Misunderstanding Mistra, Part Two

Wedding crowns, Athens  

 

Last night when I was not sleeping, I found myself thinking about the marriages of the sons of Manuel II Palaiologos.  A fairly dismal subject, on the whole, with a great deal of waste and grief on all sides.  It is an article of faith that Manuel received a letter from Pope Martin V giving permission for his sons to marry Western rite brides, and this is demonstrated by showing that in August 1420, Sophia of Montferrat and Cleofe Malatesta of Pesaro were shipped out as the first lucky candidates. (By the way, none of these women married to the Palaiologos sons was a princess: enough of the "Latin princesses" theme.) There is a vast wasteland of articles on the marriages of the sons of Manuel II, and having recently written on this topic myself (with more to come), I think it needs re-evaluating.  

The marriages of John VIII are no proof of this Western rite theme.  When he was 21, in 1414, he was presented with a child bride in the person of Anna of Moscow.  She died of plague three years later.  He had been so detached from her that he did not learn of the event for another year.  Then there was Sophia of Montferrat.  John left her a bride unwedded, and she left him after nearly six years.  This cannot be considered a Western rite marriage. When he remarried in 1427, this time blissfully, his bride Maria was from Trebizond and of the Eastern rite.

Theodoros II of Mistra married Cleofe Malatesta in January 1426 and he, too, left her a bride unwedded.  After six years, he decided to be married after all and pressured her -- despite a written promise to the Pope -- to convert to the Eastern rite.  She assured her family that this was an outward conversion -- "I have not become a nun just because I have been anointed with a little oil." -- and spent the next six years doing penance for her act.  This, too, cannot be considered a Western rite marriage.

Constantine's two marriages were both to Latin rite women, and both of them died during pregnancy.  Both women, Theodora Tocco and Caterina Gattilusi, were from families that had lived in Greek-speaking lands for generations, and both were certainly bilingual.  From what we know of these Latin-Greek families, their choice of rite was fluid, and they were at home in both.  Neither of these marriages was arranged under the papal dispensation and there is no information as to any observation of any rite.  Theodora was part of the territorial settlement concluding the Palaiologos conquest of the Tocco territories in the Morea. Caterina's family was related to the Palaiologoi and she was chosen for her suitability.

Moving on to Demetrios, both of his marriages -- to Zoe Paraspondylos and to Theodora Asan -- were in the Eastern rite.

Which leaves Thomas.  His marriage to Catarina Zaccaria in January 1430 was, again, outside the papal dispensation and part of the territorial settlement in the peace treaty by which the Palaiologoi acquired the Principality of Achaia and added 50% more territory to the Despotate. She might have been considered a princess, as her father was known as the Prince of Achaia, but no contemporary document calls her that.  Sphrantzes calls her "kyra." The marriage was celebrated at Mistra.  It is highly unlikely that the ceremony was in the Western rite.

All of this means that, instead of forcing the marriages to fit that letter from the Pope, one should look at what actually happened.  Or didn't happen.

Toufa, Toupha: Part Three

 Detail, second king, from Adoration of the Magi,
Gentile da Fabriano, 1422-23,  Florence

An earlier Western conception of the toupha has turned up, this time in the Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, a Florentine painter, thirty-five years before the Benozzo Gozzoli  Procession of the Magi, also in Florence.  I had blithely assumed that Gozzoli had created this toupha:

Gozzoli painted his Magi in 1459-60, and I had been pleased with the discovery that not only was his painting based on the visit of John VIII Palaiologos to Florence in 1438, but that this toupha uses the red, gold, green, and white colors of the Medici who commissioned it. (The Medici were sponsors of a religious organization that specifically honored the Magi.)

However, Gentile da Fabriano painted his Magi in 1422-23 and the toupha may have been his design.  Here the toupha has red and gilded feathers, the Strozzi colors of red and yellow, and this painting was commissioned by Palla Strozzi.

(click to enlarge)

Gentile paints the the Magi three times as they process into the realm of magic and off the edge of this world, and each time one of them is wearing the gold and red feather toupha:

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

There are other elements to notice.  The forked beard, for one, which is very common in Western portrayals of John.  The short-sleeved outer garment, typically Byzantine.  And that this toupha-wearing king is the second king in the line to adore the Infant.

Now back to the Gozzoli.  He, too, is a second king.  The beard hints at a fork, although not obviously.  And he is wearing that short-sleeved outer garment. (Do notice the luxurious fabrics and colors both are wearing.)

John was in Ferrara and Florence in 1438, trying desperately to get help for Constantinople.  John was in Venice and Milan in the winter of 1423 and spring of 1424 trying desperately to get help for Constantinople.

But: Gentile da Fabriano signed and dated his altarpiece in May 1423.

And the beard turns out not to be diagnostic.  Other painters of the period have a second king with a forked beard, or a king with the short outer sleeves, though I have not identified any more combinations of forked beards and short sleeves.  The forked beard seems to be an attribute of  "a king from somewhere exotic."  So do the sleeves.

Had Gentile seen pictures of the toufa, such as this from 1340?  Or pictures of John? Or pictures of Eastern emperors?

Moving on to the animals, Gozzoli gave his magi cheetahs and a lynx.  Gentile includes a cheetah and a leopard, on the rumps of their keepers' horses, and hunting.

Clearly, Gozzoli drew heavily from Gentile's work and these quotations must have given a great sense of security to his viewers who were looking at a very different style of painting. Surely some art historian has tidily explained this, and the business about the two Second Kings, and some reader can send me the relevant references -- which I have not found although I have looked for them.

This is the great pleasure of research: there is always something else out there you haven't seen yet.  It is not a matter of "Gotcha!"  It is the joy of the exploration that leads from Cyriaco's ridiculous sketch to Gentile's shimmering gold.  It is the  matter of the journey, riding with the Magi, following the shining track, discovering the unlimited abundance just over the next hill.




Toufa, Toupha: Part Two
Toufa, Toupha: Part One
The Leopard-Wranglers: Part Two
The Leopard-Wranglers

PS, Part Four: About Distinctions

Large Spotted Cats

In working on the entries for the Leopard Wranglers, I read five different books on Gozzoli and the frescos in the Medici Chapel. Not one of the authors in those books -- all art historians and so presumably trained to look at details -- managed to make the distinction between leopards and cheetahs that Gozzoli did in the frescos, although one did use a shotgun-technique of referring arbitrarily to "leopards," "cheetahs," and "hunting leopards." [Late note: Joan Lloyd in African Animals in Renaissance Literature and Art makes the distinction.] Gozzoli paints both cats together here.

 The cheetah -- the hunting leopard -- is on the horse.  The leopard is on the ground.  Cheetah spots are single, like thumb-prints.  Leopard spots come in clusters, as if printed by your fingertips bunched together.   Gozzoli makes the animals different colors, though they are actually about the same, and shows clusters of four spots for the leopard: it is much more likely to be five. The spot distinction is really all one needs for the cheetah-leopard issue.  If you bring in other species of spotted cats, which we will not do here, you may need more help.  If you are concerned with hunting any of them them, you have no business here at all. The medievals did not help the distinction by calling cheetahs "hunting leopards," except that it indicated that they were well-aware that there was a distinction. For them, the essential difference was that cheetahs are easily trained to hunt with humans.  They are magnificent fast animals, perfectly designed for Art Deco imagery, with exaggeratedly small heads and large haunches. A leopard of the same body length as a cheetah is, but with a larger, proportionately broader skull.  They are over all heavier, bulkier, and highly resistant to training. They are killers, tracking and pouncing over comparatively short distances, but they are not good over long distances.  Leopards were collected for their beauty and exotic qualities, along with lions, ostriches, and cheetahs -- and that is why two of them are shown in the Medici frescos -- but serious hunters wanted the cheetahs. The painters, frankly, did not pay much attention to the head and skeletal distinctions between the animals, but they were very clear about the spots. In the entry (link above) I wrote about Nick Nicholas' exhaustive article on the topic of nomenclature.  Knowing the differences between the names and animals is not a major life skill necessary for most people: knowing that there are differences and how to look for them is. [Late note: that may not be a leopard.  Please read the comments at the end of this.]         

Hats

I have read too many comments this year identifying the imperial Palaiologan hat as a skiadion, a shade-hat. Interestingly, it is almost impossible to find a contemporary Greek representation.  The only one I know, I have used here before, but it has nice detail. 

Pseudo-Kodinos, who told us about the Leopard-Wranglers, has a lot of entries on the skiadion. "The skiadion of the despot is entirely covered with pearls, on his aer (see the tails on Manuel's hat below) is his name in gold embroidery. . . . If [the despot is a young boy] he is on horseback, he wears the skiadion. When he becomes an adolescent, he wears the skiadion in the palace. . . the skiadia of the relatives of the emperor, who are despots, are red and gold, embroidered with gold thread, and have a cross embroidered with pearls. . . The skiadion of the sebastokrator is red and gold, embroidered with gold thread.  His aer is like that of the despot."   Headgear is not enough to distinguish rank at the Palaiologan court.  You need the full description of robes and colors, embroidery on robes, and colors of shoes to have any sense of security, but it does let you know that however poor the empire had become, there was full employment for the gold-embroiderers. The skiadion has been repurposed in the witch hat.

Update: one of my most faithful readers sent me another late 15th C image of skiadia, from the Istituto Ellenico in Venice. Emperors might have worn the skiadion in private, but in public performance -- at least in the West because that is where the images come from -- they wore the kamelaukion.  I don't know if the name refers to a camel's hump.  It is rounded and sectioned, rather like a melon, and is sometimes called a melon hat.  John's had jewels on top that could be changed.  To my knowledge, there is no Byzantine image of an Emperor in a kamelaukion, but the Westerners loved it and made images of Manuel II, John VIII, and Thomas Palaiologos.  This is Manuel, more or less -- his beard was white -- from the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc du Berry.

John's hats are more familiar, and he was more concerned about his personal style.

It is difficult to get good photographs of images of Thomas, but he is shown here from the tomb of Pius II who made a feeble effort to make him Emperor:

Western artists, when not painting visiting Palaiologoi, used the kamelaukion to represent "exotic person from Eastern country where they have better hats than us." 

There is only one Byzantine representation of a kamelaukion that I have been able to find, and I have given it an entry of its own, the portrait of Manuel Laskaris Chatzikis at Mistra.  There are, I think, exceptional reasons for this portrait, but you will have to read about them there.

Further update: the same reader found a miniature image of kamelaukia in the 14th-C manuscript of the Tale of Alexander in the Istituto Ellenico of Venice.  Here, even though by a Greek artist, they are used to identify exotic foreigners.  So it may not indicate Palaiologan use.