Pina's Chronicles of Duarte and João II in a Manuscript at Harvard (with an Appendix by Philip Hofer)

CitationPenrose, Boies. 1952. Pina's Chronicles of Duarte and João II in a Manuscript at Harvard (with an Appendix by Philip Hofer). Harvard Library Bulletin VI (1), Winter 1952: 27-39.

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Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume VI, Number 1 (Winter1952)

Pina' s Chronicles of Duarte and Joao II in a Manuscript at Harvard EPOSITED in the Department of Printing and G·mphic Arts at Harvard i~ an extremely beautiful vernacular man u-scri pt of Ruy de Pina,.s chronicles of the Portuguese mon-archs Duarte and Joao II, dating f ron1 the very· early years

of the .sixteenth century. It is a large codex ( r 5 ½ by 11 ¾ inches)~ \vritten in doub]e columns on 12 2 ]eaves of vellumr There are no il-luminations, but the text js engrossed in bold Gothic script1 and there ar~ man ~f deco rations consisting of comp} ex cal Hg ra phi c j ni ti als t d c~ vcl o pc d in to partial ho rders, containing exq u isi tel y d cl i c ate pen dra,v .. j n gs of f ru i t 1 bird sj i nse ctst fl O\verst and other con ccits of nrtisti c fancy (Plates I-III). A n1orc detailed discussion of the manuscript in its ar-tistic aspects and ,vith regard to its provenance follows in an appendix by Mr Phjlip I.Jofer~ o,vncr of the manuscrjpt and curator of the de-partment in ,vhic h it has been deposited.

On]y four or five manuscripts -containing these chronicles of Pjna appear to be knov,rn4 There is a very fine vellum manuscrjpt in the Torre do Ton1bo in Lisbon (MS 354), \vhich ,vas used by Correa da Serra for his text in the e d iti o p rin cep s of 1 7 9 0--9 2. 1 This a pp ears to be the royal copy; it is embellished wid1 the arms of Portt1gal, and con .. tains a miniature of Lisbon and another of Pina presenting the book to King l\1a.nuel. Correa says he compared the Torre do Tombo 111anu-script ,vjth another 'of .sufficient age/ whjch the 'Benedictine 1\1onks of the Monastery of Lisbon' with their usual courtesy permitted him to examine. This second manuscript might conceivably be the present Harvard codex. The only other manus~ripts tr~ccd arc a mid-six:-_tccnth-ccntury paper manuscript in the Bibljoteca Na.cional in Lisbon and a seven teenth-cenru ry paper manuscript in the British 1\1.useum (Add~ MS 20.~924) .. The Harvard manuscript is therefore a good second to the. Torre do Tonlho one; if not the royal copy., its sump-tuousness and beauty imply that it was done for one of the grandees of Lusjtania4 In text it is practically word for word identical with Cor-

:i Academia das Scjencias de Lisbon, Coilecrao de tivtor ineditos de hiJtoria poTtu-gue::r-a! ed. J osc Correa da Serra (Lisbon~ 1790--182.4 ). Vols. I-II.

.I

Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume VI, Number 1 (Winter1952)

28 fl arvar d Library Bulletin rea's edition, v.rhich might be thought to strengthen the suggestion that it could be Correa'"s 'Benedictine' manuscript.

If~ as seems -cntircl y fitting~ WC date the I--Iarvard manuscript im-n1c diatcl y after 1500/ it becomes one of the oldest manuscript texts of Portuguese colonial . enterprise in existence. v\' rittcn accounts of Portugu esc expansion b ef ~rc that date nre extremely difficult to come by. There is the late fiftccnth,._ccntury manuscript of Cadai:nosto's voyages to Gambia and the Cape Verde Islands in the Bib]ioteca Marci~ ana in Venice .. But the. surviving 111:inuscript of da Gama's Roteiro (at Oporto) is early sixteenth-century., the collettion of the interesting German-Portuguese printer Valentim Fernandes (in Munich) dates f ron1 1 506., and even the supremely wonderful manuscript of Azurara's Chronicle of Guinea in Paris (Bib1iothequc Nationalc, MS Port. 42), containing a famous portrait of Henry· the Navigator, is no\v thought to date from the early sixteenth century· rather than from the Jate fif-tccnth.3 The rarity and importance of the Harv.a.rd codex may be fur-ther appreciated \vhen ,ve consider that no other Portuguese text manu-script of any so rt, of th c fif t c en th or car 1 y su.~c enth century, is I isted in the.De Ricci Censu.r,4 though there may be some in the great co]lec~ tjon of the Hispanic SociccyT of America., ,vhich did not rep~rt on its holdings for the Ceustts and concerning ,vhich no inf onnati on has been obtainable. In any case,. the Harvard manuscript combines to_ a most_ unusual degree physical beau tyr , vi th pu r~ t) 7 of text and historical i m_-porta.n ce.

& already noted,-the manuscript contains nvo chronicles, that of King Duarte ( 143 3-38), the unfortunate older brother of Prin.ce Henry the Navigator, and that of ICing · J oao II ( 1481---9 5 )" .. -· A th4d chronicle, covering the intermediate ·rcjgn of Afonso V 'the 1African' ( 1438-8 I), though included in the· Torre do Tombo nianu·script,, ·is-lacking in the Harvard codex as ·no,v bound, and there IS no positi~e

r

evidence that it was ever preserit. '\Vhilc there are modern repri,nts ( based on Correa) of the Du a.rte and Afonso chronicles, that of J ciao~ in rn any ,va ys th c n1 ost im portanr; ren~ains a vai 1 bl e only~ in the ed i ti o

' ' '

. • Hercolano records (Opusculoss V, 1881. :zo) that in 1504 Pina· rccci\.·cd 30,000 reis for the chronicles of Afonso \i and Joao II, along with certain· real property. • 8 Gomes £gnnes do Azurarn 1 Vida e obras,. ed~ J~ Dias Dinis (Lisbonj 1949 )~ Il 194.

4 Sey1nour De Ried and vV. j, Wilson, Crnsus of AJ.edieval and Renaissance Mauu-s.cript s in tfJe United Stat es and Ci1naJ a• 3 vo 1 s. (N e\v York, 19 J 5-4 o).

Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume VI, Number 1 (Winter1952)

l)ina''s Chronicles of Duarte ahd J oiio II princeps. Other chronicles attributed to Ruy· de Pina, those of the 'six kings' (Sancho I to Afonso IV1 118 5-1 357), ,vere first printed in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and have all been re-printed.

The question of authorship for chronicles such as these of Pina is a vexed one. The conccp t of plagiarisln as ,ve kno\v it scarcely existed in his time. ~~urthcr, the Cronista Mtlr, qr official chronicler of the kingdom, ,vas fully authorized, if not in duty bound, to dra,v upon or even subsu1ne ,vithin his o,vn annals the accounts left by his predeccs .... sors. Yet Pina; in performing this function, seems not to have escaped the censure of a later day, as ,vitness I-Ierculano's -appellation of icro,v in peacock's feathers.' e The a1nount of orig~nal material might be ex ... pected to depend on the chronicler's temporal relation to the period d iscusscd. There n1a}r be little of Pina ( except the form of express ion) and much of Fernao Lopes, 'the father of Portuguese history,' jn the chronicles of the 'six kings'; and the chronicle of Duarte 1nay well have been begun by Lopes and continued by Azurnra., Lopes~ successor, to be rounded off by Pina. The Afonso chronicle, however, must be largely Pina's (though based in part ·on collections by Az.urara), since Azurara informs us that Afonso had refused him permission to ,vrite about his o,vn reign - and in any cnse Azurara predeceased Afonso by seven years.. Finally, ,vith the chronic]e of Joao 111 ,vc are entire]y \vithin Pinn"s o,vn period, and this ,vork may safcl)7 be attributed en-tirely to Pina~s ff\Vn hand.r

In view of the i1nportance of the history· contained in the chronicles of the I-i arvard n1an user i pt, and the rel a ti vc inaccessibility of th is

The J oiio Citro n.ic1e has never been transl a tcd in its entirety .into English. Pas-sages on Mjna1 Benin, S-ao Thon1et the Eng1ish interlopers, and Prjncc Bcmoym are include~ in J. W. Biakc's Europeans in TV est Africat 1450-,-1 ,r6o (London, 1942) and the ch apter concern.i ng Col um bus has b ccn trans] R ted for P .rof essor S. E. Morlson 's as yec unpub1ished 'Journals of Coiun1bus and Other Documents on His Li£~ and ,roy1]ges.t The Congo ch~pters have never been translatedt but were utilized by E. G. RaYenstcin in 1,he Strange Adt•entures of Andrew Rattell (London, 1901 ) .. The debt of j oao de Barros to Pina ma Y be 3 ppreciated by reading tl lC West Afr j t:an extracts from his- D~cade:r in G. R. Cronc~s: · T/Je Voyn-ge..r of Cadmno.sto (London, 1937 ).

111 '- .. _ Pina, que, ambicioso de pouco suada g1oria., quiz, pobre corvo de D. Joao II, adornar-se com as brilhJJ.ntes pennas de pavao do Homero de D. Joao 11 ( Opus-

. cu]os, V 1 ii; first printed in O Pa1uJra'Jna't No .. I 3 r, 2 N ove1nbcr l 839). "7 One may re 8d a lucid survey of these cnt:.lng led chron le 1-es and chroniclers in

th-at invalualJ!e compendium Portuguese Literan1re, by A. F. G. Bell (O.xfo.rd, r912 ), pp. 8r-89 ..

Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume VI, Number 1 (Winter1952)

H ar~.;ard Library B1tlletin

history to English readers, a summary account of the .contents of these chronicles may· be atten1pted here .. The Duarte chronicle, ,vhile ovcr-shado,ved by that concerning J oao, none the Jess has considerable in tcr-. est of its O\Vn, and by implication is not \vithout geographical signifi-cance. For the inost part it concerns the abortive expedition to Tangier ( 1437 ) 1 a crusade led by Henry the Navigator, ,vho felt that the i\.1os-lcms of North Africa should be further discom6ted, and that the Portuguese holdings at Ccuta should be cxtcn ded ~cross northern l\1orocco. Henry·'s crusading ardor ,vas undin1inished, but the military disaster ,vas speedy and con1plcte~ a strong force of 1\1oors cut off the Portuguese fron1 their shipst and n1ost. of the attackers,. including Prince Fernando, the youngest of.the ro)ra] brothers~ fell into the hands of the 1'1oslcn1s~ Fernando perished miserably in iVloorish dungeon scvcr~l years thereafter; Duarte died in 143 8 :1.s 1nuch from a broken heart as from any other cause; and Henry 11cvcr recovered from the stign12 of 'letting do\.vn" his brothers. Altogether it ,vas one of the g rca test tragedies of Po rtngu csc history,. and it 1 c d di rec t1 y to the troublous year~ of the young King Afonso's minorjty ..

The Duarte chronicle, as ,vc have said, \va.s a second- or even third-hand production; but in ,vriting a chronicle of King Joao II, his royal patron and conte1nporary·, Pina ,vas on far finner ground than he had been ,vhile adapting and editing the vtorks of his predecessors. Pir~a's very career ,vas that of -a favor1te of fortune. Born about 1440, he had early become a devoted servant of Joao II; in 148~ he ,vas sent on an embassy to the sovereign of Castile, the follo\ving year he ,vas loyally wjrh the J(ing jn the liquidation of the Bragan~a conspiracy~ and in 1484 he was sent on a mission to Pope Innocent VIII. _Upon his return fro n1 R on1c, Pin a , vas charged by Jo ao to ,v rite the official his-tory of the reign, n task ,vhich did not kc.ep the chronicler too busy to prevent his going to Barcelona in 1493, to negotiate ,vjth l~crdinnnd and Isabella over the problem of territorial jurisdiction resulting from Co]umbus~s first voyage. This n1ission Jed to the establishment of the Line of Demarcation and the Treaty- of TordcsiHas ( 1494), and as such ,vas Fina's 1nost i1nportant public service. Pina's devotion to Joao Jasted to the end; he ,vas pre.sent at his n1astcr's death, and opened nnd read the wjll after,vards. Nor did his favored position cease tvith the passing of Joao, for King j\1-anuel 'the Fortunate' ( 1495-15 2 1) con-firn1cd his pension~ and appointed him royal chronic]er an·d librarian of

Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume VI, Number 1 (Winter1952)

l'ina's Chronicles of Duarte mid Joao JI 3r the Kingdom. 8 In this capacit}7 he worked on a chronicle of i\1anucl ts rcignt carryjng it do,vn to 15 1 3: the chronicle is no,v lost, but ,vas used by Damiao de Goes later in the sixteenth century. In any event, how-ever., Pina's major ,vork ,vas his chronic]c of Joao II; because of his closeness to King Joao, Pina must have witnessed many of the scenes that he recounted. Ironically enough, a chronicle of Joao II by Pina,s successor, Garcia de R cscndc, in corpora ting m11 ch of Pina's master-piece, was published ns early as 1545 und has been frequently· reprjnted, ,vhile the original \vork remained jn n1anuscript for almost three cen-turicst and then received no 1norc than a sing] c cd i ti on. Pin a seems to have died in J 521; his son Fernao became Cr.onista Mor in 152 3.

Pjna,s royal r~tron, Joao II 'the Perfect/ \Vas a. typical despot of the early Renaissance; in appearance., in character, and jn the pattern of his rule, he bore considerable similarity to Henry \!III of England, and like the great Tudor Joao \Vas an embodiment of l\.1achiavelli's Prince.i Succeeding his easygoing and rather ineffective father, Afonso the African, he found the realm beset b)r a turbulent nobility and a church growing in po,ver. The nobility were ruthlessly dealt with: the Duke of Bragan~a, the most po\verful nob]e in the rcaln1, ,vas caught while intriguing with Castile., and beheaded; the l(ing stabbed and killed his own brother-in-la\\~, the Duke of Viseu; the other n1alcontcnts of the Bragan9a faction ,vere liquidated or forced to flee; and the overween-ing power of the great territorial 1n agna tes was crushed (chapters 4-6 1

9-19).. Joaots n1ilitant nationalism 1ike\vise brought hint in conflict with the Church, but the Papacy ,vas too strong, and the King ,vas forced to yjeld on n1ost points (chapter 20). _Ncvcrthclcsst Joao breathed defiance to the end~ The course of events is strikingly p~r~ tray·ed by Pina1 ,vho1 in contrast to earlier chroniclers:, ·centers his nar-rative a bout the sovereign rather than the people, more likely refl.ect-j ng thus the changed temper of the tin1es th-an the personal monarchical bias of ,vhich he ,vas been accused.

It ,vas natural that Joao"s vigorous and practical narion2lism should n1akc itself felt jn colonial polic3r, as en1phasized in Pina's excellent and straightfor\vard prose. Indeed, it is the narrative of the Portuguese in

• A zu rar~ 's i n1med bte successor as Cron ista Mor had been Vasco Fernandez de Luce na1 wh on1 P j na sup planted in 14 9 7 • '3 h hough Lucena \\~ ~s still living in 1 499. None of the latter's \Vork~ ha,'"c survived.

11 With regard to 1\,1 achi a vclU -5cc a xcccnt study by Afr:anio Peixoto, 0 pTinci pe per/ eito (Lisbon 1 l94i.). Actually 1 of course, J oao ha.d been dead ncarlr nvcnty year5 \\Then i\1achfave.lli \.\-"rute the Prince+

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32 . Harvard Library B11lle tin

Africa ,vhich n1akes Pina,s chronicle the ,vonderful human docun1ent that jt is4 But Pina does not tell the ,vho1e story, or anything like it, for Joao, in ]ine ,vith his national policy~ in1poscd the 'conspiracy of silence' on the progress of African discovery. 10 Like a fishc rman who finds a good trout stream and \\rants to keep it for hin1sclf, Joao put all matters of ex pl oration in this gen era] region on a 4 top secret" 1 evcl. Fortifications n1ight be described as a ,varning and native conversions might be played up; diplomatic pressure to prevent foreign interlopers might be emphasized; but 211 111atters of navigation ,vere absolutely ha nned. For this-reason, the n1ost important gc ogra phical events of Joao's reign, Diogo CaoJs voyages to the Congo und Angola ( 1482, 148 5) and Bartolomeu Dias's expedition around the Cape of Good Hope (1487-88), receive no mention ,vhatsocver in Fina's chronicle, al-though his 1 engthy description of the conversion of the Con go ruler must 1 eave even the most uncritical ,vith the conviction that sometime some Portugues-e must haYe discovered that region. But ,virh respect t"o any jnformation that might help a ship~s captain Pina says nothing.

By the tin1e_ of Jofio's accession, Portuguese mariners had discovered the African coast as far as Cape ... o pez, just belo,v the_ Line,. but no set~ tlements had been made in the ,vhole of Guinea. Ho\vcvcr, the mineral possibilities of the Gold Coast ,vcrc only too obvious to Joliot a'nd he straight,vay deter mi nc d to cstablis h a strong-point ,vhich ,vould defy al1 21icns .. To this end he dispatched ·a doughty· old \"Varrior named Diogo de Azan1buja~ along ,vith several hundred n1nsons, carpenters~ and soldiersJ to build an impregnable fortress. The consequent erection (1482) of the castle of Sao Jorge da )\1ina, near Cape Three Points o~

the Gulf of Guinea., js vividly described by Pina ( chapter 2). This was not secret intelligence; rather , vas it a good ,varni ng to inter 1 o pers, n d the description of the pon1p with ,vhich .Azambuja received the native k~n g; and of the strength and thoroughness ,vith ,v hich the edifice was built, is all very graphic, a.nd a good ad vcrtisement that Portugal meant business. As for the Mina natives, the Ponuguesc had them so co,vcd that in a tribal ,var in 1490 (chapter 40) one side ,vhitened their

10 The st-anda.rd exposition of the po tky of secrecy is th~ t by Jaime Cortesao, c:Do sigHo na.cional sobre os Descobrimentos/ 1 .. usitnniat 1 (19;!.4)! 45-81. translated by W. A. Bentley ::is The l\1ationa1 Secret of the Portuguese DiscoverieJ in t/Je Fifteenth Century (London:i-n. d.). For restrictions on the scope uf this policy see S. E. Morison, Portuguese- Voyager to A1nerica in tbe 'Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., l 940), pp+ 76---86.

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Pl.ATE Ill CHROXICLE OF JOAO H; CHAPTER 66

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Pina's Chronicles of Duarte and Jono II 33 faces to sin1ulate Azambuja's men, and put the other•side to rout with-out a battle.

Farther to the east\vard~ along the lo,ver course of the Niger, lay the native kingdom of Benin. Pina relates (chapter 24) ho\V in 1486 Joao Afonso de Avciro ,vent there., and caused the ruler to send an ambas-sador to Lisbon. Pin-a's ren1arks on the unhcalth)r cli1nate of Benin and its poor trade indicate that information regarding it ,vas not on a high security level. 1-Io,vever, the negro c1nissary told King Joao of a mighty n1onarch nan1ed Ogane ,vho lived nventy· n1oons' jonrn'cy fro1n the coast. So anxious ,verc Joao and his advisers to find Prester John that they jumped to the conc]usion that he and Oganc ,vcre one and the sa1ne. In vie,v of this inforn1ation,. the King in 1487 s-ent t\VO men, Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva., to proceed via the ~11editcrranean and Egypt in the hope of finding the pricst~king of Ethiopia (chnpter 21). Pina., ,vho appears to have ,vitnessed their departure, did not of course record their "\Vanderings~ but it 1night be added that Covitha, after traversing the pcri1nctcr of the Indian Ocean fron1 1'1alabar to l\1ozambigue1 did reach AbyssiniaJ and ,vas found there in hjs old age by the Portuguese mission of r 5 20.

Portuguese countcr-1nea.sures -against interlopers in West Africa ex-tended from building fortifications to protests through diplomatic chan" ncls~ In so1ne· roundabout "\Ya)T the Spanish Duke of l\1cdina Sjdoniat eying the ,vealth of Guinea, persuaded t,vo English captains, John Tinta1n and \~Til]iam Fabyan, to undertake a voyage to the Coast. IGng Joao got ,vind of this, and in r48z sent an ari1bassador to England1 ,vho prevailed upon Ed,vard J\T to block the project (chapter 7). In con-scqucn cc., there is no evidence that this early English yenn1rc ever got bcJrond the planning stage. Another abortive English sche1ne ,vas in-itiated in r488 by the Count of Pcna1nacor1 one of the Bragan~a con-spirators ,vho had fled to England for his life, and ,vho sought to re-venge hin1self on his la,vful sovereign by illicit trade ,vith Guinea. Joao prevailed upon his brother 1nonarch to put u stop to all this, and Pcnam acor found hin1sclf i1nprisoned in the T o,ver of London ( ch-a p-t er 34).

If monopoly of "\i\Test African trade ,vas a prime Portuguese inter-cstt so a]so ,vas the conversion of the natives to Christignity; not only for the sake of saving sou]s, but also for the less disinterested reason that it enabled Portugal to make the native rulers into puppets. Pina relates at considcrnbJe length t\VO such enterprises: one in Senegalt th~

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34 Harvard Library Bulleti11

other· in the Congo. The for mer episode ( chapter 3 7) had to do ,vith the prince Bcn1oyn1~ the ruler of the Jalo.ff ncgrocsi ,vho Jived in the coastal region bet\veen the Senegal and the Gan1bia Rivers. A civil ,var broke out against Ben1oym's a.ntnority~ a.nd in 1488 he can1e to Portugal for help. Joiio gave hi.in a royal ,vclcomc., and promised hi.in assist-a.nee if he ,vould bcco1nc n Christian. Bemo)•n1 and his foUo,ving thereupon ,vere baptized, and the u1~,v itting ncgro did homage to the Portuguese n1onarch as a vassal.. A ] argc fleet of t\vcnty caravels:,-under Pero Vaz da C11nhat escorted the prince back to his native heath, but da Cunha and Bcn1oym cvidcntl)T had a falling~out on the ,vay, for _no sooner had the ships entered the Senegal lliver than the Portu gu csc skipper dre,v his s,vord and slc,v the unfortunate chieftain. After that the fleet returned to Port11ga1, ,vith nothing to sho,v for the venture.

Greater success attended the uttc1npt to jntrodncc Christianity· into the Con go i \ v here a n a rive k i ngd on1 of re] a ti vcl y high cu] turc cxis tctl. This 11ndertal{ing 1nust have caused great jntcrest in fifteenth-century Portuga]t and Pina devotes a considerable portion of his book to it (chapters 57-63). Cao and Djas had both visited the Congo (though not a ,vord of this appears in Pina., thanks to ·the cconspirac)r of silence'), and on one of t11e voyages an intelligent native named Ca9uta ,vas taken to Portugal. Ca9utn ,vas dllly baptized as Joao <la Silvai in the presence of Joao and his .Queen., at Beja in 1489. Pina remarks-that Ca9nta had been sent to Lisbon by the native ruler, to request not 01-u)r priests., but also masons and carpenters, to erect churches and houses, so that the Kingdom of Congo n1ight he like that of Portugal. It looked as if the Congo ,vcrc al] ready to becon1e v''esternized.-

A n i1nportant cm ba ssy ,vas in consequence sent from Lisbon late in 1490, ,vhich should convert the native princes and introduce Portu-guese culture,. and1 in a more realistic sen~e, take over the country·. Ca9uta ,vas along, i.vhile the an1bassndor ,vas Jono de Sousa; the latter cl ied during the voyage., and \Vas succeeded by his nephc,v,, Ruy de So us a. I..rargc-sca le baptisms f o I 1 o,v ed the arrival of the cm b aSS)7 : the king and queen \Ycrc christened Dom Joao and Dona Leonor~ af tcr the sovereigns of Porn1gal, and the local chiefs ,vcrc given the titles of duque, 111arques, and conde, in accordance \Vith the Portuguese prac-tice~ The principal native village ,vas transfor111cd into the pseudo-Portuguese to,vn of Sao Salvador (sjn1atcd about r 50 tntles inland and al111ost due east of the 1nouth of the Congo), and·a thin veneer of Euro-pean civilization-ad111ittedly very thin indeed -,vas applied to this

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Pi11n'.s Cbrouicles of Duarte and Joao ll 3 5

scgrnent of equatorial Africn. It is to he feared~ though hardly to be ,vondered at, that after the departure of de Sousa. King Joao ·Nzinga did some backs]iding, as a result of the interference of the Franciscans ,vith polygan1) 7 and other valued social institutions. Nevertheless the Porrugoese had no need to gru1nble, for the 1r had left behind -a fortified post at fv1pindi, strategical I y· situated at th c mouth of the River Con go.

In contrast \vjtJ1 fortifications and conversjons~ Pina has only· one passage about a straightfonvard colonjzation scheme (chapter 68). In 1492 Ferdinand arid Jsabella expel] ed the J e\v.s from Spain1 and J oao of Portugal offered th e1n safe-conduct throng h his-dominions. The children of those ,vho could not afford passage 1noney~ ho,vever, ,vere taken from their parents, forcibly baptized, and sent do,vn to the island of Sao Thonlf\ ath\vart the Equator~ By doing this., Joao felt that they ,vould gro,v up jnro good Christians and useful citizens of equatorial Africa, provided they su~ivcd the rigors of the voyage and the clin1ate of the Gulf of Guinea. It is only fair to add rh~t Sao Thome jn the second half of the sixteenth century experienced a period of great prosperit)r from its .sugnr plann1tjons, a.nd developed a. ,vay of life that anticipated by t\"VO ccn turics that of th c British plan ter-aristo cracyr in the "\¥ est Indies. Let us hope that th c descendants of the poor young-sters sent b)T King Joao ,vere gn1ong those ,vho n1ade good.

That portion of Fina's chronicle ,vhich is of 1nost interest to Ameri-cans., ho\vever, is the passage devoted to Colurnbus's ret~rn from his first voyage ( chapter 66; Plate III). Col un1bus landed at Lisbon on 4 l\1arch 149 3 . There ,vas an outbreak of plague in the city, and J oao had 1noved his court to ''irtudes, son1e n1iles up the Tagus. Thitl1er Col um bus ,v cnt on 1'1arch 9. King and Ad1niral had n1ct before, back in 1484 and probably again jn 1488, ,,rhcn Colutnbus ,vas seeking a backer for hi~ schc111cs. Joao had rejected Colutnbus's tenns, and the yjsionary explorer had been forced to look else,vhere for a patron. 111

1484~88 Colun1bus had been a supplia.nt; in 1493 he ,vas a highly suc-cessful discoverer. Ruy de Pina gives a graphic picture of this third n1ccting, at ,vhich in all probabiljty he ,vas present. I-Iis account begins ,vith the remark that tChristovan1 Co]on1bo an Italian ca1nc frorn the dtscovery of the islands of Cipango and of AntilHa,: the forn1cr being of course Japan, and the Jatter one of the 1nythical Atlantic islands. Cohunbus's dc111canor at the intcrvic,v appears to h8.ve been that of a conceited braggart; Joao's disappointn1ent at learning of the discovedes ,vas concca1cd under an iron mask of self-control. In spite of Joa.o's

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Ii ar·vn.r d Jjbrary Bnlletin poker face., it did not take the courtiers 1 ong to di vine their sovereign ,s

_ rca l .sentiments, and that very d -a y th e)r urged hi1n to ha vc this upstart adventurer ass:issinated. ~'ith an unexpected display of forbearance, all the more unexpected in one ,vho haa murdered his o,vn hrother-in-la,v ,vith his o,vn hands, Joao dismissed the schen1e'.I and continued to sho,v Columbus ever_y courtesy until his departure on 1\1arch r r 4 None the Jess the King rnade it clear that he felt the ne\v discoveries to be ,vi thin the Porn1guese sphere of influence. After displaying his In-

. dians, -and 111aking a n1ap of the \\lest Indies ,vith a handful of beans, Colu1nb11s left, to pay his respects to Queen Leonor., \Vho \Vas .staying at Castanheira, nearer Lisbon. From there he returned to the Nifia in J"'isbon harbor .. One feels from the chronic]e that both J oao -and Pina \Vere keenly alive to the opportunity that Portugal had n1issedr

It is rhis -account of Cohnnbus \\:hich gives Pin2~s chronic1e of Joao its ultimate dran1atic appeal: here is a manuscript ,vrittcn ,vithin a decade of the greatest discovery in history·, the author of ,v hie h ,vas aln1ost certainly present ,vhen the discoverer told his adventures to the King of Porh1ga].

Bo1Es PENROSE

APPENDIX

1\1r Penrose and the Editor of the HARVARD l,TnRAR\" IluLLETIN have invited a fe,v more \Vords about the appcarancej clllligraphy, nod provenance of the Ruy de Pina m o.n uscri pt ,v hi ch i\11 r Penrose has n b] y di scu sscd 1 n th c f orcgoi n g essay~

Under the circu1nstancesi further ,voids of prajse for its beauty wou]d be nn-s ccml y, Ra th er j t .should b c cn1 phasize d that the manuscript is o. lm ost a ustcrc for its period, ,vithout us-c of gold. The only color is in the tcxrual rubrication of red and blue. Beyond pen-,vork ornament on the t\vo title-pages (P1ate I), at the chapter headings (Plates II and III), and an1ong the entries in the tab]e of contents, ,vhich Mr Penrose ha;; generously praised, the m-anuscript depends for its artistic effect ~olely on elaborate ornamental initial letters, ,vhich head each chapter, and on the po,vcrful rounded Gothic script so characteristic of the best Iberian calligraphy of the late fifteenth century~ Finally, the outer presentation is also very plajn (P]ate lV). Even the mid~nineteenth-century Eng 1 ii;; h hinder se cn1 ed to feel that dee oration ,vonlrl have be en inc on1 pa ti hie "\,,,..ith the contents~

Datjng the manuscript solely fro1n the sty]e of ,vriting and the initial letters! one 111ight place it u little earlier than 1500. The text, of course1· sets a date be-fore v1hich the n1anuscript could not have been ,vritten! i.e. l 495., the year of

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Pi11rl's Chronicles of Duarte and Joao 11 37 1'1 anu cl the For tuna te" s a c cession. 11 We find the script jn complete ag re ctn cnt. It is very sj mifa r j n both size and sty le to the type used in the gre~ test of all Porrugucsc incun:l.bula: Ludolphus de Saxoniats Vita Christj prjnted at Lisbon in that very sa1nc year hy Nicholas the S::1xon and \Ta]entim Fernand~ of h1oravja. Both were men, the reader ,vHl note, Vr'ho had been imported from northern cou n rrj es., li kc ncarl y µ 1 l early 1 berian cra.f t5 men co nnectcd ,vi th the book arts .. Typically, they :it once adapted their types to the local taste~ For how else ,vould peop]e have read their book c::isjly, translated, as it ;,vas, for popular consumption fron1 Latjn into Portuguese? The quality of script in the Ruy de Pjna manuscript is highly enough prajsed ,vhcn it is p1aced on a plane v..·ith the type jn this ,vondcrful book~ The rubrics are probably by a different hand~ In any event they arc rcn1~rkably even+ The lettering of the rjde--p:agcs js equal to that in the finer Iberian church service books~ So., altogether., the _ text is presented as ,vell- ,vith .fine ·spacing and an1ple 1nargjns - as one cou]d hope to find in a manuscript of its period.

The jnitia1 letters., ,vhile handsoJ11e, are not jn quite so good taste. Here the Fien1ish influence app~[ltS strongly for the first time. Not satisfied ,vith the simpler Gothic rubrics, the artist of the ornnn1eoted capitals has c]aboratcd on a ca1Iigraphic style u 1hich can be traced in F]anders at least back to a. Frederick If Hohenstaufen ma.nuscdpt treatjsc on falconry ,vhich is deposited in the Harvard Departnlcnt of Graphic Arts., and js dated (at Ghent) 1486. I~Iis initia]s arc also simifo.r in style and scale to the capita] lettcr5 of the Spiegel der lJTahren Rhetorik, printed at Freihurg in1 Breisgau., 1493) 2 And there is even a resemb]ance, though n1ore remote., to the splendid c:lpitnl 'I} on the title-page of La 1ner des hystoires., Pads, 1488. But the Ruy de Pjna manuscript capitals are not as fine as the latter, although a. fe,v of then1 arc a1rnost as large .. These two examples of related ,vork sho,v that the fashion for these inter]aced initis.ls spread over much of northern Europe, presumablr before reaching Po rru gal or Spa in ..

What d iff ercntj ates these Portu gu csc d cc orati \!Pe j n i ti al letters from th c: t\VO other examples cited is the p en-dra ,vn d cc oration iv hi ch surrounds thcn1. This n1ay or 1nay not be by the same artist as the initials: there js no very sure n1eans of teHing. For although both are in ink, the jnk JS of n different co]or and con-sistency .. 1-Io\vcver that may bei the decoration is particularJy Flemjsh in taste, ln1t rather ]ater in sty]c than the dates ,vhich ha\'e just been given. Again it is unwise to he dogmatic. (r is better to s=iy that one has had 'the fcclingt .of cjr~11 t 500, particu1ar1y ··when one considers the probable time lag jn the transrnfasion of a fashion to such a fnr outpost of Europe as Portugal. Yet ,vc must rcn1cn1-ber that Portugal ,vnsi at that rim½ perhaps the greatest seafaring nation jn the v:orld~ ,vith a \vide foreign trade. It ,vas by no means the baclcward land that

:n 'Th c prologue to the D u:1r tc Cl 1 ronic I c :sta tcs that this chron l c 1 c ,v~s ori ginaH y con1posed by Pina at the command of 'ElRcy dom 1\1c1nuel.' And the Joao Chron-jc]c tells of Jo~o's death! ,vhich occarred 25 October l495 ..

u Reproduced in A. F. Johnsont Decorativ(? Initial Le-tters (London! 1931 ), p. J7 (No~ VHI).

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.:..,;_

Harvard ·Library Bulletin . it has son1etin1cs been considered. A date of l 495 ,vould certainly be possible, ~lthough just af rer J 5ooi-\vhich lVI r Penrose has chosen, 1s rnore likely.

The most elaborate exarnples of th_is orna1nentauon are· on the t\vo title-pages of the Ruy de Pjna'manuscdpt. The tit1e to part one (the chronicle of JUng Duarte) is Jess fine than that of part nvo (chronicle of King Joao II), and is in ] css fi nc con di don, there being a had crease f ron1 top to h otto n1 of the vell nm J ca L But both tide-pages .sh o v~1 l ta Hana te puttj fighting drn gons (part nvo) or pla.y.ing a flute (part one) to the 'apparent delight of some rabbits, the curiosity of a ha by ostrich, nnd the · irritation of sc\.,.cra] ow 1s ! · F1 o,vers, fruit, con ven-ti ona lized f o 1 i ag~ song ll i rds, find :1 n occ asi ona l snail rn a kc up the other n10 tif s the artist has used so i 1nagi n ati vcl y. The ornamentation on the .s ecorid title Ol.:Cupies more than 30 square inches of the page and the infrial ,;Ct is roughly 4 Ly 3 inches. Such is the scale of the pages ,vith ,,,bich ,ve ·are dealing ( 15 ½ by l, ¾ 1nche.~)~ Naturally, the size of the -chapter headings- except the first ones, at the beginning of the text to each part -is smaHer, and the decoration lnorc limited. 1\1:ost lin1itcd of all, but 5till quite charm~ng~ are the. little pen-d ra ,vn o rna.mcnts \V h ich decorate the several tab 1 es of con ten ts ,v hi ch the 1n an u-sc dpt contnins. An entry in them may have only one bit of decoration, hut the variety js grca tcr than an) T\Vh c:r c else~ one finds . serp en tsi-fi shi l izardst and f a.nci-f u 1 birds~ as ,vel 1 as th c n1ore conventional crca turcs prcvi ous l y n1cn ti oned.

Altogether t I concur in l\1r Penroset s a pproxinl ate dating of th c man used pt .. F rorn tl1c a rtis rjc and tee h n i~a l point of vi e,v, it could b c a f e,v years ear] ier than 'shortly after I 500/ but it coti ld hardly be 1nany years 'before." Since no suggestion of an ardst's or scribeis narne is given any,vhere jn the manuscript, there is nothing to go on but the stylistic indications already discussed. These fairly close] y agree ,vith 1\1 r Pen rose .s j nd gin c nt made from the l i tcrary, his-tori ca 1 t and bi bli og rap h ica l evi dcnce. · There re n1ai as1 th ercfotC:\ only the -proven-a nee of the manuscript, and here the best authority of m n <lcrn tirn es can b c invoked., the 1n te Seymour De Ricci. Thi~ 1nanuscript is listed by him in his Census. rn But the infonnation there given does not do ju~tic:e to I\.1r De Ricci's ·colorful methods ur to his genius. An ac-count of my pe!rsonal experience may be attempted, despite the interval of t,ve nty years and the .in ab i] i ty of my pen to rcc=.1 pture i\ 1 r De H. i cci's p rcsencc~

In I 93 r, I ,va.s a moderately experienced collector, but a still green curator of the Nc,v York Public Library\i Spencer CoHection 5 "·hen the great De Ricci appeared at n1y door. Bibljographer, schofa.r, author, teacher, advjser co n1any far greater coi1cctors, his name \Vas i1nn1ediately exc1ting to n1c.., and I recalled the story th-at no less thrin the then Pope Pjus Xl, ,vhen he ,vas Monsejgne1.1r Ratti and 8 libradan of the Atubrosiana in j\1jlan, had been said to have climbed ·about the highest stat.:ks, like the alpjnist he ahvays ,vas, on the directions of the young De Ricci, aged nineteen._. ,vho \vas at that early age already studying Egyptian papyri and kne,v their ,vhcrcabouts in the An1brosiana better than His Ho] inessl I looked at the door of n1y room - a bronze grill - and wi;hcd it had been n little nlorc itnpressive for rny first 1neeting ,vith so noted a figure.

·n Ill 1698 (No. 28) ..

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Pina"'s Cbrouicles of IJuarte ·and Joiio II 39 l)e Ricci, having finished carn.loguing the Library's many nrn.nuscrjprsi son1e-

ho,v kne,v that I had a fc,v n1anuscripts of my O\vn .. After protestations on 111y part, he insisted on seeing thcn1, and I took him home, producing the volumes one by one. [) e Rice i \\r or kc d ,vi th a ppr!)ptfo te s p eedt but b c ca use j t ,vas the end of the day., and n1y eyes kept opening \\rider a.nd "rider ,vith his ability to c·atc.:h the slightest ev1dence uf O\fncrship (1nere cabaHstic signs to me., for he ,vent far beyond coats of arnls or librgry stan1ps), he obvionsly deternlincd to teach me son1e lessons, in this the greatest area of his kno\\rledge, ,vhich I ,vould 11ever forget+ ,

· The climax came rapidly, and on the next to Jast manuscript. After astonish-1ng n1e mightily ,vith his quotation of the very nutnher and price of a certain English t.nanuscrjpt in t\vo sales of not tou recent dlltc, he asked n1e if I couldnit give him a piece of detective ,vork to do that \Vas a Jittlc bit harder. My heart beat fast, b cca use I suddenly real i :r.ed th u t on c of the t\vo n1an u scripts ] e ft had be en ·bought privately, and th at it had no let tc ring on j ts binding of dark pn tple ha rd-gra inc d m oroccot and even no orno. n1cnt ( Plate I \T).. I d ecj de d to hand hi rn the nlanuscript, and ask h1m to tell n1c ~vhat he could about it ·vdthout looking beyond th c fly 1 ea vesi on \V h icht to th c best of my kno-,v led g c, th ere \Vas not :3.

single mark~ He did even better than that. Holding the vo1nn1c in his hands ,vithout open-

jng it at alt, 'To,vnsend of Sheffield binding,' lir. beg-an, v,.ihilc I sta~ed at him in rimazement. I never had heard of such a bjndcr, and the binding certainly did not carry the name inside, let alone outside, ,vhich ,vas all that he ,vas looking at .. 1·ro\\rnscnd of Sheffield binding.,' he repeated for emph'1sisj I.bound -chiefly for Wil1ian1 Bragge, i\1ayur of Shcflic1d- sale at Sotheby 1s in Londoni June 7t l 876 - you kno,v that., i\1r Hof er! t I did not kno,v it1 so I <.:Ontinued to stare. I-le ,vent right on \Vithout opening the· book. ~,Villiam Ilr3gge, Mayor of Sheffield -m:1nuscrjpts sold to the 111archand-amateur Thibaudeau-Thibau-deau sold to Sir Francjs Cook- Sir Francis Cookt \'iscondc de .i\1onserrate near Cintra . . .. Is this a Portuguese manuscript, A-fr I-Io fer?.,

At that titnc the Ruy de Pjna manuscript ,vas possibly the only early Portn-gu csc manuscript outside the Hispanic Society in the United States. r had

. bought it private1y fron1 a. retired ci\~il servant in London io l 919. There had been no fuss about it, no sales record, no rnidd]eman; and a very modest u1nount of money h-ad been involved. I had never sho\vn itt so far as I can rcmcn1hcri to any other libradan or co11ector.

Therefore, this event ,viH ahvays remain in n1y mcn1ory as one of the. best bits of detective ,vork I have ever seen+ No doubt De Ricci ,vas lucky in one or another of hi~ deducrjons. Hut he certainly kne.;v that there "·'ere no Portu-guese nrnnuscripts jn the great collections that he had seen in America- like the ,valtcrs and ivlorgan- and he took a long chance 1 1vininglyt "\11hen he proposed such an orjgin.

ITio,vever remarkable Seymour De Ricci 1nay have hcen in other of his many c.:apacities~ h~ undoubtedly \Vas unrivaled in the field of provenance.

PHJLlP IrlOFER

Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume VI, Number 1 (Winter1952)

List of Contributors

Rol\fAN JAKOBSON, Sainucl 1--Jazzard Cross Professor of Slavic L-nngunges and Ll tcra turcs:i-FI a.rv a rd Uni vcrsi ty·

\:VI LLLi\1\1: A. J AcKSON, Professor of Ili bli og rap h y l nd A ssjsca nt Librarian of the College Library in charge of the Houghton Library, Harvard University

KEY.ES D. Ail ET CALF :i-Prof c~or of Bib] i ogra ph y I Director of the H arvatd Uni ver sity· Library, and Librarian of I·Iarvard Co11cgc

E1}\ v 1 E. \\' IL 1..1A 1'f s, Chief of the Acq u i s.i ti on De pa rtrn en t of the Harvard Col-lege Library ·

ll OTES. PEN nos E, Devon, Penn sy I \Tania

P1-1 IL l P H O'f-i l'~H, I .,tc..:ru re r on Fi nc A ra; > Curator of Print j n g and Graph.i c Arts in the College Library\ and Secretary of the ,,rillianl Hayes F-ogg A rt l\-iu-scum1 I-I ~.1','a rd Uni v_crsi ty

Cou RTNF.Y CRA lG S J\f l TH I Biccn ten n i al Prec.:e p tor and A 55 i stant Professor of Eng-]ish1 Princeton UniYersity

J\1ARY ,v ALKER 1 Li brar 1 an and Research Seer eta ry An1cri can Bo a.rd of C..orn rn is-r '

si oners for F orej gn 1\·lissions

H F.RBF.R T Dr r.cR :\1 AN 1' .. , As ~o c in te Pr of essor of French L-i re ra ture, 1-1 ar\;a rd Uni~ vcrsity

J\1. A. D £ \1/ OLF E Ho\YE, Boston, !\ 1a ssachuse tts Gr ,v~ COTTRELL.~ JR, Editor in tllc Harvnrd Unt\•ersity Library

J Ai\1ES Il+ MUNN, Professor of English~ H arl'a rd U n.i versi ty GEORGE SHERnURN :i-Prof cssor of Eng 1 i sh1 Harvard Uni ve rsi ty i\ 1 ABEL A. E. STEELE., Custodian of the l(eats .i\1 cm oria1 Coll ccti on:i-H a.rva rd Col-

lege Library ~.L\.Lv1N vV111TL"EY, Instructor in EngJish 1 University of ~'isconsin

BARBA RA N. PAR KER, A ssj s ta nt in American Painting, 1\.1 uscu nl of Fine Arts, Iloston

Anni A. N" A R+ SALE~ 1., Par is, F ranee