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 Twins

I have been accompanying the Book of Ceremonies with the pictures from the Skylitzes Chronicle (download it here).  Admittedly, they were taken out of context, but they nicely illustrate the text even if painted much later.

I came across these pictures of conjoined twins Skylitzes, and immediately wrote John Burke in Melbourne to find out what is going on. John knows more about Skylitzes than just about anyone ever. John sent back this:

From Wortley's translation:
"In those days a monstrous thing came to the imperial city from Armenia: a pair of Siamese twins, males sharing a single belly, but they were driven out of the city as an evil portent. Then they came back in the [sole] reign of Constantine [VII]. When one of the twins died, some experienced doctors tried to excise the dead portion -- and they were successful, but the living twin survived only a short while and then died." 

Leo the Deacon (Talbot-Sullivan translation) offers a little more, though they may be  different  twins:
"At this time male twins, who came from the region of Cappadocia, were wandering through many parts of the Roman Empire: I myself, who am writing these lines, have often seen them in Asia, a monstrous and novel wonder.  For the [various] parts of their bodies were whole and complete, but their sides were attached from the armpit to the hip, uniting their bodies and combining them into one.  And with their adjacent arms they embraced each other's necks, and in the others they carried staffs, on which they supported themselves as they walked.  They were thirty years old and well developed physically, appearing youthful and vigorous.  On long journeys they used to ride on a mule, sitting [sideways] on the saddle in the female fashion, and they had indescribably sweet and good dispositions.  But enough about this."

Ceremonies, Part Two

Court attendants waiting.

As I read the 10th C  Book of Ceremonies, the main emphases are dress and waiting. And interior decorating, which is dress for the buildings. The palace had great stores of formal dress.  Special outfits were brought out for people to wear when they were being invested in an office, and then were put back in storage.  It may be unfair of me to mention that Liutprand of Cremona and  Ibn Hauqal, both of the 10th century, thought they were seeing a lot of hand-me-downs.

The emperor hands [the new rector] a tunic which is called a rector's tunic.  Note that the praipositos hands the emperor the tunic.  This is of white damask with a fine phialion woven with gold, with an extension about four fingers wide extending a little over the shoulders, along with fine cuffs woven with gold, and a border woven with gold.  . . .  and the emperor hands him the gold-bordered cloak . . . Then the emperor hands him a reddish-purple maphorion with roses embroidered in pure gold all over it like lupins. Note that the praipositos hands the emperor both the cloak and the maphorion.  This maphorion is worn once, and only once at the appointment.

At banquets, guests and the poor and foreign visitors (except for Bulgarians)  were handed robes to wear, and when the banquet was over, the robes were taken away. Here is a fairly extensive description of the clothing and the interior decorating for a "reception" given by Constantine Porphyrogennetos in 946 AD. For these major events, things were brought from monasteries all over the city, or moved from other rooms in the palace. 

More court attendants waiting.

. . . polished bronze chans from the Monastery of Sts Servios and Bakchos were hung in the great Hall of the Magnaura . . . on these chains were hung the great silver polykandela from the New hurch . . . on the right-hand side between the great columns, stood the gold organ, outside the curtains, and beyond it as one faces east the silver organ of the Blue faction and likewise on the left-hand side the silver organ of the Green. . .           Note that the decorators made the whole pergola like an arcade with sendals and to either side of the columns . . . were hung great skaramangia which had been issued by the palace.           Note that when the Spaniards came a reception was held in all respects like this one, except that the pergola was not decorated with sendals but entirely with great Skaramangia, and the Phylax's enamelled objects were also hung in it. . . .          Note that the eparch fitted out the area outside the Stable of the Mules, and the First Schole, on either side, with silks and cloths and sendals and with the chased silver objects stored in the hospices and old-people's homes and the churches . . . the eparch fitted out the Tribunal with silks and cloths and sendals and with objects of gold and enamel and chased silver -- that is to say, the silver-dealer supplied these. . .          Note that the hall where the baldachin stands . . . and what is called the Onopodion were fitted out by the sakellarios with silks and curtains from the Chrysotriklinos.          Note that the portico of the Hall of the Augousteus . . . was fitted out with the reddish-purple curtains from the Chrysotriklinos.          Note that the passageways from the Hall of the Augousteus . . . were fitted out with various embroidered curtains.          Note that, as usual for processions, the passageways were trimmed with laurel in the forms of little crosses and wreaths . . . They were also trimmed with the rest of the flowers which the season provided then.  Their pavements were liberally strewn with ivy and laurel, and the more special ones with myrtle and rosemary.  

 It goes on for pages and pages with the lists of officials and what they are to be wearing and where they are to stand -- "the archons' sons wearing their skaramangia and swords, the valets dark-coloured chlamyses, and the stewards of the table short-sleeved tunics of sham reddish-purple." "Sailors stood to either side at the Hall of the Scholai, carrying leather shields and wearing their swords."  Meanwhile, in the Crysotriklinos there were the most extraordinary embroideries hanging about:

. . . the chlamyses of the emperor and the augousta, from the Chapel of St. Peter . . . entirely of gold with a plane-tree in pearls; from the Chapel of St Theodore the chorosanchorion with the griffin and lion; from the dining-room, the plane-tree chlamys of silk of three hues; from the Pantheon, the horseman chlamys; from the vault of the dining-room, the peacock chlamys, the mantle of the augousta; . . . the horseman chlamys . . . from the silver doors to the west, the little peacock chlamys, and the eagle chlamys . . .   Note that the imperial crowns and enamelled objects were hung alternately . . . three imperial crowns . . . the green crown from the Church of the glorious Holy Apostles . . . the blue crown . . .

I have not got to the silver plates suspended between the columns, or the great white crown the emperor was wearing, or how to manage if a winter storm was blowing, and there is no mention of what they were actually eating at these dinners and receptions.

 Note the emperor's little gold table.

After the emperor stood up from the banquet there was dessert in the dining room.  The small gold table stood there . . . and the dessert was placed on it on enamelled plates decorated with precious stones. The emperor was seated, and Romanos the purple-born emperor and their purple-born children, and the daughter-in-law and the archontissa [of Russia].  500 miliaresia were given to the archontissa [of Russia]  on a gold plate decorated with precious stones, and 20 miliaresia each to her six female relatives, and 8 miliaresia each to her eighteen female attendants.

 I  have miliaresea.  They are very large coins, but I have no idea of their purchasing power, or if the archontissa of Russia was able to keep the gold plate decorated with precious stones.But is is nice to see an overwhemingly female delegation to an overwhelmingly male court.

Theophilos visiting the Blachernai.  Notice his trouser suit covered with pearls.

A great many entries in the Book of Ceremonies begin "if the emperor wishes" but underlying that is the sense that what the emperor wishes maywell be irrelevant.  He is going to have to perform that ceremony whether he wishes or not, and some may not have liked the ceremonial business nearly as much as did Constantine Porphyrogennetos.

If the emperor wishes to go away and keep the vigil at Blachernai, he goes one day before and observes the vigil. On the following day, that is, the day of the feast, they all go along in ceremonial dress while it is still dark, the magistroi and praipositoi, patricians and holders of high office. the eunuch protospatharioi are in their ceremonial dress and carry sword-tipped batons, and the household protospatharioi are in spekia, and all the rest, except for the officials of the bureaux, are in skaramangia.  They all go along to the hall which is called the Hall of The Danube and sit there.

The emperor in his dromon.  Notice the wind-blown hair.

If it is not a fine day, he goes on horseback and goes in his skaramangion, but if it is a fine day he goes by boat. All the senate sit in skaramangia outside . . . waiting on the shore for the emperor.   . . . The magistroi and patricians and all the senate sit in the Hall of the Danube, and they change into their ceremonial dress and sit there waiting for the time to come.

They also had baths at Blachernai. This was a ceremonial event --  they had their regular baths at the palace, as witnesses this image of the murder of Romanos III:

Romanos III (d. 1034)was either murdered in his bath,
or poisoned, on the orders of his wife. Note the worried bathers
waiting outside in their towels.

 A murder at the Blachernae baths would have had to involve a huge crowd of conspirators, beginning with the Senate.

Early on Friday morning the whole senate goes along in skaramangia to Blachernai . . . The rulers, in their skaramangia, go onto the dromon with their personal staff and the logothete of the post and the chief imperial secretary and the officer in charge of petitions and the hetaireiarches and the droungarios of the Watch . . .

There is a change of clothes for the rulers, a visit to more than one altar, activities with candles and peacock feathers and more robes, and if the rulers wish they put on their crowns.  Then they go up a spiral staircase to the dressing rooms while the hetaireia pray. [I am shortening this extremely. The hetaireia are not women.]

The rulers go away to the dressing-rooms and, after undressing, put on their gold linen  garments and go in to the holy bath. [After an involved process with candles, icons, and incense] the rulers with their own hands make the sigh of the cross over themselves and go out and bathe.  After the bathing they go out into the small outer tholos and take off their linen garments and put on other woven with gold.  The protembatarios stands in front of the bath and says the prayer.   Note that while the prayer is being said the bath attendants lead in the twelve water-bearers from the left-hand side of the bath, and they go through in front of the eastern conch down there and stand to the right-hand side of the bath.  Entering, the rulers stand and the senior emperor hands each of the water-bearers one nomisma each.  It is necessary that the praipositos prepare in advance the hand of the water-bearer for the reception of the imperial gift. . . . If the rulers wish to go on horseback and go away either to the spring or elsewhere, they do so; but if not, they go onto the dromon and go to the Palace, or indeed they go away wherever else they wish.

Ceremonies, Part One

Nikephoros III Botaniates, 1078-1081,
(updated from a portrait of Michael VII Doukas, 1067-1078)

I have been rejoicing in the new English translation by Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall of The Book of Ceremonies published by the Australian Association of Byzantine Studies -- splendid commentary, footnotes, explanations.  I have always been enthralled by lists -- priamels, the Biblical begats, the Catalogue of Ships, the contents of almost anything by Sir Thomas Browne -- and this is the ultimate collection of lists. Everything in the list of lists is gold-plated, littered with precious stones and pearls, hung with gold-woven draperies, and jammed with dignitaries who get up before dawn to stand and wait.

It dates from more than a century before the image above, from Constantine VII who compiled and edited it from much older documents, adding bits of his own. Constantine, also called Porphyrogennetos, is one of the most interesting, literate, and competent, of all the emperors, and I want to emphasize -- in the light of all the gold that glisters through the ceremonies -- that he left the empire off better financially than it had been in at least a century. 

Someone needs to try to map out on a calendar how much time an emperor of the middle-Byzantine period spent in a normal week [non-Holy Week, non-Russian-visitor week] in performing ceremonies.  The imperial capacity for tedium is astounding.  Take this passage describing acclamations in the Forum of Constantine for a triumph:

The demesmen of the two factions [in the picture above, the men in blue and green at the top] and the members of the arithmos and the oarsmen of the imperial crew and the church singers stand . . . on the small flight of stone steps there, and . . . they begin to cheer . . .: "Many years for the emperors!" three times. "Many years for so-and-so and so-and-so, great emperors and sovereigns!" three times.  "Many years for the divinely-appointed emperors!" three times.  "Many years for the world-constituted emperors!" three times. "Many years for the world-desired emperors!" three times. "Many years for the very courageous emperors!" three times.

This continues for sixteen more sets of three-times. Just before this extensive demonstration, the prisoners are brought into the Forum, and the leading emir of the captives is put on the ground before the emperor who puts his right foot on his head, and the point of his spear on his neck, more or less as Basil is shown below. Then all the prisoners fall face down on the ground.  After assorted hymns, the public cries out "Lord have mercy," forty times, and the emperor puts his foot on the emir's head again.  Then the prisoners are led away, backwards.  I have no idea what happens to the prisoners after that.  

Basil II, 976-1025, with spear on the neck of a prisoner.

The same kind of interminable acclamations happened at coronations and emperors' weddings. Take the ceremony when the newly-weds are brought into the bridal chamber.  The cheerleaders of the factions go in with them and join together in reciting the acclamations:

 "Many, many, many" The people: "Many upon many years." The cheerleaders: "Welcome, ruler of the Romans!' The people: "Welcome!" The cheerleaders: "Welcome, ruler with the augousta!" The people" "Welcome!" The cheerleaders: "Welcome, divinely chosen augousta!" The people: "Welcome!" The cheerleaders: "Welcome, divinely protected augousta!" The people: "Welcome!" The cheerleaders: "Welcome, the nobility of the purple!" The people: "Welcome!" The cheerleaders: "Welcome, the one desired by all!" The people: "Welcome!" The cheerleaders: "You who have been chosen by divine election, to the concord and exaltation of the world; you who have been married into the purple by God; God, the ruler over all, has blessed you, having given you your nuptial crown with his own hand; now may he who has summoned you for this honour and joined you, so-and-so, to the ruler, multiply your years in the purple.  May God listen to your people."

Skylitzes ms., 12th C.

The newly-weds take off their crowns, and it all starts up again with what I make out to be fourteen cries by the cheerleaders, each one responded to three times by the people. "The people" are not the people in general, but patricians, senators, officials, and such. After this the couple put their imperial crowns on the bed, and then go to dinner.

Constantine Porphyrogennetos liked this kind of thing.  He explained the book: "We thought it was not right . . . to allow vital aspects of the imperial glory to be mutilated . . . we embarked on an orderly plan . . . showing the emperor's power as more imperial and awe-inspiring.  We have provided the senatorial body and every subject with an orderly way of life and conduct, as a result of which they should become better regarded and behaved, as well as beloved by their emperors, respected by each other and admired and highly thought of by every nation."

As an example of this orderly conduct to be admired, consider the Monday of the first week of Lent when the emperor delivers an address at the Magnaura:

At about the third hour a move is ordered, and the whole senate goes and stands below the stairs of the Magnaura, as do the magistroi and patricians and all the emperor's men and the whole City throng and the droungarious of the Watch along with his regiment, and the imperial reserve, and the droungarious of the fleet, along with all those under him.  The rulers go out in skaramangia and wearing their gold-bordered sagia . . . into the great hall, escorted by the kouboukleion and the manglabitai and the hetaireia.        There in the great hall, beneath the right hand vault as one faces east, are the gold chairs of the rulers.  Sitting there for a little while they wait . . . the praipositos goes out along with the master of ceremonies to get ready the imperial secretaries and everything that custom requires. Up the stairs, right to the top, is placed a carpet on which the rulers stand.  To either side . . . from the top step to the bottom, the imperial secretaries and notaries stand in a line, ready to write down the address given by the emperor.  Up on the top step, to the right-hand side as one faces east, stand the logothete and the chief imperial secretary and the protonotary.       Note that while the rulers are seated, all the members of the kouboukleion and the members of the manglabion and the hetaireia, together with the members of the Chrysotriklinos, stand in attendance.

After a great deal of bowing, the emperor goes to the carpet, and makes his speech.  I would love to see the imperial secretaries and notaries at work.

To be continued, with more decorative items about clothing and golden tables.

Hummingbird

Our female Anna's hummingbird in the snow last winter.

 She lives in the shrubbery next door and we have never been able to find her nest. We call her "Anna" and in the past two summers we have created a whole garden for her, under the kitchen windows where she spends much of her day in the HotLips salvia.  She has to, as she is currently preparing her third brood of the summer to fledge. [Hummingbirds work efficiently -- it takes 6 weeks from egg-laying to fledging, and within three days of fledging, the next egg is laid.]

This is being written on Tuesday.  Last Friday I was writing in the dining-room when there was a flurry of cat, a pounce, a squawk, and another pounce.  The cat had Anna in his paws.  I removed her with some difficulty.  She was motionless, one leg clearly damaged, and her eyes covered with the nictitating membranes.   I thought she was dying.

I held her, awed by how much smaller she was to my hand than when I was watching her. Awed by the exquisite brown feathers at the edge of her beak and wing.  Awed that the flash of orange-red-purple gorget we sometimes see comes from 5 or 6 feathers barely 1/8 inch across. 

She was very warm to my hand -- hummingbirds have extremely high metabolisms, and her eyelids moved a little.  You can see the damaged wing and left foot in this close-up.  I asked Pierre to bring out the Annas' nest I had found on a sidewalk across the park last summer, so I could compare sizes.  

I cupped the nest over her and as I was turning them right side up, there was a flutter and chirp. Anna slipped out of my hand, over the roof of the shed, and into the hawthorn tree.

We didn't see Anna for 36 hours, and we felt sick.  Sick for the loss of her, and sick for the inevitable loss of the chicks in the nest.  Then Sunday I looked out at the HotLips and there was Anna, her wings a mess.  She perched awkwardly on the tomato cage and leaned over to drink from the HotLips.   

HotLips, hawthorn tree, shed.

Pierre saw her again Sunday but we were still unsure.  Monday she was back constantly.  It rained in the afternoon, a gentle soft summer rain, and I watched her on the powerline in front of the kitchen windows.  She opened her beak and stretched, fluttered her wings, fluffed her feathers, stretched, opened her beak, and fluttered her wings again and again.

Anna is a small miracle.

[Mid-afternoon note:  Anna is being courted!  The pair fly straight up together, quite high,  and then swoop down to within cat-distance.  A rest, and then up and swoop!]

National Geographic video on hummingbirds, 1 1/2 hours.

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 

On Vacation: Turkish Tulips

Needle tulip, ca. 1730.

Dwarf's Purple, ca. 1725.

  18th C. Anhegger Coll., Istanbul.
Tulip by Ali 

Ali Üsküdarî, 1728.

İstanbul University Library

Ibrahim Bey's Scarlet, ca. 1725. 

Images from The Tulip: A Symbol of Two Nations.

Utrecht/İstanbul 1993.

Edited by Michiel Roding & Hans Theunissen.

Pomegranate Lance, ca. 1725.

On Vacation: The Scribe

Gouache and pen with ink on paper, 18.2 x 14 cm.

1479-1480?

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Negroponte in 1395

How di Martoni would probably have appeared.
Western merchants, fresco detail ca. 1400,

Ag. Paraskevi, Halkis/Negroponte

A recent entry concerned Negroponte and Evliya's 1668 account of the channel for the mill wheels. Pierre MacKay, working on evidence for the channel, became charmed by the 1395 visit of Nicola di Martoni who also noted the mill wheels.

Di Martoni, returning to Italy from the Holy Land, stopped at Negroponte, Athens, and Corinth -- the last two at singularly important dates in their medieval history. He was a notary, married, the father of two children who had died prematurely. He was, as he says below, stuck in Negroponte for forty days, hoping for a galley that would take him back to Italy.

* * * * * * 

The island of Negropont is 300 miles around and is separated from the mainland by an arm of the sea some XII passus wide or a little more.  The city of Negropont is built at the extreme corner of this island near that arm of the sea and is smaller than the city of Suesse,¹ but is well populated with Latins and Greeks. The island has many fortresses and towns and a population of 14 thousand households.²  The largest church in the city is called the church of St Mary³ and is quite beautiful.  In other ages the city was three times as large, but was ruined by wars.  Now it is confined to one place close to the afore-mentioned arm of the sea.  Outside the city are various dwellings and ancient buildings among which is the priory of St. Francis. which is a fine large place where the friars live from their own produce.  The wardens of this place say that its annual revenue is about a thousand ducats.  Not far away from here is a convent of nuns which is called Santa Clara.  

The ancient castle:  In this arm of the sea which separates rhe island from the mainland there is a certain large and ancient building which thay say was the castle of Fata Morgana, the Lady of the Lake, and the mother of Pozella Gaza, and they say that  Lord Calvano was held captive in this castle.⁴

The bridges:  On this arm of the sea, there are two bridges made of wood, one on either side of the castle, and the men who travel back and forth by land, whether towards the mainland or the island of Negropont pass over these bridges and through this same castle, and armed men are assigned to stand diligently on guard over these bridges and the gateways.  The water in this arm of the sea flows continually, like a river, sometimes from the one harbor and sometimes from the other, for there are two harbors for ships here.

The mills:  In the said stream there are three mills, cleverly made so that they grind grain, whichever way the current flows.  The revenue of these is about fifty ducats annually.⁵  On occasion, the current in this stream flows so violently that the wheels of the mills are smashed.   The city itself is strongly surrounded by the sea on three sides and has fine walls and many towers encircling it.  It has many well-bred and wealthy men, as well as beautiful women.  I think that they are the descendants of the enchantresses who lived in the ancient castle.  They are in general distinguished by great beauty and wear fine clothing in the Italian style. 

We waited forty days for the ship that was to come from Venice, feeling great anxiety in moth mind and heart, but had no news of her arrival.  Finally, on the advice of the bailo, we accepted some letters of recommendation from him and set out to return to Athens, so as to seek a return voyage home from there.

(Translation: Pierre MacKay. More from di Martoni later. Meanwhile, the Latin text of his travels can be downloaded here.)

1 Suesse is Sessa Aurunca, northwest of Naples. Di Martoni compares everything to home.

2 This would mean an island population of 58,000 which is not at all likely.

3 SS Mary and Dominic: the Dominican priory church, now Ag. Paraskevi.

4 The names come from the northern Italian Arthurian tradition.

5There is surely a problem with this figure which is much too low.

Despite the mosque and contemporary buildings, this 1890s photograph of
Negroponte gives a sense of the fortress, city, and great Dominican church
that di Martoni saw.  The towers and gate were rebuilt in the 15th C.