Two stratioti portraits

(Stratiote)

Male profile bust, 1477-1491, V& A, London. 48 x 47 cm.

One of my correspondents, Pavlos Plessas, sent me these remarkable portraits of stratioti. They, and four others, are in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.  The V & A considers the subjects unknown, as is the artist or artists, but I think we can come very close to identifying the stratioti. First, some background.

Twelve more are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  These 18 are from a sequence of at least forty-four panels sold off in 1881/2 from the castle of San Martino Gusnago -- 32 k from Mantua if you are driving. Two panels are in the Cornell Fine Arts Museum in Florida, the rest are -- or were -- in private collections. The latest date for a whereabouts of one that I have been able to find is 1991.

The castle of San Martino Gusnago belonged to, and was built by the condottiero Francesco Secco d' Aragona  who was married to Caterina, daughter of Ludovico III Gonzaga of Mantua. Caterina was the great-granddaughter of Malatesta "dei Sonetti" Malatesta and the granddaughter of Paola Malatesta, sister of Cleofe Malatesta Palaiologina who has been the focus of so many entries here.  Secco and Caterina named their own daughter Paola.

Secco moved in the best circles.  His architect, Luca Fancelli, worked with Leon Battista Alberti.  He had the best employers -- the Duke of Milan, the Marchese of Mantua, the Doge of Venice -- and in 1477 was given the right to use the name and arms of the kingdom of Aragon.  He survived the battle of Fornovo in 1495 at the age of 72 but the next year he was killed by a shot from a crossbow.  

The V &  A dates their panels to 1477-1491 and consider them Secco's responsibility.  In 1491 Secco's properties were confiscated by Francesco II of Mantua because he was negotiating to work for Lorenzo di Medici.  Francesco gave the castle, or palazzo, to Eusebio Malatesta, his Jewish advisor.  The MMA dates their panels to 1500-1515 and considers them Malatesta's.  I don't think anyone has suggested that Secco commissioned some, and that after he was ousted Malatesta continued the series.  Several of the MMA panels have very suggestive Jewish elements.  The panels originally appear to have been in two facing groups on either side of a large beam that divided the ceiling of the hall where they were placed, eleven facing eleven in four rows.  The four central portraits looked straight ahead, while those on either side faced the center.

I identify these two portraits as stratioti, because of the distinctive hats, and the beards.  Greeks wore beards in that period, Italians generally were clean-shaven.  These are the only two beards in the eighteen portraits from the V & A, and the MMA. The stratiote above, in cloth-of-gold, seems to have the rank of a knight of San Marco.  Knights of San Marco were most often non-Venetian.  They were invested by the Doge, and given a gold robe. You can see one in the center of the bridge in Gentile Bellini's Miracle of the True Cross although it is difficult to make out any details of tailoring to compare with this portrait.

In September 1480, Krokodylos Kladas, Theodoros Palaiologos, and Micheli Rallis Drimis were invested as knights. Piero Busichi was also a knight, as were his brothers, Mexi and Dima. Mati Clemendi was a knight. That makes seven knights. There may have been other kapetanioi who were knights, but these are the names we have for the early 1480s.  Possibly more would have been created after the Ferrara War.  I want to be very cautious here, but I doubt that the list of Greek and Albanian knights of San Marco between 1477 and 1491 would be very long.  

The stratiote in the portrait below is wearing red -- we have a number of mentions of Venice giving red cloth to selected kapetanioi.  

( Stratiote)

Male profile bust, 1477-1491, V & A, London. 48 by 47 cm.

Here I am pushing -- and I want to emphasize the almost complete lack of information, or evidence -- but this picture reminds me powerfully of the Pisanello drawing of John VIII in Florence, most particularly the set of the eyes and the shape of the nose.  

John VIII. Pisanello, 1439. 25.8 X 19 cm.

Louvre, Departement des Arts Graphiques, 2478.

The stratiote appears to be a slight man, as we know John and Manuel were. Palaiologoi were kapetanioi for Venice in the period in question, and after. We have no solid proof of the relationships of any of them to John, Constantine, and Theodoros, but my colleague Ersie Burke and I think there is some evidence that allows us to say they were descended from Theodoros I Palaiologos.  Not enough evidence to be absolute, but some.  

I will take this a little further.  I have been struck by the particular striped design on the robe over the red fabric.  It reminds me of Ottoman design, so I asked an Ottoman art historian for his reaction.  He said, "It looks a bit like the wave pattern of the cintamani motif: tiger stripes and leopard dots (last is missing)." (Might the dots, or balls, have been too reminiscent of the Medici to be thought politic -- if it is supposed to indicate Ottoman fabric?)

Theodoros Palaiologos, knighted with Kladas, had -- like Kladas -- given allegiance to Mehmed II in 1460 and had received more lands.  When he came over to the Venetians in 1478 they noted that he had been highly regarded by the pasha of the Morea, and decided to send him and his company to fight in Friuli.  So there is an immediate Palaiologos-Ottoman-stratioti connection.  But not enough proof to identify this portrait.

There is another possible Palaiologos connection. Andreas Palaiologos, Thomas' son and John's nephew, seems to have been with Kladas in an effort to establish Skanderbeg's son in Albania in 1481, under the sponsorship of Ferdinand I of Naples who gave Franceso Secco the arms of Aragon in 1477. And there may have been another Palaiologos or two.

That is all that can be said here about identities -- there are teasingly close links: no solid evidence, no proofs.

If someone is looking for a dissertation topic in art history, I would like to offer these panels.  I will not have time in my life to follow up on the present locations, and images, of the other twenty-four panels, but I suspect that, seen collectively the forty-four would provide much more information about identities. (The only reasonably sure identification that has been made is that of Doge Marco Barbarigo in the MMA set.)  Archival work needs to be done to find the panels listed in private collections.

I hope readers will have more information to contribute.

The Capi

 

 Manessis icon, 1546
S. Giorgio dei Greci, Venice,
(probably) Comin Manessis, d. 1565

  

There are very few pictures of named kapetanioi to be found. I have identified, with help from a friend, a total of five -- all of them painted in Italy in Italian style -- and only one is a real portrait, though one other shows a recognizable face. All five of them, in Italy, considered Nauplion as their home town and that is mostly because of the accident of history that let Methoni and Koroni be taken by the Turks in 1500, and let Nauplion stay Venetian for another 40 years.

 Manessis icon, S. Giorgio dei Greci, Venice,
Ioannis Manessis, son of Comin.

  Manessis icon, S. Giorgio dei Greci, Venice,
Giorgios  Manessis, son of Comin.

They never dressed that way in Greece.  In this icon the Greek-Albanian Manessis men have become Italian soldiers. These three shown here as donors of one icon were all capi of stratioti.  Comin may just possibly have been Nicolò or Todoro (d. 1545): the records are confusing. Members of the family were prominent in the Venetian-Ottoman War (1463-1478), and in those years owned land in Mani, in the mountains above Kardamyle.  

During the war, five Manessis capi whom the Venetian command considered homini da conte had to beg for food for their families because they were near starvation, and men in one of the Manessis villages finally made a private peace with the Turks to avoid starvation.  Later they went back to fighting for the Venetians and one of them, Marino, was captured and flayed by the Turks for his treason.  The Venetians felt a strong obligation to families who had risked so much for them, and after the war, made sure they had positions as capi and land for their families near Nauplion.

 

 Stratioto Demetrios Palaiologos, in Venetian dress

Theodoros Palaiologos, father of the man in this picture, was given a fief with a castle at Thermissi, in Nauplion territory, in 1479 (he was aged about 30) in return for leading troops in the Venetian-Ottoman war of 1464-1478. For the next thirty or so years, Theodoros, and Demetrios in turn, when they weren't off fighting somewhere else, were difficult tenants for the Nauplion administration: they ignored the tax requirements, and used their men for private raids into Turkish territory, and their Greek tenants complained to the Venetians about their violence. 

After the peace treaty was signed, Theodoros was rehired to lead a small band of horsemen in Friuli. He was made military governor of Zakynthos in 1485, and married Maria Kantakouzene of Corfù in 1486. He fought for Venice in the terrafirma in 1489-95.  After that, Venice found Theodoros useful as a spy, an interpreter, and a minor diplomat.  His name is remembered in Venice now as one of the men who persuaded the Senato to establish a Greek rite church in Venice. He died in 1532.

The position of capi passed from father to son. Demetrios eventually moved to Venice and became a member of the Greek confraternity there.  He probably died in 1570, shortly after making his will  He identified himself as "da Costantinopoli," probably figuring that with his name, Constantinople would be more advantageous than Nauplion or Zakynthos. Some of the family had escaped from Constantinople in 1453.

The  picture of Demetrios appears at the end of the Gospel of John in a gospel book of the mid-14th century, made in Constantinople.  The text behind his head reads X(ριστο)ῦ τοῦ Θ(εο)ῦ Δημήτριος Παλαιολόγος: the servant of Christ the Lord, Demetrios Palaiologos.  The book is now in the National Library of Russia. The artist, probably Markos Vathas or a member of his workshop,painted a number of Italian-style images in the book.  There are also several imperial-type images added to the book by a Greek-style painter, which Demetrios probably commissioned.

 Mercurio Bua, by Lorenzo Lotto
1527-1530

Mercurio Bua (1478-1452?) was a son nephew of one of the leading archons and capi of the Morea, Petro Bua, who fought outside the Morea for the Venetians once the peace treaty had been signed. Members of his family led the Bua revolt at Nauplion in December 1480 in support of the Kladas revolt when he was an infant.  After Petro Bua died, in 1489, Mercurio (formerly Maurikios) moved to Venice and changed his name to something Italians could manage  Although the family had originally moved from Albania to Ioannina to the Morea over several generations, Mercurio identified himself as coming from Nauplion.

Sanudo said he was a small man, but this did not seem to affect the regard in which he was held.  Beginning with a small band of men, twenty-five or so, he acquired a tremendous record during his career as condottiero, rather than a capo or kapetanios, and eventually was awarded the title of Count of Aquino and Roccasecca from the Holy Roman Empire.  He was twice widowed: this portrait shows a small skull and fallen rose petals beside his hand, and is thought to have been painted in commemoration of one of those losses.

This painting shows something else.  This is not the face of a proud man, which he certainly was, or of a comfortable man, which he had achieved along with the knowledge of a very good and fashionable portrait painter, or of a man who has won an extraordinary number of battles.  He poses as a duty. He seems to be bracing his weight with his right hand and leaning against the wall.  For years, various people had been commenting that he had gout, and once that he had had to miss a festival because he was in bed with gout. Shortly before this portrait was painted, Sanudo wrote that his body was full of gout. As gout advances it affects not just the feet, but joints over the whole body.  The crystal deposits can be felt in many places under the skin and even break through. Bua was in excruciating pain, as well as grief, for this portrait.

When Mercurio Bua died in Treviso, in 1542, he was given a magnificent tomb in S.ta Maria Maggiore.

One of the interesting things in the stories of these men is that  four, whom outsiders might identify as Albanian, identified themselves as coming from Nauplion -- originally a Greek city but by 1500  Frankish and then Venetian for nearly 300 years. The fifth man had the name to enable him to claim Constantinople.  The modern insistence on nationalism comes from immature egos, and is an advantage only to suppliers of armaments. To insist on these men as Albanians is to completely ignore the culture in which they lived.  They spoke and wrote Greek and Venetian, and worshiped as Greek Orthodox.  They lived by choice in Venice and the terrafirma. They were professional military, even though sometimes their bands were as small as 15.  We have no idea what they would claim for themselves, beyond Nauplion.

Venetian documents in the 15th century consider Albanians either [1] people living in that geographical area; or [2] migrant herders in the stato da mar territories.  Stratioti were military who lived on land assignments, an inheritance from the Byzantine tradition, whether they were Greek or Albanian or of some other origin.  Albanians were migratory; they moved about with their flocks and had no fixed address.  They may have been soldiers with capi, but they were not identified as stratioti in the documents and when there was no war they paid no attention to Venetian authority.  The matter of stability was key for Venetians, and the Venetians saw that Albanian loyalty was first of all to the clan, not to Venice.  So one of the things you see with these four men is that, though their families of origin were Albanian, they have become urbanized and ultimately Venetian.

My great appreciation to Ersie Burke for her identifications in the Manessis icon, and her information on all of these men. Her book, Coming to Venice, about stato da mar Greeks in Venice, should be out in a year.  It will have much more substantive information to offer about all these capi and their families.


For Mercurio Bua and his portrait, the source is  
Lorenzo Lotto. Il Gentiluomo della Galleria Borghese

Maria Luisa Ricciardi

Artibus et Historiae
Vol. 10, No. 19 (1989), pp. 85-106

Published by: IRSA s.c.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483285

NOTE: While I have put links here to an Italian site on condottieri , the information should be used with great caution.  We have found  a considerable number of errors in family names and places of origin.

Blacks

-->

15th C. Ag. Nikolaos Orphanos, Thessalonike
Scene from the life of Ag. Gerasimos. 

 I have been saving images of blacks in Byzantine painting. I have not seen any work on this topic though surely there has to be something. I would be grateful for information, and for more images to add to the catalog here.  I have given what identifications I have, and would appreciate help with the ones that are not properly identified. This first image is unique because blacks are shown apparently in their own country, and two of them are possibly of higher status than the traveler who is going to be the beneficiary of a miracle by Ag. Gerasimos' lion.  

Otherwise, the blacks I have found -- nearly all by Cretan painters -- are with one exception slaves/servants or magi/kings. The images of slaves are reasonable.  That is how blacks would have, for the most part, been visible in the Greek-speaking world.  Since they are slaves, they get the unpleasant jobs: smashing things, cutting off heads, crucifying saints, massacring babies.

 [Ivrion ms.]

16th C Ag. Nikolaos, and do admire the slave's fashion sense.

Michael Damaskenos, 16th C.
Detail from Crucifixion of Ag. Andreas.

17th C Cretan Massacre of the Innocents
an enthusiastic combination of Herod's banquet, and Herod's massacre.

Blacks  are also shown as high-status servants, as in these details from a Crucifixion and two Adorations of the Magi.

Andreas Pavias, 3rd quarter, 15th C.
Alexander Tsoutsos Museum, Athens.

Ioannis Permeniatis, early 16th C.
Private collection, from Boulgaropoulou.

Ioannis Permeniatis, early 16th C.
Benaki Museum, Athens.
Similar icon in New York in a private collection.

But there is a second black in the Pavias icon, this one dressed like a wealthy Western merchant, completely outside the servant/king dyad of blacks in icons.  Unlike the surrounding faces, this is a portrait of a person known to the artist.

Andreas Pavias, 3rd quarter, 15th C.
Alexander Tsoutsos Museum, Athens.

In this next image, the black is the third Magus, following the pattern set in Western painting.  This icon is additionally interesting because of the inclusion of the man who seems to be portrayed as a stratiote.  I am tempted to think of him as the donor.  Donors frequently kneel, but here the first Magus is kneeling, again following the Western pattern, and standing shows the red trousers to best advantage.  There are a number of Venetian documents that refer to gifts of red cloth for the kapetanioi.

Early 16th C. Byzantine Museum, Thessaloniki.

Detail from late 15th C.  Alexander Tsatsos Museum, Athens.

A black Magus, in a late 16th C icon by Damaskenos is unusual in that the black is not the one most distant from the Child, common in Western images. It is also unusual in that there are black servants back holding the camels.

Michael Damaskenos, 16th C.
 Collection of Ecclesiatical Art, St. Catharine's, Heraklion.

A final Magus, this in a painting by Domenikos Theotokopoulos so indistinct he is best seen by his gift and stockings.

Mid-16th C. Domenikos Theotokopoulos.
Benaki Museum, Athens.

The next is a child at a Last Supper, and this is the first slave we have seen indoors.  That fits with what is known about slavery on Crete: normally, adult male slaves worked the land, or on ships.  The potential for violence in a violent culture was generally considered too great to risk male slaves in the home or the city.

Michael Damaskenos, 16th C.
 Collection of Ecclesiatical Art, St. Catharine's, Heraklion.
 

Finally, this manuscript image of the races of the world.  There is a problem with ink color, and reproduction.  Again, I need help with identification.

That makes twenty-two blacks.  All male.  I may have one more, but I cannot tell from the photograph if the dark skin is discoloration from aging, or if the man is really a black.  I speculate that there was an increase in the portrayal of blacks in post-Byzantine painting because of the new West African exploration and slave trade, in which Venice had a small part.

I found several of these images in the color catalog in Margarita Boulgaropoulou's dissertation [Thessaloniki, 2007] on the influence of Venetian painting on Greek art from the mid-15th to the mid-16th century. Επιδρὰσεις της βενεσιὰνικης ζωγραπηικὴς στην ελληνικὴ τὲχνη απὸ τα μὲσα του 15ου ὲως τα μὲσα του 16ου αιὼνα.

The other main source of images is the catalog, The Origins of El Greco: Icon Painting in Venetian Crete, edited by Anastasia Drandaki for the Onassis Foundation.