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profane context throughout Portugal.  Embroidered or painted silks as well as
                                                                                             84
                          Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in
                          the 16th and 17th century. Essays, Lisbon, 2009, p. 315.   variously coloured woven silk cloths were used to make garments worn by participants
                        81   Rank badges were worn during most of the Ming
                          dynasty. The iconography of the badges for all ranks   of the festivities (robes, skirts, shawls and tunics), as well as liturgical ornaments (altar
                          became more complex in the late Ming, depicting   frontals, wall hangings, curtains, valances, canopies, pavilions, etc.), which adorned
                          miniature landscapes inhabited by animals or birds
                          and an increase use of gold thread as the dominant   the interior or exterior spaces where the ceremonies and processions took place, and
                          background colour. For a discussion on Ming
                                                                                 85
                          and Qing rank badges, see John E. Vollmer and   the streets of the cities.  The earliest known reference dates to 1595, when some
                          Jacqueline Simcox,  Emblems of Empire. Selections   relics where transferred from the cathedral of Coimbra to the Augustinian monastery
                          from the Mactaggart Art Collection, Edmonton,
                          2009, pp. 82–85; and Mary M. Dusenbury,  Flowers,   of the Holy Cross in the same city. A written account of the arrival of the relics
                          Dragons, & Pine Trees. Asian Textiles in the Spencer
                          Museum of Art, New York and Manchester, 2004,     mentions that the clothes worn in the procession organized for this event were made
                          pp. 127–128.                       of ‘silk from China embroidered with birds of various colours, & …’.   The next
                                                                                                                          86
                        82   Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, Tratado em que se cõtam muito por
                          esteso as cousas da China cõ suas particularidades,   reference dates to fourteen years later, in 1609, when the body of Fray Batolomeu dos
                          assi do reino d’Ormuz, cõposto por el. R. padre frei   Mártires was transferred to the new Dominican convent of the Holy Cross in Viana
                          Gaspar da Cruz da ordê de sam Domingos [Ms.
                          1569], in Raffaella D’Intino (ed.),  Programa nacional   do Castelo. During this sacred festivity, the balustrades and pillars of the church’s choir
                          de edições comemorativas dos descobrimentos
                                                                                              87
                          portugueses, Lisbon, 1989, p. 210. For a citation   were ‘dressed in white silk from China’.  White silk continued to be used to adorn
                          of the original text in Portuguese, see Maria João   ecclesiastic spaces for several decades. Father Belchior de Santa Anna, writing in 1657,
                          Pacheco Ferreira,  Os Têxteis Chineses em Portugal
                          nas Opções Decorativas Sacras de Aparato (séculos   informs us that during the celebrations of the canonization of St. Teresa de Avila in
                          XVI–XVIII), unpublished PhD thesis, Universidade do
                          Porto, 2011, Vol. I, p. 189.       the cloister of the Carmelite convent of Lisbon held in 1622, white silks from China
                        83   The rank badges were sewn together at the corners   ‘covered its walls, & dressed its pillars, & arches’.
                                                                                                     88
                          and down the sides of a hanging or curtain. They were
                          sold at auction and now found in private collections   The silk cloths used in Jesuit festivities, as Pacheco Ferreira has remarked, not
                          around the world. I am grateful to Jacqueline   only served as material testimonies of the Portuguese expansion to China and the
                          Simcox for providing me information and images of
                          two examples of the rank badges from the Palazzo   Jesuit missionary activity there, but also had cultural, economic and political symbolic
                          Corsini, dating to the sixteenth century. The egret
                                                                     89
                          rank  badge  illustrated  here  was  first  published  in   meanings.   The account of Father João Sardinha Mimoso describing a theatrical
                          Jacqueline  Simcox,  ‘Chinese  Textiles’,  exhibition   performance offered by the students of the Jesuit college of Saint Anthony for King
                          catalogue, London 2010, pp. 8–9, no. 5.
                                                             Philip III of Spain/II of Portugal (r. 1598–1621) (hereafter Philip III) during his visit
                        84   Pacheco Ferreira, 2011, pp. 348–351; and Maria João
                          Pacheco Ferreira, ‘Political Intentions of Chinese   to Lisbon in 1619, informs us that the thirteen angels that appeared on the prologue of
                          Textiles in Portuguese Sacred, Solemn, Celebratory
                          Events of the 16th-18th Centuries’, in  Textiles and   the performance were dressed in ‘rich clothes [of] various colours of cloth, embroidered
                          Politics:  Textile  Society  of  America  13th  Biennial
                                                                               90
                          Symposium Proceedings, Washington, D.C., 2012, pp.   brocades from China’.  Mimoso also notes that a common space annexed to the stage
                          2 and 5.
                                                             where the King and members of the royal family attended the event was ‘hung with
                          I
                        85   bid., p. 2.
                                                             silks of various colours from China fresh, and perfumed’.  Two accounts concerning
                                                                                                            91
                        86   The original Portuguese text reads: ‘de seda da
                          China laurada de passarinhos de cores varias, & tão   the Jesuit festivities held in 1620 and 1622 respectively, the beatification and then the
                          vivos, como naquellas partes of ha’.  RELAÇAM do
                          Solenne recebimento das Santas Reliquias, que forão   canonization of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier, refer to participants
                          leuadas da See de Coeimbra ao Real Mosteyro de   of the processions wearing contemporary clothing items made of various silk cloths.
                          Santa Cruz. Coimbra: casa de Antonio Mariz, 1596,
                          fl.  48v.  Cited  in  Pacheco  Ferreira,  2011,  Vol.  I,  pp.   Father Diogo Marques Salgueiro, for instance, notes that the figure representing Faith
                          279–296. Pacheco Ferreira suggests that the terms
                          ‘laurada de passarinhos’ indicate that the birds were   wore a robe of white silk from China, and that of Ternate wore ‘very long over sleeves
                          embroidered.
                                                             of white silk from China, embroidered with many birds, & flowers of gold’.  The
                                                                                                                              92
                        87   The original Portuguese text reads: ‘… os balustrades,
                          & pilaretes do Coro vestia seda branca da China   anonymous author of the other account notes that the windows of the streets of Lisbon
                          tecida, & semeada de passarinhos varios nas cores   were adorned with ‘many rich embroideries from China, & with glossy silks’, and
                          & nas feições pedurados de ramos verdes’. Luís
                          de Cacegas and Luís de Sousa,  Vida de Dom Frei   that during the procession held in Oporto the figure parading as an allegory of China
                          Bertolomev dos Martyres da Orde dos Pregadores
                          Arcebispo e Senhor de Braga Primas das Espanhas   was ‘dressed in several silks, & colours, all of which came from that Kingdom to
                          repartida en seis liuros com a solenidade de sua   Portugal’.  From the information provided by the textual sources discussed above it
                                                                     93
                          tresladação.  Viana  do  Castelo:  Niculao  Carualho,
                          1619, fl. 256. Mentioned in Pacheco Ferreira, 2011, Vol.   seems clear that the Jesuits and other religious orders possessed considerable quantities
                          I, p. 279 and Vol. II, p. 178.
                                                             of various types of silk cloths, especially of colourfully embroidered silks, which they
                        88   The original Portuguese text reads: ‘Cobriao suas
                          paredes, & vestiao seus pilares, & arcos’. Father   used for public displays. These were most probably given to them as royal gifts or were
                          Belchior de Santa Anna,  Chronica de Carmelitas
 Fig. 2.1.1.4  Square rank badge for a    Descalços, Particvlar do Reyno de Portugal e Provincia   acquired through the Jesuits in Japan who participated actively in the silk trade from
 six rank official        e Sam Felippe, Lisboa: Off. De Henrique Valente de   1578 until their expulsion in 1639.
 Embroidered in floss silks and gold thread  Oliueira, 1657, p. 601. Cited in Pacheco Ferreira,
 China, Ming dynasty, sixteenth century  Vol. I, 2011, p. 283.     Documentary evidence shows that by the early seventeenth century woven silk
 Dimensions: 36.8cm x 38.1cm  89   Pacheco Ferreira, 2012, p. 5.  cloths and finished silk products, imported from China and after about 1614 also from
 Provenance: Palazzo Corsini, Florence  90   This theatrical piece was written by Father António   Persia, had become more widely available to people from different social groups. 94
 © Jacqueline Simcox Ltd.  de Sousa and entitled  Royal Tragicomedy of King

 64                                       Trade in Chinese Silk                                                                   65
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