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ABSTRACT
In 1566–67, a renowned Sephardi rabbi of Salonica, Moses Almosnino, produced a multi-part vernacular work, a Romanized and abridged adaptation of which was published in Madrid in 1638 under the title Extremos y grandezas de Constantinopla. Since that moment, Almosnino’s multi-part and multi-genre work, eventually published in full as Crónica de los reyes otomanos, has been known as a travelogue. The third part of the full version in particular has been invariably described as a picturesque travel account of Constantinople, and its author as a keen observer. In this article, I will show that what has been taken for a trustworthy description of the Ottoman capital is, in fact, an idiosyncratic representation of this city in the form of a medieval treatise on its alleged climatic, socioeconomic, and moral extremes. Furthermore, rather than conveying Almosnino’s impressions in his own terms, this account heavily depends on several intertexts, including works by Hippocrates, Aristotle, Maimonides, Ibn Sinna, and other classical and medieval authors. As will become clear, due to its intertextuality, this work – one of the most misinterpreted in Sephardi literature – cannot be treated as a reliable source on Constantinople.
Acknowledgements
I thank Julia Phillips Cohen, Bruce Rosenstock, and John Zemke for their valuable comments on the earlier versions of this essay. I am indebted to the anonymous readers of this article for their questions and comments, some of which prompted me to go in new directions and arrive at unexpected conclusions. I am also profoundly grateful to Esperanza Alfonso and Simon R. Doubleday for their assistance and wonderful friendliness. Finally, I thank Sarah Goldberg for copyediting my essay with extraordinary care and consideration.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Olga Borovaya is currently a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, Mediterranean Studies Forum. She is a co-organizer and contributor for The Digitized Ladino Library at the Sephardic Studies Project at Stanford University (Ladino.Stanford.Edu). Her research focuses on Sephardi history and Ladino print culture in the Ottoman Empire. She is the author of numerous articles on Sephardi culture and three books: Modernization of a Culture: Belles Lettres and Theater of Ottoman Jews at the Turn of the 20th Century (Moscow, 2005); Modern Ladino Culture: Press, Belles Lettres, and Theater in the Late Ottoman Empire (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2011); The Beginnings of Ladino Literature: Moses Almosnino and His Readers (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2017. Forthcoming).
Notes
1 In this study, the term “Ladino” refers to the Ibero-Romance language used by Sephardim in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean from the sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century and by their descendants in other countries after World War II. On the target audience of Almosnino's vernacular works, see Borovaya, “Moses Almosnino's Epistles.”
2 This title was given to it by Pilar Romeu, who transliterated and published it. See Almosnino, Crónica de los reyes otomanos.
3 On these taxes, see Rozen, Individual and Community, 254–57.
4 See Borovaya, Beginnings of Ladino Literature, ch. 3.
5 On the structure of CRO, see Almosnino, Crónica de los reyes otomanos, 19 (Romeu's introduction).
6 On Cansino's reasons for publishing Almosnino's work, see Schaub, Juifs du roi d’Espagne, 66–78.
7 For instance, in his brief discussion of CRO as a whole, Eleazar Gutwirth suggests that “it recalls travel literature with its characteristic features: descriptions of cities, its informal character and personal anecdotes. It is a genre that flourished in the sixteenth century. It was intensely cultivated by travelers to the Ottoman Empire” (“Acutissima patria,” 30).
8 The most important of the very few articles on CRO are Pascual Recuero, “‘Crónicas otomanas’ de Moisés Almosnino;” Romeu and Hassán, “Apuntes sobre la lengua de la Crónica,” and Romeu's introduction to her edition of this work.
9 An astrological term referring to an apparent proximity of two planets.
10 The numbers in parentheses refer to the pages in Almosnino, Crónica de los reyes otomanos. All translations, unless otherwise stated, are mine. For the full translation of Extremes, see Borovaya, Beginnings of Ladino Literature, Appendix.
11 The numeric value of the Hebrew letters yod heh waw heh representing God's name is twenty-six.
12 On these theories and the regimens of health, see Bergdolt, Wellbeing.
13 Although the original is not extant, its Hebrew version produced in 1299 by Solomon ha-Me’ati has survived and was even translated into Latin in the sixteenth century. See Wasserstein, Galen's Commentary.
14 For a summary of Galen's non naturales, see Jarcho, “Galen's Six Non-Naturals.”
15 Richler, “Manuscripts of Avicenna's Kanon.”
16 On Almosnino's interests, see Borovaya, Beginnings of Ladino Literature, ch. 2.
17 For a discussion of the book's structure and content, see Almosnino, Regimiento de la vida, Zemke's introduction.
18 Olson, Literature as Recreation, 54.
19 See Manzalaoui, Secretum Secretorum.
20 Casco Solís, “Topografías médicas,” 214 n. 1.
21 Casco Solís, “Topografías médicas,” 229.
22 Casco Solís, “Topografías médicas,” 229. Here the dates are 1393 and 1547, respectively. Gutwirth believes that it was written between 1374 and 1381 (“Acutissima patria,” 26). However, the author mentions the epidemic of 1420 (de Aviñón, Sevillana medicina, 36). The title page of the 1885 edition indicates that the first edition appeared in 1545.
23 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. “Aristotle's Metaphysics.”
24 I discuss the rest in Beginnings of Ladino Literature, ch. 4.
25 Trans. T. Francis Adams.
26 Trans. E.W. Webster. However, there are only three elements – air, water, and earth – whereas fire is conspicuously absent from Extremes. I find a plausible explanation in Aristotle's idea formulated in Meteor. I.4, 341b15–16.
27 The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna is cited as Canon followed by the number of the section. Here, 178.
28 Maimonides, Treatise on Asthma, 73.
29 See Encyclopedia of Public Health, s.v. “Miasma Theory.”
30 De Aviñón, Sevillana medicina, 18.
31 See Varlik, Plague and Empire, 160–84.
32 De Busbecq, Turkish Letters, 180–90.
33 Varlik, Plague and Empire, 18.
34 For an insightful discussion of this question, see Hacker, “Superbe et désespoir.”
35 Maimonides, Treatise on Asthma, 74.
36 Canon, 332.
37 Maimonides, Treatise on Asthma, 74–75.
38 Maimonides, Regimen of Health, 27.
39 Maimonides, Treatise on Asthma, 130–31.
40 Canon, 802.
41 Maimonides, Treatise on Asthma, 31–32.
42 See, for example, Boyar and Fleet, Social History of Ottoman Istanbul, 195–98.
43 Dankoff, Ottoman Mentality, 10.
44 Saperstein, Jewish Preaching, 237.
45 Gutwirth also points to an instance of paranomasia (“Acutissima patria,” 36).
46 Dankoff, Ottoman Mentality, 153.
47 See, for example, “Climate of Istanbul.”
48 See Boyar and Fleet, Social History of Ottoman Istanbul, 160, 161.
49 Canon, 802.
50 De Busbecq, Turkish Letters, 54.
51 Also known as assilma.
52 De Busbecq, Turkish Letters, 53.
53 Rozen, “Public Space,” 343; Istanbul, 218.
54 Rozen, Istanbul, 220.
55 Benaim, Sixteenth-Century Judeo-Spanish Testimonies, 180–85.
56 See Yérasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” 294.
57 Yérasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” 279.
58 For a detailed discussion of various Jewish neighborhoods and their demographics, see Yérasimos, “Communauté.”
59 Yérasimos, “Communauté,” 124.
60 Yérasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” 291.
61 Yérasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” 291.
62 Yérasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” 293.
63 Yérasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” 292.
64 Yérasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” 293.
65 Yérasimos, “Communauté,” 127–28.
66 Rozen, “Public Space,” 338.
67 Rozen, “Public Space,” 338.
68 It is possible that in some cases I, too, took one health regimen for another or missed some.
69 Pascual Recuero, “‘Crónicas otomanas’ de Moisés Almosnino,” 76; Romeu and Hassán, “Apuntes sobre la lengua de la Crónica,” 162; Romeu's introduction to Almosnino, Crónica de los reyes otomanos, 34.
70 Gutwirth, “Acutissima patria,” 30, 33. Even Almosnino's praise of the city's architecture in the second chronicle is specifically intended to serve as another proof of Suleyman's wisdom rather than to glorify Constantinople.