A Chalice from Venice for Emperor Dāwit of Ethiopia

Author(s): Marilyn E. Heldman

Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London ,
1990, Vol. 53, No. 3 (1990), pp. 442-445
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African
Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/618118

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A CHALICE FROM VENICE FOR EMPEROR DAWIT
OF ETHIOPIA

By MARILYN E. HELDMAN

The various documents concerning Emperor Dawit's embas

Republic of Venice in 1402 have been brought together in Carlo Conti
article of 1927 on European influence upon Ethiopian art before the co
Jesuit missionaries in the mid sixteenth century.' The purpose of this b
is to expand the story of Dawit's embassy with a short document, wh
some light upon the motives for this and subsequent Ethiopian em
European nations during the period before the Adalite invasions t
in 1529.
An embassy from the Ethiopian court of Dawit (r. 1382-1413), or Prester
John, the title by which the ruler of Ethiopia was known in Europe during this
period,2 arrived in Venice before 23 June 1402 with gifts that demonstrated the
embassy's good will. A letter written from Padua on 23 June of that year
mentioned some gifts, exotic by local standards, that had arrived in Venice with
the embassy of Prester John.3 Deliberations of the Grand Council of the
Republic of Venice dated 22 July 1402 confirm the item of news found in the
letter of the previous month. The record noted that the Prester John had sent
pleasing gifts, including four leopards and aromatic gums, and that the council
voted the amount of 1,000 gold ducats to be spent on gifts in order to
reciprocate the offerings of Prester John.4 A document of 10 August noted that
the envoy of Prester John was returning to Ethiopia with a group of artisans:
Vito, a painter of Florence, then living in the San Lio quarter of Venice; an
armourer from Naples who lived in Padua; Antonio of Florence, living in
Venice, a mason, not a master, but a journeyman; his partner, Antonio of
Treviso, a journeyman working in both Venice and Treviso, who made tiles and
bricks; Antonio of Florence, a carpenter or joiner, who was at that moment
imprisoned in Venice.5 Notice of the return of the embassy to Ethiopia from
Venice appeared in a letter sent by the Doge on 26 August 1402 to the Duke of
Candia, Crete, which was received by the latter on 28 September 1402. The
letter named Antonio Bartoli of Florence as the agent or envoy of Emperor
Dawit.6 There is, unfortunately, no documentation concerning the arrival of
Bartoli and the artisans at their ultimate destination-the Ethiopian court.
The item that this article brings to bear on the history of the Ethiopian
embassy of 1402 is taken from a copy of an inventory of the sanctuary of San

'C. Conti Rossini, ' Un codice illustrato eritreo del secolo xv ', Africa italiana: Rivista di storia e
d'arte. I, 1, 1927, 83-97.
2 Vsevolod Slessarev, Prester John, the letter and the legend (Minneapolis, 1959), 84 ff., on the
identification of Prester John with the king of Ethiopia; see E. Ullendorff and C. F. Beckingham,
The Hebrew letters of Prester John (Oxford, 1982), 1-10 (Historical Introduction).
3 Letter from Francesco Novello of Carrara: Conti Rossini, op. cit., 86-87, citing Cipolla,
'Prete Jane e Francesco Novello da Carrara', Arch. Veneto, vi, 1873, 323.
4 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Maggior Consiglio, Deliberazioni, Avogaria A, fol. 11; N. Jorga,
Notes et extraits pour servir a l'histoire des croisades aux xve siecle, I (Paris, 1899), 120; V. Lazzarini,
' Un'ambasciata etiopica in Italia nel 1404 ', Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti,
LXXXIII, 2, 1923-24, 840-41; Conti Rossini, op. cit., 86.
5 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Senato Misti, reg. XLVI, c. 36v. See V. Lazzarini, op. cit., 841
and Conti Rossini, op. cit., 88.
6 Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Archivio di Candia Ducali, 1402-1436. Jorga, op. cit., 121; Conti
Rossini, op. cit., 86.

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 A CHALICE FROM VENICE FOR EMPEROR DAWIT OF ETHIOPIA 443

Marco made in the seventeenth century by Abbot Fortunato Olmo, w

from a copy of the original inventory of 1402.7 The last item in Olmo's co
the inventory is as follows:
Un calixe d'arzento dorado, lavorado a neliello, donado all'Orator del
Janni per conto de una perla de carati 12 o piu, manda questo prete
qual perla fu posta in procuratia 1402,.... avosto.8
The first part of Olmo's copied text reads: 'A silver-gilt chalice wor
niello, given to the envoy of Prester John on the account of a pearl of tw
more carats'. Of the remaining part, something seems to have been omitte
copied incorrectly.
The role of the Procuratia of San Marco in the transaction is unclear.
Although the position of Procurator had been established to oversee
construction and maintenance of the church of San Marco, the number of
Procurators expanded and the office became one of the foremost financ
institutions of the Venetian Republic.9 One of the Procuratia's many respo
sibilities was custodianship of the tesoro of San Marco, by which capacity it ha
the right to sell gifts received by endowment.10 The Procuratia also functione
as a depository, accepting the deposits of valuables from private persons f
safekeeping. 1
A chalice was more likely to have reached Ethiopia than a small party o
European Christians. The chalice could have been sent to Alexandria via one of
the many Venetian merchant ships that did business there and transferred to
Muslim commercial agents for the final portion of the trip of the Ethiopian
court.'2 The transfer to local Egyptian agents might have been made with the aid
of the patriarch Matthew I (1378-1408), who was, according to the History of
the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, on good terms with the Egyptian sultan
as well as with the Greek and the Frank (al-Afranj) Christian communities in
Cairo and Alexandria.'3 In fact, Matthew was reported to have overseen the
transfer of a gift of relics (including a piece of the True Cross) sent by' the King
of the Franks' to the King of Ethiopia, relics duly received and still treasured in
Ethiopia today."4 Salvatore Tedeschi has convincingly proposed that the relics
were sent to Emperor Dawit by the Republic of Venice.'5
The chalice mentioned in the inventory of the sanctuary of San Marco may

7 Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, It., Cl. VII, n. 374, coll. 7781: ' Relatione' di D.n Fortunato
Olmo, 22-23 (cc. 39v-40). Published in Rodolf Gallo, Il Tesoro di S. Marco e la sua storia, Civilta
Veneziana Saggi 16 (Venice/Rome, 1967), 287-88 (Inventory III). Olmo wrote:' Ho perci6 a questo
proposito ritrovata anco certa nota in bombasina, scritta non so da chi doppo'l 1402, che' e copie
tratta da altro simile originale inventario. Alla quale vi e il titolo: Nel Santuario.'
8 ibid., 288.
9 Reinhold C. Mueller, 'The Procurators of San Marco in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries: a study of the office as financial and trust institution,' Studi Veneziani, xiii, 1971, 105-220,
esp. 108-26. I would like to thank Professor Louise Buenger Robbert for her helpful comments and
suggestions concerning Venetian economic history.
10 Mueller, op. cit., 128 and 113, n. 15. The sale of objects in the records cited is limited to jewels.
" Mueller, op. cit., 125-8.
12 On the background of Ethiopian commercial trade with Egypt see Mordechai Abir, Ethiopia
and the Red Sea (London/New York, 1980), 22-25.
13 Sawlrus b. Al-Mukaffa' et al., History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, transl. and
annotated by A. Khater and 0. H. E. Burmester, vol. II, pt. 3 (Cairo, 1970), 248-9.
14 ibid., 249-50. A note concerning the arrival of the True Cross in Ethiopia appears in the
Mqsehafa Tefut (A. Caquot,' Apercu preliminaire sur le Mash afa Tefut de Gechen Amba', Annales
d'Ethiopie, i, 1955, 99) and in the copy of this manuscript now at the British Library, Or. 481; cf.
Taddesse Tamrat, Church and state in Ethiopia, 1270-1527 (Oxford, 1972), 267; the relics are now at
Tadbaba Mafryam, as reported by Mrs. Diana Spencer, ' In search of St. Luke ikons in Ethiopia',
Journal of Ethiopian Studies, x, 2, 1972, 77-8.
15 S. Tedeschi, 'Les fils du Negus Sayfa-Ar'ad d'apres un document arabo-chretien', Africa:
Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dell'Istituto Italo-Africano, xxIX, 4, 1974, 580-87.

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444 MARILYN E. HELDMAN

have been the same as that seen by Father Francisco Alavarez when in
as a member of the Portuguese Embassy between the years 1520
Alvarez wrote that

... the Prester sent to the Ambassador a chalice of silver gilt, strong and well
made after our fashion, both the foot and the bowl. On the foot it had the
twelve Apostles, and round the bowl an inscription in well-made Latin
letters which said Hic est calix novi testamenti and a message to say he sent it
for us to drink to him.16

Had Emperor Dawit's chalice reached the Ethiopian court, it would have
become part of the royal treasury or the property of one of the court chapels to
which Emperor Lebna Dengel (1508-40), a direct descendant of Dawit, was
heir.17
Pearls are among the Ethiopian exports listed in the early sixteenth century
by the Portuguese Tome Pires 18 and pearls 'considerable for size, water, and
colour' fished from the Red Sea off Massawa were reported by James Bruce in
his description of trade there.19 The Venetians used four different types of
pounds of weighing goods, of which gold, silver, and pearls were weighed by the
same standard.20 One carato of the gold weight-standard was equal to 0.20703
grams,21 giving Dawit's pearl a weight of at least 2.5 grams. According to the
fourteenth-century manual La pratica della mercatura, pearls were sold by
weight and graded. The most valuable were those weighing over twelve carati.22
Therefore, the silver gilt chalice, acquired by Dawit's envoy in exchange for a
' pearl of more than twelve carats ', was an object of worth. It was decorated, as
indicated by the phrase 'lavorado a neliello'. Niello is a technique used by
goldsmiths, by which chased or engraved areas are blackened so that they
contrast with the surrounding burnished areas.23 Niello is used to give visual
emphasis to areas decorated with patterns, figures, and/or inscriptions. The
well-wrought chalice that Alvarez described was decorated with figures and an
inscription. Nevertheless, despite the evidence presented here, there is no proof
that the chalice of Lebna Dengel was the chalice acquired for Emperor Dawit in
Venice by his agent.
Dawit must have instructed Bartoli to acquire luxury goods for him, as well
as artisans and a painter. Although Bartoli was not able to recruit workers of
the highest calibre, they were expected to produce goods for Dawit and the
royal court. Subsequently, Yeshaq (r. 1414-30), Zar'a Ya'eqob (r. 1434-68),
and Lebna Dengel (r. 1508-40) sent embassies to European courts and made
requests for artisans. Alfonso of Aragon, answering Yeshaq's request, sent
thirteen craftsmen, but the Muslims did not allow them to reach Ethiopia.24
Apparently Zar'a Ya'eqob's embassy of 1450 was more successful in acquiring
16 C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford (ed.), The Prester John of the Indies, being the
narrative of the Portuguese embassy to Ethiopia in 1520 written by Father Francisco Alvares (Hakluyt
Society, 2nd ser., nos. 114-15, Cambridge, 1961), I, 298.
17 Lebna Dengel, son of Emperor Na'od (r. 1494-1508), who was son of Ba'eda Maryam
(r. 1468-78), son of Emperor Zar'a Ya'eqob (r. 1434-68), son of Emperor Dawit.
18 F. A. Dombrowski, Ethiopia's access to the sea (Leiden/Cologne, 1985), 14-15.
19 James Bruce, Travels to discover the source of the Nile in the years 1768-1773 (Dublin, 1791),
II, 328.
20 Frederic C. Lane, Venetian ships and shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1934), 245.
21 F. C. Lane and R. C. Mueller, Money and banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, vol. I:
Coins and moneys of account (Baltimore/London, 1985), 526, Table A.I.
22 Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La practica della mercatura, (ed.), Allan Evans (Mediaeval
Academy of America Publication, no. 24, Cambridge, Mass., 1936), 302-4.
23 On the technique of niello see On divers arts, the Treatise of Theophilus, transl. and annotated
by John G. Hawthorne and Cyril Stanley Smith (Chicago and London, 1963), 103-5, 108, 115.
24 Taddesse Tamrat, op. cit, 258, citing F. Cerone, ' La politica orientale di Alfonso di Aragona ',
Archivio storico per le Province Napoletane, xxvii, 1902, 40.

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 A CHALICE FROM VENICE FOR EMPEROR DAWIT OF ETHIOPIA 445

European artisans.25 Lebna Dengel requested goldsmiths, masons, c

makers, skilled gardeners as well as smiths to make 'swords and we
iron and helmets '.26 Another of Lebna Dengel's letters requested crafts
could make figures of gold and silver, craftsmen skilled in making and
with gold leaf, and craftsmen in type-founding to make books in
characters.27 A third letter requested gold and silversmiths, meta
masons, artificers to make images and printed books, physicians, and m
'swords and arms of all sorts for fighting'.28
The underlying motivation of these Ethiopian embassies to Europ
recognition of the advantage of Christian solidarity, both military and
against the Muslim powers of the Near East.29 Ethiopian requests fo
have been interpreted as manifestations of an Ethiopian wish to sha
superior technical advancement of European nations'.30 However,
likely that the requests were not motivated by an interest in foreign te
per se, but by the wish to employ artisans in producing objects for
display. The level of Ethiopian technology seems not to have been ad
the contacts with foreign craftsmen. Although Lebna Dengel reque
makers, metallurgists, and physicians, he was very eager to acquire
whose skills were less vital, such as goldsmiths who could make fig
decorate objects with gold leaf. He asked for a tile-maker so that
church of Makana Sellase, the construction of which had just been comp
could be roofed permanently in tiles, not grass.31 The technique of bric
production was not introduced to Ethiopian potters, at least there is no
of it. Ethiopian arms production did not benefit notably from the
technology of smelting and tempering iron that certainly had been intr
by the Circassian Mamliuk armourer who had fled Egypt and wor
Yeshaq.32 Throughout the fifteenth century, swords continued to be im
by Ethiopian emperors and sold or presented as gifts, used primari
nobility, not as weapons of war, but as ornaments and symbols of noble
Bartoli's acquisition of a decorated silver-gilt chalice worth a pear
twelve carats was not the principal reason for the Ethiopian embassy
Republic of Venice in 1402, yet the record of this chalice suggests that
rare and expensive objects in addition to artisans for the production of
commodities, ranging from the extravagant to the essential, was a concomitant
function of the embassies sent to Europe by Ethiopian emperors during the
fifteenth century.

25 Taddesse Tamrat, op. cit., 265-6.

26 The Prester John of the Indies, II, 478 (475-481, the entire letter).
27 ibid., II, 501 (494-501, the entire letter).
28 ibid., II, 505 (502-506, the entire letter).
29 Taddesse Tamrat, op. cit., 265.
30 ibid., 265.
31 The Prester John of the Indies, II, 478. The fabulous embellishment of this church, destroyed by
Granniifi in 1531, is described by Shihab al-Din, Futuh al-Habasha, ed. and transl. by R. Basset as
Histoire de la conquete de I'Abyssinie (Paris, 1897), 284-5.
32 Merid Wolde Aregay, ' A reappraisal of the impact of firearms in the history of warfare in
Ethiopia (c. 1500-1800)', Journal of Ethiopian Studies, xiv, 1976-79, 99-101. For information
concerning the Circassian Mamluik, see Maqrizi, Historia Regum Islamiticorum in Abyssinia, ed. and
transl. by F. T. Rinck (London, 1790), 6.
33 Merid W. Aregay, op. cit., 99.

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