Ludovico Ariosto
1 2015-07-29T17:05:50-07:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f 5281 4 image_header 2017-01-14T22:09:18-08:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6fJump to Orlando Furioso (1516).
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- 1 2015-05-17T12:28:35-07:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f Map 4.1 : Author Origins and Travel Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 18 plain 2022-02-09T09:52:45-08:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f
- 1 2017-01-14T22:09:16-08:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f Prester John in Italy Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 1 plain 2017-01-14T22:09:16-08:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f
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- 1 2016-04-22T08:46:30-07:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f Authors of Literary Texts Inspired by Prester John 5 image_header 2017-01-04T15:11:43-08:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f
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Map 4.1 : Author Origins and Travel
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Francesco Suriano
Sister Catherine Guarnieri da Osimo
Paulo de Chanedo
Giacomo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo
Joao Afonso de Aveiro (Afonso de Paiva)
Pêro da Covilhã
Joseph of Lamego
Abraham of Beja
Hartmann Schedel
Cornelis de Zierikzee
Guiliano Dati
Vasco da Gama
Queen Helena of Ethiopia
Afonso de Albuquerque
Gómez de Santisteban
Ludovico Ariosto
Johann Boemus
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Orlando Furioso
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In Orlando Furioso, first printed in Ferrara in 1516, Ariosto features an Ethiopian priest-king called Senapo 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, Astolpho rescues Senapo, who has been rendered blind after trying to discover the Earthly Paradise by seeking out the source of the Nile River.
Although 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.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.
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Path Four : 1461-1520 AD
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Prester John and the Project of European Colonialism
While Age of Discovery figures such as Henry the Navigator, the Christopher Columbus, and Duarte Lopes allude to John’s kingdom as a guarantor of Eastern riches. A related history of John’s kingdom in Ethiopia/Abyssinia held Western attention through the European exploration of Africa. However, in this era the accounts of Prester John are more varied than of any other era. Here Prester John serves both as historical and literary figure, as both magnificent ruler and overblown myth.
In 1482, Francisco Suriano, in his Iter, mentions arriving at the court of Prester John, a primitive place in which ten Italians were currently living, and paints a picture of mud huts and simple churches; Vasco da Gama’s Roteiro mentions the desire to make contact with Prester John; in 1499, Italian poet Guiliano Dati, composes a pair of poems on on Prester John (“Treatise on the Supreme Prester John, Pope and Emperor of India” and “Ethiopia and Second Song of India”); in 1500, a letter from “Johannes Africanus” materializes, detailing how Prester John, once mighty and powerful, is now a humble steward and laborer (guilty of pride).
In Orlando Furioso, Ariosto features an Ethiopian priest-king called Senapo 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. Although 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. John retains his historical place independent of the romance landscape he also inhabits well into the eighteenth century.
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Paradise Lost
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John Milton alludes to Prester John indirectly on two occasions in his Paradise Lost (1667).
In Book IV, the realm of Ethiopia is framed as near the terrestrial paradise and the headwaters of the Nile:
In Book XI, Milton's Adam describes the dissemination of his descendents across the world:Nor, where Abassin kings their issue guard,
Mount Amara (though this by some suppos'd
True Paradise) under the Ethiop line
By Nilus' head, enclos'd with shining rock,
A whole day's journey high, but wide remote
From this Assyrian garden where the
Fiend Saw undelighted all delight, all kind
Of living creatures, new to sight and strange.Nor did his eyes not ken
Th'empire of Negus, to his utmost port,
Ercoco, and the less maritime kings,
Mombaza and Quiloa and MelindThis mention of the Ethiopian negus betrays a larger debt Milton paid to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, argues James H. Sims.