Thursday, August 11, 2016

Savonarola At Peak Of His Temporal Power, Could Find No Money

Plague and lack of grain, a few surprising skirmishes, all mixed with plenty of scandals, untimely bad news as well as misinformation had spread across Italy. In addition to the round of discussions revolving around the arrival of Maximillian Habsburg (with a smattering of forces) perched in the north of Italy in summer 1496, there were money problems and other related divisions tearing Florence apart. An ambassador from France, a Bishop from Aix came expecting Florence to send back money and, for Savonarola to help raise it. That Bishop complained bitterly that he could not get it.

Part of the resolution regarding the French leaving Florence in late 1494, involved payments to the French. These resulting consequences of the French agreeing to go on their way, were payments and promises of payments for the purpose of fending off or, more charitably, supplanting military action, and were called subventions. An army needed money to take Naples or Pisa, and keep it, or to go on offense against the Ottomans. But money in Florence, Savonarola knew, was sorely lacking.

New taxes and levies and even 'forced loans' on the people, for the benefit of the state had been in operation since the revolution. A new 'interest-free loan' against the Church had been passed by the Signoria on July 23, 1496. Of course it was controversial, and it was even against canon law. There were many who spoke out against it. But it seems even this extreme measure would not be enough. It was not enough to pay for troops to take back Pisa, it was not enough to offset the detruction of harvests by soldiers out in the field, it was not enough to offset disruptions brought on by the reoccurrence of plague that summer. It certainly would not be enough to keep the French happy, or get them to return.

Savonarola preaching again on August 20 (after a plague ban was lifted) declared himself neutral regarding the tax. He preached that the French would return to Italy acting as the hand of God, and that Pisa would be returned to its rightful owners since that was divinely ordained. He knew though that money was hard for everybody to get, that the Church needed its holdings, that the State needed coin and the French too. A tax would help the State temporarily and hurt the Church, a levy for subvention payment would hurt the City and not yet bring back the French to Italy. So, publicly he stated he could be neither for it or against it.

This very issue was prominently raised when the envoy from French King Charles VIII, the Bishop from Aix came calling. He asked Savonarola for his good work toward advancing the subvention payment for France. Savonarola reportedly said he didn't have that power. This was technically true but it was widely known that he could be very influential, especially from the pulpit. The Bishop was outraged. He apparently declared to the Signoria that he would proclaim Savonarola a hypocrite. And if he did that, the people would tear him and, perhaps Florence, to pieces. Then he stormed out. So certain that he was right, and no longer staying in a friendly country, he waited only long enough until he could be certain to find protection in escorting him out of the country and back to France. [p. 201]

Meanwhile envoys were being sent and recieved from Rome, Venice and Milan - the new Holy Alliance - to seek audience with Maximillian who camped near Lake Como. Florence engaged in this as well to see what he might do to return Pisa to them. Max instead required that Florence join his League of Allies against France. Neither would accomodate the other on these initial principles, so no further agreement could be broached.
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from Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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Ruling Catalonia At A Distance: Ferdinand's Solidifying Influence

Just as there were two monarchs in Spain, there were at least two Spains. The histories of Catalonia and Castile in the fifteenth century were quite different. Each had their separate internal bodies and groupings, practices and norms. Though the monarchy was 'shared' in the marriage between King and Queen, and though they certainly discussed things between them, and helped each other out on occasion, they dealt with their respective realms separately.

J.H. Elliott tells us there are two areas in particular that show how they divided tasks. One was in overseeing the age-old issues inherent in administering Catalonia, the domain of Ferdinand as King of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. The other was the exploration and exploitation of the newly discovered Americas for the primary benefit of Isabella's crown of Castile. So separate were their domains, Elliott laments the lost opportunity which might have done much for uniting Spain if both parts of Spain could have benefitted from that project. [p.79]

The history of Catalonia and Aragon was fraught with much division. As Catalonia and its crown grew rich looking east in the thirteenth century, the royals there expanded their influence. Most notably in Naples and Sicily. After the devastations and severe economic depression of the decades of the plague, and the chaos thereafter, the east coast of Spain had suffered dramatically. Problems in the cities caused the rich to turn their (often mercantile) profits into tracts of land out in the country. Big business diversified and charged rent, or ran banks. Various locally comprised groups gained special contracts or admissions from the King, in exchange for loans or favors. And there was often war between one group or another. The rich forcing their will on the poor or the artisans and guilders, in return, or aggressions taken on between the oligarchic groups and the monarchy leading to more concessions and discretions.

After decades of this turmoil, Ferdinand needed a secure local ally. In this he could not alienate the moderate forces in Catalonia. When approached they would be willing to enter into agreement with the king only if he were to grant renewal of accustomed traditions. In the famous agreement in 1481, Ferdinand agreed to limit his influence within constitutional bounds and accepted the 'pre-existing system in its entirety'. For this he was allowed to reinvigorate the older medieval lottery for the municipality of Barcelona and for the larger Generalitat, a council of regional leaders.

With these in mind, Elliott tells us, Ferdinand soon set out new agrarian guidelines, his chief reform of the region. These revoked certain older practices regarding peasants and their attachment to land.
"The remença peasant, who had been tied to the land, were freed; the 'six evil customs' exacted by the lords were abolished in return for monetary compensation; and while the lord remained legally the ultimate owner of the land, the peasant remained in effective possessions of it, and could leave it or dispose of it without obtaining the lord's consent."
This new Sentencia would become the commonplace law of the land for many centuries. What came from this Sentencia de Guadalupe in 1486, turned into a class of peasants who both contributed and benefitted from but also thereby created a much needed, cohesive stability for a war-torn region. [p. 81] Also, if the king or his officers infringed on any pre-existing group's area of concern, the Generalitat had the right to seek redress. This was the hands-off approach, and these loose reins were enough to establish the peace for awhile. As a result, of the thirty-seven years as King, Ferdinand spent maybe four in Catalonia. And this would cause problems in the future.

The distant King of Aragon would thus allow much of the local power to coalesce around viceroyalties of Catalonia, Valencia and Aragon and just as they had for centuries. Ferdinand also reestablished the Curia Regis a council of seven, and the Consejo Real another council which attended on the person of the King. This Consejo had its equivalent in the Castilian structure. This Counsel as well both stayed with the king and acted as interlocutors to the viceroyalties in the states. [p.83]

It is this basic structure that in no way differs from previous forms, that made the difference,  Elliott says, and kept the Crown of Aragon from devolving over time into a unitary state.
"Instead, it was more likely to evolve along the same lines as the medieval Aragonese empire - as a plurality of states loosely united beneath a common sovereign. In this crucial respect at least, Ferdinand's Aragon scored a significant victory over Isabella's Castile." [p. 84]
There was a three-tiered structure of government, like other European states: there were royals, there were seigneurials out in the country at the bottom, and there were those in the middle.
"At the top was royal power, the extent of which varied from one state to another according to the respective laws of each. At the bottom was seigneurial power - the rights of jurisdiction exercised by lords over their vassals, who comprised the mass of the rural population. In between these two lay a tier of autonomous rights which came within the preserve of the Prince but were exercised by privileged bodies, such as town councils, whose authority derived from charters and privileges conceded by the Crown." [p.84]
The two sovereigns, Elliott insists, did nothing to change this. There was a consolidation of royal power in Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella. But it was a selective sort of consolidation, improving the lots of certain bodies and offices that could best manage the affairs for the royals yet still remained within traditional bounds. Affairs in Castile were handled differently than in Catalonia, but Isabella's 'consolidation of existing traditions' seemed largely to fall within these bounds.
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J.H. Elliott: Imperial Spain 1469-1716 : Penguin, NY, 2002



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Thursday, August 4, 2016

big news late July/early August 2016

The day after the world learned of the carnage in Nice, there was an attempted coup in Turkey.

As if those dramatic events weren't enough, the reprisals and purges following that saw many more killings and jailings and sackings of generals and soldiers and judges and even teachers.

And two weeks later, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey is claiming the west is behind the coup and supporting its leaders.
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The two major parties in the US had their Presidential Nomination Conventions each lasting a week, over late July. This is an age old American tradition where delegates of political parties are supposed to vote to select their nominee. This year was full of contention at the Conventions. Police from all over the country pledged to protect the proceedings and banded together to stand against protesters in Cleveland. There were many arrests, little violence and widely panned as a spectacle with little substance but much pessimism.
Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, former Senator of New York, and still the wife of former President Bill Clinton, accept the Democratic Party's Nomination for President of the United States.
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US Airstrikes in Syria reportedly killed several scores of people there July 20. Doctors in Syria report that even the UN cannot regularly deliver milk to children because of the constant turbulence of the war.
US Airstrikes in Libya show a major escalation of US invovlvement in the conflict there.
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With so many other conflicts and problems all over, it's remarkable that the UN has pointed out the escalation of war in Ukraine.
The current scale of very recent attacks seems huge.
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This year is on track to break records again on the deaths of boat migrants heading to Europe.

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The long suppressed 28 pages from the US Congressional Report on the 9-11 attack in NY were finally released detailing what certain Saudi citizens knew.
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The newest virtual reality craze Pokemon Go has reached the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Who will watch the games?

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Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Perkin Warbeck: Ignominious Beginnings to August 3, 1495

Perkin Warbeck was a character on several levels. There appear people of any age who take hold of the stage, who somehow answer a question, or make a demand at the right time, and do it in such a way that the action resonates with a broader population. And they manage somehow to stay on that stage until right before they are made to fall off it. There were questions after the accession of Henry Tudor in England about the righteousness of his claim to the crown. Perkin Warbeck appeared at just the right time, and came to know so many of the right people. In this way, time and again Warbeck put Henry's efforts toward peace and trade into jeopardy. The actual threat, despite his resources and friends, at least in hindsight, seems a good deal more benign.

The threat was inherent in who Perkin Warbeck says he actually was. Understood at some point to be the remaining son of former King Edward IV by some, and therefore the rightful heir to his crown (instead of the current King Henry VII), Perkin began sending letters and touring Europe to greet the respective heads of various states.  J.D. Mackie tells us it was in Cork that he was 'discovered' or announced by the mayor there, as either Warwick the son of Clarence (who was himself the brother-in-law of the former king), or an illegitimate son of Richard III (Edward's younger brother), or the son of Edward himself. This last possibility, and which is the one that caught hold of the public imagination, was last heard of in The Tower of London in the years after Richard III was killed. The young man claimed in Cork (as early as October 1491) not to be Warwick, the Plantagenet son of George, Earl of Clarence, but this did not reduce speculation.

The alarming concern for England was that this meant a possible return to the already seemingly never-ending Wars of the Roses, which only lately were thought to have come at last to an end in the person of Henry VII. The young man had excellent bearing and manners and in the next couple years he toured various Houses abroad as a guest, such that the stories of his origin and purpose became the stuff of legend. A number of conspirators and other usurpers again and again would turn up and be punished, but this one would remain elusive until he was at long last captured (in 1497) and hung in November 1499.

There remained subjects of the Tudor King Henry who questioned his order despite prevailing trends. In the years after the deaths of Edward IV and Richard III there remained Yorkist support in Ireland. Their brother George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence and Earl of Warwick had died some years before, but his son Edward turned sixteen in 1491. Perhaps it was Yorkist sympathizers, as Mackie thinks, that proposed the idea of  positioning this young man as a suitable new Earl of Warwick.

After his capture, Warbeck is reported to have mentioned a John Taylor as one of his early supporters in Ireland. Mackie says there were Yorkists in England and France who wanted to overthrow Henry, citing the correspondence of John Taylor (in Rotuli Parliamentarum vi, 454). [n. 1, p.120] The young Warbeck was supported by both the Earls of Desmond and Kildare while in Ireland - and taught to speak English there.[p.119] He had apparently been raised in Tournai and knew only French. And a herald with this news was sent to James IV in Scotland who passed word on to Margaret in Burgundy. [p. 120]

A number of contemporaries, like the great historian Polydore Vergil assert the whole thing was set up in Burgundy. This is indeed where the young man would spend spend time after being welcomed and then turned out from the court of the young King Charles VIII, after the Treaty of Etaples. Somehow, between Ireland and France, however, Warbeck had become not the son of Warwick, but the son of Edward and saluted, says Mackie, by the French with honors due to a duke of York.
"It is just conceivable that Perkin was an illegitimate prince, fostered with decent folk in Tournai; but the great probability is that he was a conceited, ambitious youth with an engaging address, who became the tool of Yorkist malcontents and gained a European importance, because great princes sought eagerly for an instrument which would harass the Tudor king. His romance is an essay upon the uncertainties of Renaissance society, when new men were supplanting the old aristocracy, and when personal gifts would carry a bold adventurer very far." [p. 120]
Perkin was invited to France and probably spent most of 1492 there and during the 'Mad War' over Breton, and also turned up as a point in the negotiations which were finalised in the Treaty of Etaples. France and England would cease hostilities, France would gain Anne of Brittany and Breton and, France would promise not to help young Perkin Warbeck, also paying England a huge yearly sum.

From here Warbeck went to Holland and on to the court of Margaret of Burgundy. She was the last of her Plantagenet siblings and desperate by this time to find a way back into power or influence in England. It was she who had been married to Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and since his death, needed a way to either placate or control her enemies. She had accepted Charles' daughter Mary as her own and the inheritor of Burgundy, and with the help of French King Louis XI, married the girl to the young German Archduke of Austria Maximillian. When Perkin arrived Margaret sent word of this along to Max (effectively her fellow co-regent of Holland and Burgundy) and there were rumors in April 1493 that Perkin might be paired with Max's daughter Margaret.

In August 1493, Emperor Frederick III died. There was more than the usual pageantry that needed to be dealt with after the loss of such an aged ruler. Nevertheless his heir Maximillian invited the young Warbeck to the funeral proceedings. Perkin handled himself so well that Maximillian rode with him on his way back to Holland afterward and installed the young man in Antwerp with twenty archers as a guard. There Warbeck took the House of the English Merchant Adventurers and, putting up the sign of the White Rose of York antagonized the English merchants still there. [p.121] That summer, Henry had sent word asking Phillip (Max's son, Margaret's grandson) to quell some mercantile disturbances within Burgundy, but Phillip refused saying he could not interfere where Margaret still ruled. The enraged Henry cut trade ties with Holland and ordered the removal of the Merchant Adventurers from Antwerp to Calais.

Later that year, Perkin must have sent a letter to his 'cousins' Ferdinand and Isabella, the dual monarchs of Spain claiming he was indeed Richard Plantagenet, spared by the murderers of his brother. They (at least later) did not believe him. [p. 117] By spring of the following year, Maximillian was spreading the tale to Venice and Milan at least. Ideas on how having this young man could force Henry to attack France were born. When Maximillian told the Milanese ambassador about Perkin and his standing, they understood it was a man named Robert Clifford who had offered up the truth of Perkin's origin. But Clifford became instrumental over the next few months providing information and helping Henry VII expose other conspirators. [p.122] His is a different tale.

Trade in Holland and England suffered as a result of the embargoes. The Hansa profited in the vaccuum. There were uprisings in the steelyards that had to be put down by force. When Henry tried to settle with Max and Phillip, they set an embargo in May 1494 on English iron and wool. [p.125]

A year went by. Italy had been invaded by France. With French occupation of Naples affirmed, and the slow retreat of French northwards again,, the Italian states had begun closing in.  Max then decided this would be a good time to launch Perkin Warbeck against the English. In July, the not more than twenty-one year old Warbeck led fourteen ships to take England. Of those three that landed, most of those men were killed. Nearly eighty prisoners were captured by Sir John Peachey the sherriff of Kent, and these, harnessed in ropes, pulled carts to London where they were then hanged. Warbeck himself didn't go ashore and sailed on to Ireland.

Matters were at an upset in Ireland as well. Henry had sent forces under the command of Edward Poynings to put down the disturbances there. These had largely succeeded. When Warbeck approached southern Ireland by July 23 and made communications with his old ally the current Fitzgerald and Earl of Desmond, men were assembled on land and the town of Waterford was put to siege. The battle was joined in by the mayor and bailiffs of Dublin and lasted eleven days. Three of the marauding ships were taken, and on August 3, Perkin drew off and in time 'made his way to Scotland where he was well received'. [p. 132]
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quotes and pagination from J.D. Mackie: The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558 Oxford, UK 1957

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Thursday, July 28, 2016

Dual Crowns In Spain For Ferdinand and Isabella United Separate Entities

One of the reasons I've enjoyed J.H. Elliott's Imperial Spain 1469-1716 is its clear explication of Spanish spheres both internally and externally. In an era when the prevailing culture was self-described as being new (and is still called and thought of as such five-hundred years later), Elliott asserts that Spain did not follow those patterns. The joint but dual crown of Ferdinand and Isabella was different than what was previously known there, he says, but government institutions and the ways they handled themselves and circumstances remained remarkably consistent with what had happened before. In many ways, the means with which they could have handled new situations, were instead based on precedent and traditional methods. Elliott looks at both the external relations and, internally, under both crowns independently, to make his case.

Following chapters on the unification of the two newly unified crowns of Aragon and Castile, and another charting the advances of the reconquista in the later 1400's, Elliott begins his chapter on 'The Ordering of Spain' in this way.
"The late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are commonly described as the age of 'the new monarchies': an age in which such forceful monarchies as Henry VII in England and Louis XI of France consolidated the power of the crown and devoted their efforts to the creation of a unified and centralized State under royal control.... Yet in practice the Spain created by Ferdinand and Isabella diverged in so many respects from the theoretical model of the 'new monarchy', as to make it appear either that it must be entirely excluded from the European model, or alternatively that the model itself is at fault." [p. 77]
Contemporary with Elliott's treatment, J.D. Mackie's history of The Earliest Tudors shows Henry VII in England as being very careful not to appear too new, for his own reasons. Similarly, Ferdinand in Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia worked at maintaining the traditional modes of rule by consent of the governed while buttressing the old forms of royal authority. But so did Isabella in her way in her inherited lands. For them, a king was right to exercise his authority, to assert their dominance and to 'protect the weak' as well as 'humble the proud'. This was in line with both monarchs of Spain during their joint rule, keeping intact their intentions and ideals. These rights and privileges, Elliott notes, rarely carried over from King to Queen or vice versa, in more ways than name, from one set of states to the other's. This was in keeping with their hewing to the charters of their respective states and their outlook.

Elliott treats both of these differently and explains this by saying there was no movement between the two joint monarchs, in either royal person trying to legally appropriate each other's crowns.
"These rights, and the laws which guaranteed them, naturally varied considerably in Castile and Aragon, but the fact that the two Crowns were now united did not in any way imply their legal and constitutional systems should be brought into line." [p. 78]
Elliott cites their marriage contract, the coat of arms constructed for them, and Queen Isabella's will to show the limits of their dual crowns. He helpfully goes on to delineate both the status quo and the changes for Aragon and for Castile during their respective tenures, providing a rich flavor of the differences.
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J.H. Elliott: Imperial Spain 1469-1716 : Penguin, NY, 2002


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Wednesday, July 20, 2016

July Miscellany, 1496


In Florence, based on the effects of the Corbizzi scandal which began in May , and swelled into June, the Grand Council decided to reject pleas for clemency on the perpetrators. These were found guilty of conspiring to bring the forces of Piero de' Medici back into places of influence. Savonarola's sermon on June 17 was in favor of 'justice', in this case rejecting the pleas by the families and relatives of the Corbizzi. [p.198] This positive interpretation 'for justice', by implication, both condoned the acts of toture and forced confessions from captured witnesses by the state, and even the judgement upon Filippo Corbizzi and his many adherents to be sent into exile.

There had been calls for the refining of the Parlemento in Florence that summer. That great expansion of the representatives of Florence in Parlemento, following the revolution in the days of the French 'occupation', needed in time, some admitted modification. Even Savonarola agreed and then began demanding that unqualified men be purged from the rolls and new eligibility requirements be set.

There were economic troubles aplenty that year as well. In July, the Signoria proposed a new tax in the form of interest charged to churches for loans previously given by the state. It was against canon law but money was needed all over for everything that the church supplied. [p. 200]

from Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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In Forli, Caterina Sforza was repeatedly called on by a handsome thirty-year old member of the cadet branch of the de' Medici family, Giovanni di Pierfrancesco. A businessman with a civic agenda, he wanted to hire some of Caterina's well-trained troops to add to those of Florence and her allies who were looking to take back Pisa. Her economic problems began to fade as he plied her with gifts and various resolutions to debts. They both were educated and knew about the problems of leadership, its responsibilities and tragedies. There was much to talk about. Elizabeth Lev in her sharp biography of Caterina says that political observers sensed that "... his real motive was to lure the countess of Forli to the side of Florence and France in the latest arrangement of Italian political divisions."

Her uncle after all, was the Duke Ludovico Sforza in Milan, who had to keep up appearances with his allies the pope and Venice for a bit longer. But in the summer this alliance was to fray beyond repair.

from pp. 194-5; 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
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Forces from Venice, recruits from Genoa, Corsica, Umbria and elsewhere had assembled with Pisan forces near Vicopisano and driven out Florentine cavalry. As Venetian historian Pietro Bembo later tells it,
"... the people of Pisa were suffering from lack of supplies owing to the time of year, and conveyed this to the senators [in Venice]. The Senate immediately sent a transfer of money to their agent in Genoa and told him to buy grain and send it to Pisa. He carried out the Senate's orders with all speed, and revived the city's spirits by easing the food supply." [ii,46]
The Senate also sent, Bembo says, an army of 500 stradiots to Pisa under the command of Giustiniano Morosini. These left in mid July.

from Pietro Bembo: History of Venice; edited and translated by Robert W Ulery, Jr.; in english and latin, The I Tatti Renaissance Library; The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2007
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It was in July as well that the pope appointed a special ambassador known as a legate a latere and had talks to discuss how to convince Emperor Maximillian for his support in protecting Pisa and Italy. This consistory extended into August  and was a major move in rapprochment and against tradition by both men. Meanwhile Maximillian had crossed the Alps with his train of attendants who then waited at Lake Como as ambassadors came to greet him and seek an audience with him.

Everyone seemed concerned about the events in Italy. Henry VII in far-off England even agreed to join the alliance with Venice and Milan and the pope. But Henry had grown more concerned about a usurper named Perkin Warbeck that styled himself as the Duke of York. He had been making friends all over Europe and by summer was said to be marshalling forces in Scotland. King Ferdinand of Aragon sent his able ambassador Pedro de Ayala as an aid to Henry to discuss this with James IV in Scotland and convince him to join forces against the French. Perkin Warbeck was an interesting character but just one of many usurpers against Henry Tudor. John Cabot left to explore west and 'investigate, claim and possess lands' beyond that ocean this summer, as well. Here's the 'patent' that Henry VII gave him in March..

from J.D. Mackie: The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558 ; Oxford, UK 1957
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Columbus stayed in Seville the summer after his second voyage west. Hugh Thomas tells us there were too many other activities that occupied the King and Queen. Columbus also learned that Alfonso Fernandez de Lugo had finished capturing Tenerife the largest of the Canary Islands. De Lugo was also granted a parade to show off his capture in Almazán where the monarchs were staying. Word had also circulated that Bishop Fonseca's fleet left for the Caribbean 16 June on a mission that Admiral Columbus had not been consulted on. Columbus may have even spent time that year reading books, like the newly produced Travels of Marco Polo.

Thomas, Hugh: Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire ; Penguin/ Random House, UK; 2003
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Friday, July 15, 2016

news in media mid 2016

Yesterday was Bastille Day and Paris has brought out the bombastic spectacles.
But before the sun went down a terrorist drove a truck filled with explsoives along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. So far 84 people have been killed and 50 injured.
From an ID card found in the cab of the truck, they've determined the driver was French.

_________________________________________________________ In an unrelated event, a massive explosion blew up 38 oil tankers in New Mexico.

_________________________________________________________ Last week was especially tense in the US. A couple cases where civilians were killed by police in Louisiana and Minnesota (on 5,6 July) set off protests across the country. This cartoon is based on a photo where a woman is approached by heavily armed police. This depiction instead shows a wiser Uncle Sam character doing what would be just rather than what happened. She was arrested and later released as has become the norm in most of these protester apprehensions. One such protest in Dallas (on the 7th) was almost over and an ex-marine sniper began shooting at police. Five police were killed as well as a civilian protecting her kids. Seven more try to heal their wounds. The shooter was cornered by law enforcement in a parking garage, and after trying to talk him down, police sent in a robot that detonated and killed the man. He had purchased his weapon of choice (an AK-47) after answering an ad on facebook and paying cash for it in a parking lot at a nearby Target store. On the following Tuesday, the official memorial for the slain police drew Senators, and presidents Bush, Obama and vice president Biden and their wives. The Dallas Chief of Police, sad at the loss but proud of his department, beautifully gave his sentiments by quoting at length the Stevie Wonder song "As". _________________________________________________________ There were also major protests in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca. Protesters in the streets up in arms over the loss of life by police were themselves killed. ________________________________________________________ The end of June was full of the news from Britain that a voter referendum nicknamed "Brexit" would send the world and especially the EU and the UK into economic chaos. It was Britain on 23 June, not Scotland or Northern Ireland that voted for the UK to leave the European Union. The vote had been set up by Prime Minister David Cameron who thought it would unify the various parties in the UK. But when the tallies came in, the next day Cameron resigned and, as finances there and abroad scrambled to come to grips with the shocking news, a number of other party leaders (both for and against the 'Brexit') began falling out in the eyes of the public. The new Prime Minister Theresa May promises to carry out the will of the people and yesterday had begun filling the offices of her cabinet. The actual Article 50 which would trigger the actual removal of the UK from the EU has yet to be invoked. But the government and businesses across the world are beginning to cut and refashion trade ties. Ranging from the cat at 10 Downing Street in London, to the careers of many of the central players, this speech by Jeremy Corbyn is considered a newsworthy topic again. There are many several other noteworthy news items. Air attacks in Yemen, terrorist bombings again and again in Turkey, and in Medina, Saudi Arabia. In the run up to the EU ref vote in England, the British MP Jo Cox was killed on June 15th. There were terrorist attacks as well. The tensions over the South China Sea have intensified. Fears over the beginning of the Olympics this year in Rio de Janeiro have been a constant this season as well. Another bad summer for the news.
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Thursday, July 14, 2016

Florentine Portrait From Weinstein's "Savonarola", I

Getting a realistic picture of Florence in the age of Italian Renaissance is difficult as the subject has been treated for centuries with layers of nearly hagiographic features. Despite numerous revolutions, assassinations, more than a few wars, and much internal conflict among families and between classes, the city's reputation still retains a glow of freshness, virtue and even sanctity. In Donald Weinstein's modern, clear-eyed account of that city's famous Friar Savonarola the environment feels much more inhabited, even seething, and very uncertain.
"A fifteenth century traveler entered Florence through one of its massive gates, made his way through noisy, malodorous streets walled in by multistoried houses with overhanging roofs and teeming with people of every class and calling: gentlemen in doublet and hose, silk-gowned ladies with retinues of servants and exotic slaves, long-robed, sandaled clerics, grimy laborers, beggars, hawkers, cutpurses, flesh peddlers, and gangs of rowdy youths. Passing shops, street corner tabernacles, churches, and formal residential doorways, he soon entered the city's monumental center. In just twenty or thirty minutes the visitor would have retraced in the city's dense fabric more than two centuries of history, from medieval provincial town to proud Renaissance capital of near-mythic fame."
But, Weinstein cautions us, that myth was 'consciously cultivated'. It was contemporaries that called it a new Athens, and the 'Daughter of Rome'. Adorned were the churches, palazzi and public buildings. The many building projects of several decades and centuries had brought variety and beauty to so many parts.
"Graceful spires and towers, white and green marble church facades, beige-toned palaces with graceful loggias, all presided over by Brunelleschi's brick-red, white ribbed cathedral dome - largest in Christendom - tipped with Verrocchio's golden orb." [p. 42]
The proud self image was also found on public inscriptions, in its beautiful church frescoes, even in written tracts sold on street corners. Florence was always taking the opportunity to proclaim how victorious they would be, how close to God she was and how rich. The city and its people had been busy.
"Cheap woolen cloth made up the bulk of its early industrial production, but by the thirteenth century Florence was also exporting fine woolens, silks, leather, paper, soap, glass, and objects crafted from wrought iron, gold, and silver. Florentine merchants were establishing trading networks throughout Italy, the Mediterranean, France and northern Europe. With their accumulated capital they doubled as bankers, branching out into exchange and lending operations in domestic and foreign financial markets. By the end of the thirteenth century they had become the principal money men of the papacy and had a near monopoly as collectors of church revenues as far afield as England." [p. 43]
These incomes would help attract the greatest artists of the day, like Giotto, in order to craft and erect the iconic Campanile. There was also the Palazzo Vecchio just down the street which was also redone in the fourteenth century. Since those high times, the decades of plague tore apart the economic ties within and outside the city. Wages, prices, the accessibility of labor or goods, or the payment of debts continued to violently fluctuate and hang irresolvably. For centuries the tight bond between Florentine bankers and the many needs of Rome, were maintained. There were heated interruptions, now and then, but in a time of such scarcity, the money from Florence had become very important. [p.49]
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quotes and pagination in Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011

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Saturday, June 18, 2016

Venetian Captains In The Italian Wars: Bernardo Contarini, pt 2

As with Antonio Grimani, Pietro Bembo highlighted the exploits of a few captains in Venice's role as ally in helping expel the French from Italy. Another of these captains was Bernardo Contarini. Once put in charge of troops, he always seemed to be ready to engage in conflict and still fulfill his duties. Sent to aid Naples, her present king, as well as numerous towns, from Faenza to San Severo, he drove the French to Tela, where, for example, after a large contingent were put under siege by Contarini and his forces, surrendered and left. The French remaining had given up for lack of pay. Contarini himself died of a fever a few days later after the terms were agreed and signed.

After the siege at Novara was over and his army called off, the council in Venice intended to answer a request from the pope to help protect the King in Naples. However, because of a delay that the sometimes dubious Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan had requested, they were told to wait and did so in the north of Italy into 1496. Upon word from Faenza that its exiles had been attacking the city and that they needed Venetian protection, as a result of the general mayhem that the war had engendered, with his army nearby, Contarini swung into action. It was December, 1495.
"... the Senate decreed that they would take the city of Faenza and its young lord under their protection, and that they would send a Venetian citizen there to govern in the child's name. The boy himself was to have 100 heavy cavalry, and 80 gold pounds a year for their pay. Before the decree was passed, however, the exiles invaded the territory of Faenza with the aid of the Florentines, but were routed and put to flight by Bernardo Contarini, now arrived at Ravenna." [iii,19]
When the army, now with 700 cavalry and 3000 infantry were readied to head south, Contarini was put in charge of it, and as long as the war lasted, Bembo says. [iii,20] By the time he and his army reached Sessa Aurunca, Contarini had captured four towns held by the French. Again, at Gallucio, north of Naples, he fought bravely, killing many and putting the rest to flight. North of Benevento, at Fragneto Monforte where more French had holed up, Conatrini struck again.This time he sent a few out in front to lure the French out. It was an ambush and many French were killed, captured and put to flight. [iii, 28] Troops sent to give relief to French at San Severo were caught and half of them killed, again by Contarini and his men. [iii,29]

Later, the King Ferradino of Naples had decided to await German forces heading south to aid him rather than pursuing the French locally. Contarini found himself having to convince the King to let him give chase to those French troops laying siege to  'Folia'. Our editor here, Robert W Ulery, says we don't know where that is and suggests instead Foggia. When Contarini was allowed to go out he broke up the siege and, again forced the remaining French to flee. Where the French had barricaded themselves in Vallata, Contarini surrounded it and forced them out and then sacked the place.[iii, 30]

The large army that remained near San Severo, again, Contarini broke it up, killing soldiers, cavalry and capturing 90 more. [iii,31] Another last position of the French was at Tela, also not clearly identified. But Contarini had the same effect. [iii,33]

After a long siege, it was on July 20 that terms were signed by the French who were escorted out with the Venetian forces having occupied the area. Three days later, Bembo tells us, in the grip of a fever contracted somewhere, he died.
"The Senate later gave his mother an annual grant of a gold pound to live on, and to one of his sisters 20 pounds as dowry, to the other 3 pounds to enter a convent." [iii,36]

This must have seemed a large reward then seeing how great a service he had made.  Years later, in August 1516, Sebastiano Giustiniani the Venetian ambassador sent to Henry VIII, would write to tell him of the exploits of Contarini in the Italian Wars,
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from Pietro Bembo: History of Venice; edited and translated by Robert W Ulery, Jr.; in english and latin, The I Tatti Renaissance Library; The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2007

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brief summer snapshot of Lucrezia and the Borgia youth, in Rome, 1496

Lucrezia Borgia was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI. She was born in April 1480, so, in the summer of 1496, she was sixteen years old. Already contractually married (in 1493), to Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro, she had spent May 1494 to June 1495 with her husband there in Pesaro, avoiding the Italian Wars. In the time she spent there, Giovanni's importance to the Borgia court dwindled. A cousin to the powerful Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, it was thought the Vatican needed such an alliance with the powerful family ruling Milan and its Duke Ludovico.

As the war wore on the influence of Giovanni Sforza was seen as diminished. The Duke and the Cardinal Sforza were their own force that seemed impossible to penetrate or predict. As things went badly for the French, they went badly for the Duke. By the time forces were marshalling on either side of the Taro, before Fornovo, Giovanni's young wife Lucezia, then fifteen, had returned home to Rome and the Borgia court of Alexander VI. Giovanni would also come to Rome by 1496 and the couple would move into a palace at Santa Maria In Portico, near the Vatican.

There, returned from the less interesting country-living, Lucrezia seems, by all accounts, to have come into her own sense of self. There were her brothers and sisters to tend to and they were all their own personalities. The fact that her famous father Roderic Borgia, as pope, had so many children, and by different women, struck the whole Christian world as very strange. The fact that he doted on them so lavishly was not so bad, but he often promoted them too, to places often far above the regular course. But this pope seemed to dispense with the idea of humility itself and loved to spread the wealth that came to him, because of his power, to his friends and especially amongst his children. And he did this in a way that extended precedents in several fields.

Lucrezia's brother Cesare, by summer, already a Cardinal and not twenty years old, had a section in the Vatican above the pope's chambers where he took up his residence. But the party of the season in May 1496 was the home-coming, not of Lucrezia, but of her brother Gioffre and his wife Sancia, daughter of Alfonso of Aragon, now King of Sicily. With Lucrezia at sixteen and Sancia at eighteen, the two girls would become fast friends and live out a glorious summer at the head of a train of pageantry, in complete safety and security at the Vatican. When the couple came to Rome, the proud papa made sure the youth could see thesmselves and be seen in splendour. Hibbert tells us the couple arrived at the gate of San Giovanni in Laterano and, helpfully, gives us a quote from the master of ceremonies to the popes, Johann Burchard.
"The captain of the militia went to meet them with some 200 of his men-at-arms and the households and servants of all the cardinals, except for those of the prelates of the Pope, were also there to receive them."
This captain was none other than the nineteen (or twenty) year old brother, Giovanni Borgia.
"All the cardinals had been invited that morning, by the couriers of the Pope acting in the name of the Cardinal Valence, to send their chaplains and squires, but not their prelates, to receive his brother Jofre on his entry into the city. All acceded to this request. "
Thus, not the administrative or office holding members of the Church, but their often more youthful servants, attendants and squires.
"Lucrezia Sforza, daughter of His Holiness and wife of the illustrious Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, also went to the said gate to meet Don Jofre, her brother. She was accompanied by some twenty ladies and preceded by two pages on horseback wearing capes. One of the horses was covered in a magnificent cloth-of-gold caparison; the other in a caparison of red velvet. Lucrezia received Don Jofre and his wife with affection." [p.94]
Hibbert tells us the train back to the Vatican had thirty mules loaded with luggage. They went past the Colosseum, the Campo dei Fiori, and the bridge past the Castel Sant' Angello. When they arrived, Hibbert also tells us the Mantuan ambassador thought that Lucrezia's beauty far surpassed that of the Spanish daughter Sancia of Naples. Her father had been King Alfonso II, but for only the brief period of the war, and had fled in late 1495 to Sicily. He died at Messina trying to both return to and escape from danger just over six months before. It was now her half-brother that was called King of Naples. He too would die before that year's fall had come.

In any event, the Mantuan ambassador, Hibbert tells us, reported that Sancia's ladies-in-waiting were 'a fine crop' that year, and Sancia herself 'had glancing eyes and an aquiline nose'. Giovanni had business to attend to in Spain that year. Gioffre found other amusements in Rome, apparently. There would be another party that year in August when Giovanni Duke of Gandia returned. But this was a summer where Lucrezia and Sancia were seen all over town. And Cesare had apparently taken a liking to Sancia, his younger brother Gioffre's wife.
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disentangled from Hibbert, Christopher: The Borgia's and their enemies: 1431-1519; Harcourt, Inc., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; US, 2008

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Friday, June 17, 2016

picture book june 2016

Again, the news is predictably terrible. The constantly brutal assault of terror, tragedy and timid responses, dulls the senses. So rather than doing the same, I gathered a few interesting pictures and videos that might instead spur imagination.
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 Yesterday was Bloomsday, celebrated all over the world, but especially in Dublin.

Coloring books have started trending. Here's one that looks interesting.


An odd relic is the Voynich Manuscript. It's written in no known language. Some think it may be a copy of an ancient herbal medicine book. Scholars remain divided.

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Here's a video of the length of the Suez Canal from space.
It turns out that a dagger found with Ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamen is made of a meteorite. Not of this world.
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Too late to rock the casbah?

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French labor protests bring thousands into the streets.
Paris on June 14.
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Springtime Monet.
This one's by Dmitry Levin.
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Thursday, June 16, 2016

Treaty of Tordesillas: Elements of World Governance; April- June, 1494

It was on the 9th of June that the Treaty of Tordesillas was concluded. This was the agreement between Portugal and Spain which resulted in the particion del mar which ruled the Atlantic Ocean in the subsequent 'Age of Exploration' and which lasted nearly 100 years. The idea of splitting up the western sea between sovereign states was new, so it was bound to be a bit clumsy and unworkable. The sovereigns had different motivations. Portugal still had its sights on the far east and the route around Africa while Spain had placed its hope in the western territories that Columbus was then currently lost in. The conclusion seemed to favor Portugal as they had gained some 270 leagues west of the 1493 agreement, but Greater Spain would make more of their portion.

The agreement itself came at the end of a month of negotiations held at the convent of Santa Clara in Tordesillas just fifteen miles from Medina del Campo, where Isabel preferred to reside in the spring. The houses in which the matter was drawn up, Casas del Tratado, still stand there. A great number of expert witnesses and diplomats had come from Portugal that year, so many that it seemed they would win the day. Spain was mostly represented by the King and Queen themselves, and a number of administrators with little to no experience of the seas. Hugh Thomas helpfully lists them.
"Enrique Enriquez, mayordomo of the court, uncle of the King... an aristocrat without knowledge of any sea [but] correspondent of his consuego [his father-in-law], Alexander Borgia [current Pope Alexander VI]. There was Gutierre de Cardenas, the chief accountant, the long-standing courtier who had introduced Ferdinand  to Isabel in 1474 and had made money, especially in the Canaries from the import of the lichen orchil...".[p. 162]
But Thomas says his knowledge of marine matters 'probably didn't stretch from Cadiz to the Gran Canaria'.  There were several people after all who witnessed or took part in these negotiations. Another, Rodrigo Maldonado de Talavera, was a lawyer of the 'Council of the Realm'. The three geographers present - Pedro de Leon, Fernando de Torres and Fernando Gamarro - Thomas lists, but gives no credentials more than calling them comendadores. One other, Juame Ferrer, known to Thomas as a fan of Columbus (likening the discovery of the America's with that of the fabled St Thomas 'discovering' India), was, himself, a Catalan cartographer who may have been there, according to Cardinal Mendoza. They could have chosen Antonio de Torres who was in Castile, but did not. [p. 163] Though, according to Peter Martyr, Torres himself had journeyed and had been received at court  (then at Medina del Campo) by April 3. [p.161]

Sometime In April, the courtiers from Portugal had begun to arrive, essentially outnumbering the Spanish in terms of being actual holders of real information. The Portuguese contingent was more seasoned, with many captains and investors. These were men that were involved who, possibly knew already of Brazil, and even possibly (via Bartolomeu Diaz), the route south around Africa, and on to the far east. The Portuguese, Thomas tells us, wanted to sail their ships south in a broad arc and avoid the winds of the African coast. The Spanish advisors worried that the Portuguese were sending a fleet to the Indies. The Portuguese indeed wanted this and wanted room to do so, going south. Thereby increasing the amount of Brazilian coast they could land on - the line was moved  to 370 leagues west of the Canaries, that year - would greatly benefit their endeavors. [pp.163-4]

After all, one of them was the experienced Ruy de Sousa de Sagres. Sailor, diplomat,he was also a confidante of Portuguese King João. Thomas said he'd commanded a fleet that sailed to the Congo and brought a declaration of war, once, on behalf of Alfonso V, in 1475 to Queen Isabel. He came with his own son and three other memebers of the Portuguese royal council. In addition there were four more, each with their own knowledge of the southern Atlantic.
"... Estavão Vaz, a asecretary to João II who had endeared himself to the Spanish monarchs by taking a cargo of gunpowder to assist them in the siege of Malago. Later he had been in Castile as an ambassador charged to tidy up the affairs of the Duke of Braganza after the latter's execution in Lisbon as a traitor."
"Duarte Pacheco, a famous sailor and cartographer, who had been to Guinea and would in his book Esmeraldo Situ Orbis (to appear ten years later), make a major contribution to the geography of Africa;  Rui de Leme, who had been brought up in Madeira and whose father Antonio de Leme, had been one of those said to have discussed the Atlantic with Columbus in the 1470's; João Soares de Sigueira...". [p. 162]
An agreement was reached on the 7th of June. The year before an agreement had been reached which primarily finalized the agreement over the Canary Islands, the Azores and the further west. This came in the form of a bull Inter Caetera issued by Pope Alexander VI in May 1493. This split the Atlantic into halves in a line 100 leagues west of the Canaries. The Treaty in 1494 moved this line west. But the bull in 1493 had been followed in July, from the authorizing office of the Holy See, for one Fray Boil to go on Columbus' second voyage. He had been appointed to oversee the missionary efforts among locals in the new world and gave him sole authorization to found churches. [pp. 131-40]

It was then three years later, also in June (on the 11th, in 1496) that Columbus at last returned from that second voyage and reached Cadiz. [p. 185] But he found Spain much changed in regards to him. Much had happened in Spain since his departure in September 1493.
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quotes and pagination from: Thomas, Hugh: Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire ; Penguin/ Random House, UK; 2003

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Thursday, June 9, 2016

Savonarola Has A Vision In A Busy Spring 1496

Springtime in Florence saw Girolama Savonarola keeping very busy. He had continued preaching despite Pope Alexander VI telling him not to. He had set up and maintained a number of projects, including those with the faniculli, with the City, and there were also his books. In a series of sermons, in April and May, he spoke of visions and prophecies, scripture and practical matters. He had foretold the French would return, and Pisa too. These and more would remain unfulfilled in his life.

Of course there were those who said it would be a mistake if the French returned. Others said it would be a mistake if Pisa fell into the hands of Milan or Venice. It was springtime with all its activity and feverish seasonal swells when Savonarola said he had had a vision. In it he said he saw a simple cross on a hill that spouted a fountain of blood which flowed into a river. Every Moor and pagan saw the red cross that had formed on their foreheads of blood. They threw off their clothes and began running to the river to drink of it which made them, Weinstein tells us, 'gentle and sweet, beautiful as angels'. There were red crosses on the foreheads of Christians, too, but many of them turned away and tried to hide their mark. Many ran away finding discarded clothing or hats to cover the mark of the cross. Even lances, swords, plagues and bombards, could not deter them. They ran to their fortresses and armed themselves instead of showing their mark of the cross. These were cut down. There were some, though, in Savonarola's vision who went to the river and drank, and some of these were Florentines. And these were saved and emerged as angels. [p. 191]

Churning the waters of discontent, the Council of Eight decided that there should be a two-month break from unlicensed sermonizing, because, they said, of the recurrence of plague in the city. By April 10, Savonarola seemed to accept this while pointing out there had not been any reports of the plague in his church, since it seemed to him that the sword of God had righteously spared them. By April 17, he had changed venue and preached again, this time at the San Domenico convent in nearby Prato. There were refugees that were there, displaced by the problems in Pisa and who came to listen. Savonarola again preached that there would be trials and tribulations followed by blessings, gaining more adherents. Legend has it he went on for over three hours. [p.193]

The following week he was fetched from Prato by a couple on the Council. There would be a vote the next day and they wanted his presence. Savonarola returned. On the day of the vote, two men were apprehended spreading lists of names of candidates to be favored in the vote which would slim and thereby influence the effective governing council. These two men were tortured in jail to give up their leaders. One of these was found to be the former Gonfalonier of Justice Filippo Corbizzi, the head of the Arrabbiati, the sworn enemies of the Friar. Some two-hundred citizens were found to be complicit, full of anti-Savonarolan and anti- Bigi (pro-Medici) conspirators. The ringleaders were rounded up, the sentences handed down and they were given life imprisonment. The rest were pardoned. A new vote was scheduled. And a new Standard Bearer of Justice was elected that would look favorably on the Friar and his activities for the next two months. [p. 194]

By May 8, he had returned, preaching in the Cathedral, defiantly.
"Well, we're still here; we haven't run away. By now they should be content with all the lies they've told. They say we've carried off a lot of money. Too bad for you, Florentines; you didn't know how to catch me!"
He admitted that he felt he must counter his critics and detractors. He knew preaching was his best defense and would be to his benefit. He turned to the books of Ruth and Micah to continue to make his case.[p.196]

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quotes and pagination in Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Sifting, Modern Devotion: Basic Writings, Introduction by John Van Engen

In simple, crisp declarations John Van Engen presents in his introduction a multi-dimensional picture of just what a 'modern devotion' was understood to be for its practitioners and contemporaries in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

There was a record, written after the fact, in such a place as Groenendael, in modern day Belgium, south of Brussels. There was a record of people meeting other people in houses founded for such a modern devotion. People such as Geert Grote who was considered a founder of these houses and meeting places (in the 1380's in Deventer), as well as the 'Flemish mystic' John of Ruusbroec. People like Pomerius who wrote down when and where and who, enabling us to know (at this far remove) just who and where and when. The house at Groenendael started in 1412 and the records of that had the effect, then, of stating the emergence of a 'modern devotion' that stretched over a generation and over 100 miles.

By this second generation from their founding, Van Engen tells us, there was another contemporary, Thomas a Kempis who wrote (~1420) as well about the growth and spread and practices of this 'modern devotion'. His is the name that is commonly attributed as the most known and influential of the modern devotion adherents. As much of his attributed and highly influential Imitation of Christ is a collection of sayings, rebukes and remonstrances, this form was one that grew (Ven Engen says 'incubated') in these houses of 'modern devotion'. A generation later, by 1460, a John Busch was remembered writing the history of the house of Windesheim and its leaders and practitioners. By the late 1490's, another chronicler was writing of the life of Henry Ryck in Euskirchen.

The simple name 'modern devotion' however, has caused centuries of consternation, various interpretations and particularizing explanations. Van Engen gives a quick and helpful overview. They did collect sayings like that of Thomas a Kempis'  Imitation of Christ, they did spread out over space and time, and they did pray a lot and study scripture and perform all sorts of community-minded charity works. But these activities and trends don't distinguish these houses as being much different or new as compared with canonical or medieval church and monastic practices. This is part of the problem in understanding who they were or 'what they stood for'. They clearly didn't see that what they were doing was new, but liked the idea of calling this method 'modern', since they did so very early on.

Van Engen explains that scholars are currently, mostly, in agreement that this modern devotion was, in some ways, somewhere between the traditional medieval monastic practices and those bourgeoning renaissance or reformation ideas.
"The relationship between this devotional movement and the later Reforms was, however, rarely a direct one. It would be far better to think in terms of common problems or issues, surfacing ever more obviously in the medieval Church from the late fourteenth century onward, to which each of these movements, and others as well, offered varying responses." [p. 10]

He goes on to conclude that their focus would remain on what was the best and holy life, and how to achieve that, and certainly, the place of education in a clerical and Christian life, and, worked toward allowing freer organization of volunteers with a common religious purpose. This may make them look like humanists, but for Van Engen, "... the brothers and sisters should be read for themselves and not with an eye on later developments." They were looking to sort out their problems and issues within the times of the late medieval Church and its European societal context.
"The aim of this book is to introduce the spirituality of the Modern Devout by translating several of their representative texts.... I make no claim to offer a new interpretive analysis.... Far too much has already been said about the Modern Devotion without sufficient knowledge of its basic texts...". [p.11]
The introduction here, Van Engen simply states, is to provide historical description of the movement, give a summary of key terms and spiritual teachings, and 'specific introductions' to texts chosen in translation. A number of Van Engen's summaries for key terms, called the 'spiritual teachings' of the devotio moderna, are interesting in themselves. As are a number of the sayings and lives he has collected here.

But in conclusion, Van Engen posits that this group of modern devout didn't see themselves as new or different. Their contemporaries noticed them because of their freely associating groups of both lay and clerical, women and men, young and old in all sorts of activities, and, as well, for their 'ardent intensity' in religious devotion. This in itself was not objectionable, just almost out of place in the late medieval period. [p.34]

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from the introduction of John Van Engen: Devotio Moderna, Basic Writings ; Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press, New York, 1988
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news: early summer 2016

The major news in the US today. _________________________________________________________ Meanwhile there was another major bombing in Istanbul yesterday. ______________________________________________________ Waters in Paris and northern France are dropping but floods remain in Belgium today after weeks of torrential rains. ______________________________________________________ Children are farming tobacco in Indonesia.
Tallies continue to mount of minors escaping to the US, fleeing a life of violence in Central America. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson returns from talks in Tegucigalpa.
In a terrible spike of hopeless loss, the number of deaths among refugees to Europe has increased dramatically. _________________________________________________________ Loss of American icon Muhammad Ali felt all over the world. _________________________________________________________ After some successes in combatting Daesh in Syria, the Russian army is denying that they are building a base there.

But they are also building a base on their border with Ukraine. _________________________________________________________ Kenya continues its fighting of the forces of al Shabaab. _________________________________________________________ An NPR photo-journalist David Gilkey was killed in Afghanistan this week.
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Thursday, June 2, 2016

Savonarola Was Once New, Weinstein Explains In A Prologue

Briefly, and to the point, Donald Weinstein makes a bold but, for this reader, a clear-thinking appraisal of the times of Friar Girolamo Savonarola, in the prologue to his bio of this famous Florentine preacher. It was the Renaissance in Italy and humanism had been spreading, exciting imaginations and actions, for something near a hundred years. There was going to be pushback and reactions.
"Religious conservatives worried that the rising tide of classical culture was drowning Christian morals and values in a sea of "paganism" and blamed it for everything from the clergy's fixation on money and power to the spread of sexual license. With little comprehension of such historical realities as the rise of an entrepreneurial economy, the demographic catastrophe of the Black Death, and the spread of secular culture, they applied simplistic moral dichotomies -- greed vs. charity, ambition vs. humility, luxury vs. austerity, piety vs. worldliness -- and called for a return to a "primitive Christianity" every bit as idealized as the classical antiquity of the humanists."
At an early peak of criticism in the intellectual crisis brought on by such self-reflection, a Dominican Giovanni Dominici, publicly attacked such 'classicism'. As Weinstein tells us, Dominici charged,
"... they were perverting Christian youth by replacing the authority of the saints with that of the ancients. Dominici was no obscurantist but a sophisticated Thomist theologian, and he made his argument on a philosophical level, challenging humanist assumptions about the primacy of will over reason and questioning the rhetoricians' faith in the correspondence between words and things." [p. 5]
The humanists, like Coluccio Salutati, Weinstein tells us, gave an answer that placed primacy on language, on communication as central to all the faiths, religion, and spirituality. Weinstein again says it very clearly.
"All knowledge, including studia divinitatis, begins with communication, Salutati memorably declared, and his thesis was elaborated by his successors into a humanist credo: language is the link to reality, the basis of human community and the connection between past and present. Through language, therefore, we draw both upon our own knowledge of the world and upon the experience of all mankind and gain the information we need to make decisions and to act. Thus the study of language is central to all of human life, to religion as well as to government." [pp. 5-6]
Moralists and much of the clergy at the time, though, considered this notion as contradictory to the church and its teachings. If this were the only thing Savonarola were busying himself with, he would be forgotten with the rest of those at the time. But instead, by the mid 1490's, the 'little friar' had "... fused spiritual and moral renewal with social justice and political liberty..." and somehow persuaded worldly Florence "... to embrace him as its prophet...". The ways a Dominican friar could accomplish this is what Weinstein says are the 'key questions' of his biography. [p.6]
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quotes and pagination in Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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