PotamianosHomem_ImageAnnotation10

Giotto, Madonna and Child. The hem of the Virgin's robe has pseudo-Arabic or Mongol inscriptions.

Giotto, Saint Francis receiving the Stigmata

Giotto (c. 1267-1337) and the Franciscan Order

Goittto (c. 1267-1337) has often been described as the artist who bridged the gap from a so-called “medieval” Byzantine style to that of the Italian Renaissance. He enjoyed a highly productive career, which likely included the frescos of the Legend of St. Francis in Assisi, birthplace of the founder of the Franciscan Order. Moreover, Giotto was frequently patronised by the Franciscans in Florence, painting several cycles and scenes from the life of St Francis in Florentine Churches. In addition to this painting, Giotto also produced other works that featured Mongol or Mongol-inspired elements, such as Madonna and Child, which were painted circa 1320-30. Franciscan missionaries played an instrumental role in spreading Christianity to present-day Mongolia and China, and they first ventured East following the Council of Lyon in 1242. This journey is not entirely surprising in light of the fact that the Franciscans were already well established in Tunisia and Syria, both of which were under the control of the Il-Khante Mongols. John of Plano Carpini reached the Great Khan in 1245; however, he was met with a distinctly unenthusiastic reaction. He was followed by William of Rubruck, who travelled through the Golden Hordes domains beginning in 1253 before travelling to Mongolia and meeting with one of the khanates. John of Montecorvino (1246/47-after 1289), who departed for the Mongol Empire in 1289, achieved far greater success than either of his predecessors, owning to his translation of biblical passages into Mongolia. While residing in Quanzhou, John “had six pictures made, illustrating the Old and New Testaments to instruct the ignorant” with “Latin, Tartar, and Persian” inscriptions “so that [men] of all languages [would] be able to read them easily” (Purtle, 190). John returned to Pope Nicholas IV, bearing a letter supposedly in response to the one Nicholas had dispatched him with, but in reality, authorised by local chiefs hoping to exert pressure on the pope. Jennifer Purtle has identified Franciscan missionaries as one of the key “beneficiaries of [Mongol] state support”, and with this money, the monks “not only built churches and monasteries but commissioned bells and other furnishings to facilitate conversion” (Purtle, 189). Other paintings associated with the Franciscan Order were described by Xia Wenyan (1296-1370), who described “a technique of painting that emerged in Europe circa 1335” which was “closely associated with the Franciscan order throughout Europe” (Purtle, 192).

Tombstone of Andrew of Perugia, Lotus and Cross

Religion in the Mongol Empire

Möngke Khan (r. 1251-1259) demonstrated an unusally enlighted perspective on religious diversity, “[believing] different religions to be like fingers of the same hand” (Purtle, 195). This toleration of religious diversity throughout the Mongol Empire is further demonstrated by the presence of “a Christian tombstone of the fourteenth century…embedded in the walls of a Buddhist temple that stood on or near the site of a former Franciscan church” (Purtle, 195). The Franciscan friar, and later bishop of Quanzhou, Andrew of Perugia, consciously “utilised a local rather than a European iconographic template” for his tombstone (Purtle, 184). Combining “local iconography of everlasting life in Christ remixed from the imagery of Buddhism and Christianity” (Purtle, 184). Thus, the imagery of his tombstone links him “to the community he served as bishop” (Purtle, 186).

Christ Carrying the Cross, late-fifteenth century

Giotto's The Crucifixion of St Peter, c. 1299. Mongol soldiers appear on the left side of the painting wearing similar helmets.

Mongol Soldiers at the Crucifixion

The mounted figures assembled at the bases of the crosses sports helmets similar to this one, suggesting that Giotto or someone close to him had direct contact with Mongol soldiers. Despite the antagonistic position the Mongol soldiers occupy in this painting, they are not physiognomically othered or portrayed in an exaggerated, character-like fashion. Given that no specific date has been ascertained for this painting, it is possible that it was completed following Pope Boniface VIII’s jubilee in 1300, which was attended by a Mongol contingent. Similarly attired Mongol cavalry and footsolders appear in Giotto’s The Crucifixion of St Peter, painted circa 1299. The inclusion of the Mongols as Christ’s tormenters is not entirely unusual, as medieval European artists frequently characterised His torturers as contemporary vilified groups. A stained glass panel produced in Cologne in the late fifteenth century depicts Christ carrying the cross surrounded by Others. One figure, wearing a distinctive hat, is implied to be a Jew. In the lower-left corner, a Saracen with a prominent nose, scimitar, and a turban variant known as a “tortil” leads Christ with a rope. The use of contemporary religious and military threats in depictions of Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion serves to update the iconography and associate the Mongols with Christ’s biblical tormenters.

Giotto, Boniface VIII Announces a Holy Year

China Illustrata

Mongolia's trade routes

Trade Routes

While not directly related to this painting, Guérin’s discussion of the “plurality of ivory trade routes between Africa and Europe in the Middle Ages” offers avenues for considering exchange between the Mongol Empire and Western Europe, as the Mongols “sought to imbricate China in a global medieval world linked”, in large part by trade (Guérin, 70; Purtle, 168). Furthermore, the active trade of “silk, porcelain, and spices” enticed European merchants, such as the Genoese Illioni family, to emigrate to Yangzhou (Purtle, 169). European merchants were further motivated by the “preferential ethnic and racial discrimination” instituted in their favour (Purtle, 178). Recent scholarship has revealed the prominence of the Swahili coast and “Indian Ocean economic systems for [Europe’s] supply of ivory”, a highly sought-after luxury good on par with silk (Guérin, 70). Excavations at the Swahili coast settlement of Shanga have revealed “the extent of trade with East Asia” as “Tang dynasty Chinese stoneware and glazed pottery from the Persian Gulf make up as much as five per cent of the pottery found” (Guérin, 76). Moreover, it appears that Italy enjoyed unique access to the goods supplied by the Swahili Corridor, as in contrast to the “bounty availability of ivory in [the western and central Mediterranean during] the fifth/eleventh century”, the Egyptian Fātamids and Byzantium were “relatively ivory poor cultures” during this period, indicating that trade was not flowing through Egypt as previously assumed (Guérin, 84). The importance of Chinese trade routes in the European mind is exemplified by Athanasius Kircher’s China Illustrata, published in 1667. The frontispiece depicts the Jesuit priests Schall von Bell and Matteo Ricci in Chinese costume. Kircher, also a Jesuit, imagines China in a distinctly Greco-Roman and Christian template. The two men hold a map of China’s trade routes and the surrounding ports, indicating its possibility for economic gains. One of the most highly sought-after Mongol goods in Europe was Tartarium, a luxurious type of textile which often featured small, dense patterns or naturalistic vegetal and animal designs. The immense popularity of these textiles is demonstrated by their inclusion in both religious and secular artworks as symbols of luxury and beauty.

The Lotus Sutra

Tomb of Katerina Ilioni

Adaptation and Appropriation

The style of the figures on this helmet resembles those on the Iloni children’s tombs, as they both evoke “the line-drawing style of East Asian Buddhist figural painting and sutra illumination” (Purtle, 182). In the case of the Ilioni tombstones, this figural style was “adapted to Christian content”, namely “iconographies of the Virgin and Child, Christ in Majesty”, and the lives of Sts. Catherine and Anthony, the namesakes of the deceased children (Purtle, 182). This iconographic appropriation is also evident on the tomb of Andrew of Perugia (see Mongol Religion).

1. Why did Giotto, in particular, seem to include so many Mongol-inspired elements in his works? 2. For whom was this painting produced? Would they have been able to identify these figures as Mongols? Could the inclusion of Mongol helmets and textiles be considered proto-ethnographic? 3. Is the implication here that the soldier fulfilling the role of St. Longinus will be similarly converted?

Questions