Diaz to the New World. Here's a blog about that.
The next day, they went up the causeway and Cortes met the great and powerful Motecuhzoma. By now it should be clear that what they had there was a failure to communicate. But it doesn't at all seem the fault of the translator Malintzin, but that of the two leaders, entrenched in their roles.
_________________________________________________
quotes and pagination, unless otherwise noted, from ch lxxxvii,  Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

Before Tenochtitlan and Popocatepetl: Cortes Could Still Tell Tall-Tales

Hernan Cortes on the way to meet Motecuhzoma passed near two mountains, Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl.  During the few days remaining before reaching Tenochtitlan, they also passed through a number of cities and towns and were met by the nephew of the great ruler. Cortes said that this man was the one who told him after long explanations that they would rather 'bar the road' than let him and his men go to see Motecuhzoma. This is told in the context of Cortes being encouraged to go a route that his scouts had said was dangerous and easy for ambushes. The constant drum of deception and potential trickery threads through the whole narrative by this point, in Cortes' Second Letter to his King and Emperor Carlos V. This excerpt about the volcano is a brief respite from that.

"Eight leagues from the city of Churultecal [Cholula] are two very high and very remarkable mountains; for at the end of August there is so much snow on top of them that nothing else can be seen, and from one of them, which is the higher, there appears often both by day and by night a great cloud of smoke as big as a house which goes straight as an arrow up into the clouds, and seems to come out with such force that even though there are very strong winds on top of the mountain they cannot turn it. Because I have always wished to render Your Highness a very particular account of all the things of this land, I wished to know the explanation of this which seemed to me something of a miracle, so I sent ten of my companions, such as were qualified for such an undertaking, with some natives to guide them; and I urged them to attempt to climb the mountain and discover the secret of the smoke, whence it came, and how. These men went and made every effort to climb the mountain but were not able to on account of the very great quantity of snow that is there and the whirlwinds of ash which comes out of the mountain, and also because they could not endure the great cold which they encountered there.... while they were there the smoke started to come out, with such force and noise, they said, it seemed the whole mountain was falling down, so they descended and brought much snow and icicles for us to see, for this seemed to be something very rare in these parts... because of the climate." [pp 77-78]

It was these scouts, however, who had seen and reported back to Cortes about a clear, shorter road that led to Tenochtitlan. He asked the ambassadors from Motecuhzoma about this shorter route who explained they preferred he take another route because that way led to Acatzingo who were at present enemies of the Mexica. They told Cortes that they would have to bear supplies 'from another road' if they were to continue that way. Implying a greater hardship on themselves. [p. 78]
But Cortes forged onward down the route he had decided on despite their entreaties. As it turned out the people of Acatzingo, Cortes spells it 'Guasucingo', welcomed all of them with open arms, gave them girls and gold and they were all given new quarters, built and ready for them there: "... although I brought with me more than four thousand ... natives..." of Tlaxcala, Cholula, Cempoal, there was "... plenty to eat for all, and in all the rooms very great fires and plenty of firewood, for it was very cold... very close to those two mountains...". They were, he said, allies with the Tlaxcalans. [p. 79]

There, a dignitary, 'he said he was' the brother of Motecuhzoma who came and asked him, begged him to turn back and not to proceed, giving him "three thousand  pesos de oro" saying the road forward was bad and there was no provisions that way, etc. Cortes said that,

"... were it in my power to return I would do so to please Mutezuma, but that I had come to this land by Your Majesty's commands, and the principle thing of which I had been ordered to give an account of was of Mutezuma and his great city, of which and of whom Your Highness had known for many years." [p.79]

If there is a truthful statement there, I can't seem to find it. And he is writing this to the King that he is saying that he is lying to this dignitary and doing it in that same king's name. On His order supposedly that the king knew he had not given. Cortes is saying, in paraphrase, 'I lied to this guy in your name and told him I was doing this on your orders, which we know you didn't do.'

Though they were well quartered there, another night-time secret attack was discovered. The next day a new place, Ayotzinco gave Cortes forty girls and plenty of food. But at night there was another 'attack' and 'fifteen or twenty spies' were taken or killed by his men.

The next day, another dignitary from Motecuhzoma, this time a young seemingly revered nephew made entreaties for him not to go further. In Ayotzinco:

"On the following morning, as I was preparing to leave the town, ten or twelve lords, of great importance, as I later discovered, came to see me, and among them there was one great chief, a young man of about twenty-five to whom they all showed great reverence, so much so that after he stepped down from the litter in which he came all the others began to clear the stones and straw from the ground in front of him. When they came to where I was they told me they had come on behalf of Mutezuma, their lord... I answered and appeased them ... that no harm could ensue from my coming, but rather much profit. I then gave them some of the things I had with me and they departed." [p.81]

Much harm would come and little profit for them.
__________________________________________
from The Second Letter from Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001

Near Iztaccihuatl: Mexica Meet Spaniards and their Allies: October 1519

In their versions of the European approach to Tenochtitlan, upon leaving Cholula, the Mexica and other locals set down a number of stories. Some were told to the friar Sahagun, and are now found in what is called the Codex Florentinus, and some were later collected and set down still later by Diego Munoz Camargos for the City and governor of Tlaxcala. Another source, the Codex Ramirez details stories of locals and Europeans in Texcoco (compiled probably before 1580 by Fray Diego Duran), that other chronicles do not mention.

The Mexica of friar Sahagun gave a very visual, pictorial narrative.

"When the massacre at Cholula was complete, the strangers set out again toward the City of Mexico. They came in battle array, as conquerors, and the dust rose in whirlwinds on the roads. Their spears glinted in the sun, and their pennons fluttered like bats. They made a loud clamor as they marched, for their coats of mail and their weapons clashed and rattled. Some of them were dressed in glistening iron from head to foot; they terrified everyone who saw them.

Their dogs came with them, running ahead of the column. They raised their muzzles high; they lifted their muzzles to the wind. They raced on before with saliva dripping from their jaws." [page forty-one]

The Europeans, then passing amongst the volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl ...

"... Motecuhzoma dispatched various chiefs. Tzihuacpopocatzin was at their head, and he took with him a great many representatives. They went out to meet the Spaniards ... there in the Eagle Pass. They gave the "gods" ensigns of golds, and ensigns of quetzal feathers, and golden necklaces. And when they were given these presents, the Spaniards burst into smiles; their eyes shone with pleasure; they were delighted by them. They picked up the gold and fingered it like monkeys; they seemed to be transported by joy, as if their hearts were illumined and made new.

The truth is that they longed and lusted for gold. Their bodies swelled with greed, and their hunger was ravenous; they hungered like pigs for that gold. They snatched at the golden ensigns, waved them from side to side and examined every inch of them. They were like one who speaks a barbarous tongue: everything they said was in a barbarous tongue." [pages fifty-one to fifty-two]

Like the old saying, with the shoe on the other foot, the actions of the Spaniards, even at this relatively early stage, seem revealed as pure, naked forms of aggression. Marching as conquerors, lusting after gold, babbling incomprehensibly, showing no tact or sense of decorum, certainly not knowing the local traditions. The viewpoint of the Mexica seems clearly expressed, but also the great hostility the other non-Mexica held is given vent.
Met by another Mexica ambassador sent by Motecuhzoma, the Spaniards show their loyalty to their allies already made and scepticism toward this new ambassador. Though not mentioned specifically, it is very likely that Malintzin translated here and repeated all these things back and forth.

"When they saw Tzihuacpopocatzin, they asked: "Is this Motecuhzoma, by any chance?" They asked this of their allies, the liars from Tlaxcala and Cempoala, their shrewd and deceitful confederates.

They replied: "He is not Motecuhzoma, our lords. He is his envoy Tzihuacpopocatzin."

The Spaniards asked him: "Are you Motecuhzoma, by any chance?"

"Yes," he said, "I am your servant. I am Motecuhzoma."

But the allies said: "You fool! Why try to deceive us? Who do you think we are?" And they said: 

      "You cannot deceive us; you cannot make fools of us.                                                                You cannot frighten us; you cannot blind our eyes.                                                                    You cannot stare us down; we will not look away.                                                                    You cannot bewitch our eyes or turn them aside.                                                                      You cannot dim our eyes or make them swoon.                                                                        You cannot fill them with dust or shut them with slime.                                                              You are not Motecuhzoma; he is there in his city.                                                                      He cannot hide from us. Where can he go?                                                                              Can he fly away like a bird? Can he tunnel the earth?                                                                Can he burrow into a mountain, to hide inside it?                                                                      We are coming to see him, to meet him face to face.                                                                  We are coming to hear his words from his own lips."" [page fifty-two]

The ambassador seems to have decided to give the Spaniards what they wanted: some gold and an assurance he was whom they sought. But these allies, it can be said, were beginning to achieve some measure of vengeance after years of persecution with their new advantageous allies and would not be dissuaded from their new goal.
_______________________________________________
all quotes from The Broken Spears: the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico, translated, edited with an introduction by Miguel León-Portilla, expanded and with a postscript, Boston, Beacon Press, 2006.

       

some electoral news: November 5, 2013

It's election night in many states and cities in the US.

• New Jersey State Governor Chris Christie seems to have won by a big margin. Christie will say that this win should make him a contender in a 2016 presidential election. Chris Hayes has a panel who give an overview of results. 5 min audio
• Bill De Blasio the first liberal Democrat in many years to get this far will be the next Mayor of New York City. Wall Street types are already talking of moving to New Jersey.
• In a poor pool of candidates, Terry McAuliffe will be the next Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. But the Republican  Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was much more the social conservative in several ways
• The more moderate of two Republicans won the availaable Alabama House of Representatives seat.

It's official, the CIA will take on all aspects of the drone program for the foreseeable future.

planet money had a talk about what economic bubbles look like and don't, by last month's Nobel Prize winning economists; 16 min audio

NPR also says their brand is worth nearly half a billion $. Not the assets, the brand. 5 min

How do right in the US sell the idea of cutting Social Security to their constituents? By lying about it.

How do the old south authoritarians plan to sell their dystopian future? They won't.  Nor will they compromise. They'll just take the whole tent down. Tribal resentment drives many of them.

David Corn in Mother Jones says tonight's electoral victories and losses do not mean the end of the teaparty or their supporters. He plays a prudent cautious liberal by comparing the W-L scorecard to the Battle of Chancellorsville, when Robert E Lee scored a real vctory against General Joe Hooker and knew then he could go far with his army. Corn says, "This crowd will not be bowed because RINO Christie won a second term."

How He Does Go On: Bernal Díaz In Cholula: Exposition In Run-Ons

Again I have to return to Bernal Diaz and the ways he says what he does. He has a habit of frequently giving backward glimpse overviews, brief accounts summarizing what had just happened, all throughout the text.

Our translators Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, in their prefatory 'Note On The Translation' to The True History of The Conquest of New Spain of Bernal Díaz first, briefly lay out their sources and their scholarly apparatus. This includes mention of the massive and 'definitive critical edition' with the thousand page commentaries by José Antonio Barbón Rodríguez. Next they explain how Díaz himself confessed to not having any rhetorical training or even grammar or vocabulary skills to compare with someone like Francisco López de Gómara, the secretary and biographer to Hernan Córtes. They reassert that 'Díaz presents himself as a simple man' before then launching into the numerous difficulties in the work of translating him.

"His vocabulary derives more from his extraordinary life experience than  from reading the great authors.... One finds that he uses a limited vocabulary, that certain phrases occur repeatedly and almost ritualistically, and that he tends to write strung-out, if not run-on sentences that nonetheless cohere." [p. xxxiii]

Here, a footnote is added to explain how they made decisions about punctuation in some of these lengthy sections. Sections that sound very much like verbal clusters once set down as dictation.

"One often finds paragraph-long sentences in which Bernal Díaz recounts a sequence of events or a series of conversational elements, stringing them together with commas or semicolons. In many, if not most instances, we have preserved his sequences by using either commas or semicolons, depending on the length and relative independence of the phrase or clause. We have been particularly careful to do so when we apprehended clear continuity and coherence internal to these sentences. In other words, we have allowed the context, content, and singleness of idea to determine our choices in these instances." [p. xxxiii]

They don't feel it's a good idea to change his text so much as make it clear. But adding any qualifiers or stating what the text seems to imply, is not what they want either They even describe that sort of choice as 'a slippery slope' once one has 'taken the plunge' in accepting 'some' provisional additions or subtractions, then where does one stop? So they just don't want to do that, even if they are 'context-sensitive renderings' that might help with 'specificity and concreteness'. So that's bueno even, as they seem to hint, their translation might be a tad more bland than others. Instead, they are striving toward the goal of capturing his story as Díaz perceived things. Again, from that footnote:

"Another feature of these long sentences is that they sometimes conclude with a short, often not fully relevant coda, and we have generally chosen to leave these as part of the sentence because they seem to us so much a part of Bernal Díaz's thought pattern and style of expression." [p. xxxiii]

A great example comes at the beginning of Díaz's chapter lxxxiv. The massacre at Cholula as described in the previous chapter had occurred. Conversations with all the relevant parties had concluded. Díaz took the time to defend himself from the version told - in the era of his own writings - by friar de Las Casas, and then, at the head of a new chapter (84), almost like bullet points, Díaz rolls out his next run-on sentence. It sounds like an argument, if one hears it as something born of passion rather than style. I do the translator's text the disservice of posting this run-on point by point in such a bullet-point style to make my point. The ellipses and the bullets are inserted to the text of the translators.

• "As fourteen days had passed since we had come to Cholula,
• ... and we had nothing more to do there,...
• ... and we saw that they city was full of people and they were holding markets,
• ... and we had established friendship between the Cholulans and the Tlaxcalans,
• ... and we had erected a cross and admonished them regarding our holy faith,
• ... and we saw that the great Montezuma was sending spies secretly to our camp to find out and inquire what our intention was and whether we were going to go to his city -- 

•  ... because he managed to know everything very fully from his two ambassadors who were in our company --

•  ... our captain determined to consult with certain captains and some soldiers he knew were well disposed toward him,
• ... because, besides being very brave, they gave good advice,
• ...and he never did anything without first getting our opinion." [p. 177]

 The Cortes faction after more discussions, decided they could press on to Mexico City. A number of small outlying towns were encountered, but within two short weeks, the troop had left Cholula, entered Tenochtitlan and captured the great Motecuhzoma.

__________________________________________________
quotes and pagination from  Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

Cortes On The City of Cholula: October 1519

After spending two or three weeks in Cholula following the massacre there, Cortes and Bernal Diaz both went on to give rather fulsome praise for the place. After directing the 'punishment' as Cortes calls it, word was sent out that the people had no reason to fear the Spaniards. According to both Diaz and Cortes the people returned and commerce went back to 'how it was'. They both describe the city as becoming full in the streets after several days where there was a stillness before. Cortes spoke harshly to the Mexica ambasssadors, he tells in his letter, and then 'made peace' between the Cholula and Tlaxcala. His simple statements about these agreements occurring after generations of fighting - are so sweepingly brazen as to be almost funny. Except for what had just happened.

Bernal Diaz in his chapter lxxxiii compares the city's 'high white towers' to those of Valladolid in Spain [p. 173*]. But Cortes goes on at a considerable length to describe the city and what he sees as it's resources in particular, which I have drastically edited here.

"... [S]ituated in a plain ...[the city] has as many as twenty thousand houses within the main part of the city and as many again in the outskirts.... an independent state having fixed boundaries [with] no overlord but... governed like ... Tlaxcala. The people ... wear ... more clothes.... 

This state is very rich in crops, ...[with] much land ... irrigated. The city is more beautiful to look at than any in Spain, ... well proportioned ...[with] many towers ... I counted more than 430 towers.... I have seen no city so fit for Spaniards to live in ... [with] water... common lands suitable for raising cattle... so many people living... not one foot of land is uncultivated, yet ... they suffer hardships for lack of bread.... many poor people who beg from the rich in the streets as ... in Spain...." [Second Letter, pp. 74-5**]

 It would not be long before they were on the road again, marching to Mexico the City.
________________________________________

* from Bernal Díaz de Castillo: The True History of the Conquest of New Spain translated with an introduction and notes by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

 ** from Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001

Footnotes Of Elizabeth Lev: Clarity of Provenance

I've enjoyed reading Elizabeth Lev's biography of Caterina Sforza called The Tigress of Forli . It's not hair-raising adventure or some romantic tale of unrequited love, though that's in there. It's not pedantic hammering of over-arching themes drumming out the overlooked charms and abject failures of a rich culture losing it's standards. But that's there too. Gold hemmed dresses and oodled gobs of jewelery gifted by an old pope, appointments with famous painters, architects and city planners, rumors, intrigue and catastrophe all play walk-on roles. No, what gives all this strength and import is the clarity the author brings in the telling. This is another book that starting from the footnotes branches out and tells a story with just enough context to make the story real and yet still remain credible.

This fairly simple idea that a good history book should have credible sources, told in primary and secondary sources listed and in ordinary footnotes, so that other readers can go check if they want, is needed as much now in the digital age as ever. I use this book as an example of how much I enjoy the footnotes in history, because these show just enough of the hordes of what is to be found out in the world - and mostly not yet online. In this way this book becomes a great start off point for further study. The author does come from the art history world, which to some may be deemed a negative criticism. Not for this reader, when the rest of the story is told as well and fleshed out as real as this.

This then, is just a short list and gives just a little detail, yet just enough to show - like the mesoamerican studies - that there really has been centuries of scholarship checking and double-checking, reworking old ideas, trying to find what happened, as far as can be seen.

Lev lists the Archives, Florence State, Forli, Imola; the Mantua State Archives, Gonzaga Archive; Milan State Archive, Sforza Archive;  Naples State Archive, Private Archive Sforza Riario; Vatican Archives. A hundred books are listed in the bibliography from the period to the present, in Italian, English, Latin, German and French. Many are in Bologna, Italy. Some are widely available, some are probably unique or rare, some on microfiche or are dissertation papers. Burckhardt and Boccaccio, Johann Burchard and Baldessare Castiglione, the diaries of Stefano Infessura, Johannes Gherardi and Marin Sanudo all get a mention.

In the telling of the Pazzi conspiracy, the confession of Girolamo Riario's bodyguard Montesecco comes from the Storia della reppublica Fiorentino vol 5A p. 547 compiled by Gino Capponi and published in Florence, 1888. The affection that Bona of Savoy, Caterina's step mother showed her, comes from letters in the Milan State Archives and reprinted in a three volume history by Pier Desiderius Pasolini called Caterina Sforza, published in Rome, by Loescher in 1893. When Girolamo and Caterina first came to Forli as new rulers, eyewitness to the celebrations were documented by an anonymous writer whose retelling is kept in the Florence National Library.

These are just a couple of examples out of ten pages in fine print of footnotes and bibliography for this book. Very welcome. Without such an apparatus, the story can get lost in the weeds of lousy provenance and then amount to little more than rumor, even if all a footnote refers to is an anonymous eyewitness. At least there is that.

A real problem is getting access into the archives. They often don't let just anyone in, which is good, and even when they do, access to certain materials can be very controlled and viewings, when granted are often timed or otherwise barred, disrupted. It reminds me of Barry Unsworth who (GRANTA 64) wrote a short story about trying to get into the Castel Nuovo or the Palazzo Reale in Naples, researching about Horatio Nelson. In three full days, he doesn't get far at all.
First there was a strike so one place was closed before he could get in. The next day, the Palace attendants were helpful but needed to know what specifically he was looking for with one worker handing him off to another worker until he was in the papyrus room. The woman there patiently explained all about papyrus (what he said he'd been looking for) and showed examples of carbonized papyri left over from Herculaneum and the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Very interesting, but nothing to do with Horatio Nelson or his time in Naples. So, if Elizabeth Lev can be believed, what she prints as having come from the various state and local archives of all these places is, in itself, remarkable.
_____________________________________________
Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company