Pavane for a Dead Princess: Part Eight

La vostra sorella Cleofe Palaologhina 
deo gratia Vasilisa della Morea

# 5, to Paola. 28.6 x 21.5 cm.

Brigitte Eckert recently went to Mantua, while on a trip to Venice, and photographed Cleofe's letters for me.  She had gone to Mantua to do this a year ago, in May 2012, and was just sitting down with the letters in hand when the earthquake struck, and everyone was sent out of the library. Brigitte also took the trouble to get the dimensions of each letter. The letters are found in three different buste  in the Mantua archives.  A busta looks like this:

A woman in the archives in Venice once said to me, "We are the perpetual children," because a new busta evokes in some of us all the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning.

Long-time readers of Surprised by Time have often had the pleasure of Brigitte's generosity. She took photographs of the Franciscan church in Nauplion when mine went missing. More particularly, she translated numerous letters by Bettina Schinas née von Savigny written from Nauplion and Athens in 1834-35.  

In Mantua, Brigitte examined four letters written by Cleofe, along with letters from Battista Malatesta di Montefeltro to her sister Paola Gonzaga di Malatesta, and from Paola to Pope Martin V about Cleofe.  These six letters have been published and can be found on-line here. 

#4, to Paola. 30 x 19.5 cm.

This letter #4 was written on 26 January 1428 to her sister Paola.  It is very short,  seven and a half lines, and she asks for prayer for her soul, she doesn't care about her body. [line 5 "dal corpo non me ne (incuro)"]  Since Conte Riciardo left, she has had no news about Paola's family, and she needs to know how they all are.  She doesn't have time to write more, but Paola can write their brother (Pandolfo Malatesta, Archbishop of Patras) for information.

"Please tell me about our sister's little orphaned children (line 6, quilli orfanitti).  God knows, if I were in another country, I could take one."  Their sister Taddea had recently died of plague, leaving two small children.

#6, to Paola. 2c x 10.5 cm.

This is the last letter, to Paola.,in July 1428.  It is very short, because the bearer will tell Paola the news -- the news being that John, Constantine, and Thomas Palaiologos are besieging their brother's city of Patras.  Cleofe's husband, Theodoros, did not join them: he was deeply engaged with negotiations with Venice over this and other matters, and he was tied up in emotional knots over the question of whether he should leave his position and wife and daughter, and become a monk.

La vostra sorela pocha aventurata
 Cleofe P.

The four Cleofe letters -- and the other two -- are not written on full sheets of paper, but on  pieces cut off a larger folio sheet.  The cuts are not perfectly straight.  Cleofe's paper is of much higher quality than the other women's, thick and still almost stiff nearly 600 years later.  You can see the indication of quality in the first photograph, the closeness of the laid lines that run vertical to the writing.  The seal (traces of one can be seen two pictures up) was red wax, and carried a double-headed eagle.  One of the letters shows a clear watermark, a five-petaled flower quite common over several hundred years of paper-making.  Again, you can see the closeness of the laid lines.

La vostra sorella
Cleofe Palaologhina

# 5, to Paola. 28.6 x 21.5 cm.

This is the complete letter from which the signature in the top picture came, and it is shattering.

It was written on 20 March 1428, carried to Italy by the megachartophylax (she writes megha cartofila) of Mistra who was taking the formal announcement of the birth of her baby, Helena, to her father and the pope. (Helena was the heir to the throne of Constantinople at that point.) After her death, the Mistra intellectuals made a point of Cleofe's self-discipline, and you can see that discipline here in the evenly spaced lines* and clear penmanship -- easily readable in a larger image -- despite the fact that she was desperately depressed.  It may be the first description of post-partum depression that we have written by a woman.

The first part of the letter is a cry from isolation: she is begging for letters from home. She returns over and over to the topic of foreignness and distance -- and then possibly suicide:  "Without this grace that I request (letters), I will be unhappy, and my life short and bitter . . . my life is worthless but I would damn my soul in perpetuity . . . the tears do not leave me . . . there is not enough paper to write it all . . . I wish I were dead."  Only at the end of the letter does she mention the new baby, her only consolation.  This is the only letter of the four that is signed vasilisa, which was the title for a despot's wife, and I have wondered if she received the formal title for the birth, or if her use of it is a bit of irony at the contrast between her formal position and her actual situation.

This consuming depression will explain Theodoros' impulse to become a monk mentioned above.  He was, finally, happy to become a father. Nothing in his experience prepared him to cope with a wife in Cleofe's condition.  His pattern of decision-making indicates that his own anxieties pushed him into absolute positions.  That must have intensified her depression. The imperial brothers, and Gemistos and Dr. Pepagomenos, must have worked hard to talk him down from this.

As difficult as it was to read this letter in print, to read it in her own controlled, carefully-spaced handwriting was devastating, even though I had the protection of the distance of a photograph. 

* She is using a mistar (Arabic), a form with strings placed under the paper to indicate the spacing.

* * * * * * * * * *

Previous entries about Cleofe:  

Pavane for a Dead Princess, I
Pavane for a Dead Princess, II
Pavane for a Dead Princess, III
Pavane for a Dead Princess, IV
Pavane for a Dead Princess, V 
Pavane for a Dead Princess, VI

Pavane for a Dead Princess, VII

Her Most Dear Daughter, Helena
Glory Days
Theodoros' Poem to Cleofe 
Theodoros II Palaiologos  
Malatesta "dei Sonetti" Malatesti 

Bessarion to Theodoros, I
Bessarion to Theodoros, II

Scholarios talks about Theodoros 

Misunderstanding Mistra

 Late fifteenth-century Florentine painting from a series concerning 

Jason and the Argonauts that makes great use of gilt and Byzantine headgear.
Immediately after 1453 the West decided that Byzantine meant serious status.

I want to talk about some Mistra-related assertions that have come my way.

1.

1.1.2.1.1.1.2. Manuel II Paleologo, (1350-1425), Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, (r. 1391-1425), married 1392 to Jelena Dragas, with issue.

1.1.2.1.1.1.2.1. John VIII Paleologo, (1392-1448), Co-Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, (r. 1421-25), Emperor of the Byzantine, (r. 1425-48), married (1) 1409 to Princess Anna of Moscow, married (2) 1421 to Sophia di Montferrat, married (3) 1427 to Princess Maria Komnene of Trapezunt, dsp.

1.1.2.1.1.1.2.2. Prince Constantine Paleologo, (1393-1405), dunm.

1.1.2.1.1.1.2.3. Prince Theodore Paleologo, (1394-1448), Despot of Achaia, (Cr 1407) Despot of Mistra , (Cr 1443 Principe di Selimbria), married 1421 to Cleofa Malatesta di Pesaro e Fano, with issue.

1.1.2.1.1.1.2.3.1. Princess Helena Paleologo, (1428-58), married 1441 to John III de Lusignan, King of Cyprus.

1.1.2.1.1.1.2.3.2. Prince Emanuele Peter Paleologo, (1425-75), Titular 2nd Despot of Mystra and Prince of Selimbria, married at Messina 1447 to Isabella di Lotto, with issue.

Number 1.1.2.1.1.1.2.7.2.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.2.1.2.2.1 who designates himself as "Prince" and "Barone" sent me -- at my request -- this proof of his descent from Manuel Palaiologos. It took me two years to get around to looking at the genealogy because it is so very very long with so very many of those numbers, and I found the first problem precisely at the point where I have been doing research these past two years.

It should be easy enough to identify: the genealogy gives Theodoros and Cleofe a son, two years before they began a sexual relationship, and it gives him the name of Manuel Peter. Manuel is fine: the first son gets the name of the father's father, but there is no family source for the name Peter either with the Malatesti or the Palaiologoi for the name, and the chance of a Greek rite imperial family employing the name is -- I'm guessing here -- highly unlikely.

The next problem is the daughter, Theodora, assigned to Constantine XI, but neither Theodora nor Manuel Peter need have been mentioned at all since 1.1.2.1.1.1.2.7.2.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.2.1.2.2.1 claims descent through another Constantine, a grandson of Thomas Palaiologos, and a son of Andrea.  There is debate among reliable historians as to whether Andrea actually had a son.  Now, the non-existent Manuel Peter and this possibly non-existent Constantine both -- according to this list -- married Sicilians.  It is at this point that I begin to sense an ancient and fishlike smell and I am not giving credence to the claims of 1.1.2.1.1.1.2.7.2.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.2.1.2.2.1.  I could be wrong.

In the years after the Fall of the City, it would have been easy for any well-spoken Greek to have invented a new name in Italy, and given the laxity in the Byzantine system of names someone who already had Palaiologos as one of his names could have given the wrong impression to someone.

PS.  Do NOT make use of this site for Palaiologan genealogy. A massive number of erroneous details just in the names I checked -- sons of Manuel II -- and no way to submit corrections.

* * * * *

The other Battista, and her husband, Frederigo de Montefeltro


2.

Battista Malatesta de Montefeltro was not one of Cleofe's ladies-in-waiting. She was the wife of Galeazzo Malatesta, Lord of Pesaro; daughter of the Count of Urbino; niece of Pope Martin V; correspondent of Leonardo Bruni, and one of the most literate and respected women of her generation. She was the aunt of Frederigo de Montefeltro, condottiere and great patron of Piero della Francesca, and the great-grandmother of Frederigo's fragile wife who was named Battista for her.

Despite the abundance of material on Battista (summed up here) to be found in writings on 15th-century humanism, she was curiously identified as Cleofe's "dame d'honneur" by Denis Zakythinos . Everyone else has mindlessly copied from Zakythinos: Runciman says,"one of her ladies-in-waiting", and elsewhere he adds "a cousin"; Ronchey, "dama di compagnia"; most recently, "μιά κυρία της ακολουθίας (πιθανώς εξαδέλφης την δέσποινας)" in Zēsēs Tsiopas dissertation, and in Dabrowska who goes so far as to say that Cleofe was "spied on by one of her ladies-in-waiting, her cousin Battista."

Possibly Zakythinos made his assumption based on the fact that Battista wrote a letter to Pope Martin V about the marriage problems of Cleofe and Theodoros. (He found the letter in Iorga.  The letter has been carelessly dated to 1421 or 1425.  It was certainly written in January 1427, at the same time as Paola's letter to the Pope on the same topic.)   It seems never to have occurred to anyone that the information might have been transmitted from Cleofe in Mistra to Battista in Pesaro by letter, or messenger, or gossip.  No one had a basis for assuming Battista's presence in Mistra. Zakythinos is a giant in the pantheon of Greek historians and can be forgiven. Information on Battista may not have been available in the 1930s had Zakythinos wanted to investigate Battista. The others cannot because they did not check out their source. 


A letter by Battista on the death of Cleofe's and Paola's father can be found here. Letters by Battista, Cleofe and Paola can be found here.  

The Emperor in Pain: Part Two

I wrote earlier about the physical pain suffered by John VIII. This entry is going to be about John's salad and why his brother Theodoros wouldn't go to bed with his wife. 

Look at this picture of John's right ear, made in Florence 1439, when we know he was in severe pain:

I didn't see it at first, but Dr. Tom Morgan, with whom I was consulting about the reported incidences of gout among the Palaiologoi,wrote me about the earlobe:  "Several people to whom I have shown the images believe that there is a round swelling in the posterior, lower earlobe. What this may be is a gouty tophus, that is, a collection of uric acid crystals with surrounding inflamed, swollen tissue."    

Dr. Morgan summarizes gout this way: "Gout is due to abnormal production of uric acid from the diet and thus to increased amounts of uric acid in the bloodstream. The uric acid forms needle-like crystals especially in the joints and kidneys.  When the needles occur in the joints - especially in the great toe [podagra] - pain, often severe, and swelling occurs. The slightest movement induces severe pain; not only in the feet but also in the hands, wrists and elbows. The pain is episodic and debilitating and may be accompanied by fever and malaise. Ingestion of meat (especially kidney, brain, pancreas) and alcohol leads to high levels of uric acid and precipitates attacks."  

The same feature can be seen on the earlobe of the bust Pisanello made of John the same year, 1439. John was diagnosed by contemporaries as having gout, as was his uncle Theodoros I of Mistra, and his younger brother Andronikos who died of it in his twenties. 

On July 27 of that year, John -- with quite a large entourage -- was returning to Florence from a religious pilgrimage, which is shown on the reverse of the medal Pisanello also designed.  They stopped in Pistoia and asked Giovanni di Pigli for a place where John could rest and get something to eat.  Giovanni wrote down what happened that day, commenting that John had difficulty walking:

"And note, the first food the Emperor ate was a salad of purslain and parsley, with some onions, which he himself wished to clean. After that there were chickens and pigeons . . . As the dishes came, they were all placed before him, and he took what he wanted, and sent them along to the others. His last dish was eggs thrown on hot bricks where the other things were cooked."  

You may be asking just what the salad and the gout report of 1439 have to do with Theodoros' private life which centers on 1421.  John's earliest reported episode of gout was in 1432 so he can be discounted for a while. Recall that Theodoros was sent to Mistra in 1407 at the age of 10.  His uncle Theodoros I, Despot of Mistra, was dying in extreme pain from gout so the child was able to watch the sores, the smells, the excruciating pain, and know that this is what happened to people in his family. His brother, Andronikos, despot of Thessalonike, suffered extremely from gout.   Andronikos had a son, although we don't know how old he was when that happened, but in 1421 he was 21 years old.  [Late correction:  Andronikos actually didn't have gout.  Read this.]

In 1415, their father Manuel had visited Andronikos in Thessalonike, and then Theodoros in Mistra.  Traveling with him was the doctor Demetrios Papagomenos, a specialist in gout, and respected enough that his treatise on gout -- written at Manuel's request -- was continually printed, first in Greek and Latin in Venice in 1517, and then steadily afterwards in various translations for the next 250 years.  Manuel left Pepagomenos in Mistra to be court physician for Theodoros.

We can be absolutely positive that two of the books Theodoros owned and read thoroughly were Pepagomenos on gout, and his father on marriage. The combination would have been anything but encouraging to a young man. This is where the salad and Theodoros' marriage come together.

Pepagomenos' treatise on gout is about prevention and probable cure.   Cure consisted of planned vomiting, purging, and bleeding -- getting the bad humors out of the body.  Prevention consisted of a light diet, with a lot of green leafy vegetables and avoidance of meat and wine.  Eggs were fine.  (See what John was eating above.) And avoidance of excess sexual activity because -- I love this -- the motion required in sexual activity shook up the little particles in the body and precipitated them into the legs and joints.  Pepagomenos didn't specify what excess might mean, but he himself was married and had two adult sons, so the average intuitive person might have drawn reasonable conclusions from that.

But Theodoros, on the other hand, who was raised by clerics and intellectuals in an all-male environment -- except for  the cleaning women and laundresses -- learned nothing of marriage but a great deal about how to be a hyper-intellectual.  The poor man was set up to make the decision in 1421 -- perfectly rational from what he knew from books -- that sex, even in marriage, was something he could not do, if he was to avoid his uncle's fate. There is no doubt that he was encouraged in this by his religious advisors, particularly John Eugenikos who for reasons unclear to me is highly regarded even today as an intellectual but who totally opposed any Union of the churches, and who -- after Theodoros had married Cleofe and had a child -- was still encouraging him to take monastic vows.   (All wrong.  I have learned too much about Eugenikos.)

Sometimes these Mistra people are enough to make you want to forego the intellectual thing altogether.

We also have a letter from Battista (#3) reporting that Theodoros had said he would not have sex with Cleofe and he would not eat meat.  She seemed to have learned this at least second-hand, and by word-of-mouth, so the reasons might not have filtered through, or been understood.  But Theodoros who as a lonely child had watched the extremes of gout was desperately afraid.  This is, to be sure, another reading of the not-eating-meat statement which is conventionally interpreted to suggest that meat inflames sensual passions, but I have come to think that too simple an explanation.


The writing of history depends on survivals, coincidences, intuition, likelihood -- and faith that all of those can, together, make sense.

My gratitude to Vittorio Volpi, incomparable librarian in Iseo-Brescia, for tracking down those Pepagomenos PDFs for me.