Michele Membrè
Michele Membrè (* 1509 ; † November 1594 ) was one of the best translators of Turkish texts into Venetian and vice versa that the Republic of Venice could muster. He succeeded Girolamo Civran, who was appointed in 1534 , as the second holder of the office of state translator ( dragomanno ) .
Membrè was trained by Bernardo Benedetti, a wealthy Venetian merchant in Cyprus . He learned Turkish and Arabic in the markets of Syria and Anatolia. In August 1538, the Council of Ten in Venice, where they were looking for a suitable envoy to the court of the Shah of Persia, was informed that Michele Membrè was a candidate.
Membrè appeared in Venice and claimed to be the son of Circassian parents. During the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire , which began in 1537 and lasted until 1540, he was supposed to go to the Persian court as an envoy to negotiate an alliance with the Shah. Via Smyrna he traveled to Marand, the summer residence of the Shah, from whom he received a reply on September 14th. He negotiated until the summer of 1540 when he heard that Venice had entered into peace negotiations with Istanbul.
He returned via Hormuz , India and Lisbon in the summer of 1541. In Valladolid he received an audience with Emperor Charles V , to whom he submitted forged letters, probably from the Shah. He finally reached Venice in January 1542 via Avignon , Marseille and Genoa . There he presented his report to the Relazione di Persia , which is now in the Venice State Archives , Collegio , Relazioni, busta 25.
In 1543 he traveled to Constantinople with the Venetian bailò Stefano Tiepolo . After he was appointed dragomanno (also turcimanno ) in 1550 , all letters to the Ottomans initially ran over his desk. Above all, however, he translated for the Turkish traders in the city. He helped to select a first trading company, a Fontego dei Turchi , the Osteria dell'Angelo, which Bartolomeo Vendramin offered.
However, towards the end of his life, a nephew tried to murder him. Membrè drew up no fewer than 34 wills , seven of them in 1594. On the other hand, he maintained close contacts and friendships with everyone interested in trade with the East. These included, for example, Giovanni Battista Ramusio or the cartographer Girolamo Gastaldi , who described Membrè as extremely well-educated in the Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages. He played a considerable part in the map with Ottoman inscriptions created by Marcantonio Giustiniani in 1559 . It is possible that a map that has not survived and was created with his help served as a model for the map that was created in Antwerp and is now kept in the Juleum von Helmstedt library.
In 1579 he received an annual fee of 150 ducats from the state for his 37 years of activity as a translator, with permission to pass this on to an heir. At the same time he received the post of "pesador e scrivano alle biccarie", that is, a weigher and clerk at the butcher's shops.
Membrè was not only an excellent translator, but also demonstrated writing qualities in his reports on the messengers or ambassadors from the Ottoman court present in the city . At the same time, it provided extremely important information for historians.
swell
- Giorgio Raimondo Cardona (ed.): Relazione di Persia (1542) , Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1969.
- Alexander H. Morton (Ed.): Michele Membrè. Mission to the Lord Sophy of Persia (1539-1542) , University of London, 1993.
literature
- Nelly Mahmoud Helmy: Membrè, Michele , treccani.it
- Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, Alessio Bombaci: Inventory of the Lettere e Scritture Turchesche in the Venetian State Archives , Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010, p. XXIV.
- Antonio Fabris: The Ottoman Mappa Mundi of Hajji Ahmed of Tunis , in: Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies 7-8 (1993) 31-37.
Remarks
- ^ Edited by GR Cardona and F. Castro, Neapel 1969.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Membrè, Michele |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Venetian translator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1509 |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 1594 |