Asiatic Exoticism in Italian Art of the Early Renaissance

Author(s): Leonardo Olschki

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun., 1944), pp. 95-106
Published by: CAA
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3046937
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 ASIATIC EXOTICISM IN ITALIAN ART

OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE

LEONARDO OLSCHKI

I concerning the intellectual exchanges or commercial inter-

course between the East and the West.
T HE oriental influence on Italian art of the late
There can be no satisfactory results in this vast field of
Middle Ages and the Renaissance has been fre-
research so long as the idea of the Orient includes all the
quently discussed during the last decades. It is
peoples and civilizations from the Nile to the China Sea and
undeniable that some artists of those times were inspired by
from the Bosporus to the Gulf of Bengal. The visit of the
ornament and iconography of a more or less definitely ori-
Greek Emperor and his court to Florence during the Coun-
ental origin. There is sufficient evidence of contacts be-
cil of 1439 or the participation of Russian prelates and
tween the East and the West in Italian paintings, both
"Ethiopian" envoys in this great ecclesiastical event cannot
religious and secular.
explain to a critical mind the appearance of some unmis-
However numerous examples of this orientalism may
takably Mongolian types in the Italian painting of the Ren-
appear to be, they are not always genuine. Therefore, the
aissance. The products of oriental craftsmanship which
problem will always constitute a border-line case in the
were imported into Italy and imitated there during the
history of the Italian art of the Renaissance. This circum-
Middle Ages and the Renaissance will never explain the
stance must be emphasized at the very outset of every in-
realism with which contemporary painters represented
vestigation directed toward the explanation of this puzzling
exotic countenances, traits, and attitudes. There is an essen-
and striking aspect of a general and deep artistic renewal.
tial difference between these products of the minor arts
Only a prudent examination of facts and problems can
which can be indefinitely reproduced, copied, varied, and
prevent the misleading conclusions of those scholars who
commercialized and the individual artistic creation of an
have attributed to oriental models and motifs a revolu-
outstanding pictorial genius. Thus the strange and pictur-
tionary virtue and a decisive influence on the artistic feel-
esque varieties of human races, including Moors, Negroes,
ing, technique, and imagination of some leading masters of
Arabs, Turks, and Tartars, to be found in frescos, paint-
this great creative epoch.1
ings, drawings, and sketches of different hands and schools,
In discussing these border-line cases in art and literature
do not belong to those currents of taste and style which
there is always danger of considering them from a limited
determined at an earlier epoch the vogue of oriental silk
point of view which alters their true proportions. Precisely
garments, Persian textiles, Byzantine mosaics, Sasanid
that fault has led to an overstatement of the oriental influ-
sculptures, and architectural details of Syrian and Egyptian
ence on the Tuscan painters of the early Renaissance. Yet
origin.'
it would be a mistake to deny this influence or to minimize
The main concern in the investigation of this wide-
the interest of the problem. To what extent this artistic
spread orientalism is thus to distinguish carefully between
orientalism is real or imaginary can be established only after
the independent fields of ornament and decoration on the
carefully examining its different and characteristic aspects,
one hand, and the pictorial arts on the other. The vague
not by relying on fanciful hypotheses or hasty conclusions
conformity of some stylistic aspects of early Sienese paint-
ings to Chinese art of the Yiian epoch (1279-1368) and
I. Especially Gustave Soulier, Les influences orientales dans la
peinture toscane, Paris, 1924, and I. V. Pouzyna, La Chine, l'Italie the few scattered Asiatic types occasionally represented by
et les dibuts de la Renaissance, Paris, 1935. Both these books as
well as the unimportant articles of J. Plenge, "Die China-Rezeption 2. For this aspect of the problem and reference to bibliography
des Trecento . . .," Forschungen und Fortschritte, Berlin, 1929, cf. W. F. Volbach, "Oriental Influence in the Animal Sculpture of
pp. 294-295, and A. Renaudet, "Les influences orientales dans la Campania," ART BULLETIN, XXIV, 1942, pp. I72-1i8o for exam-
Divine Comidie . . .," Revue de synthtse historique, 1925, Nos. ples of orientalism in the Paduan school, cf. R. van Marle, The
SI 8-120, leave much to be desired in criticism and reliable infor- Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague,
mation.
1923-38, v, pp. 132 ft.

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 96 THE ART BULLETIN

Italian painters cannot tales

be of wonders and absurdities.' The
compared to fabulous
the element be-
primor
uninterrupted flow ofcomes preponderant inand
cultural Jordan de S vtrac's Mirabilia
artistic ideas f
Near East into the Mediterranean sphere.
(1329 [? ])'7 and it is the chief characteristic ofIn that
Mande- i
a very old cultural ville's famous forgery (137 i) which
commonwealth linkedkept alive for centu-
together
ductive centers of a domain extending
ries the distorted popular from
image of the Far East, earlier cre- B
C6rdoba and ated by credulity,
corresponding ignorance, and intentional
roughly to the mystification.8
ancient
Some The most popular volume
models
Eastern of of fictional geography was
craftsmanshipFar m
written in Florence
slipped through indirectly, throughabout 1400 by Andrea
Persian da Barberino
and A
mediation, and met and reprinted
with in innumerable
success ineditions under the title
Italian of
worksh
studios from Venice to Palermo. Guerin Meschino.' In the form and style of a romance of
The epoch of the consolidation of the Mongolian Em- chivalry the book contains a fantastic and confused descrip-
pire, between 1250 and 1368, was especially favorable totion of the countries and wonders of Tartary, India, and
the distribution of East Asiatic products along the inter- other regions of Asia and Africa which was echoed in similar
continental trade routes connecting China with the Black narratives inserted into Italian chronicles of the Quattro-
Sea and the Mediterranean. This episode in the history of cento and inspired the most successful popular poems de-
civilization and commerce has been so frequently and mas-voted to the marvels of the East.'o Even after the fall of the
terfully described that it is not necessary to insist upon it Mongolian Empire in 1368 and the extension of the trading
here.3 There is no doubt that the discovery of Central andmonopoly of the Arabs on all the sea routes to India and
Eastern Asia by the Franciscan missionaries and Marco beyond, no direct contact, no authentic information could
correct those fanciful ideas of the Orient. The Latin trans-
Polo's description of the whole continent brought the Far
East into fashion and struck the imagination of European lation of Ptolemy's Geography (1408) and the conse-
potentates and common people alike.4 It stimulated, too, quent version in Italian verse by Berlinghieri (1482) did
the spirit of enterprise in tradesmen and artisans. To some not affect the traditional conceptions which had influenced
extent even creative artists were affected by this interest inthe most learned of Florentine cosmographers, Paolo Tos-
the newly discovered continent, but their reaction was iso- canelli, in shaping the image of the earth accepted by
lated, and determined by individual artistic intentions Christopher Columbus.
rather than by a curiosity for exotic aspects of life and na- The inspiration of the contemporary Florentine artists
ture. This fact is confirmed by the development of the con-appears to be as independent of these learned works of ge-
temporary literature inspired by travel. ography as it had already been of the accounts of mis-
Both fantastic and realistic ideas about the newly ex-sionaries and merchants. Contrary, then, to general belief,
the evolution of mediaeval travel literature from reliable
plored East followed the trends and styles of the first travel
accounts. The two oldest descriptions of Inner Asia by the reports to wonder tales shows that the descriptions of Asiatic
Franciscan missionaries, the Historia Mongalorum of John peoples and countries are of little use in explaining the
striking exoticism in the contemporary art. A typical ex-
of Pian del Chrpine (1247) and William of Rubruck's
Itinerarium (1255), are straightforward reports of factsample will illustrate the independent attitude of the Ren-
and impressions with little margin left for picturesqueaissance artist. Leonardo da Vinci drew from life the por-
traits of three of those Armenians who were a common
imagery.5 Marco Polo's book (1298) keeps the balance
between the fanciful pictures of a story teller and the posi-sight in the Venice of his time, just as they are in our own
tive interests of a business man. Curiously enough, fantastic (Fig. I). These expressive oriental types are delineated
descriptions of the Asiatic countries and peoples spread, aswith the exactness and penetrating realism characteristic of
Leonardo's anatomical and scientific sketches. But in de-
European travellers became better acquainted with the
whole continent. The extensive description of the Far East scribing their country and "the mountains over the Cas-
written in 1330 by Odoric of Pordenone after a three years'pian Sea" he invents a sequence of fantastic letters directed
stay in Peking, already shows a marked inclination towardto a mysterious "Devadttr of Syria" and follows the vague
6. Text in Sinica Franciscana, 1, pp. 412-495.
3. There is a short bibliography on these intercontinental com- 7. Edited by H. Cordier, Paris, 1926.
mercial relations in the author's little book on Marco Polo's Pre- 8. On Mandeville cf. Ch. R. Beazley, The Dawn of Modern
Geography, London, I897-I906, III, pp. 319-322.
cursors, Baltimore, 1943, p. 3, note 5. The best Chinese source is the
book of Chau Ju-Kua, translated and annotated by F. Hirth and 9. No satisfactory monograph has been published about this ex-
W. W. Rockhill, St. Petersburg, 1912. tremely successful book, printed as early as 1473 as a fictional "de-
4. Cf. the author's article on "Dante e l'Oriente," Giornale scription of the provinces of the whole earth and the variety of
Dantesco, XXXIX (N.s. Ix), 1938, pp. 65-90. men, peoples and their customs." Cf. R. Peters, Ueber die Geogra-
5. Last and best edition of these reports in Sinica Franciscana:
phie im 'Guerino Meschino,' Halle, o908.
Itinera et Relationes . . ., ed. P. A. van den Wyngaert (2 vols.), io. Cf. the author's essay on "I canthri dell'India di Giuliano
Quaracchi, 1929-1938. Dati," La bibliofilia, XL, 1938, pp. 289-3 ,6.

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 ASIATIC EXOTICISM IN EARLY ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 97

traditional
exotic geography of poetry and romance." environment bi-
Leonardo's or from objective reality by in-
ographers who have taken those sketches cluding
and some unusualelabo-
those object of an exotic character real or
rate letters as evidence of his travels in the EastThis
pretended. know
spirituallittle
exoticism has been recognized as
about an artist's whims, and even less about contemporary
a characteristic trait of early Sienese painting. The early
geographic conceptions.12 While Leonardo's
painters of portraits
Siena are believedof
to have been the first to use
those familiar oriental men are strikingly realistic,
this unobtrusive the
but effective artifice which gave their im-
literary fragments devoted to geographic
ages andaspects
compositions of the
a supernatural, immaterial quality.
Bothincorrect.
Near East are shadowy, confused, and tendencies of this artistic
Both exoticism - the illusionistic
these expressions of his tense and inquisitive
and the unrealistic
mind -reveal
presuppose direct observation of un-
the casual and fleeting character of his usual
pictorial and
objects, but liter-argument ever confirmed
no conclusive
ary orientalism. the assumption that the initiators of the new style of paint-
ing we call primitive or early Renaissance - initiators
II
like Giotto in Florence and Duccio in Siena - abandoned

The foregoing remarks prove that the question the

ofold Byzantine tradition in order to imitate Chinese
Asiatic
exoticism in the art of the Renaissance cannot be solved models. Critics and historians who have held that opinion
merely by collecting and connecting facts and documents. are not always aware of the essential difference between a
Although a secondary aspect of art and a marginal prob- creative and an imitative art. Without venturing into the
lem of history, that exoticism touches the very essence, spirit, labyrinths of aesthetic discussion it may be taken for granted
and inspiration of the arts of the Renaissance. The in- that the aforementioned painters and their contemporary
stance of Leonardo is typical and instructive. His account admirers would never have been able to understand or to
of the Taurus and Caucasus is nebulous, fantastic, and inter- accept those oriental models if they had not been prepared
spersed with lyrical accents and mysterious suggestions. by experience to appreciate the exotic and the unfamiliar.
Some graphic details about the natural aspects and the cli- Considerations of this kind will prevent false conclusions
mate of that distant region lend body to the literary incarna- drawn from superficial and merely formal coincidences, as
tion of a vision which rose from nostalgic longing for un- well as from casual details.
usual, exotic scenery. There is no reason for interpreting the The affinities between Sienese and Chinese art, first dis-
vague geographic reminiscences in such passages as evi- covered by Bernhard Berenson, are essentially of the kind
dence of da Vinci's actual knowledge of the lands de- already suggested."l The great connoisseur of Tuscan paint-
scribed. ing of the Renaissance did not, however, insist on the com-
In the same way the painters who inserted exotic ele- parison and thereby proved to be as wise as he was learned.
ments into their representations of a sacred event or a pro- To a scholar familiar with the culture and history of that
fane scene were merely achieving a pictorial realization of period it is inconceivable, for example, that an early Italian
an artistic vision. The realistic quality of those unusual de- Renaissance image of the Virgin Mother surrounded by a
tails increased the illusionistic power of the whole compo- wreath of angels could be the imitation of a statue of
sition. Such biblical subjects as the Adoration of the Magi Buddha or the feminine hypostasis of the Bodhisattva Ava-
offered opportunity for the display of elaborate pageantry lokitesvara frequently represented since the twelfth century
impressively interspersed with realistic elements of more or in Eastern Asiatic art under the Chinese name of Kuan-
less genuine oriental origin. This is one of many practices of yin.'4 The use by Italian craftsmen and artists of some
Italian, and especially Florentine, Renaissance painters ornamental or decorative patterns of Far Eastern origin
which reveal their design to create conviction by inserting can, and must, be admitted without hesitation,1" but it is im-
into an imaginary scene types and objects known from ex- possible to believe that a pagan idol could have inspired a
perience. painter moved by the deep sense of Christian worship which
Conversely, the intention is also evident of detaching is expressed in works of this epoch and kind. The possibility
the representation of a religious scene from its familiar or that an oriental painting could have reached Dante's Flor-
ence or Siena in the time of St. Catherine, is limited by the
i . The whole passage is in J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of
Leonardo da Vinci, zd ed., London, I939, II, pp. 317-323. On indisputable fact that no missionary or merchant would
Leonardo's sources cf. Mr. Freshfield's remarks in the Proceedings have carried home an object of pagan devotion or even
of the R. Geographical Society, 1884, pp. 323-324. In describing
the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor, Leonardo affirms "that 13. B. Berenson, "A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend,"
mountain is said to be the ridge of Mount Caucasus," a name used Burlington Magazine, IIm, 1903, pp. 3-35 and 171-184, especially
in mediaeval geography also for the designation of the Hindu- pp. 8-13-
Kush and the Himalaya. Cf. G. Boffito, "Gli Armeni a Firenze," 14. Cf. Melanie Stiassny, "Einiges zur Buddhistischen Ma-
La bibliofilia, 1937, fasc. 7-8. donna," Jahrbhuch fiir asiatische Kunst, I, 1924, pp. 112 if.
It. A critical investigation of Leonardo's geographical notes is 15. Cf. O. von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei, Ber-
still lacking. lin, 1921.

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 98 THE ART BULLETIN

have wanted to do so. our time.

When JohnNothing
of Pian is gained
del Carp
William of Rubruck, Marco Polo,
artistic or the travellers
achievements and st
fourteenth century sons
speak which
about neglect
oriental essentia
religions th
little understanding ofground and the
their spiritual decisive
and moralinfc
and much horror and and opinions.
revulsion from The only
their thin
practi
forms of worship.'" are
This some transcendental
aversion affin
is especially inten
the rites of the expressions
"idolaters" of affinity
show some ecstatic relig
with
the Christians. Williaminfluences
of Rubruck,mustitbe
is excluded
true, comf

winged statue sons.

of Buddha, But he
which even
sawinin
this field
a Lamais
at Karakorum, to an and the West are irreconcilable.
image of St. Michael, and
that other statues hold the fingers in a blessing atti
Catholic bishops," but he III
contemptuously desig
"stultitias eorum" all aspects of those oriental reli
The situation is altogether different in the secular sphere
and John of Pian del Carpine believed that the de
of life and in the realistic aspects of art. Considered from
through the mouths of their idols."9
this angle, Asiatic exoticism shrinks to a few examples which
It would be an
to suppose that Marco Polo, aerror
reveal a definite familiarity on the part of contemporary
man and a Tartar
functionary, would have been m
Italian society with characteristic traits and habits of the
erant toward East Asiatic religious ideas and instit
Inner-Asiatic peoples. The principal marks of this direct
He speaks with respect of Buddha, but in treating
experience of men and manners of the Far East are found
of the Buddhist temples of China, of lamaseries an
in physiognomies of a definitely ethnographical character
of public worship, he uses even
and in costumes stronger
and fashions of unmistakableand
oriental hars
ori-
pressions of reproof and hatred than the missionar
gin. In both cases a careful distinction must be made be-
Finally he even renounces detailed discussion of th
tween the actual reproduction of genuine Asiatic types and
il's work . . . because it would be too evil and abom
the fanciful representations of a conventional and decora-
a thing to tell such things for Christians to hear.
tive style. Those dignified old men, who appear in many
consistently hostile attitude prevented any serious int
Italian paintings from Giotto to Paolo Veronese, dressed in
the Western world in oriental works of art of a r
flowing gowns, wearing long, wavy, curly beards and
character. There
possibility whatever that any is no
colorful turbans on their heads are imaginary types. The
were imported and admired even at the time when
miniaturist who illustrated the beautiful manuscript of Boc-
continental trade was at its height. No direct infl
caccio's Filocolo in Cassel (Fig. 2),"2 or the French "en-
Italian art
suchlumineurs" through
a channelof the stories can be the
of Alexander seriously
Great, devel-
When a Sienese Madonna of the fourteenth centur
oped this fantastic exoticism into a pleasant mummery of
hands and fingers unusually
the most variedlong and
kinds.2" Their diaphanous
scrolls and fanciful dress it
erable to consider this detail as a characteristic asp
form a sharp contrast to the objective reproduction of genu-
spiritualizing Gothic style of painting, intended to
ine details and the authentic portraits which occur in con-
human body a weightless, incorporeal, unworldly
temporary compositions of a higher artistic level.
a mere illusion to discoverThe most in
commonthe religious
ethnic mark found in these worksartof of
cento structural and ideological reflections of Budd
Tuscan art are the slit eyes which appear at almost the
of China, and it
historical heresy to say that is an
same time in the faces painted by Giotto and Duccio. Their
famous Apotheosis of St. Francis "comes as near t
Christs, Virgins, and Saints with slit eyes are not identical
dhist ideal as the art of Siena ever reached."21 Int
with Byzantine types and it would be blasphemous to admit
tions of this kind are merely
a direct imitation of documents
Chinese models, whether sacredof the f
or pro-
vision caused by the eclectic
fane. Howeverartistic culture
tortuous the path of the arts may be, charact
it is
not easy to understand why those vigorously creative artists
I6. On the attitude of the mediaeval travellers toward oriental
religions cf. the author's Storia letteraria delle scoperte geograficke, should have picked up this single trait of oriental models,
Florence, 1937, pp. 165-193. while they were striving otherwise to bring the representa-
17. Sinica Franciscana, I, pp. 227-228.
tion of the human body as close as possible to natural reality
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., p. 41. and at the same time to ideal spiritual perfection. Rather
20. Description of the World, ed. A. C. Moule and P. Pelliot,
London, 1938, I, p. I6I. Odoric of Pordenone used a similar ex- 22. Of this interesting manuscript there is only a very insufficient
pression on the same subject about thirty years later. Cf. Sinica description by W. Hopf, Die Landesbibliothek Kassel, Marburg,
Franciscana, I, p. 441. 1930, IIpp. o-i1I6.
21. G. H. Edgell, A History of Sienese Painting, New York, 23. Cf. the author's book on Manuscrits frangais peintures des
1932, p. 193. bibliothktques d'Allemagne, Geneva, 1932, pp. 30, 37, 53, etc.

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 FIc. i. Turin, Royal Library: Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, Heads of Orientals

FIc. 2. Cassel, Landesbibl.: z Ms. poet. 3, Boccaccio's Filocolo, Fol. 148r.

FiG. 3. Padua, Arena Chapel: Giotto, Scourging of Christ, De- FIG. 4. Paris, Louvre: Drawing by Pisanello, Asiatic
tail Type

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 FIG. 6. Florence, Palazzo Ric-
cardi: Gozzoli, Procession of
Magi, Detail

FIG. 5. Siena, S. Francesco: Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Martyrdom of Franciscan Friars

FIG. 7. Detail of Figure 5 FIG. 8. Florence, S. Maria Novella: Andrea da Firenze, Ecclesia Mili-
tans, Oriental Types

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 ASIATIC EXOTICISM IN EARLY ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 99

appear
than a racial mark, those eyes, so distinctive inasearly
monsters, masks, or puppets, but as human beings,
Tuscan
religious painting, seem to be an artificesometimes
designed of authentic
to ac- portraiture. Apart from their gar-
ments
complish the transfiguration of human and ornaments,
features by the all the orientals to be found in
stylization of the most expressive details. Giotto's
This is, frescos could have been picked up in any Italian
of course,
seaport,
an internal, merely artistic interpretation of particularly
a striking in Naples or Venice where they were
stylis-
tic element, but better than far-fetchedan
assumptions
ordinary sight. and
They do not represent oriental exoticism
in a strict sense.
technical explanations, it comes close to explaining the Those
veryfigures did not evoke the mystery
essence of an art in which the trend toward spiritualization
of distant lands or the secret horror of the unknown. They
always interferes with the painter's lively interest
were in the
familiar types of the Mediterranean commonwealth
corporeal aspects of reality. The apparent of
exoticism
peoples. of those
strange eyes is really only an evasion of naturalism. Thethus initiated by Giotto with a
The historical painting
idea of a Chinese influence can be abandoned without
stroke of genius and aany
superlative technical skill, brought
loss to our historical and artistic understanding of this
the whole world new
into the graphic arts and opened an im-
style of painting. Even if an Asiatic infiltration into
mense field forWestern
portraiture and imaginative activity. The
Europe were admitted, it is hardly conceivable that
temperament it artists,
of the could and not the local traditions and
have interfered with the artistic vision inspired by faith,
schools of painting, determined the acceptance or rejection
contemplation and firm traditional requirements. The
of Giotto's daring re-
and successful attempt to bring his art
ligious art of the early Tuscan Renaissance
nearer to aspires
life, history,to
and a
nature. Indeed, it is in Siena,
vivid pictorial embodiment of human spiritual
the town ofperfection
gold grounds and ecstatic Madonnas, that he
but not to a realistic reproduction of physiognomical oremulator
found his most direct eth- in the combining of a reli-
nic details.
gious event with an animated display of authentic and
Fidelity to nature in rendering even the exceptional
colorful orientalism. Theas-martyrdom of some Franciscan
pects of the world is a characteristic traitfriars
of illustrative and
(Fig. 5) gave the Sienese Ambrogio Lorenzetti play
narrative art which does not seek to depict
for the direct
his dynamic talentmani-
for lively, striking, and impressive
festation of divinity in human features but toof give
scenes convinc-
a realistic and picturesque character. Thirty years
ing substance to the biblical, historical, and hagiographical
after Giotto's activity in Padua and Florence, Ambrogio
examples of human devotion, worship, and decorated the ChurchThis
sacrifice. of St. Francis in Siena with a repre-
kind of painting had been inaugurated by sentation
Giotto of at
one the
of the turn
most stirring events in the history
of the century with a resolute and original effort toward
of the Seraphic Order. The fresco, which is generally
scenic, dramatic, and emotional reproduction ofMartyrdom
known as The famous of the Franciscans in Ceuta
events in biblical and ecclesiastical history. Together
(Morocco), with
represents the torturing and beheading of
the brisk and eloquent gesture, the spatial dimensions, and
friars in 1227.25 Recently the scene has been connected
the intimate liveliness of his figures he with
inaugurated
the execution of"cou-
missionaries of the same order in
leur locale" as a new element of pictorial Tana,
realism. In repre-
on the Western coast of India, where the friars
senting Herod's Feast, the Scourging of Christ (Fig. 3) or
were forced to land, in 132I, on their way to China.26 If
St. Francis before the Sultan both the historical and ethnic
that is so, the fresco would refer to a contemporary event
environments are carefully considered in countenances, cos- in which a monk from Siena is said to have taken part and
tumes, and details. For the first time a clear physiognomical gained eternal bliss.2"
and ornamental differentiation is made between the Sara-
In no way do the details of the painted scene correspond
cens and the Romans who usually in the illuminated manu-
scripts of historical or poetical texts throughout the four- 25. For the event as narrated by Franciscan sources cf. Wad-
ding's Annales Minorum . . ., 3d ed., Quaracchi, 1931, 1i, pp.
teenth century are represented in the same attire.24 29-34.
In Giotto's frescos the athletic Berber, the Nubian Moor,
26. Edgell, Sienese Painting, pp. 128-130.
and the Roman soldier reveal the effort toward an ethnic 27. For historical and legendary details cf. Wadding, op. cit.,
vi, PP- 399-407 i Sinica Franciscana, I, pp. 424-439, and G. Golu-
individualization stressed by characteristic attire and per-
bovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della terrasanta e dell'oriente
tinent attitudes. In all these cases the representatives of
francescano, Quaracchi, I906-1927, III, pp. 211-213. In both
historically and geographically distant countries no longer
cases and in all the sources the martyrdom of the Franciscan friars
is described as a consequence of their provocative and even insult-
24. In the Ms. iii of the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice (cf. ing attitude which was hardly justified by the circumstances and the
D. Cihmpoli, I codici francesi della Biblioteca nazionale di S. character of the missions. Therefore the authenticity of the report
Marco, Venice, I893), Julius Caesar is represented by an Italian is questionable. As to Peter de Senis, who would explain Loren-
miniaturist of the fourteenth century in the attire and attitude of a zetti's fresco, he is said to have been a "clericus sine ordine sacro,"
Saracen sovereign. Iconography of this kind is influenced by the not a Franciscan monk (Sinica Franciscana, i, p. 425, note 4),
popular French poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries which while the inscription, "CProtege, Petre, etc.," did not belong to this
identified antique paganism with the religion of Mohammed. fresco. Cf. G. Sinibaldi, I Lorenzetti, Siena, 1933, P. 213.

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 00o THE ART BULLETIN

with the data of Firenze,

the in the foreground of his fresco
Franciscan in the Spanish
martyrolo
geographical Chapel of S. Maria
knowledge Novella in Florence (Fig. 8), has al-am
predominating
the similarity of ways attracted the
events attention of lovers of
narrated inTuscan art.30
conte
caused the painter to
There a conceive
Florentine dandy of thatthe scene
time and his companion in
rather than indulge arein
represented talking with two
realistic dignified men whoseof
coloring
environment. In both cases Franciscan friars had been countenances, costumes, and attitudes hint at Central or
victims of Mohammedan fanaticism. To Ambrogio Loren- Eastern Asia. The conventional traits of two old, bearded
zetti, who never left his own country, it made little differ-orientals sitting to the right of the group throw into relief
ence whether the event depicted took place in a seaport ofthe realistic rendering of the two strange personages. Their
Morocco or on a small island off the Indian coast. His appearance in this teeming representation of the Ecclesia
painting is the realization of a pictorial orientalism the ele- Militans is explained by Andrea's intention to give a vivid
ments of which no longer retrace typical aspects of theimage of the people, the historical figures, and the habits
Mediterranean variety of races but display a startling ex- and dress of his time and country. Lorenzetti did the
oticism of an unmistakably Asiatic character. Among the same without any oriental touch in his famous Allegories
personages represented in the scene there are no Moors,of Good and Bad Government in the townhall of Siena.
Saracens, or Berbers, but - aside from sundry rather fa- In the Spanish Chapel the exotic guests evidently em-
miliar or conventional figures and apart from a few fancy phasize the universal rule of the Church and the conquests
dresses - it is easy to recognize in the faces and attitudes of the Dominican Order which are glorified in this spec-
Mongolian, Sarmatic, and Central Asiatic types never tacular decoration. In addition to being a pair of striking
heretofore found in the figure arts of Western Europeportraits the two orientals are a symbol of the recent ex-
(Fig. 7). Evidently in this case a new and strange Asiaticpansion of the Church and the Order in the East through
exoticism took the place of the familiar Mediterranean ori- the missions "ad Tartaros." Their ethnic traits do not per-
entalism developed by Giotto a generation before. mit identification of their country of origin, but there can
This circumstance has always aroused much speculation.
be no question that the two men are Catholics dressed up
A mass of heterogeneous material has been collected in or-as more or less authentic orientals. No heathen or Saracen,
der to connect these exotic appearances on a cloister wall of
no Nestorian or Greek could have been represented in this
Siena with the missions "ad Tartaros," Marco Polo, the
form in a fresco dedicated to the triumph of the Catholic
Christian diaspora of the Far East, and with the Tartar Church. By this token their exoticism is ecclesiastical and
embassies to the Popes and other more or less secret ties
picturesque rather than racial or esoteric. Since Andrea
linking the Western to the Asiatic world. The impression painted in this fresco the idealized portraits of Boccaccio,
has been given that Tuscany was almost a neighboring
Petrarch, and other famous men of his century,31 it can be
country of the great Mongolian Empire and that Man-supposed that he wanted to represent in that oriental attire
darins, Khans, and oriental dignitaries were almost as much
Marco Polo and his father, both described in the former's
at home in Florence and Siena as in Peking, Tabriz, and
book as champions of the Christian faith and papal envoys
Calicut. It is through these exaggerations and a correspond-
to the Tartar court. Andrea painted his fresco about thirty
ing lack of criticism and discernment that a few allusions to
years after Marco's death (1324), but the great traveller
distant or fabulous countries in popular poems of the Quat-
was not forgotten. It is, in fact, alleged that for a long
trocento, drawn from antique texts and from reminiscences,
time there was always in the Venetian masques one indi-
have been interpreted as documents of an alleged "fureur
vidual who assumed the character of "Marco Milioni," as
asiatique" burning in the brains of the hard working and
he was familiarly called in his native town.32 The early
very positive Tuscan people.28 This is mere hallucination.
translation of his book into the pure Tuscan dialect of the
Nor can Lorenzetti's fresco be interpreted as proof that
Trecento and Giovanni Villani's mention of him in his
"about this time the arts and crafts of the contemporary
orient were beginning to invade Italy."'"29 In reality the 30. The date is not definitively established, but since the chapel
whole of Trecento painting can show only one other ex- was erected in I350 it can be assumed that its decoration was initi-
ated soon after its architectural completion.
ample of an unquestionable, but problematic, Asiatic ex-
3'. R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of
oticism.
Painting, The Hague, 1923-1938, III, pp. 425-432.
A little group painted shortly after 1350 by Andrea da 32. Col. H. Yule in The Book of Ser Marco Polo . .., 3d ed.,
London and New York, 1923, I, p. 67, and A. C. Moule in the in-
28. Soulier, Influences orientales, p. 321. The allusions contained troduction to Marco Polo's Description of the World, I, p. 33,
in those poems refer to Lybian snakes, Indian elephants, Scythian note 3. It seems that after Pigafetta's return from Magalhaes' cir-
hunters, and the perfumes of Saba, Arabia, and India, i.e., to the cumnavigation of the earth, in I521, a mask of this famous com-
commonplaces of a literary orientalism of classic origin. panion of the Portuguese navigator replaced the old fashioned
29. B. Berenson, Essays in the Study of Sienese Painting, New Marco Polo in the Venetian carnival. But no contemporary docu-
York, 1918, p. 31, note i. ment confirms this unusual testimonial to the Venetian travellers.

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 ASIATIC EXOTICISM IN EARLY ITALIAN RENAISSANCE I0i

chronicle of Florence prove that Marco Milioni knights

was noand servants in Benozzo Gozzoli's procession of
less
popular there than in his own native town. the Magi (Fig. 6). It is certainly a striking fact that
More than that, a decisive reason prompted the
thesepainter
two exotic types, undoubtedly painted from life, by
Italian
to insert the imaginary portrait of the Polos into artists
his pic-of the Quattrocento are archers serving in a
knightly,Or-
torial glorification of the Church and the Dominican aristocratic environment. In spite of the inde-
der. The Dominican Francesco Pipino of Bologna,
pendence who,
of the two frescos this affinity is not a mere co-
about 13 15-1320, translated Marco's book into incidence.
Latin, ex-
pressed in the preface of his famous version the Considered
opinion with a sober mind and a clear idea of their
"that the perusal of the Book by the Faithful may merit
function in an
their respective pictorial frameworks these two
details
abounding Grace from the Lord," because of the reveal the true character of the realistic interest
edifying
character of that description of the world. By felt
reading
by the
it,
Italian painters of the Quattrocento in Asiatic
the Friar added, "the hearts of some members races
of theandreli-
countries. Both figures play subordinate parts in
gious orders may be moved to strive for the diffusion ofcompositions
the great the in which they appear. They are sim-
Christian Faith, and by the Divine Aid to carryple
the Name
serving men of a rather low degree, comparable to the
of our Lord Jesus Christ, forgotten among so vast multi-
Saracens and Negroes sometimes represented in similar at-
tudes, to those blinded nations, among whom the harvest
titudes is
in contemporary paintings, drawings, and minia-
indeed so great, and the laborers so few." This tures
is theorvery
in the rapid sketches of artists who liked to catch
idea which inspired and still animates the oriental details varieties of life and nature. Yet where had
the striking
of Andrea's teeming and colorful fresco. these artists seen the exotic types they portrayed with a fi-
delity to nature so scrupulous and candid? None of them
IV had ever crossed the boundaries of his native country. The
orientals they depicted were not of the types appearing in
Compared with the great variety of works and subjects
Asiatic paintings or drawings which might have served as
painted during the Trecento these few bits of true oriental-
models or stimulated the skill and fancy of the Italian
ism are of little consequence in the early Italian art of the
painters.
Renaissance, while in its uninterrupted flowering during
It has been suggested that the Quattrocento painters
the fifteenth century, examples of Asiatic exoticism are
found their oriental prototypes among the suite of the em-
even less numerous and important. In a strict sense only one
peror of Byzantium, who in 1438 and 1439 participated
of the Quattrocento artists portrayed an Asiatic type in an in the Council of Ferrara and Florence. But a close ex-
unequivocal and realistic image. This figure appears in a
amination of the circumstances connected with this great
group of riders in Pisanello's fresco of St. George in the
event in the ecclesiastical history of the Renaissance makes
Church of St. Anastasia at Verona. In spite of his Tuscan
its influence on contemporary artistic imagination im-
name the painter was a Veronese who, about 1440, deco-
probable.
rated this beautiful church in his native city. A preparatory
So far as Benozzo Gozzoli's frescos are concerned -
sketch of the same exotic man (Fig. 4), delineated with
their orientalism has been much exaggerated - this influ-
bow and arrow in rustic but elaborate attire, shows
ence must be flatly denied. It is difficult to believe that the
Pisanello's particular interest in the strange, stout, grim-
short stay of the Emperor and his court in Florence in the
looking fellow. The ingenious Veronese artist, who en-
summer months of 1439 could have had any effect on a
graved in famous medals the foremost personalities of his
pictorial composition created twenty years later by an artist
time, used the same penetrating style and skill in drawing
who probably never saw the display of Byzantine pomp
gruesome, curious, and exotic figures and scenes in the hu-
which was made in the streets of some Italian cities. In the
man and animal kingdoms.33 It is easy to recognize in the
numerous and reliable descriptions of the Council there is
broad-faced Mongolian of the Church of St. Anastasia a
not the slightest hint that the Byzantine Emperor had in
specimen of the Eastern Asiatic race, as represented by the
his escort dignitaries, servants, or armed men from Mon-
nomad tribes scattered over the continent.34 But the bow
golia, India, or other Asiatic lands. Vespasiano da Bisticci,
this Mongol holds in his hand has no particular oriental
who gives a short description of this embassy in his biogra-
features and it is the same kind that is carried by a rude,
phy of Pope Eugene IV,35 speaks only of Greeks accom-
blubber-lipped oriental of decidedly Negroid appearance
who stands to the left of Cosimo de' Medici in the train of
panying the Emperor, and it is only to accommodate his
account to an untenable thesis that this term has been inter-

preted as designating the imaginary Asiatics of the Byzan-

33. Cf. G. H. Hill, Dessins de Pisanello, Paris and Brussels,
i929, and A. Venturi, Pisanello, Rome, I939.
34. G. H. Hill, Pisanello, London, 1905, p. 87, identified the 35. "Vita di Eugenio IV," in Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di
man as a Kalmuck. uomini illustri, Florence, 1859, especially Chapters iz-14.

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 102 THE ART BULLETIN

tine court.36 It is not by such

turning to juggleries
his nativeth
c
historical problem can bechurchman
ental investigated and
could
The only orientals and those of the
participating subseq
in the Co
representatives of problem;
the it is
Egyptian a questio
Coptic Ch
obite sect of And during
Mesopotamia theAbyssin
and the residen
sites of from
Jerusalem." 1309 of
In spite to 1377, no v
the fact
in Rome.
together regarded as envoys of the legenda
of Ethiopia, none Likewise
of these nothing subs
representatives o
tianity diplomatic
directly came
from that and political
almost inac
ern dignitaries which
Pope Eugene IV charged the sculptor an t
Near East.42 These emba
tonio Averlino Filarete to perpetuate in a b
change and
reception of these strange of presents. Th
rare guests.3
naments a door precious
panel garments
of St. and
Peter's in R
French churches and museums. We know from several
temporary document reveals the disappo
authentic reports thatthat
Florentines in discovering the Christianthe
rulers liked to send to
subject
the Tartars works
ful "Prester John of India" were "men of European craftsmanship of a religious
appearance.""3 Theor ornamental
churches character." As toof
commercial
Russiaconnections, an
also sent some highthe ranking
return of the Polo family to Venice in 1295, after
prelates toanth
absence of twenty-five years,
they did not especially impress the general marks the most important, if
not the only event of
not particularly noticed among the exot this kind in more than a century. It

gathered in Rome, impressed Polo's countrymen and

Florence, contemporaries
and so deeply
Ferrara
the Near that Giovan Battista
East did not constitute an exceRamusio, a Venetian nobleman and

Quattrocento Italy. scholar

Nor of the sixteenth
were century, was still able wont
they to narrate the to

suite of details, handed down

armed men. It is significant, indee by oral tradition and, accordingly,

temporary painterscolored
did by popular
not imagination
portray and distorted by legendaryon
any
sentatives misinterpretations.44
of oriental Christianity. They This lasting impression shows how ex- c

selves to drawing theceptional the event has been

exotic considered in Italy for
features of three
low
like Pisanello's and centuries.
Gozzoli's archers.40
There is no doubt that when Marco Polo came back to
No explanation of Asiatic exoticism in the
the Trecento can his
be native country, which he had from
gleaned left at the age of the
seven- p
teen, he looked like an oriental. So did his father and uncle,
Nestorian priest like Rabban Sauma, who c
who had spent most of their lives in the Near and Far East.
1287 from China and then went to Fra
"They were quite changed in appearance," Ramusio says,
"and had taken on a certain indescribable smack of the
36. H. Soulier, op. cit., p. 31 i. In Filarete's representation of
the Emperor's voyages on the bronze door of St. Peter's only GreekTartar both in air and accent." Marco had almost forgot-
churchmen appear, in their characteristic costumes, as members of ten his native tongue and could not easily make himself
his suite. For the representation of the episodes of the Council by understood when he told the wonders of the East to his
Filarete cf. M. Lazzaroni and A. Mufioz, Filarete, scultore e archi-
tetto del secolo XV, Rome, 1908, pp. 70-82. countrymen. Three years later he had to dictate his "De-
37. Cf. E. Cerulli, "Eugenio IV e gli Etiopi al Concilio di scription of the World" to a professional Italian writer who
Firenze," Rendiconti della R. A ccademia dei Lincei, Classe di scienze was more interested in attractive tales of wonder than in
mnorali . . ., Ser. vi, Ix, 1933, PP- 347 ff. This is the only reliable
contribution to our knowledge of the oriental participation at the objective reports.
Council, based on the original documents preserved in a special As to the merchandise the Polos had carried in a three
silver case at the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. years' journey by sea and land from Peking to Venice, the
38. Lazzaroni-Mufioz, op. cit., figs. 64 and 65.
same Ramusio tells that their coarse and shabby clothes of a
39. Cerulli, op. cit., p. 349. The Abyssinian representatives en-
tered Florence on September 26, x44I, and arrived in Rome a fort-Tartar cut were covered with "jewels of the greatest quan-
night later. tity" and that they lavishly distributed among their servants
40. There is no evidence that the artists were especially im-
pressed by the envoy of the "Sultan of Babylon," i.e., the Mame-
luke King of Egypt. The envoy, in 1487, brought a lion and a 41. A. C. Moule, Christians in China before i55o, London,
giraffe and stayed in Florence for nine months. Elephants were 1930, pp. 94-I27-
brought to Italy by orientals at different epochs. Short information 42. Best report of these diplomatic relations in G. Soranzo, Il
and bibliography may be found in L. Geiger's appendix to J. Burck-Papato, I'Europa cristiana e i Tartari, Milan, I930.
hardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, Leipzig, 19I9, II, Sec- 43. Ibid.
tions LXXXIX and xcI. 44. Col. H. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, I, pp. 4 ff.

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 ASIATIC EXOTICISM IN EARLY ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 103

the material of their oriental robes of crimson satin, dam-

Rudolf of Habsburg, who died in Milan in 1356, w
ask, and velvet, "reaching to the ground suchburied
as people in robe of state of Persian provenance, the
in his
those days wore within doors." But the family's testaments
ment still bearing its original ornamental inscription.5
and legal documents do not confirm these conformity
details or the
with this tradition Cosimo and Lorenzo de'
diciseem
rumor of the travellers' fabulous wealth."' They appear
to in Benozzo Gozzoli's fresco in oriental c
have been deprived at Trebisond of many of ingthe valuables
covered thick with gold and scrolls. This gorg
which they had carried safely to the borders of the Western
attire, borrowed from the pictorial representations o
world. Since they set out on their first trip three
into Asia,
Magi,inmanifested the self-bestowed rights and d
1262, the Polos' main trade had been in jewels,
nity and they
of the Medici house as a ruling dynasty with
probably brought to Venice some of the precious
craticstones
power.in
which they had invested the riches accumulated during
Since the aearly Middle Ages the idea of power and do
stay of seventeen years in Kubilai's China andnation
during seems
theirto have been somehow connected with th
journey home through Hormuz and Tabriz, the principalvision of oriental wealth and luster as re
legendary
pearl markets of the time. sented by Alexander the Great, Prester John, and fin
Beside these jewels, textiles and some flourthe Grand
of sago Khan. It was for this reason that Asiatic
col-
tiles,
lected in the East Indies, we know of only a few patterns, and models came into fashion in the
chinoiseries
imported into Venice by our travellers.46 Middle
The robes of The increasing wealth and ambition of
Ages.
patricians
"satin," mentioned by Ramusio, might have come produced in the upper and middle classes a
directly
mand for
from China and the seaport of Zaitun in the Fu-Kian silken and golden materials of this royal st
prov-
ince. But exceptional events like the Polos'The
return were "drappi tartareschi" referred to by D
so-called
not needed in order to bring Chinese textiles (Inf. xvii,
to Italy. 17) became more and more fashionable
Be-
popular,
cause of its low initial price and because of the although
inflation of their cost was enormous.5' In spi
Tartar paper-currency, such textiles were thePegolotti's
only com-statements, direct trade with the countrie
theFrancesco
modity which the Florentine commercial agent Far East was not very active. We know of only
Balducci Pegolotti reported, about I340, as Italian
regularmerchants
arti- who were residents of China at
epoch:
cles of export from Cathay.47 These silks were Andalo
highly ap- of Savignone and Petrus de Lucalon
preciated in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. The
One latter accompanied Friar Johannes of Monte
of these
vino toof
rare Chinese garments has been found in the coffin China
Can and bought the plot where the first Ca
lic Church
Grande della Scala, Lord of Verona, who died in the capital of the Khan was erected
in 1329,
1305.52 After
who was so inspired by his vision of the magnificence of the Polos there is no record of Italian tr
returning from
Asia that he could bear the title of the Mongolian rulers - China until Niccol5 de' Conti, coming f
Can Grande - without being ridiculed by the
friends and by the sea route, landed in Italy in i4
Far East
subjects."s The ideal image of the Grand KhanDuring this
hovered be- long period commercial exchange was alm
fore the mind of this little Italian prince as an embodiment the hands of commission agents and or
exclusively in
middlemen
of imperial might and utopian grandeur. The Chinese residing in the ports of the Crimea and the
fash-
pian
ion in shrouds had already helped to keep alive Sealofty
this and scattered cities in Asia Minor and Syria.
a few
illusion, which Dante seems to have shared when he wealthy
was a men were able to secure genuine ori
silks. With
guest at the court of Verona in I304. In that very year the increasing demand during the fourtee
century in
Pope Benedict XI was buried in Perugia wrapped thea silk weaver's trade was established in Ven
Chinese garment.
E. O. Lorimer, London, 1931, and the bibliographical Ergdn-
For a long time oriental clothes were an zungsband
attributeofof
the original German edition, Berlin, I93I. For the
dalmatic of the German Emperors cf. 0. von Falke, Kunst-
sovereign rank and dignity. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen
attired himself like an emir and the imperialgeschichte
dalmatic derof
Seiden-ceberei, p. 31 .
50. Cf. H. Demel, "Das Leichengewand Herzog Rudolfs von
his successors in Germany was of authentic Chinese make.49
Oesterreich," Kirchenkunst, v, i933, PP. 33 ff-
5". Cf. Paget Toynbee, "Tartar Cloths," Romania, xxix, 1900,
45. Ibid., pp. 70 ff., and A. C. Moule and P. Pelliot,
pp. 558 ff. Marco
Polo's Description of the World, I, pp. 28 ff. 52. Sinica Franciscana, I, pp. 352 ff., and A. C. Moule, Chris-
46. Yule, op. cit., Introduction, I, pp. 78-80. tians in China, London, 1930, p. 179.
47. La pratica della mercatura, ed. A. Evans, Cambridge, 53. Niccol6Mass.,
de' Conti was the only traveller after Marco Polo
1937, P. 23. who, in 1439, brought back to Italy direct information about
48. Cf. G. Sangiorgi, "Le stoffe e le vesti tombali di Cangrande
India, the Sunda Islands and Indo-China. He spent twenty-five
della Scala," Bollettino d'arte, I, 1922, pp. 443-457. years in the East where he was forced to embrace the Mohammedan
49. The best description of the Emperor's orientalismfaith. is
Cf.by
M. Longhena, Viaggi in Persia, India e Giava di Nic-
E. Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second, 1r94-1250, English ed.Conti,
cold de' by Milan, 1929.

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 104 THE ART BULLETIN

Florence, and Lucca,

edited inand produced,
easily accessible in
publications, reveal that during th
workshops of the "arte della
the fourteenth seta,"
and fifteenth imitation
centuries Mongolian slaves
patterns as well as original inventions
were preferred, in Florence of
and elsewhere, for indoor work th
fancy. As a matter of fact,
and every the
kind of hard latter
or degrading were
labor."5 The very in- s
and were developed inRegistro
complete a style
degli schiavi, and
kept by thetechniq
Florentine
genial to Italian taste and1366
State between tradition."
and 1397, mentions two hundred and
This is the reason why
fifty-nine Tartars, mostly is
there so
women, little
as well trac
as three Circas-
crafts in Italian life sians,
and seven art
Russians, of the
one Arab, early
and one Saracen sold Ren
by
of the Asiatic exoticism isrecognized
the officially of Italian origin,
local slave dealers of that city. b
and stylistically. Interest in
The proportion was the
the same fabulous
in other places of Northern co
end of the world was, of
Italy and course,
of Tuscany, always
where even minor livel
centers like Pis-
tastic picture of thetoia,
lands of
Prato, and Siena had gold and
a more or less silver,
appreciable quota
precious stones, of spices and
of Asiatic slave labor.5 marvels grew m
popular as the
East became
It is important to less accessible
note in those documents and in the to
merce and exploration. The
files and letters realistic
of subsequent repor
centuries that careful racial
sionaries were almost forgotten in the fifte
differentiation was always made by the dealers as well as
and Mandeville's forgery had
by purchasers and officials, already
who did sup
not fail to register indi-
Polo's more reliable vidual
"Description of the Wor
peculiarities of age, stature, complexion, origin, prov-
lution of the popularenance,and
name, andliterary image
state of health. These short descriptionsof
aided by the mystery which
are correct surrounded
and reliable. They ordinarily mention the yel-the
riches whose mirage inspired
lowish the
complexion characteristic of theenterprise
Mongolian race, the
and Vasco da Gamasmall
in search
pug-noses of the
and blinking slit-eyes, fabul
and they specify de-
India and the lands of the Grand Khan. But
fects acquired by disease and accidents or disfiguring marks
tive realism of contemporary Italian
on faces, hands, and bodies."7 art of
This careful distinction exot
go beyond a few conventional
racial origin was occasioned by the decorative
legislation introduced
modish details "alla turchesca" or "alla more
in Siena as early as 1356, and by the Florentine State in
no trace of imitation of the
1369. In accordance authentic
with ecclesiastical authority these Ea
trace of East Asiaticlawsinfluence
sanctioned the slave tradewhich would
in unbaptized persons and
tematic comparison of artistic trends and mo
were in consequence favorable to the influx of pagan people
two independent spheres of
from Asia into taste
the most and
civilized centers inspira
of the Western
world.58 The Asiatic element was the most numerous be-
V

55. The most recent book on the subject is by R. Livi, La schia-

These critical conclusions isolate the few bu
vitu' domestica nei tempi di mezzo . . ., Padua, 1928. For Florence
cases in which a realcf. representation of
A. Zanelli, Le schiave orientali in Firenze nei Asiati
sec. XIV e XV,
Italian art of the Renaissance appears
Florence, I885, and R. Davidsohn's to
Geschichte von exist
Florenz, Iv,
The Asiatic Berlin, 1925,
costumes ofpp. 251-25z.
theseIn writing to her son Filippo, on Sep-
people do
tember 13, 1465, the Florentine lady, Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi,
problem. Exoticdress was
advised him to preferknown and
a Tartar slave as the most apprec
fit for housework.
where in Europe and constituted an article
(Cf. C. Guasti, Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi. Lettere di urna gentil- o
essential question is donna how fiorentinato
del sec.explain the
XV . . ., Florence, 1877, Mon
pp. 474-475.)
the men in Lorenzetti's fresco or Pisanello's and Gozzoli's Marco Polo praised Tartar women as "notable housewives" (Col.
H. Yule, op. cit., I, p. 252). Speaking of the Crimean slave mar-
Asiatic archers. The scholars who constructed complicated kets, the fifteenth century Spanish traveller, Pero Tafur (Travels
systems of far-fetched hypotheses for the solution of this and Adventures, translated and edited by M. Letts, New York and

riddle overlooked a very obvious and simple fact. During London, 1926, p. I1 3) affirms that "if there is a Tartar man or
woman among them the price is a third more, since it may be taken
the Renaissance, Italy, and especially Florence, had a con- as certain that no Tartar ever betrayed a master."
siderable Asiatic population of recent immigration and set- 56. The slave legislation of Siena, introduced in 1356 and evi-
dently based on a long and complex experience with oriental slaves,
tlement. The historians of Italian orientalism in art and
was the first of its kind in Tuscany. Cf. E. Grottanelli de' Santi,
life have overlooked the slave markets of Venice, Genoa,
"Provvigioni senesi riguardanti schiavi e schiave nei sec. xiv e xv,"
Florence, Naples, and most of the large and small towns Miscellanea storica senese, II, 1893, pp. Io2-to6 and 120-124.
in Italy, which harbored a particularly busy section of For
theVenice cf. the article of V. Lazari in Miscellanea di storia
italiana, it, 1863, pp. 463-497, who unfortunately failed to pub-
Asiatic slave trade in Europe. A multitude of documents,
lish the numerous documents concerning the Venetian slave trade
still preserved in Italian archives, many of them carefully throughout the Middle Ages.
57. Cf. the documents and letters published by R. Livi, op. cit.
54. Cf. von Falke, op. cit., especially pp. 29-32 and 39-42. 58. St. Antoninus, at that time bishop of Florence, stated in his

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 ASIATIC EXOTICISM IN EARLY ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 105

cause there was no organized export of

the Mohammedan
family life and general morality of the town."64 It is
slave labor from North Africa. Saracens were not
symptomatic thatvery
a lady of the rank of Alessandra Ma-
cinghi Strozzi
much appreciated or trusted, while Tartars wrote jocosely, in 1464, about a girl slave
were praised
flirting These
for their physical endurance and good nature. with her son and behaving like the lady of his
un-
fortunate creatures accordingly were shipped by the
household."6 thou-
There is evidence enough for the important
sands from Western and Central Asia, and parteven
playedfrom
by thesethe
women in the amorous life of the town.
Chinese and Tibetan borderlands,"9 to Figures
the ports ofimpressive
speak an the language. Among the 7,534
Black Sea, whence they were transferred infants
to thedelivered,
seaports of
between 1394 and 1485, in the Floren-
Venice, Ancona, and Genoa for distribution
tine in the rest
foundling of up to 32 per cent were illegiti-
hospital,
the country. mate children of those oriental slaves."6 When recognized,
This branch of Italian trade with the East must have these halfbreeds followed the condition of the father and
started shortly after the Italian republics abolished, in the
were declared free by law.67
thirteenth century, the traditional indigenous serfdom."6 In this way a large influx of Asiatic blood penetrated into
In 1328 the Venetian Grand Council granted the rights of
the Tuscan population during the most brilliant epoch of its
cultural and economic evolution. Other Italian towns with
citizenship to Marco Polo's slave, Peter the Tartar, "as
having been a long time in Venice, and well-conducted."
a high standard of life and wealth, and even smaller places
The import of slaves from Asia increased rapidly after
all over the country, had a similar exotic population within
Italy's depopulation in consequence of the disastrous plague
their walls. But the poor wretches tossed up on the Italian
of 1348; it ended almost completely after the fall of Con-
shores by Venetian and Genoese dealers and intermediary
stantinople in 1453. By this trade the Mongolian type be-
agents had nothing to tell about their native countries.
came very familiar in Northern Italy and especially These
in boys and girls were captured and sold at a tender
Florence, where the most conspicuous families, such as the
age, and when they reached their destinations most of them
Adimari, Alberti, Cavalcanti, Medici, Strozzi, Vespucci,
were not yet in their teens."68 They came to the market "al-
and many others had their servants "de genere Tartaro-
most naked," as the crude language of the documents
rum,"61 and were emulated by notaries, priests, physicians,
monotonously repeats, and their Tartar or Turkish names,
merchants, and finally craftsmen and artists. Simonethe di sole legacy brought from distant lands, they gave up at
Giovanni, the pretended brother of Donatello and collabo-
the baptismal font as soon as they became the property of
rator of Filarete in making the bronze doors of St. Peter's,
their first purchaser. As they came by the thousand and
had a Tartar and a Russian slave in his Florentine home.62 were rapidly absorbed by the indigenous population, a cer-
An ancestor of Alesso Baldovinetti bought three of those
tain Mongolian strain could not have been rare in Tuscan
exotic girls whose portraits he drew on the margin of his
homes and streets."69 But its influence on artistic types and
still unpublished journal."6 artistic inspiration has been insignificant. A painter from
Most of the accurate official descriptions of these crea-
Siena, Paolo di Giovanni Fei, who worked in the second
tures are anything but flattering. Expressions like "pulcra
half of the fourteenth century, liked to give his feminine
corpore" or "pelle alba" are rare. Yet the Mongolian
faces a Mongolian cast by painting their cheek bones higher
slave girls seem to have been attractive enough to the
than usual.7r Some other characteristic traits of the Asiatic
Florentine male folk to become a disruptive element type
in may have attracted the interest of the Italian painters
of the Quattrocento but there is no evidence of their con-
Sunmma Theologica (Florence, I582, III, pp. 60 ff.) that baptism
of slaves does not imply their liberation. Cf. A. Zanelli, op. cit. 64. The documents of the Florentine foundling house of the
59. Lazari, op. cit., p. 470. The reason why the slaves came from Quattrocento reveal many somber domestic tragedies and some
the interior of the Asiatic continent may be sought in the fact thatmotifs for farces too. Slaves play an important part in Italian nov-
the populations of the Euro-Asiatic borderlands were Christiansels or and comedies of the Renaissance.
Mohammedans who were not generally accepted in the mediaeval65. Guasti, op. cit. Letter of July 4, 1464.
slave trade.
66. Cf. Livi, op. cit., pp. 1- ff. Many of the girl slaves de-
6o. Zanelli, op. cit., pp. io ff. This was the Italian branch ofscribed
an in the Registro degli schiavi, mostly in their teens, were sold
extensive Asiatic slave trade whose main currents were directed in a state of pregnancy and later used as nurses.
from the ports of Crimea to Constantinople and Egypt. The Tartar 67. The mother had to remain a slave and was separated from
element decreased after the fall of the Mongolian empire and was child and home. Cf. Zanelli, op. cit., p. 89.
replaced by people from the Balkans and Russia. 68. By strictly enforced laws it was everywhere prohibited to
61. In 1459, Giovan Francesco Strozzi had in his household more employ slaves in workshops of any kind. A direct participation of
than fifty attendants and slaves. Cf. Zanelli, op. cit., p. 84. these orientals in contemporary Italian craftsmanship is excluded by
62. Cf. E. Miintz, "Les arts 'a la cour des Papes .. .," the legislation of the state and the charters of the corporations.
Milanges d'archikologie et d'histoire publids par l'tcole Frantaise 69. Italian anthropologists affirm that it is still recognizable,
de Rome, I884, p. I9. especially in the low strata of the population. Cf. the statistical sur-
63. G. Biagi, Men and Manners of Old Florence, Chicago, 90o9,veys published by Livi, op. cit., passim.
p. 1oo. 70. Cf. Edgell, Sienese Painting, p. I75.

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io6 THE ART BULLETIN

taminating
taminatingthe
thepure
puretural,
tural,
and or
or stylistic,
ideal
and stylistic,
types
ideal deve
of of
types dev
their
th
ures
ures by
by touches
touchesof
of feeling
feeling
oriental
oriental and
and imaginatio
imagination
exoticism.
exoticism.
As
As to
to the
thefew
fewrude
rudeand authentic
and
this
this oriental
authentic
new
new style
style orien
exotici
exoticism
by
by Ambrogio
AmbrogioLorenzetti,
Lorenzetti,
without
without Pisanello,
Pisanello,
any
any and
deeper
deeper anB
sig
sign
there
there can
canbe
beno
no Even
Even
doubt
doubtthat in
in
that decorative
decorative
they reproduce
they reprodu d
det
t
from
from Western
Western or
orCentral
CentralAsia
oriental
oriental who
Asia whoserved
influence
influence serveas
fades
fades b
ers,
ers, or
or soldiers
soldiersin
in ine
ine
the
the creation.
creation.
household
householdofThe
The new
new
Italian
of Itali
nates,
nates, and from a new
andpatricians.
patricians. Fromartistic
From consciousness
Marco which
Marcodetermined all es-Polo's
Polo's tim
were
were famous
famousfor
fortheir
their excellence
excellence
sential expressions in
of creative imagination
imagination and in
archer
and even
even the arch
the
particularly
particularlyin
indemand
demand among
rendering of among
accessories. the upward
the upwars
of
of the
the new
newFlorentine
It belongs to aristocracy.
Florentine aristocracy.
the paradoxes of history that the earlyBut
the early and
and t
Bu
common
common sight
sightin
inthe
the Italian
Italian
traditional
traditional commercial
oriental exoticism
oriental exoticism incommercial
in Italianart
Italian artvanished justatat cent
vanishedjust c
teenth
teenth century.
century.Those
the end of poor
Those poor
the thirteenth fellows
fellows
century when direct never
direct communica-
communica- i
neve
sions
sions of
of distant
distantlands
lands
tion of
tion with
with of
Central
Central gold,
Asia gold,
Asia and
and the Farpearls,
the Far East pearls,
East was
was being
being inaugu-and
inaugu- anp
of
of the
the marvels
marvels and
and wonders
ratedwonders evokedevoked
by missionaries and tradesmen. by
These political by
events medi
m
travel
travel literature.
literature.With
With the the
and their economic multitude
multitude
consequences of
did not affect the spiritual thei
of t
servitude
servitude and
andmisfortune,
misfortune, and
life and the indigenous and
trends with with
of contemporary their m
their
civilization.
progeny,
progeny, they
theyrepresented
represented the the
The orientalism so prominent Asiatic
in all fieldsAsiatic elemen
of artistic activity ele
politan
politan population
populationof of
during Renaissance
Renaissance
the Middle Italy.
Ages was first overshadowed by Italy.
the in-
Whenever
Wheneveran anexotic
exotic type
spiration type appears
of French Gothicappears with
and finally supplanted, with
together reali
r
characteristic
characteristicattitudes
attitudes in
with all patterns ofincontemporary
the contemporary
maniera greca, by the original vi- It
and
and drawings,
drawings, sketches,
sketches, or
sions of ingenious or woodcuts,
artists and awoodcuts, its its
national style of art. What liv
be
be supposed
supposedto
tohavewasexisted
have left existed as
of Asiatic exoticism a slave
as
is nothing a than
more slave in the
a minor in
environment.
environment. For
Forthethe
aspect rest,
of the rest,
inspired Italian
and lively Italian
realism art
characteristic
characteristic ofart
of of th
the
the of
avoided
avoided every
everyoriental
oriental influence,
influence,
Italian painting of the Renaissance. either comp
either co

71.
7I.Cf.
Cf.Yule, The Book
Yule, The of Book
Ser Marco
ofPolo, p. 460. Polo, II,UNIVERSITY
SeriI,Marco p. 460.
OF CALIFORNIA

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