Medieval History
A few months ago, I developed a big-time crush on a sailor. We?re very different, he and I. Language, an ocean, spouses, and six centuries separate us.
His name is Michalli da Ruodo, or Michael of Rhodes. He sailed for Venice in the days when her merchants controlled a commercial empire envied from London to Constantinople. My mind?s eye has conjured a man who looks like Federico Castelluccio, complete with the ponytail and sideburns he sported in The Sopranos, and I imagine he behaves like Russell Crowe?s Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
After reading Michael?s service record, I?ve decided that he?s brave, strong, and loyal. He?s definitely clever and ambitious. He wrote a book about mathematics and shipbuilding, no subjects for slouches. And his wit is mordant. Mind you, my only evidence for Michael?s sense of humor is an amateurish coat of arms he drew in his book. It shows two crowned turnips flanking a rat holding a bloodied cat. Now, I wonder, does the rat represent him, and is the cat a stand-in for the Venetians he served, possibly with resentment?
I met my centuries-old flame in The Book of Michael of Rhodes: A Fifteenth-Century Maritime Manuscript, a three-volume work released recently by MIT Press. It is the culmination of work begun in 2002 when Michael?s manuscript, which is privately held, was made available for study to the now dissolved Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology. MIT has meticulously recreated Michael?s manuscript in one volume; the second and third volumes include a transcription of the medieval Venetian, a translation, and a collection of essays put together by an international team of experts in Venetian history, shipbuilding and design, navigation, mathematics, medieval astrology and medicine, art history, and paleography.
Click here to read this article from Humanities
See also our feature on The Book of Michael of Rhodes
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St Michael and All Angels, Louth, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.When I last posted on this blog on 19 March I said that I would be absent from the blog for a few weeks. Those few weeks have very quickly turned into nearly three months....
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Medieval History
Sailor of Fortune: Michael of Rhodes
A few months ago, I developed a big-time crush on a sailor. We?re very different, he and I. Language, an ocean, spouses, and six centuries separate us.
His name is Michalli da Ruodo, or Michael of Rhodes. He sailed for Venice in the days when her merchants controlled a commercial empire envied from London to Constantinople. My mind?s eye has conjured a man who looks like Federico Castelluccio, complete with the ponytail and sideburns he sported in The Sopranos, and I imagine he behaves like Russell Crowe?s Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
After reading Michael?s service record, I?ve decided that he?s brave, strong, and loyal. He?s definitely clever and ambitious. He wrote a book about mathematics and shipbuilding, no subjects for slouches. And his wit is mordant. Mind you, my only evidence for Michael?s sense of humor is an amateurish coat of arms he drew in his book. It shows two crowned turnips flanking a rat holding a bloodied cat. Now, I wonder, does the rat represent him, and is the cat a stand-in for the Venetians he served, possibly with resentment?
I met my centuries-old flame in The Book of Michael of Rhodes: A Fifteenth-Century Maritime Manuscript, a three-volume work released recently by MIT Press. It is the culmination of work begun in 2002 when Michael?s manuscript, which is privately held, was made available for study to the now dissolved Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology. MIT has meticulously recreated Michael?s manuscript in one volume; the second and third volumes include a transcription of the medieval Venetian, a translation, and a collection of essays put together by an international team of experts in Venetian history, shipbuilding and design, navigation, mathematics, medieval astrology and medicine, art history, and paleography.
Click here to read this article from Humanities
See also our feature on The Book of Michael of Rhodes
- Privilege And Duty In The Serene Republic: Illuminated Manuscripts Of Renaissance Venice
Helena Szépe of the University of South Florida is currently researching illustrations found in Venetian medieval and Renaissance documents. With the assistance of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Professor Szépe is now preparing a...
- Scanner Sheds Light On Hidden Words In Medieval Manuscripts
Scholars at the University of Copenhagen are now able to decipher hidden and illegible texts in damaged medieval manuscripts thanks to a special scanner that was donated to the university. Linguist Michael Lerche and his colleagues from the Department...
- Cfp: Medieval Spanish Law
Dear All, I am organizing a session on medieval Spanish law for the International Congress at Kalamazoo for 2010. If you are interested in presenting in the session, please send me an abstract at [email protected] . Abstracts on any aspect...
- Apologies For My Absence
St Michael and All Angels, Louth, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.When I last posted on this blog on 19 March I said that I would be absent from the blog for a few weeks. Those few weeks have very quickly turned into nearly three months....
- Our Lady - Mediatrix Of The Souls Of The Faithful
High up on the tower at St Michael's church in Minehead in Somerset and looking out over the burial ground, is this wonderful little carved panel. It dates from the fifteenth century. It shows St Michael, the patron of the church, holding a pair...