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• 1 2015-07-29T17:18:09-07:00 The Great Magnificence of Prester John, Lord of Greater India and of Ethiopia 17 image_header 2023-12-20T09:44:30-08:00 The Great Magnificence of Prester John, Lord of Greater India and of Ethiopia 
  [Lagran Magnificentia del Preste Ianni Signore dell India Maggiore & della Etiopia]
  (ca. 1499)
  
  Also referred to as the Treatise on the Supreme Prester John, Pope and Emperor of India and Ethiopia, this poem by Giuliano Dati was the result of an Italian interest in Dati's omission of Prester John from his rhymed version of the letter sent by Columbus's admiral, detailing their adventures in the Indies. 
  
  Consisting of 59 eight-line stanzas, this text was derived from Jacopo Filippo Foresti's Treatise on the Pontificate of Prester John but, as Silverberg (p. 223) claims, before the "chapbook plagiarisms" of Foresti became available. Dati's text also draws from Andrea da Barberino's Guerino il Meschino and another text entitled Treatise on the Ten Nations and Sects of Christians. 
  
  In the text, Prester John is referred to as the ruler of the Indians (here designated as one of world's the "ten nations"). Here we see the blending of India and Ethiopia as Dati brings together the conversion of the Ethiopians by St. Matthew and the conversion of the Indians by St. Thomas (whose tomb here rests in Mylapur) into a single story set in a single homogenous-seeming territory.
  
  Much of the text takes up the traditional catalogue of wonders, hearkening back to the Letter of Prester John. The ending of the poem promises a sequel, which has not survived, if it was written.  
  
  Rogers (p. 94) explains the story surrounding the poem's origin:

  Columbus had disappointed the reading public of Europe, but his interpreter in verse [Dati] determined to make the necessary amends to his Italian reading public. Possibly prompted by suspicious that his rhymed version of Columbus in reality echoed a West Indian song, he projected an Indian cycle of two songs, composed of ingredients which would leave no reader dissatisfied. His first song, undated but of the period 1493-95, bears the traditionally imposing title Treatise on the Supreme Prester John, Pope and Emperor of India and Ethiopia. On his second poem Dati bestowed the simple title of Second Song of India. 
  
  The title of the first of this duo instantly recalls the Treatise on the Pontificate of Prester John by Foresti da Bergamo. Perhaps the rhymester-priest saw fit to give equal importance to the imperial aspect in closer accordance with the intent of the original twelfth-century letter from Prester John because he, living in the age of the Renaissance popes, sought to portray an ideal Church-state relation.

  
  Rogers (p. 97-8) continues on the details of this text:

  The first song appeared in at least four early editions... Giuliano Dati rhymes his reading in fifty-nine stanzas of ottava rima. He opens with an enumeration of the then nations of Christians, the order of occurrence- Latin, Greeks, Indians, Jacobites, Nestorians, Marionites, Armenians, Georgians, Syrians, and Mozarabs- and the spelling leaving no doubt of the poet's source [Guerino il Meschino]... The treatist on the ten Christian nations was published about 1490 in conjunction with the Joannes de Hese itinerary... Foresti's Treatise on the Pontificate of Prester John first joined the chapbook parade in about 1499... As Dati, writing before August 10, 1495, now resorts to this latter treatise, he obviously employed an edition of the Supplement to the Chronicles. The spelling of Prester John's residential city- Bibrithe in the Supplement, Brichbrich in the chapbook version, the former in Dati- confirms this supposition. 

  
  Here, as Brooks (p. 155) details, the frontispiece of the poem "depicts Prester John with decidedly European features, and the setting of the priest-king's court is not unlike those found in Europe at the time." 
  
  
  Brooks continues:

  The unknown artist who created the frontispeice illustration provided this Prester John with an impressive crown containing jewels in the shape of the fleur de lis. Prester John in this image appears to be blessing the supplicants who remain seated before him, and he holds up two fingers in much the same manner as does the Roman Catholic Pope. The image is suggestive of a ruler with both religious and secular authority, certainly in keeping with Prester John’s role as king and patriarch.

  The people who surround Prester John in the image also bear similarities to depictions of Europeans in the late fifteenth century. Interestingly, Prester John finds himself holding court over twelve individuals, perhaps an apostolic tip of the cap to Christ. Eleven of the visitors to Prester John's court are bearded and wear cloaks and hats not unlike those of fifteenth century Franciscan prelates, while one person directly to the right of Prester John has decidedly feminine features and is wearing what appears to be a nun’s habit. One is tempted to draw parallels between the symbolism in this image and Leonardo da Vinci’s L'Ultima Cena: the timing fits, but there may be additional reasons why this image shares some similarities with the aforementioned Milanese mural of such historical renown. In this illustration to the chapbook’s frontispiece, the artist depicted Prester John’s court above seven steps, each of which contains an admonition to readers to flee (“FVGE”) the seven deadly sins.

  
  A copy of the the printed poem, which was published in Florence, is available at the British Museum: C.20. C.23.

  More on Ethiopia's image in World Literature. 

  
  
  
   
• 1 media/Screen Shot 2021-07-18 at 9.10.06 PM.png 2015-06-18T14:53:16-07:00 Il Guerrin Meschino 17 image_header 2024-02-17T18:39:59-08:00 Il Libro del Meschino di Durazzo (written c. 1409; published 1473)
  
  Written in Florence by Andrea da Barberino in eight chapters, Guerino Il Meschino (Guerin the Wretched) was one of several of Barberino's compositions written in the early fifteenth-century that commented on early medieval themes.
  
  Here the author offers a narrative of global travel that draws on the popular imaginiative travel literature of the late fourteenth century. While Barberino was known to build on French sources for his Italian narratives, this romance appears to have no basis in earlier French narrative.
  
  Instead, like the imaginitive travel narratives it bears resemblence to, Barberino draws on a variety of sources ranging from the Alexander Romance to Dante to Ptolemy.  Insofar as he makes his title character a descendent of the Carolingian dynasty, this narrative can, however, be loosely classified as part of the "Matter of France."
  
  
  
  First circulating in manuscript and then printed in Padua in 1473, Meschino details the journey of a young man in the imperial court of Constantinople who wandered the ninth-century world, all the way to the kingdom of Prester John, seeking information about his parents. This search for his family is also understood as a search for his identity as a warrior, thus bearing on the chivalric themes so popular of this era of romance. 
  
  The prose romance draws much on the Mandevillian Style of travel lore in which a character follows a somewhat versimilar travel route through the Holy Land before arriving in India at the kingdom of Prester John. Upon discovering Prester John and his kingdom, the reader is treated to an extensive description of the Prester's opulent palace. After a battle, Guerino is offered half of India by the Prester himself.
  
  Following his encounter with Prester John, Guerino journeys back westeward through Rome and Spain before finally finding his parents, here described as the King and Queen of Durazzo, perhaps a nod to erstwhile King of Naples, Jerusalem, and Hungrary Charles of Durazzo (1345-1386).  
  
  Olschki (p. 96) describes the text as "the most popular volume of fictional geography," a popular genre of the late-middle ages. Barberino's text influenced Dati's The Great Magnificence of Prester John (ca. 1499). 
  
  Rogers contextualizes: 

  A Near Easterner who journeyed to the Farther East and subsequently visited Pope Eugenius II (reigned 824 to 827) provides the subject of an Italian story, Guerino il Meschino, which has retained its popular appeal down the centuries and was well known to Dati. 

  
  Allaire has analyzed the text's portrayal of Muslims. Like the St. Thomas legends, Guerrino Il Meschino portrays a floating coffin. 
  
  Guerrino Il Meschino was made into a film in 1950. 

• 1 2015-07-29T17:20:17-07:00 Orlando Furioso 15 image_header 2024-01-03T18:39:31-08:00
  In Orlando Furioso, first printed in Ferrara in 1516, Ariosto delves into the Matter of France, updating the stories of Charlemagne and his paladins at war with the Saracens with more worldly and whimsical considerations, include a foray to an Ethiopia drawn from the tales of Prester John. In other words, though the text cites as its source the twelfth-century "Song of Roland," Furioso updates the story to suit the imaginiative interests of the time and to satisfy his patron Ippolito Este, Duke of Ferrara. The text has been cited as an influence on the work of Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Milton, among other canonical early modern writers. 
  
  Orlando Furioso features an Ethiopian priest-king called Senapo/Senapus (a corrupted translation of Abdes-Salib, the Arabic title for the Ethiopian king) who rules over an immensely wealthy kingdom and controls the flow of the Nile River—the very river that dashed crusader hopes during the Fifth Crusade.
   

  Its story of the English Knight Astolfo (a potential avatar of Mandeville, according to Niayesh) and his journey on a hippogriff across North Africa from west to east and thence to Ethiopia appeared at the appropriate moment to sustain interest in this imaginary land. In Canto XXXIII, Astolfo rescues Senapo, who has been rendered blind after trying to discover the Earthly Paradise by seeking out the source of the Nile River. 
  
  Ariosto’s is a highly satirical text, his inclusion of the legend shows how, even in the sixteenth century, writers were still attempting to create a plausible backstory to unite the imaginative interest in the legend with a history from which he may have emerged. 
  
  Interestingly, the character of Senapo reemerges in Gerusalemme Liberata, a 1581 epic of the Crusades credited to Torquato Tasso. 

  
  An excerpt from the William Stewart Rose translation of the expanded version, first published in 1532, follows:

  In Aethiopia’s realm Senapus reigns,

  Whose sceptre is the cross; of cities brave,

  Of men, of gold possest, and broad domains,

  Which the Red Sea’s extremest waters lave.

  A faith well nigh like ours that king maintains,

  Which man from his primaeval doom may save.

  Here, save I err in what their rites require,

  The swarthy people are baptized with fire.

  Ariosto offers a description of the castle and explains the situation:

  The soldan, king of the Egyptian land,

  Pays tribute to this sovereign, as his head,

  They say, since having Nile at his command

  He may divert the stream to other bed.

  Hence, with its district upon either hand,

  Forthwith might Cairo lack its daily bread.

  Senapus him his Nubian tribes proclaim;

  We Priest and Prester John the sovereign name.

  
  Rogers (pp. 106-107), on Senapo and his connection to Prester John:

  [The story's] astonishing accuracy in detail can only be explained by the supposition of meticulous study on the part of its author. For Astolfo’s route and for the name ‘Senapo,’ Ariosto followed a fourteenth-century Genoese tradition. Senapo, as such competent scholars as Cerulli and Crawford affirm, is a deformation of the regnal name of an emperor whose reign extended from 1314 to 1344: ‘Amda Seyon I. His regnal name of Gabra Masqal (in Arabic ‘Abd al-salib) meant ‘slave of the cross.’ The Arabic version appeared as ‘Senap’ on the Angelino Dulcert world map of 1339. Years after publication of Ariosto’s poem, Tasso in the Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) reintroduced Senapo, and Alexander Cunningham Robertson thus presented him to English readers:
  
  Senapo once filled Ethiopia’s throne,
  And still, perhaps, endures his prosperous reign:
  This potentate the laws of Mary’s Son
  Observes, and these observe the swarthy men
  He rules…

   

  E-text at Sacred Texts.

   

   

   

• 1 2015-07-29T17:19:51-07:00 El Libro del Infante Dom Pedro 8 image_header 2023-10-30T10:44:12-07:00
  One of the most popular fictional narratives of the sixteenth century to feature Prester John, this highly romanticized account of the life and adventures of the Infante Dom Pedro, brother to Henry the Navigator, positions Dom Pedro as the mythic hero of Portugal's Age of Exploration. Silverberg (p. 231) calls this text "the last of the great Prester John tales." 
  
  While its author remains unknown, the book was originally printed in 1515 in Seville, though there is evidence to suggest that manuscript editions of the text circulated for some decades before. The text went through hundreds of editions from the sixteenth into the eighteenth century from Spanish and Portuguese presses. 
  
  The book is attributed to a man called Gómez de Santisteban, "one of the twelve that traveled with said prince." Given the Mandevillian tenor of the "travels" described within the book, it should not be presumed that this man was the book's actual author, though it is certainly possible.
  
  The narrative takes Dom Pedro and his polyglot authorial companion from Castile to Norway to the Holy Land to Egypt, Arabia, and Mecca (where they witness Muhammad's floating coffin, a 12th century trope that parallels similar tales of St. Thomas). From there, the itinerary takes a more imaginative turn to the land of the Amazons, the home of Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and a land of giants called Luca, all of which are subject to the sovereignty of Prester John. Finally, they reach the city of Alves (also called 'Edicia'), the domain of Prester John himself, where Dom Pedro presents the priest king with a letter from the King of Castile. 
  
  From there, more familiar tropes from the Letter of Prester John are discussed, including the important link to St. Thomas. Here it is also made clear that Prester John is more of a title than an individual with new Prester Johns divinely chosen through a miracle performed by St. Thomas. 
  
  As the travelers ready themselves to return homeward, Prester John gives them a Letter to share with European Christians (a reduced form of the 'original' twelfth-century Letter), which the companions heroically carry back to Europe. 
  
  From Silverberg (226-7):

  Pedro’s active career and tragic end stirred the European imagination: to those outside Portugal, knowing no details of the domestic political struggle, his downfall seemed like the toppling of a mythic hero, and swiftly the mythmaking began. His deeds were rehearsed by historians, they were dramatized by poets, and they passed into the oral tradition as folk legends. The aspect of Dom Pedro’s life that received the greatest embellishment was his grand tour of 1425-28, which became not merely a conventional trot through the capitals of Europe but, in some retellings, a splendid journey to the ends of the earth. The Book of the Infante Dom Pedro was the climactic work of this group.

  ...
  
  The world of the Book of the Infante Dom Pedro is the familiar medieval fantasy world already well explored in the fancies of such writers as Mandeville. Beyond Christendom lies the Moslem world, and on the far side of that is a world of fables, inhabited by Amazons, the Lost Tribes of Israel, and Prester John… All the remote lands save Eden itself are under the sovereignty of Prester John, who here is as much a figure of legend as he ever was in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The author’s intent seems utopian and ecumenical; he implicitly criticizes the disunified world of Latin Christendom by showing the ideal community of Prester John’s land, where command of church and state is united in the person of the same benevolent autarch, and Christian justice and harmony are  universally prevalent.

  Read the account in English.