Bernard Randolph

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Bernard Randolph (baptized 1643 in Canterbury , died probably after 1689) was an English merchant and author of two books on Greece .

Life

He was the son of the doctor Edmund Randolph (1600–1649) and his wife Deborah (née Master), owner of the Lessenden estate near Biddenden in Kent . His older brother was Edward Randolph (* around 1632, † 1703), who rose to high positions as an emigrant in New England . He represented him there in 1683 in his office as Deputy Collector of Massachusetts, but the colonists - like his brother before - met him with such hostility that after a few months he returned to England and filed a complaint with the treasury . His post was meanwhile taken over by another brother, Gyles Randolph, who died shortly afterwards, so that Bernard Randolph came to Massachusetts again for a short time in 1684 to fill the office.

He himself became a merchant and traded mainly with the Mediterranean region. In 1664 he settled in Smyrna . He lived in Greece from 1671 to 1679 and published two books about his travels in 1686-87, one on the Peloponnese and one on the Aegean Islands. He was particularly interested in the political conflict between the Venetians and the Ottomans, who were vying for supremacy in Greece at the time. His illustrated writings also contributed to enriching knowledge of the ancient ruins in Greece, and one of the first descriptions and views of the ruins of Mystras in Western literature comes from him .

In 1686 he received patent protection for the maps of the Morea that he had made so that they could not be reprinted by anyone else. The following year his work on the Morea was published in Dutch in Amsterdam.

His work was criticized in 1854 by Marquis Léon de Laborde , who accused him of having written parts of his work after hearsay, but in particular he accused him of having copied parts of his work at Spon and Wheler. He was probably referring to George Wheler , Jacob Spon : A Journey Into Greece, in Company of Dr. Spon of Lyons , 1682 or based on the French edition of 1679.

Works

  • The Present State of the Morea, Called Anciently Peloponnesus: Together with a Description of the City of Athens, Islands of Zant, Strafades, and Sergio . London 1686. ( Digitized 3rd edition 1689 on Google Books)
  • The Present State of the Islands in the Archipelago, or Arches, Sea of ​​Constantinopole, and Gulph of Smyrna; With the Islands of Candia, and Rhodes . Oxford 1687.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Noxon Toppan: Edward Randolph: Including His Letters and Official Papers from the New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies in America: with Other Documents Relating Chiefly to the Vacating of the Royal Charter of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1676-1703 . The Prince Society, Boston 1898. Volume 1, p. 3. See also: Parishes: Biddenden , in: Edward Hasted: The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent , Volume 7, (1798), pp. 130-141. Online: < http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63400 >
  2. ^ Robert Noxon Toppan: Edward Randolph: Including His Letters and Official Papers from the New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies in America: with Other Documents Relating Chiefly to the Vacating of the Royal Charter of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1676-1703 . The Prince Society, Boston 1898. Volume 1, pp. 187-188.
  3. ↑ Fani-Maria Tsigakou: The Discovery of Greece: Travelers and Painters of the Romantic Era . Thames and Hudson, London 1981. pp. 14-17.
  4. ^ Donald Francis MacKenzie, Maureen Bell: A Chronology and Calendar of Documents Relating to the London Book Trade 1641-1700 , Vol. III: 1686-1700, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 12; May 16, 1686.
  5. ↑ It appeared under the title De tegenwoordige Staet van Morea, van oudts named Peloponnesus, welck byna twee hondert jaren gewest is onder de Turkse Dominien, en nu ser onvolckt daer nevens een Beschrljvinge der Steeden, Casteelen en Eylanden der selve. Door Bernard Randolph, who heeft in the west geresideerd. Benevens den Oorlooge van de Republijcq van Venetien, aldaer gevoert in den Jaren 1684, 1685, en 1686 .
  6. ↑ Léon Laborde: Athènes aux 15e, 16e et 17e siècles , Volume 1, Paris 1854, p. 176, note 2.
personal data
SURNAME Randolph, Bernard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English merchant and author of two books on Greece
DATE OF BIRTH baptized 1643
PLACE OF BIRTH Canterbury
DATE OF DEATH after 1689