Michalli da Ruodo
Michalli da Ruodo , Italianized Michele da Rodi (Michael of Rhodes), (* before 1385 in Rhodes , † 1445 in Venice ) was a Venetian oarsman, ship's captain and trader who rose to the highest positions in the Venetian navy, which for non-nobles too were achieved. From 1434 he wrote two manuscripts which, in addition to his seven-page biography, contained numerous calculations useful for trade and calendar at the time, but also a section on astrology , one of the oldest portolans and the oldest treatise on shipbuilding. It was not until 2004 that Michalli was discovered as the author of the manuscript, which has long been attributed to someone else. Michalli sailed for four decades on merchant ships and warships from the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea to Flanders and London .
Life
Michalli da Ruodo, whose family is not known, but who probably spent his youth in Rhodes , began in 1401 as a simple rower ( homo da remo ) in the Venetian Navy. By 1422 he managed to rise to the position of assistant to the naval commander , that is to say to armiraio , with which he climbed the highest post not reserved for the city Venetian nobility. Michalli got to know the entire Mediterranean area on forty war and trade voyages. In addition, he traveled several times in trade matters to Flanders and London , and he took part in war trips against the Ottoman Gallipoli , in the battle for Thessaloniki (1423-1430) as well as in battles against pirates and in two important naval battles. In 1437 he went to Constantinople to escort Emperor John VIII on his journey to the west. When the emperor returned in 1439, this happened with the fleet with which Michalli rode as homo de conseio , one of the highest naval posts . As armiraio , Michalli sailed in 1440 with the fleet that King Janus of Cyprus brought his Venetian bride.
homo da remo (1401–1405)
If you follow his seven-page biography, which he wrote himself, Michalli was hired on June 5, 1401 as a rower on a Venetian ship that went to Manfredonia in Apulia. Probably, as the editors of the manuscript concluded from Michalli's Greek prayers, he had only recently come from Rhodes to Venice. It is unclear whether he was a slave or a suitor, came from a family of craftsmen or traders, or whether his father went to sea himself. Since 1291 his home island has been ruled by the Hospitallers , a military order that had arisen in the Holy Land . Than Me Alli went to Venice, which stretched Ottomans their empire further and further to the Balkans after their Sultan Bayezid I. was in 1396 succeeded in Nicopolis the defeat crusaders that the rest of the Byzantine Empire wanted to rush to the aid. At the same time the advance of Timur was announced in the east , which in 1402 inflicted a heavy defeat on the Ottomans . Venice, which controlled numerous islands and coastal towns especially in the Aegean Sea , had an increased need for rowers for its war and merchant navy in view of these dangers. However, the sea-ruling city had an agreement with the hospitalites that forbade it to hire slaves who had escaped.
In any case, life as a homo da remo was extremely hard and extremely dangerous. On the roughly 40 m long and 7 m wide, only a little more than 3 m high galleys , an average of 215 men gathered. Each rower sat with two other rematori on benches on either side of the main deck , and on which they slept. Usually there were 30 such benches with 180 rowers on board. So the men were forced to stay in place at all times, and they were exposed to all the rigors of the weather. Most ships were rowed sensile , that is, each man pulled his own oar, a little over eight meters long. These means of propulsion were so heavy that only two trains were made, which were interrupted by a train break. In addition, only half of the crew rowed. At the same time, one avoided the greatest heat of the day by setting off in the dark or at dawn to reach the next destination in the early afternoon. Despite being equipped with latin sails , the men rowed about a quarter of the way, even on long distances, such as the one to London or Alexandria . The first meal of the day usually consisted of biscotti , hard-baked, very dry and therefore durable, zwieback-like breads. There was also bread soup and maybe some cheese. Wine was seldom served, as was meat. One-sided nutrition, long periods of sitting, and the enormous loss of water often caused failures, similar to scurvy .
The first ship on which Michalli rowed was a guard ship, i.e. an escort ship that had the task of controlling and protecting the main routes of the Venetian trade, for example against pirates . This was especially true for the ship convoys, the mudue or the tired , that went to Constantinople , Beirut or Alexandria , but also to Flanders and from 1438 to Tunis . Usually such a guard consisted of four or five ships, so that the small fleet could muster 800 to 1000 men.
The skipper of the first ship on which Michalli sat on the row bank was Pietro Loredan , a very well-known fleet commander at the time. He went to Manfredonia to protect the grain ships in this room. In August 1401, Michalli was on board for two months, the ship was assigned to Corfu to support the fight against Ladislaus of Anjou , the king of Naples . He was crowned King of Hungary in 1403. Militarily, however, he could not prevail against Sigismund , who also made claims on Hungary and thus on Dalmatia . The latter directly affected Venetian interests. In 1409 Ladislaus sold his legal claims to Dalmatia for 100,000 ducats to the Republic of Venice . For Michalli the journey in 1401 went from Corfu to Candia, the Cretan capital, then back to Modon in the Peloponnese , which at that time was an important stopover for all long-distance traders and war fleets. Towards the end of autumn 1401 the ship returned to Venice.
But Michalli not only got involved in the conflicts between Venice, Hungary and the Reich, but also in the battles between Genoa and Venice. The two cities fought against each other for more than 100 years, like around 1350 to 1355. Genoa even tried to conquer Venice in the Chioggia War from 1378 to 1381. In 1403 Michalli, who apparently had a pronounced we-consciousness, commented on the victory of the Venetians over the Genoese with: "the time in which we broke Pozichardo". This is the name given to Marshal Boucicault , the Lord of Genoa. In March 1403, Carlo Zeno had received an order to prevent the Genoese, who, as it was feared in Venice, might be aiming in Cyprus , from capturing Venetian ships. The galley on which Michalli rowed was under the command of the sopracomito Andrea da Molin. But Boucicault attacked Beirut surprisingly , plundering Venice's ships lying there in the harbor and burning down the Venetian department stores. This news reached Carlo Zeno on September 9th, whereupon he sent the Andrea da Molin's ship to Venice to receive new orders. While this ship was on its way back from Venice, Venetians and Genoese met off Modon on October 7th. About 600 Genoese were killed in the four-hour battle, three galleys with about 400 men on board fell into the hands of the Venetians, who in turn lost 300 men and one galley. Michalli was not involved in this fight because his ship, with orders not to get involved in a fight, reached Zeno only one day after the sea battle.
Michalli only served once as a simple rower as part of the watch drives , because in 1405 he was hired as a proder . It was his job to teach newcomers to the rowing bench everything they needed and to ensure that they kept to a common rhythm. The year before, Michalli had rowed on a trading galley that had traveled in a convoy of ships to Flanders, where he often went later. These trade trips were especially worthwhile because overland trade had become almost impossible due to constant wars, just as the French trade fairs suffered considerable trade losses. The four or five galleys of the Flanders mudua usually left Venice in late April or early May to head for Lisbon first. From there it went north to London, Sandwich or Southampton . The rest went to Sluys . The goods went from there to Bruges through a system of canals . Towards the end of the year the ships returned to Venice.
For the Rhodian, this trip had the great advantage that he was allowed to ship duty-free goods on his own account, a right of the teams, which was called portata . The dimensioning of the quantity and the value depended on the rank within the naval hierarchy. Since a rumor of the arrival of the ship convoys drove up prices, it was worthwhile for the crews to buy or sell their goods right on the quay. But you could also sell your portata . Michalli was part of this trade from his first trip. On his next trip as a proder , he went to London in 1406.
nochiero (1405-1413)
As early as 1405 Michalli was occasionally serving as a nochiero , probably because one of the men had failed. Michalli recorded this as the first great tribute to himself. He was now allowed to sleep below deck, he was allowed to dine at the officers' table and the food became significantly better. In addition, his ambition was now more clearly perceptible. In 1407 he returned as a nochiero on one of the guard ships, then he worked on merchant and warships alike until 1413. Michalli was one of eight nochieri , although it is not clear what precise tasks such a man had to carry out at that time. Under the eyes of paron and comito , his superiors, he now learned everything about ballast and stowing, anchors and rudders , but above all about sailing.
Michalli was on guard ships from 1407 to 1410 in the newly acquired rank. Little is known about the fighting, except that some pirates were found in 1409 in the Aegean Sea. In the foreground, however, was the battle for Dalmatia against the Hungarians. At the same time, local magnates were fighting for their independence, and the Ottomans increasingly interfered. In 1407 an Ottoman army occupied Lepanto on the Gulf of Corinth . A Venetian fleet led by Fantin Michiel was able to take the city in a surprise coup without a fight. The leader of this coup was Michallis sopracomito Bertuccio Diedo. Its troops consisted of crossbowmen , among them Michalli. But the attack ultimately failed at the fort above the city. After the peace treaty, the city returned to Venice, but was finally conquered by the Ottomans in 1444.
Michalli drove to Flanders every year from 1411 to 1413, where he was able to use his increased portata . But above all, he learned how to navigate a galley, he learned the use of the compass, nautical charts and arithmetic.
paron (1414-1420)
In 1414 Michalli first served as paron in the watch fleet . Thus he received orders only from the comito , who was subordinate to the sopracomito on warships and to the patron on merchant ships . At the same time, Michalli became one of the three highest officers on board. Presumably already at this time the paron had the task of clearing the newly built ship for departure. These new ships were practically only equipped with anchors and masts. Everything else was the responsibility of the paron , from the ropes and ropes to the canvas and the weapons. At sea he supervised the work of the nochieri and the homini da remo .
In his new role Michalli served on guard ships in 1414 and 1415. When he returned to Venice in 1415, his wife Dorotea had died. He probably married her after his arrival in Venice, because their son Teodorino, who accompanied their father on a trip in 1422, must have been at least 16 years old at the time. Apparently Dorotea was a Venetian because Michalli inherited a number of privileges of Venetian citizens.
In 1416 Michalli took part in the Battle of Gallipoli , the first sea battle between the Venetians and an Ottoman fleet. The underlying conflict escalated since 1415 when a Turkish fleet attacked a convoy returning from the Black Sea . The ships fled to the port of the Venetian Negroponte , but the Turks attacked the city in early December. They kidnapped 1,500 Greeks from the surrounding area into slavery. An envoy to Sultan Mehmed I was accompanied by a strong fleet under Pietro Loredan, which entered the Dardanelles on May 27th . After a few skirmishes on land, an open sea battle broke out, which lasted from early morning until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Michalli's men managed to capture a galleota , a small galley with 23 benches, then another with 19 benches. With two other ships, Michalli's men fought with the Turkish flagship, killing the Turkish admiral and seizing his ship. A total of 12 Venetians died and 340 were injured. Several hundred Turks died and 1,100 were taken prisoner. Among the prisoners was Giorgio Calergi , a Cretan who long ago led an uprising against Venice. Loredan ordered the seriously injured man to be cut into four on the puppet deck . The remaining prisoners were Christian sailors, whom Loredan had put down as a warning to other Christians. Michalli only noted the "victory over the Turks" in his manuscript.
In 1417 Michalli sailed as a homo de conseio , so for the first time he was allowed to advise a skipper on a trade voyage and give instructions to the traders. But this position was an exception. It was not until 1430 that he received this title permanently. In 1420 he went again as paron . In 1419 Michalli was given command of a galleota . Michalli proudly described himself as patron . Otherwise he served in the fight for the Albanian Drivasto .
comito and armiraio (1421–1434)
From 1421 to 1434 Michalli drove as a comito with the Romania Mudua. This was called after the "Romania" because the Venetians called the area of the Byzantine Empire between the Danube and Eastern Anatolia so. With the new position, he de facto commanded a galley. Only the sopracomito stood above him in the case of a military operation, or the patron in the case of a civil enterprise. In addition to the duties of a skipper, as one understands a captain today, with unrestricted authority, he also negotiated with the pilots . Michalli worked for the first time as a comito on a trading galley , but he drove with the said guard ships for seven years alone.
In 1422 Michalli even became armiraio in Nicolo Capello's fleet. Michalli had thus reached the highest possible level of such a career, because the even higher positions were reserved for the Venetian nobility. He commanded an entire fleet with it. The armiraio served on the flagship and was responsible for all fleet movements, as well as for the welfare and discipline of the crew. He was only given such an honor in 1428, 1436 and 1440. Nevertheless, the year 1422 was also an extremely bad year for Michalli, because in that year his son Teodorino died. It is not known what he died of.
When Murad II inherited the Ottoman throne and Venice gained control of Thessaloniki in 1423 , a conflict arose between the two powers. Murad had the Venetian ambassador arrested and besieged the city. Michalli again served as comito under Pietro Loredan, who had the order to force negotiations through looting in the Gallipoli area. In 1425 he served in the same position under Fantin Michiel, who was commissioned to attack the Ottoman fortifications around the besieged city. In one such attack, in which Michalli participated, 40 Turks were killed and 30 were captured. The fleet then attempted another attack on Gallipoli, but this time it was repulsed. 60 men were killed. The besieged Thessaloniki had to be supplied with food, for which Michalli's fleet drove into the Black Sea in 1426 and 1427.
The year 1428 saw Michalli again on one of the guard ships, but this time as armiraio in the fleet under Andrea Mocenigo, whose orders he handed down. It was unusual that the undertaking lasted until 1429, when Mocenigo received an order to attack Gallipoli and liberate the Venetian ships that were locked there. When the ships arrived there on June 30, 1429, however, they found that the Turks had built a huge palisade around the port. At first, the attack that Michalli seems to have planned, if one follows his notes, was successful. But when Michalli's ship and a few others had already entered the port, the other skippers refused to obey his orders and to move up. Through the narrow gap that Michalli's ships had broken when penetrating the palisade, they now had to flee under heavy fire. Despite the refusal to give orders, the skippers received only mild sentences. Saloniki fell for good in 1430. That year Michalli went to Flanders as homo de conseio .
However, this was less due to the strength of the Ottomans than to the fierce fighting that broke out with the Milanese Filipo Maria Visconti , who had gained control of Genoa. Again under Pietro Loredan, Michalli drove towards Genoa in 1431, where the fleets met on August 27 near the city. The Venetians achieved a quick victory within two hours, in which, however, hundreds lost their lives. Michalli was also so badly injured that he wrote that he had "returned home wounded and broken." Nevertheless, in 1432 he drove under the Loredan again to prevent the Genoese from a vengeance. However, by the end of the war in 1433, the Genoese sacked Corfu and some islands in the Aegean Sea.
Michalli, who had already sailed to Tana in the Black Sea in 1421 and 1427 , and to Trebizond in 1426 , headed for Alexandria on a trading galley in 1433. However, with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, but above all with the changed policy of the Genoese, the eastern Mediterranean became considerably more difficult to navigate again. As early as 1423, the Alexandria Mudua was merged with the Beirut Mudua. On this occasion Michalli could have paid a first visit to Rhodes since 1401.
In 1434 Michalli drove for the first and only time to Aigues-Mortes in southern France, where a Mudua also drove for some time. From there it went on along the southern French and Catalan coasts. He also passed Genoa. Michalli had not planned to take part in this mudua, because he wanted to go to Flanders. Although he was elected, the Senate had conceded this election because of illicit influence. In response to such complaints, the Senate also increased the amount of goods that seafarers were allowed to sell on their own account.
In addition, since 1430, non-noble seafarers had to give the names of their ship commanders and confirm that they had been fully rewarded. Michalli's work could be a reaction to these changes in the law, because the work was started in 1434 and, according to the written analysis, it was apparently written in one go until 1435. This was followed by additions up to 1443, but the manuscript shows increasing changes, probably due to the increasing age and the physical weakness of Michalli.
homo de conseio (1435–1443)
The years 1435 to 1443 saw Michalli of Rhodes at the height of his career; twice as armiraio and only once below the position of homo de conseio . Such a 'man of the council' was only provided on trading galleys, but the sources contradict each other with regard to the list of duties for this position. Perhaps he was some sort of navigator , but usually this was a task already comito or paron , assisted by the nochieri . Nor was he their superior. Perhaps Michalli advised the shareholders who often traveled with him, but he was by no means hired. It was customary for civil servants to be selected from around 30 eligible men in an electoral process of the highest standard. Michalli was only elected by this body, the Collegio , in 1430 . This college consisted of the Doge and his closest circle of advisers, a total of 21 nobles. It is possible that Michalli wrote his manuscript precisely because of this electoral process, because it enabled him to prove his talent, his experience and his successes. Perhaps the attraction of this position for experienced sailors lay in an even higher portata .
In 1436 Michalli once again went to Flanders as armiraio under the command of Franzesco Chapello. When Michalli returned from this trip, he found that his second wife, Cataruccia, had died.
In 1437 he went to Constantinople to give Emperor John VIII safe conduct for his journey to the west. With this trip, the emperor tried to win over the Western European powers to help the Byzantine Empire, which now consists almost entirely of the capital. At the Councils of Ferrara and Florence he tried to overcome the schism of 1054 and to reunite the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. When the emperor returned in 1439, this happened with the fleet with which Michalli rode as homo de conseio .
As armiraio , Michalli also sailed in 1440 with the fleet that King Janus of Cyprus brought his Venetian bride before she went on to Beirut.
In addition to these military and diplomatic tasks, Michalli drove in 1435 to Moncastro , an unusual destination for the Romania Mudue, on trade matters. This marked the beginning of a short-lived attempt by Venice to open a new trade route to Russia and Central Asia via this port on the west coast of the Black Sea . Michalli saw further trade trips in 1438 in London, in 1441 in Flanders and in 1442 in Alexandria. On his last trip he came to London again in 1443.
Stadtwaage, illness, testament, second manuscript and death (1444–1445)
In 1444 Michalli no longer took part in the elections and in 1445 he could no longer obtain any of the higher offices. Instead, on January 28, 1445, he received one of eleven posts at the Stadiera , the public scales of Venice. Such a position was regarded as an old age post for deserving public servants, because Michalli was now at least 60 years old. In July, Mich Alli took a notary in his home to be in 1441 be translated Testament to change. It says that although he is sick, he is healthy in mind and soul. He reduced the legacy for one of his former slaves and the donations for a hospice , because he now needed the money himself because he was sick.
This condition may have been the reason why Michalli began writing a second manuscript in 1444. He transferred large parts of his first writing, but left out the long passages on shipbuilding and mathematics. This is how his Raxion de 'Marineri came about , a methodology that was more aimed at seafarers. Shortly after his last will was drawn up, Michalli died. His third wife, Menegina, of whom we know nothing else, survived him.
His manuscript came to the Venetian seaman Pietro di Versi (around 1420–1484). Michalli's name was scraped off and that of the new owner who might have bought the manuscript was written over it. For centuries, Di Versi was considered the author of the manuscript.
The manuscripts
The 1434 manuscript was rediscovered in a private collection in 1966, but it was not until 2000 that the new owner granted access to the manuscript to the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology .
"Michalli da Ruodo" mentions his name only twice in the 440-page manuscript written in the Venetian language. Only two Greek prayers refer to his origins, which he wrote phonetically in the Latin alphabet.
The manuscript is a book, the content of which lies between two bindings. It initially gives the impression that the author is following the tradition of medieval handbooks that were written for trade, such as the Zibaldone da Canal or Pegolottis Pratica della Mercatura . However, the typical treatises for this genre on weights and measures, on money and coins, taxes, customs duties and levies, or observations on trading conditions in the various regions are missing. Both types of text are also characterized by the fact that their content comes from older works and was therefore not always of direct practical value to contemporaries. It was therefore often a text tradition.
content
In fact, the work begins with mathematical problems that are always related to trade, which alone comprise 90 folia . These start with simple problems that become increasingly complex. This procedure is part of the abacus tradition founded by Leonardo Fibonacci († after 1240). Apart from the description of the handling of the marteloio , a proto-trigonometric technique for calculating the course (f. 47a – 48b), Michalli's mathematical explanations are not related to shipping. The seven-page biography of Michallis, which immediately follows on the same position, was apparently added in one go, so that the hard break between the topics cannot be traced back to a new arrangement of the book. It is intended.
As was traditional, Michalli added passages from other authors to the 100 or so folia that follow his seven-page biography. In this tradition he relies on astrological material, which he adds here and there to a calendar of saints , followed by self-drawn signs of the zodiac . Folio 111 is followed by a copy of the 1428 orders that Andrea Mocenigo gave to the Venetian fleet, followed by instructions for ships entering Venice. Then comes the only entry where Michalli gives the author. This is a Portolan from Juan Pires, pilot from Flanders, for the route from Cádiz to Bruges. Michalli added two more portolans, one for Puglia and one for the bay of Thessaloniki. Pires is followed by a detailed description of how to cut canvas . Then there are Easter calculations, which are related to the phases of the moon , a topic that again offers a certain connection to seafaring. Michalli does not return to the topics that were part of the sailors' minds, such as the tides depending on the moon , until the end of the manuscript, while the Easter calculations at this point have an explicitly liturgical character. Finally, there are 50 pages of color depictions of ships that have attracted the most attention to the manuscript since its discovery, because the five illustrated texts represent the oldest depiction of shipbuilding.
This section can be thematically divided into two groups. The first contains three treatises on galleys, i.e. the Flanders, Romania and the light class, the latter serving military purposes and the first two commercial purposes. The Flanders class was intended more for Atlantic traffic, the Romania class for those on the Mediterranean. The second group comprised ships with latin sails and a cog type adapted to the Mediterranean conditions . Michalli does not describe how to build a ship step by step, but mainly provides dimensions and information on the rigging . Alan M. Stahl assumes that he received this information, which was certainly subject to state secrecy, from Nicolo Palopano, the superintendent of shipbuilding, whom the Senate had brought from Rhodes to Venice in 1424 at considerable expense. The section on the second group revolves around private shipbuildings built in shipyards ( squeri ) outside the arsenal. It provides less technical dimensions, but reports (“we”) narrative about such buildings, which can be seen as an indication of another source of information.
Michalli added his own invention to folio 147b, armor with a helmet and an "M" on it. It is unclear what message is connected with the rodent above it, which is holding a bleeding cat, and the turnips depicted to the right and left of it, which Michalli placed in such an exposed position on a recto side.
The last treatises on shipbuilding are followed by prayers, including the two mentioned in Latin script but in Greek. Then come back math problems and portolane. Michalli's hand ends on folio 202 with a depiction of St. Christophorus carrying Jesus in his arms. This page must have been in use a lot because it has the most traces of it. The following 40 pages are mostly empty, some of them obviously carry portolans from a different hand. Finally, in 1473, the will of a Venetian seaman was added.
Overall, the work is hardly suitable for serving practical purposes. It gives the impression that the author wanted to shine with detailed technical knowledge, although this had little to do with his work, because he was by no means a shipbuilder . Therefore, it appears that the main motive for the plant was a different one. Michalli was indeed driven by the interest in the subject of his depiction himself, and he also brought it into a handy format for travel, but he apparently tried to use the handwriting to increase his chances in the elections for armiraio or homo de conseio, i.e. the 21 men to impress on the electoral body. But he probably also wanted to pass on his knowledge. Therefore, the manuscript is also a document for the changing knowledge culture of the early Renaissance . A kind of application folder was created that demonstrated knowledge and teachers, and thus social contacts, which could also be a textbook, a seafaring manual.
effect
The second manuscript, the Raxion de 'Marineri , was created between 1443 and 1445 and is now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Ms. It., Cl.IV, 170 (= 5379)). It was edited in 1991 by Annalisa Conterio. Until 2004 it was believed that Pietro di Versi was the author, but then Franco Rossi and Piero Falchetta from the Michael of Rhodes Project were able to use ultraviolet light to make Michallis' name visible.
But first paron Giovanni da Drivasto took the manuscript out to sea. In 1473 he wrote his last will on some of the blank pages of the manuscript. Another owner attached unpaginated pages with portolans while Michalli's pages are paginated.
It is believed that the manuscript found its way into the collection of the humanist Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485–1557). Shortly after 1500, three copies were made of the pages dealing with shipbuilding. The one that Ramusio himself made came to Florence , where it became known as Fabrica di galere - it is now in the Florentine Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (Coll. Magliabecchiana, Cl. XIX, cod. 7.). Other parts of the original Pietro di Versi manuscript were in turn copied and ended up in various collections where they were ignored. Michalli's manuscript went unnoticed.
In the 1830s, however, Auguste Jal rediscovered the copy for shipbuilding in Florence. The then well-known specialist in the history of shipbuilding called it Fabrica di galere and edited the part on galleys “Memoire no. 5” of his archaelogy Navale from 1840. He added a French translation to this. The author of the manuscript remained unknown, although it was clear that there must have been an older model.
Michalli's manuscript was acquired by Frederico Patetta (1867–1945), a historian at the University of Turin , in the early 20th century . It is unclear whether he resold it or whether this was done through his heirs. In any case, it was offered at Sotheby’s in 1966 . Although historians tried to do so, the manuscript was bought by an unknown bidder, and it disappeared again. Only when it was offered again by the same auction house did it appear again in 2000. The new owner made the source available to the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology in Cambridge (Massachusetts) . With the help of funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation , an international team was able to research the manuscript and set up a website in addition to a printed publication.
Research project and edition
To research and publish the manuscript, the Michael of Rhodes Project was created under the direction of Pamela O. Long , Alan M. Stahl and David McGee. Michalli wrote a second manuscript, that of A. Conterio under the title Pietro di Versi, Raxion de 'marineri. Taccuino nautico del XV secolo was published. This text was published in English in 1994: John Dotson (Ed.): Merchant Culture in Fourteenth Century Venice: the Zibaldone da Canal , Binghamton 1994. and co-editor of the three-volume Book of Michael of Rhodes. A Fifteenth Century Maritime Miscellany , a work released in 2009.
The project, which began in 2003, is led by Doctores Pamela O. Long, a freelance historian, then David McGee, Research Director of the Burndy Library, and Alan M. Stahl, curator at Princeton University. In addition to the aforementioned supporters, there are The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation , the Burndy Library, the Dibner Fund and the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology .
The project includes Dieter Blume , Professor of Medieval Art History at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena , Mauro Bondioli, naval archaeologist and specialist in early Venetian shipbuilding, Piero Falchetta from the Venetian Marciana Library, Raffaella Franci, mathematics and computer science professor at the University of Siena , Franco Rossi, palaeographer and Vice Director of the Venice State Archives and Director of the Treviso State Archives , and Faith Wallis, Professor of Social Medicine at McGill University in Montreal , specialist in Medieval Chronology and Medical History .
literature
- Pamela O. Long , David McGee, Alan M. Stahl (Eds.): The Book of Michael of Rhodes. A Fifteenth Century Maritime Miscellany , 3rd volume, Cambridge 2009.
- Annalisa Conterio (Ed.): Raxion de 'marineri. Taccuino nautico del XV secolo , Comitato per la Pubblicazione delle Fonti Relative alla Storia di Venezia, Venice 1991.
- Piero Falchetta: Il portolano di Michele da Rodi , Biblioteca Marciana, Venice 2010. ( online , PDF)
Web links
- Digitization of the manuscript with Italian and English transcription or translation
Remarks
- ^ Alan M. Stahl : The Book of Michael of Rhodes and the Merchant Manual Tradition , in: Revue Numismatique 167 (2011) 201–210, here: p. 204.
- ↑ Alan M. Stahl: The Book of Michael of Rhodes and the Merchant Manual Tradition , in: Revue Numismatique 167 (2011) 201–210, here: p. 204 f.
- ^ The Book of Michael of Rhodes: A Fifteenth-Century Maritime Manuscript , Medievalists.net.
- ^ Alan M. Stahl: The Book of Michael of Rhodes and the Merchant Manual Tradition , in: Revue Numismatique 167 (2011) 201–210, here: pp. 201 f.
- ^ Alan M. Stahl: The Book of Michael of Rhodes and the Merchant Manual Tradition , in: Revue Numismatique 167 (2011) 201–210, here: p. 205.
- ^ Alan M. Stahl: The Book of Michael of Rhodes and the Merchant Manual Tradition , in: Revue Numismatique 167 (2011) 201–210, here: p. 207.
- ^ Alan M. Stahl: The Book of Michael of Rhodes and the Merchant Manual Tradition , in: Revue Numismatique 167 (2011) 201–210, here: p. 207.
- ↑ Annalisa Conterio (ed.): Pietro di Versi. Raxion de 'marineri. Taccuino nautico del XV secolo , Comitato per la Pubblicazione delle Fonti Relative alla Storia di Venezia, Venice 1991.
- ^ Augustin Jal: Archéologie Navale , Paris 1840.
- ↑ Pamela O. Long, David McGee, Alan M. Stahl (Eds.): The Book of Michael of Rhodes. A Fifteenth Century Maritime Miscellany , MIT Press, 2009.