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Abstract
The third book of Galvaneus’s Cronica universalis contains an extensive geographical digression, which makes use of three kinds of sources: encyclopedic material, rather recent travel accounts (the ones by Marco Polo, Odoric of Pordenone, John of Pian di Carpine, John of Montecorvino and by a mysterious Dominican friar called Simon) and, most likely, oral testimonies. This article examines Galvaneus’s re-use of geographical sources, by reproducing and analyzing selected passages of the book (displayed both in Latin and in English translation). The purpose is to shed light on Galvaneus’s working method, on his knowledge of the world, and on the role he played in the survival of lesser-known or unknown texts.
Le troisième livre de la Cronica universalis de Galvaneus contient une digression géographique étendue qui utilise trois types de sources: du matériel encyclopédique, des récits de voyage peu antérieurs à son époque (ceux de Marco Polo, Odoric de Pordenone, John de Pian di Carpine, John de Montecorvino et d’un frère dominicain mystérieux qui s’appelait Simon) et, très probablement, des témoignages oraux. Cet article examine la réutilisation par Galvaneus de sources géographiques en reproduisant and analysant des passages choisis du livre (montrés en traductions latine et anglaise). Le but est d’éclairer la méthode de travail de Galvaneus, sa connaissance du monde, et le rôle qu’il a joué dans la survivance de textes moins connus ou inconnus.
El tercer libro de la Cronica universalis de Galvano contiene una extensa digresión geográfica que utiliza tres tipos de fuentes: material enciclopédico, relatos de viajes bastante recientes (los de Marco Polo, Odorico de Pordenone, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Juan de Montecorvino y un misterioso fraile dominico de nombre Simón) y, muy probablemente, testimonios orales. Este artículo examina la reutilización de fuentes geográficas por parte de Galvano mediante la reproducción y análisis de pasajes escogidos del libro (que se muestran tanto en latín como traducidos al inglés). El propósito es arrojar luz sobre el método de trabajo de Galvano, sobre su conocimiento del mundo y sobre el papel que desempeñó en la supervivencia de textos poco o nada conocidos.
PALABRAS CLAVE:
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Professor Paolo Chiesa and the anonymous reviewers of this article, who gave me precious suggests and valuable advice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 On Galvaneus Flamma see, Sante Ambrogio Céngarle Parisi, “Introduzione,” in La Cronaca estravagante di Galvano Fiamma, eds. Sante Ambrogio Céngarle Parisi and Massimiliano David (Milano: Casa del Manzoni, 2013), pp. 23–196; Paolo Chiesa, “Galvano Fiamma fra storiografia e letteratura,” in Courts and Courtly Cultures in Early Modern Europe. Models and Languages, eds. Simone Albonico and Serena Romano (Roma: Viella, 2016), pp. 77–92. An introduction to the Cronica universalis in particular is offered by Paolo Chiesa, “«Ystorie Biblie omnium sunt cronicarum fundamenta fortissima». La Cronica universalis di Galvano Fiamma (ms New York, collezione privata),” Bullettino dell’istituto storico italiano per il medioevo 118 (2016), pp. 179–216. The only manuscript that preserves this work is now held by a private owner in New York. It was transcribed at the end of the fourteenth century by Petrus de Guioldis, a copyist to whom other manuscripts containing Flamma’s works can be ascribed and who, allegedly, worked on a commission for the Visconti family. A description of this exemplar, together with a reference to Guioldis’s official task, can be found in Chiesa, “«Ystorie Biblie omnium sunt cronicarum fundamenta fortissima». La Cronica universalis di Galvano Fiamma,” pp. 181–84.
2 A bibliographic reference point on travel practice and missions to Asia, and on the reception of such travel narratives in Europe is Folker E. Reichert, Begegnungen mit China. Die Entdeckung Ostasiens im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1992).
3 For a stylistic and critic analysis of this prologue, in relation to Galvaneus’s production, see Chiesa, “Galvano Fiamma fra storiografia e letteratura,” pp. 89–92.
4 On this list, see “Geography in Galvaneus Flamma’s Cronica Universalis,” the contributors’ introduction to this special issue.
5 Polo and Odoric reported on places they actually visited but were in some cases influenced by the literary tradition when describing them. On the mixture of fabulous elements in Polo and Odoric see Irene Malfatto, Scrivere il viaggio. Analisi letteraria comparativa delle relazioni di viaggio francescane in Oriente tra Duecento e Trecento, Ph.D. dissertation (SISMEL. Corso di perfezionamento postuniversitario in filologia e letteratura latina medievale, 2017), pp. 76–8. Galvaneus is not the only one who considers Polo a reliable witness during the fourteenth century, which counters conventional wisdom that medieval readers understood Divisament as work full of fictional elements. On this topic and on the reception of the Devisement in general, see Kim M. Phillips, Before Orientalism. Asian Peoples and Cultures in European Travel Writing, 1245–1510 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), pp. 35–8.
6 Although it is yet to be determined which one of the Polian redactions Galvaneus used, references will be made here to the version by the Dominican friar Franciscus Pipinus from Bologna (d. 1327–28). An edition of it (from now on P) is offered by the digital critical edition: Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Dei viaggi di Messer Marco Polo viaggiatore veneziano (Navigationi et viaggi II, 1559), eds. Eugenio Burgio, Marina Buzzoni, Antonella Ghersetti, Samuela Simion, available at the link: http://virgo.unive.it/ecf-workflow/books/Ramusio/testi_completi/P_marcato-main.html (Accessed 7 July 2022). On the Latin redaction P and its transmission, see Christine Gadrat-Ouerfelli, Lire Marco Polo au Moyen Âge. Traduction, diffusion et reception du Devisement du monde (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 63–86.
7 The Relatio is indeed a travel account, and must be based on actual experience, but it is also a collector of fantastic narrative, because of the nature of its production and the complex history of its reception, just as the Devisement also turned out to be. The Relatio was not composed by the traveler himself, and the oral tale must have been enriched by William of Solagna with elements coming from the tradition of the East. Furthermore, along the transmission, the text was constantly adapted to the taste of the public and thus transformed, which gave origin to different versions of it, cfr. Phillips, Before Orientalism, pp. 41–2.
8 No critical edition of Cronica is available yet. The edition of the reported passages, any emendations (marked in the notes), and the translations are by the author of the article. Dr. Federica Favero is now working on a critical edition of Cronica. Galvaneus’s texts refers here to a content corresponding to Pipinus (P) I 62.
9 I.e. the fact that under the Equator there is a temperate climate and thus people can live there.
10 The mention of Polo depends here on an indirect quote from Pietro d’Abano’s Conciliator, a quite recent scientific work dating back to 1303–1310. The Differentia LXVII of the Conciliator deals with similar climatic topics by quoting Latin, Greek and Arabic scientific sources. Galvaneus uses it as a reservoir of material for his discussion on the climate zones, despite not mentioning it. A modern edition of Conciliator does not exist yet, but the text can be read here: Pietro D’Abano, Conciliator. Ristampa fotomeccanica dell’edizione Venetiis apud Iuntas 1565, eds. Ezio Riondato and Luigi Olivieri (Padova: Antenore, 1985). The Differentia LXVII occupies fols. 100v-103v.
11 This is an emendation for the lectio: ei fuit, which has no meaning in the context.
12 The reference edition for Odoric is: Odorico da Pordenone, Relatio de mirabilibus orientalium Tatarorum, ed. Annalia Marchisio (Firenze: SISMEL, 2016).
13 This content corresponds to: P III, 13, 21–35; and Relatio XII.
14 I chose to record these toponyms according to Galvaneus’s lectio or, better, to that of the manuscript, which in some cases may be a copyist’s misreading of what Galvaneus had written. I then reported the same Latin names in the translation, preferring not to modernize them, since the identification of the places quoted is not always unanimously accepted.
15 Ad magistrum means toward Mistral, the north-west wind.
16 I chose to refer to the Latin version P, when quoting the placenames used by Polo. On the digital edition Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Dei viaggi di Messer Marco Polo viaggiatore veneziano, eds. Burgio, Buzzoni, Ghersetti, Simion, by clicking on the toponyms in the text, it is possible to open windows dedicated to the identification of places in Polo’s geography.
17 See Paolo Chiesa, “Two Cartographic Elements in Galvaneus Flamma’s Cronica universalis,” in this issue of Terrae Incognitae.
18 See Paolo Chiesa, “Galvano Fiamma e Giovanni da Carignano. Una nuova fonte sull’ambasceria etiopica a Clemente V e sulla spedizione oceanica dei fratelli Vivaldi,” Itineraria 17 (2018), pp. 63–108; and Alessandro Bausi - Paolo Chiesa, “The Ystoria Ethyopie in the Cronica Universalis of Galvaneus de la Flamma (d. c.1345),” Aethiopica 22 (2019), pp. 1–51.
19 “De insula Taprobane. Versus eurum, ubi incipit occeanus Indicus, est insula Indie dicta Taprobane secundum Ysidorum. Et de ista terra dicit Plinius quod est sita inter ortum et occasum … ” (fol. 260ra-b). Afterward, in addition to Isidore and Pliny, Solinus is quoted too, as a key reference to the topic.
20 “Et quia, ut supradictum est, ultra equinoctialem sunt principaliter tria, scilicet terra delitiarum et terra refrigerii et antipedes, ideo de istis per singula dicendum evenit.”
21 I.e. higher up, likely south of this sea, if we imagine the perspective of a south-facing map, as Galvaneus himself utilized to orient himself. A wind map drawn on fol. 262 r of our manuscript shows just such an arrangement. On this map and on the south-oriented perspective see Paolo Chiesa, “Marckalada: The First Mention of America in the Mediterranean Area (c. 1340),” Terrae Incognitae 53:2 (2021), pp. 88–106: pp. 102–3.
22 From chapter 288 to 291, we find mentioned, in order of appearance: a Dominican friar named Simon, Ps.-Methodius, Peter Comestor, Ptolemy, Alfraganus, Clement of Alexandria, an anonymous poet reciting the line “Ignoti facie sed noti vellere Seres” (which surely comes from the correspondig quote in Isidore), Solinus, Papia, Ps.-Ambrose (actually Palladius), Martial, Honorius of Autun’s Ymago mundi and Bartolomeus Anglicus’s Liber de proprietatibus rerum: a high concentration of auctoritates, which for the most part are not mentioned first-hand.
23 By Ystoria Alexandri Galvaneus means one of the numerous texts associated to the tradition of the Alexander Romance, the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, a seventh-century Latin translation of a fictional letter included in the oldest Greek version of the Romance (see note 35 of this article). On the ancient and medieval tradition of the Romance see Richard Stoneman, “Introduzione,” in Il romanzo di Alessandro, vol. I, ed. Richard Stoneman (Milano: Fondazione Valla, 2007), pp. XV-LXXXVIII; Peter Dronke, “Introduzione,” in Alessandro nel Medioevo occidentale, eds. Mariantonia Liborio, Piero Boitani, Corrado Bologna, Adele Cipolla (Milano: Fondazione Valla 1997), pp. XV-LXXV.
24 They are Metodius (spelled without -h- in the manuscript), i.e. The Apocalypse or the Revelationes of Pseudo-Methodius, see Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen, ed. Ernst Sackur (Halle a.S.: Niemeyer 1898), pp. 1–96; the magister, by which Galvaneus means Petrus Comestor, the master par excellence, and the Ystoria Alexandri, namely the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem.
25 The identification with the Dominican friar and traveler Simon of Saint-Quentin, whose account (c. 1247) is preserved thanks to the indirect testimony of Vincent de Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale, is ruled out by the geographical incompatibility of the route. See: Simon de Sancto Quintino, Histoire des Tartares, ed. Jean Richard (Paris: Librairie orientaliste P. Geuthner, 1965).
26 The number three does not refer to three actual chapters, also because the first mention of the Friar is in chap. 288 and the last in chap. 289. The number must be linked to the three topics depending on Simon: the land of Etham, the Sandy Sea, and the Ceytis Sea.
27 Subsolanus in Latin, i.e. the east wind.
28 The Latin words perle and margarite have the same meaning, “pearl,” which is here the only word used in the English translation.
29 This is the lectio in the manuscript. Is is possible that it is meant to be an opal.
30 The spelling changes from Etham to Ethan in the manuscript, which I follow in the transcription.
31 Eurus in Latin, i.e. the south wind.
32 I chose here to normalize the graphic form, from Ystoria to Historia.
33 Galvaneus’s text reports: “And Methodius and the Master say that Ionichus, the fourth of Noah’s sons, reached this land, about whom it has previously been said, in the second book, at chapter … ” (“Et dicit Metodius et refert magister quod ad hanc terram venit Ionichus, quartus filius Noe, de quo habetur supra, libro secundo, capitulo … ”). Here, he also refers to a previous passage in his work but does not provide the chapter number, leaving a blank space instead. For the corresponding passage in Ps.-Methodius see: Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen, ed. Sackur, pp. 63–4; for Peter Comestor see: Petrus Comestor, Historia Scholastica. Historia libri Genesis, XXXVII, ed. Patrologia Latina, CXCVIII, col. 1088b.
34 Odoric also speaks of a mare arenosum, but his description of it has no common details with Galvaneus’s, cfr. Relatio V.
35 Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, ed. W. Walter Boer (Meisenheim am Glam: A. Hain, 1973), pp. 38–9.
36 That is the region that Julius Valerius, the Latin translator of the Greek Alexander Romance, calls “Prasiaca,” and that can be linked to Curtius Rufus’s Prasii, the people who, according to the author, used to live beyond the Ganges, see Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, ed. Boer, note to paragraph 3.
37 The term directorium has multiple meanings, depending on the context, and can be interpreted as a general direction, a moral standard governing behavior, an established route, or an astronomical tool. Conrad of Megengberg (1309–1374), in his Yconomica, and Friar Simon (in Galvaneus) both use the term with the same meaning, as we can see from this passage of Conrad’s: “and the sailors guide themselves at night in fine weather by the nautical star in the North, or, in the darkened night, by the direction of the artificial needle when the night is obscured” (“et dirigunt se marinarii nocturna serenitate per stellam nauticam in septentrione aut per directorium acus artificialis nocte obscurata et obtenebrata”). See: Die Werke des Konrad von Megenberg. Ökonomik, I, ed. Sabine Krüger, (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1973), in M.G.H. Staatsschriften des späteren Mittelalters, III, liber I, tract. 3, cap. 46.
38 The “silent trade” is a trope of the classic and medieval imagery of the East. A similar version of this exchange, which however displays different details, is found in the slightly later John of Marignolli’s description (1355–59) of the silent trade in Ceylon, which involves giants. See: Le digressioni sull’Oriente nel “Chronicon Bohermorum” di Giovanni de’ Marignolli, ed. Irene Malfatto (Florence: SISMEL, 2013), p. 22, available online: http://ecodicibus.sismelfirenze.it/index.php/iohannes-de-marignollis-chronicon-bohemorum-excerpta-de-rebus-orientalibus;dc (Accessed 25 September 2022).
39 The people of Seres boast a long-lasting fame and literary tradition that dates back to Pliny. They were mostly known to Europeans as silk manufacturers. On this topic see Peter Hopkirk, Foreign devils in the silk road: the search for the lost cities and treasures of Chinese Central Asia (Oxford: Oxford university press, 1980), pp. 19–23.
40 Chapter 291: “De trogogitis.”
41 As told by Ps.-Methodius (cfr. Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen, ed. Sackur, pp. 72–5), and according to a tradition that makes Alexander’s legend and the biblical peoples of Gog and Magog encounter in the East, the king imprisoned these savage and idolatrous populations among the mountains of Ubera aquilonis, an unidentified location which vaguely refers to the East or the North and also acquired the name Portas Caspias along the tradition. An overview of ancient and medieval sources on the relationship between Alexander and Gog and Magog is found in Malfatto, Scrivere il viaggio, pp. 83–5.
42 Polo does not attribute to Coilum the same elements of Galvaneus’s Columbus, but the latter must be the same city that Polo calls Coylum (P III 31), since it is known that from there the Columbian ginger is exported, see: Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Dei viaggi di Messer Marco Polo, eds. Burgio, Buzzoni, Ghersetti, Simion, link to the voice “Coulam”: http://virgo.unive.it/ecf-workflow/books/Ramusio/lemmi/Coulam.html (Accessed 7 July 2022).
43 Volturnus in Latin, i.e. the south-east wind.
44 “Et dicit frater Symon ordinis predicatorum, qui ibi fuit longo tempore, quod ista civitas est magis longa quam lata, posita in ripa fluminis sicut est Feraria. Et dicit quod circuitus burgorum, si esset muratus, haberet in circuitu plusquam iter unius mensis” (fols. 270vb-271ra).
45 Relatio XXIII: “Alongside this city a river flows, and next to it the city is located, as Ferrara itself stands near the Po. Sure enough, it is longer than wider” (“A latere huius civitatis labitur unum flumen. Iuxta quod sita est civitas hec, sicut Feraria ipsa manet iuxta Padum. Nam longior est quam lata”), see: Odorico da Pordenone, Relatio, ed. Marchisio, p. 187.
46 To read John’s text, see the critical edition, Giovanni di Pian di Carpine, Storia dei Mongoli, eds. Enrico Menestò, Maria Cristina Lungarotti, Paolo Daffinà, Luciano Petech, Claudio Leonardi (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1989).
47 Galvaneus must have read the Historia Mongalorum directly, without the mediation of Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum Historiale, which includes long excerpt from it at book XXXII. The indipendence of Galvaneus’s reading is shown in: Giulia Greco, “Viaggiatori mendicanti nelle opere di Galvano Fiamma,” Franciscana 22 (2020), pp. 225–66, especially pp. 232–6.
48 Excerpts from Historia Mongalorum I, III, V, VII, IX.
49 Excerpts from Historia Mongalorum V, VII.
50 The habit of drawing family trees is typical of Galvaneus, as some examples in the manuscript show (e.g. Saul’s genealogy at fol. 279v).
51 This and the following identifications are made according to the tabs linked to the toponyms, provided by the digital edition of Polo’s text: Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Dei viaggi di Messer Marco Polo, eds. Burgio, Buzzoni, Ghersetti, Simion. Galvaneus is reporting contents corresponding to P III, 9–46; and to Relatio XIII–XVIII.
52 P III 46.
53 See Chiesa, “Marckalada,” pp. 101–5.
54 Galvaneus returns to employing traditional legendary material coming from, e.g. the Historia Alexandri and Solinus.
55 P III, 2–3, 8, II, 64–66; Relatio XIII–XIV.
56 This is due to the fact that Galvaneus is here (in chapter 276) still citing Pietro d’Abano’s Conciliator (see note 10 of this article), who mentions Montecorvino as a source on astronomy topics, and refers to him as Iohannes Cordelarius. See: Greco, “Viaggiatori mendicanti,” pp. 241–7.
57 The first letter, from India, is only known thanks to a vernacular translation preserved in the manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. LXXVI. 74, ff. 187r-191v, whereas the other two, from China, are transmitted within the work of friar Elemosina (Liber memorialis diversarum historiarum, mid 14th century), known from two main manuscripts, only one of which transmits John’s letters: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 5006. John’s Epistolae are published in: Epistolae fratris Iohannis de Monte Corvino, ed. Anastaas Van den Wyngaert, in Sinica Franciscana I (Ad Claras Aquas Quaracchi, Firenze: apud Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1929), pp. 335–56. On John’s biography and on the tradition of his letters see: Malfatto, Scrivere il viaggio, pp. 29–38.
58 James D. Ryan, “To Baptize Khans or to Convert Peoples? Missionary Aims in Central Asia in the Fourteenth Century,” in Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, eds. Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 247–257, especially pp. 250–1.
59 This is an exaggeration by Galvaneus, since the letters inform that Montecorvino had only two churches built, cfr. Epistolae, ed. Van den Wyngaert, p. 353.
60 See Chiesa, “Galvano Fiamma e Giovanni da Carignano”; and Bausi and Chiesa, “The Ystoria Ethyopie.”
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Giulia Greco
Giulia Greco graduated at the University of Milan in Medieval Latin Philology with a thesis on Galvaneus Flamma’s Cronica universalis. She is currently Ph.D. student at the University of Trento and her doctoral project pursues a new critical edition of Rorgo Fretellus’s Descriptio de locis sanctis (12th century). [email protected]