Friday, June 29, 2018

Savonarola: On Truth of Prophecy: ii, 10,12-17

Here are a few central bits of dialogue between Girolamo Savonarola and his imagined character Uriah, one of seven Holy Ghosts that Savonarola produced to dispute with in his De Veritate Prophetica Dyalogus. The lead up and the immediate contexts for these can be found here.

Uriah: ... if by some proof it were shown that the things you say have come from God, then no one should speak against them. But what is the harm in raising doubts?
Girolamo: I have asserted nothing contrary to natural reason, nothing contrary to sacred Scripture, nothing contrary to the holy Roman Church doctrine, ever: rather, all the things I have said are very much consonant with reason and with Scripture, and are both possible for God and very easily accomplished by Him. "Qui ergo pervicaci animo illis repugnat, cum nulla ratione nullaque auctoritate infringi possint, nonne stultitiam suam et infidelitatem ultro ostendit?" [ii, 10]

Or, Who then opposes these with an obstinate heart, those who are able to overcome them with neither reason nor authority, isn't he the one that shows his own foolishness and infidelity?
The character of Uriah responds, "Vere stultus est, qui sine ratione loquitur;" ... Truly the foolish is who without reason speaks. [ii,11] Footnotes here ask us to confer with Isaiah 32:6, and Proverbs 13: 16.

Just as heavy objects fall down [?!?] , Savonarola says, no one can deny the things revealed by God whether out of sheer stubbornness or otherwise, and still remain in the faith. They should likely instead incline toward those things revealed, over time, and certainly not keep dissenting out of stubbornness. Savonarola shows Uriah as convinced.

Uriah: Your reasoning is right on the mark. No one of sound mind can deny such revelations, which are, or can be, contrary neither to reason nor to the teaching of the Church, unless he has wandered utterly from the faithful. I do not see why anyone would speak against them, unless he deeply holds nothing to be faithful... if he had faith surely he should expect the occurrence of these things - which are more than possible by God - and not deny them. What else can it mean, then, when someone with an obstinate heart like this is unwilling to believe, except that he is insisting that these things are entirely impossible! And what is that but to deny the whole faith?
Savonarola is quick here to point out that these sick can be easily healed. [ii, 12] Of course he could then that winter, but would for not much longer. Does he agree, S. asks, that not any detail in the articles of faith is worth conceding? - Uriah agrees. - Every doubt? - Yes.

- In quo igitur lumine certus es? In solarisne globi, aut in naturalis rationis lumine confirmaris?
or, 'In which light are you certain? In the light of the sun, or in the light of natural reason are you confirmed? [ii, 13]
- Not either. says Uriah. - Then in which? asks Savonarola.
- By the light infused supernaturally. For things that are of faith aren't able to be seen by the body, nor by reason in the head.
-But how are you made certain by that light?

In the same way, Savonarola has his Uriah say, as that the spirit isn't deceived by colors in the sun's rays, or regarding natural light about first principles in natural reason, so too they believe in sacred scripture with the most constancy, as to not find in it anything to doubt or dissent by natural reason. [ii, 14]

- Where does this constant belief come from? Savonarola asks.
- By the nature of the faith's light.
- Can we know all the things in scripture?
- Sure, but only some can be known better than others.

Girolamo agrees with this and asks for examples. [ii,15]
In a longer sction [ii, 16] Uriah goes on and gives example. Savonarola returns to the idea that what is seen by this supernatural light of faith as compared with that of the mind of natural reason, is like the difference between seeing an image and seeing a shadow. [ii,17]

The conclusions of Savonarola's argument regarding light and faith and prophecy, for this interlocutor ,follow in sections 18-22. I would repeat them at length here as they have a fascinating combination of  both logic and swiftness of certainty that shows the friar very confident with his skills of persuasion. But interested readers should just go get the book.
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Savornarola, Girolamo: Apologetic Writings; ed. and trans. in english , by M. Michele Mulchahey, for The I Tatti Renaissance Library (ITRI); by The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2015


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News of Election of Charles V Circulates: June 28, 1519

Re-reading the bits in the middle (pp. 140-64) about Jacob Fugger fin-angling the election of Charles V as Emperor of The Roman People, i.e., some German and Dutch and Austrian lands and, Spain. Jacob  Fugger, according to this author,  bid up the competitors, and sent smart, timely, repeated memos to his diplomats who would press the various potential heads of state to do what he wanted them to do. Mostly to those of Francis I of France and the handlers of young Charles, as well as the prominent electors in German and Austrian lands who would decide. But their decision would rest, as Fugger insured in his various ways,  on where Fugger himself would promise the largest loans. The electors had to know ahead of time that Fugger would guarantee loans that any prospective emperor would need just in order to pay for the election, let alone do anything afterwards. Then they would be satisfied. So Fugger had to promise loans and bankroll the 'festivities' enticing representatives to come, and then promise to pay more than the other banks of Italy and his nearest competitors, the Wesler family. Steinmetz says bribes spent for this election totalled 852,000 florins, of which Fugger paid 544,000, nearly 64%... [p. 162].

This election was concluded on 28 June, 1519.

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Greg Steinmetz: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger Simon & Schuster, NY, 2015
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Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Delays, Management Reorganizations: Spain and the New World 1498-1502

A marked difference between the times of Columbus and our own and which effected everything was the time it took to do most anything. It took most of the month of May for him just to leave Spain in his boats on the third voyage. Sailing down the Guadalquivir he and his fleet first had to reach Sanlúcar de Barrameda from Seville where the boats were made. Genoese bankers in Seville financed the construction and much of the fitting and manning of this Admiral's fleet. [p. 193] They would work to and win control of [p. 262] much of this process of goods and information for these oceanic trips west. But even they had to wait months sometimes to find out what was going on.

When Admiral Cristobal Colon returned to La Española - the modern island Hispaniola which comprises both Haiti and the Dominican Republic - on his third voyage to the Caribbean of 1498, he soon (12September) penned a decree stating that anyone who wished to return to Spain would be supplied with food and retain safe passage. As Hugo Thomas relates:
"Two months after Columbus' arrival, a new flotilla of five caravels went home to Castile from Santo Domingo. To the Admiral's surprise, three hundred Spainiards took advantage of his offer to return. Columbus permitted each of them to take back one Indian salve, and some other slaves were sent. The Queen [Isabela] was not pleased when she heard of this concession: "What power of mine does the Admiral hold to give my vassals to anyone?" she demanded, asking that all slaves be freed."
But this came many months later, only after the letter could come back and make it into their hands. In a footnote, Thomas gives this quote as coming thru Bartolome de las Casas (in the 3-volume, 1986 Historia de las Indias, published in Mexico and edited by Agustin Millares Carlo) as "Qué poder tiene el Almirante para dar a nadie mis vasallos?"

But Columbus knew (and his son Fernando also knew as he stated in a letter sent to the monarchs on his return) that slavery could be profitable. The Admiral made it clear in his letters back to Spain there were two to three servants per man sent, plenty of pretty women, and even dogs for the hunt as well, so that such a man had no need for anything except more wine and fellow settlers. But he also could tell them that he knew these circumstances were 'bad for Christians'. For this he recommended a letrado - a man learned in law and justice - be sent for corrections. [p. 203]

While there Columbus himself did manage to find a way to reconcile the rebels including Roldán in the west with the help of negotiator Hernández de Carvajal. Meanwhile in Spain the King and Queen began hearing of the difficulties there and the many complaints against the rules set by the sons of Columbus during his absence. In time they would select Francisco de Bobadilla and give him instructions to bring a justice to the new world more in line with their thinking. He would leave with a fleet and his instruction in July 1500 and arriving there that August [p. 220]. The monarchs were setting up both replacements and a series of known loyal informants about what happened so far away.

But that would take years to develop as they would spend most of their time at Granada continuing their religious fight against those of other religions in central Spain. In time, Bobadilla would be replaced by Fray Nicolas de Ovando (made Governor Sept 1501)  who would arrive after delays and shipwrecks in April 1502 [p.238] in the new world with his instructions [pp. 231-2].

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Thomas, Hugh: Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire ; Penguin/ Random House, UK; 2003
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Sunday, May 27, 2018

news again-dum May 2018


Masha Gessen in The New Yorker explains why taking children from their parents is a form of terrorism.
An investigation as to why this woman was killed is reported to have begun.
Reports of US ICE Border Patrol units separating children from parents and then losing track of thousands of them, and the shock and outrage of this has spread across the internet. The ACLU is leading the cry on national venues.
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We have to admit, this is historic. Korea for Koreans? Can we hope for peace? What could that be like?
In oblique quick-takes, this also caught my eye.

American letters regrettably have lost a couple of great figures recently.

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Friday, May 25, 2018

news May 2018

There are disasters and then there are disasters.
Ebola threatens to spread in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Student protests turned into a nationwide struggle as the public and students in particular demand sensible action on gun control.

There's still much more to talk about.
Teachers all over the country have gone on strike as well sometimes picking up only somewhat better conditions.
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Congrss has made it still even easier for banks to make money.
Good accountants should unite over this!
There was a string of resignations by Chief Officers of big corporations who had come into contact with Michael Cohen who has long been known in the Trump World as Donald's 'fixer'.
Some people think other things were more important?
_______________________________________________________ Here's a nice photo of Monet in his garden.
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Thursday, May 24, 2018

Friar Savonarola Hanged and Burnt By Order of Republic of Florence

There were three friars condemned to death and whose sentences were carried out in 1498 in the Piazza Signoria facing the Palace. Luca Landucci relates the proceedings:
"The sacrifice of the three friars was carried out on Wednesday morning, May 23. They were brought out of the palace and made to mount the scaffolding over the platform where the eight, the Colleges, the papal envoy, the General [of the Dominican Order], many canons, priests, and friars of various orders, and Bishop Paganotti, who was responsible for performing the degradation (defrocking) of the three friars, were assembled. The ceremony was performed there, on the ringhiera. ... None of them said anything, which caused great surprise, for everyone was hoping to see signs proving that what fra Girolamo previously told people was the truth. This was especially so for the righteous people who hoped that God would be glorified, righteous living would begin, the Church renewed, and the infidel converted. So they were not without bitterness and no one made any effort to offer excuses. Many lost their faith." [pp. 295]
Their robes were taken from them one by one as the sentences of degradation were read out and friar Savonarola declared a heretic and schismatic and condemned to the flames. Their heads and backs were shaved and then turned over to the Eight who declared they would be hanged and then burned. First, was frate Silvestro whose rope was not tight and took some time to die repeating 'Gesu' again and again. Next, was frate Domenico da Pascia, and then frate Giromlamo Savonarola who said little. When they were dead, the scaffolding was pushed away from the platform, ringed with gunpowder and fuel for the fire and set ablaze. When all the remains were consumed by the fire all the bits were put in a wagon and carted to the Arno, near the Ponte Vecchio, and dumped in the river. Even so, some tried to gather the ashes, and secretly, for fear of reprisals.

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quote from Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Third Letter of Hernán Cortés Sent May 15, 1522

Three years after first arriving in Mexico, Cortés was sending another letter detailing the taking of Motecuzoma and his City, and following events, back to Emperor Charles V in Spain.  Other letters were sent along with those going back and it would take another six months before they could return there and find response. This was another example of how the physical distances in their world created great temporal delays in the reception of news, which often, in turn, created disastrous effects of unintended consequences.

It is in this letter that Cortés asks his 'Most High And Powerful Prince' for an encomienda system to be set up in Mexico. The request was 'ill-received' at  the court, according to Anthony Pagden who, in the last century, offers another point of view, as related by Bernal Diaz. But it's noted that these letters of Hernán Cortés remain at the imperial library unlike the others. Cortés himself seems to have made sure to  propogate them with instructions for his father to publish the letters. In the age of spreading print presses certainly, also, may have helped in establishing their longevity. These too would later be famously banned by the Crown.

In any event, Cortés had his reasons for writing and sending them, as he remained in 'New Spain' contiuing to claim his own sovereignty there by ungranted permission of the emperor. A year later, June 1523, Charles would send back explicit instruction for Cortés or anyone else not to set up things in an encomienda system and that there were Catholic reasons for this. Cortés would continue to complain and in time, brought to trial over a number of suits. He would establish his own encomienda system anyway.

Anthony Pagden in his edition tells us in a note [letter 3, n. 99] comparing this letter with the others sent (and that are no longer extant but summarized elsewhere) that Bernal Diaz might explain how Cortés and his men actually felt about the business end of things.
"And we all spoke of the many good and loyal services which Cortés and all the conquistadores had performed ... and we besought His Majesty to send us bishops and clerics from every order that were of good life and sound doctrine ... and we besought Him as one, that He grant the government of this New Spain to Cortés ... And that all the official posts such as treasurer, ... notary public and the command of fortresses, should not be granted to others but remain with us. We also besought him not to send us lawyers because by coming to this land they would put it in turmoil with their books and there would be lawsuits and contentions." [ch. 159]
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quoted footnote 99, p 499, from The Third Letter from Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001


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Sunday, April 1, 2018

Christianos Ridiculosos: Overcoming Shame, with Life-Notes of Bracciolini

Books might help build an inner life of values, but could they dissuade those Christians that loved pain more? As Stephen Greenblatt hopes, in his 2011 book The Swerve, "... a prestigious cultural tradition that has shaped the inner lives of the elite does not disappear easily, even in those who welcome its burial." p. 94
Notes here are cribbed from that.

St Jerome wrote the Vulgate, but loved the pagans like Cicero, Quintillian, Fronto and Pliny. In time even these he had to renounce for his jealous God, pp. 94-6; ; Gregory tells of Benedict's famous renunciation of paganism, p 97. Was this because there was no place in Epicureanism for shame, so Christians could not abide by it? p. 98;

Early Christian testimony was quick to wither before risible mockery by Epicureans, pp 100-2 and so Christians had to attack them, and so completely (p. 102) that they could not resurface.

This took centuries, and self-harm was a way to overcome temptation of sin for Christians from Lactantius and Benedict, p. 103, while pagans and epicures pursued pleasure pp 103-5; the Christians began leaving cities and in time, setting up monasteries to suffer, all for their love of pain, pp. 105-9.
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Poggio Bracciolini is the book-hunter credited with finding the ancient epicurean goldmine of Lucretius. Bracciolini's eventual De Rerum Natura came from a copy made in 800's. p 109.  Poggio, from Florence, early life, family, siblings, politics, pp. 110-15. He was a young man from Arezzo seeing Giotto's new belltower next to the Duomo. This one:



Poggio's new printed letters, how this was so Renaissance pp. 115-8; Petrarch as forerunner with words and classics and humanists, in Florence, pp.119-22;

Florence was one among many powers, p 122; Coluccio Salutati was a temporary leader, and notary and humanist and proud Florentine pp 122-5; Leonardo Bruni was another, p 125, Niccolo Niccoli another 126-9; what Niccoli wanted from books pp 129-33

Poggio needed a more stable life, so he sought Rome pp 134-6; the Pope 136-41, the Lie Factory pp 141-6; the Facetiae, Contra Hypocrites pp 144-9; Lorenzo Valla pp 149-51; Poggio could have succumbed financially or cynically but did not p 152 and that was for books pp 154

Council of Constanza pp 155-80

De Rerum Natura, pp 180-202

the copies of the text itself, pp 203-5; text didn't start circulating from NN til (at least) after 1429, p. 207

Poggio's subsequent life:
-as Sec to Henry Beaufort of Winchester, uncle of Henry V, pp 206-7; But he knew no English and found little of humanist or classical authors there
- letters back to NN, pp 207-8
- found way back to Rome, and the Vatican, 1422; p 208
- trying to get copied text of DRN sent to him, pp 208-9
- married life, growing business, selling manuscripts, his growing wealth: p 210-11
- On benefits of marriage in old age: pp 212-3
- serving the Pope and Nicholas V; p 214
- found a nice home in Terranuova to complete his retirement, acclaim from Florence, p 215
- served as chancellor of Florence for five years 1453-8; p 216
- the end and honors, pp 217-8

As promised, much of these will be expanded on.
________________________________
notes and pages: Greenblatt, Stephen: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern; W.W. Norton & Co., NY, 2011
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news spring 2018

These days people have options in where to get their news. But it's all backwards. The chyrons go from right to left, symbols 'represent' more than people, virtual social media dictates policy, the comedians and 'entertainers' have to tell us what's going on, and children feel they have to step up to lead the nation. The richest half in Washington seem to be in complete denial about their own complicity in the sell out - to the richest, or the crooked-est, or the foreign-est -- while, the other half tries to nail down the details of what just happened, averting blows to the head.

The chaos in the White House, like a cyclone in the West Wing, throws out mangled bits of what was there before, spinning from issue to issue, sucking in the massive hot air, spitting out staffers and cabinet heads alike, with random tweetstorms. The mad scramble continues of course to soften the blows and lessen the damage, but Congress on the whole, by the majority party's leadership seems too afraid to show leadership.

At least a dozen Palestinians were killed, and many more were wounded by Israeli soldiers on the state's much vaunted National Land Day. Not more than a week ago another bombing in Kabul ended questions about whether this spring would be unlike the others. Some British and a US soldier too, were killed in Syria. Kim Jong-un has visited President Xi in Beijing. Facebook has been culturally slapped for knowing so litle and denying what it was doing regarding user data and Russian propaganda. But it continues. The State Dept has been decimated needing eight more of nine top positions filled, and well, as many field offices. The Executor Branch has pushed the census bureau to add a question about citizenship. Puerto Rico still languishes after last year's hurricane. Texas is doing better. In Wisconsin, the desire to fill offices has pitched Governor Scott Walker and the legislature against its State Supreme Court. The Kansas legislature needs to fund schools, and soon, by court order, but that won't happen easily.

Everything is backwards.
Today is April 1, April Fool's Day.
It is also Easter. The Orthodox have sense to celebrate that next week.
No, Pope Francis DID NOT say 'There is no hell.'
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Quotes from Martines and Weinstein On Savonarola, His Style Near the End Times

Martines:
"Savonarola's view of the Church and of society was both moral and political. The corruption of the Church, as he saw it, was so complete and had so contaminated Italian society that only a divine scourging -- punishment by murderous war and 'barbarian' armies -- could cleanse and renew Rome, the Church, and Italy. The same armies would overthrow Italian princes, and governing elites, and the people of Italy would then pass over into a new age."

"...Florence's anger and passions ... a great city-republic, confused and frightened, but also furious with its leaders... [e]ven if they had not been confronting an invasion, the people of Florence longed for honest government.

[¶] The scene, in short, held the makings of a political revolution, and its central force was a demand for moral principle." [p.91]

On S's preaching method:
"One of the principle devices for preachers in the art of holding the attention of listeners was the imaginary dialogue, the exchange with a fictional heckler or interlocutor in the assembled crowd. Savonarola was extraordinarily fond of this ploy. He used it to explain doctrine, to accuse enemies, to defend himself, to fix attention, to win sympathy, to answer likely questions, or to add touches of lightness, humanity, and even humour to his preaching." [p. 96]

For example, in the Exodus sermons in March 1498:
"Well, you'll say, come here, friar, do you think this excommunication is valid? Clarify this point for us. -- No, it has no value. -- Oh, who told you so? God told me. I say to you God told me. See how I speak to you. ... O father, it's true that the excommunication is not valid, but we're afraid to lose our benefices -- So then, you love your benefice more than you love Christ and his truth. You're meant to risk your life for the truth and for Christ, not for your benefice. ... Oh, if I should die, how then would I win?  -- I answer that to die for Christ is the supreme victory." [p 100]

The mood in Florence in these days by Martines. Savonarola's opinion on solutions.
"Florence, in a word, was haunted by rising taxes, war, famine, unemployment, disease, and severe political strain, although of course there were ups as well as downs. Savonarola's solution was to call for repentence, for more prayer, faith, charity, generosity from the rich, and commitment both to the General Council and to King Charles VIII [of France]. His prophecies and his vision of Charles as 'the New Cyrus'... had pinned him to French ambitions in Italy." [p. 148]

After these tumultuous years of the invasion and retreat of France, of the attacks by the changing members of the Holy League, to the famines and sickness within the city, the brutal execution of nobles in the city, and loss of most revenues from Pisa and the rest of the world, Savonarola thought to appeal for a new Church Council. Others, such as Paolantonio Soderini and Giovanbattista Ridolfi still wanted a return to greater control in the City by the elite. Others still wanted a Medici again, while some, like Guidantonio Vespucci and Piero Capponi thought Florence should join the Holy League with Venice and the Pope against the French King. Others like Piero Parenti (one of our direct sources) supported the Great Council but largely rejected the Friar's loudest preaching.
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Weinstein gives us more examples of this imaginary dialogue, concerning the excommunication. Again from the March 1498 Exodus sermons:
"Oh, are you speaking ill of the pope? -- Not I! -- They who used to say bad things about the Roman court are now saying that it ought to be obeyed in everything- -- Oh, if he commands you to commit fornication would you obey? -- 'Sure I would', says that one. -- Oh, frate, he is God on earth and the vicar of Christ. -- True, but God and Christ command that one love his brother and act righteously. Maybe you believe that the pope isn't a man? ... Don't repeat that the head has to be obeyed in everything-- only in what is good." [pp. 261-2]

Continuing to explain the leverage Savonarola sought by appealing to his congregation and, leaders elsewhere, to call for a Church Council, Weinstein gives a brief overview.
"Calling for a renewal of the Church in head and members was daring; calling upon the Holy Roman Emperor and their Christian Majesties to seize the initiative from an atheistic pope and convene a general council for reform of the Church was a move "to shock the world". At the Council of Basel fifty years earlier, the century long debate between conciliarists and papalists over Church sovereignty had ended with a victory for papal supremacy." [p. 262]

The Council of Basel had stretched for eighteen years and addressed several distinct issues regarding and surrounding the powers of Rome. That story is elsewhere but involved reconciling three different popes, what property ownership meant for clerics, who would retain temporal (military) power. and how general reform should move forward. For many, not enough had been done. By 1460 Pope Pius II threatened to throw out of the Church anyone who might call for another Council (other than a pope), but this seemed little more than a paper proclamation. The issues of who was in charge, who owned what, and how armies could be called and utilised, would all remain complex and ... disputed.

In the sermons Weinstein says that Savonarola gave in March, the little friar complained aloud.
"No one remembers what a council is anymore or knows why they are no longer held... What is a council but a congregation of elders such as Moses summoned when he wished to report the Lord's words and signs? It consists of all good churchmen and worthy laymen, for a true council must have the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is why people say that councils can no longer be held: the reformers must first be reformed." [p.262]

This is what Savonarola sought at the end: to verbally attack and disrupt his perceived enemies, and to seek a higher power (both temporal and God Himself) to bring judgment upon them. But he had been doing that all along, only now his time had run out.
_____________________________________
quotes and pagination of Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
and,
from Martines, Lauro:  Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence Oxford University Press, Inc.,NY 2006 

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Saturday, March 31, 2018

Tension Rises: Savonarola Hemmed In, late March 1498

So much had happened and so much more, and so quickly, even with so many sources, any survey could be blamed for losing some details. But then there is Donald Weinstein who gives us such a realistic picture of so many of these happenings in Florence, in late March 1498. From the ordinary language in the last sermons to the procession of priests and acolytes, the arguments over who would walk the fire, or, the building materials along the length of the fire's path. In letters, Savonarola was still writing of church reform, his own prophecies, and God's miracles. How these might be made manifested, the friar emphasized, was only up to God himself.

He wrote letters now, in March, to various sovereigns in Europe just as he still wrote to the ambassaor and advocates in Rome. In them he questioned if Rodrigo Borgia was an illegitimate pope. To Maximilian in Austria, to Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, and Charles VIII in France (and, planning more to Henry the Tudor in England and the nearer King of Hungary), Savonarola fretted that this pope would not allow a true reform, or carry out what to him God seemed to say.

Whether the rumours were true or not, he thought, whether the pope was secretly of Moorish decent, or a 'secret-Jew' or not, perhaps at last it was time, that a new Church Council be called to depose this one and get on with real reform. There were lots of stories and conspiracies then, too. But this last idea, that the Pope might not be Christian, and might be born of some other lineage, Savonarola had hyped in sermons in February and March by calling it 'his little key', which when used, would stun the world. [p.261]

March 17, 18: Savonarola preaches, taking up Psalms 83/4. [pp. 263-6]

March 25: Francesco di Puglia announces to the congregation assembled in Santa Croce that he will withstand a trial by fire against anyone that the Dominicans send in order to force the issue about friar Savonarola.

The following weeks the City built itself into a rage anticipating this ancient ordeal that (had long since been left behind as barbaric but) was brought back this time to settle this issue once and for all. Mere mention in church with an opposing congregation would set this fire ablaze. [p.267]

April 7 date set for trial in the Piazza. This was also the day that Charles VIII in France died by hitting his head on a doorpost. It would take days for news of this to reach the city. [p.276]
April 8: trial by fire in the city center. There were more arguments. The cathedral was barricaded and set fire. Then finally, at long last, Savonarola and others were arrested there late that night. [pp.272-6]

Then would begin the interrogation and trial followed by the public burning of friar Savonarola. But it should be stressed no one knew that would be coming.
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pagination in Donald Weinstein: Savonarola: the rise and fall of a renaissance prophet ; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011
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Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Consulte fiorentina: Notes & Arguments from Martines & Fachard: mid March 1498

In the arguments in the pratiche held in Florence on March 14, 1498, both the health of its Republic and the tumult of its passions could be seen. Despite this intense and prolonged, but reasonable 'venting' in the City's traditional practice of discussion, the collective fever would soon boil over.

March 13: as late as this date, Savonarola could write to Pope Alexander VI: 'you should worry about the state of your immortal soul': [Lettere (1984) 226-7]
March 14: Another pratica held by the Signory; Papal briefs read out; [Fachard, Denis: Consulte 1993: I, 42-61]. Martines summarizes:
"The threat of a papal interdict had widened the splits in the political class, and many citizens while revering the Friar, were now ready to see him temporarily silenced, in the hope that Rome would refrain from imposing the city-wide anathema. Their feeling that all Italy was against Florence made the threatened interdict all the more ominous." [p. 209]
Three of the sixteen Gonfalonieres changed their view and now thought the Signory and Florence should listen to the pope. As recently as the third of March, ten of them had been still willing to resist the Papal declaration that S suspend preaching. Now only seven, and less than the majority of this group, thought so.
The previous elected Twelve Good Men were still in near unanimous agreement to let the friar continue. But the next group of Twelve that had been elected but not assumed office yet, were for listening to the pope instead. So here was a clear shift.
"Speaking for the new Twelve, Giovanni Canacci made one of the most hostile speeches ever recorded against Savonarola... up to that point." [p. 209]
The Captains of the Guelfs who had been praiseworthy now thought they should seek to satisfy the pope.
The Ten were of the same opinion as last time. Savonarola was a jewel and should continue with his sermons for Lent.
The Eight still stood in favor of the Friar as well. They too had nothing new to add to the discussion. What would turn out to be the new growing consensus was allowed greater room this day to speak. As Martines says:
"The debate had turned into a revealing performance. Something subtle was taking place. The Savonarolans were beginning to lose the initiative and vigour, not because their belief in the Friar or in the Republic was failing, but because the papal threat was now so strong, so urgent, that it was changing the Florentine political atmosphere. In short, action and fresh arguments were required, if the leaders of the Frateschi were to retain forcefulness in their ranks." [p. 211]
The Monte Officials who oversaw the Treasury and trade sided with the Friar and, to let him preach. 'There had been interdicts before...'. [p.211]

Another speaker, this time speaking for the collected corps of doctors of law, one Guidantonio Vespucci stepped forward. He was both a lawyer defending those who were executed the previous August, and a diplomat with alliances in the anti-Savonarolan camps. His argument (slightly condensed from Martines' sharp exposition) was straight-forward and practical: "We are what we are in Italy."

Vespucci said, the ambassador was in Rome to get absolution from the Pope, and a decima. This was that special papal permission for the City to be allowed to collect a tenth of clerical income (in that City and her territorities) as a tax. If that could not be accomplished, he said, then the City could not cover its expenses. Since the City still desired control of Pisa and its incomes, it made no sense, and seemed counterproductive, to do or encourage things that were offensive to the Pope. Whether the Friar is in the wrong or not, the Pope thinks so, and if an interdict goes through, many there in the City would lose their things. Already merchants couldn't send their stuff to markets elsewhere. At least the Papacy he reminded them had the power to stop a thing through censure. Anyway, there was not even agreement in the City if the Friar actually did speak for God. If he did for certain, by all means, he should go ahead and preach. But we can't agree on that, so better to let him lay off for awhile, to see if that makes better relations with the See in Rome. Then the City might ask for more favorable conditions about Pisa from Rome. [p.212]

Those law doctors that still supported the Friar were represented by Antonio Malegonnelli who could admit the Pope was the supreme religious leader and understandably might think he could give out orders. The problem as he saw it was that other states in Italy had long been assailing the Friar, for years. It was these forces who attacked the Friar and thus divided the Florentine population against itself so dangerously. Because of this, the independence of the Friar should be supported and upheld. [p.212]

There were many who still thought he was a holy man that had saved the city from take-over, from civil war istelf, maybe even from the sword of God, by his form of impassioned shepherding. But to cut him off might open an avenue for some external force to sieze such an influential rudder to popular opinion, or rush in to fill the void left from his absence. On the other hand, if the City allowed the Pope to order them to deliver Savonarola up, then they were acting as hired police for the Pope. This was simply unseemly, using temporal, physical force to test or contain a spiritual force like the Friar or his movement's adherents. Next time, this Pope would ask for something else once this concession was granted. After all, another said, Pisa was already in the hands of Venice and Milan. [p. 213]

Giuliano Gondi, international merchant sided firmly against Savonarola. [p. 214]
There are still a couple more pages of these attitudes expressed in Martines gathered from those collected and edited by Denis Fachard, in Consulte e pratiche della repubblcca fiorentina 1498-1505, Geneva, 1993.
________________________________
quotes, notes, pagination from Martines, Lauro:  Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence; Oxford University Press, Inc.,NY 2006 

March 16: Signory summons leaders to again state their views - this time a majority say S should stop preaching
March 17: S informed of papal brief of Mar 9
March 18: S preaches for last time

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news mid March 2018

ummm...
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Monday, March 12, 2018

Mood Shift Amid Papal Vitriol Against Savonarola: early March 1498

If there was a time to pinpoint when the mood changed among the leadership in Florence concerning the Domenican friar Girolamo Savonarola, it would be difficult to find one more markedly clear than early March of 1498. At the first of the month, the Signory met and, at least, could well recognize that the city and its leadership was utterly divided over the implications of the friar and his preaching. Twice they met and heard extensive arguments for and against the preacher, the papal excommunication, the issue of the war over control of Pisa, and Florentine pride over sovereignty and autonomy, both within itself and regarding the power in Rome.

In a season of letters sent back and forth, and bold declarations, there were also warnings and attacks. As with the year before, Florence's new envoy to Rome was having problems. Two years before (June 1496) messer Domenico Bonsi had been accused in Florence of 'beastliness and lies' by what turned out to be seen as a Savonarolan-allied attorney working from the office of the Archbishop of Florence. The man, ser Giuliano da Ripa had attacked Bonsi for playing with people's fears of higher taxes, all with an aim of driving people along to support their agendas. The accuser himself was atacked and took refuge in San Marco. Then he was captured, tortured, and interrogated over the inner workings of the network against San Marco. Found sufficiently guilty for the day, he was banished for two years.

By late February 1498, Bonsi had only bad things to tell regarding the opinions at the court in Rome. Another strongly foreboding warning was felt when Bonsi himself was attacked. As Lauro Martines tells us in his Fire In The City:
"On the night of the 21st, at about 3:00am, three men, armed with swords and an axe, had smashed their way into his garden and courtyard, where one of them had mounted the wall to get up to his terrace, to force an entry into the house. In the event, he toppled into the courtyard and broke a leg, whereupon the others fled. Bonsi concluded that their aim had not been robbery but murder, because the injured man came from Montepulciano, an attractive Tuscan town... that had rebelled against its Florentine masters with the help of Siena." [p. 202] 
After this, a strongly worded statement came out that the Pope was so incensed with Florence that he refused audience with her envoy, Bonsi himself, despite (disbelieving?) the attack.

February 22: messer Bonsi survives intruder attack: p. 202, 207 in Martines, source: [Gherardi, 178-9, 201]
February 26: Pope sends breve to Signory in Florence for them to arrest and send S to Rome in chains; [Gherardi, 183-5; Sanudo, Diarii i, 899-900, 905, 920; Villari II, lxvi-lxvii] ...
But by the next day His Holiness was willing 'to absolve Savonarola if the Friar would stop preaching'. [Martines, p.203]

March 01: Savonarola [S] changed venues from San Reparata to San Marco 'for his protection' he said later, as he continued to preach on Exodus. The new Signory was being sworn in.

March 03: the new Signoria begins talks on what to do about the Friar; the Sixteen were divided 10-6, the Twelve were all for him, as were the Ten. This meant a majority still backed him so they decided at that point to wait and see. Thus the Ten resolved to write to messer Domenico Bonsi in Rome that S was 'preaching to produce good fruit' in the City; Martines, p. 208 [in Gherardi, 187-8].

March 04: Receiving letters from Pope and Bonsi, the Priors wrote to the Pope stung that he could not see S was merely defending what they saw as goodness and correct doctrine [Marchese, Documenti intorno al S, 165-7]
March 07: Bonsi back to the Signory and Ten: S must stop; [Gherardi, 192]

March 09: Papal brief ('as a spreader of poison' S should be arrested) and Bonsi cover letter sent to Signory [in Gherardi, 192-6]
March 10: letter from the Ten to the Pope explaining S's sermons should be seen as allegory, even trying with different words to say the same things [Gherardi, 198]. When they received they couldn't hardly believe it. They already knew how to read.

________________________________
from Martines, Lauro:  Fire In The City: Savonarola and the struggle for the soul of Renaissance Florence Oxford University Press, Inc.,NY 2006 

March 13: S to Pope: 'you should worry about the state of your immortal soul': [Lettere (1984) 226-7]
March 14: pratiche held by the Signory; Papal briefs read out; [Fachard, Denis: Consulte 1993: I, 42-61]
March 16: Signory summons leaders to again state their views - this time a majority say S should stop preaching
March 17: S informed of papal brief of Mar9
March 18: S preaches for last time

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Sunday, March 4, 2018

Savonarola Makes Last Stand: Jan-Feb 1498

The Feast of Epiphany, the celebrations marking the appearance of the divine Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi, is the chief Catholic Festival in January. In Florence, Italy, in the year 1498, there was a private ceremony held at San Marco where friar Savonarola received visitors from the city's Signoria who came to kiss his hand. But Savonarola had been excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI, and all who heard or worked with him were putting themselves at risk of such ostracism as well. He had been forbidden from preaching, but, the little friar himself said he answered to God's will, not the Pope's. His critics were outraged by the performance at San Marco but his followers patiently worked for a motion by the Great Council for word that the friar could preach again.

By the first of February, Savonarola himself was telling Manfredi, the Ambassador to Ferrara, that he was ready to preach, if he could only get a sign. He told others he was waiting for a reprieve from the Papal See. But, when it became clear in those first couple weeks there would be no absolution or reparation with the Church without the matter of Pisa being resolved, Savonarola once again took to the podium.

This matter of Pisa, of course, was Florence's recent alliance with France and Charles VIII, for control of interests over Pisa. The Pope and Venice had created a League trying to secure Pisa against its control by France or Florence. The war had not been trivial and would continue to rage. Born from the disaster when Piero de' Medici had given Pisa away to the French King in his 1494 march down the length of Italy, the French had quickly assumed control and Florence then, quickly threw Piero and all his family (and several of his closest allies) out of the city. Savonarola had been the one then preaching that  the French incursion was God's agent of 'scourge and renewal', and the King was a New Cyrus, a Second Charlemagne.  Everyone in Italy had taken sides or could be paid to do so, and now, the Pope's minions were saying flatly "that Florence had to abandon its alliance with Charles VIII and join the League to keep him out of Italy." [p.249] But Savonarola said in the new year that his followers were dying of spiritual hunger.

On the morning of February 11, Savonarola and his men returned.
"From San Marco he and his friars walked in stately procession but without his usual armed escort, through streets bordered by the devout, the curious, and the hostile, to the Cathedral. Entering he made his way along the enormous nave, less crowded than in former times, and mounted to the pulpit. When the congregation had finished singing the Te Deum Laudamus he recited the Third Psalm, "O Lord, why are my foes so many?" then took up his text." [p.249]

His sermon was on Exodus and the story of Hebrew liberation from their captivity in Egypt. So too, would the present-day Florentines be liberated from their current enemies. He would be their Moses and lead them across the Red Sea. Pharoah had ordered him to be silent, but he could not. He instead would be their prophet, lawgiver, protector, and champion. He could accept Pharoah's authority, His Holiness in Rome, but the Pope's pronouncements did not apply to him, as his orders came from God. If his detractors denied his message then they should should come and see him hold the sacrament and hear his sermon. If he was not telling the word of God then, may the fire of God come down and consume him. [p.252]

The following Sunday, 18 February he continued his sermon on Exodus. By the following Sunday, he announced plans for a return to the great bonfires over Carneval as in previous years. Clearly, the 'little' Dominican friar, Savonarola was not backing down. So fiery were his words, that many believed he would perform a miracle by the following Shrove Tueday. It didn't happen, and he wasn't struck down, so his followers would defend him anyway. The bonfire this year included copies of Pulci's Il Morgante, nude sculptures, and even looking glasses. Twelve boys dressed in white carrying crosses made their way to the Piazza to start the blaze. And then they danced and the fervent crowd joined in. [p.253] An independent writer said the friar watched from a distance.

Meanwhile, in a letter to his friend Ricciardo Becchi, Nicolo Macchiavelli reported that a new Signoria and Gonfaolniere had been selected on 26 February, and which Savonarola feared was nearly two-thirds hostile to him. So, in a change Macchiavelli notes, the friar was instead warning about tyranny from Rome and that the time had come for Florentines to unite against the hostile forces that were then trying to undermine him from within the city. [p.258]

Almost immediately, the new government began to act. By the 14th of March another pratica had been assembled to finally, after numerous attempts, to settle what should be done. By the end of the month the mob would decide it needed proof, in order to confirm their faith, one way or another.
____________________________________
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, March 3, 2018

pageturner chronicles iii: 1914, 1434, c. 1908

Since the other day was called #WorldBookDay, on twitter, perhaps a different alignment may be indulged in for this chapter. Rather than a mere gathering of different stories in some place, or signposts connected with highpoints in historical circumstances (or scattered across this blog), here today, a number of quotes from fiction will follow. These are plucked from the list of things I'm currently reading and show the twist and tug of so many central tensions, now and then, here and there, fiction and too real. Revealing further examples still held in suspense for today's audience.
___________________________________
...
"The clean, cozy cubicles of the regional criminal court made the most favourable impression on Švejk -- the white washed walls, the black-painted bars and the fat Mr Demartini, the chief warder for the prisoners on remand, with his purple facings and purple braid on his government-supplied cap. Purple is the colour prescribed not only here, but also at religious services on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
The glorious times of Roman rule over Jerusalem were coming back. The prisoners were led out and brought before the Pontius Pilates of 1914 down on the ground floor. And the examining magistrates, the Pilates of modern times, instead of honourably washing their hands, sent to Teissig's for goulash and Pilsen beer and passed more and more indictments to the Director of Prosecutions.
Here all logic mostly disappeared and the § triumphed. The § strangled, went mad, fumed, laughed, theatened, murdered and gave no quarter. The magistrates were jugglers with the law, high priests of its letter, devourers of the accused, tigers of the Austrian jungle, who measured their spring on the accused by the number of clauses." ... [p.24]
Oh! you don't know Švejk? You're in for a treat then! Written in Czech in the years during and following World War I  - for those who lived it, it was The Great War, and for those who did not survive, the only World War - its author Jaroslav Hašek was an anarchist. A traveller thru East Europe, a soldier, a drunkard, accustomed to sleep off nights or months in a cell, he had practice as a rabble-rouser. Both intense and silly, hilarious and at times violent, he took to writing stories in serial fashion during the war and the years after, sending manuscripts off without correction, often after deadline.  Later twentieth century luminaries like Bertolt Brecht were to find inspiration in these stories of a common, simple man caught up in the absurd affectations of Empire about to fall. Joseph Heller has said his Catch-22 would not have been written without the precedent of Hašek's Švejk. Turns out to be both warning and balm in today's times. Go find it!

Jaroslav Hašek: The Good Soldier Švejk : translated by Cecil Parrott,  published by William Heinemann in association with Penguin Books, 1973
____________________________________

After a long discussion about Christian virtue and championing various aspects of that as found under the traditional umbrella of what they remembered, and its people in its long history, the narrator turns to what it is not. Palla Strozzi, instructing his son Onofrio reminds that despite what others may say or think, there are still those who justify their own acts based on erroneous assumptions. Relative to such things, this parent counsels that exile should not be considered the worst of his son's worries. The real topic of merit he insists is what a chaste man with high standards might think and act upon. Nearing the end of that night's discussion, he then has to return to and remind of basic elements.
 ...
"But what is the point of my discourse? That we understand that there is something disgraceful and evil by nature, which in the eyes of some is neither disgraceful nor evil; that some things are held to be disgraceful and evil that are not such by nature; and the same thing is disgraceful and evil in the eyes of some that others regard as honorable and good. Therefore we must take pains that it not escape us which things are honorable and good by nature and which are otherwise. For if we err in these matters, even if no disgrace attaches to us, we are dishonorable." [i,230]
These notions are couched in fifteenth-century Italo-Christian notions of evil and honor and disgrace and good actions. That there is evil that some think is not evil. That there are things held as evil that are not by nature. And, that these same things, that may not be evil by nature, are still proclaimed as evil by some, and honorable and good by others. He is making pains to show that all these judging notions are actually separate and distinct. The son Onofrio thinks exile is evil as it is a dishonor. The father Palla disavows this notion, saying the distinction between evil and good is more basic. First one must be able to distinguish between what is evil and good on one's own, and before other men's opinions affect our judgment.
"But we should not altogether despise the things that are merely judged to be such [evil or good by nature] by men's opinion. For to do so shows an overfastidious and immoderate character. But we must earnestly consider by whose opinion the judgment is made. For we ought to be influenced by what good and wise men think of us, not fools and scoundrels."
Onofrio: "But, father, the public magistrates are inflicting this disgrace upon us." [i, 231]
Palla: ""The magistracy," as Bias remarked, "shows the man.""

Here Palla agrees, on principle, with Onofrio. This, he counters, is why their opinion should not matter to him, regardless of their pronouncements of exile or, power in office. Palla (and Filelfo, the author of this fictional dialogue) is quoting from Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics (1130a1-2) in his discussion of justice, showing a clear understanding of the difference between one's own kept virtue (or not), and how one practices that virtue (or not) toward others.
"At Florence currently men exercise magistracies who do not understand either in practice or in theory, the meaning and extent of a magistrate's power. For what correct or sound principle would men understand whose god is their belly and their boundless lust? They think and care about nothing else than to act intemperately, greedily, disgracefully, insultingly, and dishonorably. Should you, then, fear disgrace inflicted by beasts of such a nature that it would be a dishonor to be honored by them? I think the good man should make no more of the judgment of such wastrels than if Galileo Bufonio, who, though an ignoramus in medicine, claims to be the most skilled physician, judges that a man of excellent constitution and health is feeble and sickly. [i, 232] Therefore such disgrace is not by its own nature an evil, nor can there be any evil in exile."
Francesco Filelfo, On Exile, i, 230-3; edited by Jeroen de Keyser, translated by W. Scott Blanchard, published by The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013
________________________________

 record skip

Taking a number of leaps to Old El Paso, and to Thomas Pynchon's fictional World Against The Day, Frank Traverse and Estrella Briggs stroll back from the river when two men approach quickly from behind. Estrella, aka "Stray", affirms this is "Hatch" and "his saddle pal of the day." Of course, Frank is there to help facilitate an arms deal pre-arranged with Ewball Oust, making quick profit on the misfortune of others and, who had just happened to run into his old pal. This takes place c. 1906-10 and before the armed uprisings and the Revolution of Mexico. People protecting their interests on multiple levels.
    "She didn't turn around to look, but had reached casually beneath her duster and come out with a little over-and-under. Twirling the parasol for, he guessed, distraction. "Well," Frank checking his own outfit, "I was hoping for more caliber there, but happy to see you're heeled, and say -- let's figure on one apiece, how's that? They don't look too professional."
    "Nice to see you out in public again, Miss Estrella. This here your beau?"
    "This yours, Hatch?"
    "Wasn't lookin for no round and round," advised the other one, "just being neighborly."
    "Well, neighbors," her voice maintaining a smooth contralto, "you're a long way from the old neighborhood, hate to see you come all this distance for nothin."
     "Be easy to fix that, I would guess." 
    "Sure, if it was anythin but simple damn thievery."
    "Oh? Somebody around here's a damn thief?" inqured Hatch in what he must have been told was a menacing voice. Frank, who'd been watching the men's feet, took a short off-angle step so as to have speedier access to his Police Special. Coat buttons meantime were being undone, hatbrims realigned for the angle of the sun, amid a noticeable drop-off in pedestrian traffic around the little group.
    Though having been obliged not long ago to gun Sloat Fresno into the Beyond... Frank still harbored too many doubts about triggerplay to be out looking to repeat it with just anybody -- still, there was no denying he'd lost a whole ensemble of hesitancies back down the trail, and Hatch here, though perhaps enjoying even less acquaintance with the homicidal, might have detected this edge, raising the interesting question of how eager he might be to back up his sidekick.
    For really it was the sidekick who presented the problem. Restless type. Fair hair, hat back on his head so the big brim sort of haloed his face, shiny eyes and low-set, pointed ears like an elf's. Frank understood this was to be his playfellow -- Stray meantime having slowly drifted into a pose that only the more heedless of their safety would've read as demure. The daylight had somehow thickened, as before a tempest on the prairie. Nobody was saying much, so Frank figured the verbal part of this was done, and the practical matter nearly upon them. The elfin sidekick was whistling softly through his teeth the popular favorite "Daisy, Daisy," ...[a] sort of telegraphic code among gun-handlers for Boot Hill. Frank gazed brightly, all but sympathetically, into the eyes of his target, waiting for a fateful tell.
    Out of nowhere, "Well, hi everybody," a cheerful voice broke in, "watch-y'all doin?" It was Ewball Oust, pretnding not to be a cold, bleak-eyed Anarchist who'd left all operational doubt miles back in the romantic mists of youth, whenever that was.
    "Damn," breathed the pointy-eared gent, in a long, unrequited sigh. Everybody at their own pace went about relocating their everyday selves.
    "So nice runnin into you again," Hatch as if preparing to kiss Stray's hand, "and don't you be a stranger, now."
    "Next time," nodded the sidekick with a poignant smile at Ewball. "Maybe in church. What church y'all go to?" he seemed to want to know, in an oily voice.
    "Me?" Ewball laughed, far exceeding the humor of the moment. "I'm Mexican Orthodox. How about you? Amigo?"
    Whereupon the sidekick was observed to take a hesitant step or two backward. Stray and Hatch over his hat crown exchanging a look.
    "Sorry I'm late," said Ewball.
    "You're right on time," said Frank."
 from Against The Day pp. 646-8, by Thomas Pynchon and published by Penguin Press, 2006.

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Monday, February 12, 2018

flash winter spot Feb2018


The 2018 Winter Olympics have started in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and politics wrestles for attention with the games.

While the rest of the world continues to reveal it's wounds. The feels.

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Friday, February 9, 2018

the current list, feb2018

Tonight I've pulled myself away from other things long enough to realize again I've put this off too many times. There's too much to list and not enough explanation of absence. But there's a slew of new books started and lines of notes made and a few more things coming into focus, so some account of those need to be shown.

An older, slim edition on Moorish Spain (1992) by Richard Fletcher seems already to reaffirm what I learned twenty years ago but at least acts as a refresher. It will shed some light on some contexts for a few more sources.

The dynamic expansionist press from the Ottoman Turks in the east, as depicted in The Histories, and sprung again from the fifteenth century hand of Laonikos Chalkokondyles, was recently published with a companion volume, A New Herodotus (2014), by The Dumbarton Oaks trustees at Harvard. This preparatory unrolling here by our editor and translator, Anthony Kaldellis, for the Chalkokondyles text is especially necessary because of who Chalkokondyles may have been and what he was attempting to do.

Laonikos Chalkokondyles says he was born an Athenian in the years marking the great many series of defeats by the overwhelming Ottoman forces mid-century . His own noteworthy family (if his biographer Kyriacus - Cyriac of Ancona - can be believed) was exiled from that famed city when little Laonikos was perhaps five or six. Yet with his familial connections he went to school and studied in Mistra under the Greek philosopher western tradition remembers as Plethon. There, Laonikos learned a form of Greek neoplatonism and Latin, Italian, and ancient Greek, and likely, Turkish as well.

Kaldellis calls him 'New Herodotus' because his work so carefully uses templates of both Herodotus and Thucydides (pagan Greeks though they were) in telling his story of his times. This was the end of the Greek control of what he called Byzantion, then known widely to Christians as Constantinople and for our times, Istanbul. We know of him now because Anthony Kaldellis and the Dumbarton Oaks have published a text and translation of Chalkokondyles' careful, if unfinished work, and also have produced this fine, yet carefully measured draught of Anthony Kaldellis. There is much untangled here.

Another strange yet penetrating and compelling look from the fifteenth century comes to us as autocrats today get around to tell us what they want now that they have all the money. In a format now considered classic but which, when it was produced was considered novel, is Aurelio Brandolini's Republics and Kingdoms Compared, also by a Harvard Press subsidiary (2009). Another dialogue of explication for 'edification', this rare thing was produced only twice. Once in dedication to Lorenzo de Medici 1492/4 and again for his son (the future Pope Leo X) some time in the following decade. The subject matter avoids, and yet, neatly dovetails that of Nicolo Machiavelli's two most famous works, The Prince, and The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy. And precedes them by at least two decades. I look forward to it with anticipation.

Still, it is nothing less than mesmerizing how Natalie Zemon Davis' modern day Trickster Travels (2006) looks at the many reflections and activities around the various depictions then of Africa and Europe. These studies again will be prelude to other research.

The biographies of Erasmus and Luther continue with both their arcs at the cusp or in the ascendant swing in their respective lives. At some point I would also like to look at the long life of Ximenes de Cisneros to get a greater sense of his take and influence on Christian ecclesia. Also will follow some English perspective with near-contemporary lives of Thomas More and Cardinal Wolsey. A biography of someone with the stature of John Colet also needs investigating.

Stories of exploration and mercantile quests, as in Hugh Thomas' Rivers of Gold, or, the Letters of Hernan Cortes will reveal motivations and methods, changing practices with both hasty and planned out solutions. In England, the story continues there with The Early Tudors, as well as German Histories In the Age of Reformation as time allows.

Leaders in the book trade in Venice, like Manutius, will be returned to, as its historians like Bembo and Sanudo. Exiles on parade in Florence have much to talk about via Francesco Filelfo, and, more correspondence from Italy, this time from Lorenzo Valla who connects many names and stories. Anecdotes of Poggio Bracciolini will continue. Girolamo Savonarola still makes his case. He will come to an end with that and Florence will see to it.

Another title new to me looks at Convent Chronicles noting changing norms among Conventuals in German lands. And much more. So if it looks like I've done little with the blog it's because I've been busy elsewhere.
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Sunday, December 31, 2017

Al-Hasan in Italy: Travelling, Writing, Watching: 1520-3

As a detective of journalist's work would perhaps, or, a journalist's historian involved in detective work, Natalie Zemon Davis reveals the who, what, when and how of al-Hassan al-Wassan's production of books. The story comes in a series of layers. Once the process is learned, the narrative pages lifted and removed and analyzed and then placed expertly back into place, one after another, she renders it seemingly simply as the details coalesce into a fine grain picture. But unlike a regular linear book here, over and over, certain details and approaches and relations with the people, places, and processes are slightly repeated in order to tease out this or that aspect of the various contexts. This is also a wonderful thing if at first, it seems a bit ponderous. Going back to this book again and again, I find more and more each time I do.

Forced into leaving with his family as refugees from Spain, he found work. Literate he could act as a scribe in present-day Morooco as a kind of notary, and then after many trials as an ambassador to the sultan of Fez. After many more travels he found himself captured by pirates and then under guard under the Castell San Angelo in Rome. In time, after catechism and conversion, and the curious adoption by Pope Leo X in 1520, al-Hasan opted to travel.  Venturing to Venice and Florence, Naples, and probably, Davis figures, spending more time in Bologna and Viterbo outside of Rome, he could learn enough of the local language and customs, as well as the words for certain things from the many people he could meet along the way.

In addition to a grammar for Arabic, al-Hasan wrote a number of other books while in Italy, that is, before his departure in 1527. Either with (or working for) Cardinal Egido in Viterbo, or, for Alberto Pio (now the ambassador for French King Francis), or alongside (perhaps even in consultation with) Jacob Mantino (the Jewish doctor in Rome), al-Hasan found time to write a number of collections.

What he is most known for though is his Description of Africa. This too Davis so carefully pores over layer upon layer, that she can make look easy revealing all that time has gathered in curtains of obscurity. There are the possible influences, as well as physical processes, even interpreted intentions she brings to light and places it all in those turbulent times. Nothing all at once, each in its time, each article carefully handled and turned to see how it might fit with the other pieces of all these stories that have come down to us.

The Cardinal didn't like Muslims in Europe or Asia or Africa, but accepted al-Hasan as his godson. Davis quotes this cardinal's sermons as divisive examples regarding various misinterpretation of Islamic traditions, pointing out that al-Hassan had to know the good cardinal was getting it wrong. [pp. 81-2]

However, a great project in the west was in compiling translations of the Bible and comparing them. Controversy over Erasmus and his (1516) New Testament translation of koine Greek apart from the Latin Vulgate (and its traditions) encouraged many others in the following years to look into Hebrew and Greek and even Aramaic languages. Some like Cisneros in Spain wanted direct comparisons between all the languages including Arabic.

From Cardinal Egido though, al-Hasan was given a Latin translation of the Quran obtained while the cardinal was in Spain. Egido had received this from one Joannes Gabriel, in order for his godson to correct the manuscript. Davis notes that al-Hasan surely found some pleasure in this work in setting many things right. [pp.241]

During this time in Italy, al-Hasan also found himself in the service of Alberto Pio. An ambassador for Maximillian and then for French King Francis, this Duke of Capri asked al-Hasan for him to copy an Arabic translation of the letters of Paul found then in the Vatican Library. [p. 69] Both their association and the task could be beneficial for al-Hasan. Through dialogue with this august person, he might learn some of the intentions of the new French King, who Pio represented in Rome, and also, from such a text, at least potentially, a clearer view into the ways Paul's thought could be expressed in Arabic. This too could also more firmly base al-Hasan's working knowledge in many common terms and concepts used in Biblical translation that he might use elsewhere as a translator.

Back in Rome, he would stay near Sant' Agostino in the Campo Marzio, Cardinal Egido's Order. [p.70] Here he could keep his access to manuscripts from the Church, have time and space to work on an increasing number of projects and, keep an eye on the various comings and goings of churchmen and ambasadors and the swirling opinions that always seemed to be rising to a fever pitch there and then.

In the early 1520's there had been a rapid succession of popes. Leo X (the Medici pope that had adopted and baptised al-Hasan), died on the first of December, 1521, and he was replaced with Adrian of Utrecht. A doctor of theology at the University of Leuven, Adrian had become tutor to the future Charles V, and even co-regent with Cisneros over Spain, until Charles could mature and gain accession there. In this way Adrian's own accession to the papacy was fraught with dissent as many at first feared a schism or severe break among the churches of Italy, France or Spain, with the head at Rome. Everyone wanted their own man and everyone distrusted each other. But even Adrian knew there were two chief concerns for a new pope. There was an acknowledged need within the church for broad reform and a need to quell spreading Lutheranism. There was also a stated need to combat the Turk who had extended territorially in places beyond Greece.

It took over seven months for Adrian to arrive from Spain to Rome, and after a few attempts at reform, and just after a year and two weeks there, he died. Again for the next vote, Medici influence in Rome prevailed and Giulio di Giuliano, a cousin to Leo X became the new pope. Francis I in Paris was alarmed at this return to Italian-based power and focused on reestablishing French power there by sending his armies to Milan. Against this background of shifting power, alliances and motivations, a wise observer might avoid trouble by staying clear out of the way, working on manuscripts, detailing translations, writing down things if only he could recall.

Where Cardinal Egido or Alberto Pio might dictate letters or essays to a scribe, Davis tells us, al-Hasan would write in his own hand with a pen and ink, going left to right on a line, and in the local Italian language. [p.96] He had reasons too for writing this for an Italian audience. With reports coming in daily of news from the wider world, their imaginative and mental world was rapidly filling up with exciting tales of explorers in the Americas. Al-Hasan could see the locals here also knew less about their continental neighbors to the south. During his stay he could see the proliferation of printed books and how they could influence and educate whether with accurate or inaccurate information and much else.

If he could secure a publisher, his work on Africa might find many eager readers even beyond those well-educated who knew Latin. But with a press he could also guess that his work might travel and last longer than a single hand-written manuscript. Thus anything he might say about Africa or the people there, their customs or, about Islam or its traditions and histories might also be read by some future Muslim reader. [pp. 106-8, 124] This, Davis points out is another reason for al-Hasan to be careful about what and how he set things down.

This manuscript on Africa would be finished March 10, 1526 and stretch out over 900 pages. This would be given to a scribe who would rewrite it, mistakes and all, and then hand it over to be shelved. This copy was discovered around 1930 and stays at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome. The stories of 'Leo Africanus' would proliferate and spread many misunderstandings in the intervening years but this seems to be the fault of the messengers along the way and does not seem the result of al-Hasan's work.

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Davis, Natalie Zemon: Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth Century Muslim Between Worlds, Hill and Wang, A Division of Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, NY, 2006


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