February 24, 1493, 1484; two more Spanish stories

On Thursday evening, Columbus returned to the island of San Miguel. This time some locals came aboard - five sailors and a notary - and slept aboard ship that night. Next morning they asked if Columbus had documents showing he was sailing on commission of the King of Castile. If so, the local captain would show Columbus all due respect. The manuscripts and seals were shown and the reports sent back and forth, the boat and sailors returned to him and Columbus could prepare again for his return to the mainland. His sailors told him that word on the island was that the King of Portugal had commanded Columbus and his ships and men be taken by any means. 

While this episode does resolve fairly easily, this temporary setback which managed to delay Columbus' return to Spain by a few days, this wrinkle could tell us a lot about the plight of a captain of such a distant outpost. Imagine the difficulty. Charged to protect and defend an island outpost as well as the interests of far away Lisbon. But on receiving news that this could be a representative of Portugal's primary rival in the world would give one pause before acting decisively. You might not want to start a war after all.

But Columbus' son says,

"For if he [this island captain] was truthfully informed of these facts [a royal commission] he was prepared to pay the Admiral [Columbus] all respect. This change of mind was caused by the fact that he now saw clearly that they could not take the ship or capture the Admiral, and that they might be made to suffer for what they had done." [p 108]

...

"On Sunday, 24 February, the Admiral sailed for Castile from the island of Santa Maria, very short of ballast and firewood, which he had been unable to obtain on account of the bad weather." [p 109]

It seems ridiculous to me that Columbus got his men back and the other ship but did not secure ballast and firewood before he left, after sitting in port [?] Friday and Saturday. But so says the son and then, he left with a favorable wind. It was the documents that saved him. Royal Spanish documents.

quote from:"The Life of the Admiral By His Son"  in  The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, for The Penguin Group, London, 1969

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In another Spanish story of the times, presented to us as occurring on this day, a woman is prosecuted as being an heretic and apostate conversa, that is, outwardly Christian but secretly following Jewish practices.

"February 24, 1484. Case of Isabel, wife of bachiller Lope de Higuera.

...

HOLDING GOD BEFORE OUR EYES:

...She has incurred a sentence of greater excommunication, and all the other spiritual and temporal punishments contained in the laws against heretics, as well as the loss and confiscation of her goods. We relax her to the ... knight of  Cieca, royal magistrate in this city and its territory; and we also relax her to the territory's governors and magistrates, and to any other judges of any other cities, villages and places within these kingdoms and outside of them, wherever the aforesaid Isabel might be found, so that they may do with her what they can and should do by law. We thus pronounce judgment through this sentence." [p.16]

In the brief introduction to this case, our editor and translator Lu Ann Homza explains that three out of four conversus cases in the first forty years of the Inquisition [~1478-1518] were against women. They prepared foods and could be witnessed as making dietary choices that fell within guidelines that might be called obeying Mosaic Law as put forth in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.  But our editor is also forthrightly conscientious to say there is much we don't know about:  "the records are incomplete" [p. 14] on the early years of the Inquisition. 
It's a cleanly lain out book, too. I like the format of several 'Documents' instead of chapters, with cases over the years explaining conditions, cases, how external things and methods changed, expanded, etc. Wish I had time to type out the set of justifications the 'court' proclaims judgment on. The forms, the patterns, the signs used to determine "... the external behaviors they thought signified internal conviction ... that they took for granted...."  as our editor puts it [p. 13]. Very interesting. Oh yeah, they say 'relax' in the judgment above. They mean relax her fate to the secular arm of the state, to execute her when found. [p. 16]

from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Hackett Publishing Company, 2006

Bernal Díaz Intro, Separating Fact, Fiction, Mythistory

A modern look at European advances in Mesoamerica, looks at common misconceptions in the histories and compares them with more recent realizations. Matthew Restall says in the Introduction, with reference to the book it introduces,

"... At its most basic level, the book juxtaposes false and accurate descriptions of the Conquest. But the book is also more than that. In presenting historical interpretations of the Conquest as myths rooted in the cultural conceptions, misconceptions, and political agendas of their time, I am aware that I too am inescapably influenced by the concepts and language of my own culture. Beyond simply contrasting myth and reality, my analysis recognizes that myths can be real to their progenitors and that a supposed reality built by researching archival sources can also generate its own myths. This is therefore not just a book about what happened, but a book that compares two forms of what is said to have happened. One form is created at the time of the historical moment itself. The other form is germinated in archives and libraries, when historians write historical accounts that strive to achieve objectivity (even if it must always remain just out of reach).

The term "myth" is used here not in the sense of folklore, of popular narratives and beliefs featuring religious systems and supernatural characters.. Rather it is used to mean something fictitious that is commonly taken to be true, partially or absolutely. Both of these meanings of "myth" have an ambiguous connection to "history"." 

p. xvi from Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall, New York, Oxford University Press Inc., 2004

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A Good History only requires a few basic notions to get it going. Choose good sources, preferring primary but allowing exceptional compilations and analysis like the one above. Oxford and Cambridge are fine places to start in English. Make sure the provenance of the sources are sound. This is different than choosing good sources because depending on the kinds of source, art and architecture analysis, for example, can get sloppy fast without certain established models w/r/to provenance etc. But these things are often cleared up quickly when, for example, everybody knows who made the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, but not the Ducal Palace in Venice. The question 'who made that' may be readily answered but the specifics are often beyond the reach of inquiry.

Also, beyond choosing good sources, ensuring solid provenance for the sources, a clear sense of purpose in an inquiry is also important. It's too easy to get lost. It also helps to establish rules for an inquiry or models that help pave some purpose, a destination or questions to be answered, even if they are only, 'do we know that...'.

But after these, sources, provenance, inquiry must be an openness to more and more forms of context. Because context is everything. I think it can only be underestimated and that no overcompensation is too much so long as you heave closely to good sources, solid provenance and clear forms of inquiry.

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On the very first page of the Introduction to the new 2012 Hackett Pub offering for English readers Bernal Díaz del Castillo's The True History of the Conquest of New Spain , our editors and translators here tell us that

"... Bernal Díaz's account claims pride of place as the only narrative by a single participant voice that carries through from the earliest European landing on present-day Mexican soil to the fall of Tenochtitlan. Although the narrative may have gaps, be faultily recalled or told in places, contain inaccurate dates and other flaws of omission or commission, it does provide a relatively continuous thread to which one may relate other early accounts of the Spanish conquest, including those recorded from the indigenous peoples themselves." [p xi]

And again, comparing with other accounts,

"One has reasons for being cautious in accepting what Bernal Díaz writes." 

He had,

"... concern that certain rights and privileges originally granted him in perpetuity might be rescinded at his death and thus not pass to his children." [pp xi-xii]

He had seen accounts of those prior time,s published years later and wanted in part to refute some of those stories like much of Francisco López de Gómara, the private secretary of Córtes. 

Of course there were many stories. A brief historical context is then offered by our editors/translators from Columbus and his son, on to Diego Velázquez, who under the patronage of don Diego Colón would establish Cuba as a power center in the region. Expeditions sprouted out from here in the ensuing years and Cortes' eventual departure from Cuba and willful abrogation of Velázquez's certain order, itself, was a patterned response that characterized the complex pattern of behavior in Spanish cultural forms and their social advancement.

"The goal of these expeditions was not to establish trade relations with the native peoples but to establish control over a territory and its population for purposes of extracting resources of value, for example, gold, that could be traded for goods produced in the metropolis. These expeditions, then, followed a standard pattern, one originally developed during Spain's successful reconquest of its own territory from the Moors. In this pattern, a senior but subordinate member of a given settlement group would, with the permission and support of the settlement's leader, form a party to underwrite the costs of an expedition to new territories." [p xiv]

The governor of Hispaniola gave permission for Diego Velázquez to take his men and resources and, at first to capture an indigenous captain, cacique Huatey who had led resistance against the Spanish previously. But when he got to Cuba he began ignoring Hispaniola and set about establishing his own settlement which in time grew to a governorship with thousands of people below him on his own social pyramid. Córtes was one of those people with his own abilities in gaining and claiming resources, etc. just like Diego had been in Columbus' second voyage.

"... Diego Velázquez soon slipped out from under the control of the governor of Hispaniola and, seeking endorsement from the Spanish Crown, claimed governorship of Cuba, setting up his own court and entourage, which included many of the individuals who populate Bernal Díaz's narrative. In forming these companies, family and other personal relations -- relations arising from being a member of a household, rendering prior loyal service, and being from a given Spanish city or region, all relations to which Bernal Díaz refers -- were of utmost importance. They were fundamental social blinders, even if they did not guarantee continued loyalty, for one is, after all, dealing with men who were proud, adventurous, and, above all, interested in securing their fortunes.... being the designated organizer and leader of a company gave primacy to an individual, as did serving as a captain of men and simply being among the first to enter and subdue a given area." [pp xiv-xv]

For example.

So the reasons for why, and how are given and further, go a ways to set up the what of the conquest of Mexico. Briefly and to the point with just enough to show the unabashed nature of motives, some reasons for the provenance and plenty of intriguing, introductory context for the expeditions themselves and Diaz's participation, and their established patterns in the new world.

More context about Córtes, some on the nature of the enduring conflicts between Mexican groups, like the Tlaxcala and the Aztecs and how this is just the sort of thing Córtes would seek to exploit. Specific methods of controlling the population of Mexico, like capturing Moctezuma and his entourage and using them to control the population.

But then they go on to explain further why his voice is so compelling especially for us, for Americans. That Díaz wanted his audience to understand that he was a commoner, related to the Governor of Cuba but in the ranks of Hernan Córtes in merely an infantry position. This simple fact explains much about Bernal Díaz's perspective but also his subsequent life and reasons for writing it all down. 

The editors take the opportunity here to give specific examples from different accounts of the conquest to show Díaz's mostly straightforward account and some of its frailties. [pp xxiii-xxx]

This is followed by a very brief bio sketch, a translator's note, a helpful list of primary characters, a timeline and very importantly a great list of sources for further reading.

I will return to the forms of population control and extractive mining economies and how that worked later. I have all year.

All quotes here (unless otherwise stated) from  The True History of the Conquest of New Spain edited/translated by Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc. 2012

Montezuma has a bird-vision, Columbus blown off track, February 21, 1493

Another of the omens told as occurring before the arrival of the Spaniards in Mesoamerica, came from the Historia de Tlaxcala. It repeats a story told in a different manuscript but uses more vivid language here. ML-P says this must be based on the account of one of Sahagun's informants. 

"... the men whose work is in the Lake of Mexico - the fishermen and other boatmen, or the fowlers in their canoes - trapped a dark-feathered bird resembling a crane and took it to Motecuhzoma [an alternate transliteration for Montezuma] so  that he might see it. He was in the Palace of the Black Hall; the sun was already in the west. This bird was so unique and marvelous that no one could exaggerate its strangeness or describe it well. A round diadem was set in its head in the form of a clear and transparent mirror, in which could be seen the heavens, the three stars in Taurus and the stars in the sign of  the Gemini. When Motecuhzoma saw this, he was filled with dread and wonder, for he believed it was a bad omen to see the stars of heaven in the diadem of that bird.

When Motecuhzoma looked into the mirroe a second time, he saw a host of people, all around like warriors, coming forward in well-ordered ranks. They skirmished and fought with each other, and were accompanied by strange deer and other creatures.

Therefore, he called for his magicians and fortune-tellers, whose wisdom he trusted, and asked them what these unnatural visions meant:  "My dear and learned friends I have witnessed great signs in the diadem of a bird, which was brought to me as something new and marvelous that had never been seen before. What I witnessed in that diadem, which is pellucid like a mirror, was a strange host of people rushing toward me across a plain. Now look yourselves, and see what I have seen."

But when they wished to advise their lord on what seemed to them so wondrous a thing, and to give him their judgments, divinations and predictions, the bird suddenly disappeared; and thus they could not offer him any sure opinion." 

from page ten,  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.

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After the humiliation of losing most of his crew to deception and then suffer the further insult of being rebuffed and degraded by the petulant shore captain, Columbus was nevertheless left tossing out on his wave.

"...next day, the wind increased greatly and made his anchorage impossible; he lost his anchors and had no alternative but to raise sail for the island of San Miguel. As he could not anchor here, however, because the storm was still blowing fiercely, he decided to wait with furled sails, though still in very great danger, both from the sea, which was very rough, and because he had only three sailors and a few ship's boys on board, all the rest of his men being on shore except the Indians, who had no skill in working sails or rigging. But himself performing the work of the absent crew, he passed the night in hard work and no little danger. And when day came, he found that he had lost sight of the island of San Miguel and that the weather had somewhat improved. So he decided to return to the island of Santa Maria, to see if he could rescue his crew, his anchors and the boat. He reached San Miguel on Thursday evening, 21 February."

from p.108 in  The Life of the Admiral By His Son, Hernando Colon translated into english by JM Cohen in The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus , New York,The Penguin Group 1969

The Aztecs were once very great

In reality, Mexico could claim to be as old a civilization as Rome or Italy, or older. Both had the first glimmers of Mayan and Zapotec civilization dateable, we know now, to the same time as the Greeks, early Romans and the Jewish Captivity in Babylon. The Olmecs, for example were older than that. Empires of scale could be documented in both places at roughly the same time as well. Both Mexico and Italy were also victims of successive waves of 'outside' populations that overtook and established themselves over the stretch of centuries. Established religious and state forces created great monuments, groups and foes in battle went to war with each other, children were educated and intricate systems of trade - even economies of scale - extended their culture's reach and promise.

The biggest difference of course is that we know so much more about the one compared with the other. But it looks as though it's not even the act of writing that separates them here. Of course the mesoamericans also wrote things down in their chosen ways, but that had to be painted or chiseled (or both) because long-term paper or it's storage, doesn't work in the tropics where the Olmec, Toltec, Zapotec, Mayan and Aztec thrived. It did work in the much more arid Mediterranean climate. And they had centuries to perfect the tech of paper production and storage where it still just didn't work in the tropics so well. Most of the codices that were kept, the Spanish burned, when they found them. A few dozen survive.

Tenochtitlan was probably larger than any European city, too, at the time, even Paris, which was then twice the size of London, Rome or Istanbul. So while there were artists and priests and cooks and guards and boat-rowers, managers, washers and farmers, scribes, concubines we know very little about them. For centuries. There are stories and official chronicles unearthed, painted on walls, there are records of relations of city-states all over Mexico, and so on, but the picture still remains very incomplete. Much of this is because the study of the history of the place is relatively new and has begun to be sought out systematically, only in the last few generations. And much of the area falls into and out of war through no fault of the people again and then the jungle grows back so quickly, again.

So as I admit to spending the last year focused on Venice and Europe all over and nothing on Mesoamerica, that's only because of the lack of resources available here, in the US. Nothing exceptional about that.

I will try to offer as clear a picture I can though with the sources that are available to me. It's embarrassing how little we can say about these people.

It's easier to try to show the small differences between city-states in Italy and those in Mexico. In both there were interests at odds with each other for territory and the proceeds that could be coaxed from those territories. But in Mexico they were not  external forces vying for control of territory before the Spaniards arrived. Those forces were all internal and the conflicts - if we are to trust our sources - had been going for decades if not centuries with periods of temporary truce and peaces that sometimes stretched longer. The Aztecs were the most recent to come to the central valley of Mexico but it was because of them that the valley had been as stable as it had been for generations. The previous couple centuries had seen the rise of the Aztecs here and by 1490, they had achieved a stable control over much of Central America, holding sway over millions of people. Through conquest and the forcing of submission by other cities. First they went north and then they went south. They would make alliances, extort concessions, renew alliances and demand prisoners which they would then, ritually slaughter.

One example was Tlaxcala, a city on the way to the coast. This place, not far away the Aztecs had not overcome but would fight now and then and take prisoners which they took home to ritually slaughter as this was basic to the state religion of propitiating the sun god.

Much of this is from the introduction to 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.

Defense Document Offered In Inquisition Case: February 19, 1512

Inquisitors in the Holy Office of Inquisition called one Maria Gonzalez to confess to knowledge of other people.

"...When Maria Gonzalez was present, their reverences said that it was already known that she had confessed the heretical crimes of which the prosecutor accused her, and that she had been required and admonished many times to confess the truth about the other people who had committed the crimes with or without her; and she had always refused to do so. Now they once more required and admonished her to tell the truth about these other people, because information existed that she had committed her crimes with others, and had seen people commit other heresies. And by telling the truth, she would do what she ought, and would unburden her conscience. Otherwise, the Inquisition would proceed against her according to what it discovers by law.

Maria Gonzalez said she had confessed everything she knew about the charges, about herself as well as others, and had no more to say.

Then their reverences told her that since she persisted in her denial, and they had information to the contrary, that if she thought that some people wished her ill she might think about whether she wanted to object to them, or to defend her case in other ways."

They said they were ready to hear her if she would be their informant even if it were people she thought wished her ill but she still had nothing more to say about herself or anybody else and begged them to treat her mercifully. She was convicted as a converso - privately following Jewish practices - later that year and spent the rest of her days in prison undergoing further interrogation, torture and by the end of September the following year, was hung. But we'll follow her case as it shows an all too typical advancement of charges and techniques used in Toledo in the early 16th century.

quote from pp.50-1, from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 2006

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February 18, 1493: Columbus Frustrated Again

Columbus had a very busy Monday, according to his son, 520 years ago. He has him say, picking up where I left off the other day,

" '... When I anchored on Monday morning I immediately learnt from the inhabitants that this island was Santa Maria in the Azores [a Portuguese possession]. They were all astonished at my escape from this tremendous storm which had been blowing for fifteen days continuously.'..." [p. 104*]

There was a cry of rejoicing, giving thanks to God, some came aboard offering food and word of "a hermit's chapel ... dedicated to the Virgin,"[p. 105] to which many men went ashore to give their thanks as they had promised they would during the great storm. Half of the entire crew went at first in one boat and upon landing were ambushed and taken prisoner. The boat was taken, too.

It was mid-day when Columbus began thinking some accident must have happened as their had been no word back from the first group to go ashore. He decided to sail closer to the site of the chapel to see if he could better tell what was happening. Within sight of the first boat he saw men on horseback dismount and shove out to sea to meet them. At first Columbus thought they might board and try to take his own ship but then saw they would only come within hailing distance. The son says the father complained and referred to the friendship between Spain and Portugal as well as the earlier gifts of food and compliments of earlier in the day. Further, Columbus lists his credentials as 'chief Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of the Indies' of the King and Queen of Spain and that to offend him would offend them and that he had the letters and seals to prove it. He even showed it, from a distance, he says. But the captain from the island was not impressed, as he did not acknowledge the King and Queen of Spain or their letters, that he was not afraid and would show them the might of Portugal. He had been instructed by his king and lord to say and do these things and that Columbus should at once pull into port and give themselves up.

This seems to have infuriated Columbus, who called on all his men to witness that he would not leave his own boat until a hundred Portuguese were captured and taken as prisoners. Then he sailed back to the previous harbor because of the wind. [pp 104-8]

-- * from The Life of the Admiral By His Son, Hernando Colon translated into English by JM Cohen in The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus , ThePenguin Group 1969

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February 17, 1493, 1913, 2013 Random Digest

1913 Armory Show in NY was a hundred years ago today. NPR had a quick piece about that.

TAL was devastating this morning. First of a two part on High school kids, guns, school, @ Harper, IL ,a Chicago neighborhood. Shocking and scary.

I also watched/listened to upwithchrishayes where they branched out from the state of the union addresses and talked gun reform,  immigration and the minimum wage.

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As of, Sunday 17th February, 1493, Columbus was still out to sea, weak from the storm:

"'On the night of Saturday, 16 February, I reached one of these islands, but could not tell which on account of the storm. I rested a little that night, for I had not slept since Wednesday or even been to bed and my legs were crippled by continuous exposure to the high winds and seas, and I was suffering from hunger also.'"

from The Life of the Admiral By His Son, Hernando Colon translated into english by JM Cohen in The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus The Penguin Group 1969

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The estimated date that Andrea Mantegna was working on his Triumphs of Caesar at the Palazzo di San Sebastiano in Mantua is 1484-94. The collection is now part of the Queen of England's Hampton Court collection. It was made for Ludovico Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua who Mantegna served for many years. Pope Innocent VIII liked the artist so much he had the Marquis send him. The Marquis did the great honor of sending his son to deliver this artist for the pope who commissioned him in 1488 to paint the newly completed walls of a small chapel. This was in the new Belvedere Palace that the pope had just finished. But this chapel was destroyed in the 18th century by Pius VI who wanted a museum to replace it. Giorgio Vasari and his editors/translators - the Bondanella's Peter and Julia here - have many interesting stories about those people and times and places.

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On February 18, 2013, RDA the public face of Readers Digest and many other well-known publications filed for bankruptcy.

The Heavens Speak, Out To Sea, More Nahua Voices: 15feb2013

• How about that massive meteor that missed us or the one that hit Russia? This page has a few videos on the one in Russia. A thousand people were injured from shattering glass. Of course I thought about the Tunguska event of 1908, the last time something like this happened where it is believed a meteor of enormous size must have crashed into Siberia. 
• I got to hear the international cheer of scientists as the big one, 2012 DA14 missed the earth near 2:25 EST on Friday, February 15, 2013. Nearly five million people were watching NASA's feed before it happened. Science Friday was there briefly.

• Why it's bad to be 'dead in the water' even these days. Carnival cruise ship 'Triumph' finally pulls into port in Mobile, AL last night after four days of deprivation out in the Caribbean. Deprived of motive force, the ship apparently lost power as well to sewage displacement pumps. As a result, bilges filled up and leaked all over, etc... NPR has a collection of anecdotes and articles. The cruise-ship had a fire in its engine room Sunday night while drifting off the Mexican Yucatan peninsula. The company promises some forms of compensation for the hardship.
• And on Sunday night, hours after Pope Benedict XVI said he would resign, St Peter's Basilica was struck by lightning. That's right. Here's a weather.com article with a bbc posted video. Pretty weird.

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Columbus' son Hernando Colon continues the tale of the first return from 'the Indies', in his 38th chapter of his Life of the Admiral by his son:

"As they sailed on in such great danger from the storm, at dawn on Friday, 15 February, one Ruy Garcia of Santona saw from the main mast land to the east-north-east. The pilots and sailors thought that it was Cintra in Portugal. But the Admiral insisted that they were at the Azores, and this was one of the islands, and although they were not far offshore they were unable to reach land that day on account of the storm. Being compelled to beat about [that is, to row] since the wind was in the east, they lost sight of the first island and saw another, under the lee of which they ran to shelter from a strong crosswind and bad weather."

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Also Weird to me how I start reading Aztec omens about fires in the sky from 500 years ago and then, this very week it happens, in Russia, in Rome. Just weird.  A coincidence like they say between the Russian meteor and the big one 2012 DA14. But here we are. As I said before these were collected by one Bernardino de Sahagún a missionary-ethnographer c. 1555 who put these into Book 12 of what is now called the Florentine Codex. * These were then selected and printed in a twentieth-century collection of inhabitant re-tellings called The Broken Spears.

"The third bad omen: A temple was damaged by a lightning-bolt. This was the temple of Xiuhtecuhtli, which was built of straw, in the place known as Tzonmolco. It was raining that day, but it was only a light rain or a drizzle, and no thunder was heard. Therefore the lightning-bolt was taken as an omen. The people said: "The temple was struck by a blow from the sun."

The fourth bad omen: Fire streamed through the sky while the sun was still shining. It was divided into three parts. It flashed out from where the sun sets and raced straight to where the sun rises, giving off a shower of sparks like a red-hot coal. When the people saw its long train streaming through the heavens, there was a great outcry and confusion, as if they were shaking a thousand little bells."

Of course there's more.

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, Beacon Press, 2006.

* Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex , Introductory Volume, trans. and ed. A.J.O. Anderson and C. E. Dibble, no 14, pt 1 (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and University of Utah Press, 1982)

Storm! west of Azores and Canary Islands, February 14, 1493

Columbus' son On The First Return Voyage: 

"As they sailed on in good weather, the winds began to increase from day to day and the seas to rise so high that they had great difficulty in weathering them. In the night of Thursday, 14 February, they were compelled to run with the wind. And as the caravel Pinta was less able to withstand the seas than the Niña, Pinzón had to follow a northward course, driven by a south wind, while the Admiral continued northeast on the direct route for Spain. Owing to the darkness of the night, the Pinta could not rejoin the Admiral, although he kept his lantern lit, and at daybreak the two ships had lost one another, and the crew of each thought that the other had sunk. Resorting to prayer and devotions, therefore, the Admiral's crew vowed that one of them should make a pilgrimage on behalf of the rest to Our Lady of Guadalupe and cast lots to decide who it should be. The lot fell on the Admiral. After this they vowed a further pilgrimage to our Lady of Loreto and the lot fell on a sailor of the Santa Maria from Santona, called Pedro de la Villa. They then cast lots for a third pilgrimage to make a vigil in the church of Santa Clara de Moguer, and the lot for this also fell on the Admiral. The storm, however, grew fiercer and everyone on the ship made a vow to walk barefoot and in their shirts to offer up a prayer on the first land they came to in any church dedicated to the Virgin. Apart from these general vows many of the men also made private ones.

For now the storm was very high and the Admiral's ship had great difficulty in withstanding it through lack of ballast, which had grown less as their provisions were consumed. To increase their ballast they conceived the idea of filling all the barrels that were empty with seawater, which was some help. It enabled the ship to stand up better to the storm and reduced its great danger of capsizing. The Admiral described this great storm in these words:

'I should have had less difficulty in withstanding this storm if I had only been in personal danger, since I know that I owe my life to my Supreme Creator and He has so many times before saved me when I have been near death that actually to die would hardly have cost me great suffering. But what caused me infinite pain and grief was the thought that after it had pleased the Lord to inspire me with faith and assurance to undertake this enterprise, in which he had now granted me success, at the very moment when my opponents would have been proved wrong and your Highness would have been endowed by me with glory and increase of your high estate, the Lord might choose to prevent all this by my death.

'Even this would have been more bearable if death were not also to fall on all those whom I had taken with me, promising them a most prosperous outcome to the voyage.  Finding ourselves in such terrible danger , they not only cursed their weakness in coming but also my threats and forceful persuasion which had many times prevented them from turning back, despite their resolution to do so. In addition to all this, my grief was increased by the thought that my two sons, whom I had placed as students at Cordoba, would be left without resources in a foreign land... 

'In this perplexity I thought your Highnesses' good fortune which, even were I to die and my ship be lost, might find a means of turning the victory I had gained to your advantage, and that in some way the success of my voyage might become known to you. Therefore I wrote a parchment, as brief as the exigencies of the time required, saying how I had discovered these lands that I had promised to you and in how many days and by what course I had reached them. I had described the goodness of the country, the manners of its inhabitants whom I had made subjects to your Highnesses, taking possession of all the lands I had discovered. I closed and sealed this letter and addressed it to your Highnesses, undertaking the cost of carriage, that is to say promising a thousand ducats to the man who should present it to your Highnesses unopened. My purpose was that if some foreigner should find it he would be too anxious to obtain the reward to open it and master its contents. I then sent for a large cask and, after wrapping this parchment in cloth and enclosing it in a cake of wax, placed the parcel in the cask. The hoops were then secured and the cask thrown into the sea, all the sailors supposing that this was in fulfillment of some vow. And since I thought it possible that this cask would not be picked up and the ships were still following their course to Castile, I prepared another similar package and placed it in another cask at the highest point of the prow, so that were the ship to sink it should float on the waves and be carried wherever the storm might take it.' 

"... As they sailed on in great danger from the storm..."

from The Life of the Admiral By His Son, Hernando Colon translated into english by JM Cohen in The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus The Penguin Group 1969

And that letter on parchment written in the middle of the storm made it to shore. It was copied and edited and altered and spread all over:

translation in English

and the first printing looked like this

Carnival, Luther and anonymous Masking: Sanudo Diaries: February 12, 13: 1517, 1520, 1526

Sanudo Diaries: February 12, 1517 (23:582); "Today, at the German Warehouse, the German merchants put on a lovely party to celebrate the pact or truce that has been reached with His Imperial Majesty [Maximillian I]. ... and the Germans spared no expense from their coffers to provide dinner, etc."

Editor's footnote: "This was the truce that ended the War of the League of Cambrai...." [p. 504]

nedits: Three years later, with the tumult rising with the spread of Lutheran ideas,

Sanudo Diaries: February 12, 1520 (28:252); "This evening a lovely momaria was put on by several German merchants and others elegantly dressed. Six of them danced, and there was excellent instrumental and vocal music. They held a ball in the Warehouse, which a number of patricians came to see. They went on with ceremonial trumpets and wax torches until nine hours after sunset." [p. 505]

nedits: The very next day Sanudo offers a note sent on February 4, 1520 from the Venetian ambassador to the papal court of Leo X.

Sanudo Diaries: February 13, 1520 (28:256-7); "A convocation of the fathers general of the mendicant orders was held the other day. Those who were not present were represented by the procurators of their orders. The assembly was headed by the most reverend cardinals ... called to condemn some of the propositions of Brother Martin Luther, who for a long time has been preaching in Germany against the authority and the powers of the pope.... By this means, the convocation intends to eliminate the favor and the following he enjoys and is preparing a bull [against him]. But the convocation was not conducted very well, because unexpectedly the friar's propositions were read, and when the vote was called, it was evident that this Brother Martin demonstrates that he takes his foundations principally from the Gospels and from those doctors of the church who [hold views that] are like [those of] St Augustine, but not from other church doctors. He derides St Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others like them. It is quite scandalous." [pp. 412-3]

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nedits: Six years later,

Sanudo Diaries:  February 13, 1526 (40:810-11); "By order of the heads of the council of Ten it was publicly proclaimed that this Lent no one may any longer dress in costume under penalty, etc., and thus no one did. And this evening brought the conclusion of Carnival, a Carnival that has been the most festive in many a year."

Editor's note: "Restrictions of masks and/or costumes and rules prohibiting the carrying of arms were occasionally imposed by the Council of Ten to prevent disorder. For example, in 1519 the council required those who wished to disguise themselves to get permission to do so, prohibited maskers and soldiers from carrying arms, and forbade all visits to convents ...". [pp 520-1]

"The term Sanudo used for costume disguises was stravestir, which generally meant disguising one's identity and sometimes one's class by adopting patrician or religious garb. Yet some forms of disguise might be permitted in spite of a prohibition, for whatever its accidents and extravagances, Carnival fulfilled a great need. It was an assertion by the entire Venetian society of the happiness, the felicitá, of the Republic." [pp 521]

Sentence from an Inquisition: February 13 1484; Innocent VIII; Nahua voices

"HOLDING GOD BEFORE OUR EYES:

We find the chief prosecutor did not prove the accusation against Pedro de Villegas, according to what he had to prove by law; and conversely, Pedro de Villegas proved himself to have lived as a good and faithful Christian .... Whereby we absolve Pedro de Villegas; he shall be freed and released from the accusation, and we order that he may receive as penance the time he has been a prisoner in our jail, because he did not know and inquire with greater diligence as to what things were done in his house against the Holy Faith, so that such things could have been fought against and punished, as they must be by law. We reserve the right to impose additional penances upon Pedro de Villegas beyond what is imposed upon him in the sentence. He must perform and complete those penances when he is commanded to do so by us, in satisfaction and emendation of his negligence and remission. Thus we declare our sentence through these writings.

In Ciudad Real, February 13, 1484 ... [the] cleric and chaplain of the Queen, apostolic and public notaries of the Office of this Holy Inquisition; and before the witnesses ... gave this sentence in the presence of Pedro de Villegas. After the sentence was read by one of us, the notaries ordered Juan de Alfaro, the warden of the Inquisition, to release Villegas from the chains and the shackles on his feet. They sent him away in peace to his house." [pp 25-6]

Pedro de Villegas had been accused the year before of heresy and 'judaizing', observing the Law of Moses by eating meat during Lent on account of Jewish ceremony, eating unleavened bread during Passover, and observing the Sabbath on Saturday. Witnesses were called, the accused was interrogated and testimony given and after a couple months sentence was handed down as quoted above. A rarity in that they let him go and with 'penance served.' But this of course occurred in the early years of the Spanish Inquisition. There was a war in Spain in the latter half of the 1400's. Castile and Aragon were working at driving out Muslims and converting Jews. Also, a different kind of war was happening in consolidating the different states within the peninsula. King Ferdinand of Aragón, "... negotiated with pope Sixtus IV for three years, -- from 1481 to 1483 -- before that pope heeded royal petitions and stipulated that Castilian Tomás de Torquemada, Inquisitor-General of Castile, should act in the same capacity for Aragón." [p 9]

from The Spanish Inquisition 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited and translated by Lu Ann Homza, Hackett Publishing Company, 2006

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It was pope Sixtus IV who suggested Torquemada as inquisitor for Aragón but that pope, Francesco della Rovere - the pope that did not like the de'Medici - died in August, 1484. It was his successor Innocent VIII who almost immediately, by the end of the year issued a bull condemning witchcraft, magic and other heresies. Torquemada was confirmed by the new pope in 1487, but he had gotten right to work already in Spain. Innocent VIII also sought to wipe out the Waldensians another group considered heretical, promising indulgences to those who would crusade against them. A friend to the de' Medici he married his eldest son to a daughter of Lorenzo and bestowed a cardinal's hat on his thirteen year-old son Giovanni who would later become pope Leo X. During the reign of Innocent he would also negotiate what was for then a master-stroke of strategy against the Turkish sultan, by accepting to hold the sultan's brother Djem in his paternal protection, in Rome. Innocent also excommunicated the King of Naples, Don Ferrante when he would not pay the pope for his investiture - essentially his title of King. But then pope Innocent invited the young French King Charles VIII to come and take the Kingdom of Italy which disastrously became the spark that led to the splintering of Italy all over again. This time it was the conflict dividing up Italy, between the French and the Spanish for the next forty years. Innocent would also have a preference for Christianizing slaves rather than setting them free. His gift of a hundred of these from King Ferdinand of Aragon to a number of Catholic Cardinals can show what this institution meant to him. Chronically in debt, Innocent reinstituted the practice of selling offices for money - what today is simply called simony. Confer hic.

___________________________________________________________________

Another story of another omen, before the Europeans arrived in central america was recorded. Many more, actually. These were set down long after the events described. They were collected by one Bernardino de Sahagún a missionary-ethnographer c. 1555 who put these into Book 12 of what is now called the Florentine Codex *. As he wrote in the forward to that, "this history ... was written at a time when those who took part in the very Conquest were still alive.... And those who gave this account [were] principal persons of sound judgment, and it is believed they all told the truth." Elsewhere,  our missionary says,"... everything was written in the Mexican language and was afterwards put into Spanish. Those who helped me write it were prominent elders, well versed in all manners ... who were present in the war when this city was conquered." [p. xviii of The Broken Spears, quoted as from †].

Our twentieth-century editor and translator, Miguel León-Portilla (henceforward, M L-P) chose several of these omens as examples to show some "...human interest of the accounts, which reveal how the Nahuas interpreted the downfall of their civilization." [page four]

"...The temple of Huitzilopochtli burst into flames. It is thought that no one set it afire, that it burned down on its own accord. The name of its divine site was Tlacateccan [House of Authority].And now it is burning, the wooden columns are burning! The flames, the tongues of fire shoot out, the bursts of fire shoot up into the sky!The flames swiftly destroyed all the woodwork of the temple. When the fire was first seen, the people shouted: "Mexicanos, come running! We can put it out! Bring your water jars...!" But when they threw water on the blaze it only flamed higher. They could not put it out, and the temple burned to the ground." [page four - five]

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, Beacon Press, 2006.

* Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex , Introductory Volume, trans. and ed. A.J.O. Anderson and C. E. Dibble, no 14, pt 1 (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and University of Utah Press, 1982), p. 101

† Bernardino de Sahagún, Conquest of New Spain: 1585 revision , trans. Howard F Cline, ed S.L. Cline (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989, pp 2, 25).

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news from 11feb13

This week was already looking to be very busy.

• Superstorm Nemo dumps record levels of snow on the american northeast. Forty inches in New Haven, CT; 650,000+ without power initially, now that number has decreased to about 150,000 and those are mostly in Massachusetts, etc. They will spend the rest of the week digging out of that.
• Things are happening in the Kansas State house. I'm scared to look.
• Cabinet level nominees John Brennan and Senator Chuck Hagel face fierce and also unwarranted republican critics in Congress. The Village media act as though it was the first time they have heard the left complain about anything this Obama Admin has said or done about the war. Case in point, Sen Ron Wyden of OR trying to find out from Mr Brennan about hurdles that must be overcome in their decision process for using drones, etc. A good discussion of last week's 'white paper', the 'loss of due process' in killing citizens, the confirmation hearings and where discussion on the left actually is w/r/t the NDAA, drones and 'imminence' on upwithchrishayes this weekend. Hina Shamsi of the ACLU lays things out plainly. The discussion after is great for the basic elements of what is happening.
• new job numbers will be out soon
• the budget debate gets more intense as the 'sequester deal' looms March 1 and R's fret about Defense cuts.
• The State of the Union speech is this week and so the Republicans want their guy to be heard too. No wait, they want two of their guys to be heard 'And no, there isn't anything particularly unusual about that. In fact, YOU seem to be the one that has a problem with that.'. But when you ask them about a budget, they say they are waiting for the president who has yet to submit his budget. When that comes out, they will call it names and say he's not being serious about cuts when what we need is not cuts but spending. Something they have already said they won't do. I'm sure this will repeat. Now they're pointing out the sequester was an Obama Admin idea without which presumably, Congress would not have agreed to set up a special committee and then agreed to the committee's idea and then fleshed out the agreement over months with both Houses and the president... as if the history of the last several years didn't happen in this Congress... " ,,,it's Obama's fault. Don't you get it?"
• conflicts in Syria, Mali, Burma and instability in Egypt, Greece continue to swirl
• the man-hunt for Christopher Dornan continues in southern California. Fox opines anyway: 'Must be Rep Maxine Waters' fault.'

But this morning:

• pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger announces he will resign, effective 28Feb13. He cited his age and physical stamina which makes sense since he's 85. But it is the first time a pope has resigned in 600 years. Guess who was the pope's secretary at the time? Yep, Poggio Bracciolini di Duccio. Interesting that Benedict in 2009 honored Celestine V, the first pope to resign. The last pope to resign Greggory XII resolved the Great Schism by doing so.
• five people are shot, three dead at a courthouse in Wilmington, Deleware this morning. The right has shifted the 'blame' of many of these shootings onto liberals,the very people who oftentimes want more regulation for guns. Counter-intuitive for sure, but they claim it is the zealous gun-control people - rather than those who talk about it all the time - who 'trigger' the unbalanced into acting out. The examples of gun violence they're saying, I guess, is what made them do it. Anything to remove guilt from themselves. Like here. But the thing is, It's becoming a pattern...

blink and you might miss it: beck 're-imagines' Bowie's "Sound and Vision", yesterday. He's been planning and working on it for months. Brought to you by Lincoln. But it's good. I like beck, the original song and what he did with it. Fine. Getting all the participants and directing them is something Frank Zappa used to do 45 years ago with the Mothers and he would get the audience as well to respond to cues. But without much practice beforehand as with this impromptu television studio audience in 1973.

This week's Donate to A Worthy Cause: Tom Tomorrow

Cortés goes to Mexico: February 10, 1519

"On the tenth day of February, 1519, having heard mass, we set sail along the southern coast in nine ships with the great number of horsemen and soldiers ... with the two ships on the north coast, including the one that Pedro de Alvarado had with sixty soldiers, we were eleven. I was in Pedro de Alvarado's company, and the pilot we carried, Comacho, did not heed what Cortés had ordered." [p. 25]

This is Bernal Díaz in the book now called The True History of the Conquest Of New Spain recalling the day that Cortés, in deed went against the stated wishes of the first Cuban Governor Diego Valásquez. The Governor had just stripped  Cortés of his command of the proposed third expedition to the mainland of Mexico.  Cortés had decided to strike out for Mexico with as many men as would go with him. Bernal  Díaz was one of those men. Many years later he would write his own recollection of those expeditions and these were then found many years after his death in the 1630's and would shed an every-man's viewpoint on these tumultuous events of so many years before. This expedition of Cortés of course, would continue to break all the rules and go on for thirty months. Historians would call it and refer to this as the conquest of Mexico. But it started as a kind of rebellion. The Governor had withdrawn from Cortés his command and don Hernando went and did what he felt he should do, anyway. Bernal Díaz would be among the first Europeans to not only set foot on the Mexican mainland, but would stay with the group marching across and taking Mexico until the fall of the capital city Tenochtitlan in August 1521.

To be sure, there are several accounts of the seizure of Mexico by several authors. The recent editor and translator of the recent True History of Bernal Diaz lays this out, openly stating that when lain alongside each other, together they give a full account of motives, methods and personalities [pp xxiii -xxx].  This includes, to an extent, the local inhabitants, the Mexica, Tlaxcala and others. Some of those were set down years later from oral retellings and they comprise a narrow view into the world of the Nahua, those whom westerners refer to as members of Aztec society.  The first in a series of bad omens foretold before the Spaniards arrived can give some introduction.

"Ten years before the Spanish first came here, a bad omen appeared in the sky. It was like a flaming ear of corn, or a fiery signal, or the blaze of daybreak; it seemed to bleed fire, drop by drop, like a wound in the sky. It was wide at the base and narrow at the peak, and it shone in the very heart of the heavens. 

This is how it appeared: it shone in the eastern sky in the middle of the night. It appeared at midnight and burned til the break of day, but it vanished at the rising of the sun. The time during which it appeared to us was a full year, beginning in the year 12-House.

When it first appeared, there was great outcry and confusion. The people clapped their hands against their mouths; they were amazed and frightened, and asked themselves what it could mean." [p. 4] 

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, Beacon Press, 2006.

The True History of the Conquest Of New Spain  Bernal Díaz del Castillo, translated and with an introduciton and notes by Janet Burke, Ted Humphrey, Hackett Publishing Company, 2012.

Leaving Here: Faith and Work and Dreams: 1520, 1493

The pope returns to Rome and receives the ambassador from Venice. They meet and greet and the ambassador tells the pope that Andrea Ferrara, known preacher of Lutheranism was no longer in Venice, and that...

Sanudo Diaries: February 9, 1521 (29:552)' "... neither his conclusions nor anything else against the pope had been or would be printed. The pope thanked the Signoria, saying, "This crazy man wants to follow the path of Martin Luther, who is favored by many." The ambassador responded, "These people end badly." The pope said, "That is the truth.""

The pope was Leo X, who had excommunicated Luther on 3 January the same year. The year before the pope had written a lengthy bull using  forty-one examples of Luther's thesis as reasons for excommunication from the church and the kinds of things he would have to do, for him and his followers to cease and recant.

Editor's note: "But for all the professed cooperation of the Venetian authorities, it was not until 1524 that Venice took an official stand against Luther. And even after that, Lutheran beliefs and practices continued to penetrate the city and its religious communities." [pp. 414-5]

_________________________________________________________________

A year before,in a remarkably candid moment, Sanudo tells how he did not want to change what he considered his present work.

Sanudo Diaries: February 9, 1520 (28:247); "By chance, speaking with ser Zuan Antonio Memo, the head of the Quarantia, I learned that yesterday I was nominated inspector, which pained me in two ways: in the bad luck that I have had this year and in the ill will of someone who was the enemy of my very good fortune. Thus, I have never let myself be nominated for this office in the past, and to everyone who asked me, I refused, because my age and my condition and my status do not deserve this. Moreover, I want to stay here and supervise those who supervise,..."

Editor's footnote: "Sanudo's words are a clue both to his ambitions and to his failure to achieve it. He wished to stay home and compel his fellow citizens to obey the laws, many of which he could cite to them from having recorded them in his diaries." [p. 22]

Sanudo Diaries: February 9, 1520 (28:247); "... not wait for three years to be nominated to any other office. Even if you gave me one hundred ducats a month and expenses, I would never wish to leave here. I have never sailed. I have held the rank of zonta ordinaria. It is against my principles to do harm to anyone just to win; my concern is to obey the laws and serve my country. Sometimes while giving a speech either in the Great Council or in the Senate when I am there, I express my opinion without reservation. Moreover, [if I went away] the history that I am writing, which I started --- years ago, and my annals and diaries would be stalled. Thus it should be plain to everyone that I did not want to be nominated, and I have said this openly to everyone . But I suffer from that unjust person, that enemy that caused me to be nominated, whose only reason was malevolence, because since I did not want the office, no one should have done me this wrong. Patience! God will give him what he deserves, and if I can find him out, sooner or later, I will never forget him."

Later that same day (28:248), "A dinner was put on this evening for the members ... at San Polo at Ca' Capello, on the Grand Canal. It was given by ser Zuan Jacomo Bembo, who had been inducted into the compagnia of the Ortolani, and at the festa there was a kind of armed scuffle between ser Nicolo Bondimier and one of the members.... After dinner ... their ladies went dancing ,,, and the party continued until the ninth hour ... and until later.... So our city rejoices and celebrates! And Monday there will be a festa at Ca' Foscari ... as well as a comedia. Then there will be another at Ca' Loredan ... with a fine comedia that will be performed in the courtyard by the members themselves. In sum, our city is triumphant. And a couple of betrothals also occurred this year. May God bless the city during this peace!"

All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

________________________________________________________________

The same day, in 1493 was the day that Hernando Colon wrote that his father had accurately predicted the distance his ships were that day from the south-westernmost Canary Island, Hierro. Colon and his men were sailing back to Castile on the first recorded transatlantic return from the Indies. They hadn't made it back yet. No one knew, yet of any discovery:

"... on February 9 the pilots thought they had reached a point south of the Azores. But the Admiral said that they were 150 leagues short of this, and this proved correct, for they were still meeting many strands of seaweed which they had not found on their way to the islands until they had gone 263 leagues west of the island of Hierro."

~from, The Life of the Admiral By His Son, Hernando Colon, ch 37...

They had left in the Nina and Pinta from Hispaniola on 16 January 1493 and both ships were taking on water. Admiral Columbus also seems to have been wrong about their source of the seaweed and their relative proximity to the Canary Islands, perhaps. Columbus himself kept a log but that first log has been lost. But it is likely his son had use of it and we use his book as source for certain particulars. We also have to be careful because it's quite possible the son embellished some things to protect the honor and prestige of his father who overall led a troubled life despite his long time notoriety.  Hernando Colon published the book about his father in 1571, nearly eighty years after the first voyage. That is another story.

But for now, Columbus hasn't returned from 'the Indies' and he is still in the mid-Atlantic and they have only been out just under three weeks. They still are sailing amidst lots of seaweed, in winter. And his two remaining boats were laden with artifacts - to show back home for proof of his discoveries - a good reason the boats could be taking on water...

quote from: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, 1969 and for The Penguin Group, London, p. 101

Sanudo Diaries: February 7,8, 1510, 1515

Aldo Manuzio, famous printer, publisher, died in 1515. In 1498 he had dedicated an edition of works of Poliziano, and later, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, and Propertius to Marin Sanudo. So when he died, Sanudo wrote a nice note of his passing and accomplishments and even funeral arrangements. [Editor's notes, pp 432-3]

Sanudo Diaries: February 8, 1515 (19:425); "Two days ago don Aldus Manutius the Roman died here in Venice; he was an excellent humanist and Greek scholar and was the son-in-law of the printer Andrea [Torresani] of Asolo. He produced very accurate editions of many Latin and Greek works with prefatory letters addressed to many, dedicating a number of little works to me, Marin Sanudo. He also wrote an excellent grammar. But now, after lying ill for many days, he is dead. Since he was tutor to the lords of Carpi and was made part of the Pio household, he ordered that his body be taken to Carpi for burial and that his wife and children go to live there, where those lords gave him some property. This morning, the body having been placed in the church of San Patrinian with books surrounding it, the funeral rites were held. An oration praising him was recited by Raphael Regio, public lecturer in humanita in this city. The body was then placed in storage until it can be taken away."

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Five years before and a day, Sanudo mentions some effects of cutbacks due to the war, which was then beginning its third year. It was winter and cold and often rainy. Carnival was a welcome distraction in any year but especially this one. Last year's carnival escapades were unusually poor and so this year people were ready for a good time. 

Editor's note: "The zuoba di la caza, the Thursday of the chase, was a central event in Venetian carnival celebrations. This ... ritual reenactment of a historical event that brought together all the strata of Venetian society ... referred to a twelfth-century rebellion led by the patriarch of Aquileia against the patriarch of Grado, a Venetian ecclesiastical puppet, in which it was said that twelve castellans of Friuli participated. According to the story, the miscreants were captured and condemned to death, but the pious intervention of the pope commuted their sentence to a perpetual annual tribute of three hundred loaves of bread plus twelve pigs and one bull. Therefore, the reenactment concerned the ritual public slaughter of the pigs and the bull (representing the castellans and the patriarch of Aquileia) after the bull had been chased through the streets. The entire city witnessed these events -- the doge, the Signoria, and guests from the balcony of the Ducal Palace and the populace from the Piazza. The doge further participated through a "formal" condemnation of the animals to such capital punishment, and councillors armed with sticks enacted a symbolic destruction of toy castles especially built for this purpose." [p. 518]

nedits: The editor's give a footnote to Muir's 1981 book  Civic Ritual In Renaissance Italy, so I will too:  Civic Ritual In Renaissance Italy, Edward Muir, Princeton University Press, 1981. [p. 572]

Sanudo Diaries: February 7, 1510 (9:516); "Today was February 7, the Thursday of the chase. I note that this year was unusual in that no pork treats were given to the patricians. This was because the pigs, which the castellans are obliged to donate, are not to be found in the Patria of Friuli. This is because of the wars that have taken place. Therefore, this good custom will be suspended."

Editor's footnote: "Sanudo uses the word zozolo, a cognate of the Friulian zozzul, meaning "little pieces of pork." These were distributed to senators after the annual pig chase in the Piazetta. The editors are grateful to Edward Muir for this definition...." [p.518]

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All quotes as Sanudo Diaries or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

stamps - get 'em while you can

I like stamps. I have since I was a kid. Today I heard  the US Postal Service is stopping Saturday deliveries in August. This seems sad to me. Of course it is unnecessary. The move is in response to budget cuts. 

The budget cuts happened because Congress forced the post service to restructure their pension plans and pay for them entirely up front rather than gradually over time as they have done in the past. Not that long ago, institutions like this could depend on pension plans to work. But finance and the credit markets failed and many of those plans and funds lost big time c. 2007-10 - and no one was sure any longer when the credit markets would come back with much certainty. Many of the details are here.

So it's not the post's fault they are in such straights. And yet they've always done a great job. They get doubly hammered by finance and Congress - who in turn can't or won't come up with their own budget, because they can't agree on the what-for or the how-much or the where does it come from.

Always liked the stamps. As a child we lived in rural West Virginia. The place was several miles out along a dirt road and turned out to be the end of this leg of our mailman's delivery route. He would drive the extra miles round trip to make sure we'd get our mail, even on Saturday in snowstorms or beautiful, still, spring or summer days. He would pull up in his personally owned,  2-ton truck, and put our mail in the mailbox, on the other side of the road, just below and to the west of the house. Then shutting the box door and pushing the little metal red painted flag on the right hand side of the box down - to alert to us he'd been there - he could bring his right hand back into the truck and shift his truck into reverse. Placing his arm as usual on the back of the seat glancing at the rear view mirror and then out the back window of his truck, he drove it backwards up the road he'd just come, back away from the house, as he did the day before and the days before that to the driveway forty yards from the house where he'd back in and turn around and then leave the way he'd come. 'The mailman came!' I would run out the front door, down the length of the porch, down the steps and across past the tree and down the concrete steps under an apple tree across the road, on days I expected mail. Recalling the memory now I remember the smell of the dust that would kick up because a vehicle, the mailman's truck had come and gone. The dust from the dirt road still lingers. I have no memory of the guy's name. Maybe he chewed sunflower seeds, or smoked cigarettes before that.  But he came from the outside world and then backed up on his way out leaving letters or maybe some little package. Sometimes he never made the trip at all if there was no mail. There was a box in the back of his truck with a sign that said US MAIL.

But, being ten, it was the stamps or the packages that might get sent that I was after. I realized even then that you didn't have to like something to do it every day.

So when I heard the news this morning about the loss of Saturday delivery, of course I remembered how it used to be and went looking for stamps. So this is about stamps and a little why I like 'em.

Little colorful windows on other places and times both visually, but also in a pragmatic way. They could also be the necessary ticket for a sent parcel. It worked both ways. It stood for what it did. Something very no-nonsense and non-virtual this dual concept seems to me now. A relic of a time before when things could actually stand for and be the thing they designated. Nowadays it seems there is always a temporal aspect to symbols of whatever kind. Their meaning changes or the name may change, subject to time and the market.

Different countries did it differently but many of the patterns are the same. For some time now, the US has used pictures of articles of american folk-art for its lowest denomination stamps.

'Tiffany Lamp', 'Navajo Necklace', 'Silver Coffeepot', 'Chippendale Chair' are used for the 1,2,3,4 cent stamps. 'American Toleware' and 'American Clock' are the five and ten cent stamps and have been used for years.

Higher or special value stamps of longer use often have photos or depictions of national parks, like Yosemite or Glacier National Parks. Every year there are state anniversaries depicted. Every dozen years or so there are full sets of state flag stamps. There are holiday stamps, social awareness stamps, flag forever stamps. But those are so common though they carry most of the traffic, the last 40+ years have increased the technology and color possibilities to the point that most anything can be depicted.

The set of Chinese Year stamps - the Ox, the Rabbit, the Dragon and the Snake - are great and very different from the old set. Last year's Cherry Blossom Anniversary gets a nice set. There are new stamps for the 150 year anniversary of the battle of New Orleans and Antietam of the american civil war. A very bold one announcing the 150 years since the emancipation proclamation. Baseball heroes, Latin singers, Industrial Design Markers, Pixar characters are new. Fruit, flowers, toys, even cartoons are recurrent and common around the world through the decades. Weather Vanes and Hawaiian shirts are new. Poets, filmmakers, even Miles Davis gets a set with Edith Piaf.

So buy some stamps. Even if they are old the price and their value usually goes up.

someone will want them eventually.