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Gespiegelte Fassung der elektronischen Zeitschrift auf dem Publikationsserver der Universität Potsdam, Stand: 27. Mai 2015 |
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The Franciscans in Cathay: memory of men and places A Contribution for the genealogy of geographical knowledge of Alexander von Humboldt |
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Summary
The study analyzes the process that leads to the elaboration of the
thesis of a continuity between the Medieval Asia mission and the New
World mission. This effort, undertaken by the Catholic
historiography of the mission during the XIX century, is the result
of the impulse provided by Alexander von Humboldt’s studies about
the discovery of America (Examen critique). The data about the
geography of Asia collected by the missionaries-travelers working in
the territory between Karakorum and Khanbalik during the XIII e XIV
century reaches Christopher Colombus with the mediation of Roger
Bacon, whom Humboldt himself esteems as a true cultural mediator.
The conclusion of the article tries to identify reasons and
modalities of the secularization of the missionary concept, i.e. the
shift from the ideal of the propagation of the Christian message to
a prevailing interest for cartography and topography,
transformations arranged by a late medieval historiography that
introduces into martyrolagia the loca toponomastica.
Sommario
Lo studio analizza il processo che conduce
all’elaborazione della tesi di una continuità tra missione asiatica
medievale e missione nel Nuovo Mondo. L’impegno, assunto dalla
storiografia missionaria cattolica lungo il corso del XIX secolo,
costituisce l’esito dell’impulso proveniente
dagli studi svolti da Alexander von Humboldt intorno
all’esplorazione delle Americhe (Examen critique). Le informazioni
sullo spazio asiatico trasmesse dai missionari operanti durante il
XIII e il XIV secolo tra Karakorum e Khanbaliq pervengono a
Cristoforo Colombo mediante Ruggero Bacone (Opus majus), che
Humlbodt stesso stima mediatore culturale per antonomasia. La parte
conclusiva della ricerca si occupa di stabilire modalità e ragioni
della secolarizzazione del concetto di missione, cioè del
trasferimento all’interesse cartografico dell’anelito alla
propagazione del messaggio cristiano fino agli estremi confini della
terra, trasformazione predisposta dalla storiografia medievale che
nei martirologia inserisce appunto i loca toponomastici.
Resumen
El estudio analiza el proceso que conduce a la
elaboración de la tesis sobre una posible continuidad entre la
misión asiática medieval y la misión en el Nuevo Mundo. El empeño,
asumido por parte de la historiografía misionera católica a lo largo
del siglo XIX, constituye el resultado del impulso proveniente de
los estudios desarrollados por Alexander von Humboldt en torno a la
exploración de las Américas
(Examen critique). Las informaciones sobre el espacio
asiático transmitidas por los misioneros que operaron durante los
siglos XIII y XIV entre Karakorum y Khanbaliq llegan a Cristobal
Colón a través de Roger
Bacon (Opus majus), que el mismo Humboldt considera como un mediador
cultural por antonomasia. La parte conclusiva de la investigación se
dedica a establecer las modalidades y regiones de la secularización
del concepto de misión, es decir, de la transferencia al interés
cartográfico del anhelo por la propagación del mensaje cristiano
hasta los extremos confines de la tierra, una transformación que fue
predispuesta por la historiografía medieval que en los martirologios
insertaba los lugares toponímicos.
The persistence of the Medieval myth of Prester John fuels catholic
westward expansionism
The recent publication by Thomas Tanase titled
Jusqu’aux limites du monde» : la papauté et la mission franciscaine
de l’Asie de Marco Polo à l’Amerique de Christophe Colomb[1]
allows to express an almost final judgement both in favour of the
continuity between Euroasia mission and overseas mission and the
Franciscan responsibility for the mobilization towards the most
extreme frontiers of the Earth,[2]
as a result of an eschatological yearning. It also satisfies the
reader’s desire to review the perspective traced in the important
studies by Petech[3]
and Richard[4].
Indeed, one cannot deny that their investigations created a
prejudice on the reasoning about the religious, economic and social
effects of the Franciscan complex history in the Asian region.
According to them, the mission of the friars minor was a failure
from the ecclesiastic and institutional point of view.
In fact, the thesis of the continuity between
Euroasia mission and overseas mission corroborated by the Tanase
study enjoys a long historiographic tradition stemming from the
anthropological and ethnographic studies carried out in the XIX
century especially by Alexander von Humboldt.
Humboldt dedicates in particular to the study of
the sources on Cristopher Columbus the work
Examen critique de l’histoire de la
géographie du nouveau continent et de progrès de l’astronomie
nautique aux quinzième et sixième siècle (5
volumes, Paris Librairie de Gide, 1836–1839), on which we rely for
this reflection. In relation to Humboldt’s study, Ottmar Ette
proposed meaningful considerations for our analysis. For example, he
highlighted that the
Examen critique contains the premises of an
analysis of the interconnections between the old world and the new
world. According to Ette, Humboldt’s work recognised already in the
XV century the emergence of a new concept of space and time for
which Cristopher Columbus was an excellent cultural mediator, a sort
of engine of the globalization of ideas[5].
But before the German naturalist and geographer
and, above all, within the framework of Franciscan historiography,
we have to remind that at the end of the XVII century the official
chronologist of the order, Domenico de Gubernatis, in his
Orbis seraphicus,
a monumental work published in Rome and Lyone between 1682 and 1685,
showed his readers the full awareness–that never faded away–of a
sort of continuity between the ancient evangelization of Cathay and
the modern Chinese mission, supporting a globalized Franciscanism
and highlighting its universal dimension in opposition to the Jesuit
attitude, which prefers universal contents rather than universal
spaces and times[6].
In the wake of Domenico de Gubernatis, during the
XIX century, the official historian of the Franciscan missions,
father Marcellino Ranise da Civezza, replaced the rhetorical
erudition of his predecessor with a rich bibliographical research
which is the result of a huge effort of researches that he carried
out in the most prestigious European libraries. On the basis of such
an in-depth analysis formalized by the author in a volume and at the
same time a review titled «Saggio di bibliografia geografica,
storica, etnografica» (Prato 1879), Ranise did not hesitate in
affirming that the missions promoted by the Franciscans Persia, a
Caspian area in the Tenduc region, did not end before the discovery
of Cape of Good Hope, «continuing in this way the work started in
the XIII century and perpetuated until nowadays»[7].
The Ligurian historian had no doubts in thinking
that also the next generation of minor friars drew from the heritage
of the old Franciscan presence in Cathay[8].
Indeed under the leadership of Eugene IV the friars enthusiastically
looked for the representatives of Asian churches and outstanding
figures from the Middle East willing to participate to the council
of Florence to promote the crusade against the Turks[9].
Moreover, it is absolutely necessary to notice that Eugene IV was
the Pope that arbitrated, beyond supporting the hegemony of the
devouts in the Holy Land and sending John of Capistrano to prepare
the offensive against the Turks, the diplomatic-religious match
between Portuguese and Spaniards, fierce rivals in the rush to
conquer the Canaries[10].
In fact, for the Portuguese and the Spaniards the
occupation of the Canaries as that of the other islands on the
Atlantic coast of Africa was just one of the numerous enedeavours in
line with the spirit of the crusades, because it was part of the so
called pincers military operation that according to the plans of the
minor friar Fidenzio of Padua had to encircle Islam from the West[11].
The absolute protagonism of the generation of friars minor
contemporary to Eugene IV in organising the Catholic offensive
against Islam and the competition between Spaniards and Portuguese
in the conquest of the Canaries according to the ideology of the
crusades, were ideologically supported by the famous legend of
Prester John. Following the example of the Mongolian Gran Khan, who
was considered favourable to Christianity, Prester John’s myth fed
the hope to find a powerful king in Far Asia ready to forge an
alliance in favor of the Christian conquest of the World[12].
In the years after the Council of Florence and the failure of the
crusade to defend Constantinople (1453), it was thanks to the myth
of Prester John and that of one powerful descendant of him, a strong
ally against Islam, that started the process of Christian expansion
towards the West in view of a transoceanic leap that would happen in
a few years time[13].
The historiographic fracture
According to Marcellino Ranise da Civezza, if one
accepts the hypothesis of a fracture between Eurasia and America, or
between the Medieval evangelization mission and the modern mission,
this hypothesis would involve historiography rather than the actual
events. Therefore, the fracture would be the result of a heuristic
gap rather than of the lack of documents testifying the reality of
the events. According to the Franciscan historian, such a gap can
only be the consequence of the failure of the Franciscan
historiography to record the apostolic continuity between the
Medieval evangelization mission and the modern evangelization
mission. This is why, trying to fill this gap, Civezza put in the
first of the volumes constituting the new series of his work «Storia
universale delle missioni» (“Universal history of missions”) some
important integrations concerning the origin of the Asian mission
and its developments until the time of Cristopher Columbus.
The choice made by the author is for us
absolutely emblematic. Indeed, by mentioning the studies on the
Asian missions of the XIII and the XIV century in the volume
exclusively dedicated to the Franciscan mission of the first fifty
years of the sixteenth century, Civezza shows his determination or
his obstinacy. In order to prove the link between the Euroasian
mission and the mission in the New World, he is even ready to
subvert the chronological structure of the volume. Moreover, to
corroborate the thesis on the responsibility of historiography for
the gaps on the Medieval evangelization mission and the modern
mission, Marcellino Ranise da Civezza highlighted the omissions
identified in the works by Bartoli[14],
Maffei[15],
Charlevoix[16]
and others in the texts by Henrion[17],
Wittman[18]
and Marshal[19].
In comparison, he mentioned as examples, some protagonists of the
real discoveries in the field of documents research such as Santarem[20]
D’Avezac[21],
Jimenes de la Espada[22],
Morel Fatio[23]
until Oscar Ferdinand Peschel[24],
who had the merit for having discovered the manuscript by the friar
Pietro Bonthier about the discovery of Northern Africa and the
Canaries and, above all, for having contributed to discover an
unknown code of the work credited to Bonthier himself about the
Portuguese navigation along the shores of Guinea[25].
Ranise attracted the attention on the studies about Marco Polo,
Odoric of Pordenone and John of Marignola carried out by Yule[26],
those about the itinerary of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine carried
out by D’Avezac[27]
and those about William of Rubrouck, Odoric of Pordenone and Ricoldo
da Montecroce carried out by da Bacher[28].
The Franciscan historian referred to the studies
carried out by overseas americanists about the idea of the trips to
the New World. He observed that like the European scholars he
previously mentioned, they were strongly interested in the
manuscript by friar Pietro Bonthier about the discovery of Northern
Africa and the Canaries, that «deals with daring trips of the
Europeans and the missionaries in Asia and Africa, unknown until
now»[29].
It is therefore clear that in the historic perspective of Civezza,
there is a synergy between the Euroasian mission and the New World
mission which is based not only on the sources but also on the
interest for their discoveries.
«Last year in 1879, the Congress of the
Americanists was held in Brussels», the Franciscan historian wrote,
«and its records were very important from the geographical,
historical and ethnographic point of view».
Storia universale della missioni
francescane VI, 5 footnote 2. Considering the
countinous references made by Civezza to Humboldt, it is important
to notice that the real americanist science started exactly with
Humboldt’s trips to America and with the publication of his great
work
Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique (Paris
1810). Later, the growing interest in this domain created a network
of exchanges that reached its acme in 1875, when the first
international congress of the americanists took place.
Marcellino Ranise da Civezza did not only offer a
bibliographical essay to confirm his own thesis on the continuity
between Asia and the New World, but he also traced a genealogy of
figures and events pointed out in those publications. First, he
focused on the profiles of some missionaries in the ultramarine
regions, from Greece to the Holy Land, whose story quoted in the
«Chronaca» by Salimbene de Adam was unknown even to Wadding[30].
He then focused on Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, a Pope envoy in
Tartary, exalting his capacity not only to take note of habits,
customs and territories but also to try to transmit them, by
conveying his own experience and above all by inciting to read the
book that he wrote. Then, he studied William of Rubruck, outlining
his interesting personality by quoting some passages of the work by
Backer[31].
By mentioning a long passage of
De Conformitate by
Bartolomeo da Pisa, he finally intertwined the net of the places
constituting the geography of the Franciscan presence in Asia
between the XIII and the XIV century, when it reached its biggest
expansion[32].
As for the evidence of the extension of the Franciscan mission
offered by the works by Odoric of Pordenone and Jean de Mandeville,
Civezza just gave simple bibliographical indications, aware of the
celebrity of those documents on which cartographers, geographers,
scholars and orientalists relied, and even historians of the
Enlightenment attracted by the exoticism of the marvel.
Between Beijing and Feodosia
In order to prove the continuity of a mission
which was undoubtedly influenced by the political and religious
significance of the main events of the XIV century, Marcellino
Ranise da Civezza preferred showing the exceptional data discovered
in a publication on the tauro-ligurian colonies in the Crimean
peninsula and in another on the historic
Commentarii Crimea[33].
The new elements allowed the author to «better illustrate more than
one mission of the Franciscans and the Dominicans in the same
country: a mission that we just mentioned in the previous volumes,
but that can be dealt with all the interesting and wonderful details
now»[34].
In the following pages, the author was clearly
satisfied to list the names of the various missions: Feodosia, Crim,
Sudak, Mangut, Balaclava, Cembalo, Cherson, Sevastopol, Ikerman,
Kertch. These were the places already mentioned in the reports of
the first crusade and then presented again in the trip itineraries
drafted by Genoese and Venetian merchants. Among the toponyms, one
can identify the places that depended on the Franciscan diocesis of
Feodosia, a stage of their «peregrinations across Asia, after having
been lead to the East in 1219 by the same seraphic Father»[35].
The Franciscan delegates of the Pope traced their itineraries still
on the map of Tauris, while they yearned to promote unity with the
eastern churches and the alliance of the Christians against the
Islamic antagonist.
In concluding his close examination, the
historian referred again to the Feodosia of Friar Girolamo,
reminding his election by Pope John XXII (1318) and, above all, his
previous office as suffragan bishop of John of Montecorvino.
According to Ranise’s historical perspective, Tauris was a new
headquarter of the old Khanbaliq mission and the missionaries who
lived there carried out an extensive apostolic activity across the
region «reaching out on the one hand to their brothers in Persia,
and on the other hand to those in India and China»[36].
Under the pressure of the Ottoman Turks, who
later took those territories causing the defeat of Constantinople,
the friars enhanced their commitment fueling the ideology of the
crusade and contributing together with the Pope to establish
diplomatic relationships with the major European powers in order to
raise the necessary money to fund the armed campaign. Marcellino
Ranise da Civezza dedicated numerous pages to illustrate the
interest of the Pope for the Asian mission and, in particular, he
highlighted the interest of the great supporter of the Council of
Florence, Eugene IV, for the main protagonists of the Franciscan
mission: James of the Marches, Alberto da Sarteano and John of
Capistrano. Moreover, he recalled the actions of the Popes Martin V,
Nicholas V and Callixtus III. Relying on the information written in
the diplomatic code of the Tauris Ligurian colonies, he highlighted
the requests submitted to the Pope and to the general minister of
the order by the Genoese merchants and the local population in order
to have missionaries and Franciscan bishops[37].
In closing, he stressed the measures adopted by the order for a
universal mobilization in favour of the crusade[38].
In summary, it is right to reiterate that in the
historic perspective of Marcellino Ranise da Civezza the attraction
for the Far East, although weakened by the impermeability of the
Muslim regime, still had a central role in the awareness of the Pope
and in the unconscious of the Western world until the end of the XV
century, thanks to the activism shown by the Franciscan order in the
religious and diplomatic field in favour of the missionary
expansion! The anxiety for a ground invasion of Asia that
intertwined the alliance between Franciscans and Genoeses in the
effort to safeguard the Tauri outpost of Feodosia heralded
transoceanic campaigns thrilled by the same Asian goal. The
historian reminded that during the fall of Feodosia, in 1475, Friar
Alessandro da Caffa, bishop of the suffraganean Cembalo, that
Wadding confused with Cambalik (Beijing), chose to live in Tuscany
where, in 1485, he consacrated a Church of his own order[39].
Yet, at that time, Enea Silvio Piccolomini wrote
his «Somnium», the work where he dreamt of reconquering the heart of
the Christian East, Jerusalem, thanks to the intervention of
Constantine and the spiritual leadership of Bernardino of Siena, who
played a leading role as a spiritual guide, like Beatrice in the
Divine Commedy by Dante[40].
From the Asia of the Genoese to the India of the Portuguese
After concluding the history of the Eurasian
Franciscan mission, Marcellino Ranise da Civezza analyses the
developments of the Franciscan presence in the regions conquered by
the Portuguese on the Atlantic side. He drew a connection between
the two events–seemingly distant only from the point of view of
time, but actually also from the point of view of space–through an
overview on the Christian presence in Morocco, mentioning also the
story of the Franciscan protomartyrs and other stories of the
Iberian friars to settle in those areas[41]
with the same contrast as the Muslim rival.
At this point, the author seemed to suggest that
the Portuguese government endorsed the ideal of the crusade pursued
by the West in the fight against the Turks, and under John I the
country started the conquest of Ceuta (1414), because it didn’t want
to be second to Spain, always fighting against the Moors. The
conquest of Ceuta, mainstop for Morocco, seemed to aim at starting
trade with Damascus to prove that the center of the Portuguese
action always moved towards Asia, the craved destination of the
papacy and now also cut through by the routes of the Venetian and
Genoese merchants[42].
Also after the failure of the Portuguese effort
in the African inland, the research for new solutions did not set
aside the symbolic incentives of the ideal crusader aiming at
encircling Islam according to the strategy suggested by the Popes to
the Portuguese kings. Therefore, even the exploration of the African
coast and of the nearby islands, which savored like the future
transoceanic experience, were included in the traditional plan of
the crusade that now the Portuguese contended with the Spaniards. It
is not a coincidence that the efforts to oppose Northafrican Islam
made by John I and his third-born son Henry the Navigator between
1415 and 1436, prepared the real crusade organized in 1437 by
Alfonso V against Tunis[43].
As Ranise highlighted, this new and bitterer
failure urged new Atlantic explorations lead by Henry the Navigator
who ventured along the African coast reaching Senegal in 1443 and
Gambia and Cape Verde in 1555–1556[44].
Afterwards, Henry received precise indications by the Pope who urged
him to sail towards Guinea and India in search of the legendary
Prester John[45],
a project already proposed during the Council of Florence when
Eugene IV gave similar indications to Alberto da Sarteano[46].
In the chapter about the Portuguese navigation
towards India, Marcellino Ranise da Civezza insisted again on the
link between the modern Portuguese endeavour and the medieval
tradition related to the Franciscan Asia. After mentioning the
endeavours of the Arab, Jewish and Muslim travelers during the XI
century, he dealt with the papal initiative of the Franciscans
William of Rubrouck and Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and that of the
Genoeses who, during the crusade, experienced «faster routes and
paths»[47],
thanks to the agreements sealed with Saracens Turks and Armenians.
According to him, the Azores and Madeira were discovered by the
Genoese Valdino and Guido Vivaldi, as reported by the Portolano
mediceo, that Ranise attributed to another Genoese[48].
Among the Genoese explorations there is the story
of the two Friars Minor who participated in the discovery of the
Canaries made in 1291 by Tedisio Doria and Ugolino Vivaldi[49].
The anonymous Franciscan known as Montebaroccio, who lived in the
Noli monastery, sailed on the galleys of the Genoese Antonio da Noli
who was the first to reach the islands of Cape Verde (1440)[50].
Marcellino Ranise da Civezza pointed out Antoniotto Usodimare as the
real mediator between the Franciscan-Genoese experience and the
Portuguese courage. Supported by Henry the Navigator, he «went
beyond eight hundred miles, where no Christian had never arrived; he
reached the land of Prester John or Abissinia, where he found a
descendant of the Vivalda galley»[51].
Thanks to Antoniotto Usodimare, the Portuguese
reached the country of Prester John, where they met those who were
getting of the galleys of Ugolino Vivaldi and Tedisio Doria, where
the two Friars Minor were traveling. The author clearly illustrated
the reasons why the Portuguese discoveries depended on the
Franciscan medieval tradition, dealing with the contribution of the
Minors to the Council of Florence. The historian widely reported on
the links between the friars Alberto da Sarteano and Luigi da
Bologna and the representatives of the Eastern Churches in Asia. In
particular, he made a long overview on the different traditions
about Prester John and the contributions by the Franciscans of
Jerusalem to the Portuguese discoveries of the Abyssinian
Christianity, confirming the strong appeal of the myth of the
anti-Islamic ally stemming from the Medieval Franciscan adventure in
Cathay. About this, Marcellino Ranise da Civezza quoted a long
passage of the
Annales Maritimos by Albano Silveira[52],
where he clearly stated that the myth of Prester John was the real
horizon of the Portuguese explorations along the African Coast
beyond Cape of Good Hope and until Asia. John II, king of Portugal,
after asking his mathematicians to analyze the information about
Prester John, decided to engage in the exploration of the
territories, ordering Bartolumeu Dias to go ahead by sea and to the
Franciscan Anthony of Lisbon to go ahead overland: «Searches went
on, Civezza reported, and they soon found the long-searched monarch,
even if the reality did not coincide with his fame. Civezza
concluded that the contribution of the Minor Order to this success
was quite clear»[53].
For the Franciscan historian, Portuguese
geographical discoveries were an extension of the idea of the
crusade and they did not take attention away from the goal of the
fight against Islam. In this perspective, we can understand how the
purpose pursued by the Portuguese in circumnavigating Africa was not
just the mere conquest of the continents, but rather the creation of
the crusade’s medieval myth of Prester John, fueled by the debate
which took place during the Council of Florence. Therefore, the
Portuguese who always wanted the franciscan presence in their
navigations aimed at reaching the Cathay of the Gran Khan from the
West, hoping that Gran Khan would be in favour of the Christians.
The discovery of the Canaries
Marcellino Ranise da Civezza explicitly affirmed
the continuity between the Asian mission and the discovery of
America, taking into account the role played by the Spanish
government in the missionary history. In this matter, he
particularly focused on the influence of the Franciscans first on
the discovery of the Canaries and then on the ambitious project to
reach Asia from the West crossing the Atlantic Ocean. For the
contribution of the Franciscan tradition in Asia to the plan of
Cristopher Columbus, the author preferred to rely on the influential
testimony by Alexander von Humboldt, strong supporter of the
reliance of Cristopher Columbus on Bacon and, thus, on Rubrouck.
Marcellino Ranise da Civezza–already engaged in a
book to which friar Pietro Bonthier and Giovanni Le Verrier, the two
historians of the Canaries expedition referred–had the privilege to
find the manuscript whose publication was possible thanks to Jimenes
de la Espada, who had discovered the original manuscript in the
Library of Madrid. The work titled Conoscimento del todos leo reynos, y tierras y segnorios que son por el
mundo (Madrid 1877) gave Ranise the chance to
add another segment of missionary history, developing an ideal fil
rouge linking Eurasia to America. In fact, the thesis of continuity
was already confirmed by verifying that the Minors really drafted
that document. According to the author, the person who wrote the
manuscript in mid-XIV century was a Franciscan because–by offering
precise indications on the place where the Genoese galleys lead by
Tedisio Doria and Ugolino Vivaldi (1291) sinked (Amanahea)–he showed
astonishment about the discovery of the presence of two Friars Minor
on those galleys[54].
By analyzing the book, Marcellino Ranise da Civezza suggested that
the author of
Conoscimento was
himself a traveler[55],
maybe belonging to the Pilgrim Fathers, or that he was just a person
who «collects memories that he knows» or conveyed by «travelers,
writing a magnificent universal geography essay, that nobody had
never written before»[56].
Later, he added that «finally, nobody knows about
these trips and the reports written on them and then read in the
monasteries (as we know also from Salimbene), and the copies
diffused that contributed to raise the desire of new adventures to
explore new territories and peoples which lead to the discovery of
the New World, the beginning of the complete exploration of the
whole globe where we live»
[57].
As for the document maybe written by a Franciscan
traveler or a simple writer, the Ligurian historian thought that it
was a real scoop of cartographical science about the regions of
Africa until Far Asia. The notes of the Franciscan in the Middle
Ages about the routes from Azof to «Catayo» are more precise than
those by Pegolotti (1335), the author of a handbook for merchants[58].
Moreover, his indications about the Canaries, in Madeira and the
Azors were made a decade before the charts of Florence (1351)[59]
and Venice, by Francesco and Domenico Pizigani (1367)[60],
the Catalan charts and those from Majorca (1375–1378)[61],
giving also clarifications of the location of at least ten more
islands belonging to the same archipelagus. He also gave the correct
definition of the Rio de Oro, the
Niger
of Ptolemy, Pliny and Marino Sanudo (1321)[62],
the
Nil
Gana of the ancient Arab geographers, not to
mention the information on the Gulf of Guinea,
Sinus aethiopicus, designed for the first
time in the Borgia planisphere (1452)[63]
and in that of friar Mauro (1457–1459)[64].
In order to definitively prove the link between
Asia and America, between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
Marcellino Ranise da Civezza relied on Humboldt, whose work was a
thorough analysis of the sources, used also by Columbus to plan the
Transoceanic crossing towards the region that he expected to be
Asia. The German scholar, indeed, did not hesitate in attributing to
Albertus Magnus and above all to the Franciscan Francis Bacon the
first intuition on the possibility «to reach directly India from the
West». According to the German Anthropologist, Bacon who was a
disciple of the Arabs for the study of tools and methods for
empirical observation, became the founder of experimental science
and relied on the huge knowledge of the «brothers William of
Rubrouck and Giovanni dal Pian del Carpine»[65].
The Oxonian philosopher joined the Franciscan
Order pushed by the exceptional discovery that, during the Middle
Ages, in the monasteries there were real agencies for the
transmission of knowledge[66].
Indeed, quoting Humboldt, Ranise highlighted that «Bacon himself,
talking about the power of knowledge and languages noted that a
strong desire to learn and to know had been emerging for fourty
years in suburbs and monasteries together with the general ignorance
of the people»[67].
With reference to the specific issue of the Baconian influence on
the Genoese navigator, Marcellino Ranise da Civezza by quoting
Humboldt, affirms that «among the authors consulted by Columbus, the
preferred author was undoubtedly Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly. There is
no doubt that Pierre d’Ailly eliminated from the letter
Opus majus by Friar Rogero Bacone the passages
taken by Columbus as evidence of the truth of the great project of
discovering the New World»[68].
Indeed, for Humboldt, Bacon played a key role for
the success of the endeavour promoted by Columbus. That’s why we
could compare the Franciscan philosopher to Janus Bifrons, who on
one side observed with Rubruck and Pian del Carpine the Asia of the
XIII century, and on the other side imagined the mobilization which
triggers modernity[69].
In order to confirm his thesis, he illustrated a synopsis to prove
that the quotation of a passage by Cardinal d’Ailly, included by
Columbus in a letter he wrote to the Spanish monarchs, was identical
to a passage of the
Opus majus by
Bacon[70].
Ranise grasped the effectiveness of this philological operation
carried out by Humboldt who was glad to report on the conclusions of
the outstanding scholar: «That is what Humboldt says, corroborating
his statement by comparing the three manuscripts he refers to»[71].
Continuity in the geographical knowledge
The continuity between Eurasia and America traced
by Marcellino Ranise da Civezza is clearly based on the theory of
geographical information almost trying to identify missions with
expeditions, travels and explorations. In some ways, Ranise
secularized the frontiers of the Earth, a symbolic element to
indicate the missionary goal, the anxiety for the globalization of
faith, which is the heritage of the ideology of the crusade.
For example, he praised the qualities as
geographer of the anonymous author of the manuscript found in
Madrid. He then exalted the qualities as explorers or
ante litteram
anthropologists of John of Montecorvino, Andrew of Perugia, Giovanni
da Pian del Carpine and all the other travelers and missionaries in
Cathay[72].
In the conclusions of the chapter about the Madrid manuscript and
the Bacon of Humboldt, Ranise applauded a work by Deker on the
catholic missions because it «would clarify the religious and social
usefulness of the missions […] the services to sciences and letters»[73].
In the work by Civezza it is easy to understand
his conviction that globalization was granted by science more than
by the anxiety for the mission. The Franciscan historian showed his
full solidarity with Humboldt because he considered Bacon as a
transmitter of geographical notions as it was suitable for a pioneer
of the modern empirical science.
In fact, Civezza quotes
l’Examen critique
of Humboldt instead of his source, the
Opus majus, written
by his confrere, the Franciscan Roger Bacon
Ces mêmes aperçus sur la possibilité de se rendre
directement aux Indes par la voie de l’ouest, sur les partes de la
terre qui sont bitables, et le rapport entre les surfaces des
continens (!) et des mers se retrouvent chez Roger Bacon, homme
prodigieux par la variété de ses connaissances, la liberté de son
esprit et la tendance de ses travaux vers la réforme ses études
physique[74].
If Civezza involved Humboldt and, thus, Bacon to
trace the continuity between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as
a channel of simple empirical information that the explorers of Asia
offered to those of America, when he pointed out the shift from a
strictly religious mission to a mission which was an expansion of
time, he had to rely on Bartolomeo da Pisa, author of
De Coformitate[75].
Marcellino Ranise da Civezza presented a series of profiles of the
missionaries working in Asia (from Giovanni da Pian del Carpine to
Rubruck) using the list of the places of the Asian mission provided
by Bartolomeo da Pisa in his work, proposing the compendium, the
summary and the results of that adventure[76].
In this way, he considered the
De Coformitate by
Pisano the junction among the agents of the mission, the
missionaries and the spaces of their apostolic mission.
If he called for Bacon and Humboldt to illustrate
the shift from Asia to America, he relied on Pisano to introduce
another fundamental link to the idea of mission: the shift from
ire ad infideles
to
loca,
from the missionaries to the spaces[77]!
With Bacon, he annotated the important document of the geographer
friar on the space of the Asian mission, whereas to annotate the
list of the missionaries in Asia he introduced the loca of Pisano.
To conclude, Marcellino Ranise da Civezza
considered Bacon as a cultural mediator, Janus Bifrons, between the
Asian space and the transoceanic space; whereas he considered Pisano
as a cultural mediator between ire ad infedes of the missionaries (linear space)
and the mission as the latitude space. Ranise seemed to identify
Bartolomeo da Pisa as the initiator of a literary genre that, if not
belonging to the criteria of the statistics dear to the lovers of
the missions contemporary to the Franciscan historians, it seemed to
fully comply with the geographical model, typical of the modern
status
locali. Actually, Bartolomeo da Pisa was the
first official historian of the Minors engaged in writing lists of
loca in order
to classify the minor sanctity according to a geographical
criterion. Pisano took from the traditional
cataloga sanctorum the habit of associating the
name of the Saint and his biographical data with his burial-place[78].
From the mission to the space
The novelty of Bartolomeo da Pisa is not just the
introduction of the concept of space in the geographical field, but
the fact that he attributed to the loca – that is to say to the
space – the theological meaning of
conformitas[79].
In his work about the
conformitas of Francis with Christ and of the
results of that conformitas, he included some lists of places
considering the geographical element as a real outcome of
conformitas. In this perspective, by sending his brothers to the
world, Francis imitated Christ. The fruit of this imitation would
create an expansion space corresponding to the mission.
Therefore, space as real translation of conformitas, would
take on a utopian martyrial meaning, that is to say the profile of
the escathological ideal belonging to the conquest of the frontiers
of the Earth, typical of the spiritual literature that Pisano
absorbed and transformed. One should not forget, indeed, that Olivi
himself defined the mission as
fructus finis,
as ultimate and almost exclusive purpose of the order[80].
According to Olivi, chapter 12 the Rule, the last chapter, deals
with the mission.
The space – fruit of Pisano – does not represent
just the implementation of a missionary dynamic which has reached
its end, like an ended and static horizon, the so called
status locorum.
The status, which is the result of
conformitas, in the work by Pisano is like a space
soaked with the blood of the martyrs, marked by the actions of the
confessors and constellated by stigmata like those of Francis’ body
in
conformitas with the
Cross. It is a space fecundated by testimony, pregnant of the future[81].
Unlike the chroniclers of the XIII century who used the concept of
conformitas
just to look at the past and pay a nostalgic tribute to Francis as
the perfect imitator of Christ and inimitable by the friars, Pisano
urged to expand space[82]!
With space categories he translated the concept of progress
elaborated by Bonavantura da Bagnoregio from whom he also took the
formal structure of his work: the tree and its fruits[83]!
In summary, compared to his predecessors, Pisano
inverted polarities and like Bacon he played the role of Janus
Bifrons. He did not look at the past anymore, free from nostalgia,
to relaunch the Order bringing it to the modernity of the Joachimite
eschatology dear to the spirituals[84].
By no coincidence, the following observant movement drew stimulous
from the
De
conformitate for its own development, as it
also happened for the Capuchin reform of the XVI century[85].
On the contrary, for the Lutheran reform, the
De conformitate
became the symbol of a secularizing effort if not deconsecrating!
For Luther follwers, there could not be a real relationship between
man and God; this is the reason for the separation in the
anthropological and topographic fields with the fronts that oppose
on the Danube
limes to propose
again the old split between Romans and Germans evoked by Braudel.
Pisano received the primordial impulse to merge
space and martyrdom, the incentive to conceive the idea of space as
conformitas thanks to the chronicle by friar
Elemosina, the first to introduce in a list of saints and martyrs
the indication of their burial place. It is astonishing that the
inventor of an authentic geography of the minor saints is the most
telling witness among the chroniclers not only of the mission in
Cathay, but also of the heroic virtues of John of Montecorvino, whom
he considers a saint, even if he didn’t make any miracles and he
didn’t die as a martyr. Friar Elemosina in his chronicle included
the history of the Order within the universal history, to establish
a parallel between the origin of Medieval Christianity born at the
end of the Roman Empire, and the beginning of the Minor Order which
started a new Christian era. He compared Orosius – the promoter of
the first Medieval civilization – to Francis, promoter of the new
missionary momentum which arrived to its completion with the
announcement of faith until the furthest frontiers of the East.
Elemosina illustrated the martyrial outcome of the missionary
adventure in Asia while the spirituals left to the Holy Land thanks
to the political and economic support of the Angevin monarchs. The
memory of the martyrdom in Cathay was for Elemosina the symbolic and
memorialistic backbone of the mission in the Holy Land, the other
East[86].
U-topia, soul of the Humboldtian genealogy of geographical knowledge
The political and economic contribution given by
Sancia to the conquerors of the new eastern spaces did not imply the
idea of renouncing to the ideal of martyrdom. On the contrary,
Sancia offered her power for the settlement of the spirituals in the
holy places and wrote to Perpignan who wanted to die as a martyr to
defend the Franciscan ideal[87].
It was rather the papacy of John XXII who condemned the spirituals
and was reticent to find a successor of Montecorvino, to show a
certain detachment in relation to the canonizations of martyrs
proposed by the Minor Order. On the contrary, Paolino da Venezia,
author of the
Mappa Mundi
(1320–1330), although far from the ideals of the spirituals, had no
reserves in including the martyrs in the lists of saints[88].
Only Trinci and Bernardino da Siena brought back
eschatology in the heart of the papacy. In 1350, Pietro da Narbona
left Catalonia to Jerusalem stopping in Brogliano, Trinci’s
homeland. In 1368 he died as martyr in the Holy Land where Christ
had died, example and model of life in the Spirit and canon of
holyness. In the Holy Land, at the beginning of the XIV century
potestas and
martiria coincided:
on the one hand, friars did not reject honours by the pilgrims who
considered them as the custodians of the power of the Latin church
founded by the crusaders; on the other hand, they justified their
presence by proposing again the values of Olivi and Clareno. In the
place where Christ was born poor and had died naked, only the
followers of the poor Francis with the stigma could live. The
conformitas with Christ was the conditio sine qua non to live in
that place where people had to be ready to be martyrs waiting for
the time to be mature and for the people to convert. Even if
Minister General Oddone tried to expunge spiritual elements from the
Holy Land (as Chronica XXIV that did not renounce to martyrdom)
omitting the reference to the Angevin monarchs, the Spirituals from
Catalonia and Narbona, the territories of Sancia and Roberto
d’Angiò, continued to reach the Holy Land, urging the residents and
Cola di Rienzo himself to build a new world. In 1414, once all the
fears of ostracism against spiritual eschatology had disappeared,
the General Minister Antonio da Pireto introduced in the statutes of
the Custodia the eschatological legitimization of the Spirituals. In
the Holy Land those who were ready to lead the world by example of
holiness could live, mirroring the evangelical perfection, always
reminding the model of the Redeemer, who is
totius vitae spiritualis exemplar[89].
It is not surprising that modern cartography
flourished in the territories where Spirituals settled, with maps
that allowed to expand geographical knowledge and projects aimed at
making new discoveries. It is indeed in the Angevin and Aragonese
milieu, close to the spiritual Franciscan order, that the Catalan
atlas and the
Libro del conoscimento, source
for the historians of the Canaries, Berthier and Le Verier[90],
were produced. After all, the book of the prophecies of Cristopher
Columbus is permeated by Spiritual eschaltology, being Columbus
guest at the Rábida, where the iberical spiritual lovers of
Joachimites lived[91].
From the point of view of Bacon and Bartolomeo da Pisa, of the
humanist cartographers of the Renaissance supporting global
mobilization, the legacy of Francis of Asis–complying with Christ
until the martyrdom of the stigmas and for this reason image of the
angel arising from the East–certainly represents the space.
It is not just a topographic category, but it is
a dynamic concept that, for Bernardino da Siena, Olivi’s disciple,
is fulfilled through the expansion of economic, social and civil
spaces, as a result of the inclusion of new social categories in the
field of citizenship. The Franciscans of Humanism and the
Renaissance, those who accompanied Columbus in the transoceanic
sailing, thanks to the contribution of Bartolomeo da Pisa with the
De conformitate
celebrated the space as Francis’ authentical legacy, the fruit of
his
conformitas.
They also inspired Piero della Francesca in portraiting the Council
of Florence of Eugene IV, the panel of the big fresco on the Legend
of the true cross. The artist superimposed the Council aiming at
emphasizing the unity of the Church and the victory of Eraclio (314)
against the Persians, which unified the East and the West to
recapture the relic of the cross, the trophy triumphantly brought to
Jerusalem, the
locus teologicus
of the
conformitas franciscana. This is then how it is precisely the utopian nature of martyrdom as a privileged condition of entry into the celestial space that substantiates that same tension that animates the genealogy of geographical knowledge, which Alexander von Humboldt rebuilds with the principal intent of demonstrating the continuity between the medieval perception of space and modern cartographic technique. In fact, while the memory of martyrdom– as a consequence of the specialization of knowledge typical of the modern era–remains the prerogative of confessional contexts in form of devotion for the souls, the idea of space produced by the utopia of martyrdom is instead seized by cartography and its technicians. This took place in a period that was enlivened by the aspiration to cross borders to reach new worlds, to acquire new knowledge and, ultimately, to encounter beings never before known. Modern cartography, therefore, reborn from the ashes of the topography of martyrdom, is emerging as its flagship product. This genealogical relationship should not be ignored. To do so would mean consigning to oblivion that fecundity is the profound meaning of its own vitality, and thereby closing off the pathway for anyone who may wish to try their hand not in the drafting of a history of discoveries, but in the adventure of conquering new horizons. How to cite Buffon, Giuseppe (2015): The Franciscans in Cathay: memory of men and places. A Contribution for the genealogy of geographical knowledge of Alexander von Humboldt. In: HiN - Humboldt im Netz. Internationale Zeitschrift für Humboldt-Studien (Potsdam - Berlin) XVI, 30, S. 13-29. Online verfügbar unter <http://www.uni-potsdam.de/romanistik/hin/hin30/buffon.htm>
Permanent URL unter
<http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/abfrage_collections.php?coll_id=594&la=de>
[1]
Rome,
École
française de Rome,
2013.
[2]
The work, which is already valuable for the collection of a
broad range of updated publications on the history of
cartography and geographical discoveries acquires much more
significance because it gives a religious interpretation of
the publications in contrast with economic interpretations
of the modern expansive phenomenon.
[3]
Luciano Petech, «I Francescani nell’Asia centrale e
orientale nel XIII e XIV secolo», in
Espansione del francescanesimo tra
Occidente e Oriente nel secolo XIII. Atti del VI Convegno
internazionale, Assisi 12–14 ottobre 1978 (Assisi, Università di Perugia Centro studi francescani, 1979), pp.
213–240; Id, «Les marchands italiens dans l’empire mongol»,
in
Selected papers on Asian History
(Roma, Instituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente,
1988), pp. 161–186.
[4]
I just mention two of the major works by the author.
Jean Richard,
La papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Age
(Roma, École française de Rome, 1977); (2Paris, Publications
de la Sorbonne, 1998) ; Id,
Au-delà de la Perse et de l’Arménie. L’Orient latin et la
découverte de l’Asie intérieure. Quelques textes inégalement
connus aux origines de l’alliance entre Francs et Mongols
(1146–1262)
(Turnhout, Brepols, 2005).
According
to Richard, evangelization in Asia was unsuccessful and
without any legacy (La papauté et les mission d’Orient,
p. 294). Modern mission, expanding towards America, was
built on completely new basis. Therefore he thinks that the
story of the dissemination of the Christian message should
be divided into at least three phases: Christianization of
dark ages of Europe; evangelization of the late Middle Ages
which tries to overcome the frontiers of christianity;
modern mission aiming at reaching a universal church – a
global church. The continuity of the history of
evangelization could be clarified by the Franciscan
historiography. With its chroniclers and analists such as
Nicola Glassberger, Mariano da Firenze, Marco da Lisbona and
Luke Wadding, it assumes a long process of missionary
expansion which goes from the XIII century to the XVI
century, exactly from Marco Polo to Cristopher Columbus. On
this subject, see what Tanase affirms (Jusqu’aux limites
du mode,
p. 9), considering Richard as a prisoner of an ideology
which is typical of the decolonization period and which aims
at distinguishing between mission and crusade and
consequently between the era of the crusade and the era of
the mission. Yet, we cannot keep the lid on an oversight by
Tanase himself. In dealing with the universalistic
conception of Franciscan historiography, he did not mention
at all the work by Domenico De Gubernatis,
Orbis seraphicus
(vol.
I–VI Romae – Lugduny 1682–1689; vol. VII Quaracchi 1896).
Indeed, the divulgation of the Franciscan universalism
started with the
Orbis seraficus
and not
with the Annals by Wadding, as Tanase seems to affirm. In
Asia and the far East, Franciscan universalism calls for a
continuity between the mission in the Cathay of the Mongols
and the mission in the China of the Mings, an idea already
in the minds of the first missionaries in Western Indias,
Martino di Valencia (†1534) and Juan de Zumaraga (†1548),
first archbishop of Mexico.
[5]
« Au
centre de ce questionnement se situe la tentative d’analyse
des interactions et entrelacs entre l’Ancien
et le Nouveau Mondes aussi bien dans l’espace
que dans le temps et de détection des transferts de savoir
qui concernent tout aussi bien la constitution et la
production de nouveau savoir que sa diffusion spécifique
dans l’espace. Colomb apparaît en ce sens comme un médiateur de savoir ou plutôt
comme celui qui fait bouger le savoir d’un
monde intermédiaire sur la scène du
‘théâtre
du monde’
pour multiplier les objets
à
l’horizon
de la pensée européenne et ainsi démultiplier brusquement
la
‘masse des idées’ ».
Ette, «Réflexions européennes sur deux phases de
mondialisation accélérée», p. 41.
On the
importance of the studies carried out by Humboldt on the
discovery of America, interpreted as a stimulous to start
modern globalization, you can see the following studies:
Ottmar Ette,
«Entdecker
über Entdecker: Alexander von Humboldt, Cristóbal Colón und die
Wiederentdeckung Amerikas»,
in
Titus
Heydenreich (dir.),
Columbus zwischen zwei Welten.
Historische und literarische Wertungen aus fünf
Jahrhunderten, (Frankfurt am
Main 1992), pp. 401–439; id, «Réflexions européennes sur
deux phases de mondialisation accélérée chez
Cornelius de Pauw, Georg Forster, Guillaume-Thomas Raynal et
Alexandre de Humboldt», in
HiN –
Internationale Zeitschrift für Humboldt Studien
XI, 21 (2010), pp. 24–44: 39–44; id, «Archeologies of
Globalization.
European
Reflexion on Two Phases of Accelarated Globalization in
Cornelius Pauw, Georg Foster, Guillaime-Thomas Raynal and
Alexander von Humboldt»,
in
Culture & History Digital Journal
1/1 (2012): e003. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2012.003;
Anja Bandau, Marcel Dorigny et Rebekka
von Mallinckrodt, Les Mondes coloniaux à Paris au XVIIIe
siècle.
Circulation et enchevêtrement des savoir
(Paris,
Éditions Karthala, 2010).
[6]
Giuseppe Buffon,Tra spazio e territorio.
La missione francescana in epoca moderna
(Assisi,
Porziuncola, 2006), pp. 73–80; Id,
Sulle tracce di una Storia omessa.
Storiografia moderna e contemporanea dell’Ordine francescano
(Grottaferrata – Roma, Collegio S. Bonavantura, 2011), pp.
184–202;
Khanbaliq. Profili storiografici intorno al cristianesimo in
Cina dal medioevo all’età contemporanea (XIII–XIX sec.) (Roma,
Antonianum, 2014), pp. 221–239.
[7]
It is worthy to quote the whole passage where Ranise affirms
the continuity between Asia and America:
«in
the most remote areas of those immense regions we left our
missionaries until 1486, even though it was extremely
difficult to penetrate them, because all communications
started with the Mongols ended and all the colonies created
by Genoeses and Venetians collapsed. They governed
prosperous Christian communities in Persia, on the Montes
Caspii and in Tenduc: thus we can say that they settled
there until the discovery of Cape of Good Hope». Storia universale
delle missioni francescane, vol. VI. Dall’anno 1500 al
1550
(Prato 1881), pp. 3–4.
[8]
The historian of the Franciscan missions tries to
demonstrate the consistency of the outcomes of the first
Asian missions also after the XIV century, despite the
obstacles created by the islamization of the Asian region by
Tīmūr Barlas (1337–1405) historically known as Tamerlane («the
effects of the numerous expeditions of the Friars Minor to
Tartary and China from 1369 to 1371»).
His argument primarily aims at demostrating the mistake
committed by the famous Italian Orientalist Simome Assemani,
in the third volume of the
Bibliotheca orientalis
(part II, p. 535), where he declared that the Minors
definitively left China because of the end of the Mongolian
leadership in the region (1369), replaced by the Chinese
Ming dinasty.
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
IV (Roma 1860), pp. 306–308: 654. It is necessary to take
into account that Ranise later challenges the statements by
another famous orientalist, Evariste Regis Huc, who in the
work
Le Christianisme en Chine,
en Tartarie et au Tibet ( Vol. I. Paris 1813, p. 462) failing to consult the famous Franciscan
annalist Luke Wadding, would date the end of the Franciscan
and Dominican missions in China during the military
campaigns of the Tamerlane (1398–1403). Ranise affirms that
several papal documents prove the existence of the mission
in Central Asia and China also for most of the XV century.
The Franciscan historian believes that the shortcomings of
Huc are grave because it shows some methodological flaws.
Yet, he was much more concerned for the damage to the
Catholic and Roman universalism inflicted by the statements
of the French historian. In deed, we shoud not forget the
attachment of the author of the Storia universale delle missioni francescane
to the
universalistic idea of the
ecclesia romana
represented by mendicants for which the continuity Eurasia –
America is not a secondary issue (Marcellino da Civezza,
Il Romano Pontificato nella Storia d’ Italia,
3 vol., Firenze 1886–87). Ranise wrote about this:
«far
from affirming that since then nobody had talked about
Christianity in the areas of Far Asia, there are documets of
the Holy See about some regions of India not only those of
the Mount Caspii in 1422 and 1429 and 1448 those in China
where the apostolic activity of the Friars Minor continued.
And we regret that it is not the first time and maybe it
will not be the last time that we have to warn our readers
on some rash statements by mr. Huc that nonetheless we
highly value for his works about the history of Asia. Maybe
he did not study well enough, as he usually did for his
works and he committed some omissions that someone could not
consider very serious but that for us on the contrary are
extremely grave because they make people believe that the
action of the papacy was over in those areas, whereas on the
contrary history tell us that it continued trying to fuel
the spark of the sacred fire for all the nations of the
Earth to rise in a spiritual rebirth in Christ». Storia
universale delle missioni francescane IV, p. 331.
[9]
Ranise deals with the council of Florence in chapter XIII of
the fourth volume of his
Storia delle missioni,
where he illustrates the endeavours of Alberto da Sarteano,
Bartolomeo da Giano, Giacomo Primaldizi, Francesco and Luigi
da Bologna. He concludes his analysis focusing on the
mission of Antonio da Troia, to the Tartars, Assyrians,
Persians, Ethiopians, Maronites, Druses, Nestorians and
Arameans. He deals with the story of Luigi da Bologna also
in the following volume (XIV, 1453–1550), focusing on his
trips to Ethiopia, Persia, Tartary and India aiming both at
preparing the civil poker to the crusade and to promote the
dissemination of faith. In this volume, he is also
interested in the bishops appointed for Beijing from 1405 to
1456 (chapter V) and in the vestiges of Christianity in
Beijing, Persia, in the Crimean peninsula (Caffa) amd in
Abissinia (chap. VI). He then dedicated three chapters to
the mission in the Canaries (chap. VII–IX) and to those
promoted by Spain in the Mediterranean coasts of Africa,
dealing then with the crusade planned by the iberical
monarchs, decided to support a military action to conquer
Jerusalem (chap. X). Then the volume goes on with two more
chapters (XI and XII) dedicated both to the preparations of
Columbus for the transoceanic sailing and to the
relationships between the Genoese navigator and the
Franciscans of the Rábida monastery.
[10]
Tanase,
Jusqu’aux limites du monde,
pp. 716–718
[11]
On the plan elaborated by Fidenzio of Padua, in view of the
crusade in the Holy Land, see the remarks by Paolo
Evangelisti,
«La
crociata allo specchio.
Andare in
Oriente per ripensare i paradigmi politici dell’Occidente»,
in Alvaro Cacciotti and Maria Melli (dir.),
I Francescani e la
crociata,
(Milano,
Biblioteca francescana di Milano, 2014), pp. 275–321.
[12]
Ranise shows great interest for the role played in the
Western Christianity by this original figure, dedicating him
numerous pages and focusing more and more times on the event
with new information about the importance of the Minors as
architects of his fame and ‘inventors’ of his meaning to the
benefit of the missionary actions (Storia universale
della missioni francescane I, cap. IX; II, cap
X; III, cap. I; VI, cap IX: 336–342).
The legendary figure of Prester John, already known thanks to the
Chronica by Otto of Freising (1114–1158), assumes a more important meaning due to
an
Epistula latina
addressed to Manuele Comneno, a fake with clear anti-papal
purposes, to support the Emperor, drafted by a cleric of the
court of Frederik I (1150–1160). Also the Franciscans
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, William of Rubrouck and Odoric
of Pordenone contributed to the fame of Prester John, as
well as the Dominicans Simon of Saint-Quentin and Andrew of
Longjumeau, and the most famous Venetian merchant, Marco
Polo. The Venetian traveler confused the identity of that
figure with that of the prince George of
Önggüt,
converted to Catholicism in 1294 bt the Franciscan John of
Montecorvino. The author of
Divertissement du Monde,
Marco Polo, was in debt with Montecorvino, who sent a letter
from Khanbalik in 1305 talking about the conversion of king
George,
«qui
erat de genere illius magni Regis, qui dictus fuit Presbiter
Iohannes de Yndia» (Attanasio van de Wyngaert (dir.), Sinica Francescana
I, Quaracchi, S. Boneventura, 1929, 348–349). According to
Montecorvino, the conversion of the Mongolian king triggered
the conversion of the whole population of his kingdom to the
Roman Church. Moreover, after his conversion, the prince
wanted to build a sacred building which was necessary for
the celebrations of the new worshipers. Odoric of Pordenone,
by identifying the city of Prester John with the capital of
Önggüt
(1330), draw from the same heritage of knowledge
disseminated in the Franciscan milieu (Alvise Adreose,
La strada, la Cina, il Cielo.
Studi sulla Relatio di Odorico da Pordenone e sulla sua
fortuna romanza,
Catanzaro, Rubbettino, 2012, pp. 109–116).
In deed,
in 1440 the Franciscan Luigi da Bologna introduced to the
papal court of Pius II a person who claimed to be Prester
John’s ambassador. It was a surprising event, despite doubts
and perplexities on the true identity of that man; therefore
the Pope decided to appoint him as patriarch of Antiochia
and delegate to the East. It is also necessary to remind
that he established contacts with various European courts
such as that of Bourgogne where, in 1445 two envoys of the
king of Portugal arrived in search of information about
prester John. A. Bargellesi Severi,
«Nuovi
documenti su fr.
Lodovico da
Bologna, al secolo Lodovico Severi, Nunzio Apostolico in
Oriente (1455–1457)», in
Archivun Franciscanum Historicum
69 (1976), 3–22; Jacques Paviot,
Les ducs de Bourgogne, la croisade et l’Orient (fin
XVIe–XVe siècle)
(Paris,
Presses de l’Univ. de Paris-Sorbonne,
2003), pp. 262–265.
[13]
John of Capistrano proved to be a decisive figure in the
aftermath of the fall of Constantinople. He stopped the
advance of Mehmed II, thrilled the conquest of the capital
of the Byzantine Empire and decided to extend his domination
towards central Europe. The victory in Belgrade by the army
of volunteers gathered by the Franciscan fro Abruzzi was
praised by the Catholic community also thanks to Callixtus
II, who organized numerous processions and celebrations to
support the hagiography of the martyr alive, become a model
and a symbol unsuitable for the propaganda campaign to
relaunch the crusade. But it was the successor of Callixtus,
II, Pope Piccolomini (Pius II), supporter of the faith in
Capistrano and Bernardino da Siena, who wrote an essay on
Europe and one on Asia, assuming a global crusade for the
reconquest of Jerusalem. Colombo himself read carefully and
took notes on the
De Asia by Pius II, a text supporting the vocation for the universal mission of
the Latin Church.
Civezza,
Storia universale della missioni francescane
IV, pp. 625–645; Tanase,
Jusqu’aux limites du monde,
pp. 698–701.
[14]
Daniello Bartoli (1608–1685), Jesuite historian and
theologian whos main work is the
Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù (1653–73),
divided in numerous sections: Assia, Japan, China, England,
Italy, Rome, Ignazio de’ Lazzeri, 1660–1663. The work was
published again during the XIX century bt several publishing
houses: Marietti–Torino 1925–1929; Birindelli - Firenze,
1830 (Japan); Aurelij–Ancona, 1843 (China).
[15]
Pietro Maffei (1536–1578), Jesuit latinist and historian,
author of numerous works such as:
Historiarum
Indicarum (libri XVI). Selectarum item ex India epistolarum
(libri IV),
Florentiae 1585; De vita et moribus Ignatii Loiolae qui Societatem Iesu
fundavit, (libri III),
Romae 1585.
[16]
Pierre-François-Xavier de
Charlevoix
(1682–1761), Jesuit
missionary operating in Canada.
In 1720
the ruler of France sent him to explore Northern America
where he went up the river Saint Lawrence and the
Mississippi Lakes.
Among his
works, we remind:
Histoire et
description générale de la Nouvelle France,
Parigi (1744);
New York (1865–72),
Histoire du Japon (1715),
Histoire de St. Domingue
(1730) and
Histoire du Paraguay (1756).
[17]
Mathieu Richard Auguste Henrion (1805-1862)
Histoire générale des missions catholiques depuis le XIIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours (Paris,
Administration de la Librairie, 1844–1847).
[18]
Patrizio Wittman,
La Gloria della
chiesa nelle sue missioni dall’epoca dello scisma nella fede
ossia storia universale della missioni cattoliche negli
ultimi tre secoli,
2 vol. (Milano 1942–1943).
[19]
Thomas William Marshal (1818–1874),
Die Christlichen
Missionen,
3 vol. (Regensburg 1863) (Les missions
chretiennes,
2 vol., Paris 1865;
Le missioni
Cristiane,
3 vol., Napoli 1888).
[20]
Manuel Francisco de Barros e Sousa, Visconte di Santarém
(1791-1856),,
Saggio sulla storia della cosmografia e della geografia
nel medioevo,
2 vol.
(Parigi 1848);
Essai sur I’Histoire de la Cosmographie et de la
Cartographie pendant le Moyen-âge, 2 vol., Paris 1849-1850.
The Universal annals of statistics and public economy, geography,
history, travels and trade (Milan 1849, 5) present the work
as the best comment to the history of Medieval cosmography
by Humboldt, particularly appreciating the illustration of
the Italian geographers and travelers.
[21]
Marie-Armand-Pascal
d’Avezac y Macaya
(1799–1875), in the capacity of official of the navy
ministry attended history, geography, old and modern
cartography and mathematical geography, focusing mainly on
the Italian travelers such as Giovanni da Pian del
Carpine, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci,
about whom he published numerous documents in
Nouvelles annales
des Voyages
e nell’Encyclopédie
Nouvelle.
Among
his works, it is worthy to recall:
Les îles fantastiques de l’Ocean occidental au Moyen-Âge (1845), Ethicus
et les ouvrages cosmographiques intituléś de
ce nom (1852),
Martin Hilacomylus Waltzeemüller (1867).
[22]
In relation to the work by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada
(1831–1898), Spanish explorer and zoologist, Civezza
referred to the publication titled
Cuestion bibliografica por d. M. Jimenes de la Espada,
Madrid, Medina y Navarro, 1875 and the introduction by
Civezza to the
Libro del
conoscimiento de todos los reynos (Madrid, Fortanet, 1877).
[23]
Alfred Morel-Fatio (1850–1924) professor at the
École des Chartes and at the Collège de France was famous for his hectic
search to archive everything, that led him to publish
literature, chronicles and documents about the Spanish
monarchy as his publications prove:
Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et
ministres de France (1894) and
Chronique des rois de Castille, as
well as
Catalogue des manuscrits espagnols et portugais (1889–92).
[24]
Oscar Ferdinand Peschel
(1826–1875), professor at the Leipzig university, in the
wake of Humboldt (Geschichte der Erdkunde bis auf A. v. Humboldt und K.
Ritter,
2 vol., 1865) focuses particularly on the studies of
comparative geography (Neue Probleme der vergleichenden Erdkunde,
1870), showing his interest for natural environments; he was
famous above all for his
Geschichte der Erdkunde.
[25]
Le Canarien: livre de la conquête et conversion des Canaries (1402–1422). Publié d’après le manuscrit original avec introduction et notes par Gabriel Gravier (Rouen,
C. Métérie,
1874).
[26]
Henry Yule, Cathay and the
Way Thither. Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of
China, 2 vol.
(London,
Hakluyt Society 1866). Yule (1820–1889), Scottish
orientalist, focused on the history of Central Asia in the
Middle Age, succesfully publishing the abovementioned study
on Cathay and another one on Marco Polo, for which he was
awarded with the golden medal of the Royal Geographical
Society, that he later presided over.
[27]
Relation des Mongols, ou Tartares, par le Frère Jean du
plan de Carpin, par M. d’Avezac (Paris, Dondey Dupré, 1838).
[28]
Guillaume de Rubrouck, Ambassadeur de Saint-Louis en
Orient. Récit de son voyage. Traduit de l’original latin et annoté par Louis
de Backer (Paris,
Ernest Leroux, 1877) ;
L’Extrême Orient au
Moyen-âge d’âpres les manuscrits d’un flamand de Belgique
moine de Saint-Bertin a Saint-Omer et d’un prince d’Arménie
moine de Prémontré a Poitiers,
(Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1877).
[29]
Storia universale
della missioni francescane
VI, 5.
[30]
Chronica Fr Salimbene Parmensis, Ordinis Minorum, ex Cod.
Vaticano nunc primum edita (Parmae, Petri Fiaccadori, 1857).
[31]
Guillaume de Rubrouck, Ambassadeur de Saint-Louis en Orient. Récit de son voyage,
cap. I,
p. 29 ; cap. XX, p. 13 ; cap. XXI, p. 14, cap. XXIII, p. 7.
[32]
In relation to the work by Pisano, the historian referred to
some critical considerations he had already made in his
Saggio di bibliografia geografica storica etnografica,
(Prato, Ranieri Guasti, 1879), where he illustrated Affò’s
thought about the
De conformitate
condemned to the oblivion after the denigrating campaign
waged by the Protestants who had even distorted its title,
replacing it with
Coranum
Franciscanum.
Ultimately, Civezza wanted to be the guarantor of an
operation with which he attributed historical value as
documents to the geographical indications given by Pisano,
whereas for the scientific community its work was just a
mere booklet.
«This
book was uselessly discredited by the Jewish and derided by
some idiots who never had the patience to read it».
Saggio di bibliografia geografica storica etnografica,
p. 471
[33]
Amedeo Vigna,
Codice diplomatico delle colonie Tauro-Liguri durante la
signoria dell’Ufficio di S. Giorgio (1453–1475), Atti della
Società ligure di Storia patria,
vol. VI (Genova, R.I. de’ Sordi-Muti, 1968); vol. VII
(Genova, R.I. de’ Sordi-Muti, 1971–1979); Id.,
Della Crimea, del
suo commercio e de’ suoi dominatori dalla origini fino ai dì
nostri, Commentari storici dell’Avvocato Michele Giuseppe
Canale,
vol. I (Genova, R.I. de’ Sordi-Muti, 1955).
[34]
Storia universale delle missioni
VI, p. 19.
[35]
Storia universale delle missioni
VI, p. 22.
[36]
Storia universale delle missioni
VI, p. 23.
[37]
«And
this was the aim of the letter that they wrote to the Pope
one year later imploring him to send numerous brothers to
that monastery as soon as possible, because the people
extraordinarily loved and respected them. […] They also
wrote to the cardinal of the holy church and the minister
general of the Order, Friar Francesco della Rovere,
explaining that it was impossible to express the love of the
people of Feodosia for the Franciscans. Moreover, being
those brave friars more important than the soldiers in the
defense of the city, they prayed to listen to their request».
Storia universale delle missioni
VI, p. 29–30.
[38]
«So,
first he implored the General Minister of the Order to
invite all his brothers who were preaching in favour of the
crusade, to call for help and support to defend Feodosia,
and among the collectors proposed by Cardinal Giorgio
Fieschi to the Lords of san Giorgio to collect handouts,
there were also two Franciscans, Cristoforo di Ceva and
Leonardo Grillo; […] All those groups of missionaries in the
East worked side by side to defend the cause that risked to
deteriorate […] Meanwhile Callixtus III, with the letter of
March, the fourteenth and of May the fifteenth 1456, sent
Friar Giacomo de Mozzanica, minister general of the Minors,
to the Duke Sforza of Milan and the Marquise Giovanni di
Monferrato to urge them to save Feodosia; at the same time
he appointed them as collectors of the handouts asked to the
Christians (christianitas) for the same purpose».
Storia universale delle missioni
VI, pp. 27–28.
[39]
Storia universale delle missioni
VI, p. 33.
[40]
Alessandro Scafi,
Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Dialogo su un
sogno: Dialogus de somnium quodam, (Torino, Aragno, 2004).
Piccolomini’s work titled
Dialogus
was published for the first time in Rome in 1475 by Iohannes
Schurener. Giuseppe Cugnoni (Aeneae Silvii Piccolomini Senensis qui postea fuit Pius
II pon. max: Opera inedita descripsit ex codicibus chisianis
vulgavit notisque illustravit Josephus Cugnoni, Chisianae
bibliothecae praefectus,
Roma 1883) published a second edition declaring it was
Piccolomini’s (pp. 234–299) unreleased work, titled
Tractatus. S. Bernardino informed his eminent disciple that the garden of Eden was
in a region of the Far East, beyond the territory that
Ptolemy identified with China. About cosmography, he dared
to correct Albert the Great, affirming that the great
Dominican thinker was too busy to deal with other studies to
focus on geography. Scalfi,
Enesa Silvio
Piccolomini, Dialogo su un sogno, pp. 275–283.
[41]
Ranise, after writing numerous pages on the disappearance of
Christianity in Africa, at the end of the XIII century, went
on by saying:
«Since
then, history has talked only about christian slaves or
renegades: no bishops or churches which were destroyed and
converted in Mosques […]. Yet, there is the exception of a
Church in Morocco, where the Franciscans sent there by their
seraphic father kept alive the spark of faith thanks to
their predications and their martyrdom, and whose story we
have narrated until the end of the XV century. Here we add
some important details that we learned from later studies,
and namely the conquests made by the Portuguese in those
regions with the participation of the Franciscans trying to
expand their apostolic ministry».
Storia universale delle missione francescane VI, p. 55.
[42]
Storia della missioni francescane
VI, p. 58–59.
[43]
«We
saw again the Portuguese in Africa in 1458, when Alfonso V
after a short resistance took Alcacer-Ceguer (Ksar-es-srit)
between Ceuta and Tangeri on the river Larache; it was an
expedition which had to be linked to the crusade launched by
Callixtus III against the Turks in 1457, and which had no
effects because of his death».
Storia della missioni francescane VI, p. 58.
[44]
On the role played by Henry the Navigator in the Portuguese
expansive policy aimed at expanding Christianity, see: David
Abulafia,
The discovery of Mankind. Atantic Enconters in the age
of Columbus
(New Haven/London, Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 82–86;
Peter Edward Russell,
Prince Henry “the navigator”, A Life
(New-Haven/London, Yale University press, 2000).
[45]
Charles-Martial De Witte,
«Les
bulles pontificales et l’expansion portugaise au XVe siècle»,
in
Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique
49/2–3 (1954), pp. 438–462: 455.
[46]
Tanase,
Jusqu’aux limites du monde, p.
717.
[47]
Storia della missioni francescane
VI, p. 200.
[48]
Storia della missioni francescane
VI, p. 201.
[49]
«The
said Vivaldi brothers were on board of those galleys not
only with other citizens but also with two Friars Minor of
San Francis».
Storia della missioni francescane
VI, p. 201.
[50]
«According
to what Barro says, in 1440 the Genoese Antonio da Noli and
two other members of his family discovered the island of
Cape Verde. This is the clear explanation of the
evangelization carried out by the Franciscan from
Montebaroccio in the monastery of Noli on the western coast
of Genoa we referred to in the previous chapter».
Storia della missioni francescane
VI, p. 203.
[51]
Storia della missioni francescane
VI, p. 203.
[52]
Annales maritimos et coloniae, publicação mensual redigida
sob a direção da Assiciação maritima colonial,
ser V. Memoria chronologica ecerca do descobrimiento da
terra do Prete João das Indias e ambaixadas que a ello enviaram os
Portuguezes, coordenada pelo socio Albano Silveira
(Lisboa 1820).
[53]
Storia della missioni francescane
VI, p. 342.
The
proposal of John II of Portugal to send the abovementioned
Franciscan missions in search of Prester John, was the
alternative to the project that Columbus had submitted to
the Portuguese king, that was sailing to the India of
Prester John crossing the Ocean (Jacques Heers,
Christophe Colomb,
Paris, Hachette, 1991, p. 185).
In relation to
the trip of the Franciscans, see Teodosio Somigli da S.
Detole,
Etiopia Francescana nei documenti dei secoli XVII e XVIII
I
(Quaracchi, S. Bonavantura, 1928), LXXXIX; Geo Pistarino, «I
Portoghesi verso l’Asia del Prete Gianni», in
Studi Medievali
3a serie 2,1 (1961), pp. 74–137: 118.
[54]
To corroborate his reasoning, the historian quotes a long
passage of the abovementioned manuscript:
«Eodem
anno (1291) Thedisius Auriae, Ugollinus de Vivaldo, et eius
frater quibusdam aliis civibus Ianuae coeperunt facere
quaddam viaggium, quod aliquis usque nunc facere minime
attemptavit […]
In quibus
inverunt dicti duo fratres de Vivaldo personaliter, et duo
Fratres Minores : quod quidem mirabile fuit non solum
videntibus sed audientibus.» Iacobi Auriae,
Annales,
t. XVIII.
Monumenta Germaniae historica,
by Henricii Pertz, Annovarae 1826–1872, quoted in
Storia universale della missioni
francescane
VI, p. 80 footnote 1.
[55]
For an updated edition of the work, see: N. F Marino (dir),
El libro del conoscimiento de todos los reinos.
The Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms,
(Tempe, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
1999).
[56]
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, p. 81.
[57]
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, p. 82.
[58]
Francio Balducci Pegolotti,
La pratica della
mercatura
(Cambridge MA 1936), pp. 20–31.
At the
beginning of his work, the author included some information
on the routes of Cathay, without any practical purpose
because he was mainly interested in the Middle East, but
with an ideological purpose considering the exotic element,
which is an ingredient of the typical culture of the
Italian-Florentine merchant.
[59]
Civezza referred to a Medici code (Florence, Laurentian
Library, Gaddi 9, ff. 3v–4r) described by Gio.
Battista
Baldelli (Il Milione di Marco
Polo testo di lingua del secolo decimo terzo,
Firenze, Giuseppe Pagani 1827, CLIII–CXIX).
On the
cartography of the Renaissance, also in reference to the use
made by Columbus, it is useful to see the study by Corradino
Astengo, «The Renaissance chart tradition in the
Mediterranean», in David Woodward (dir.),
The History of Cartography,
Vol. 3.
Cartography in the European Renaissance
(Chicago and
London, University of Chicago Press,
2007), pp. 174–237.
[60]
On this map, see Giuseppe Caraci, “A conferma del già detto:
Ancora sulla paternità delle carte nautiche anonime,”
Memorie Geografiche
6
(1960), pp. 129–40: 138–39.
[61]
Julio Rey Pastor, Ernesto García Camarero,
La
cartografia mallorquina
(Madrid 1960), p. 14.
[62]
We refer to the maps produced by Pietro Visconte and
included by Marino Sanudo in the
Liber secretorum fidelium crucis super Terrae Sanctae
recuperatione et conservazione, an essay aiming at encouraging the organization of a new crusade to
free the Holy Land. The
liber secretorum
published in Gesta dei per Francos II, Hanovie Wechelianis
apud heredes Ioannis Aubrii, 1611, was printed again in
Jerusalem in 1972.
[63]
Roberto Almagià,
Monumenta
cartographica vaticana
I,
Planisferi carte nautiche e affini dal
secolo XIV al XVII
(Citta del Vaticano 1944), pp. 27–29.
The title
Mappamondo Borgia
cames from the fact that it has been bought in Portugal by
Cardinal Stefano Borgia in 1794.
[64]
Piero Falchetta,
The Fra Mauro World
Map
(Turnhout, Brepols, 2006).
[65]
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, pp. 84–85 (Examen critique de l’histoire, de la géographie du nouveau
continent et de progrès de l’astronomie nautique aux
quinzième e seizième siècle
I (Paris, Librairie De Gide, 1836), p. 59).
[66]
Indeed, Davide Bigalli explains, the participation of Bacon
to the Franciscan Order has to be interpreted in light of a
difficult mediation between the canons imposed of the
revealed wisdom and the needs of the modern
potestas. This is the typical scenario of the transition periods that need the
elaboration of new forms of organization and dissemination
of knowledge. According to Bigalli
«The
Franciscan Order has to be seen in the framework of this
path of wisdom that must be embodied by the
potestas, the human relations which must become strength, the capacity of
intervention of man in the divine project, and the
participation of Bacon to all this».
Espansione del francescanesimo tra
occidente e oriente nel secolo XIII. Atti del VI convegno
internazionale Assisi, 12–14 ottobre 1978 (Assisi 1979), p. 302 (round table).
[67]
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, 84.
[68]
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, 85;
[69]
Andreas Daum highlights that Humboldt’s thought could be
interpreted as a history of the space and thus a history of
modern mobilization.
«Alexander
von Humboldt, Natur als “Kosmos” und die Suche nach Einheit.
Zur Geschichte von Wissen und seiner Wirkung als
Raumgeschichte»,
in
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
(Weiheim) 23 (2000), pp. 243–268.
[70]
«J’ai d’ailleurs remarqué, en comparant differens (!)
textes, que la passage dont l’amiral a inséré la traduction
dans la lettre aux monarques, a été emprunté par Alliacus
[Pierre d’Ailly] presque littéralement à l’Opus majus
de Roger Bacon. Il est vrai que le cardinal dit à la fin de l’Imago mundi :
scriptura ex pluribus auctoribus recollecta anno MCCCX ;
mais,
au milieu de tant de noms d’auteurs
calassiques et de cosmographes arabes, il ne cite jamais le
nom célèbre de Roger Bacon. Voici la collation des trois
passages ; celui qui est extrait de la lettre de Colomb
offre une transposition de quelques phrases d’Alliacus».
Examen critique de
l’histoire, de la géographie du nouveau continent et de
progrès de l’astronomie nautique aux quinzième e seizième
siècle
I, pp. 63–65: 65–69.
[71]
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, p. 85.
[72]
«This
is the narration of the Franciscan traveler, or missioner,
or geographer of the first half of the XIV century that
offers scholars of geography and history a good chance to
understand how much we owe to the missionaries and the
travelers of the last centuries».
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, p. 140.
[73]
Les missions catholiques introductif a l’histoire des
missionnaires belges par P. de Decker, ancien ministre,
membre de L’Académie de Belgique
(Bruxelles 1879).
[74]
«Ces mêmes aperçus sur la possibilité de se rendre
directement aux Indes par la voie de l’ouest, sur les partes
de la terre qui sont bitables, et le rapport entre les
surfaces des continens (!) et des mers se retrouvent chez
Roger Bacon, homme prodigieux par la variété de ses
connaissances, la liberté de son esprit et la tendance de
ses travaux vers la réforme ses études physique».
Examen critique de l’histoire, de la géographie du nouveau
continent
I, p. 58.
[75]
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, 17
[76]
«Finally,
concluding the information about our old missions in Asia, I
would like to notice that Bartolomeo da Pisa in his book
wrote about the main stations fonde by the Franciscans».
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, pp. 17–18.
[77]
Indeed, Civezza, after concluding a long quotation of
Pisano, adds:
«Also
in the trip of our blessed Odoric of Udine there are news of
some places where the Order settled in the far East.
Mandelville
reports of three places […]».
Storia universale delle missioni francescane
VI, p. 18.
[78]
Brother Elemosina da Gualdo would be the first to put the
burial place of the martyrs next to their names, proposing
in this way a sort of geography of sanctity, a topography of
martyrdom.
Roberto
Paciocco,
Da Francesco ai
“Catalogi sanctorum”
(Assisi, Porziuncola, 1990), p. 105. In relation to the
research on the text by Elemosina still under an in-depth
analysis it is possible to see the following publications:
Biblioteca
bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa II by Girolamo Golubovich, pp. 105–106; Michele Faloci Pulignani,
«Memorabilia de sanctis fratribus minoribus»,
in Miscellanea Francescana 15 (1914), pp. 65–69;; Isabelle
Heullant-Donat, «Livres et
écrits
de mémoire du premier XIVe siècle: le cas des autographes de
fra Elemosina», in Giuseppe Avarucci, Rosa Maria Borraccini
Verducci, Giammario Borri,
Libro, scrittura,
documento della civiltà monastica e conventuale nel basso
medioevo (secoli XIII–XV). Atti del convegno di studio,
Fermo, 17–19 settembre 1997
(Spoleto, Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1999), pp. 239–262; Id., «À
propos de la
mémoire hagiographique franciscaine aux XIII et XIV siècles.
L’auteur retrouvé des Memorialia de sanctis fratribus minoribus»,
in
Religion et societé urbaine au Moyen âge.
Etudes offerts à Jean Louis Biget, réunies par Patrick
Boucheron–Jacques.
Chiffoleau
(Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2000), pp. 511–529.
[79]
Among the last biographical synthesis it is possible to see
that by Bruno W. Häuptli,
«Bartholomaeus
de Rinonico», in
Bio-Bibliogr. Kirchenlexikon
26 (2006), pp. 125–127. The publication of the
Liber de Conformitate Vitae Beati Francisci ad Vitam
Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, is available in
Analacta
Franciscana,
vol. 4–5 (Quaracchi 1906–1912).
[80]
«Primum est superabundans et supererogativus fructus et
finis ad quam decet istum ordinem erigi prae cunctis
ordinibus ecclesiae Dei. Et hic est non solum fideles sed
etiam universitatem infidelium trahere ad Christum, et pro
hac re omni martyrio et peregrinationi apud illos se offerre
et opponere».
«Expositio
Petri Johannis Olivi super Regulam Fratrum Minorum»,
in David Flood,
Peter Olivi’s Rule Commentary
(Wiesbaden 1972), c. 12, 1, p. 192.
[81]
«Quare volens Christus Salvator suam vitam et passionem
mundo declarare et renovare Franciscum cum suo direxit
ordine; qui crucis Christi, id est vitae ipsius, assumpto
vexillo, in mundum progredientes, vitam pro observantia
assumpsisse evangelicam, prout paefata ostendunt, ipsamque
primo operibus, demum verbis mundanis patefacere studerunt.
Et ut indubia fides beato Francisco principaliori daretur a
cunctis, etsi praevia revelatione de assumptione vitae
evangelicae a Christo fuerit praemonitus, post tamen
susceptionem vitae evangelicae bulla stigmatum Christi ab
ipso est consignatus, ut post ipsius vitam et regulam ire
tutissimum a fidelibus putaretur et teneretur. Quod, cum
crucifixio Salvatoris in fine vitae suae sit facta, ac vitae
Christi perfectio sit in crucifixione compendiose reserata,
beatique Francisci stigmatizatio sit facta iuxta finem vitae
suae et post regulae confirmationem et institutionem,
loquendo de regula, de qua ad praesens est sermo, indicium
est, beatum Franciscum evangelium et vitam Christi servasse,
et in ipsa regula talia praefata posuisse et descripsisse».
Bartolomeo da Pisa,
De Conformitate,
in
Analecta Franciscana,
vol. IV, p. 379.
[82]
Among the chronicles before the
de Conformitate,
we remind the following: Speculum (Sabatier) 1318;
Fioretti-Actus 1370 1390, de Cognatione di Sarrant 1365; a
series of minor compilations whose common source has not
been identified yet such as those calle D’Angers, Antoniana,
Avignonese, first and second of Barcelona, Belgian,
Florentine, Isidorian, the so called Little, Sarnanese, the
Upsala, Venetian. In them, we can find texts of the
thirteenth century often re-written to the letter,
apparently collected just for a personal interest, sign of
an unease or a nostalgia for the past that cannot be
replicated. If on the one hand they represent the attempt of
a continuity with the tradition of the fourteenth century,
on the other hand they disclose new developments compared to
the texts of the thirteenth century: the ideological and
polemic endeavour linked to claim a betrayed ideal;
essentialism, crystallization of models evoking a past
removed from its historical context and far from the
present. It is in the Cognatione that
conformitas
is put into the foreground. The reference to Christ acquires
the figure of
topos,
the prototype exccessively formalized that betrays the
awareness of the impossibility to go back to the experience
of Francis.
Enrico Menestò,
«Dagli
“Acta” al “de Conformitate”: la compilazione come segno
della coscienza del francescanesimo trecentesco»,
in
I Francescani nel trecento. Atti del XIV convegno
internazionale. Assisi, 16–17–18 ottobre 1986
(Assisi, Università di Perugia Centro studi francescani,
1988), pp. 43–68.
[83]
Pisano’s work follows the footprints of Bonaventura not just
because for the general principle of his work he used the
image of the tree, but also because he shared with the
seraphic doctor the concept of conformitas of Francis with
Christ. According to Bonaventura, Francis, by choosing
Christ through the stigmatas becomes the symbol of prophecy.
He can give a spiritual interpretation of the holy writs,
renewing the human and church reality. In this concept of
prophecy and through the evangelic life of the Saint who
imitated the Cross, there is the clear expression of the
concept of the progress of history that Bonaventura took
from Joachim of Fiore, contrasting it to the Augustinian
vision of history. In summary, Bonavantura prepares the
reflection of the fourteenth century adopting the concept of
historical progress of Joachim of Fiore: the rising of the
anti-Christ is not marked by degradation and ruin, on the
contrary it is a time of struggle and martyrdom; a sort of
preparation for the new world. Degradation is only apparent,
temporary and functional to the future happiness. In
particular, in his
Collationes in Exaёmeron Bonaventura proposes an interpretation of misfortune/tribulations not as
degradation according to the Augustinian interpretation but
as a chance to go towards a future of peace.
Bonavantura da Bagnoregio,
«Collationes
in Exaёmeron», in Opera omnia,
vol. V
(Quaracchi, S. Bonavantura, 1891), cap. XVI § 30, p. 408;
cap. XVII § 28, p. 414.
These are
the concepts that the seraphic doctor evokes also in his
Legenda Major,
where he better illustrates the identification of Francis
with the angel of the sixth seal which inaugurates the new
era.
[84]
On the frequency and modalities with which Pisano used the
spiritual texts and the texts by Joachim of Fiore, one can
find some indications in the introduction to his works:
Analecta
Franciscana,
vol. IV,
pp. XVIII–XIX.
[85]
Janusz Kaźmierczak,
«L’ideale
francescano nelle ordinazioni di Albacina e nelle
costituzioni del 1536», in Vincenzo Criscuolo (dir.), Ludovico da Fossombrone e l’Ordine dei cappuccini
(Roma, Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, 1994), pp. 307–322.
The success of Pisano does not fear any comparisons with
other works of the Franciscan historiography as eloquently
testified by the huge number of codes disseminated
throughout Europe (more than 150), the three printed
editions published in just 80 years (Minano 1510 e 1513;
Bologna 1590), and several imitations: from Giacomo Oddi da
Perugia (1488) to Mariano da Firenze (1523); from Pelberto
di Temesvar (1504) to Dionigi Pulinari (†1582), curator of
an Italian version; from Valentino Marée (1660) to Pietro
Alva y Astorga (1667).
[86]
On the concept of history and especially of periodization
adopted by brother Elemosina, see the interesting remarks by
Heullant-Donat,
«Livres
écrits
de mémoire du premier XIV siècle: le cas des autographes de
fra Elemosina», pp. 239–263: 245–246; Tanase,
Jusqu’aux limites du monde, pp.
598–600.
[87]
To compare the text of the letter see Luke Wadding,
Annales Minorum an 1331,
vol. VIII (Quaracci 1932), p. 141. Isabelle Heullant-Donnat, «En amont de
l’observance. Les lettres de Sancia, reine de Naples aux
Chapitres généraux et leur transmission dans
l’historiographie de XVIe siècle», in Fréderic Meyer and
Ludovic Viallet (dir.), Identité franciscaine a l’âge des
reformes (Clermont-Ferrand, Presses universitaires Blaise
Pascal, 2005), pp. 73–79.
[88]
On Paulinus Venetus, see: Isabelle Heullant-Donat, «Paolino
da Venezia et les prologues de ses chorioniques
universelles», in
Mélanges de l’École française de Rome.
Moyen Age 105/1 (Roma,
École
française de Rome, 1993), pp. 381–342 :
430.
[89]
Kaspar Elm,
«La
custodia di Terra santa. Franziskanisches Ordensleben in der
tradition der lateinischen Kirche Palästinas»,
in
I francescani nel
Trecento. Atti del XIV convegno internazionale: Assisi,
16–17–18 ottobre 1986
(Perugia 1988), pp. 127–166: 161–164.
[90]
Tanase,
Jusqu’aux limites du monde,
pp. 643–647.
[91]
Alain Milhou,
Colombe et le messianisme hispanique
(Montpellier, Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée,
2007).
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