Florence's Embassy to the Sultan of Egypt: An English Translation of Felice Brancacci's Diary

110 Pages·2018·2.082 MB·English

by  Mahnaz Yousefzadeh

Florence‘s Embassy to the
Sultan of Egypt
An English Translation of
Felice Brancacci‘s Diary
Mahnaz Yousefzadeh
Florence’s Embassy to the Sultan of Egypt

Mahnaz Yousefzadeh
Florence’s Embassy
to the Sultan of Egypt
An English Translation of Felice Brancacci’s Diary
Mahnaz Yousefzadeh
Liberal Studies
New York University
New York, NY, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-01463-6 ISBN 978-3-030-01464-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01464-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956586
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A
cknowledgements
I thank my colleagues and students at NYU’s Global Liberal Studies,
and in particular the Freshman program in La Pietra, Florence where I
undertook this translation of Felice Brancacci’s Diario. The purpose of
the translation was pedagogic: to contribute to Liberal Studies’ collec-
tive work of globalizing the teaching of the Humanities. It was through
the translation of Felice’s descriptions of his experience in Egypt that I
arrived at a new reading of Masaccio’s Tribute Money, a fresco among
the Petrine cycle he commissioned for his family Chapel in San Frediano
neighborhood of Florence.
I would also like to thank Paul Taylor for his gracious invitation to
present the introductory essay, “Faith and Finance” at the Warburg
Institute in London in February 2013. Paul Barolsky, John Nejamy,
Anthony Molho, Michael Rocke, and Neda Hadjikhani read early ver-
sions of the essay when I as a historian of nineteenth-century Italy was
venturing into a new archive. I thank them for those early encourage-
ments and helpful comments. I thank Marella Feltrin Morris for reading
the translation and for her superb suggestions for improvements. I dedi-
cate this short book to the memory of Richard Trexler, renowned histo-
rian of Renaissance Florence and my graduate advisor.
v
c
ontents
1 Faith and Finance: Felice Brancacci’s Visit to the Sultan
and Masaccio’s Tribute Money 1
2 On Translating the Chronicle of Felice di Michele
Brancacci’s Visit to Sultan Barsbay 41
3 Chronicle of Felice Brancacci Ambassador with Carlo
Federighi to Cairo for the Commune of Florence 1422 53
4 Appendixes 91
Index 103
vii
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 “List of gifts” caption: first page of “list of gifts and expenses”.
Archivio di Stato di Firenze. CC. Strozziane, Serie I, 304 10
Fig. 1.2 “List of forced payments” caption: list of ‘forced payments’.
Archivio di Stato di Firenze. CC. Strozziane, Serie I, 304 10
Fig. 1.3 “Giotto Trial of Fire” caption: Giotto, Trial by Fire, Bardi
Chapel, Church of Santa Croce, Florence. © The Picture Art
Collection/Alamy Stock Photo 13
Fig. 1.4 “Masaccio, Tribute Money” caption: Masaccio, Tribute Money,
Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
(Courtesy of the City of Florence) 20
ix
CHAPTER 1
Faith and Finance: Felice Brancacci’s Visit
to the Sultan and Masaccio’s Tribute Money
The Sea Consuls, like true Sinbads, had been saddled with a task that was beyond
their limited resources.
Michael Mallet, Florentine Galleys.
Abstract This introductory and historiographical essay contextualizes
Felice Brancacci’s mission to Egypt in fifteenth-century Mediterranean
commerce and finance. Felice’s mission not only served to inaugurate
the Florentine galley’s presence in the Mediterranean, but also played a
role in the transformation of mercantile culture in Renaissance Florence.
The essay relates Felice’s Egyptian mission to his patronage of one of
the most celebrated and enigmatic frescoes of Renaissance Florence—
Masaccio’s Tribute Money—in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine
Church in Florence.
Keywords Florin · Masaccio’s Tribute Money · Diplomatic protocol ·
Commercial culture
The city of Florence has, until recently, enjoyed little attention as an
object of historical study within a Mediterranean framework. Perhaps this
is because the major drivers of trade in the eastern Mediterranean from
© The Author(s) 2018 1
M. Yousefzadeh, Florence’s Embassy to the Sultan of Egypt,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01464-3_1
2 M. YOUSEFZADEH
the twelfth century onward had been Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. With the
purchase of Port of Pisa in 1421, however, and the building of a galley sys-
tem, Florence would go on to assume a more active role in Levant trade.1
On June 30, 1422, Felice di Michele Brancacci, a prominent
Florentine silk merchant, and his companion Carlo Federighi, a noted
jurist and doctor of canon law, boarded the first of the Florentine gal-
leys sailing to Egypt from the port of Pisa. The pair carried letters of
instruction from the City of Florence intended for the newly enthroned
Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayf-ad-Din Barsbay (1422–1438) in Cairo. This
coupling of a merchant and a jurist was particularly well suited to the
Florentine mission to Mamluk Egypt.2 After acquiring a license to
trade with the Muslim nation from the Pope, Florence proposed treaty
would allow them to finally challenge Venice’s trade monopoly in the
Levant. The mission served to inaugurate the Florentine galley’s pres-
ence in the Mediterranean; furthermore, it would have ramifications for
Sultan Barsbay’s infamous protectionist economic policies in Mamluk
Egypt, the transformation of mercantile culture in Renaissance Florence,
and, finally, the patronage of one of the most celebrated and enigmatic
frescoes of Renaissance Florence—Masaccio’s Tribute Money—in the
Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church in Florence.3
Timelines for the commission and completion of the Brancacci Chapel
frescoes typically conceptualize Felice’s time in Egypt in terms of the
patron’s “long absence” from Florence—a “lacuna,” in other words.4
Felice wrote in surprising and often fascinating detail about the tribula-
tions experienced during his “absence” from Florence and during his sea
voyage to and from Egypt to meet with Sultan Barsbay and his officials.
As he does so, he offers his observations on Mamluk customs and religious
practices, alongside Christian holy sites, exotic animals, and other natural
phenomena. What comes across most clearly in this experience is his deep
feeling of estrangement and disaffection, a response that Brancacci related
almost singularly to the monetary payments he made in this unfamiliar—
and at times hostile—territory in the absence of established and stand-
ard diplomatic protocol.5 Part official communiqué, part travelogue and
confessional, Brancacci’s marvelously rich testimony offers insights into
not only transcultural relations in the Mediterranean but also the signifi-
cant historical shift in the mercantile culture of Renaissance Florence that
would unexpectedly reveal itself in Masaccio’s Tribute Money.6
Florence was a relative latecomer to maritime trade with Egypt
among the Italian city-states. The market had been dominated by Venice