History of Portugal

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 10: Lisbon at Last

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Lisbon in 1572, as seen in the atlas of Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg - (WikiI)

The Fernao Mendes Pinto story reaches its conclusion, and he finally reaches Portugal once more.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986).

  • Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997).

  • Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).

  • Rubiés, Joan Pau. “The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India.” Portuguese Studies 10 (1994).

  • Spence, Jonathan D. The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds. W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 9: With Francis Xavier in Japan

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Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Goa (1610) by André Reinoso - (Museu de São Roque - Wiki)

The story of Fernao Mendes Pinto intersects with that of the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, and takes him back to Japan.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • App, Urs. “St. Francis Xavier’s Discovery of Japanese Buddhism: A Chapter in the European Discovery of Buddhism (Part 1: Before the Arrival in Japan, 1547-1549).” The Eastern Buddhist 30, no. 1 (1997).

  • Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).

  • Willis, Clive. “Captain Jorge Álvares and Father Luís Fróis S.J.: Two Early Portuguese Descriptions of Japan and the Japanese.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, no. 2 (2012).

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 8: First in Japan

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Nanban byōbu, by Kanō Sanraku, 17th century - (Wikimedia)

The first Europeans wash up on Japanese shores, bringing the musket as they do so, and Pinto would have you believe that he is with them.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • Cooper, Michael. The Southern Barbarians: The First Europeans in Japan. Kodansha, 1971.

  • Lidin, Olof G. Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan. Routledge, 2003.

  • Perrin, Noel. Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879. David R. Godine, 1979.

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 2: The Red Sea and the Siege of Diu

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16th-Century Painting of an Ottoman Fleet - (Wikimedia)

Pinto visits the "Land of Prester John," faces trouble on the Red Sea, and brushes up against the 1538 Siege of Diu. He takes part in combat on the waters and along the Indian coast, grumbles as to his lot in life, and is whisked about by boat to Massawa, Mokha, Qeshm, Chaul, Goa, Honnavar, and Diu, before heading further east.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

3 Things:

  1. Article on ambergris, a substance which makes fairly frequent appearances on this podcast.

  2. Podcast episode on “The Ottoman Red Sea.”

  3. Article on the Ottoman coffee crackdown.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • Casale, Giancarlo. The Ottoman Age of Exploration. Oxford University Press, 2010.

  • Pearson, N.M. The Portuguese in India. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

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Fernao Mendes Pinto 1: From Lisbon, Poverty, and Pirates

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Detail from Duarte de Armas’ Livro das Fortalezas - (Wiki)

Fernão Mendes Pinto, respected by many of his contemporaries for the expertise knowledge which he'd gained through his travels, absolutely synonymous for others with lies and exaggerations. 

From humble beginnings and vaguely unfortunate events in his early life, Pinto would find a place for himself in the 16th-century world of colonial Portugal, would write himself into it if necessary.

He was, he said, “13 times a prisoner and 17 a slave.” As Rebecca Catz writes, he served as a “soldier, merchant, pirate, ambassador, missionary, doctor—the list is not complete.” He ran afoul of pirates, was shipwrecked, and robbed royal tombs. The characters in his story included a saint, an Indonesian ruler, the mother of Prester John, a Japanese lord, and someone who may or may not have been the Dalai Lama. He claimed to be among the very first Europeans to set foot in Japan, but then he claimed to be a lot of things.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

3 Things:

  1. Article on the history of the mango and a Portuguese connection.

  2. Article about the discovery of a shipwreck, thought to have come from Vasco da Gama’s armada.

  3. The story of the rhino of Lisbon.

Sources:

  • The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

  • The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History, edited by Malyn Newitt. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

  • Pearson, N.M. The Portuguese in India. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 

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Prester John 9: The End Part One

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16th-Century Chart - Prester John (Wikimedia)

What happens to a mythical priest-king when you get too close to him? Does he just disappear?

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

  • Ray, John. A Collection of Curious Travels & Voyages. 1693.

  • Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555. Taylor & Francis, 2016.

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Prester John 8: Ambassador Mateus and his Many Doubters

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A 16th-Century Portrait of Dawit II (Wikimedia)

In the early years of the 16th-century, Ethiopia's regent, Eleni, sent an ambassador to Portugal to propose an alliance. She sent a man named Mateus. Unfortunately for Mateus, almost nobody believed him.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

  • The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India. Hakluyt Society, 1875.

  • Alvares, Francisco. Narrative of the Portuguese embassy to Abyssinia during the years 1520-1527. Hakluyt Society, 1881.

  • Baldridge, Cates. Prisoners of Prester John: The Portuguese Mission to Ethiopia in Search of the Mythical King, 1520-1526. McFarland, 2012.

  • Diffie, Bailey Wallys & Winius, George Davison. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580. University of Minnesota Press, 1977.

  • Eliav-Feldon, Miriam. Renaissance Impostors and Proofs of Identity. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012.

  • Knobler, Adam. Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration. Brill, 2016.

  • Krebs, Verena. Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe. Springer International, 2021.

  • Rogers, Francis Millet. The Quest for Eastern Christians: Travels and Rumor in the Age of Discovery. University of Minnesota Press, 1962.

  • Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555. Taylor & Francis, 2016.