Lorenzo De Monacis

Lorenzo De Monacis (* in Venice before the summer of 1351 ; † spring (?) 1428 ) was a Venetian notary, diplomat and orator, poet and historian. He was also chancellor in Candia , the capital of the Venetian colony of Crete, from 1390 to 1428 .

Life as a notary and diplomat

Lorenzo was born the son of the notary Monaco and his wife Magdalucia Rota in the municipality of San Martino in Venice. In his father's school he learned the craft of notary, as shown by some of his father's Monaco documents from 1365 to 1368 in which his son appears as a witness. To be a witness you had to count at least 14 years in Venice, so the oldest of these documents, which dates from September 4, 1365, reveals the terminus ad quem to which Lorenzo must have been born. Monaco made his will on July 20, 1371. Although Lorenzo was accepted into the notarii auditorum sententiarum in the same year , which earned him a salary, he, and with it his family, got into great economic difficulties. At his request, the Grand Council granted him an increase in his salary on September 29, 1374.

At this point, Lorenzo was already married. It is possible that his wife was a de Trentis, sister of the notary Simone, with whom he was in Hungary in 1388. From her he had a son who was named Monaco and who later became a canon in Crete .

Lorenzo was possibly notarius Venetiarum around 1376 , because earlier he could not get into this office due to his age, as the minimum entry age was 25 years. For the first time, however, it appears only on 21 July 1383 in the first patch from him and handed Testament . Presumably he was drafted into the general mobilization of available forces during the Chioggia War (1378-1381), but this has not been proven. It was not until July 1383 and March 14, 1384 that he reappeared in the sources as a notary who drew up a will.

On April 26, 1386 he was one of the notaries of the Maggiore Curia , which included those working in the area around the Doge and his advisers. After December 16 of the same year he traveled with Pantaleone Barbo the Younger to the court of King Sigismund . De Monacis was sent back to Venice by Barbo to receive assistance from the republic's navy, which the king requested. He completed his mission around April 1387, only to return again. Together with Barbo, he reached Zagreb on July 4, 1387 , where he met Maria von Anjou , who had recently been a prisoner of the Croatian ban János Horváti . Mainly through the efforts of the Venetians, Maria was freed from captivity on June 4, 1387.

The text of the relazione , the report that De Monacis had to deliver to the Signoria on Barbaro's instructions, has been preserved. It also contains statements about events and conversations in which he was a witness. He was still in Hungary on June 14, 1388 when he and the notary Simone de Trentis - probably his father-in-law - presented King Barbos with gifts. A little later De Monacis returned to Venice.

There he was entered in the list of applicants for the office of Cancelliere of Crete as successor to Domenico Grimani. In November 1388 he was elected against six competitors. This caused the resentment of Cancelarius camere Crete Pietro Conte, who tried in vain to defame De Monacis. On December 12, 1388 De Monacis notarized the cession of Argos and Nauplia by Maria von Enghien to Venice. He was also a witness of the subsequent swearing-in of Mary, who had to promise to marry only one Venetian patrician in the event of a marriage. Again he traveled between Venice and Hungary, and soon Crete back and forth. On January 22nd, 1389 he was in Venice, on February 10th he was invited to Hungary on a diplomatic mission. About the exit he was instructed to deliver a precise relazione . On January 18, 1390 he was solemnly introduced to the Chancellery in Crete, which he held until the end of his life.

On February 3, 1390, however, he was supposed to meet again, probably as an expert on the political problems of the region, with King Sigismund and Queen Maria. In the latter, he enjoyed great confidence. In March 1390 the Grand Council granted him the considerable sum of 60 ducats as compensation for the expenses and losses he had suffered through his diplomatic trips . On these trips he had traveled widely between Hungary, Slavonia and Germany. From now on he only left Crete for diplomatic assignments or for occasional stays in his hometown. So he traveled from there to France to achieve the liberation of Fantino Michiel. He had been captured and robbed by Guillaume de Vienne in revenge for the damage some Venetian galleys had done to his brother. In France he reached the ambassador Giovanni Alberti, who officially passed from the Signoria to the court of Charles VI. was dispatched after Guillaume de Vienne captured three more Venetians. On March 14, 1396, the king wrote to Guillaume, ordering him to release the prisoners, return their possessions and annul any signed declarations that the prisoners had signed.

On May 1, 1398, Lorenzo De Monacis is again attested to in Crete, where his son Monaco was now staying. It did not appear again in the sources until March 22, 1406, when he was allowed to return to Venice for six months because his brother Stefano had died, who in turn had nominated Lorenzo as Fideicommiss . Lorenzo probably traveled to Venice in early 1407. On the alliance treaty of the republic with the condottiere Pandolfo III. He appears as a witness to Malatesta on July 1, 1407. He was still in Venice on October 17th and it is unclear when he will get back to Crete. His presence there is documented in 1408 and 1409. On January 11, 1411, the Great Council allowed him to return home for another six months, this time because of the marriage of a niece.

It is unclear whether he used this permission, because he probably left Crete on April 14, 1412 at the earliest, in order to reappear there before March 7, 1413. On December 21, 1414 he was again in Venice, where the Great Council, after a positive decision from the Council of Forty , allowed him to stay for another six months. From 1414 to June 1415 he was back in Crete. After that he doesn't seem to have left the island. He worked as a notary, as documented documents from 1419 to 1428, with the exception of 1425, show. In 1422 and 1425 he was represented in Venice, so he never left the island.

After the death of his first wife, he married the sister of the notary at the Cretan Curia, Giorgio Paradiso. It was probably this woman who gave birth to his second son Giacomo, who in 1411 learned from Giorgio Candachiti, also a notary. Lorenzo De Monacis died in 1428.

Works as a historian, speaker and poet

Folio 137v in the Comedies of Terence, Bodleiana , Oxford

Little is known about his educational path, but in any case he had contact with highly educated people, for example with Francesco Barbaro , Leonardo Bruni , the doctor Guglielmo da Ravenna, then Carlo Zeno and perhaps also Petrarch . As can be seen from his works, he must have had extensive classical and medieval knowledge. He owned numerous books, including a Codex of Terence , which is now in the Bodleiana at Oxford. He received others on loan from Giovanni Conversini in 1388. He sent Barbaro an Iliad that is now in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, and perhaps he also had an odyssey that is kept in the same library. His cultural contacts in Crete cannot be identified from the sources. Although he confessed in 1416 that he had never studied Greek, he must have spoken it.

Around 1380 he was known in Venice for his poetic works, where he wrote in Volgare . Antonio Loschi recalls his verses and a work on the Chioggia War , but none of them have survived. Around 1388 he wrote a song in hexameters about the events of the years 1382 to 1386 in Hungary, with the aim of removing the suspicion of the queens Maria and Elisabeth that he had murdered Charles of Anjou-Durazzo , King of Naples. The song was dedicated to Pietro Emo, Duca di Candia , with an introductory text for Maria von Anjou, who became known by three names: Carmen metricum de Caroli Parvi lugubri exitio , Historia de Carolo II cognomento Parvolo rege Hungariae and Pia descriptio miserabilis casus illustrium reginarum Hungariae.

On 17 October 1407 he held in San Zaccaria the grave speech in honor Vitale Lando in the presence of the Doge Michele Steno ( Sermo ... in celebritate exequiarum q. Nobilissimi viri d. Vitalis Lando ). De Monacis often gave such speeches, but also, as shown by a speech on the millennium of Venice in 1421 (the city was based on a mythological foundation in 421). This city ​​praise , which he sent to Doge Tommaso Mocenigo , became known as the Oratio de edificatione et incremento urbis Venetae . He also sent a speech to Doge Francesco Foscari to encourage him to persevere in the war against Filippo Maria Visconti .

His main work was written between 1421 and 1428, a chronicle of Venice from its beginnings to 1354 in 16 books. This chronicle was published in 1758 under the title Chronicon de rebus Venetis . Later she received the title De gestis, moribus et nobilitate civitatis Venetiarum , as the author himself means in the Proömium . The title has come down to us from the speech on the occasion of the millennium. It is De origine Venetiarum. De vita, moribus et nobilitate Venetorum . What is unusual about his work is the compositional technique that breaks away from the annals , but also the extensive use of Byzantine sources. In this way he succeeds in creating a more balanced representation in connection with the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople (1204), especially since he uses the work of the eyewitness Niketas Choniates .

The chronicle was published by F. Corner in 1758 as Laurentii de Monacis Veneti Cretae cancellarii Chronicon de rebus Venetis ab urbe condita ad annum MCCCLIV sive ad coniurationem ducis Faledro , Venice 1758, pp. 1-320. In the same work, Corners Historia de Carolo II follows with an introductory section from the pen of Lorenzo De Monaci (pp. 323–338). The basis here is the Codex Vat. Lat. 11507 , f. 1-9. The relazione that emerged after returning from Hungary, the Relatio facta… pro parte nobilis viri ser Pantaleonis Barbo ambaxiatoris ad partes Hungariae in quantum tangit et spectat ad facta unionis et subsidii postulati was published in Magyar diplomacziai emlékék , Vol. III, edited by G. Wenzel, in Monumenta Hungariae Historica , Acta externa, Vol. III, Budapest 1876, pp. 623–625 and in Listine ... , in Monumenta spectantia historiam Slavorum meridionalium , Vol. IV, edited by Šime Ljubić, Zagreb 1874, n.340, p. 237 f. published. The speech for the millennium was edited by Mario Poppi: Un'orazione del cronista Lorenzo de Monacis per il millenario di Venezia (1421) , in: Atti dell'Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti CXXXI (1972–1973) 483–497, based on the Codex Marc. Latin XIV, 255 (= 4576) (erroneously assigned to Leonardo Aretino). There it bears the title Oratio elegantissima ad serenissimum principem et ducem Venetorum in laude et edificatione alme civitatis Venetiarum . The editor (p. 482) mentions that the manuscript is in ms. A. 201 of the Biblioteca comunale dell'Archiginnasio of Bologna, where it is recorded as Oratio de edificatione et incremento urbis Venetae (cf. Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio ).

Some of his works have not yet been edited. In cod. Vat. Lat. 5223 of the Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana , f. 58v – 59r are two letters that Lorenzo De Monacis wrote to Carlo Zeno. In the same codex, on folia 66r – 67v, there is the funeral oration for Lando. In the manuscript ms. Marc. latino XIV, 263 (= 4613) of the Biblioteca Marciana can be found on f. 1–5 the epistola ad excellentissimum et illustrissimum principem dominum Franciscum Foschari .

literature

• Giorgio Ravegnani: De Monacis, Lorenzo , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Vol. 38 (1990) 660-662.

Remarks

1. ↑ Chronicon de rebus Venetis from UC ad annum MCCCLIV , Venice 1758, Book IV ( digitized version )
2. ↑ Agostino Pertusi : Laurent De Monacis chancelier de Crète (1388-1428) et les sources byzantines de son ouvrage historique , in: Κρητικὰ Χρονικ XVIII (1968) 207-211.
3. ^ Edmund B. Fryde: Humanism and Renaissance Historiography , The Hambledon Press, London 1983, p. 9.
4. ↑ Digitization of the Munich digitization center .
5. ↑ Digitization (Munich Digitization Center).
6. ↑ digitized version .