Page 147 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

system of organizing the royal archives continued The armillary spheres, which Dom Manuel took tion of small devotional books; but the present
the initiatives begun by Dom Manuel I's predeces- as his emblem and which had been offered to him leaves are much larger than a page from a typical
sor, Dom Joao n, to centralize and modernize the by his brother-in-law Dom Joao n, both implied book of hours and they comprise the only illumi-
archive. It put an end to the existing labyrinth of that the planets had smiled on the foundation of nated genealogy in the corpus of Flemish
documents. The books were grouped in volumes the Portuguese maritime empire and suggested illumination.
according to administrative and juridical divisions the important role played by science and astron- The Genealogy of Dom Fernando contains a
(districts), military orders (masterships), miscella- omy in the Portuguese discoveries. Dom Manuel total of thirteen leaves, seven of which were illu-
neous (mixed), monarchs (kings), bulls, dona- i's choice of the armillary sphere indicated his minated by Antonio de Hollanda, an artist active
tions, payments, and others. determination to continue the maritime explora- in Lisbon, who designed all thirteen. Damiao de
The first volume of the series was finished tion begun by his predecessors, which brought the Gois (1503-1573), a Portuguese humanist, histo-
about six months before the death of Dom Manuel Portuguese to India and to Brazil during his reign. rian, and diplomat who lived in Antwerp, records
i and signed by the officials who reproduced the The establishment of commercial bases in India in his chronicle of Dom Manuel i the circum-
documents, Franciscus (fols. i—2^ov) and Gabriel was crucial in launching the empire in the East, stances behind the creation of the Genealogy, He
Gil (fols. 241-261). The splendid frontispiece to and the arrival in Brazil consolidated Portuguese tells that while he was in Flanders in the service
the volume is a compendium of the iconography dominion over the Atlantic. It is small wonder, of Dom Joao in, Dom Fernando
of the Portuguese monarchy. The royal Portu- then, that historians accorded Dom Manuel i the ordered me to find whatever chronicles I could,
guese shield is held aloft at the top of the page by soubriquet Afortunado (Fortunate). His motto, either manuscript or printed, in whatever lan-
four angels, recalling a passage in the Tratado "hope in God and do good," taken from Psalm guage, so I ordered them all. And to compose a
Geral de Nobreza (General Treatise on Nobility) cxxxvi, Spera In Deo Et Fac Bonitatem, exploited Chronicle of the Kings of Hispanha since the
by Antonio Rodrigues, one of the three lords-in- the semantic play on the Latin word spera (hope), time of Noah and thereafter, I paid a great deal
arms who served Dom Manuel i and Dom Joao in which in Portuguese at that time could refer to learned men: salaries, pensions, and other
in the reformation of the court bureaucracy. either to espera (hope) or to esfera (sphere). J.T. favors. I ordered a drawing of the tree and
Explaining the origin of royal power as it was then trunk of this line since the time of Noah to
understood, Rodrigues compared the functions of Dom Manuel i, his father. [Dom Fernando
the angels and archangels of the divine court to ordered it illuminated] for him by the principal
those of the heralds and lords-in-arms who served master in this art in all of Europe, by name of
the Portuguese king. Above them, the heavens Simon of Bruges in Flanders. For this tree and
part to reveal a patch of gold—part of the gold other things I spent a great deal of money
leaf that lies under the painting—behind a tiny (Gois 1619, 65 [trans, by Barbara Anderson])
figure of God the Father. His image gives visual ^L
/
expression to the rhetorical flourish with which G6is Simon of Bruges is certainly Simon Bening,
the text begins: "Dora Manuel por graga de Deus Simon Bening an identification supported not merely by the
Rei de Portugal" (Dom Manuel, King of Portugal, Bruges, 1483/1484-1561 wide evidence of Bening's own fame but also by
by the grace of God), Antonio de Hollanda the style of some of the illuminations. Another
In the tondo on the right, a youth shown in Holland(?), c. i5io-after 1553 contemporaneous source, the Portuguese artist
slightly more than half length appears against a Two LEAVES FROM THE Francisco de Hollanda's notation in his copy of
blue sky with golden stars. He points to the his- GENEALOGY OF THE INFANTE Vasari, confirms that his father, Antonio de Hol-
toriated initial of the portrait of Dom Manuel that landa, designed the Genealogy (Dos Santos 1950).
begins the text. The sash he holds is inscribed REX DOM FERNANDO OF PORTUGAL Hollanda executed the drawings, which Dom Fer-
PACIFICUS MAGNIFICATUS EST, part of a biblical procla- Genealogical tree of the later kings of Portugal nando sent to Bening one at a time. Gois wrote to
mation from Isaiah xi, 2,3 ("The kingdom of the (Antonio de Hollanda, fol. 8) Dom Fernando on 15 August 1530, describing the
Messiah is peaceful and prosperous and the spirit Genealogical tree of John, Duke of Lancaster (Simon progress on the illumination and telling him that
of the Lord will repose over him"), another anal- Bening, fol, 10) Bening was disappointed because only a single
ogy between the greatness and benign nature of 1530-1534 drawing had arrived (Destree 1923, 24-25, 89). In
the monarchy and its parallel in the realm of reli- manuscript on vellum 1539, five years after the death of Dom Fernando,
x
gion. This imagery shows that the sovereign is 55-9 39-4 (22x1^/2) Antonio still had not been paid for his work on
indeed worthy of the impressive titles accorded references: Gois 1619, 65; Kaemmerer-Strohl 1903, the Genealogy and the project was never com-
him in the opening of the text: "Dom Manuel, by 1:9; Thieme'-Becker 1907-1950, 1:595-596; Destree pleted. In the end, Bening illuminated only five
1949-, y.nos. 324-415;
1923, 24-25, $9; Hollstein
the grace of god King of Portugal and Algarve, on Dos Santos 1950; Aguiar 1962, 7^-79; Seguardo leaves, and Hollanda attempted to complete the
this side and beyond the seas in Africa, Lord of 1970,12, 54, 142, 175-177, 228, 454, 460, 503-505, remainder himself. In addition to the seven he
Guinea, of the conquest, navigation and com- 2 illuminated, he drew another that was never
merce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and the Indies." 5i completed.
Although Dom Manuel i usually preferred The British Library Board, London, Additional MS The Genealogy begins with the Old Testament
sober everyday dress, he was also known to be 12531 ancestors of the family, then jumps ahead to
fond of pomp and of the ceremonies and feasts Favila, Duke of Cantabria (d. 700), and his
that were part of the ritual of monarchy, a facet of The artistic importance of the unfinished Geneal- descendants, described as the "Trunk of the Kings
his character that was also reflected in his artistic ogy of the Portuguese Infante Dom Fernando, of Leon and Castile/' That is followed by the line-
patronage. In his frontispiece portrait worked into brother of Dom Joao in (r. 1521-1527), rests age of the Kings of Aragon and by that of the
the initial "D," he wears an ermine cloak and a mainly on the five magnificent leaves by Simon ruling house of Portugal, beginning with Henry
velvet beret set with a jeweled pin. Brooches of Bening, the finest Bruges illuminator of the six- of Burgundy, first Count of Portugal (d. 1112), to
rubies, diamonds, and pearls appear to adorn the teenth century. Like most Flemish illuminators of which sequence folio 8 belongs. It was conceived
angels surrounding the initial. his period, Bening was a specialist in the execu- as a pair of facing leaves with folio 7, as the head-

146 CIRCA 1492