Sanudo's Diaries: February 7, 1515: Bessarion's Manuscript Legacy

It was not only Venice and her history that held Sanudo's interest. He also showed interest in the collection of Cardinal Nicenus or Bessarion as he was often called. When the last of the Byzantine Emperors had traveled through Europe seeking aid against the Turk, he had chosen Bessarion to go with him. Not only did Bessarion know what Byzantium was worth, he could explain it. Just what the Emperor needed. The west wasn't much help but was able to help the Greeks hold out for a while longer.
In 1453 the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople destroying at last what was left of continuity to the ancient Byzantine empire. But Bessarion knew that an ancient culture shouldn't just disappear like passing fashions. True, the government was dismantled, the armies destroyed, great churches and monuments overtaken and their sacred articles dissembled. But still we can say that we mean something more when we speak of culture rather than government or buildings, offices or monuments.

"For eleven hundred years there had stood on the Bosphorus a city where the intellect was admired and the learning and letters of the classical past were studied and preserved. Without the help of Byzantine commentators and scribes there is little that we would know about the literature of ancient Greece. It was, too, a city whose rulers down the centuries had inspired a school of art unparalleled in human history, ...a great cosmopolitan city, where along with merchandise ideas were freely exchanged and whose citizens saw themselves not as a racial unit but as the heirs of Greece and Rome, hallowed by the Christian faith. All this was now ended. The new master-race discouraged learning among its Christian subjects. Without the patronage of a free government Byzantine art began to decay." [p.189*]

But Steven Runciman also tells us in his book The Fall of Constantinople that,

"The notion of Byzantine scholars hurrying to Italy because of the fall of their city is untenable. Italy had for more than a generation been full of Byzantine professors; and of the two great intellectual figures amongst the Greeks living in 1453 the one, Bessarion, was already in Italy ..." [p 188*]

After the conquest, for a time, the bishopric of the see of Constantinople, one of the oldest of the patriarchal offices continued to be filled by the pope in Rome in contravention to all tradition, because there was no one else who claimed authority to do it. Cardinal Bessarion was named Patriarch of Constantinople in 1463 - now only a title - but he had been staying, in reality in Italy. He had become so familiar that,

Editor's Note: "... in 1468 he bequeathed his great collection of manuscripts to the city of Venice, to be placed in a library bearing the name of Venice's patron saint, located near  the Basilica of San Marco and accessible to the public.... During the decade following Bessarion's gift the 752 manuscripts, 482 of which were in Greek, arrived from Rome, but there was no building to place them in, and the fifty-seven crates in which they were packed were stacked in government offices. Over time, some manuscripts were borrowed, some lost, some deteriorated. Mostly the collection went unused and uncared for. In 1515 the government was still debating where the library should be built, and with what funds. Clearly this was a matter of governmental concern, but not yet a priority, given that the War of the League of Cambrai was still going on." p. 447

Sanudo's Diaries: February 7, 1515: (19:424); "The Council of Ten talked about making a library where lectures are currently held in the warerhouse facing the Flour Warehouse in the Terra Nova, where they would deposit the books of the late Cardinal Nicenus [aka Bessarion]. It would be paid for out of the money obtained from the rebels up to  ---- ducats."

Editor's footnote: [The rebels were] "Inhabitants of the mainland cities who had rebelled against Venice in the War of the League of Cambrai and whose goods had been confiscated and sold." [p 477]

nedits: There were two sides. One agreed to the measure and the other,

Sanudo's Diaries: February 7, 1515: (19:424); "... maintained that it should not be put there because that is the most dismal spot in the city, and the books will be completely eaten by insects, etc. No decision was made."

nedits: This was left off til May when a decision was made and the importance of this collection and the legacy of Bessarion - the intellectual traditions of Byzantium and Greece and Rome before them - could be properly enshrined. The day before this entry, his friend Aldo Manuzio, the great publisher had died in Venice.

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*  The Fall of Constantinople 1453 Steven Runciman, Cambridge University Press, 1965, Canto edition reprinted 2001

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

news from early feb2013

White House drops a memo on NBC that accepts executive judgement - claims it is 'legal, ethical and wise' - for drone killing without due process for 'known al-Qaeda leaders or affiliates', even if they are US citizens.
John Brennan who pretty much came up with this is due for Congressional hearings for his confirmation to head the CIA on Thursday.

Charlottesville, VA becomes first US city to claim drone exemption over it's airspace

Navy SEAL Chris 'the legend' Kyle with over 100 kills as a sniper, was shot to death at a TX firing range. An interview with him on the bbc was replayed this morning. Here he is on conan o'brian.

bi-partisan support for 'Aaron's law' in Washington today

Federal Appeals Court ruling would nullify Obama's recess appointments and all of Bush, Clinton and Reagan's too. WH is already appealing.

PA Gov says no to Federal medicare expansion for ACA implementation, and OH Gov,Kasich becomes the fifth Republican Gov to say yes.

Yves Smith on whether we should take the DOJ seriously on its suing S&P over bad mortgage ratings

Jon Stewart channels Dr Suess in one of the funniest bits ever on guns and Obama

Sanudo Digest: late January, 20-31, 1497-1531

It is in many places the time of year for carnival and parties in general. This was true in Sanudo's time, in Venice in particular.

Also, I live in a college town, one where the university student's generally go away for the Christmas/New Year's holiday and return some time around the holiday for MLK here, like the third Monday of the month. The entire population changes and then we have parties thru the new year and capping it off at the end is the National NFL super bowl - which was last night and for those of us in basketball worshiping communities there is still NCAA hoop hopes which extends in its own madness thru Feb/March. 

Yesterday, I heard tell of the local university announcing it's changes to core curricula. A change they hope benefits the students and the future and a rare one in this scope and breadth. 

But because in the west, by the calendar and in politics, it is still the beginning of the year and soon it will be the end of the Chinese year, it is natural to look at things with hope and still some reflection on past times. Winter time has been called the death of seasons. As if to point that out without referring directly Prairie Home Companion had a New Orleans band playing funeral marches and carnival street musics, yesterday as well.

Of course,back then in Venice there were parties too, and now and again disruptions, scandals, but also a series of problems around the schools, lecturers, students and what to do with Count Besarion's books, in January.

Today's Digest then is a recap, fashionably late to the www of recent posts of Marin Sanudo that he and our editors got on time. I'm the late one. I still  think I'm doing much better than Congress. 

Any of these are interesting views into society and what they thought important but taken in larger bird's-eye view, if only in listed digest form like this, one can still see a society working. Adapting or not to changing circumstances and trying to hold on to what was dear, even if sometimes misguided.

But just a glimpse of what our editors have compiled for late January should give all the reason one should need to go get the book already and read it yourself! There are links to other articles of more of their work in past postings here.

I also know I need to wrap up with the chapter on Burckhardt, the look at Poggio and the slim but wonderful book of Wunderli and also return to the story of Naples, the Borgia pope, the book of the courtier and the continuing state of Italian wars. Those will be overtaken by wider events in Europe this year because of what happens in the new world and how people back in Europe interpreted that. But here's a list of the two dozen topics the wonderful editor's chose  to provide for perusal in their wonderful book that I will sadly set down again as other areas of my story need to be attended to.

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January 20, 1507: students in Padua refuse classes after denied Carnival, p 451

January 20, 1517: Verona taken back, p 95

January 21, 1526: scuola for foundling orphan girls, pp 318

January 22, 1516: party with women causes trouble, because their husbands were not invited and 'young men' tried to break into it instead, p 294

January 23, 1500: death of a greek + latin scholar means competition for his seat, pp 434-5

January 23, 1512: another lecturer petitions to get a job, p 438
January 23, 1521: another party by the same Ortalani compagnie gets out of hand, p 291-2

January 24, 1513: a mummery with foreign commoners, performers from a dance school, p 505
January 24, 1518: problems during carnival, a boy is killed for offending and the bulls are let loose and that's all, pp 519-20

January 25, 1517: Paduans petition for attention, and subsidies from Venice, p 96-7; nominees put fwd by doge for Grand Chancellor, pp 309-310
Jan 25, 1525: a noble wedding showing off city, pp 298-301

January 26, 1504: patriarch speaks against Greek religious rites in Venice, p 334
January 26, 1506: a murderess gets tried and executed, pp 126-7
January 26, 1508: wedding goes sour, pp 301-2
January 26, 1513: competing humanists have quarrel that must be solved by the council, whether one who was privately subsidized could lecture at the same time as the publicly subsidized lecturer, p 439
January 26, 1531: lack of wood causes problems, pp 87-8

January 27, 1505: the old fondaco de tedeschi burnt down, pp 332-2
January 27, 1516: attempt to reform apellate court, pp 143-4
January 27, 1517: Sanudo's sister dies, p 30-1

January 29, 1499: Gritti says Turks slowly assemble armada, p 233; Garzoni bank starts to fail, Collegio promises to keep it going, p 236

January 30, 1516: the story of Besarion's library and the lack of official care in establishing Venice's own official history, while they try to do just that, pp 442-4
January 31, 1497: Florentine wins a case in Venice against a group of patricians, p 116
January 31, 1514: mutants gain religious and political significance in troubled times, pp 416-7
January 31, 1526: limits placed on wedding expenses, pp 303-305

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All page entries from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selection from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

Sanudo Digest: January 12,13, 16,17 18

A dozen entries from Sanudo are offered by our editors for this middle part of January. Continuing the digest method but now forcing the point of efficiency, topics include the monstrosities of Martin Luther, another pasquinade for Leo X, feasts continued and wedding feasts put on and the problems with Carnival and parties, a murderer gets their banishment lifted and a Jewish teenager gets baptized. A bill comes up to clear the lagoon, another to procure hemp for the Arsenale and in 1517, the French ceded Verona back to Venice.

Also, on this day, January 21, 1526, Sanudo visited an orphanage for young girls born to members of a scuola. The girls are educated and are granted dowries at marriageable age. An example that even in those days and in those realms most interested in money, charity did exist and could be praised.

But in a separate text added a few days before,

Editor's note: "... a 1526 broadsheet on "the monster of Castelbaldo," an anonymous and untitled text without publisher or place of publication... alludes to the sins of vainglory, lasciviousness, and sodomy and finds these degeneracies due to the deceptions of a pseudoprophet (Luther) and his books:" [pp 417-8]

The December before a baby in Masi was said to be born with both sets of genitals and an extra leg. This broadsheet constantly reaffirms the writer's faith in God as the Prime Mover...

Sanudo Diaries: January 12, 1526 (40:652-53); "The lack of faith that today reigns in this world, my most illustrious lords, is the reason why so many times God the Father sends us monsters so that we may see the evils we failed to believe.... God, who is in charge of nature, let's things happen that he could prevent, because of our enormous sins.... "

Again this is some other writer but they sound like a preacher. They then claim to have a 'small and low intelligence' but "will try to explain as God composes it in my head." Meanings for the mal-shaped aspects of the birth are given one after the other and how these might relate to man's sins.

A few years earlier, one could hear followers of Martin Luther preaching in Venice. What's more the pope had even heard of that telling the Venetian ambassdor to tell the signoria back in Venice not to let "a certain brother Andrea of Ferrara" print a book. 

Sanudo Diaries: January 18, 1521 (29:552) "... He also called don Pietro Bembo over, telling him to write a brief to the Signoria on this matter. Then Bembo told our ambassador that it would be a good idea for the Signoria to have Andrea of Ferrara arrested." [p 414]

nedits: This was the same pope, Leo X, Giovanni de' Medici that was so widely detested by so many people.

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In 1522, the month after pope Leo died, Sanudo tells us a letter from Rome arrived to ser Justinian Contarini. Sanudo summarized it for us.

Sanudo Diaries: January 13, 1522 (32:356); "An epitaph was written on the sepulchre of Pope Leo and quickly removed, and I was told that the gist was that the passerby should not marvel at the large size of the sepulcher, that is, o f the tomb, because it is small compared with the grandeur of Leo. For never had a pope so closely resembled the Trinity as Leo, and this because he had distributed the funds of three papacies, namely those of [his predecessor] Julius, who at his death left a balance of 600,000 ducats; his own; and those of his successor, who [will] rise [to heaven] before he will have paid Pope Leo's debt. I do not believe I can get hold of this epitaph, which is beautiful and is no lie." [pp. 180-1]

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nedits: The party from last week that the compagnia Ortolani had paid for was still going on: Sanudo Diaries: January 16, 1521 (29:546-7). They had a festa for the same prince they had since decided to accept into their order. This party was at Ca' Lando (maybe this one) which was then occupied by Sanudo's nephew ser Marco Antonio Venier. The prince was young and liked to dance. They did the 'hat dance' which was new then and that went on a long time. Tellingly, Sanudo mentions "...none of the silver was lost except a cup...." [p. 290-1]

A January wedding was noted for a distinguished bride - the granddaughter of doge Andrea Gritti - in 1525. The party went on for a week beforehand including a big dinner and dance in the doge's palace. Again the compagnia Ortolani were involved and paid for this party.

Sanudo Diaries: January 17, 1525 (37:447) "...The party concluded at eight hours past sunset, and not without a rain that ended days and months of drought, a good sign that this ceremony is taking place in a time of abundance." [p. 298]

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

news from mid jan2013

Surprised it's been so long.

The big news topic the last twenty-four hours has been the takeover and standoff of a remote gas station in the Algeria-held Sahara desert, 1000 miles from the capital. France has launched a bombing raid in a rare case where Algeria has granted France permission to enter its airspace. Al Qaeda affiliated rebels were said to have taken a number of hostages yesterday and the Algerian government wants no part in that. Some of those hostages may be already dead (and the numbers of those are supposed to be large) but some hostages have escaped and others are still said to be held by the armed rebels.

Meanwhile back in the states, digby finds what amounts to the original reason we have a second ammendment. As Thom Hartmann says it was to allow repression of ... wait for it... slave insurrections.

Again, digby nails it with the falsity of the 'Quickdraw' theory. Most often you'll have wannabe heroes who will shoot less accurately than cops... meaning less than 18% accuracy rate...

this guy should get the mendax prize on msnbc for saying 'Reagan supported gun control only in later years', i.e. after he was shot or after he got alzheimer's. The reality is he pushed for and got it as Gov of CA in the '60's, when Black Panther's insisted on being able to walk the halls of the statehouse in Sacremento with loaded automatic weapons...

Also via digby, creationism in schools is a nationwide movement

So is rigging districts to maximize republican wins in Pennsylvania this week. They already did that in Kansas.

'Break the law once and get a bailout. Do it twice and get a subsidy.' IRS seems to help out banks with that foreclosure mess. Even in USNews.

I can't watch this anymore today. But Sen. Al Franken has a petition up to reverse the Citizen's United case

news from early jan2013

top news this morning on bbc is that France has sent troops to Mali and elsewhere in north and east Africa, including Somalia where they took a command post in a surprise attack today. reuters has more specifying this action is within an ECOWAS or west african nation agreed set of policies, not French aggression.

"Secret Money Lobbyists Fight SEC Disclosure Rule" by Lee Fang in The Nation this week

Zombie Foreclosures: there may be a couple million out there: excellent article where major banks threatened to foreclose, so people moved out expecting the bank to foreclose, yet the bank didn't follow through. So the abandoned home gets inhabited by squatters etc. + trashed until the neighbors notice ... but the old owner still gets bills and then contacts from the city... the bank says it's not their fault.... Of course there has been still more ramifications of the CFPB's actions, those of the courts and certain state houses. More on that by the end of the month as it all gets tallied...

Planet Money asks How to turn a boomtown into a real town: 13 min audio and the shorter four minute version

If you ever wondered why is there so much spam? They also have a story on black market pharmacies that sell everyday health items, from acne meds to viagra copies, but for much cheaper and ends up in everyone's spam boxes; five min audio

Energy and giant Manufacturers tussle as US weighs raising natural gas exports. Manufacturers like Alcoa, Dow Chemical worry prices will go back up for them, given that Energy Co's will always want highest possible prices.

the proleftpodcast this week is great with driftglass & bluegal: "Maddow and ... Casablanca?" 57 min audio, they've been doing this for three years or close to it, every week, NSFW

Judge rules Brownback's Education cuts are unconstitutional

Why don't they mint a Trillion $ coin? The talk is revealing: up with chrishayes does it well, weighing options; four segments, 29 min video

David Bowie has a new single released on his birthday 8jan, "Where Are We Now?" which sounds to me a bounce-off the late '90's "Thursday's Child" but has a different subject matter altogether. It was released on the internet as a video which is intriguing. The album that Visconti says has been two years in the making has Earl Slick gushing and explaining the secrecy behind it. Which is now the hype, of course.

Great Rialto Fire: Sanudo Diaries: January 10, 1514

There was a great fire on the Rialto in Venice one winter that exceeded all those in memory. Our editor's give us a big piece of it. I think of those depictions told by Samuel Pepys in his famous diaries of the great fire in London in 1666. Also many great fires of the second world war in the twentieth century, etc. 

The St Paul that Sanudo mentions as the feast day patron, 'the first hermit', our editor's tell us (p 344) is Paul of Thebes rather than the famous Paul of Tarsus or Paul of Antioch...

Sanudo Diaries: January 10, 1514 (17:458-62); "Today was the feast of St Paul the first hermit. Tuesday ... a fire broke out in the monastery of the Crociferi and spread from the head doctor's room."

Editor's footnote: "The monastery had owned and run a hospital nearby, with a capacity of forty to fifty persons, up to the early fifteenth century (1414). It had then become a hospice for indigent women." p 344.

Sanudo Diaries: "Because a strong wind was blowing, it took only a short time, less than three hours, for the entire monastery and several houses behind it to burn. Nevertheless the church, which houses the body of St Barbara, was not damaged. As this fire was blazing and the tocsin was being rung at Rialto, according to custom, another fire was discovered in a dry-goods shop, the one that uses the diamond as its insignia. It happened because they keep a fire in a brazier to heat the store. A spark fell from it and set the cloth on fire, and the Rialto guards did not arrive soon enough to prevent the fire from consuming this and other shops. It was two hours after sunset, and one shop after another caught fire, both dry-goods shops and rope-makers' shops,producing an enormous blaze. A very strong wind was blowing from the north-northeast, and the cold was unbearable. The tocsin was rung at Rialto, and everyone came running, those who have vaults and warehouses full of merchandise as well as the shopkeepers and others who have business establishments at Rialto, including myself, Marin Sanudo. I too ran since I own part of the tavern of the Campana, from which I draw my livelihood; it pays 205 ducats in rental income, in addition to the income from the shops below it. 

The fire was burning, and no one was doing much about it because they were all busy emptying out everything they could from the shops, vaults, warehouses, and offices. A number of foreigners rushed there, as did others who showed up to loot once they heard that there was a fire at Rialto, which is the most important and richest spot in Venice. Soon the place was so jammed that one could no longer reach it. People were removing the merchandise and things from their shops, some of which got stolen; others were renting small boats and boats used on the Padua line and laden wine barges, onto which they intended to load the merchandise that was in danger of burning. No one was trying to put out the fire, [which was] already making great gain by going along the street toward the Agustini and especially the Pixani banks, which were open. The books and the cash that were there were removed, as happened also at other banks... the fire continued to blaze at Rialto, whipped up by the strong wind, and no one was taking measures against it ... heads of the Ten... could do nothing because no one would obey them, everyone being occupied with saving their own goods and not Rialto. Those who were not just stood around watching....

The parish priests of teh churches at Rialto... carried the body of Christ around Rialto [to try to stop the fire], but to no avail. The fire continued to spread, and in a short time all of Rialto had burned; along the Grand Canal the vaults and offices were destroyed as far down as the public treasurers' offices, and on this side to where the stairs begin to ascend the bridge....

On this side the fire entered the Monkey Inn, which belongs to the nuns of San Lorenzo and was new. On the other side, on Jewellers' Alley, the fire progressed as far as the vaults of the friars of San Zorzi; on the other side all of old and new Rialto and the Riva dil Ferro burned, and the flames spread from house to house. On this side, the church of San Zuane di Rialto, which had a piece of wood from the True Cross, was consumed by the flames, which spread to the top of the Campanile, where two figures of men rang out the hours. The top of the Campanile burned along with the figures of men that were on it and the entire roof. The fire burned all night because of the strong wind, and people stood watching, and in the streets people were running as if they were going to get indulgences...

The fire burned all night and all day on the eleventh.... It was still burning at sunset, when I left. All of Rialto burned, and all of the Flour Warehouse, but the blaze did not spread beyond the canal bank.... Only the church of San Giacomo di Rialto, with its leaden roof, remained standing, even though it was in the middle of the fire; so it was God's wish that it be spared. For this was the first church built in Venice, begun on March 25, 421, as may be read in our chronicles, and God did not wish so great as to destroy with fire the first church [of Venice]....

Today the head of St. Barbara, ... was carried in procession around the burning areas because it is believed to have great preventive powers in such matters, yet the fire continued to burn. Today the Collegio did not meet, nor were there meetings after dinner. Only the Collegio and the heads of the Ten gathered in the doge's chambers in the morning and after dinner to decide what measures to take... These measures will be taken during the night out of concern for safeguarding this city, given that it is engaged in a war and that the enemy is at Este... and there are so many rebels and foreigners here, Moreover, at this critical moment the populo were much quicker to busy themselves with robbing than to protect Rialto, which shows their ill will. Those who could find nothing better stole boards and firewood and then left. But the Arsenal craftsmen did their duty in making sure that the fire did not go beyond San Silvestro and Santo Aponal. They deserve much praise also because they were in great danger, it is believed that some of them were killed by walls that collapsed. he ladders and the buckets that the Council of ten had ordered placed in the various neighborhoods were nowhere to be found. All the same, people brought water by whatever means they could. Finally, at about twenty-three hours the fire began to abate somewhat and to lose its former intensity, and the wind died down....

Today, with the terrible cold and the high wind, fires broke out in a number of chimneys, but they were extinguished. Indeed, it seems as though these fires have been preordained: God has brought them upon us as punishment for our sins and the injustices committed. This past night the populo were saying, "Oh, what a sentence! Oh, what revenge!" And more than one was saying, "Even the half-rents were injustices." The fruit and the cheese stalls were all spared, and the wine barges were all unmoored [and spread out] along the Grand Canal. The people standing on the Rialto bridge had to leave because of the intense heat from the great fire. You could not see anything but boats full of goods and barges and other vessels, whose owners and porters earned good money carrying things here and there. The whole scene looked like the fall of Troy and the sack of Padua, which I myself witnessed.... I thought it was the most dreadful and horrifying thing that was ever seen in Venice or anywhere else."

pp. 344-47,  or Editor's notes or Editor's Footnotes from Venice, Cita Excellentissima, Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo translated by Linda L Carroll,  editors: Patricia H LaBalme and Laura Sanguineti White, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

Sanudo Digest: January 7,8,9

More digest means more redaction. But efficiency does not require loss of substance or sense.

Venice remained a vast emporium. It still was in many ways, one of the oldest remaining world markets of substance in those days and of the many items of great value that both came to it and were manufactured there, items of high value were made and sold to foreign markets and even monarchs and world leaders. Maybe these exchanges are examples of, or echo the oldest form of commerce, if we consider how far the tradition of gifting high-value items must have reached back in ancient times and, for which leaders such items would be made. Venice brings us up to date. Some patricians make a chess board thinking to sell it to the city to offer to Suleiman Magnifico.

Sanudo Diaries: January 7, 1527 (43:599): "I note that this morning I saw a beautiful object in the Senate chamber. It was a round high chess board, large and very beautiful. It was wrought of gold and silver and set with chalcedony [Ed. footnote: "A type of quartz that includes agate, carnelian, and other colored gems."], jasper, and other jewels. The chess pieces are made of the purest crystal. It belonged to ser Jacomo Loredan, of the Santa Maria Formosa branch of the family,  who gave it in dower to two of his daughters, who married ser Christofal and ser Marco Donaado of the San Polo branch of the family. It was brought to the Ducal Palace because ser Piero Lando, their uncle, wanted to show it to His Serenity and the Collegio to see if they wished to buy it to send as a gift to the signor Turco with ser Marco Minio, who is going to Constantinople as our ambassador.... They are asking 5000 ducats for it." p 623.

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Venice also had a back catalog of clerics they felt should be made saints. One such was Lorenzo Giustiniani (1381-1456) who had the distinction of being Bishop when the sees of Grado and Castello were united and the seat of the Patriarch was moved under Pope Nicholas V's direction, to Venice proper in 1451. This direction may have even been written by Poggio Bracciolini, since he was still the pope's amanuensis. Giustiniani was a noted reformer in the generation just before that of Bishop Rudolph of Wurzburg and was himself admired for his poverty, fear of God and fervency of prayer. Venice had been told he was being considered for canonization in 1519 so they threw a party. But it took more than six years for the papacy to get around to granting him the status of Beatus establishing Lorenzo as a holy confessor.

Sanudo Diaries: January 8, 1526 (40:620-21): "Today was the feast of the blessed Lorenzo ... who died... on the 8th....we may venerate him on this day and say an office and celebrate a mass [in his name] as if he were a saint. ...the marble tomb wherein his body lies was opened.... His body had decayed, except for his head, which still had its beard and tonsured fringe. Placed over the bones was a panel of cloth of gold with a wooden grating above that, and his remains were shown to everyone with great devotion yesterday and all day today. ... And because I, Marin Sanudo, had recommended it to the doge, the shops of the city were ordered closed; the government offices and banks were not open for business.... to honor one of its own most holy gentlemen, who was the first patriarch, a most learned theologian and true servant of God, who wrote eighteen works in Latin, on behalf of whose canonization the Senate has written so many letters to Pope Leo in Rome." p 398.

nedits. A year later, nothing had changed.

Sanudo Diaries: January 8, 1527 (43:599): "It was the feast day of blessed Lorenzo Justinian, but it was not observed as it was last year, and the governmental offices and banks were open, and shops were open throughout the city. And it was not well done." 

Editor's note: "The authorities may have felt that Venetian sanctity lay more in the integral city than in any single human representative. For whatever reasons, the government did not appear interested in institutionalizing an annual observance for a member of its patriciate." p.399

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Also on the same day in 1527, a party was held in honor of special guests from Florence, including members of the de'Medici family, their relations and friends as Roman Emperor Charles V was invading Italy, looking to gain Papal States, and within the year capture Clement VII, himself of the de'Medici clan. So they had good reason to be very afraid. It may seem surprising that they went to Venice, remembering how contemptuous Venice could be when Leo died. He was the last de'Medici to be pope just six years before the current one. But at least the Venetians were Italian and there were fewer who believed anymore there was a place for the emperor in Italy. And he would soon agree with them as other concerns, like the Turk in East Europe would consume him. But make no mistake, Venice is advertising it is entertaining wealthy refugees due to the emperor's invasion.

Sanudo Diaries: January 8, 1527 (43:616): "This evening ser Marco Foscari, the father of don Hironimo, the bishop of Torcello and former ambassador to Rome, held a lovely banquet in the courtly style with silver settings.... [S]everal ... Florentines... left Florence a number of days ago for reasons of personal safety and have come to live in this city.... There were comedie and instrumental and vocal music; in short, it was a lovely supper." p 293.

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But if a commoner were convicted of sodomy, they were usually banished from the city for five years. From the Venetian point of view they were sent to where sodomites were 'confined' outside the city and beyond certain limits.  In the link, if you can see Mantova that would be the general line for the Mincio. The Quarnero Gulf is beyond the Istrian peninsula to the east and south of the city. Counterfeiters were dealt with more harshly.

Editor's footnote: "The Venetian laws defined these confines as beyond the Piave and Mincio Rivers on the side of the land and the Quarnero Gulf ... on the side of the sea." p 137.

Sanudo Diaries: January 9, 1518 (25:190-1): "Item: one Francesco, a wine porter, convicted of practicing sodomy with a woman, who is absent, was banished to the sodomites' boundaries.... If he returns, his head will be cut off, and his body will be burned. Item: a certain woman convicted of being a procuress for sodomitic acts was condemned to being placed on a platform between the two columns and crowned on Thursday, and then banished, etc."

nedits: To be crowned at the columns meant public shaming in the center of town with a mock 'devil's mitre' placed on her head. Here is a bunch of pictures of official Catholic modern-day mitres. Google didn't know what a 'devil's mitre' was. As for the counterfeiter mentioned,

Sanudo Diaries: January 9, 1518 (25:190): "Several prisoners' cases were expedited. One, named Cocha, was condemned to having his eye gouged out for having brought counterfeit coins to this city. He was also banished from the city and its territories with a price on his head; if he returns, his hand will be cut off, and he will be banished again."

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From Christmas through Carnival, parties proliferated. This time a compagnia gave a party that was paid for by one of the city's mercenary captains.

Sanudo Diaries: January 9, 1521 (29: 536-7): "After dinner, there was a festa at Ca' Pesaro, at San Benedeto, given by the compagnia of the Ortolani [Farmers] and paid for by Count Antonio da Martinengo, a nobleman who is our condotierre and who has been accepted into that compagnia. There were about sixty women, the most prominent and beautiful in the city, and everyone supped on sweets, partridges, oysters, etc. After supper a beautiful new comedia was put on by ...the Paduans, attended by a large number of people. Then at three hours after sunset some of the members of the compagnia and count Antonio went to invite the Prince [of Bisignano, Pietro di Sanseverino] and some of his friends to the festa and to supper, and four of our patrician university laureates went to accompany him...."

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

Sanudo Digest: January 1,2,3

January, for Sanudo, as selected by our editors was quite busy detailing the broad range of happenings within Venice in his times as well as those pertinent goings-on elsewhere. It would be difficult for me to give enough space to the range of topics in this one month as covered by him, simply based on the merits. A couple long posts a week wouldn't cover the best bits. Even so, I'll try to shake it up a bit and offer today a bit of a digest after this amazing, introductory admission of Sanudo's at the eve of the war of the League of Cambrai:

Sanudo Diaries: December 31, 1508 (7:701): "After dinner there was a meeting of the Great Council. And a law was announced that had been passed by the Council of Ten on the 29th of this month that, among other things, stipulated that there be no more recitation of comedie, tragedies, and eclogues in this city, neither at weddings nor in any place, with a penalty for the householder hosts of one hundred ducats and the exclusion for two years from offices and councils, and for the performers as is stated in the bill, etc. And it should be noted the cause [l'autor] of this law was one Cherea from Lucca, who was intriguing to have  ... the use of the loggia at Rialto for the recitation of these comedies; whereupon this law was passed by the Council of Ten upon the recommendation of the doge and the councilors."

Editor's note: "... all such entertainments in the approaching Carnival season might have appeared frivolous and possibly subversive. Cherea's foreign background, his connection with hostile powers such as Mantua and Ferrara, may also have aroused the government's distrust." pp. 506-7.

Editor's Footnote: "It is interesting that the 1508 prohibition of comedie was republished on 1 February 1521 ... and on 16 February 1530... was referred to as still valid... to explain why a new prohibition was not passed. But the law went unobserved...."  [p. 507]. Again and again.
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It was on January 1, 1496 that Sanudo began his Book One of the Events of Italy. This came after the conclusion of his book on the Expedition into Italy of Charles VIII, bringing that story to December of 1495. He says himself that he has a further purpose even after Charles had returned across the mountains to France. One that the events not fade away. The other, was to show Venice's crucial role in protecting Italy, particularly Naples from French invaders [1:5]. I will let the story be told about Naples, just later in the year and with numerous authors.

Sanudo Diaries: January 1, 1496 (1:6) "Therefore I have abandoned every other form of composition and here will describe most truthfully all the events that have occurred. God willing, I will continue to describe them briefly, beginning on the first day of January ... as the year is reckoned in our Venetian fashion, until peace has come to Italy.... I will set down each day the news that is circulating, beginning with the pontificate of Alexander VI." [pp 4-5]

And so he does.

Sanudo Diaries: January 1, 1496 (1:6-7) "In Rome, the pope continued to fortify and rebuild the Castel Sant'Angelo. His intention was, through changing the surrounding walls, towers, and moats, to have the Tiber River flow through [the fortress]. But this plan had no chance of success.... He often rode around to view this work. His ill humor was increased by the fact that the French were no longer coming to Rome to seek bulls for benefices, [whereas] he had previously derived a large income from that region and the Gallic nation, and so the church was suffering a great loss. Nevertheless, Pope Alexander remained loyal to the League."

He gives a list of papal ambassadors as reported by the city's ambassador. I will come back to this when the occasion arrives to talk more about the Court of The Borgia and use Sanudo as some comparison.
The Editor's remind: "Again and again he returns to what was happening in Rome, reported back to Venice through ambassadorial or private correspondence to which Sanudo had access." And again: "Much of the existing history of the Italian and European powers is based on what Sanudo reports from these letters and on his copies and summaries of official documents for which no other copies are extant." [p. 164]
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Sanudo Diaries: January 2, 1499 (2:292) "A letter of November 9 written by Andrea Gritti and consigned to the bailo in Pera was received ... saying in a parabolic fashion [scrita in parabula] that a pirate had captured a ship of 200 botte, which means that the Turkish lord is putting together an armada of 200 sail."

Editor's footnote: "Gritti's "parabolic fashion" was not a unique device. In 1482-3 a Florentine businessman wrote partly ciphered and unsigned letters from Milan to a business associate in Pisa, who sent them directly to Lorenzo de'Medici's Chancellery in Florence. Decoded from cipher and perhaps even from their business reference, they proved to be analyses of Milanese policy. See Mallett, 1994, 242" [p. 233];  bib note p. 570: Michael Edward Mallett, "Ambassadors and their audiences in Renaissance Italy". In Renaissance Studies 8:229-43, 1994.

nedits: These ciphers were common for Venice and pop up all over. Andrea Gritti who would later become a famous doge is now seen as a much younger man acting as a spy in Constantinople.
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The story of how Erichi the Corsair met his end arrives in Venice:

Sanudo Diaries: January 3, 1502 (4:205-6) "A letter from the captain general written on Corfu and sent from Melos on December 12.... Erichi, the Turkish corsair, happened to land on Melos on his way back from Barbary. His ship went aground in a storm on the island. Aboard were 132 Turks, and he was taken alive with 34 Turks. The rest were drowned or killed by the islanders, but we kept this one in our grasp. On December 9 we roasted Erichi alive on a [spit made from] the handle of a large oar. He lived in this torment for three hours. Thus he finished his days. We also impaled the pilot and mate and a galleyman from Corfu who betrayed his faith. And we shot full of arrows and drowned another.... This pirate Erichi in times of peace with the Turks did great damage to our [ships] and even to the carracks of the Turks. A complaint was lodged with the sultan, who, by offering a reward, tried to have him captured and brought to the Porte.... It happened that ser Ambruoso Contarini in 1491 was seeking to load grain on his small cargo ship at Salonika, and he agreed to go in convoy with this Erichi [for protection]. After he had loaded his ship, the sailors told Erichi that this Ambruoso wanted to capture and kill him. Wherefore, on this suspicion, after a long battle, Erichi captured this Ambruoso, who was wounded in four places, and he roasted him and killed all the sailors. And for that reason our captain general also put Erichi to death and roasted him alive."

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

Plagues, Pilgrimages, Peasant Fires, Indulgences and Bishop Rudolph of Wurzburg, 1476

The next couple chapters take up nearly a third of Richard Wunderli's wonderful little book, "Peasant Fires". And they do more than just look at a couple of feasts in the local liturgical calendar.

Lent lasted til Easter which is usually in early-mid April. At the end of April, in southern Germany the locals held Walpurgisnacht, a pre-summer festival asking for good harvests, happy births, mild weather and also to chase out witches and bad spirits. Wunderli explains the origins of the Walburga cult, her significance especially as protectress against plague and hunger. [p.47]

The bonfires and the praying and the braying were meant to scare off the bad spirits that brought plague, hunger, infertility, sin.

This was no minor concern. Less than 130 years before had been the great plague of 1348 and that had returned again and again in the interval since. In Germany it has been estimated nearly a fourth of all German towns had been abandoned opening up huge tracts of land with fewer people left to work them. This meant less harvested and less done overall and less revenue for government and churches. It took many decades to work these crucial concerns out in every place. But the new stasis that had developed in Germany, by the 1460's-70's, unsurprisingly left the poor peasants poorer and the landlords, the churches, monasteries and the cities generally better off.

Quickly, in a few short sketches, Wunderli has laid out a clear picture of the socio-economic life after the plague years, the resolutions, advances, continuing problems [pp 51-4].

This year, 1476, some time after Walpurgisnacht, pilgrims began arriving in Niklashausen, the sleepy little town near the Tauber River in southern Germany. Lots of pilgrims. All who wanted to hear, to see, to touch the young drummer who had been a shepherd and now spoke the commands of the Virgin Mary. By early June the local bishop was writing to the archbishop of Mainz about this character and the great crowds that had come to hear him speak. By the end of June, Archbishop Dieter was ordering the infecting disruption to be squashed before it could spread [pp 48-9]. Like the plague.

Where we might ask Why or How this might happen, Wunderli very carefully explains that this is not the question the locals asked. 

To understand what they thought and felt, he says, we have to ask their questions rather than ours.

Rather than What or How, they asked Who. Who was the festival in honor of? Who brought the plague or pestilence or hunger and misery? Who could make it better?

This year, a drummer, a shepherd said that Mary Mother of God had spoken to him and said that the snows would melt and sure enough, they did. He said people should give up their belongings that held them to this world of excess and God would protect them if they made a pilgrimage in the name of Mary to Niklashausen. Again, the what or why or how was obvious to people in those days, but not who, for whom? When this 'who' became clear, for Mary, for this drummer her chosen spokesman, then it was obvious to them what they should do. Salvation demanded the why, pilgrimage answered the how. Once the answer to the question, 'who was this for' became clear,-- for Mary, the drummer, themselves --  the peasants knew what to do [pp. 55-59]. 

Wunderli gives a quote from Georg Widman many years later and adds:

"Stableboys left their horses, taking the bridles with them, he said; reapers left their reaping, carrying their scythes; women ceased haying in the middle of their fields, and came to Niklashausen with their rakes; wives left their husbands, husbands left their wives; children left their parents. Common people from all over central and south Germany -- from Saxony, the Rhineland, Hesse, Thuringia, Swabia, Bavaria, and, of course, Franconia -- simply dropped what they were doing and went to Niklashausen.

Widman insinuated that the pilgrims were attracted by cheap wine from roadside taverns and the promiscuous sex in the barns and the fields where the pilgrims slept. His analysis may betray elitist, clerical fantasies and disdain for common folk, but he was correct about the type of people who became pilgrims. With few exceptions they were peasants and peasant-artisans. What was so frightening to authorities -- those who Widman spoke for -- was that those people took to the road to Niklashausen and did not ask anybody's permission, not from their landlords to leave work, not from their priests to go on a pilgrimage. Social rank and obligations just seemed to dissolve." [pp 47-8]

Pilgrimages were common in those days. Today people don't go on pilgrimage, or pine and look forward to a time when we can. Instead, we go on vacation.

In those days, a pilgrimage was usually a purposeful trek to a specific place. A holy place where salvation might be found if the pilgrim was penitent and open to God's true teaching. Wunderli gives us penetrating insight here as well, leading us into the mysteries of what a pilgrimage held for the common person in those days [pp. 59-66]. Just as a pilgrimage site was a holy place designed to overwhelm and satisfy the penitent, the act of going as a pilgrim was itself a holy act. Their concept of the world, -- and people's place in it, the priests and chroniclers are quick to assure us -- was clearly marked out. All was God's creation but not all for people to understand. Yes, there was sin and guilt to keep people's vulgar ambitions in check. God created it but the devil ruled, temporarily, even their bodies. Any action, any gust of wind, a bad harvest, a bad actor, a rock, could hide or reveal the work of the devil. The devil kept people from salvation. Pilgrimage and indulgences could temporarily release people from the devil's sway. It was that simple and far-reaching.

A pilgrimage site remains interesting to us for what remains and what it reveals but more so, Wunderli tells us, was the effect for the pilgrim, at the holy site in the act of penitence. 

"Pilgrimage sites indeed were holy places, and they all had one thing in common: they were the site of a past miracle which could recur at any moment. At a pilgrimage shrine a breach had opened in the veil that separates heaven and earth, a tear in the fabric that would not be closed. It was as if a heavenly ray -- here we must imagine, with medieval artists, a ray breaking through the clouds -- were shining from heaven on a specific earthly location. Anybody who entered the holy spotlight partook directly of the miraculous, for the light was filled with the unseen presence of a saint, or Christ, or the Virgin. Within this heavenly ray,  a pilgrim could find the healing powers that only God, His family, and His companions could provide.

The point... was, and is, movement: from the mundane to the mysterious, from normal time and space to enchanted time and space, from homes and familiar surroundings to the unfamiliar 'light' of a holy place. this is an act of free choice ... pilgrimage is an act of liberation, not just from sin, but also from the everyday social bonds that hold people in ranks of obedience. A pilgrimage may be made without the sanction of clergy; and grace may be received at a holy site directly from heaven without the intercession of clergy.... bishops and princes were suspicious of pilgrimages.... something inherently populist, anarchical, and even anticlerical about them." [pp 60-1].

Our author goes further into the nature of the whole process of pilgrimage, using a number of examples to describe the 'liminal' nature of movement from one realm to another. Like a shoreline or that between shadow and light, the movement between the two also could be called holy and not subject to regular, temporal, earthly laws. The whole pilgrimage was often understood as such. The site and the travel were social levelers as well. In awe of the site and its wonders or on the road, travelling as pilgrims to the site, part of the petition and penitence being also holy, sacrosanct, all of it a rite of passage and all of them on that road considered the equal of everyone else. A pilgrim goes "... shorn of status or rank, to find salvation for themselves and their loved ones, to heal their souls from sin and guilt, and to heal their bodies from pain. A pilgrim is integrated with the Holy, not with society, which is why a spontaneous pilgrimage can be so dangerous for rulers: pilgrims are responsible to no one but God..." [pp 61-2].

But despite what it meant or how awesome the experience, the transaction was usually much more concrete. At a pilgrimage site, in those days, indulgences were usually sold for money or valuables. Relief from guilt or misery, however it was manifested was purchased. The tradition of church officials or their proxies selling indulgences came officially from the 11th century when only the pope could offer an indulgence for remission of sin. These were later farmed out to Bishops and then Monasteries and then eventually to any humble church or rustic pilgrimage site that might apply. Niklashausen had such a Marian pilgrimage site which was where Hans Behem our shepherd, our drummer began to be sought out by early May.

In the thirteenth century theologians explained that an indulgence was technically a return for services rendered. If an applicant did something for the church, then the church would enlist the aid of its treasury to intercede on the applicant's behalf. This intercession came from the wide population of living and dead saints, from Christ,  from Mary. They could provide aid, relief from pain, bread, remission of sin. They could even aid the applicant or reduce hardship for them when they reached Purgatory. But first you had to make an offer and then ask what you wanted. [pp 62-4]

But this shepherd said that he had the power to grant salvation, the remission of sins and so on. Pilgrims didn't need to go to Rome they could come to Niklashausen instead and also that Purgatory, he thought was an invention of the church. People thought they could steal a bit of his cloak or touch him or hear him and they would be healed. A pilgrimage to Niklashausen sounded like a great deal, for relief, for salvation. [p. 64-5]

Pilgrims could also be a very sad lot. Examples are given [pp 65-6]. On p. 67 he gives a long quote from chronicler Georg Widman from the late 1540's and pp 68-70 tell old abbot Johann Trithemius' version published in 1514 in Wurzburg. Told as an errant fool's tale. Certainly something not to do.

The next holiday that Wunderli organizes his subject around was the feast of Corpus Christi. Rather than a local, early summer holiday, this one came six weeks later, mid-June, and was designed instead to bring sanctity to the city and its established power by showing the continued centrality of the church.  

There was a procession, the Eucharist was carried by the ministers of the bishop out of the church and through the streets of the city and out the gates into the countryside. The local bishop was in Wurzburg and he had virtual control of that city as well as the surrounding bishopric that included Niklashausen [pp 72-3].

Rudolph von Sherenberg, the current bishop of Wurzburg was not the first bishop who had control of the city [pp 78-82]. Wunderli tells the story of that and how dependent and subject the city was on the acts of the reigning bishop: here he picked the mayor, he held the power of the purse, he could marshal armies. If he was corrupt the city fell into debt. If he got the city out of debt it was due to levies and taxes and tithes paid by the people, not by the church or even public servants. 

This bishop was a reformer and a 'reformer' in that day and age meant that a past church was always better than a present church. There was a past Golden Age when everyone was more pure and good and a good reforming bishop led the way to emulate and regain those prior virtues of morality and spiritual purity [p 77]. Rudolph lasted nearly thirty years and tried to be responsible but had inherited a great deal of debt as his predecessor was hopelessly corrupt and warlike. Constant news of the hordes in June moving through his city, across the Main and west to Niklashausen, was deeply troubling to such a reformer. But so was the concentration of wealth in Jewish hands to this bishop [pp 83-5].

"So, on June 13, Corpus Christi Day, the day that Bishop Rudolph was given full authority to stop the Drummer, the bishop marched in a procession of power, authority and hierarchy. First came the mendicant friars, followed by monastic clergy, both as escorts to the secular clergy, who were led by the bishop, who in turn carried a vessel containing the Eucharist.... Then came the town council, the masters of the crafts, and so on, down to the servants of the burghers. Nobody doubted that Bishop Rudolph was the most powerful man in Wurzburg and its surrounding countryside." [pp 73-4].

Things would quickly come to a head. 

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all quotes from  Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.

Hot Ticket: New Years Day, 2013

Update: 2201 CST ... House Passes Fiscal Cliff bill from Senate. Next up, Deficit Fear Mongering (DFM*) from the right for next two months...

A problem with Obama... besides caving too soon and the deal with the drones and the total loss of privacy and an Orwellian info-culture -- that also reabsorbs what it spits back at us,

there's this (mostly) unmentioned group a national circle of civilian or private leaders of closest partners with the president who get on the central 'gov't expenditure laundry list' when Congress forces itself thru these stopgap measures like the current fiscal cliff. I am presently sitting and waiting for the fifteen minutes of this vote in the House of Republicans to come to an end. At 2156 CST Tuesday, 01 Jan 2013. Watching the live feed on CSPAN. I see now It did indeed pass.

Always watch the ones who always get paid...

Of course, it was Jane at FDL that clued me in to this basic recurrent theme. The one's that always get paid with subsidies and tax breaks like last time in 2010...

Also the biggest banks are close to another major settlement with the government for $10bn over malpractice and fraudulence cases in mishandling real estate foreclosures that have occurred since the economic collapse. It's a big one too, countering the attempt last year by a number of State AG's that will be concluding here, any day now...

Don't forget about the pharmies, they get paid too. Here's a great piece on how much the Department of Defense spent on drugs in the last decade.

Haven't heard of Kansas Rep's I like yet, but this Missouri guy has the right idea, to try to put a limit on domestic surveillance drone use.

Here's a story about the 1932 fiscal cliff by a nice Hartford, CT paper. Spoiler: The wealthiest got paid then too.

This drill rig has run aground in heavy seas off Alaska. 

*** I'll use the DFM moniker as long as it's useful. It's a new year, new tools, new forms of short-hand...

It was the week before Christmas: news from 21dec12

We got some snow Thursday morning and today remains cool and bright.
But as everyone knows, of course all this week is talk - and talking is good - about the mass- shooting at the Sandy Hook, CT school and many others elsewhere and guns and the failure of Congress to do their part in avoiding the fiscal cliff.

So it's not the end of the world, but I know we can do better.

Carl Bernstein, (the journalist played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie All The President's Men) yeah - that Bernstein - writes of a shocking cover-up and he has the tape to prove it.... Apparently General Petraeus was approached by a spokesperson for News Corp who said Petraeus would be bankrolled by FOX/Aisles/Murdoch if he chose to run for president. What could that possibly mean? A high roller's bluff? A joke as Aisles tried to pass it off as or an actual attempt to hijack our government? One thing is certain, like Bernstein points out, if any other 'network' - CNN, NBC, ABC etc. had done this with Obama or anyone with a 'D' after their name, FOX would never let us forget it. But Mr Bernstein had to write it on an opinion page for the UK's guardian as the US press seems loathe to touch it... do they fear blowback from FOX? So my question is Who will slay the dragon? Carl Bernstein at least is trying.

Indefinite detention is still the rule here in the USA despite efforts in the last year to amend that

I don't see this one in the US press either: US soldier gets reduction in rank for urinating on Afghani corpse. Karzai calls it inhuman.

MoJo dispels the chief NRA myth: armed civilians don't stop mass shootings

A Korean American gets captured in North Korea. Looks at first glance like he'll be used as bargaining chip with the US over something.

Sixteen charts that tell the problem of wealth inequality, from The Atlantic

MI lawmakers didn't read that bill denying collective bargaining rights as it first must be ok'd by the MI state Civil Service Commission before it can be implemented on state workers

Of special note:

Today is David Dayen's last day blogging. So his post today on the housing market and bad banks is a ringer as his tempting look at a former Romney advisor's refusal to answer for his deeds. About Dayen, and his inhuman body of work over the last several years, and his abrupt departure, I know, I'm apoplectic over it. I really don't know what to say about it. Except he'll be missed a lot. Glad I got to read and promote him and talk to him. What a high standard he leaves behind.

Another essential collection of the pileup behind the fiscal slope as he first called it, by the amazing David Dayen.

New Clock Tower, Plague Returns, Winter Famine: Sanudo Diaries: 1498, 1497, 1527

In 1493 a new clock tower was ordered to replace the old and decrepit Torre dell'Orologio at the north end of the Piazza San Marco. By June 1496, our editor's note, work to demolish the old structure had begun ".. where the retail street of the Merceria entered the Piazza...". [p 470]. By the end of 1498 the new structure was up and the great bronze bells were hoisted up into the tower.

Sanudo Diaries: "December 15, 1498 (1:833) On the 11th day [of December]  the bronze giants were placed above the clock tower that was recently built in Piazza San Marco, where they will ring the hours.  This I have recorded so that it will be remembered for all time."

It should be remembered that in those days before phones or regular wristwatches, the clock tower that boomed it's melodies at the hour and half-hour, drew the continual focus of every one in earshot. All day, all night, every day, all their lives.

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Nearly a year before, Sanudo reported the return of the plague to Venice, that the city responded normally to it and that for Christmas an Observant Brother of the Franciscan Order was heard delivering mass and preaching against corruption. The plague he claimed was evidence of God's disfavor of man's sins.

Sanudo Diaries December 16, 1497 (1:836-37) "In this month and in this city ... several people died of the plague. The proveditori sora la sanita ... took many precautions to make sure that the plague would not spread to the rest of the city; [that it did not] is a miracle, since almost all of Italy has suffered from it, most recently Ravenna, Padua, Treviso, Istria and the Friuli. Those who are infected but still alive are quarantined in the Lazzaretto, and their things are burned. Now Christma is approaching, the season in which the city celebrates the papal pardon and holds festivals at the churches.... Therefore, ... members of the senate proposed a bill... [to] write to the pope and ask him to grant this pardon at another time of the year and to close churches that draw crowds during the holidays,,,, They did this so that people would not gather, because a woman that had died in the Lazzaretto in the last few days confessed that on the feast day of Santa Lucia she had gone, infected with the plague, to the church of Santa Lucia and said that two women from [the nearby parish of] San Marcuola had caught it from her there. The Senate also decided that there would be no preaching for now in any of the churches of this city. They sent word to all the parish priests that they were not to hear confessions of any sick person without the Senate being informed of it and that the barber-surgeons were not to bleed people."

Editor's footnote: "Sanudo does not indicate in the text that he is writing this entry after Christmas Day." p. 379.

Sanudo Diaries: "But on Christmas Day the doge wanted a sermon to be delivered in the Basilica of San Marco, as is the custom. This was done by a certain Fra Thimoteo, from Lucca, of the Observant Franciscans, who had been preaching at San Francesco a la Vigna. He gave a fine sermon. Among other things, he said: "My lords, in keeping the churches closed for fear of the plague, you are acting prudently. But if God wishes [the plague to strike this city], closing the churches will be to no avail. You must remedy the causes of the plague, which are the horrendous sins committed in this city: the blasphemy against God and His saints, the sodomitical associations, the infinite number of usurious contracts made at Rialto, and everywhere the selling of justice with decisions in favor of the rich and against the poor.""..."

Editor's footnote: "These were the standard "sins" preachers cited as responsible for God's disfavor." p. 380.

Sanudo Diaries: "..."And what is worse, when some nobleman comes to town, you show him the convents, which are not convents but bordellos and public whorehouses. Your Serenity, I know that you are not ignorant and that you are even more aware of these things than I am. Take care! Take care, and you will take care of the plague." Then at the end he asked for forgiveness, saying, "I know, Your Serenity, that you know how to make some excellent stiff caps, so I will come to get one!" And he said it in so pleasant a way that everyone laughed. When he came down from the pulpit, the doge greeted him with good humor."

Editor's footnote: "The preacher used the words belli capelli et bruschi, probably a reference to the distinctive ducal cap, which doges had made in sumptuous fabrics." p. 380.

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nedits: After drought and failure in crops, the sacking of Rome and famine in the Veneto, the winter of 1527 was particularly cold.

Sanudo Diaries: December 16, 1527 (46:380) "I note that ... wheat, barley, etc., have been brought by these ships coming from Cyprus and other ships in the past few days. Nonetheless the cost of wheat is rising ... so that it is an extremely severe famine. And [the cost] not only of grains but of wine.... Thus everything is expensive, and every evening in Piazza San Marco and in the streets and in Rialto there are children crying "I want bread -- I am dying of hunger and of cold,"  and it rends your heart. And in the morning bodies are found under the portico of the Ducal Palace. Yet no steps are being taken...."

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