Detail from Masaccio’s The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel
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You open your eyes in Italy. You’re in Tuscany. You’re in Florence.
You breakfast in a small piazza north of the Arno, linger over coffee, and then make your way south, over the river.
You stroll across it at the Ponte Vecchio. The “old bridge,” despite the early hour, is bustling with the visitors, and you pause only briefly where the shops give way to a view of the water. Then you walk on.
You let your steps carry you along Via de' Guicciardini and into the Piazza de Pitti. You enter the palace, cross its inner courtyard, and find yourself in the Giardino di Boboli. You while away the hours there in the pleasantly cool, green surroundings of the garden, drinking wine, or soothing a hangover, or both.
You walk the avenues, see the sculptures, the fountains, and the grottos, and when you’ve had your fill, you drift back out past the palace, turn away from the bridge and its crowds, and duck into Via Mazzetta, its narrow lane becoming Sant'Agostino and crossing Via Maffia. You turn right, and then quickly left onto Santa Monaca. You’re close.
Your steps carry you out into the Piazza del Carmine, and as you look up to your left, your eyes settle on the distinctly unspectacular facade of the Santa Maria del Carmine, your destination. Within those church walls is a chapel, the Brancacci Chapel, renowned for its early Renaissance frescoes. There, the works of Masolino da Panicale and the talented young Masaccio, some of them later finished by Filippino Lippi, depict a cycle of scenes from the life of Saint Peter, and among them is one known as The Tribute Money.
The Tribute Money shows us the story of Matthew 17, a tale of entering a city and of dealings with a tax collector there. In it, Peter is challenged as to whether his teacher pays the temple tax. Peter responds that his teacher does, but then when he goes into their house, that teacher, Jesus, seems first to disagree, before eventually producing a miracle in order to keep the peace. He told Peter that he was to go fishing, that he should look in the mouth of the first fish he caught, and that there, he would find coin-enough for the payment.
It’s a painting of more than a little renown, considered a masterpiece of critical importance in the history of Renaissance art. But I introduce it here not so much for its artistic value, considerable as that may be. I do so for the story behind the Brancacci Chapel, in particular, for that of its patron Felice Brancacci and his diplomatic adventure overseas just before he came home to commission those frescoes. This is his story.
Hello, and welcome. My name is Devon, and this is Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World, the podcast that follows medieval history through the stories of its travellers. And this is the part of the podcast where I inform you that if you are enjoying all of this and you do feel moved to do so, you can help it on its path. For 5, 3, or 1 dollar a month on Patreon, you can keep it and its creator above water and merrily floating along into even more medieval history, and you can do so while enjoying ad-free listening and extended episodes. And while we’re on the topic, I want to send out my thanks to the following kind listeners for their contributions. Thank you Steven. Thank you John. And thank you Kara. Your generous support is very much appreciated.
Now, to the story. Today, it’s part one of a two-parter, on Felice Brancacci, the highly esteemed silk merchant who commissioned those frescoes, and his trip to Egypt. To tell it, I’m relying on Brancacci’s account as translated by Mahnaz Yousefzadeh in 2018.
We’re picking up our story on June 30th, 1422. Brancacci and his companion, Carlo di Francesco Federighi, Doctor of Law, have left Florence. We see them reach Pisa on July the 1st and linger there, writing occasionally to the Florentine Sea Consuls and hearing rumours as to when their ships were to go, waiting, until on the 15th, they departed from Piombino. They left the mouth of the Tiber behind them on the 19th, passed Napoli on the 20th, and “revived [them]selves with water, wine, and other things” in Scalea on the 21st. They were in Messina on the 25th and 26th, and sent a letter back to Florence to keep their employers updated. Then, on the 28th, after a false start that saw them swept back 30 miles, they left Italy, heading east, to arrive at the Greek island of Kefalonia on the evening of the 30th. That last leg had been hard going over open seas that had left them ill and even the sailors shaken, but Brancacci’s journey had begun in earnest.
The Egypt he was bound for was that of Mamluk Sultan Barsbay, the man sitting on the near edge of 16 years of stable rule, a noteworthy feat given that there had been 6 sultans in the 16 years prior. But that stability along with other successes, such as conquering Cyprus, were all, as Brancacci set out, still yet to come. Barsbay, having only just taken power that same year, was still an unknown quantity, his policies, desires, and aspirations, still very uncertain.
Across the Mediterranean from Barsbay’s Egypt, was the city where Brancacci lived and the one on behalf of which he made his journey. Florence has not featured heavily in this podcast so far; I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it at all actually. There’s been lots of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, but Florence, not so much. And maybe that’s surprising when you think of the Medicis or of figures such as Machiavelli or Savonarola whose stories to varying degrees enter broader public consciousness. The Florence we’re dealing with hasn’t gotten there yet. But it’s getting there.
Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy have come and gone, Petrarch has lived and died, though little of either in Tuscany, and Boccaccio has already written his Decameron, his suddenly very of-the-moment story of young people fleeing the plague to shelter in place in a villa outside Florence where they take turns telling each other tales.
Donatello has been working in the city for nearly two decades, and in about 10 years Verrocchio will be born and some 30 years later teach a young Leonardo da Vinci. Florence, in many ways, was on the rise.
Politically, this is not yet the Medici Florence so beloved by creators of historical fiction for film and tv. But it is getting there. The Lorenzo de Medici days are still to come, but his grandfather Cosimo has already founded his Medici Bank and opened branches around Italy and then around Western Europe, wielding immense power, if not absolute.
And what did the rulers of this Florence want? What had they dispatched our Brancacci to do? It all had to with the city’s recent changes in fortune.
Florence had been expanding its territory in very substantial ways. In part, this was facilitated by the papal schism that weakened the regional power of Rome. Then there had been a 40,000 Florin purchase from its French ownership that had given Florence control over Arezzo. They’d advanced in force toward Bologna and Urbino, and involved themselves in overturning the leadership of a town under Sienna’s control. But this bustle of activity had brought unwanted attention.
There were those Tuscan towns and cities whose rulers did not want to be absorbed by the ascendant Florence, and in Giangaleazzo Visconti, the powerful ruler of Milan, they found a willing ally. Starting in 1390, Milan and Florence became embroiled in 12 years of intermittent warfare, and those years were crushingly expensive. The city relied heavily on loans from its wealthy citizens, including the Medicis, and in the first years of the 15th century, things did not look good for our Florence.
A conspiracy was uncovered involving many of the city’s elites that was to have opened the gates to exiles and Milanese. There were military losses, and Bologna fell. There was every possibility of imminent invasion and the threat that Florence itself would soon be besieged. But then, on September 12th, the good news arrived. The plague, not usually associated with happy tidings, had already rid them of their enemy nine days before. Visconti was dead, his holdings soon to come apart. There would be other Viscontis, other threats from Milan, but here there was an opening, an opportunity.
As I see it, Florence’s next goal was obvious, was the thing that any inland power would seek to acquire, the key to so much wealth and power, to involve themselves in all a world of trade. The city needed access to a port, and Pisa was where they were going to get it.
The Florentines tried everything to acquire Pisa. They tried to take it by force and then made multiple offers to purchase it. Eventually both approaches would be necessary. They bought their way into the citadel for just over 200,000 florins, and then faced a nearly immediate Pisan uprising and imposed a horrendous, starvation inducing,13 month siege to attain their prized sea-port. Other pieces fell more readily to their grasping hands: Cortona, Livorno, and Porto Pisano were all taken by force of florins rather than arms.
Florence was ready to become a maritime power. The Florentines selected sea consuls and ordered the construction of a fleet of galleys that would be owned by the city but available to move their merchants’ goods about the Mediterranean. By the summer of 1422, their first galleys were ready to sail for Alexandria with our Brancacci aboard, and thanks to the journal he left us, we can follow his progress.
We can trace it, moving south along the Peloponnesian coast and its islands, see its stops at Zakynthos, Methoni, and Candia, and at that last location our first glimpse of Brancacci’s diplomatic work. He and Federighi were met at the docks by the Vice Duke, visited him at his home, and accompanied him to vespers at the Church of San Salvadore. There were “courtes[ies] and kind words” such that Brancacci “would have a hard time repeating them.”
The next day, the Duke sent for them. They joined him at mass and received at their galleys, gifts of bread, fruits, and wine. However, the much needed craftsmen who had been promised to see to their ships did not appear. All of them withdrew from their agreements, and the Florentines were quietly told they should make other plans. They were also made to pay excessively in taxes on wine and other goods, more than was customary they thought, and they complained in person to the Duke and in writing to the sea consuls back in Florence. It would not be the last disappointment they experienced, not the last time Brancacci found the going more than a little more expensive than he’d anticipated. Indeed, that would very much come to be the theme of his ambassadorial record.
Brancacci and Federighi had not been sent to Egypt simply to greet the sultan, to offer regards from Tuscany and announce themselves to a new ruler. This pair, merchant and jurist, were going with very specific goals in mind, and we know what they were. Delightfully, we can read their written instructions, “approved and drafted by the magnificent and powerful Signori, by the Priors of the arts, and by the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia of the people and the Commune of Florence, and their respectable boards, on June 13, 1422.” And, most fortunately for us, we can read at the conclusion that, quote: “between the date stated below and the end of your mission you shall chronicle your actions in your own writing, or have them written and then signed you, and leave these chronicles to the chancellors, under serious penalty.” If his mission might fall short in other areas, Brancacci at least succeeded in this.
The document provided detailed directions as to the trip. The envoys were to travel aboard the ship San Giovanni, to bring greetings and offerings to the government representatives in any Venetian territories they should pass through, to strictly avoid stopping in any Genoese ones save by absolute necessity, to establish friendly relations with the Grand Master of Rhodes, and to gather any information they could “about the rituals and customs observed when appearing before the sultan and before the other princes [they] would meet, in terms of reverential gestures, of speaking, and of other actions [they would] need to carry out.”
This last point is really emphasized. At Alexandria, and then in Cairo too, they needed to make every effort to gather intelligence, ask advice, consult with anyone they could as to how best to proceed. Should they make their requests at their first audience? Their second? They knew that they didn’t know. They knew that they needed to know if their requests were to be granted. And what were their requests? What were they to ask for on behalf of their city?
Perhaps first to be understood, is that it was indeed to be on behalf of that city; no longer were their merchants to be dependent on Pisan ships or to pose, as they often had, as citizens of Pisa while trading.
As representatives of Florence, the ambassadors were to ask for a consul of their city to be recognized, to have their own fondaco - a combination of merchants’ residence and trading warehouse - along with other facilities and resources, to have all the same freedoms and guarantees in trade as the Pisans had, for this they now considered their due, and also all those attached to the Venetians or to any other Christian nation.
Last but very far from least, the ambassadors were to advance the cause of the Florentine currency, to urge the sultan to acknowledge that the florin would be taken as equal to the Venetian ducat. Brancacci and Federighi were to make the Mamluks see the florin’s quality. They should offer reasons and proofs, let the coin be weighed and melted down by experts, let it be tested and show its worth.
If they couldn’t have everything they asked for, they should get anything they could and obtain as much information as possible about the rest.
These were the instructions of our ambassadors as they left Candia and headed for the island of Rhodes. A century later, the 400 ships of Suleiman the Magnificent would come and take that island, but for now it was still in the hands of the Gran Maestro, the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes.
Brancacci and Federighi arrived there on the 9th of August, around midday, and immediately there were tensions. They learned before reaching harbour of the presence of three armed Catalan ships, and they displayed their weapons on deck, showed themselves and their strength, and were recognized and allowed to enter the harbour. There, they found yet another armed Catalan ship, this one beset by Genoese after having opened fire on one of their ships in Alexandria. The Florentines sought guarantees of safety from the Grand Master, but being a Catalan himself, he preferred to remain neutral so far as the galleys at his harbour and would promise protection only on land. Fortunately for his guests, that neutrality would be sufficient for a peaceful stay.
They received their host’s blessing of their diplomatic mission and his complaints as to how their city taxed his knights from Tuscany. The ambassadors made arrangements to procure what they lacked, to see to repairing the galleys, and to gather information and assistance. Clearly taking this part of their instructions very seriously, they spoke to every Florentine they could find, including a man who, though he showed them much love and attention in private, wished neither to be seen with them in public nor to go with them, for he’d long posed as a Venetian and, doubting his ability to find patronage from Florence, did not want to “renounce both homelands.”
Others, however, were more willing to openly join their cause. They were able to hire a trustworthy translator, and they also gained the help of a man who’d for four years worked as consul for Rhodes in Alexandria, a valuable asset for the kind of work they wanted to do.
On the afternoon of the 17th of August, the diplomatic party left Rhodes aboard the Florentine galleys, as ready as they were ever going to be. After this break, we’ll join them in Alexandria where, right away, we’re going to find our protagonists a little less sure of themselves, find them more than a little uncomfortable in a culture that they clearly found quite alien and inhospitable. But first, a quick break.
…
The envoys reached Alexandria on the 19th, their first contact a boat that came out toward them and then fled to port, uncertain if they were Catalans. There had been that trouble with the Catalans lately, who had not only attacked a Genoese vessel but had also taken a small but valuable one belonging to the sultan. Tensions would have been high. Still, the Florentines docked to the sight of many people pouring down to the port to see who had arrived. The interpreters went first, arranging for mounts and an escort, and then the main diplomatic party. They were greeted at the gates by the cadi, an official with whom they would have much to do, and then on to the admiral to present their letters, declare their intentions, and refresh themselves with some “delicious sweetened water.”
All seemed well so far, and as they dined that night on “bread, grapes, watermelons, and other fruit” that the admiral had sent to their assigned residence, they might have felt at least a little pleased with themselves, to have felt their mission at least a step advanced toward success, or maybe they were already more trepidatious than that. Maybe their eyes wandered about that assigned residence, which Brancacci complained was hardly equipped with doors, and their dissatisfaction began to stir. What we’re going to see as we follow their progress is that such dissatisfaction would come to typify the trip much more than any pleasures of the table.
What makes this text really interesting is not just its zoomed in, first hand examination of early 15th century diplomacy. It’s the obvious discomfort of its narrator. Brancacci is going to be outraged and what he perceives as endemic greed and corruption at all levels of Mamluk Egyptian society. It’s a response that really jumps off the page, becomes the dominant theme of his whole account, so that every reader will comment on it, some, like Ugo Tucci, seeing there the ambassador’s inexperience, his ignorance of cultural customs not his own that was especially problematic when it came to gift giving, the spreading around of maybe-bribes, maybe something more like the expected presents that smoothed the way and could turn to profit. Whatever these transactions were, he wasn’t having it, and at times you could see why.
On the day after their arrival, they were beset by requests for money. They received a delivery from the admiral of “five castrated lambs, fifty chickens, a basket of bread and one of bananas and [they] had to pay the carriers,” and really I’m with the carriers on this one, but then they’d have have another man come round saying “the admiral sends you his regards,” and he’d want money too, which seems less reasonable. And there were more, a thousand more, Brancacci says, in what I can only assume was a bit of an exaggeration, but however many they were, all approaching and asking for this or that, it’s pretty clear he was completely overwhelmed, was only able to cope, “after parting with a lot of money, with the help of “a few Italians,” with more experience than he had. The pressure increased from there.
On the 21st, there were more solicitations. The admiral was now outright demanding gifts for himself, and even the messenger he’d sent to tell them so felt that he should also have something from the ambassadors for his trouble. Was this appropriate? They weren’t sure. They’d thought they weren’t obliged to give anything until after they had visited the sultan, but then when they refused to give the admiral what he wanted, they were told that if that was the attitude they were going to take, then they wouldn’t be receiving any provisions. It was a give nothing, get nothing situation, and Brancacci needed advice; he needed a friendly local contact, and fortunately for him, they had one.
That former consul they’d picked up in Rhodes had a friend or at least an acquaintance in the local cadi, and this man was most helpful. He said that they should go ahead and give the gifts and then went so far as to supply them with materials to do so, “fabrics and cloths of his own.” It was a kind gesture but also one that seems to indicate that our Florentine friends had blundered to begin with. They were seeing corruption and trickery at every turn, and they were struggling to tell the necessary and entirely normal costs of doing business from the abusive charges imposed by scheming locals looking to take advantage of their naivate. In this case, they’d been shown a way out of their problem, but it wasn’t yet solved.
The next day they went to call on the admiral with presents in hand, satin and other fabrics in turquoise and green. They tried to bring them to the admiral, but first they had to get past one of his officials who met them at the gate. He insisted on assessing the offerings first, to see that they were up to snuff, to tell them that if they were deemed unacceptable then they would be turned away. And when they produced their gifts, that’s exactly what he did, declaring the items unworthy and seeing them off with not a little rude language. Had they inadvertently made some kind of offensive social gesture? Had they lowballed beyond the realm of politeness in their tribute?
The cadi didn’t seem to think so, not when he gave them the items, and not when they went to him again, informing him that mediators had been to the house asking first for an additional 500 ducats or, if not that, then at least more fabric. He promised to speak with the mediators on their behalf, but they were starting to wonder if all these people, friendly faces and otherwise, weren’t all plotting together to fleece them for all that they could. And you can see why. They were in an unfamiliar land and now increasingly isolated. On the 22nd, their house was watched to prevent any Christians from speaking to them, and then on the evening of the 23rd they were allowed out only two at a time.
When the cadi came back to them with word that they should go ahead and throw in the extra satin, they did so, and the admiral now grudgingly accepted what they brought him with “a sour face,” and the comment that “they were ugly and poor offerings.” The guard at their house was lifted, which was good, but he wanted a ducat and the messenger who brought his orders wanted one too.
The Florentines were exhausted by it all, by the stress of dealing with this uncertainty, in unfamiliar surroundings, and under the pressure of needing to account for it all to their city when they returned, having been directed to be frugal in their spending, and with an unknown quantity waiting for them at the end of it, a new sultan of whom very little was known. They had what should have been some more experienced figures with them, the interpreter and the former consul, but more than once Brancacci expressed the wish that they could simply disappear in the night, sail back to Rhodes, back to Florence. On the evening of the 23rd, he writes, “It was only because our orders were quite strict that we endured those events and prepared to remain pawns to Cairo and to their enormous greed.” They wanted to go, but they couldn’t.
So they stayed, and on the next day, there was more bad news. Two sailors from their ships had been found up on a hill where they weren’t supposed to be, and while one had escaped, the other had been captured. He was brought to the house in chains, his captors first demanding that the second sailor be produced, and then letting it be known that perhaps they could release the first for 25 ducats. The ambassadors refused.
They had, Brancacci says, grown familiar with these techniques. “Take him away,” they told the men, “and if he’s done something, then hang him,” which I’m sure the sailor was happy to hear. And when he was returned to them, having suffered only some severe beatings, Brancacci seems to express pride at having managed it without spending a single ducat, which, again, can only have delighted the badly beaten man.
The day after all that excitement, he writes that they stayed there in the house, doing nothing at all.
While they stayed in Alexandria, they participated in a world somewhat aside from that of the locals who they could never quite trust. They were part of a kind of Italian expat community of merchants and diplomats - often one and the same thing - all hustling for profit in Mamluk Egypt. Or at least they were on the edges of it.
They didn’t go along to Cairo with the Genoese and Venetians to talk with the sultan of what was to be done over the matter of the troublesome Catalans. They weren’t quite that established yet. But they did receive word from that friendly cadi that the meeting had gone well for them, that as a result the sultan was sending an interpreter to fetch them, and then, the following day, heard from some of the Venetians and Genoese themselves, that they had been able to arrange matters so they could continue doing business; they just couldn’t trade in any Catalan goods, just had to cough up some pretty significant bribes. It was probably all a little out of the Florentines’ league.
That point was driven home when the Genoese consul paid them a visit, telling them more about the customs of the place, and offering a great deal of friendly advice. He told them that aside from the gifts they were going to give the sultan, they should bring something for the three main officers they were also going to need on their side, the equivalent of about 400 ducats each, he suggested. That’s what the others had done, and anyways, it amounted to a savings in the long run. A bit of voluntary present prevention now could save them a fortune in forced bribe cure later on.
It may have been sound advice, but the men from Florence weren’t prepared to hear it. They were taken aback at the numbers being discussed, didn’t feel they could spend anywhere near so generously, hadn’t been instructed to part with anywhere near so much. However, when their next visitor, Gabriello Cattani, “a friend of [the] community],” told them the same, they listened; they wrote to the Sea Consuls in Florence of all they had heard; and they entertained yet another guest. It was proving to be quite a busy house.
This time, they played host to one of the sultan’s own interpreters. They heard that their presence there pleased the sultan greatly, but also that they should keep a close eye on the interpreters whenever they were transacting a gift. Interpreters, the interpreter told them, were never to be trusted, for it was ever in their nature to inflate a price, to swindle and overcharge on behalf of their masters. Somewhat surprised, Brancacci and his colleagues were uncertain what to make of this unasked for advice, were not sure whether or not it didn’t conceal some shrewdness or trickery of its own. They didn’t know who to trust, so they just thanked the man and were gracious with him.
Now that the Venetians and Genoese had settled their business, the way was clear for the Florentine embassy to finally make their approach to the sultan. Remember that they’ve been sitting in Alexandria since August 19th, waiting for the call to make their way to Cairo, and on the following day, the 29th, that call came. Naturally, it brought further stress and financial confusion.
First, word arrived that the admiral and the cadi each wanted to send one of their own interpreters along with the Florentines, men who would surely need to be paid, and this even though they already had two of their own interpreters and one of the sultan’s. It was late afternoon verging on early evening when the envoys finally got rid of the men by handing over 10 ducats a piece, and then, as they made ready to leave for Cairo, they had another official show up, saying that he would accompany them. So now they had to shed this unwanted baggage, and that meant yet another visit to the cadi where they were forced to wait until he got back from dinner.
Eventually, they did manage to leave, making their way by horse to the waiting boat, staving off a thousand solicitations as cheaply as they could, and at times actually shielding their faces with their hands and relying on others to pull them from the pit. It all sounds extremely stressful, but it also sounds like they weren’t handling it as well as they might have.
At least, they were at last on their way to Cairo. They’d leapt, or maybe stumbled, through the first hurdles, and they were now closing in on the chance to present their city’s wishes to the Mamluk Sultan, a stranger to them who was to hold a significant portion of their city’s financial future in his hands.
On the evening of the 2nd of September, they came to shore near the port of Cairo, and things began to come together for them. They settled into the home of a Christian named Andrea Garzalla from Candia, or Crete, who was out-of-country for the moment. They waited, and they bled funds, “still paying a lot of money,” Brancacci notes.
He also says that nobody came to see them, let alone give them information. People were afraid, he writes, maybe, and I’m speculating here, because the embassy hadn’t yet appeared before the sultan, hadn’t yet been ruled on as entirely welcome or not. But the men from Florence still had access to their two interpreters, and they’d hear one thing or another from each of them and file that away. They, quote, “kept on reorganizing the things that [they] wanted to ask.” And that’s the kind of line that really, for lack of a better work, excites me about this source.
In reading Brancacci’s account, you get a sense, clearly, of his stress over spending his city’s funds, his discomfort in his new surroundings, and also a little of this, their thinking and process, their consultations, both formal and informal. You start to think that, despite their anxious uncertainty over what gifts they should be giving to whom, their moral outrage at the whole economy of gift-giving or, as they saw it, rampant greed and bribery, these were not disastrous choices on the part of Florence. They at times seem dreadfully unprepared and uninformed, but they took seriously the need to rectify that. In Rhodes, Alexandria, and Cairo they were ever asking questions and absorbing intelligence that could facilitate their mission’s success.
On the morning of the 5th of September, they went out and got to work in Cairo. Next episode we’ll join them there. We’ll conclude this story of the Florentine mission to Mamluk Egypt, of Felice Brancacci, and of the fresco he commissioned when he returned home.