An Italian Map of the Balkans, Presumably Owned by Mehmed II, the Conqueror (1452-53)Author(s): Franz BabingerSource: Imago Mundi, Vol. 8 (1951), pp. 8-15Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1150042Accessed: 03/07/2009 07:06

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An Italian Map of the Balkans, presumably owned by Mehmed II, the Conqueror (1452-53).*)

By FRANZ BABINGER, Munich

On March 10th, 1687, the French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Sieur Pierre de Girardin (t January

23rd, 1689 at Stambul), reported to Frangois-Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois (1639-1691), Louis

XIV's Minister of State, that with the aid of an Italian renegade, "homme d'esprit, qui est au service ddu selictar,

premier officier du serail et favori du Grand Seigneur", he had succeeded in acquiring fifteen Greek manuscripts; they had been selected by the Jesuit Father Pierre Besnier (1648-1705) and the expert bibliographer Sieur

Guillaume Marcel (1647-1708) who were then both working at the French Enlbassy in the Turkish

capital. "J:y en ai adjoute", the report (1) runs, "un [manuscrit] lalin, compose apparement dans le dernier

siecle qui contient quantite de figures d'instruments et machines de guerre, et est apparemment tombe entre les mains des

Turcs au commencement des conquetes qu'ils ont faites en Hongrie". De Girardin expressly states that the 15 Greek MSS. and the 16th, a Latin one, came from the Sultan's

seraglio. Since the posthumous publication in 1810 of "Notice des Alanufcrits grecs et latins, qui, de la Biblio-

theique des anc?iens Empereurs Grecs et de celle du Sirail de Constantinople, sont passes dans la Bibliotheque Imperiale, et eclaircissements sur quelques-unes des plus fameuses Bibliotheques de la Grece", prepared, as early as 1802, by the Hellenist Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison (1750-1805) (2)-a work to which Baron Silvestre

de Sacy added a brief appendix dealing with the sealstamps in the manuscripts-no one has seriously doubted

that owing to de Girardin's zeal and determination 16 MSS. of the Sultan's Palace Library in Stambul had

actually been sent to Paris. Naturally, the several MSS. were made the object of learned investigations in which

authoritative statements were made, above all, by Leopold Delisle (3) and Henri Omont (4).

Alone the Latin MS has been examined by a number of scholars (5). The last of these is, presumably, the late

Count Alexandre de Laborde with his essay (6). The assumption, originally made by Pierre de Girardin, that the MSS. were part of the Turkish booty taken in Budapest in 1526, haunted and still haunts (7)

the minds of students, although voices have also been raised against this assumption; Wilhelm Wein-

berger e.g. has expressed such doubts (8). The MS. has even been described as a Hungarian, even Calvinist

Codex (9). To show, as far as possible, that all these suppositions are erroneous, is the main purpose of

the following pages.

(*) Read at the VIII. International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Palermo, April 7th, 1951. (1) H. OMONT, Missions archeologiques frangaises en Orient aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles, I, Paris 1902, 251-78.

Concerning P. de Girardin cf. REGIs DELBEUF, Ambassadeurs de France morts a Constantinople. Constantinople 1911, 45-54, 135-7.

(2) Cf. concerning him CH. JORET, D'Ansse de Villoison et l'hellenisme en France pendant le dernier tiers du XVIIIe siecle. Paris 1910.

(3) LEOPOLD DELISLE, Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque imperiale, I, Paris 1868, 297 f.

(4) H. OMONT, op. cit.

(5) Cf., e.g., WILHELM WEINBERGER, Beitrage zur Handschriftenkunde, I, 46 (= Sitgungsberichte der Wiener Akad.

der Wiss., philos.-hist. Kl., 159. Bd., 6. Abhdg.) Wien 1908. (6) Un manuscrit de Marianus Taccola, revenu de Constantinople. In: Melanges offerts a M. Gustave Schlumberger,

Paris 1924, 494-505. (7) H. OMONT, op. cit., 254; W. WEINBERGER, op. cit. 46. - Cf. on the MS. also E. MUNTZ in the Gazette des Beaux

Arts, 35. Paris 1894, 359, as well as MAX JAHNS, Geschichte der Kriegswissenschaften = Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Deutschland, XXI, I 1889, 280 ff.

(8) Op. cit., 46: "Even if it belonged thereto, it does not follow at all that it had been taken from the Corvinates in the Seraglio of Constantinople". E. JAcoBS, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Bibliothek im Serai zu Konstantinopel, I, SitZungsberichte der Heidelberger Ak. der Wiss., philos.-hist. Kl. Jahrg. 1919, 24. Abhdg.), 132 A. 2 and 139, Anm. 3.

JOH. CSONTOSI, Auswartige Bewegungen auf dem Gebiete der Corvina-Literatur, in: Literarische Berichte aus Ungarn, hrsg. von P. Hunfalvy, 3, Budapest 1879, 103, stated his belief that the MS. belonged to the Corvina.

(9) Cf. also L. Delisle, op. cit., I. 297.

8

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The MS., cod. lat. 7239 in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, consists of several parts; the principal is the "Tractatus Pauli Sanctini Ducensis de re militari et machinis bellicis", which occupies the first 110 pages and is adorned by about 400 artistic miniatures. The remainder of the MS., which altogether has 324 pages, con- sists of Italian writings which will not be considered here. In the 2nd volume of his catalogue'I Manoscritti italiarii della regia Bibliotheca Parigina' (Paris 1838), Ant. Marsand (1) has listed and briefly described them. There is no organic relation between them and the Tractatus. The contents of the wonderfully illuminated

Sur le caciet n. i on voit ces mpts Lu < jL Ca lI e 1j u iLs L 2 CX,. 0 toi qri protige contre tous Ics dang,rr ' Mustafa est son st-vittur: puis ces nlotsjL. l 6 indulgent, qui sont r6eptes trois fois pour remplir les aN espaces qui seroient restes vides : et enfin, i ce que je soupconne, le mIot

\^M annie, avec les deux chiffres q4, 96. Le chiffre ou togra n. 2, est certaineinent celui d'un empereur Ottoman: ^ > i3L Py ;

car on y lit les mots ulQ ,yii . toujourr vainquur : mais je ne puts en dechiffrer le surplus.

Quant au cachet n.? , il me paroit fort douteux que le noun qu'on y lit soit celui d'un sultan. Je n'oserois cependant pas assurer le contraire. Fig.

N. .. N.*..

SILVESTRE DE SACT.

Fig. 1. Fig. 3.

1: Silvestre de Sacy's decipherment of the Seal and the Tughra; 2: Tughra-Seal of Sultan Bayezid II and Seal of the Silihdar Djerrah Mustafa; 3: Tughra and Tughra-Seal of Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512).

treatise on the military art and war machines have been described, at least in a cursory manner, by Count Alexandre de Laborde (2). He attributed, as did Ant. Marsand, the treatise to the 15th century: he believed that the MS. was to be dated around 1450. His remark about its contents was limited to the following: "Elle consiste en explications des diffrentes machines figurees, explications qui s'adressent a un chef d'armee pour lui enseigner l'emploi de ces diffgrentes pieces militaires, en lui donnant toutes les recommandations susceptibles de lui faciliter les ope- rations d'attaquer et de defense" (3).

Of the peculiarities found in the individual sheets, Count de Laborde mentioned on leaf 1 (fig. 4 I) a shield the centre of which is 'recofvert d'une couche brune sans armoiries et soutenu par des amorini qui se ditachent sur un fond bleu dans les lobes jaunes'. On leaf 2 verso we see a coloured statue of Minerva on a socle carrying the inscription S.C.M. which so far has not been deciphered. A few written lines have been deleted with the aid of chemicals. Leaf 5, the beginning of the Tractatuls, shows another statue of Minerva. The title of the treatise, except three words, has also been chemically removed. The verso of this leaf exhibits, in the midst, a man on horseback; the steed carries the proud device: "Quod vis nolo. Quod nolis volo". On the fol-

lowing leaf (1. 6 v) we discern an astrologer with the inscription "De tempore irncipiendi bellum secundum astro-

logiam". Then follows a half-length portrait of a fair woman, executed "dans le style italien". The treatise ends on leaf 110. On leaf 113 v and 114 r, hence separated from the text, we see a map of the Balkan peninsula, attention to which was drawn only by Count de Laborde who, however, as far as I understand, did not realize its importance: ....'On remarque une carte des Balkans du XVe siecle, ou l'on distingue Philippopoli,

(1) Op. cit., 2, 1838, 1-5. (2) Op. cit., p. 497 ff. (3) Op. cit., 497.

9

Andrinople, Constantinople, le Bosphore et la rive asiatique avec les noms des localitis en grec", The leafs 116 to 124 are blank, and then begin the Italian parts of this most important MS.

A long time before Count de Laborde had pointed to similar and contemporaneous treatises on the milit-

ary art of the end of the Middle Ages, the prominent and versatile French chemist Marcellin Berthelot

(1827-1905) had devoted particular attention to the work under discussion (1). In his paper the author dealt

thoroughly with the contents of the Paris codex and referred to a codex of the same title and the same time

in the Library of San Marco at Venice(2). Only the latter will be discussed in the following exposition, in other words, the Munich original draught of the work in question (3) and the MS. once owned by Count

Johann von Wilczek (1837-1922) (4), Kreutzenstein Castle (Lower Austria) will not be considered, since

they have been referred to, at least cursorily, by Count de Laborde. The author of the Tractatus is Ser Mariano

di Giacomo Vanni, known as Taccola (1381-ca.1458) (5), of Siena; Paolo Santini, of Duccio, Piedmont, who was erroneously linked with the origin of the work, the Munich draft and the relations between the

several manuscripts cannot be discussed here because of, among other reasons, inadequate personal acquain- tance with the codices. Likewise, the universally asserted dependence of the Paris and Venice MSS. on Ro-

berto Valturio's well-known work will not be examined here, although it must be stated in this connection

that the author of the a Tractatus could not have used as a source Valturio's "De re militari" which was com-

pleted as late as 1455-56 and printed for the first time in 1472 at Verona (6). The late prefect of the Marciana

at Venice, Giuseppe Valentinelli, in Volume V of his Catalogue of MSS. (7) made a few observations on the

copy in the Marciana, but a more thorough study would not be superfluous. Napoleon III who, as is known, had a special preference for the study of military science fha the codex brought to France in 1858. His colla-

borator, (later General) Ildephonse Fave, paid it even greater attention and outlined the results of his investiga- tions (8). It is said there that 'Le ms de Venise parait etre un second exemplaire et comme une seconde idition que l'auteur

faisait de son ouvrage; car on lit surplusieurs pages, et de la meme ecriture que le texte: deest haecfigra in alio exemplari'.

Ild. Fave asserts moreover the dependence of the Tractatus on the 12 books "De re militari" of the well-known

humanist of Rimini and favourite of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, books which in the Venetian MS.

follow almost immediately the Tractatus. On leaves 182-84 we read a few letters by Ciriaco de' Pizzicoli (9) of Ancona to Roberto Valturio. This is certainly not a mere coincidence for one should remember that the

(1) Pour l'histoire des arts mecaniques et de l'artillerie vers la fin du moyen age. Ann. de chimie et de physique, VI ser. 24, Paris 1891, 453-521.

(2) JOS. VALENTINELLI, Bibliotheca manuscripta ad S. Marci Venetiarum. Venice. 5, 1872, 194 ff. (3) We refer to cod. lat. Monac. 197. Cf. Catalogus codicum latinorum bibliothecae regiae Monacensis, vol. I,

part 1, Munich 1868, 41. f. The MS. comes from the collection of the orientalist and Chancellor Joh.-Albert v. Wid- mannstadt and comprises 128 leaves in 2?.

(4) AL. COMTE DE LABORDE, op. cit., 501 f. On p. 501, note 2 it is mentioned there that an additional MS. was then in the possession of Rudolf v. Gutmann. Nothing is known about its fate. For German ,,Feuerwerksbucher" whose possible relation to the Italian counterparts need further clarification, see WILH. HASSENSTEIN, Das Feuerwerksbuch von 1420. 600 Jahre deutscher Pulverwaffen und Buchsenmeisterei. Mit 98 Bildern, Munich [1941].

(6) Born Febr. 4th, 1381 at Siena, died there before 1458. Cfr. U. THIEME-F. BECKER, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler, XXXII, Leipzig 1938, 391 s. where reference is made to a MS with designs of M. Taccola's own hand (1449), preserved in the 'Nani' Library at Siena. The following obscure quotation is to be read as follows: Paolo Fontana, I codici di Francesco di Giorgio Martini e di Mariano di Jacomo detto il Taccola, in the Actes du Congres d'histoire de l'Art, I. Laupen-Bern 1936, 102 s. This is a condensed communication given at the mentioned Con-

gress by Paolo Fontana (1865-1943) which never has been published at full length. Thence follows that the original MS of M. Taccola originated in 1433 has been provided as a gift to the German Emperor Sigismund. The question is of an autograph of the third part of TACCOLA'S work, dated Siena, Jan. 13,1433, kept in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, and described in L. GENTILE, I codici palatini della R. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firen!e, II. 2, Rome 1890, p. Cfr. MARIO SALMI, Disegni di Francesco di Giorgio nella collezione Chigi Saracini = Quaderni dell'Academia Chigiana. Siena. 11. 1947 11, note 1. - Reference kindly given by Dr. T. Bertele (Rome) and Dr. Augusto Campana (Rome).

(6) Cf. on his person and work A. F. MASSERA, Roberto Valturio, Omnium scientiarum doctor et monarcha (Pesaro 1927) and A. CAMPANA, Una ignota opera di Matteo de' Pasti e la sua missione in Turchia, Ariminum, Rimini 1928, 106-8.

(7) Cf. op. cit., II Paris 1838, 1-5. (8) etudes sur le passe et l'avenir de l'artillerie. Paris 1862 v. III. 43. The MS. is now cod. Marc. lat. VIII, 40.

(9) On his relations to Mehmed II see E. JACOBS, Cyriacus von Ancona und Mehemmed II., ByZant. Ztschr. XXX, 1929, 197-202. Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli knew Mehmed II already when the latter was Crown Prince, cf. F. BABINGER, Von Amurath zu Amurath. Vor- und Nachspiel der Schlacht von Varna (1444), in: Oriens, III, Leiden 1950, 233 ff.

10

well-known traveller to the Near East and adviser of Mehmed II met here the 'omnium scientiarum doctor et monarcha' of Rimini, the man who planned to send his work on the military art to the same Sultan as 'prin- cipium universi orbis decus admirabile' (1).

Marcellin Berthelot made similar statements concerning the s affinity between the MSS. He says (2): "En tout cas, il est question dans le manuscrit de Venise d'un autre exemplaire; c'est, suivant toute vraisemblance, le manus- scrit de Paris, dont je vais parler maintenant, peut-etre avait-il ete offert au Sultan Mahomet II, allie des petits princes italiens de l'epoque". The present pages I hope will show that this assumption of the great chemist is

correct, while all the specialized scholars who dealt with the age, state and history of the MSS. have failed to see the solution of the riddle which these MSS. had posed. While one copy, possibly the Venetian one, to judge from the dedication by Paolo Santini, had once belonged to the great condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni (1400-1475), the Paris copy was never owned by anyone other than Mehmed II, the conqueror of

Constantinople. To whom he owed this valuable work which was possibly very helpful for his military

exploits, might be found out, at best, through a thorough study of the Paris copy, at least one could hope in such a way for a probable solution to this question. For this purpose one would need to make again visible and legible the drawings subsequently painted over and the deleted lines of the text. Such work can be done only in the spot, in Paris.

The fact which turns into certainty the assumption that the codex of the Bibliotheque Nationale had been in the hands of the Conqueror is a careful examination of the Balkan map which, as stated, was appended separately at the end of the treatise on the military machines. The fact that apart from a superficial mention

by Count de Laborde this map has so far not aroused any interest and has not been studied must be regarded as most surprising. As far as my knowledge of late mediaeval cartography goes, this map is the only hitherto known specimen of a military-geographical representation of south eastern Europe around the middle of the 15th century. The extant portolans and world maps of that time show eiter only the littoral

regions or else the entire world (e.g. the worldmap of Fra Mauro Camaldolese of 1459) in so far it was known at that time (3).

The map referred to above was hitherto not altogether unknown. E. F. Jomard, who was from 1828

Superintendent of the Departement de la Geographie, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, had reproduced it in his work Les monuments de la geographie (Paris (4), 1862 planche VIII/35), though without giving any indication to its whereabouts (5). However, there is no doubt that Jomard's death in 1862 prevented him from treating in closer detail the importance of this map in the history of 15th-century cartography. Part of the same map was, though again without any indication to its whereabouts and even without any reference

(1) Cf. on this subject G. SORANZO, Una missione di S. P. Malatesta a Maometto II nel 1461, La Romagna, 6, 1909, 43-54 and 93-6; by the same, Ancora una missione de S. P. Malatesta a Maometto II e M. de' Pasti, Romagna, 7, 1910, 62-4; by the same: Pio II e la politica italiana nella lotta contra i Malatesti, Padua 1911, 272 f. and 483; CORR. RICCI, I1 Tempio Malatestiano, Milan [1924], 41-4 and also AUG. CAMPANA, op. cit. The MS. of Valturio's, work which S. P. Malatesta had intended for Mehmed II, was valuated and retained as "res mirabilis et habenda carissima propter novas et notabiles res bellicas in illo scriptas et designatas"; later it was loaned to Pope Pius II for perusal and has been lost since. The de-luxe MS. of R. Valturio's De re militari in the Sachs. Landesbibliothek (Dresden) was for a certain period (e.g. by P. SCHUBRING) considered as the copy which had been intended for the Sultan, but as a matter of fact, belonged to Mathew Corvinus of Hungary to whom S. P. Malatesta had sent it in 1465. Cf. E. JACOBS, Buchergeschenke fur Sultan Mehemmed II. Festschrift Georg Leyh 1877-1937, Leipzig 1937, 23.

(2) Op. cit. - Erroneously reproduced by AL. COMTE DE LABORDE, op. cit. 501. (3) Cf. PLACIDO ZURLA, Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro Camaldolese, descritto ed illustrato da Don P. Z. Venice 1806,

fol. (4) P. F. E. CORTAMBERT discusses of this map briefly in Bull. d. 1. Soc. d. Geogr., Paris, 18. 1879, 79: "citons ...

une carte italienne des pays entre le Bosphore et le Balcan qui doit etre de l'an 1453 et qui est construite sur le systeme de la table Theodosienne", (i.e. Tabula Peutingeriana).

(5) According to Cortambert's indication (I.c. p. 79) that further information on this map can be found in Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscrip. of 24 Nov. 1843, the Librarian of the Departement des Cartes et Plans de la Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Mr. R. Herve and Mr. Marcel Destombes have, at my request, compared the literature on the map of the Balkans reproduced by Jomard in the Bull. d. 1. Soc. d. Geogr. de Paris, Ser. II. 20, 1843, p. 500 and ibid. Ser. III, 8, 1847 p. 183, only in latter of the indications can be found, that this map is a "carte italienne des pays compris entre la mer de Marmara et les monts Balkans, tiree d'un manuscrit de la Bibliotheque Royale, et dont la redaction parait au savant editeur devoir etre voisine de l'an 1453; elle a environ 37 cm de long sur 32 cm de haut et forme ici provisoirement la pl. 35/planche VIII in Monuments de la Geographie".

11

to Jomard, utilized by two Roumanian scholars in their publications (1). There is no doubt that the map was indicated to them by Dimitrie Sturdza, who is known to have lived for a long time in Paris.

At any rate the map under discussion seems to be unique in its kind. The (obvious) assumption that the col- lections in Venice, e.g. in the Biblioteca Nazionale di San Marco, in the State Archives and the Correr Museum hold similar or resembling maps of the 15th century was disproved during a recent visit made with the pur- pose of examining these invaluable collections. The map under discussion cannot be compared with the

manuscript portolan maps which are now at Venice and which were exhibited for the last time, I presume, in 1907 at the 6th Congress of Italian Geographers at Venice (2).

Even if one does not agree with the belief that the fortification on the Balkan map east of Pera repre- sents the castle of Rumeli Hisar(3)hich Mehmed II erected in the spring and summer of 1452, so that the map should be dated between August 1452 and about March 1453, nobody will hesitate to assume that it was drawn before the conquest of Constantinople (May 1453). It must have been made soon after the com-

pletion of the MS. which is believed to have occurred about 1459. The Italian origin can be taken for granted because of the hand-writing apart from other reasons. Likewise it can be safely assumed that the wonderful miniatures were the work of an artist who, as Ant. Marsand (4) charmed by their view said, was employed by some high personality. I see no reason not to suppose that the map was a gift of some Italian prince to Mehmed II whose favour was sought by eminent Italians of that century, as we have stated elsewhere(5). In this same connection one should mention the case of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, who, with the aid of his faithful and devoted counsellor and court scholar Roberto Valturio, wrote a letter in 1461 to the Sultan, offering him as painter Matteo de' Pasti and promising that the latter would transmit a handsome

copy of Valturio's recently completed work De re militari. The fate of the mission of Matteo de' Pasti, who

was captured by the Venetians off Candia in November of the same year, will not be reflected upon here (6).

We must however remind the reader that the MS., together with a map of the Adriatic shores, was likewise confiscated and hence failed to reach its destination (7). If it were possible to find out who owned the Paris

(1) VASILE URECHIA (properly ALEXANDRESCU), Cartografia romana, Analele Academiei Romdne, Bucharest, ser. II, 2, 1881, 419-24 (with 7 maps). The author mentions in the beginning that Dimitrie C. (sic!) Sturdza had donated to the Roumanian Academy "a beautiful collection of maps" (p. 419). MARIN POPESCU-SPINENI, Romania in cartografia pana la 1600. Bucharest 1938, two parts, part I containing the text and part II the maps. Cf. Part I, p. 80 and Part II, Map 33.

(2) Cf. Mostre ordinate in occasione del VI Congresso Geografico Italiano Venezia 26-31 Maggio 1907. Catalogo, Venice 1907, and also P. MATKOVIC, Alte handschriftliche Schiffer-Karten in den Bibliotheken zu Venedig, Wien 1863, 28 pp. and G. UZIELLI and P. AMAT di S. FILIPPO, Mappamondi, Carte nautiche, Portolani ed altri monumenti carto- grafici specialmente italiani del sec. XIII-XVII, Studi bibliografici e biografici sulla storia della geografia in Italia, Rome 1875, p. 280-390, concerning maps of the middle of the 15th century and finally VINC. FORMALEONI, Saggio sulla Nautica antica dei Veneziani Venice 1873.

(3) The construction of the Palace of Rumeli Hisar was commenced in March 1452. The tower offered by Zaghanos- Pasha was completed, to judge by the Arabic inscription, in Rajab 856 h = August 1452 D. At this date the whole construction was most likely finished in all essential respects.

(4) Op. cit., 2. 1838, 1. (5) Cf. my study on Mehmed's II. Beziehungen zu Italien, presented to the 8th International Congress of Byzantine

Studies at Palermo on April 7, 1951. (6) Cf. bibliography listed above on p. 11 note 1. (7) Concerning this map of the "Colfo" cf. A. Campana, op cit., p. 107. It is said there that it is not a map of the

Adriatic, but of all Italy: del paexe de Italia per monte e per piani e per terra e per acqua, hence a map which was described as being molto dimostrativo del paexe. It is known that Mlehmed II wanted Gentile Bellini who resided at his court from 1479 to January 1481 to prepare a painted prospect of Venice. Cf. Gianmaria Angiolello's statements in Donado da Lezze, Historia turchesca (1300-1514), publ. by I. URSU (Bucharest 1910), 129: "Volse che gli facesse Venetia in disegno". That Mehmed II had a vivid interest in the position and character of the country of Italy is attested by Giacomo Languschi ("D. Jacomo Langusto" at Giorgio Dolfin) whose relations to the Sultan and Stambul certainly need further clarification, cf. ARN. SEGARIZZI, Jacopo Languschi, rimatore veneziano del secolo XV, Atti della I.R. Accademia... degli Agiati in Rovereto, ser. , 3,, Rovereto 1904, 179-85, (where, however, nothing is said on that point): "Diligentemente se informa del sito de Itallia, et de i luoghi, doue capitono Anchise cum Enea et Anthenor; doue E la sede dil papa, del Imperator; quanti reami sono in Europa; la quale ha depenta cum li reami et prouincie. Niuna cosa cum maggior aplauso et uolupt'a, che el sito del mundo aprende et la scientia di cose militar; arde de uolunta de sig- norizar, cauto explorator de le cose. Cum tale, et cosi fato homo habiamo a far nui, Christiani". Cf. G. M. THOMAS, Die Eroberung Constantinopels im Jahre 1453 aus einer venetianischen Chronik. Sit7ungsberichte der kgl. bayer. Akad. der Wiss., 1868, 2, Munich 1868.

12

MS. before Mehmed II-the initials S.C.M. cannot refer to Malatesta because the second one does not fit (1)- the subsequent fate of the map would be much easier to trace. There is no doubt that the present Paris codex remained in the Sultan's palace after Mehmed's II death, and that together with the remaining 15 Greek MSS. it was part of the MSS-collection in the old Seraglio Library.

In his treatise on the history of the Seraglio Library, Emil Jacobs deals exhaustively with the 16 codices in Paris. Chapter VI (the final one) (2) of his treatise is entirely devoted to them. He summed up the results of his research at the end of this chapter in the following significant words: "The MSS. which Girardin

brought in 1688 to Paris did not come from the Seraglio Library but had been in the collection of the Prince and Sultan Mustafa who died in 1639" (3).

If, as I confidently hope, the following arguments will provide proof that the aforesaid assertion should be denied any serious foundation and that, accordingly, the Paris MSS. actually came from the Conqueror's Library, one of the main supports of Jacobs will collapse.

Emil Jacobs uses the following argumentation: the MSS. were bought for the Ambassador Pierre de Girardin by an Italian renegade whom the Ambassador, as we have stated above, described as an educated man in the service of the "Seliktar", Chief Officer of the Seraglio, and favourite of the Grand Signor. The almost effortless purchase was aided by the corruption in Stambul where money bought everything (4). How the renegade had got hold the codices-some of which were magnificent-and how he transmitted them to Girardin, is explained by E. Jacobs with the help of various assumptions and reflections which will not be discussed here. It is however certain, says Jacobs, that they did not come from the Seraglio but from the property of Prince, later Sultan Mustafa I. This view was irrefutably supported by the fact that an ownership-stamp of Prince Mustafa was affixed to each of the MSS. Only the magnificent parchment MS. of Plutarch, today codex Parisinus graecus 1672, has another stamp, Jacobs went on to say, viz. the Tughra- stamp which Jacob's authority, Friedrich Giese, established as the sign-manual of Sultan Mustafa I(5), while Baron Silvestre de Sacy openly declared that he was unable to interpret it (6). To confirm the attribution of this tughra to the aforesaid Sultan, Jacobs had himself shown a gold coin, also reproduced in his book, of Mustafa I then in the Berlin Coin Collection. The seal which already had been read by the great French Arabist, was again deciphered by Oskar Mann: yd kdfil al-muhinmmdt (Oh Thou who art master of the im-

portant affairs !) is read in the upper line, and in the corners, repeated three times: yd ghafar (Oh Thou who forgivest) and at the bottom " 'abduhzu Mustafd" (His servant Mustafa). Silvestre de Sacy had moreover read the figure 96 (1f) in the lower left-hand corner (7), while 0. Mann saw only ornaments in the supposed figure (8).

In Jacobs' opinion these circumstances proved convincingly that the MSS. had once belonged to the demented Sultan Mustafa who held the reins of the government for only 21 months and spent the rest of his 47 years of life as a prisoner in the Seraglio. A member of the French Embassy had reported in 1617 on this Sultan: "He spent most of his leisure time in reading good books" (9). This, says Jacobs, shows that Prince and Sultan Mustafa was a zealous collector of books and that the 16 MSS. came from his private library and accordingly did not belong to the old Seraglio Library.

Let us now have a look at Jacobs' arguments. We may mention, at the outset, that a reader of books is

(1) SILV. DE SACY in VILLOISON, op. cit., 32. Cfr. fig. 1. (2) If the author Ser Mariano Taccola really had the intention to dedicate his MS of 1432 to the Emperor (see belove, note 17) then the letters S.C.M. might be read as S[igismundi] or S[acrae] C[aesareae] M[ajestati]. I don't wish at all

to give this explanation of the initials with insistence. (3) E. JACOBS, Untersuchungen 120-34: Girardin und die Handschriften des Prinzen und Sultans Mustafa. (4) Op. cit. 134 in the ,,Zusammenfassung". (6) M. OMONT, op. Cit., 1, 264; VILLOISON, op. cit., 15; E. JACOBS, op. cit., 123. (6) E. JACOBS, op. cit., 125 f. and also Note 2. (7) VILLOISON, op. cit. 32. (8) E. JACOBS, op. cit., 125. Oskar Mann (1867-1917), whose field properly speaking were Kurdish-Persian researches, was not competent to solve this problem. Also F. Giese (1870-1944) had no special knowledge of Islamic matters.

E. Jacobs should have avoided consulting in this connection outspoken philologists, all the less so since at his time excellent experts on such Islamic specialties, like J. H. Mordtmann, were still alive and easily consulted.

(9) E. JACOBS, op. cit., 130 according to MICHEL BAUDIER, Inventaire de l'histoire generale des Turcs III, Paris 1631, 803.

13

not necessarily a book collector. If, however, a weak- minded Ottoman prince was devoted to the reading of "good books", the books were hardly Greek or occidental MSS. in general. The French communica-

he was collecting books. But what about the seal and the sign-manual of Mustafh I (fig. 2)? Is there a more

convincing proof that the Sultan had been the owner of the books than his seal? Certainly not, if the seal was his. This, however, was not so. What F. Giese de- scribed as the Tughra of Sultan Mustafa is manifestly the tughra of Bajezid II, the son of Mehmed II, who

reigned from 1481 to 1512 (fig. 3). The gold coin (1)

belonged, as clearly indicated by the year on it which is not difficult to read, viz. 1156 h = 1743 D, to Mahm fd I (1730-1754) and certainly not to the already deceased Mustafa I (1639 D = 1048 h). Now, what about the "princely seal"? The words in Arabic have been deciphered correctly and, as it will be proved, Silvestre de Sacy was right in reading the figure 96 in the lower left-hand corner. As in all dates on older Ottoman seals, a thousand should be added and ac-

Fig. 4. The frontispiece of MS. latin 7239 cordingly one should read 1096 h. This year corres- Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

ponds to 1685 A.D. If this reading is accepted, Prince Mustafa could not possibly have been the owner of

the seal. Pierre de Girardin reported, as we read, that the Italian renegade, himself "an educated man", was in the service of the Chief Armour-Bearer, the Silihddr, who is described as the "Chief Officer of the Palace and Favourite of the Grand Signor". A perusal of the succession of the Silihdar-Aghas (2) since only they and not simple siliHddr's, armour-bearers, could be meant here-shows that in the 1670-ies there were several of them with the name of Mustaf ! However, in 1687 the position of the Chief Armour-Bearer was occupied by Djerrah Mustafa (3) who in November 1687 (mzharrem 1099 h) was promoted to Agha of the Ianissaries, later served as a Governor of Tunisia, finally as a Governor of Kars and died there in 1107 h = 1695-6 D.

I wish therefore to assert that the alleged "princely seal" was not and could not have been at all a seal of Mustaf I the year on it [10]96, the form of the seal and the legend on it speak against such an assumption- but that it was the seal of the Chief Armour-Bearer Djerrah Mustafa Pasha, which the latter had affixed to the MSS. himself or had had affixed by his Italian accomplice. The second assumption is supported by the fact that in the only Latin MS. the seal, according to western custom, is on the frontispiece, on the title- page (fig. 4), and not, as is the Oriental habit, seen by our eyes, at the end of the work. The MSS., as can be safely concluded, were actually removed from the Seraglio and had belonged, at least partially, to the famous collection which dates from the days of the Conqueror of Constantinople. It devolves on further research, which can only be carried out in Paris and not elsewhere, to trace the fate of the codex Parisinus latinus

(1) The tughra of the Sultan appears for the first time on coins in clear marks under Ibrahim I (1640-1648), and not under MustafaII (1695-1703), as J. H. KRAMERS asserts it in the Encyclopddie des Islam, III, Leiden 1936, 821. According to AD. DEISSMANN, Forschungen und Funde im Serai. Berlin and Leipzig 1933, 23, note 1, E. JACOBS then (in 1933) really stated that he no longer insisted on his interpretation of the seal in the MS. idem, 33., Note 2, A. Deissmann asserts, it is true, that in the MS. Aya Sofia 2610 (Ptolemaic Codex) "a Mustafa-tughra was on several pages", a circum- stance which is of interest for the problem treated by E. Jacobs. "Jacobs, according to what he stated me orally, does no longer maintain all his assertions", cfr. p. 125 ss. Which beliefs E. Jacobs renounced, was not stated.

(2) Cf. Mehmed Siireyya, Sidjill-i 'Osmani IV, 726 ss.; see p. 728. (3) Cf. on Djerrah (= Surgeon) Mustafa-Pasha the Sid;ill-i 'Osmtdni, IV, 409.

14

7239. It would seem a safe assumption that Mehmed II found in it, possibly even before the conquest of

Constantinople, valuable information about occidental strategy and military science. Whether the Sultan was also aided by the map of the Balkans, which was discussed and is reproduced here, is a question whose solution largely depends on the historical and geographical knowledge which immediately before and after the capture of Constantinople had to be given to him by his Italian advisers, primarily Ciriaco de'

Pizzicolli, his Jewish physician Jacopo of Gaeta (1) and other contemporary authorities from their Western knowledge (2).

7239. It would seem a safe assumption that Mehmed II found in it, possibly even before the conquest of

Constantinople, valuable information about occidental strategy and military science. Whether the Sultan was also aided by the map of the Balkans, which was discussed and is reproduced here, is a question whose solution largely depends on the historical and geographical knowledge which immediately before and after the capture of Constantinople had to be given to him by his Italian advisers, primarily Ciriaco de'

Pizzicolli, his Jewish physician Jacopo of Gaeta (1) and other contemporary authorities from their Western knowledge (2).

lTALTREE

LIBRAR'V

lTALTREE

LIBRAR'V

Some Notes from The Tall Tree Library. Some Notes from The Tall Tree Library.

The Port of Tunis 1535 and 1573.

Events associated with the siege and capture of Tunis in 1535, when Charles V wrested that port from Barba- rossa, added to the cartography of that region. The anonymous woodcut, see figure, is present in a contem- porary pamphlet Copia de Littere Mandate da Tunisi ... Ex castris ... 1535, eight leaves. The map measures 5 3/8 x 7 3/4 inches. A similar but slightly smaller wood- cut (4 3/4 x 5 3/8) is in Copia delli advisi venuti dal Signor Vice Re di Sicilia ... di 1Napoli adi 2 di Agosto. M.D. XXXV.

Thirty-four years later Tunis again changed hands; the Spaniards were driven out in 1569; they re-took it in 1573 but ceded it to the Turks in the following year. By that time the copper-engraved map was widely prevalent in Italy, so several of the publishers in that country copied from the woodcut of 1535 and published a number of derivatives that differ from the original in workmanship, but not cartographically. All of the maps of Tunis in Tooley's list (3) are directly related to the war-like events outlined above. The most striking of the woodcuts of 1535 that we have acquired is a separate, La Presa de Tunes. La presa de Tunese co la Golett fatta da Carlo quinto Imperatore 1535. 16 x 10 7/8 inches. This vivid pictorial map in signed A.Z.F. This mono- gram is ascribed (4) to the Venetian painter Antonio Francisci Zonta. Like all of the woodcuts of 1535 here mentioned, it is rare. We have not encountered it in any later issues.

The Port of Tunis 1535 and 1573.

Events associated with the siege and capture of Tunis in 1535, when Charles V wrested that port from Barba- rossa, added to the cartography of that region. The anonymous woodcut, see figure, is present in a contem- porary pamphlet Copia de Littere Mandate da Tunisi ... Ex castris ... 1535, eight leaves. The map measures 5 3/8 x 7 3/4 inches. A similar but slightly smaller wood- cut (4 3/4 x 5 3/8) is in Copia delli advisi venuti dal Signor Vice Re di Sicilia ... di 1Napoli adi 2 di Agosto. M.D. XXXV.

Thirty-four years later Tunis again changed hands; the Spaniards were driven out in 1569; they re-took it in 1573 but ceded it to the Turks in the following year. By that time the copper-engraved map was widely prevalent in Italy, so several of the publishers in that country copied from the woodcut of 1535 and published a number of derivatives that differ from the original in workmanship, but not cartographically. All of the maps of Tunis in Tooley's list (3) are directly related to the war-like events outlined above. The most striking of the woodcuts of 1535 that we have acquired is a separate, La Presa de Tunes. La presa de Tunese co la Golett fatta da Carlo quinto Imperatore 1535. 16 x 10 7/8 inches. This vivid pictorial map in signed A.Z.F. This mono- gram is ascribed (4) to the Venetian painter Antonio Francisci Zonta. Like all of the woodcuts of 1535 here mentioned, it is rare. We have not encountered it in any later issues.

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(1) Cf. on this subject my study JaCqub-Pascha, ein Leibarzt Mehmed's II. Leben und Schicksale des Maestro Jacopo aus Gaeta, in: Rivista degli Studi Orientali, 26, Rome. 1951, 87-113.

(2) Cf. on that subject my study 'Mehmed II., der Erobers, und Italien', Bygantion, XXI, Brussels 1951. (3) R. V. TOOLEY, Maps in Italian Atlases of the Sixteenth Century, Imago Mundi III, nos. 556-564. (4) NAGLER I, no. 1552.

(1) Cf. on this subject my study JaCqub-Pascha, ein Leibarzt Mehmed's II. Leben und Schicksale des Maestro Jacopo aus Gaeta, in: Rivista degli Studi Orientali, 26, Rome. 1951, 87-113.

(2) Cf. on that subject my study 'Mehmed II., der Erobers, und Italien', Bygantion, XXI, Brussels 1951. (3) R. V. TOOLEY, Maps in Italian Atlases of the Sixteenth Century, Imago Mundi III, nos. 556-564. (4) NAGLER I, no. 1552.

15 15