Ethiopian embassy to the Council of Florence (1441

Medieval Europeans held the Ethiopians in high esteem for remaining Christian. They were convinced emperor Zara Yakob was the legendary "Prester John" who ruled a lost land surrounded by pagans

There is an article on it in the Encyclopaedia Ethiopica here http://books.google.com/books?id=l4WUdKWGcYsC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=pietro+rombulo+ethiopian+embassy&source=bl&ots=palnQoWATO&sig=TAEPDxVn7rW7yraX_WGuyfqwyJM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yQ6HT4_mHOHciAKIlekC&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=pietro%20rombulo%20ethiopian%20embassy&f=false

This is from "Ethiopian Itineraries, Circa 1400 - 1524", 1955, I access it on Questia:
"...In 1407 there arrived in Ethiopia a young man called Pietro Rombulo; he remained there for 37 years and then went to India and China on a mission sent by the emperor, returning after it to Ethiopia. ³ In 1450 he was back in Naples, now a grey-haired man in his sixties; while there he met Pietro Ranzano, a Dominican monk born at Palermo in 1428, who compiled a vast and still unpublished -- probably unpublishable -- Latin work entitled Annales, preserved in the Biblioteca Comunale at Palermo. It is to Ranzano that we are indebted for our knowledge of Rombulo and his travels, for the book or notes he wrote have not survived. Ranzano met him at Naples in 1450 and saw the book, which was full of all the wonders of the East. Some of these he copied out, particularly the parts about Egypt, Ethiopia and the journey to India, and embodied in his own book. This was an ambitious attempt to describe the whole of the known world, and it suffered the fate of others of its kind. The author, overwhelmed by his vast mass of notes, was often led astray by digressions, with the result that he lost, and never recovered, the thread of his narrative. He was, moreover, obsessed by a medieval conception of the East inherited from classical and Alexandrian times. He made a vain attempt to reconcile the geography of Ptolemy and the statements derived from classical writers and the Bible with the facts observed and reported by contemporary travellers, priority being given to the former. During the Middle Ages this heritage of the past had come to be embroidered by the fancy of stay-athome monks and others with fantastic tales of monsters and fabulous creatures, and with visions of the wealth and power and culture of distant lands and potentates, some of whom were barbarians or savages, or non-existent. This attitude contaminated both the stories of the travellers and the narratives of those who, like Ranzano, attempted to weave them into a consistent story. Ranzano, says Trasselli, had a firm belief in Ptolemy, and regarded Rombulo's geographical discoveries merely as curiosities and no more. Ranzano himself, a bishop and a counsellor of popes and also an ardent admirer of classical antiquity, belonged rather to the authoritarian régime of the Middle Ages then passing away than to the new world of scientific discovery which was just opening up. His mentality, says Trasselli, constitutes a grave loss for historical geography.

Ranzano describes his meeting at Naples with Rombulo who had come there as ambassador from Zar'a Yakob, the emperor of Ethiopia, to Alfonso the Magnanimous, king of Aragon, Sicily, Sardinia and Naples. Expecting to encounter a man of dark colour speaking a barbaric language he had brought an interpreter. But to his surprise he saw a man whose complexion

was no darker than an Egyptian's and who looked quite unlike an Ethiopian. He seemed, moreover, to be quite a civilized person, tall, bearded, and well dressed in the Italian style. Ranzano spoke at first to him through the interpreter, but Rombulo replied that this was unnecessary as he spoke Italian.

Ranzano's version of Rombulo's account of Ethiopia contains both facts and fancy, and it must be remembered that he used other sources as well. The ruler of the land was that Prester John who was then commonly believed to be a king of India; he was a Christian and his rule extended also over Mahomedans and pagans. The country was divided into twelve kingdoms, each subdivided into principalities, paying tribute and assisting the emperor in his wars with Egypt and the Arabs. So far the facts; the fancies then take charge and describe his vast armies and his elephants, and his rich jewels. Arabic mixed with 'Egyptian' was spoken in the region between Aswan and Meroe, and Arabic only on the Red Sea coast; between Meroe and Somaliland ('cinnamomipheram regionem') there was another language. Then comes an account of the natural features, plants and animals of Ethiopia, and of the dwellings and mode of life of its inhabitants. Then there is a long section on the route followed from Alexandria into Ethiopia which in its latter part agrees very closely, as Trasselli shows, with our Iter F. It proceeds up the Nile from Cairo, and thence across the desert to Aidap, Suakin and Addan, which last point is the limit of the Sultan of Egypt's domains. Thence it goes by Mons Moria (where Ethiopia begins), Gianges (an Ethiopian frontier fort), Tuccaica (in a very fair region), Udeb, Aptisment, Torat, and so to Caxum (Axum).

Then comes a geographical farrago which I suspect to be largely Ranzano's own contribution, derived from written sources. We are told of a western kingdom of Achi (capital Ubet) where they live in tents; to it belongs the island of Meroe, called now Mara by the Ethiopians. On the other (west) bank of the Nile live the Nubei, 'magna plane natio, et

aliquando Christi cultrix, ut ante dictum est'. To the east of this is another kingdom called Baccho on the Astapus (now called Oastia), a tributary of the Nile, whose capital is Seccher. The third kingdom is Duarum with capital Sabboch. The fourth is called Mago with capital Sciava; there the king lives during the summer, to get away from the excessive heat. Round Mago flows a great river whose source is in Mons Lunae where the Nile rises.

Though there are differences there are also some names in this list which also occur in our Iter F; it will be convenient to give Ranzano's in tabular form:

KINGDOM	IDENTIFICATION	CAPITAL	IDENTIFICATION
Achi	Lake Haik	Ubet	--
Baccho	--	Seccher	--
Duarum	Dawaro	Sabboch	--
Mago	--	Sciava	Shoa
Vehte	--	Nize	--
Darubie	Dembia?	Furfura	--
Gorgiar	Gojam	Ganimel	--
Hueleghe	(on R. Walaqa)	Anguda	Angot
Gud	--	Siene	Aswan
Seravj	Serave	Inghera	--
Damor	Damot	Aptisment	Between Adua and
			Asmara
Mer	--	Tucaica	Between Adua and
			Asmara

There can be little doubt that Rombulo had nothing to do with this compilation of mis-spelt and misapplied names. Ptolemy's influence appears in the Astapus, Mons Lunae, Meroe and Siene, 'per quani astrologi produsweetie medium climatis secundi'. The names do not occur on the extant maps of the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, nor on the other hand do some of the names regularly appearing on those maps (such as Dobaa and Sobaha) appear in Ranzano's lists. Nor have they anything in common with the strange names in the Book of Knowledge, or those of Idrisi.

Trasselli concludes his excellent article by stating that Rombulo was one of the first Europeans whose motive for travel was neither religious nor commercial, but just curiosity.

The first European embassy to reach Ethiopia was that -- if such it was -- sent there by the Duke of Berry; it consisted of a Neapolitan called Pietro, a Frenchman and a Spaniard. Bertrandon de la Brocquièee met Pietro in Pera in 1432. Pietro told him that he had married an Ethiopian in the land of Prestre Jehan. He went to Alexandria and thence by Cairo 15 days' journey up the Nile, thence across the desert to the Red Sea and on by sea. Prestre Jehan, he reported, was a good Catholic; he was continually at war with a great lord near his country to the east called Chinemachin, 'and we call him "le Grant Can". He has round his land twelve great lords who pay him tribute annually in slaves and gold.' ¹ The rest of his account of Ethiopia is mainly fabulous; Pietro's two companions, he said, had died in 1430, and were therefore no longer available. But part of the story may well be true. It was 15 days' journey up the Nile to the starting-point of the desert crossing to the Red Sea ports, and the route described was the usual one to be followed by the Ethiopian patriarchs. The emperors were continuously at war; the enemy was the Mohamedan kingdom of Adel, which was often confused with Indiay and the Asiatic countries, as Iter F shows. The confusion dates back to classical times. ²..." pgs. 6-9. Most lamentably I cannot give a link to it because it against the rules of Questia /it's accessible with a subscription/.

This is from the "Nile Histories, cultures, Myths",edited by Haggai Erlich and Israel Gershoni, 2000, again from Questia:
"...It is not clear whether Pietro from Naples, whose personal description of Ethiopia and the Nile was recorded by a French traveler at Pera in 1432, is to be identified with Pietro Rombulo. See La Broquière, Le Voyage d'Outremer, pp. 142–148; and Trasselli, “Un Italiano in Etiopia nel XV secolo, ” pp. 173–202....", pg. 117

Edited by Don Quixote - 12-Apr-2012 at 14:02

Layers of Time: A history of Ethiopia
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ySgCTIplVQ8C&lpg=PA70&dq=pietro%20rombulo&pg=PA70#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hi Nick, thanks for your track...Can you continue in your search in order to help me?

Prester John: Fiction and history
http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/presjohn.html

Originally posted by Aury Don, good and fantastic work! From your post I read further info about Rombulo. So, you think it's possibile to find ancient ethiopian picture that identify Pietro Rombulo? Or ancient books...Or documents that describes the court of Zara...Because if he was so closelly to Zara Jacob may be exist figures, frescos or anythink else. What do you think about? Thanks for your help!

Thanks, Aury.
So far I cannot find a picture, I found a "Chronicle of the Emperor Zara Jacob" posted here http://tezetaethiopia.wordpress.com/2005/06/01/the-chronicle-of-the-emperor-zara-yaqob-1434-1468/  .
On Questia I found "The realm of Prester John", by Robert Silverberg, 1972, with those remarks about Rombulo and the embassy:
"...A young Italian traveler, Pietro Rombulo, arrived in Ethiopa in 1407; his motive for making the journey appears to have been neither commercial nor religious, but one of curiosity alone. He settled there and enrolled in the service of King Yeshak ( 1414-29), whom he persuaded to seek an alliance with a European prince against Islam. In .1428, King Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon received two Ethiopian ambassadors at his court in Valencia, bearing a letter from Yeshak in which the Ethiopian monarch proposed not merely an alliance but a double royal marriage, with Alfonso's son to marry an Ethiopian princess. Alfonso sidestepped the marriage proposal, but he did send thirteen of his subjects to Ethiopia, including some artisans whom Yeshak had requested to decorate one of his palaces. All, however, perished en mute. .."pg. 179

"...On the basis of what Abbot Nicodemus told him about Pope Eugenius and his ecumenical scheme, King Zar'a Yakob ordered the abbot to nominate two monks from the Ethiopian monastery at Jerusalem as delegates to the Council of Florence. The Ethiopian delegates sailed to Rhodes in October 1440, waiting there with Fra Alberto until the arrival of a Coptic delegation the following spring. In August 1441 the party of. Italian friars, Egyptians, and Ethiopians reached Florence, and on September 2 the Ethiopians addressed the ecumenical conference. Later that year Zar'a Yakob's envoys signed a decree formally acknowledging the submission of the Coptic Church (including its Ethiopian branch) to the Church of Rome. But this agreement, so laboriously arrived at, went the way of the one two years earlier that had united the Greek and Roman churches: the Ethiopians, like the Byzantines, simply paid no attention to it, the Pope and his whole Church being as remote to them as the valleys of the moon, and the priests of Prester John's land continued to practice their rites heedless of the doctrines promulgated in Rome.

In 1450 another ambassador from Zara Yakob came to Europe. The only surviving account of his visit is the work of a Dominican monk named Pietro Ranzano, who encountered the Ethiopian emissary in Naples. Fra Pietro had expected to meet a dark-skinned man who spoke a strange language, and so he brought with him an interpreter. He was surprised to find that the "Ethiopian" was quite European in complexion and dressed in Italian style. The monk addressed him through the interpreter, but the envoy replied that that was unnecessary, for he spoke Italian. He was, indeed, Pietro Rombulo, who had gone to Ethiopia in 1407. After residing there for thirty-seven years, Rombulo said, he had been sent on diplomatic missions to India and China by Zar'a Yakob, and now had come to Europe to revive a project

that had miscarried in 1428--an alliance between Ethiopia and King Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon. Rombulo had brought with him a manuscript about his travels, which has not survived to our time except in the form of the extracts taken from it by Fra Pietro for a book of his own. Unfortunately, Fra Pietro mixed into Rombulo's factual account a number of current geographical fantasies drawn from less trustworthy sources, so what might have been the first reliable firsthand description by a European of Prester John's court became badly diluted by imaginary wonders. Fra Pietro says that Prester John is a Christian but that many of his subjects are Moslems or pagans, which was the case; and the information given on Ethiopian geography and natural history is accurate. However, the depiction of Prester John's vast army, his elephants and his jewels, could not have come from anything Rombulo had said, and the details of the African kingdoms west and south of Ethiopia bear no resemblance to those in any other contemporary account.

Rombulo, accompanied by an Ethiopian envoy known as Fra Michele, went on to have an audience with Alfonso of Aragon, who had transferred his court from Spain to Naples. Ibis energetic and intelligent prince remembered the exchange of letters he had had with King Yeshak of Ethiopia twenty-two years before, and at Rombulo's urging now sent a new message to Zar'a Yakob, offering to open diplomatic relations and expressing a willingness to send artisans to the Ethiopian court--provided Zar'a Yakob could guarantee their safe arrival, Alfonso added, recalling the death of the thirteen craftsmen he had dispatched to Ethiopia in 147.8.Again, nothing came of this endeavor...." pgs. 187-88.

I'll continue to dig around and if I come up with something I'll post it.

Edited by Don Quixote - 14-Apr-2012 at 15:42

Originally posted by Nick1986 If you have access to JStor, there's a good article by Richard Pankhurst about early Italian-Ethiopian contact: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40761022?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=47698878378087

I can read the firs page only...unfortunatly, but i've got other new info!

Something i found on google scholar concerning the meditations of Zara Yaquob:
http://redsea1.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=950053

Aury, have you read this book http://www.worldcat.org/title/italiano-in-etiopia-nel-xv-secolo-pietro-rombulo-da-messina/oclc/495353744 it's in Italian. I canno't find anything else on Rombulo, I'll keep an eye on it and if I find something I'll post it ASAP.

Originally posted by Don Quixote Aury, have you read this book http://www.worldcat.org/title/italiano-in-etiopia-nel-xv-secolo-pietro-rombulo-da-messina/oclc/495353744 it's in Italian. I canno't find anything else on Rombulo, I'll keep an eye on it and if I find something I'll post it ASAP.

Yes I read it. What I would like to do is to improve Trasselli's research...A very strong work...