Читать книгу Art in Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 30

In 1498 the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the first European to do so. Thereafter, with the help of Arabian pilots encountered on the east coast of Africa, he sailed on to India. Subsequent exploration led to the establishment of fortified trading posts along the coasts, and from 1510, Goa became the capital of Portugal’s ‘Estado da India’. Further expansion into south‐east Asia, especially the ‘spice islands’ of what is now Indonesia, led to an influx of goods which turned a relatively small, poor country on the extreme western edge of Europe into one of the richest powers of the period, and its capital Lisbon into a world city. Giovanni da Empoli was a young Florentine merchant who worked for financial concerns in Bruges. He made three voyages from Lisbon to the East Indies in the first two decades of the sixteenth century. From one of these he wrote a letter to his father describing the places and products he had seen. The present extracts focus on spices, mentioning pepper, ginger, cinnamon, saffron, nutmeg and cloves, as well as pearls and rubies, manufactured cotton cloth and silk. The letter, dated 2 July 1514, is included in M. Spallanzani (ed.), Giovanni da Empoli: un mercante fiorentino nell’Asia portoghese, Florence: Studio per Edizione Scelte, 1999, pp. 159–207. The extracts were translated by Kathleen Christian.

Moving on to India, as you already know and as I have told you, these are gentiles, that is, idol‐worshippers and natural men of the earth who worship Mars as their primary god. Nevertheless, they know and believe that there is one great God, because ‘the sound [of the heavens praising God] hath gone forth into all the earth’, etc. There are foreigners there (who rule over the natives) and various sorts of Moors, who follow the law of Muhammad … In the land of India called Malibar, the territory that begins with Goa and goes up to Cavo Comedi [Kanyakumari], they produce pepper and ginger, and goods which you already know about. Moving beyond Cavo Comedi there are gentiles, and there one finds Gael [Kayalpatnam], where they fish for pearls, and the body of Saint Thomas the Apostle is found here. Moving further between the land and the sea you find the Island of Ceylon, where they produce cinnamon, saffron and Asian rubies in great abundance. This is a very beautiful, well populated and well situated land.

Returning to the mainland, and to Gael, you find Coromandel [the Coromandel Coast], where all the rice exported to Malacca comes from; and it is a land greatly abundant in merchandise of all sorts. Then there comes Bengal, also gentiles, where they make cotton cloths of all varieties, very fine ones, called brattiglie, barracano, sultanpuri [different types of cloth], and other sorts of very fine cotton cloths. They also have preserved green ginger, which is excellent, and all other types also preserved, and great quantities of fine cane sugar and white sugar as refined as that of Valencia.

Then a bit further you find Martaban [Mottama in Myanmar], which is also populated by gentiles, men who are great merchants and knowledgeable in all things, and who are experts of accounting; the best in the world. They write out their accounts in books just as we do. In this land you find large quantities of lacquer, cloth, merchandise and other things. Then Tanazzari [Tenasserim] and Sarnau [Siam] where they make very fine white benzoin resin, storax gum and lacquer which is finer than that of Martaban and Scale [unidentified location], and where the Chinese go to sell their goods, that is, rhubarb, musk, silk damask, brocades, white silk, raw silk in all colours and Chinese pearls. Here you find all sorts of spices which the Chinese buy and bring back to their country….

Beyond Malacca, they don’t make anything and they are natural people of the earth and gentiles, and the others are Moors of several generations. Moving further, you come to the land of Java where they produce nutmeg and mace, cubeb [tailed pepper or Java pepper], turpeth, galangal [a plant related to ginger], camphor of two varieties, aloes and an infinite number of other medicines. One type of tree produces both nutmeg and mace. I’m sending you on this ship a specimen which is still green.

And further on is Timor, where white and yellow sandalwood come from, and further on are the Moluccas, where cloves are produced. I am sending you the bark of these trees, which is excellent, as are the flowers. […]

Believe me, his Highness the King of Portugal is the lord of great conquests, and lands, and principalities, but even more of the sea, and of riches of all sorts; one might even say he is lord of the world.