On Vacation: There were four youths

 

This song by Nikos Gatsos was meant to be for the name-day of Theodoros Kolokotronis, but I have not been able to learn which Ag. Theodoros it was -- February 17 or March 3.

FOUR YOUNG MEN

There were four youths

Yiassou, Old Man of the Morea

You wrestled like a wild goat

teaching them constantly.

Swallows and swords

strung up in their hearts

high up over Karitaina

with the sun their neighbor.

There were four youths

Yiassou, Old Man of the Morea

no house held them

and time was on the march

Dark bitter years

on the bald heights

blood ran down

in the gorges.

When Easter came
they dressed like bridegrooms
and Death, the winged horseman,

rode behind.

There were four youths

Yiassou, Old Man of the Morea

no place held them

and time was on the march.

Road, road, and roads

it's written in the cards

they planted chrysanthemums

above the curse.

But when the time of orders came

like lightening on the earth

the ill-fated boys fell

like pine cones.

There were four youths

Yiassou, Old Man of the Morea

tell us if you saw them

 if you comforted them.

ΕΙΤΑΝ ΤΕΣΣΑΡΑ ΠΑΙΔΙΑ

Εἴταν τέσσερα παιδιὰ

γειά σου γέρο τοῦ Μοριᾶ

σάν ἀγρίμι πάλευες

κι ὅλο τὰ δασκάλευες.

Χελιδόνια καὶ σπαθιὰ

στὶς καρδιές τους ἀρμαθιὰ

πάνω στὴν Καρύταινα

μὲ τὸν ἥλιο γείτονα.

Εἴταν τέσσερα παιδιὰ

γειά σου γέρο τοῦ Μοριᾶ

σπίτι δὲν τά χώραγε

κι καιρὸς προχώραγε.

Χρόνια μαῦρα καὶ πικρὰ

στὰ βουνὰ τὰ φαλακρὰ

κι ἔτρεχαν τὰ ἅιματα

μέσ᾿ στὰ κλεισορέματα.

Κι ὅταν ἔφτασε ἡ Λαμπρὴ

στολιστῆκαν σὰ γαμπροὶ

πίσω τους κι ὁ θάνατος

καβαλάρης φτερωτός.

Εἴταν τέσσερα παιδιὰ

γειά σου γέρο τοῦ Μοριᾶ

τόπος δὲν τὰ κράταγε

κε ὁ καιρὸς περπάταγε.

Στράτα στράτα καὶ στρατὶ

ἔτσι γράφει τὸ χαρτὶ

πάνω ἀπὸ τ᾿ ἀνάθεμα

σπείραν χρυσάνθεμα.

Μὰ σὰν ἄστραπψε στὴ γῆ

τῶν καιρῶν ἡ προσταγὴ

πέσαν τὰ κακόμοιρα

σὰν κυπαρισσόμηλα.

Εἴταν τέσσερα παιδιὰ

γειά σου γέρο τοῦ Μοριᾶ

πέσ᾿ μας ἂν τὰ γνώρισες

κι ἂν τὰ παρηγόρησες.

Trans. DW.
Italian translation. 
Music, page 8.

 Drawing of Theodoros Kolokotronis  by Karl Krazeisen. 

For nearly all the poetry of Gatsos in Greek and English, go here.

When the Palaiologos family visited Monemvasia

Dying child, fresco of King David
Voronet Monastery, Romania  

In 1400, Manuel and Helena Palaiologos left Constantinople on a Venetian galley.  Married in 1392, they now had five children and she was pregnant again. Manuel was on his way west to get aid for Constantinople, under desperate threat from Beyazid.  Manuel had come to terms with his nephew, John VII, and had left him in charge of the City, but unwilling to take the chance of his family becoming hostages, he had decided to take them to the Morea to stay with his brother Theodoros, the Despot.

There were rumor that John had already come to terms with Beyazid, that he had 10,000 Turkish horsemen, that he would give the Turks Constantinople in exchange for the Morea. Theodoros, fearful of another Turkish invasion -- there had been two in the past four years, had sold off Corinth, Kalavrita, and Mistra to the Knights of Rhodes, and had moved his administration to Monemvasia.

So when Manuel and his family arrived in the Morea -- it was a Venetian galley so they had to bypass Monemvasia which would, of course, have been a convenient stop and go on to Methoni -- Helena and the children and her suite had to travel back to Monemvasia.  I hope there was a ship they could travel on, rather than have to make that miserable trip by land, but the famous Monemvasia shipping disappears from the record in the 15th century whenever you need a ship.


These were the children: John, aged about 7; Constantine; Theodoros, aged about 3, and two sisters.  Sphrantzes tells us about the sisters, but no Byzantine -- or anyone else -- managed to write down the names of Helena's mother or of her daughters.  We know nothing about where they stayed in Monemvasia: I have climbed up that sun-blasted rock to the citadel three times in my life, though never pregnant, and I hope Helena was able to stay in the lower city.  A few people had great wealth in Monemvasia, but we know nothing of anyone's relationship to the imperial family at this point.  It would have been a fine city for small boys to explore, with swimming off the rocks, and perhaps the occasional day on a fishing boat.

Helena gave birth to a son whom she named Andronikos.  This means that she not only named him for Manuel's grandfather, Andronikos III, but she named him for the only emperor to have visited Monemvasia. Manuel's biographer, John Barker, who has an extraordinary taste for prurience, begins on Andronikos like this:

For Manuel's third son, however, we know no precise date of birth. Since Andronicus is not mentioned among the children left behind in 1400, assuming Ducas did not overlook him, he was presumably not born at that time. As there is no evidence to warrant suspecting Helena of misconduct during her husband's absence, there would thus be two possibilities for his birth date: either Helena was pregnant with him when Manuel left.

Well, duh.

Two years earlier, in 1398, the Eighth Death, as the chronicles called it, had broken out in the Morea.  In 1401, plague erupted again.  It is recorded in ports, in Methoni and Koroni.  It was still raging in 1402, so that the Venetians, planning for Manuel's return trip, would not take the responsibility of letting him stop in Methoni.  Manuel's return was delayed, and delayed again, so that it was well into 1403 before he left Venice and by that time, Methoni was clear of plague and his ship was free to stop there.

Plague had also appeared in Monemvasia.  Three of the Palaiologos children died -- Constantine, and the two little girls.  Plague is identified first of all by its devastating high fever, and their deaths would not have been clean and tidy like that of the child in the picture above. The children were buried in a church in Monemvasia. Despot Theodoros established a fund for liturgies and Manuel later gave the Metropolitan of Monemvasia the territory of Helikovounos so the income could provide  two liturgies each week -- on Thursday and Saturday -- for the children's souls. Plague would be a commonplace for the two older sons -- two of John's wives would die of plague, and so would Theodoros.

In any mention of Manuel's daughters, the subject of illegitimacy has to come up.  Barker cannot let the topic alone: "Manuel apparently had several other illegitimate children," and continues with a breathtaking sequence of assumptions about these dead daughters for which he can offer no evidence: "Whatever our ignorance about these children, however, it is still plain that they must have been illegitimate, though by whom is not known, and that they were sired by Manuel before his assumption of the throne and his marriage."* Sphrantzes is the way we know about these daughters, and nothing he says or does not say can be twisted to justify this twaddle.

Helena had to travel back to Methoni to meet Manuel, this time with three children.  The Venetians had agreed to transport a suite of 25-30 people along with Manuel, though by the time Helena and Manuel met up in May, they had a suite of 58 people. They then apparently sailed to Vasilopotamos, near Elos, at the end of the Eurotas River, and then traveled up to Mistra where Manuel and Theodoros discussed how Manuel was going to repay the Knights of Rhodes after the people of Mistra flatly refused to let them into the city.

In Feburary 1404, there was a new son who was named Constantine in place of the one who died.

The next time you are in Monemvasia, light candles for the unnamed daughters.

* No one should write me about Manuel's illegitimate daughters who has not read Thierry Ganchou's meticulous study on the subject:  “Ilario Doria, le gambros Génois de Manuel II Palaiologos: beau-frère ou gendre?" Études Byzantines 66 (2008): 71-94, which should put paid at least to the Zampia question.

Koukoulofores

I have been sickened by events in Athens, and Agrinion and Lamia and Thessalonike and elsewhere. 

I remember a conversation with my grandfather, Eugene Crawford Jordan, of Birmingham, Alabama, in the late 1960s.  We called him Papa. You must understand that Papa was handsome and courtly, the consummate Southern gentleman, but being a Southern gentleman did not exclude an intense racism.  

The conversation moved to "7415" which was the number of the house where he had raised his ten children, and to which I was brought with my mother after I was born.  He recalled 1926 when he was having the house repainted.  That year people in Birmingham were joining the Ku Klux Klan in large numbers.  The neighbor in the house to the right joined, and invited my grandfather to join.  Mr. Bell, in the house to the left, joined, and invited my grandfather to join. The house painters said pressured my grandfather to join and added, "We'd sure hate for anything to happen to those purty lil' chirren."*

Now, a late justice of the Supreme Court, Hugo Black, Harvard graduate, was practicing law in Birmingham in 1926, and he joined the Klan. He more than made up for it many years later on the Supreme Court, but he was highly educated, Harvard yet, and he still found it possible to rationalize the Klan.

Papa had to drop out of school as a teenager to help support his family and he always nursed a bitterness at the deprivation of education.  So what with Justice Black and Papa's racism, I didn't know what to think.

I said, "Why didn't you join, Papa?"

He said, "Sugar," -- Southerners used to, some still do, speak in Shakespearean mode, as Othello when he said, "Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus."

He said, "Sugar, a man does not have to cover his face."

Ὦ παῖδες Ἑλλήνων, you murderous attackers who beleaguer a city, glykoi mou, a man does not have to cover his face.

A similar post from 2008.

* This is Southern for "pretty little children."

8 ducats for aromatics

Two hundred and eighteen blogs ago, I wrote about the unfortunate situation of the Minio brothers. Alvise, Almoro, and Francesco Minio had been sued by their brother-in-law, Leonardo Malipiero, for the 8,000 gold ducats they owed their sister Lucretia from her dowry. Lucretia's mother, Maria de Molin, had left this to Lucretia in her will, and in Venetian law, the dowry was sacrosanct.

The Minio family was extremely wealthy in property, but not in cash, so 31 years after the original suit, after Lucretia had died, her second husband was collecting interest payments on the debt.

The original suit seems to have been brought when the father of the three brothers and Lucretia, Lorenzo Minio, died in July 1532 An inventory was made of his personal possessions. This is my translation of the inventory. The several occurrences of beds suggests that this inventory was made room by room, starting with the "best" room.  I found it interesting that it was easiest to find more contemporary images for the first of the list, more difficult the further I went down the list.

Two used beds Three bolsters Two pillows One bedspread of yellow and rose cloth, old One fox coverlet backed with rose wool One red canopy One pair of sheets One cushion and one chamberpot 6 rugs, various Three painted wall panels, 19 x 8 braza One round table with bone inlay One bedside chest One painting of Our Lady, gilded, with a damascene lamp    One gilded dressing-mirror Two paintings on cloth with gold frames One black gown, man’s, old-fashioned with sleeves, trimmed with vair One gown of black cloth with sleeves, trimmed with fox One velvet belt. Two beds Two feather bolsters Two pillows One bedspread of green &yellow cloth (old, torn). One pair of cotton curtains with trim Four wall-hangings painted with greenery of various kinds, 19 x 6 Seven carpets of various kinds, baled Seven painted chests One bed One bolster One panel painted with a figure, 9 braza square One gilded dressing mirror One small painting of Our Lady, gilded.   One gilded mirror One black camel’s hair, gown, lined with black cloth One black camel’s hair gown One reddish-brown silk quilt with trimming Three small cases Four painted chests  One walnut bench Six chairs (in pieces) One wooden dining table with base  One clothes’ mannequin One bed One wool-stuffed mattress One figured cloth One brown bedspread One white cotton bedspread Seven wooden chests with the Minio coat-of-arms One small bed for the servant Four copper pots One copper pot Three copper pots One copper water box   One copper box One pair of iron fire dogs One water basin Five bowls Two frying pans Two graters and other kitchen item of little value One copper bed-warmer Four pewter bowls One pair of brass fire-dogs with iron rounds Three copper bowls One brass basin 8 chairs All these goods were estimated by Ser Alvise Brochetti personally at D105, that is 105 ducats. Note that from the above 105 ducats 21 ducats is subtracted for the tomb of Ser Lorenzo D21, that is 21 ducats. Item: for aromatics and aromatic wax, in total D8 — Computed for the above-said dowry ducats seventy-six, that is 76 ducats remaining. Tranquillus Bivilaqua C. transcribed personally * * * * * * Seventy-six ducats would not have made much of a dent in the 8,000 ducats owed.  Recall that Lorenzo Minio died in July.  They were going to need a lot of aromatics and aromatic wax for the funeral candles.

The pitiful First Lord of the Imperial Wardrobe

Constantine Palaiologos and Georgios Sphrantzes

Fotis Kontoglou, Town  Hall, Athens

There is no surviving contemporary portrait of either Constantine or Sphrantzes, but this modern one seems quite convincing, and though I would not opt for a flowered silk for battle, it does appear that Sphranzes is wearing the green gown he was given by Constantine when he was rescued from prison at Patras.

At the beginning of his wonderful account of his life, he identifies himself as "the pitiful first lord of the imperial wardrobe" -- πρωτοβεστιαρίτης. He was seventy-six or so then, living as a monk, and suffering miserably from rheumatism. The last of his book speaks of death: Demetrios Palaiologos, his daughter Helene, his wife Theodora.  Cardinal Bessarion. Thomas Palaiologos' daughter Helene.  His friend from childhood and spiritual brother, Joseph. He himself was so ill in his last two years as to have been given last rites three times, and even though "I escaped death, I remained deaf for a long time; I could not even hear bells tolling next to me."   

He wrote a book to record his world forever lost,  a world where wardrobes were important.  So Kontoglou's green gown is important.   The title of protovestiaritis had little to do with being a valet and much to do with indicating that the bearer was physically close to the emperor, essentially all the time. Sphrantzes was close to three of them.   When he was sixteen and a half, Manuel  had put him in charge of his chamber. Sphrantzes had grown up at court, his father was Thomas' tutor, his uncle was Constantine's, and he and his cousins had been the imperial playmates and aides.

While we nowhere get a sense that Manuel was affectionate to his sons, we do see -- in Sphrantzes' telling -- a great deal of fondness for the boy.  In fact, Manuel was easier with the young Sphrantzes than with his own sons, and Sphrantzes could get favors for Contantine that Constantine could not get for himself.  Manuel had a chest Sphrantzes coveted, one that had belonged to his own father, John V.  Manuel had said he wanted to give it to his son John, but then, when he gave Sphrantzes the robe lined with fur, he gave him the chest, too. When Manuel was ill and making provisions for his will, he spoke to his wife and sons specifically directing them to care for Sphrantzes and reward him has he had not been able to.
 
Sphrantzes liked clothes, paid attention to them, at least where he himself was concerned.  The clothes of others are unmentioned. Manuel gave him a caftan -- kavadi -- a dark one lined with fur, and directed that he be given a green robe.  The "new empress" Sophia of Montferrat, sent it to him, saying it was for his future wife.  The position in Manuel's chamber allowed him to become knowledgeable about fabrics, if he had not been already.  When he describes his gifts from Constantine at Patras, he identified the "expensive double green tunic lined with fine green linen" as from Lucca, the red cap embroidered with gold with a silk lining from Thessaloniki, and the heavy gold-colored caftan from Brusa.  There was also a green coat, but its fabric is unspecified. 

He presents himself as Constantine's confidant, but I suspect Constantine never confided completely in anyone.  He doesn't specify his abilities, but the long list of embassies -- and entrusting him to select a wife -- indicates Constantine's estimation of him  It is significant that each place Constantine ruled, Sphranzes was given the highest administrative position: when Constantine was despot in the Morea, Sphrantzes was governor -- κεφάλη -- of Patras; when Constantine was despot in Selybria, Sphranzes was κεφάλη of Selybria; when Constantine was despot of the Morea at Mistra, Sphrantzes was κεφάλη of Mistra.  His job description was put succinctly by Constantine: "You are to govern your command well.  You are to put an end to the many instances of injustice and reduce the power of the numerous local lords.  Make it clear to everybody here that you are in charge -- μόνον ἀρχὴν -- and that I am the lord --μόνον αὐθεντην."

Constantine gave him the highest title in the court, after those given within the imperial family, that of μεγασλογοτθέτης -- but it is not the one he uses to identify himself.  A certain touching jealousy about his dignity and titles can be read in a telling three-way exchange he had with Constantine and Loukas Notaras.

Sphrantzes was a serious little man, and, I think, lonely.  His book is erratic in what it tells and what it doesn't tell.  He is deeply respectful of women, so respectful, that he does not expose them to our common gaze, except that he does say that Constantine's wife Theodora was really lovely.  But he knew Sophia of Montferrat, he knew Cleofe Malatesta, and he might have left us something about them.  Or about Helena, wife and mother of emperors. Or about his wife. Or about a lot of other things.

A few times his senses break through his dignity and repression, and he gives us memorable images that allow you to slip into a different story entirely.  Like the tower where he was imprisoned at Patras:

"I was taken prisoner; I had sustained multiple wounds and was thrown into the dark tower of a house, full of ants, weevils, and mice, as it was located in front of the grain storage.  I was put in secure irons and my leg was held by a strong chain, which was attached to a big post."

Or the time Mehmed I asked permission to pass through Constantinople on the way to Asia Minor.  There was a formal escort to whom Mehmed talked all the way.  Then:

"The holy emperor and his sons were waiting with a boat . . . When Mehmed embarked they greeted each other from their respective boats and carried on a conversation until they reached Skoutari . . . Mehmed landed and went to the tents that had been pitched for him.  The imperial family ate, drank, and sent food to each other on the boats until they sailed home early in the evening . . ."

And one last from Corfu where he had retired:

"On January 15, 1470, so much snow covered the whole island of Corfu as no local inhabitant had ever seen.  It was even possible to catch foxes and hares by hand."

Most of the quotations are from Marios Philippides, The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle by George Sphrantzes (Amherst, 1980).

More Palaiologues

The Palaiologos cross between four firesteels (πυρέκβολα) each resembling a B
which are also said to have originally been Bs that were later turned into firesteels.
These have been interpreted as the initials of the imperial motto:
Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων  or Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλεῦσι ),
"King of Kings, Ruling over Rulers."*   

  

My colleague Ersie Burke and I both work on stratioti but we share them out.  I get the Morea stratioti, and she gets the stratioti who ended up in Venice, but we overlap on the occasional family relationships and then we work together with scans, Skype and Dropbox.  Just after Christmas we were reading together a petition Ersie found from a Demetrio-2 Paleologo**  recorded in Venetian records with a date of 27 January 1584.  (I have given the names in this petition numbers to help keep them straight -- this family was most loyal to the Greek naming tradition.)

Demetrio-2 Paleologo, the petitioner, had held land on Cyprus, inherited from his father Zuanne-2, worth 5,000 scudi, and commanded 60 stratioti for Venice.  During the Ottoman assault on Cyprus that began in 1570, he lost his land, saw his father and brother killed, his house destroyed, and the women of the household raped.  He himself was chained at the oars on Turkish galleys for six years.  At the time of writing, he was asking to be assigned to Kefalonia or Crete as captain of stratioti, with a position appropriate to a member of his family which had lost so much in the service of Venice.

Before he tells of the Cypriot disaster, he recounts this family service going back over four generations and more than a hundred years.

*Andronico-1 Paleologo, because of his command and valor at the Hexamilion and Corinth in 1463, was given Kastri (Hermione) in the Argolid in 1469.  He fortified it himself and brought settlers there.

* Zuanne-1 Paleologo  (remember this one) did no less.  He had been given Stalimene (Lemnos) by his cousin, the Despot of the Morea, and was confirmed in possession by the Venetian captain-general, Alvise Loredan in the Venetian-Ottoman War (1464-1478).  After that, he fought in Valachia for his brother-in-law, the Voivode Stefano, to drive out the Ottomans.  In 1482 he led Greek troops in the Ferrara War, and just after that fought at Padua.

* Demetrio-1 Paleologo , Zuanne's son and grandfather of Demetrio 2, our petitioner, was with the Venetians at the attacks at Metilene (Lesbos) in 1501, Santa Maura, and Kefalonia.

* Andronico-2 Palaeologo, Demetrio-1's son, had been instrumental at the Ottoman siege of Nauplion in 1500 in getting food into the city which was on the verge of surrender from starvation.  He and two of his cousins were killed in an ambush near Argos.

* Zuanne-2 Palaeologo, also a son of Demetrio-1 and father of our petitioner, was mentioned in the second paragraph He had better fortune than his brother, and fought so well for Venice that he was knighted and given the fief on Cyprus.  He was killed in the Ottoman takeover.

There are a great many Palaiologos names scattered through the Venetian records, and sometimes they say they are "da Costantinople" and sometimes "da Napoli di Romania" but mostly there is no identification.  So go back to Zuanne-1.

Zuanne-1 held Lemnos from his cousin, the Despot of the Morea. Lemnos was an island given as appanage to members of the imperial family.  Manuel II had Lemnos at one time.  Demetrios Palaiologos had Lemnos for many years, until he was created Despot of Mistra.*** But despots do not grant islands, but emperors do, and the only Despot of the Morea to become emperor was Constantine.  So it looks like Constantine gave his cousin Zuanne-Ioannis-John, Lemnos when he became emperor, in 1449 or so.

Now, when Cyriaco of Ancona was in the Morea in 1447, he visited with a John Palaiologos who was Constantine's governor of Mani.  ( Cyriaco wrote the name Iωannum Palaeologum with an omega.)****  John took Cyriaco to look at an inscription on ancient walls in a field near Oitylo where there were also cisterns and sarcophagi. This John is not found in the PLP, which is the sacred book of Byzantine names from 1261 on, but there are a great many names not found in it, and it is a starting-point, not a definitive conclusion.  I am quite sure that this John Palaiologos of Mani is Zuanne-1 Palaiologos whose cousin gave him Lemnos. 

Constantine's cousin.  Now Constantine's uncle, Theodoros I who died in 1407, is known to have had children, though not by his wife.  The only reasonably-identified, and nameless, child was a daughter, known later as Fatma chatún, who was married to Sulayman, son of sultan Murad. Sulayman, briefly sultan of Edirne , was overthrown in 1411. She disappeared.

There appear to have been at least two sons.  I am suggesting that this John-Zuanne-1-Iωannum

Palaiologos was one of the sons of Theodoros I Palaiologos, and that is why he had status adequate to receive the island of Lemnos.  John was the name of Theodoros' father.

The petitioner says that Zuanne's brother-in-law Stefano was ruler of Valachia. A Stephen III ruled Moldavia from 1457-1504, and in 1471, he invaded Ottoman-ruled Vallachia in and was able to push them back. John-Zuanne-1 apparently participated in this effort, and it is somewhat confirmation of his status that he married a daughter and sister of rulers.  She apparently did not have a name either.

Because of the way names entwine in this family, I am also suggesting that Andronico-1 was another a son of Theodoros. Andronikos was the name of Theodoros' grandfather. I have no evidence beyond a sense of tidyness and you now have all the evidence I have.

I also have a Michali Paleologo who was governor of Vassilicata (Sicyon) in 1430.  Someone was selling silver jewelry for him in Venice.  I don't know what to do with him.  I don't know how many sons we can give Theodoros credit for but he was a governor in the territory Constantine controlled at that date.

This is as far as I can go with these names, other than to recall that Constantine is the only Palaiologos we know of whom there is recorded  some concern for family.

*  This comes from Wikipedia.  I like the description but I cannot vouch for the accuracy.  I would be grateful for more information and sources.

**  Sathas 5: 217-219 can be  downloaded here.
*** Mehmed gave the income of Lemnos back to Demetrios for a while.
**** Cyriaco, Diary V: 23.

A masque for Cyriaco

Dancers, based on a drawing by Cyriaco. 
He may have been trying to draw these Samothraki dancers.

In August 1446, Cyriaco of Ancona wrote letters to his friends, Franzesco di Drapieri, and Baldassare Maruffo, the podestà* of the Genoese colony of Galata, or Pera, across the Golden Horn from Constantinople.  Cyriaco's editor, Edward W. Bodnar, SJ, believes that the Maruffo letter describes a fantasy.  I am not so sure.  Such masques as he describes were popular back in Italy, a way for respectable women to perform in public, and a nice way to exhibit girls eligible for marriage.  

Early in the letter Cyriaco compliments Maruffo for rebuilding and extending the walls of Galata, and gives him an inscription to be inscribed in marble and attached to the walls.  The inscription survives in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.  It begins:

ΑΓΑΘΗΙ ΤΥXΗΙ

BALTASARI B. F. MARVFO GALATEAE

HVIVS BIZANTINAE PERAE THREICIO

IN BOSPHORO CL. GENVENSIVM COLO
NIAE B. M. PRAETOR

and continues for nine more lines.  Translated, this reads: "Good Fortune.  To Baldassare Maruffo, son of Baldassare, well-deserving podestà of this illustrious Genoese colony, Galata Pera, on the Thracian Bosporus . . .." 

Then Cyriaco describes the long day of August 15, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (or the Dormition of the Theotokos) which the Genoese observed at the Galata church of St. Francis.  Cyriaco himself went to services at Agia Sophia before taking the ferry to Pera to a celebration. 

In both letters, Cyriaco wrote: "First of all, among the distinguished, celebrated golden-haired nymphs of Galata I saw your beautiful daughter (the comely, beautiful, beloved daughter of Franczesco di Drapieri, the elegant market inspector for Thrace and Asia,) Elisabetta Maria, conspicuous in gold and a cloak the color of the sky, walking just as once the chaste, quiver-bearing goddess Diana was seen gloriously leading her band."
 

Both letters say that he saw her later in the day at the Umbriaci house with friends, relatives, and in-laws, "clothed in her father's divine, golden gifts, speaking with gracious joy during a decent (honesto) drinking party and replying to me most becomingly." Cyriaco pronounced her husband, Tomasso Spinola, most fortunate, because apparently Elisabetta Maria had been wooed by a number of highly-placed men, and a few rulers.

I think Cyriaco was carried away enough to write his description of Elisabetta Maria first, and only then then describe where he had seen her, thus giving the passage the fantasy quality Bodnar identifies.  Several days later, on August 21, the young Gerolimo Franchi took Cyriaco up to the top of the Galata hill -- quite a climb, really -- to the grand house of Benedetto Selvatico where "noble fellow-guests, especially eminent citizens, and colonists and their wives, as well as their married and unmarried daughters."  Notice how the young women are daughters first, even if they are married. 

In the Maruffo letter, he writes that while he was admiring the young women and their wardrobes, he saw descending from heaven "three divine, radiant nymphs" who moved into the crowd and took on human identities. Now for a very long time, churches and stages had been able to show divine descents from heaven, and there is no reason not to think that the wealthy citizens of Galata couldn't manage the same kind of show.  Particularly as the event turned out to be given in honor of Cyriaco who had been a guest of the Byzantine emperor, and who chatted with the Holy Roman Emperor, and was an agent for the Medici, and who knew absolutely everyone.

The first nymph, Pohyhymnia, became Lisabella Selvatico, "an upright, modest, and most charming widow dressed in a dark-blue cloak and wearing a snowy-white veil." She began a public address to Cyriaco, describing the grandeur and history of Genoese colonies -- something with which Cyriaco was familiar.  There was nothing unusual about a woman's giving a formal public address.  Battista Malatesta de Montefeltro gave one to a visiting pope, and in Latin.  Cyriaco writes in Latin anyway, so it is not clear whether Lisabella was declaiming in Latin.

When Lisabella-Polyhymnia finished, Urania became the "deeply modest maiden" Moisetta Catania," radiant in white.  She spoke about the emblems of Genoese triumph: weapons collected in battle, bolts of gates, beaks of ships, a great bowl of green stone from Syria, the body of St. John the Baptist (except for the head), and then moved to a discussion of the decay of contemporary Genoese in comparison to their ancestors' nobility.  This does sound quite unlikely and certainly contributes to a judgement of fantasy.

Then the nymph Calliope became Elisabetta Maria who was apparently wearing the gold and blue she had on last week.  She tossed her gold-tressed head and told Urania she would speak to Cyriaco about Galata.  She began:

"I heard a voice from heaven saying to him, 'Alas, flee the weakness of the Thracians' land.  Flee this rapacious shore and its citizens, no longer Genoese, but degenerates, leave them behind, colonists in a barbarous, motley land . . ..'"

That is where the document ends.  It is difficult to know what to think.  How likely is it that Cyriaco would write an imaginative theatrical performance criticizing his hosts? He did, a year later, at Mistra, write a dismal Latin poem for Constantine Palaiologos about how modern Sparta was not up to the standards of Lykourgos.

Still, there was surely a party for him on the Galata hill, and a masque with those pretty daughters.


Wasn't there?

* podestà = governor.  

The translations are mostly from Edward W. Bodnar, SJ, Cyriaco of Ancona: Later Travels (HUP, 2003).  Review here.

More Cyriaco:
Cyriaco of Ancona Website

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-galley-by-lamplight.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/01/along-with-bishop-and-huntsmen.html

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/09/genio-vrbis-johannes-darivs.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/02/roosters.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/02/cyriacos-kore.html 

http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/06/cyriaco-discovers-polykleitos.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/12/silver-candlesticks-and-cyriacos-angry.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-very-good-friends.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/01/to-tell-you-something-special.html
http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/08/visiting-with-palaiologues.html

Constance

Constance
 Austin Shaw, 1922 

The house was looking dull, once the Christmas traces were removed and too much grey January was lurking about in corners, so we embarked on  picture rehanging. Constance moved down from the stairwell and into the dining room, replacing an over-sized gloomy cathedral etching.  She has simply taken over the room. It has a good story, this picture.

Her father, Hector Charlesworth, was editor of the Toronto weekly Saturday Night before leaving to become director of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission. Somewhere along the way he met the portrait painter Austin Shaw, and somewhere Shaw saw Constance and asked to paint her. Shaw promised to give Charlesworth the painting, but every time the topic came up, it was, "Oh, Hector, I have an exhibition coming up and I would really like to include it as one of the not-for-sale items.  It's the best thing I've ever done."

When Shaw died, Charlesworth had no proof of ownership and was unable to claim it from Shaw's widow who took it off to Los Angeles with the rest of the estate. Constance assumed it was lost.

Then in 1961 or 62, after Constance had moved with her husband and children to Berkeley, California, she was exploring a neighborhood of less than chic "antique" shops in the area of Alcatraz and Adeline. She saw this painting in a window and reacted with something like, I had a scarf like that. Then she thought, I sewed two black extensions into it just like the ones there -- Good heavens! That's me!

The next day her husband and son, Louis and Pierre went to the shop and looked at paintings, discussing loudly which would go with a putative color scheme. They finally decided the portrait would do, and were able to get it for less than $100.* Thus Constance was reunited with Constance. Pierre inherited her at his father's death. 



*An Austin Shaw portrait sold recently from a Toronto on-line gallery where it was priced at $3,999 CD. His work is very nearly invisible on the internet, though there is one portrait in the Ontario National Archives.