Albrecht Dürer and the Depiction of Cultural Differences in Renaissance Europe 9780367567453, 9780367568474, 9781003099628

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Albrecht Dürer and the Depiction of Cultural Differences in Renaissance Europe

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of Dürer’s depictions of human diversity, focusing particularly on his depictions of figures from outside his Western European milieu. Heather Madar contextualizes those depictions within their broader artistic and historical context and assesses them in light of current theories about early modern concepts of cultural, ethnic, religious and racial diversity. The book also explores Dürer’s connections with contemporaries, his later legacy with respect to his imagery of the other and the broader significance of Nuremberg to early modern engagements with the world beyond Europe. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies and Renaissance history. Heather Madar is Professor at Cal Poly Humboldt, USA.

Routledge Critical Junctures in Global Early Modernities Series Editors: Nicholas R. Jones, Bucknell University and Derrick Higginbotham, University of Hawai’i at Manoa

Routledge Critical Junctures in Global Early Modernities focuses on archives—historical, literary, visual—that link the analytics of critical theory and cultural studies to the early modern period in locations across the globe from 1400 to 1700. The series publishes monographs and/or edited volumes that reflect upon how early modern texts, cultural modes of expression, and visual ideations from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and/ or the South Pacific speak into or resonate with contemporary debates on gender, race, sexuality, and ability. In doing so, we invite books that deploy feminist, queer, critical race or disability approaches to texts, with the purpose not only of scrutinizing their socio-political meanings, but also of creating new archives that reframe different aspects of early modernity within and outside of Europe. Pornographic Sensibilities Imagining Sex and the Visceral in Premodern and Early Modern Spanish Cultural Production Edited by Nicholas R. Jones and Chad Leahy Racial Apocalypse The Cultivation of Supremacy in the Early Modern World José Juan Villagrana Albrecht Dürer and the Depiction of Cultural Differences in Renaissance Europe Heather Madar

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Critical-Junctures-inGlobal-Early-Modernities/book-series/RCJG.

Albrecht Dürer and the Depiction of Cultural Differences in Renaissance Europe

Heather Madar

Designed cover image: Albrecht Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1504, oil on wood, Uffizi, © Alinari Archives/Art Resource NY. First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Heather Madar The right of Heather Madar to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 9780367567453 (hbk) ISBN: 9780367568474 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003099628 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

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Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction

viii xi 1

1 From Saracen to Turk: Dürer and the Origins of Ottoman Imagery in German Renaissance Art

15

2 Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman: Dress and Identity in Dürer’s Art After 1495

48

3 Ottomans as Ottomans: Portraiture, Genre and Polemical Imagery76 4 Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks: Racial Difference in Dürer’s Depictions of Muslim Figures

97

5 Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man: Black Presence in Renaissance Europe

117

6 Conclusion: Dürer’s Theories of Human Difference

138

Works Cited Index

150 161

Figures

Dürer, A Lady from Nuremberg and a Lady from Venice, c. 1495, dark gray-brown ink on laid paper, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.3 0.2 Dürer, Young Woman in Netherlandish Dress, 1521, brush and brown and white ink on gray-violet prepared paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Widener Collection.4 0.3 Dürer, Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, fol. 41r, 1513–15, pen and ink on parchment, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 L.impr.membr.64.5 1.1 Erhard Reuwich, Saracens, from Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam, 1486, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.16 1.2 Limbourg Brothers, Mocking of Christ, Belles Heures du Duc du Berry, fol. 131v, 1405–08/09, tempera, gold and ink on vellum, Metropolitan Museum of Art.23 1.3 Jan Van Eyck, The Crucifixion and Last Judgement, c. 1440–41, oil on canvas transferred from wood, Metropolitan Museum of Art.24 1.4 Stefan Lochner, Adoration of the Magi, central panel of the Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne/Dombild, c. 1445, tempera on oak, Cologne Cathedral, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.26 1.5 Master of 1477, Crucifixion, 1477, panel, Augsburg, Staatsgalerie.27 1.6 Martin Schongauer, The Road to Calvary, 1485–91, engraving, Art Institute of Chicago.28 1.7 Schongauer, Betrayal of Christ, c. 1480, engraving, Art Institute of Chicago.29 1.8 Schongauer, Adoration of the Magi, 1470–75, engraving, Metropolitan Museum of Art.30 1.9 Anon., title page to Die Türkisch, woodcut, 1513/1516, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar 148.31 1.10 Schongauer, Battle of St. James at Clavijo, c. 1470–75, engraving, Rijksmuseum.32 1.11 Anon., page from Prayerbook of Alphonso V of Aragon, fol. 78r. 1436–43, British Library, Add MS 28962.33 1.12 Workshop of Michael Wolgemut, Christ Before Pilate, Schatzbehalter, Figur 63, 1491, woodcut, Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.35 0.1

Figures ix 1.13 Muhammad, Nuremberg Chronicle, fol. CLv, 1493, woodcut, Cambridge University Library.36 1.14 Ottomannus, Nuremberg Chronicle, fol. CCXXVIII, 1493, woodcut, Cambridge University Library. 37 1.15 Destruction of Jerusalem, Nuremberg Chronicle, fols. LXIIIv and LXIIIIr, 1493, woodcut, Cambridge University Library. 38 1.16 Reuwich, Mounted Turks, fol 152r from Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam, 1486, woodcut, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 1 Inc.c.a. 2022m.39 1.17 Housebook Master/Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Turkish Rider, 1488–92, drypoint, Rijksmuseum.40 1.18 Dürer (attributed), Pamphilus, Sostrata and Laches in Conversation, Comedies of Terrence, c. 1492, pen and ink, Kunstmuseum Basel.41 1.19 Dürer, Page from Der Ritter vom Turn, 1493, woodcut, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 631.42 2.1 Gentile Bellini, Mehmed II, 1480, bronze, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.49 2.2 Dürer, Three Orientals, c. 1495, pen and ink with watercolor, British Museum.50 2.3 Dürer, Oriental Rider, c. 1495, pen and ink with watercolor, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.52 2.4 Costanzo da Ferrara (Costanzo di Moysis), Portrait of Mehmed II, 1481, bronze, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.53 2.5 Dürer, Bearing of the Cross, Large Passion, 1498–99, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.55 2.6 Gentile Bellini, St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Scala, Art Resource, NY.56 2.7 Dürer, Martyrdom of St. John, Apocalypse, 1498, woodcut, Rijksmuseum.57 2.8 Dürer, Christ Before Pilate, Small Passion, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.59 2.9 Dürer, Martyrdom of the 10,000, 1508, oil on panel, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.60 2.10 Dürer (copy after), Way to Calvary, first half of the 16th century, oil on beech wood, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, bpk Bildagentur, Art Resource, NY.62 2.11 Dürer, Whore of Babylon, Apocalypse, 1498, woodcut, Rijksmuseum.65 2.12 Dürer, Oriental Ruler Enthroned, c. 1495, pen and ink, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.66 2.13 Dürer, Ecce Homo, Large Passion, 1498–99, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.67 2.14 Dürer, Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1497, woodcut, Rijksmuseum.68 2.15 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi from The Life of the Virgin, 1503, woodcut, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.69 3.1 Dürer, Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, 1526, silverpoint drawing, Musée Bonnat-Helleu, © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.77 3.2 Anon (School of Gentile Bellini), Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, c. 1520, oil on panel, © Private Collection, courtesy of Sotheby’s.78

x Figures Monogrammist AA (attributed), Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, 1526, engraving, Albertina, Vienna.79 3.4 Anon. (Italian/Venetian). Sultan Süleyman I, c. 1520, bronze, Metropolitan Museum of Art.79 3.5 Dürer, Six Warriors (Five Landsknecte and an Oriental Man on Horseback), c. 1495, engraving, Art Institute of Chicago.82 3.6 Dürer, Landscape with Cannon, 1518, etching, Art Institute of Chicago.83 3.7 Hans Burgkmair, Hungarian Combatants, Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I, 1516–19, woodcut, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.84 3.8 Dürer, Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, fol. 42v, 1513–15, pen and ink on parchment, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 L.impr.membr. 64.88 3.9 Dürer, Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, fol. 26v, 1513–15, pen and ink on parchment, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 L.impr.membr. 64.89 3.10 Dürer, Martyrdom of the 10,000, 1496, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.91 4.1 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1504, oil on wood, Uffizi, © Alinari Archives/Art Resource, NY.98 4.2 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.99 4.3 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1524, pen and ink, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.100 4.4 Stefan Lochner, Two Altarpiece Wings with the Martyrdom of the Apostles, after 1435, mixed technique on wood, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.106 4.5 Dürer, Beheading of John the Baptist, 1510, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.108 4.6 Dürer, Martyrdom of St. Catherine, 1510, pen and ink, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.109 4.7 Dürer, Flagellation, Small Passion, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.110 4.8 Dürer, Pilate Washing his Hands, Small Passion, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.111 5.1 Dürer, Katharina, 1521, silverpoint drawing, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, Uffizi, Scala/Ministero per I Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY.118 5.2 Dürer, A Man in a Fur Coat, likely Rodrigo Fernandez d’Almada, 1521, oil on oak panel, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.124 5.3 Dürer, Portrait of a Young Man, 1508, black chalk, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.126 5.4 Jan Jansz Mostaert, Portrait of an African Man, c. 1525–30, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum.128 5.5 Dürer, Coat of Arms of Albrecht Dürer, 1523, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.131 6.1 Dürer, Ten Profiles and Drapery Study, 1513, pen and ink, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, bpk Bildagentur, Jörg P. Anders, Art Resource, NY.143 6.2 Dürer, Four Proportional Studies of Heads, Four Books on Human Proportion, 90v, 1528, woodcut, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 612.144 3.3

Acknowledgments

This project germinated over a long period of time and thus has benefitted from many encounters, stimulating conversations and exchanges that have occurred over a number of years. I am endlessly appreciative of the numerous people with whom I have discussed aspects of the topics covered here, feedback I have gotten at various scholarly conferences, and the assistance of many librarians and museum professionals. This project had its first beginnings in work done during graduate school. I am grateful to Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, in whose seminar on Orientalism and Primitivism I first began to consider topics that ultimately led to this book. Effusive thanks are also due to my mentors during that time, particularly Elizabeth Honig and Elaine Tennant, for their guidance and support, which continued long after I finished my degree. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar during 2010 at the Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park on “Re-mapping the Renaissance: Exchange Between Early Modern Europe and Islam.” I benefitted tremendously from the lively interactions and the collegial relationships that developed there and continue to this day. In particular, I am grateful to Julia Schleck, Kaya Sahin and Elio Brancaforte, all of whom have been exceptionally generous with their time and advice. Early versions of my thoughts on some of the material that follows were published in collections edited by James G. Harper as well as Mitzi Kirkland-Ives and John R. Decker. I am grateful for their support and feedback on those projects. Research at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the Wien Museum, the Stadtbibliothek in Nuremberg and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum was supported by a Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities grant from the California State University system and administered by Cal Poly Humboldt. Writing was largely completed during a sabbatical from Cal Poly Humboldt and I thank the professional leave committee for approving my leave. My gratitude to Derrick Higginbotham and Nicholas R. Jones, co-editors of the Critical Junctures in Early Modernities series for including my book in the series and for their generous and insightful feedback on a draft of the manuscript. I am also appreciative of the incisive comments made by the anonymous peer reviewers, which helped shape the manuscript in important ways. My thanks as well to Isabella Vitti for her support of the project from its very early stages, to Katie Armstrong and Loredana Zeddita at Routledge and to Lisa Regan for indexing.

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Introduction

Smiling Austrian peasants, severe sultans, fearsome janissaries and demure Nuremberg ladies sporting current fashions. A rhinoceros, lions, a walrus, monkeys and parrots. Astronomical phenomena, unusual meteorological events, atypical human and animal forms. Albrecht Dürer’s work, particularly his graphic oeuvre, reveals the artist’s fascination with human and animal diversity and abounds with his observations on the breadth of the human and natural world as he encountered it through his own direct observations, copies of works by fellow artists, his subconscious and descriptive texts. As a collector, Dürer’s interests were similarly wide ranging and included objects and natural phenomenon from Africa, India and Turkey, as well as closer to home. While Dürer was not alone in this responsiveness, the sheer range of his interests and the depth and sustained level of his interest as displayed in his art is unusual. Other artists of his era included depictions of human diversity and showcased the dazzling array of global material cultural newly accessible to European markets in their works. Yet as Massing states, Burgkmair and Dürer are unusual in one respect for being the only artists in the first quarter of the sixteenth century to have shown much interest in the newly discovered countries and in the curiosities that mariners brought back from them. They recorded the objects with great attention.1 Dürer’s work is remarkable, and perhaps unparalleled, in the sheer range of his depictions and the breadth of his interests, which encompass the world then known to Western Europeans. Some of Dürer’s contemporaries, such as Vittore Carpaccio and other 15th-­century Venetian Orientalist painters, created entire worlds of exoticist fantasy in their works. Works such as Carpaccio’s St. George series for the Scuola di San Giorgio degli S­ chiavoni (1502–07) or Gentile Bellini’s St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1504–07) feature ­architectural settings intended to evoke the eastern Mediterranean, luxury trade objects including carpets and other textiles as well as Ottoman and Mamluk costume2 (see Figure 2.6). Dürer’s engagement with diverse figures and objects, however, was restricted to their inclusion as individual figures, and much less commonly objects, within larger panoramas. Even then they only enter his completed works – whether paintings or prints – at points. These figures occur in some of his best-known works, for example, the multiple depictions of figures in Ottoman dress in both his Apocalypse and Large Passion, the ­figures in Mamluk dress in his Small Passion, the Indigenous American and Ottoman figures in his contributions to Emperor Maximilian I’s Prayerbook and the ­African and turbaned figures who populate his various Adoration of the Magi DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628-1

2  Introduction depictions. Yet as described by Koerner, his “importations are always domesticated by being subsumed under his sovereign personal style.”3 Their potential strangeness or outof-­placeness is offset by their compelling visual logic within the rhetoric of his images. Dürer’s engagement with diverse figures and the diverse worlds they evoked cannot be seen as a defining, or even perhaps as a dominant feature of his work. Yet this interest spans his career, beginning in some of his earliest identified works, such as illustrations from his Der Ritter vom Turn (1493). It was fed by his wanderjahre travels within Germany, where he encountered works by Schongauer featuring orientalized figures. Another major stimulus was provided by Dürer’s travels to Italy (1494–95 and 1505–07) where he appears to have met Gentile Bellini and saw authentic images of Ottoman and Mamluk costumes, searched for luxury items including Turkish carpets for his friend, the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer and also carefully observed local dress. Dürer’s trip to the Low Countries in 1520–21 provided him additional opportunities for regional observations, to view Aztec material culture brought to Europe by the Spanish and to collect an array of natural curiosities and items from across the globe. Orientalized figures continue to appear in works dating to the last years of his life, for example, his painting of the Road to Calvary from 1527, likely his final painting and today known only through copies4 (Figure 2.10). Dürer’s representations of cultural differences are above all images of human diversity of many types – ethnic, regional, racial, cultural, religious and class. These observations could be of subjects close at hand, for example, his carefully drawn observations of the dress of Nuremberg women appropriate for different activities – home, a dance and church – annotated with precise descriptions and dating to 1500.5 The image of a woman dressed to attend a dance, for example, displays the distinctive dress worn by married patrician women to civic dances, characterized by a train, “suspended” sleeves lined with fur and a padded headdress with chin strap.6 While on his travels, Dürer also drew the costumes of a variety of regional groups, for example, a Windisch peasant woman, presumably seen in his travels through Austria to Italy, a pen and ink drawing juxtaposing the dress of Venetian and Nuremberg women, studies of Livonian women and a young woman in Netherlandish dress (Figures 0.1 and 0.2). As seen in the Young Woman, specific details of costume – here, the distinctive shape of her crisp, cloth headdress, the cut of her dress and the fur lining – are clearly of paramount interest.7 Dürer’s diary from his journey to the Netherlands describes him sketching costumes from life, for example, when he describes how “we reached Goes, where I sketched a girl wearing her folk costume.”8 He noted elsewhere in the diary that “I drew two Dutch costume studies also in black and white on grey paper.”9 In addition to documenting his process, these statements also attest to his interest in regionally specific costume with a strong connection to place and to local identity.10 Dürer’s studies of European figure types also indicate class difference as conveyed through dress – the sketches of Livonian women pay careful attention to the dress of various women, noting which are “rich” versus “common,” and his drawings include numerous images of peasants, both close to home and elsewhere in Europe.11 Social status dictated the specifics of dress, as is shown in his series of Nuremberg women, which Eser has interpreted as making a visual claim to the virtuous morality of Nuremberg and its elite citizenry.12 Yet these figures in their carefully observed dress, mostly although not exclusively women, rarely appear in his finished work despite being of clear interest to him throughout his career. There are isolated examples, such as the Venetian women’s costume that appears on the Whore of Babylon, from his Apocalypse (1498), or the

Introduction 3

Figure 0.1 Dürer, A Lady from Nuremberg and a Lady from Venice, c. 1495, dark gray-brown ink on laid paper, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

voluminous headdress of a Nuremberg patrician woman (stürz), shown in his study of a Nuremberg woman dressed for church, which also appears on a woman in the right foreground of his woodcut Betrothal of the Virgin (1503).13 Ayooghi and Lange-Krach, referring specifically to the Young Woman in Netherlandish Dress, suggest the work may have been intended “as part of a series on women’s regional dress, or a cultural exploration” and also connect Dürer’s regional costume studies to the later 16th-century genre of the costume book, some of which drew directly on Dürer’s studies as prototypes.14 Dürer’s work, particularly his drawings, also shows a life-long interest in figures from outside his Western European milieu, again with careful attention to distinctive features of dress, adornment and physiognomy. Some works are from life, for example, his portrait drawings of Katharina, a Black woman he saw in the Netherlands, and his drawing of an unnamed Black man, discussed in Chapter 5. In these two works, Dürer focuses attention on the face rather than the clothes or body, foregrounding racial difference.

4  Introduction

Figure 0.2 Dürer, Young Woman in Netherlandish Dress, 1521, brush and brown and white ink on gray-violet prepared paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Widener Collection.

His costume studies also feature numerous drawings of figures where specifics of costume and in some cases inscriptions make clear that their identity is Ottoman Turkish. As discussed in Chapter 2, these figures have their origins in Dürer’s copies of works which were seen as authentic, rather than his own eyewitness experience, and unlike his other costume studies have a clear presence in his public-facing works. A sole Indigenous American figure on fol. 41r in the Prayerbook for Emperor Maximilian I is the only visual reference to the Americas in his work15 (Figure 0.3). The figure from the Prayerbook is outfitted with recognizable artifacts from the Tupinambá of Brazil, namely his feather skirt, feather accessories, feather headdress and weapon, although Dürer clearly did not completely understand the actual function of the objects, suggesting that he knew of the artifacts but not how they were actually worn or used. The Tupinambá wore feather cloaks and headdresses rather than skirts, and the lance is based on a shorter club (tacape), which Dürer lengthened into a lance.16 The addition of sandals is incorrect, and the overturned ladle on which the figure stands

Introduction 5

Figure 0.3 Dürer, Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, fol. 41r, 1513–15, pen and ink on parchment, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 L.impr.membr. 64.

does not reflect any known object from the Americas.17 The “Tupinambization” of the image of Indigenous Americans in this period has been noted,18 and this figure, despite his very precise dress, should not necessarily be understood as an intended depiction of a Tupinambá but rather as a more generic signifier of the Americas. The larger intent and function of this figure is made clear through the surrounding images on the page and the accompanying text, which is a claim to universal sovereignty for Emperor Maximilian I, suggested to be given to him by divine right.19 Yet this figure stands in isolation, seemingly occasioned by the specifics of the project and the patron’s interests, and did not prompt a wider engagement with imagery related to the Americas in Dürer’s work. While Dürer’s work is unusual for the sheer scope and range of his imagery and interests related to human diversity, his images should be understood as engaged in a range of established early modern conceptual frameworks for understanding and codifying cultural difference on the one hand and rejecting or stigmatizing it on the other. ­Dürer’s images of human diversity and difference participated in a new ethnographic sensibility,

6  Introduction with anthropological renderings of detail used to precisely delineate and categorize the various others encountered in the works. Several scholars have recently explored various facets of early modern ethnography, from written texts to maps to visual imagery. Discussing the appearance of ethnographic writing in late medieval texts, Khanmohamadi states, “unlike the modern discipline of academic anthropology, ethnography has a long premodern history and can be found wherever and whenever discrete cultural groups have moved across their borders to collide with customs and mores at variance with their own and had the means and motivation to record those differences.”20 Early modern ethnography has been variously defined as “the intent to describe and record the differing manners and customs of the peoples they are observing,”21 and as “all manner of descriptive writing and of the making of images and artefacts intended to represent peoples.”22 Speaking specifically of early modern German images by Dürer’s contemporaries, in particular Hans Burgkmair and Jörg Breu, Leitch uses the term ethnography To describe the artist’s direction toward organizational structure, impulse to group, to categorize, to locate and to differentiate among a sum of descriptive detail [it] also implies that he collected and reproduced his data in a comparative fashion; this gathering does not operate within any scientific framework and without any pretentions to ethnology, but was motivated by hunches about human diversity while alluding to their overall unity.23 By these definitions, Dürer’s figure studies with their careful observations of dress and annotations about identity evidently should be understood as constituting examples of early modern ethnography. His studies, with their single figures against blank backgrounds, detailed renderings of dress and accessories and clarifying notations moreover anticipate the visual rhetoric of costume books, which emerged in the later 16th century and can be understood as a more categorical form of visual ethnography.24 Outside of his images of regional, ethnic and class distinctions within Europe, Dürer’s images of human diversity largely center on his career-spanning depictions of figures wearing dress associated with Muslim-majority societies, a limited number of depictions of Black Africans and a brief engagement with imagery from the Americas. This reflects the nature of Europe’s encounter with the world beyond Europe during Dürer’s lifetime, which consisted of two distinct types of engagements: the continuation of the centuries-long involvement with the Muslim world, given a new face and new urgency in the form of the Ottoman Empire, and the encounter with Africa, Asia and the Americas in the wake of European expeditions across the Atlantic and around Africa to the Indian Ocean and the beginnings of European colonization. While the initial European encounters with the Americas, India and Africa through voyages of exploration and the ongoing, multifaceted European engagement with the Ottomans were clearly disparate phenomena, their treatment in works by Dürer is parallel in some respects. This is in line with Mason’s theorizing of the exotic in the early modern period, where he cites “Orientalist r­ epresentations, particularly of Turks, during the sixteenth century” together with “European ethnographic descriptions of the New World” as two instances to be placed under the heading of “the exotic” in this period.25 This also reflects a concept of the exotic as a fluid category of difference, where the exotic could signify anything foreign or non-European. In Strickland’s formulation, which focuses on the later Middle Ages,

Introduction 7 but is carried into the later 15th century, the exotic is “always constructed” and encompasses “alien creatures, groups, cultural practices or accoutrements perceived by Western Christians as either geographically distant or consciously imported into their own society from outside.”26 The ideological function of exoticism is underscored in Bethencourt’s discussion of exoticism in the early modern period: Exoticism is the crucial element in the contrast between Europe and other continents in this history of the ideological foundations of European supremacy. The production of the exotic was an inherent element in the European expansion, which redefined cultural parameters and the criteria of civilization … downgrading other cultures and justifying political dominion wherever it was established. In this construction of exoticism, Orientalism played a crucial role, as it had since classical ­antiquity, being renewed throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance; it embodied a first contrast with Western Europe and defined the main features of “strangeness” that would be elaborated in relation to the other continents.27 Central here is also the role of Orientalism – European conceptions and representations of Islam and Muslims – in European exoticism, a concept of direct relevance to Dürer’s images. In some cases – although not all – Dürer’s images of the Ottomans also condemn, setting up the exotic as an absolute other to be overcome. This construction of the O ­ ttomans, the representative face of the Muslim world to Europe in the 15th and 16th c­ enturies, as an absolute other, contributes to an early modern Orientalist discourse. While by no means identical to the Orientalism of the 19th century as theorized by Edward Said, it shares some broad resemblances, in particular the creation of elaborate, self-referential systems of knowledge about the other.28 Early modern scholars from a range of disciplines have engaged extensively with Said’s formulations from his paradigm-shifting ­Orientalism and grappled with their applicability to this earlier period. Coudert’s assessment reflects a broad, if not universal consensus: Europeans in the early modern period did not have a uniformly negative view of the Muslim world. This is not to say that Said’s kind of Orientalism did not exist, but to suggest that it may well have arisen out of a sense of inferiority and defensiveness and not the kind of unreflective superiority that Said sees as the motivating force behind Western Orientalism.29 While a range of discourses surrounded the Ottomans, this period was dominated by an understanding of the Ottomans as the “invincible Turk,” the “terror of the world.”30 In several instances, notably in his Apocalypse and an illustration to the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, Dürer’s depictions of Muslims and specifically the Ottomans reinforce a contemporary understanding of the Ottomans as absolute other, a dangerous foe to which Europeans were subjected and against which they would ultimately prevail through divine assistance. Dürer also engaged with and contributed to contemporary discourses of the marvelous in his own collecting interests in unusual objects and through his foregrounding of unusual and appealing figures, costume and animals, all of which invite visual apprehension and consumption from his viewers. As theorized by Greenblatt, “The marvelous is a central feature then in the whole complex system of representation, verbal and visual,

8  Introduction philosophical and aesthetic, intellectual and emotional, through which people in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance apprehended, and thence possessed or discarded, the unfamiliar, the alien, the terrible, the desirable and the hateful.”31 Dürer’s response to unfamiliar objects, particularly those originating outside a European context, aligns with this approach. Dürer famously saw Aztec treasures that were on display in the city hall in Brussels during his 1520–21 trip to the Netherlands.32 He recorded his response in his diary, describing: I saw the objects which men have brought back for the king from the new Land of Gold: a sun made all of gold, a good six feet across, likewise a moon of pure silver, of the same size, also two rooms full of those natives’ armor, all manner of their weapons, military gear and missilery, amazing shields, curious costumes, bed coverings and every kind of spectacular things for all possible uses, more worth seeing than the usual prodigies. These things are all so precious that they are valued at a hundred thousand gulden. I have never in my life seen anything that gave my heart such delight as these things, for I saw amongst them marvellously skillful objects and was amazed at the subtle ingeniousness of people in foreign lands. I cannot find words to describe all those things I found there.33 Dürer’s response indicates a remarkable openness and responsiveness to these items, which he terms “wunderliche künstliche ding.” He recognizes the works as art, admires the skill of their creators and terms them the product of “subtilen ingenia der menschen in frembden landen.” As Johnson has noted, the language he uses here parallels language he also used to describe both the coronation of Charles V and St. Michael’s in Antwerp, all things that “fell into Dürer’s category of the never-before-seen or wondrous.”34 Yet his recourse to the discourse of the marvelous also serves as a displacement mechanism, where, following Greenblatt’s formulation, Dürer was able to first apprehend, then discard the unfamiliar. Despite Dürer’s exuberant praise for the Aztec works, they curiously left seemingly no trace on his artistic production. Hess suggests that “Dürer lacked both categories and language to describe his experience appropriately, to make sense of it and to productively integrate it into his mental landscape.”35 A similar surprising lack of visual trace is seen in another category of artifacts that Dürer likely approached through the lens of the marvelous, namely, the objects he collected. While Dürer presumably collected throughout his career, his diary from his trip to the Netherlands in 1520–21, with its detailed inventory of objects acquired, gifted and sold, provides a particularly clear window onto his collecting activity and interests. The objects he acquired encompass two primary early modern categories of collecting – naturalia (objects from nature) and artefacta or artificialia (human made objects). Of particular interest in the context of this discussion are the numerous objects he acquired from non-European lands – exotica in early modern collecting terminology – which reflect the new global networks of trade and commerce of which Antwerp was at the center.36 Among the many items recorded, of particular note in this context are the “wooden shield from Calicut and one of those hollow wooden tubes,” likely bamboo, “three porcelain bowls … a number of feathers from Calicut,” “an old Turkish whip,” “six Indian nuts,” “a printed Turkish cloth,” “two Calicut cloths, one of silk,” “two Calicut ivory saltcellars,” “a Calicut targe [shield], made out of fish-skin and two Indian fencer’s gloves” and a “piece of painted calico.”37 The saltcellars are of particular interest as they are the first such salt cellars to be documented outside of Portugal.38 They were likely

Introduction 9 from Sierra Leone rather than Calicut, the modern Kozhikode in India, although the term was fluid at the time and could be used to signify any newly encountered, non-European land.39 As Smith describes, Dürer “seems to have been drawn to novelties … and objects from exotic, distant lands … these could be valued too for their aesthetic merits, their rareness, as well as for what they might convey to others about Dürer’s worldliness, knowledge and inherent curiosity.”40 Despite the range of objects in his possession and the obvious interest they held for him, which was presumably a visual and aesthetic interest as well motivated by monetary or display concerns, Dürer’s wide range of collected exotica artifacts, like the Aztec objects, find virtually no trace in his artistic work.41 Dürer’s artistic interest is almost entirely restricted to human diversity rather than the diversity of material culture available in his newly globalized age. Dürer’s depictions of human difference should also be understood in light of early modern concepts of race. Heng stresses the importance of naming race as race, defining race as “one of the primary names we have … attached to a repeating tendency … to demarcate human beings through differences among humans that are selectively essentialized as absolute and fundamental, in order to distribute positions and powers differentially in human groups … race is a structural relationship for the articulation and management of human differences, rather than a substantive content.”42 Heng states further that “canonical race theory has found it difficult to see the European Middle Ages as the time of race, as racial time.”43 This statement addresses what Heng and other recent theorists of premodern concepts of race and racism see as a reluctance to name and discuss race in the premodern period, with such discussions dismissed as ahistorical. Race as a concept has moreover been seen as inextricably linked to 18th and 19th century systems of racial classification, to the unique conditions of modernity and to definitions of race that hinge on skin color and somatic difference. Akhimie offers a counterpoint to this common assertion, stating that “many now suggest that premodern racial formulations have more in common with contemporary forms than has been previously acknowledged and perhaps more importantly, the antiracist political ends that underlie much of the work of early modern race studies are best served by the recognition that racial thinking endures and that there is much continuity between early modern forms of racial difference and modern forms.”44 Bethencourt, whose study of racism focuses on Europe from the Middle Ages through the 20th century, underlines key points of continuity from the premodern to the modern: “Prejudice concerning ethnic descent coupled with discriminatory action existed in various periods of history, although I acknowledge the critical impact of the scientific framework provided by the theory of races. Notions of blood and descent already played a central role in medieval forms of collective identification, while the modern ethnic and racial divide was largely inspired by traditional religious antagonism.”45 A central point for each of these scholars is the essential recognition that the early modern period had a discourse of race, with important continuities and discontinuities with modern discourses of race. Early modern racial discourse moreover undergirded systemic practices of exclusion and the creation of hierarchies based on the categorization of differences. Although focused on an earlier period than Dürer’s, Heng’s analysis in particular has direct relevance for his images and conceptions of human difference. Heng explains the way that race can be merged with other classifying systems: “The ability of racial logic to stalk and merge with other hierarchical systems – such as class, gender or sexuality – also

10  Introduction means that race can function as class … as ‘ethnicity’ and religion.”46 This provides useful insight into the way in which various premodern social categories, including some of those brought to the fore in Dürer’s work, should be understood as modes of race. Heng’s comprehensive assessment of race in the Middle Ages addresses Jews, Saracens/Muslims, Blackness and Africa, Native Americans, the Mongols and the Romani. With the exception of the Mongols, these are all peoples represented in Dürer’s art, and an understanding of how these identities were indeed racialized identities is important to understanding the larger conceptions his images reflect, participate in and contribute to. The appearance of Muslim, Black and Indigenous American figures in Dürer’s works has already been addressed. Scholars have identified antisemitic themes in several of Dürer’s works, notably his Christ Among the Doctors (1506), where the young Christ is juxtaposed with the looming, in some cases, confrontational figures of the Jewish doctors in this claustrophobic image where “the self [is established] as the prototype of beauty, while moulding the Other in the image of ugliness.”47 Price has also called attention to antisemitism in Dürer’s Passion imagery, focusing particularly on his Small Passion (1511).48 A single image, often titled a Turkish or Oriental Family (c. 1496) is now understood as a representation of a Romani family.49 The image is not overtly negative or stigmatizing, although the bare-breasted and barefoot appearance of the woman could read as a lack of decorum. Dürer’s depictions of human diversity reflect racialized categories, and Heng’s analysis in particular provides the analytical tools to interpret these figures accordingly. Dominant conceptual structures of the time help to explain, contextualize and interpret the varied impulses visible in Dürer’s cross-cultural, inter-cultural and intra-cultural engagements. Yet these are not wholly satisfying in explaining the root and depth of Dürer’s career-spanning ethnographic impulses and cross-cultural curiosity. Dürer’s ­local context, family history and aesthetic theory all provide further insights if not full explanations. The nature of civic life in Nuremberg during the 15th and 16th centuries likely provided a fruitful environment for the cultivation of interests in diverse cultures and cultural expressions. During Dürer’s lifetime, Nuremberg was a prosperous city and an important artistic center with a population numbering approximately 40–45,000.50 An imperial city since the reign of Rudolf I (1273–91), Nuremberg’s special relationship to the Holy Roman Empire had been cemented during the reign of Sigismund, who named the city the official repository of the imperial relics and regalia in 1423 with the relics arriving in 1424. The significance of this is described thusly: “in doing so, [Sigismund] elevated Nuremberg to something more than merely a third capital after Frankfurt, the electoral city, and Aachen, the coronation center, for the empire was identified with the imperial jewels which commonly were referred to simply as ‘the Reich’.”51 The city was pro-imperial and the city’s close relationship to the Emperor was part of its civic image. The emperor whose reign most closely overlapped Dürer’s life, Maximilian I (1459– 1519), articulated claims of universal sovereignty and saw himself as the defender of the faith and a promoter of crusading ideals, particularly in the face of Ottoman advances.52 As an artist who worked on several of Maximilian’s projects and who received an annual stipend from the emperor, Dürer would have been well aware of these claims. Nuremberg was also a major international trading city located along key trading routes, with prosperous, well-educated merchants, a patrician class with a tradition of international travel and an array of trade goods available at its market. Wenderhorst describes how: “As early as the close of the 13th century the Nuremberg market offered for sale such exotic spices as pepper, anise, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves and saffron.”53 Nuremberg was

Introduction 11 also well-known for its production of scientific and mechanical instruments and was an important center for cartography and astronomy with Martin Behaim creating the first preserved terrestrial globe in Nuremberg in 1492–94. The astronomer Johann Regiomontanus explained his rationale for making his home in Nuremberg in the following statement from 1471: “because I can easily procure here all necessary instruments, particularly those which are instrumental for the study of astronomy, and also because I can easily keep up a connection with scholars of all countries from here, for this city, on account of its concourse of merchants, may be considered the central point of Europe.”54 Nuremberg was the site of Germany’s first paper mill (established 1390) and by the time of Dürer had become a major publishing center. Anton Koberger, Dürer’s godfather, owned one of the largest publishing houses in Europe with agents spread across Europe to sell his books. These distinctive qualities of his home doubtless contributed to Dürer’s wide-ranging interests and cosmopolitan sensibilities. It is tempting to see a biographical impulse in Dürer’s evident interest in human diversity and to those othered by the dominant Western European world view. Dürer’s father was an immigrant to Germany from Hungary and came from an ethnically Hungarian family, a fact Dürer reported in his Family Chronicle: “Albrecht Dürer the Elder was born of a family in the kingdom of Hungary, from a little village with the name of Ajtós, not far from a little town called Gyula, which was an eight-mile journey away beyond Wardein. There his forebears lived from the raising of oxen and horses.” Dürer continues by noting that his cousin Nikolas, who lived in Cologne, is “called Nikolas Unger,” indicating a continued awareness of the family’s ethnic origins in Dürer’s generation.55 Albrecht the Elder was perhaps dislocated due to the widespread unrest in Hungary and Eastern Europe as a whole during the early 15th century that resulted from ongoing military engagements between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottomans.56 He left Hungary at some point in his late adolescence, traveling first to the Burgundian Netherlands where he spent several years before finally settling in Nuremberg. His ­father’s example doubtless encouraged Dürer’s interest in travel. It is further tempting to see Dürer’s ongoing interest with Ottoman imagery as having some link to his family history and the political context that may have motivated his father’s migration although there is no direct evidence to support this. Koerner does describe Dürer as conscious of his “otherness, his outsider status within Germany,” however, a consciousness attested to by his own writings.57 While Dürer’s personal motivations must remain at the level of speculation, Koerner describes Dürer’s articulation of an “aesthetics of difference” in his theoretical writing, which posited a unique sensitivity to human diversity and a capacity to create difference among artists, one which approached the divine. This is seen particularly in his so-called “Aesthetic Excursus,” a much-revised statement about art appended to his Four Books of Human Proportion (published posthumously in 1528), which is described by Ashcroft as having “a special claim to authority as Dürer’s last and most comprehensive statement on art.”58 Dürer discusses his concept of difference at length in this statement, seeing variety as fundamental to artistic process: It is not to be wondered at that a well-versed master contemplates a large number of contrasting figures, all of which he could make if he had the time … for there are innumerable such ideas that artists have, and their minds are full of images they might conceivably make. Such that if it were given a man to live many hundreds of years … he would … pour forth every day a host of new forms of mankind.59

12  Introduction Dürer goes on to clarify that the difference he is talking about is not unavoidable difference, such as may be found in two different impressions from the same engraving plate, but rather “the difference a man deliberately intends and which is subject to his conscious will.”60 The reflections on difference in his Excursus, which include a section that explicitly addresses racial difference, suggest a nascent theoretical apparatus to support and perhaps justify what was by then clearly a long-standing interest in his artistic practice although his analysis, as discussed below, ultimately shows him unable to break away wholly from received ideas and prejudices. A diverse array of figures representing ethnic, racial, cultural and religious difference populate Dürer’s works, testifying to his career-long artistic interest in human diversity. Yet two groups of figure types appear repeatedly in Dürer’s works in a way that stands noticeably apart from other figure types that are represented singly, only appear in his drawings, or which do not cohere as recognizable groups: his turbaned figures, whose dress links them to contemporary Muslim-majority societies and his representations of Black Africans. His turbaned and Black figures moreover represent the two primary examples in Dürer’s work of his sustained engagement with cultures and peoples from outside of his Western European milieu. As will be discussed in Chapter 4, the two figure types moreover share a conceptual connection rooted in their artistic point of origin and their parallel connection to long-standing visual shorthands. Stoichita asserts that “the other is rarely conceived in isolation and much more often takes the form of a complex multiplicity of interrelated differences … it should come as no surprise if we are most often confronted, not with a unique otherness, but with an otherness that is ‘interconnected.’” This provides a theoretical explanation for the visual and conceptual linkage that Dürer made between the two primary loci of otherness in his art.61 Turbaned and Black figures play an unexpectedly notable role in Dürer’s visual logic and the rhetoric of his images and also exemplify the complexities of his engagement with diverse figures and the multiplicity of meanings they have in his works. In the details of their dress, accessories, facial features and body types, they are subject to Dürer’s ethnographic eye, which recorded and classified, combining accurate detail with sensitive characterization. His figures are stock types, yet his characterization renders them distinct individuals. Considered in the broader framework of early modern European discursive structures, these figures, and the individuals and groups they represent, were exoticized, belonged to racialized categories, were the subjects of negative and prejudicial discourses and represented non-European, non-Christian peoples and societies with which Western European societies had complicated and troubled connections. These figures are complex, contradictory and loaded with ideological freight at the same time that they are visually compelling and utterly distinctive. Notes 1 Massing, “Hans Burgkmair’s Depiction of Native Africans,” 46. 2 See Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, Chapter 9 and Arcangeli, “‘Orientalist’ Painting in Venice,” for discussions of such works. 3 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 90. 4 Cowen, “Albrecht Dürer’s Late Passion Drawings,” 249–251. 5 His drawing of A Nuremberg Woman Dressed for the Dance is annotated: “In this manner the Nuremberg ladies go to a dance, 1500.” Also gand dye Nörmerger frawenn Zum thantz 1500. Strauss, Complete Drawings, 514. 6 Robison and Schröder, Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, 96.

Introduction 13 7 Ayooghi and Lange-Krach, “Impressions from a Journey,” 186–187. 8 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 569. 9 Ashcroft, ibid, 583. The mention of a Dutch costume study is generally linked to the Young Woman in Netherlandish Dress. Ayooghi and Lange-Krach, “Impressions from a Journey,” 186. He also noted that his wife wore “Netherlandish costume,” on a drawing he made of her while in the Netherlands. Ibid, 188. 10 Mosely-Christian, “Confluence of Cartography,” sees Dürer’s place-based interest in costume as expressing a “chorographic impulse” where costume is intimately linked to geography and specific locations. 11 Dürer’s “Aesthetic Excursus,” described below, includes the following statement about peasant imagery, suggesting that at least here Dürer sees some element of skill demonstration in such depictions: “An artist who is well-trained and practiced can show more of his great power and art in the figure of a coarse peasant. . . than many another does in his major works.” Quoted in Ashcroft “Art in German,” 384. 12 Eser, “Costume Studies,” 367. 13 Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, 93. 14 Ayooghi and Lange-Krach, “Impressions from a Journey,” 186–187. 15 See Massing, “Early European Images,” 515–516 for a full discussion of this figure and his costume. 16 Massing, “Early European Images,” 516, notes that although it is not known where or how Dürer might have seen Tupinambá artifacts, the club and feather cap are indeed authentic. The feather skirts are presumably derived from earlier printed material, such as the famous Augsburg woodcut of 1505, one of the first European visual representations of Native Americans. Massing sees Dürer here, similar to Burgkmair, as representing a “transitional stage in their depiction of American natives” in that their “artifacts are rendered more or less exactly but often without a proper awareness of their function,” 517. 17 Massing suggests that the sandals may be derived from African examples. Massing, “Early European Images,” 519. 18 Sturtevant, “La Tupinambisation.” 19 The opposite border shows Maximilian I’s coat of arms suspended from a tree, while the psalm verses include: “the earth is the lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” The Tupinambá figure represents the fullness of the earth, and the coat of arms represents Maximilian’s claim to authority over both. See also Madar, “Maximilian and the Exotic.” 20 Khanmohamadi, In Light of Another’s Word, 4. 21 Ibid. 22 Davies, Renaissance Ethnography, 4 n. 9. 23 Leitch, Mapping Ethnography in Early Modern Germany, 6. 24 On costume books see Boone, “Seeking Indianness.” 25 Peter Mason, Infelicities, 4. 26 Strickland, “The Exotic in the Later Middle Ages,” 59. 27 Bethencourt, Racisms, 76. 28 See Said, Orientalism as well as Harper, “Introduction.” 29 Coudert, “Orientalism in Early Modern Europe?,” 729. See also Goffmann, The Ottoman Empire, 5–6. 30 The invincible Turk formulation is from Soykut, The Image of the Turk in Italy. On the Turks in as “the Terror of the World” in the Early Modern period see Çirakman, From the “Terror of the World” to the “Sick Man of Europe.” 31 Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, 22–23. 32 These objects were presumably among those given to Cortés by Emperor Moctezuma and sent back to Spain to be given to Emperor Charles V. While the exact nature of the items is not clear, Hess suggests that they likely correspond to a list provided by Cortés in the so-called first letter. Hess, “Marvelous Encounters,” 162. The letter details numerous featherwork objects, jewelry, silver and gold objects, animal skins and textiles. Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 40–46. 33 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 560. 34 Johnson, Cultural Hierarchy, 112. 35 Hess, “Marvelous Encounters,” 181. 36 These terms are defined in Eichberger, “Naturalia and artefacta,” 18.

14  Introduction 37 These items are enumerated in Smith, “Albrecht Dürer as Collector,” 26. See also A ­ shcroft, Documentary Biography, 557, 561, 567, 572, 573, 575, 576 for these references in the context of the diary. The calico cloth was also from Calicut. 38 Ibid, 27. See also Vogel, “Introduction,” for a discussion of the salt cellars. 39 See Massing, “The Quest for the Exotic,” 116 and 118. 40 Smith, “Albrecht Dürer as Collector,” 43. 41 This is as opposed to his collections of naturalia and his obvious interest in diversity in the ­animal world, which does appear in his drawings and made its way at points into his completed works as well. 42 Heng, Invention of Race, 27. 43 Ibid, 16. 44 Akhimie, Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference, 10. 45 Bethencourt, Racisms, 3. 46 Heng, The Invention of Race, 20. 47 Stoichita, Darker Shades, 31. 48 Price, Albrecht Dürer’s Renaissance, Chapter 6. Price also discusses antisemitism in the devotional text by Benedictus Cheldonius that accompanied the woodcuts. 49 Messling, The Sultan’s World, 214 describes the features of their clothes which do not correspond to Ottoman dress and states that Romani men typically wore dress corresponding to their locality. See also Stoichita, Darker Shades, 188. 50 Lytle, “The Renaissance, the Reformation and the City of Nuremberg,” 17. 51 Wenderhorst, “Nuremberg, the Imperial City,” 14. The imperial regalia and their connection to Nuremberg are commemorated in Dürer’s 1512 portraits of Emperor Sigismund and Charlemagne. 52 See Silver, Marketing Maximilian. 53 Wenderhorst, “Nuremberg, the Imperial City,” 24. 54 Quoted in Smith, The Body of the Artisan, 65. 55 Dürer wrote his family chronicle in 1524, indicating that he drew on his father’s papers to write the family’s origins and history. English translation from Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 31. Hutchison states that although scholars had posited Saxon origins for the Dürer family, more recent research demonstrates unequivocally that the family was ethnically Hungarian with deep roots in the region, Albrecht Dürer, 6. 56 Dürer’s father was from the village of Ajtós, which was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1566. F ­ amously, the village gave Dürer his surname as it translates as door, or “tür/dür. See ­Hutchison, ibid, 3–6 on the origins of the Dürer family. Hutchison also suggests that instability due to the Ottoman advance likely played a large part in Albrecht the Elder’s migration. The ­Ottomans first looked to Hungary for possible annexation during the reign of Sultan Bayezid I (1389–1402) with efforts against Hungary intensifying under Sultan Murad II (1421–1451). Itzkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition. 57 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 92. 58 Ashcroft, “Art in German,” 383. 59 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 873. 60 Ibid, 874. 61 Stoichita, Darker Shades, 35.

1

From Saracen to Turk Dürer and the Origins of Ottoman Imagery in German Renaissance Art

Dürer’s work, particularly his graphic oeuvre, reveals the artist’s fascination with human diversity and with cultures and peoples from outside of his Western European ambit. Although Dürer’s eye was wide-ranging, the non-European in his work most frequently wears a turban. These turbans are not the fanciful white cloth headdresses of previous artists or many of his contemporaries, but rather specific turban-types that denoted a particular identity that was highly charged in Renaissance Europe: Ottoman. The Ottoman Empire was a key trading partner, fiercely denounced opponent, intellectual inspiration and a primary source of luxury goods for Western Europe, prompting alarm yet also allure. While Dürer’s long-standing interest in Ottoman costume is certainly connected to his more general engagement with the exotic and his nascent ethnographic impulses, these figures also respond to the by-then-long history of the depiction of Muslims in European art and the contemporary reality of Europe’s ongoing engagement with the Ottoman Empire. Dürer’s extensive usage of orientalized figure types lies at the intersection of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with his work reflecting – and to some degree effecting – a fundamental shift in Europe’s image of Islam from the generic medieval “Saracen” to the Ottoman “Turk” of Renaissance reality. The terms Saracen and Turk are problematic for various reasons and both were used polemically and with varying degrees of specificity.1 Saracen was commonly used during the Middle Ages to refer to Muslims and is found into the 15th century, for example, in the image of Saracens (Sarraceni) by Erhard Reuwich from Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (1486) (Figure 1.1). “Turk” was the preferred European term to refer to the Ottomans during the Renaissance (and beyond) and also replaced Saracen as a generic term that could refer to any Muslim, as the common early modern phrase “turning Turk,” which indicated conversion to Islam, reveals. As Fichtner notes, however, the Ottomans themselves never used the term Turk to refer to either Ottoman territory or subjects and Meserve indicates that Turk was a disparaging term in Ottoman usage.2 Both terms also suffer from a lack of precision in modern usage, particularly as the Ottoman Empire was multi-ethnic and multi-faith. Ottoman, when used to refer specifically to Muslim Ottomans who were ethnically Turkic, excludes the many non-Muslim and/or non-Turkic peoples who were inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. Fleet describes the issues with the term Turk as used in modern historiography: Are Turks the same as Ottomans (thus by no means necessarily Turks), or are they the ruling elite (and so again not necessarily Turkish) or ethnic Turks, such as the peasants of Anatolia (which is what the term meant when used by the Ottomans themselves)? Whatever the reason for choosing to use the term ‘Turk’ rather than Ottoman … the result mentally is to locate them outside of Europe, or at best, clinging to the fringes.3 DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628-2

16  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.1 Erhard Reuwich, Saracens, from Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam, 1486, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Following Fleet’s argument, I will use Ottoman to refer to these figures, recognizing the imperfections of that term in this context, and in full awareness that Dürer and his contemporaries would have known and referred to these figures as Turks. Dürer’s work synthesizes Northern and Italian visual traditions of Muslim representation and exemplifies the numerous and often contradictory images of the Ottomans which proliferated in his era. Dürer deployed his turbaned figures in a variety of contexts. They appear in religious narratives, in genre scenes, and, in several key instances, in images that bring religious imagery to bear on contemporary conflicts, offering visual commentary, explanation of the Ottoman threat and even hope to his Europe-wide audience. Dürer’s usage of these figures is both traditional and innovative. It is at times

From Saracen to Turk 17 propagandistic, at times ethnographic, and reflects a complex, years-long engagement with Ottoman imagery and figure types. Dürer’s orientalized figures can be traced to two primary sources – Martin Schongauer, with whom he intended to study, and whose works he studied extensively in 1492, and Gentile Bellini, whose works he sketched on his trip to Venice in 1494–95. Bellini’s works were imbued with an eyewitness authority as a result of his 1479 trip to Istanbul, and he was also a key participant in the Venetian Orientalist genre of the late 15th and early 16th centuries.4 Schongauer reflects a more traditional usage of orientalized figures, yet may also have had a privileged, eyewitness claim to authority when it came to representations of Muslims. Dürer’s combination of authentic Ottoman figure types and traditional usages of turbaned figures derives primarily from these two artists. Yet in his unique vision, influenced by contemporary concerns and his own distinctive visual sensibility, the two are fused into an individualistic image that would persist in Northern art well into the 16th century. His image of the Ottomans would influence both elite art production and more popular, proto mass media throughout the North, reflecting his own ability to seamlessly bridge the elite/popular divide. Concepts of Islam and the Ottomans in Dürer’s Germany Before turning to an analysis of the visual tradition of Northern European images depicting Muslims in general and the Ottomans in particular prior to Dürer, a survey of broader cultural attitudes and received understandings about Islam and the Ottomans in the later 15th and early 16th centuries is necessary. This provides a sense of what Dürer likely knew and understood about the Ottomans and Islam and also allows Dürer’s images and ideas to be understood as in dialogue with and in relationship to this broader discursive framework. Writers addressing the subjects of Islam and the Ottomans in the later 15th and early 16th centuries inherited a long tradition of writing about Islam and the Saracens from the Middle Ages.5 Renaissance treatments of this subject matter show continuities with the earlier written tradition as well as significant divergences.6 Texts focused on the Ottomans surged in the wake of the 1453 conquest of Constantinople and reports of its sacking by the armies of Sultan Mehmed II (1432–81). Prominent humanists from both Italy and the North as well as church officials and theologians were among those contributing works. There are many written sources from Dürer’s lifetime that addressed topics related to the Ottomans and Islam using a wide range of literary genres, written in Latin as well as various European vernaculars including German. Written sources examined the life of Muhammad and the nature of Islam, probed the origins of the Ottomans, polemicized the Ottoman military advance, situated the Ottomans within apocalyptic frameworks and recorded the experiences of Europeans with direct experiences of Ottoman culture, whether as travelers or captives. These are just some of the many ways in which Islam and the Ottomans featured in contemporary written texts. European views of the Ottomans specifically, and Islam more generally, in the 15th and early 16th centuries were often negative, sometimes virulently so, and often repeated demonstrable falsehoods in the service of polemic. Written sources are not uniformly negative, however, nor are they wholly inaccurate. Europeans and European societies in the late medieval and Renaissance periods engaged with multiple Muslim-majority societies and had nuanced and different relationships with each that evolved over time. Moreover, European societies differed from each other in the relationships they had with Muslim-majority societies, and those dynamics also changed over time. The Austrian

18  From Saracen to Turk Habsburgs, the Republic of Venice, the Spanish Habsburgs and the French all had very different relationships with the Ottomans over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, for example. Meserve cautions against making sweeping generalizations about European perspectives in this period, stating that “at different times and in different places, European writers can be found saying radically different things about the Islamic East.”7 The Ottomans were a source of fear due to their seemingly unstoppable military might and their military advances prompted renewed calls for crusade and invectives about their alleged brutality. Yet the Ottomans were also trading partners as well as a key source of desirable goods and contemporary written texts evince considerable curiosity about them. Returned travelers praised aspects of Ottoman society and Muslim faith in their writings, albeit grudgingly in most cases, and Luther and Erasmus both had some positive things to say about the Ottomans.8 German language printed sources from the later 15th and early 16th centuries that include discussions of the Ottomans are the type of work that is most directly relevant to Dürer and with which he most likely came into contact. It is reasonable to assume he had familiarity with those works which are known to have circulated widely, those published in Nuremberg and particularly ones where he had personal involvement with the works and their creators. Given his close contacts with German humanists including Willibald Pirckheimer and Conrad Celtis, Dürer could certainly have come into contact with ideas propagated in Latin works, and there was also a considerable flow of ideas between different source types, so lines should not be drawn too closely around sources by either language or genre type. Relevant texts with which he is known to have come into contact include Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum/Weltchronik or Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) and works by Sebastian Brant, specifically his Narrenschiff or Ship of Fools (1494) and his broadsheet “Von der wunderbaren Su zuo Landser” (1496). ­German language works which circulated widely, and which it is likely that he came into contact with include Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (1486), Jörg von Nürnberg’s Geschicht von der Turckey (1481) and Antzeygung kurtzlichen vnd volfurung den vrsprung deß Thurckyschen (c. 1482–83) as well as various printed broadsheets related to the Ottomans. Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle, one of the most famous incunabula, details the history of the world – both sacred and secular – from creation to 1493. Published in both Latin and German editions, the work was an extensive undertaking and included a rich program of illustrations. Schedel, a Nuremberg humanist, drew on existing sources rather than presenting novel or original information in his written text and did not include critical source analysis.9 Considerable debate exists around Dürer’s participation in the making of the Nuremberg Chronicle. Dürer was an apprentice in the workshop of Michael Wolgemut, who executed the extensive illustration program along with Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, and it was long accepted that Dürer was involved in the project during his apprenticeship. Questions remain around the starting date for the production of the illustrations, and whether or not was before or after Dürer had left the workshop to begin his wanderjahre.10 Yoon, after a review of the literature, concludes that Dürer likely had a part in the illustration design at an early stage and further argues that Dürer was involved in distributing the book while in Venice on his first trip.11 Regardless of his precise degree of involvement, Dürer was affiliated with several of the principals who were closely involved with the book’s production, and he remained in close contact with his former teacher long after leaving his workshop, so a general familiarity with the book is fair to assume.12

From Saracen to Turk 19 The Nuremberg Chronicle includes discussions of Islam and the Ottomans at multiple points in the sixth age, the section of the book that addresses post-biblical history. The book also includes several images of Constantinople, an image of Muhammad, a portrait of Mehmed II and a depiction of an Ottoman. The lengthiest and most directly relevant sections are a discussion of Muhammad and the beginnings of Islam (fol. CLIv), a description of the origin of the Ottomans (fol. CCXXVIIIr) and an account of the conquest of Constantinople (fol. CCXLIXr).13 Shorter discussions include an overview of the life of Mehmed II (fol. CCLVIv) and a passage toward the end of the book that addresses the origin of the Turks and makes a brief summary statement under the heading “On the Turks” (fols. CCLXXIIv- CCLXXIIIr).14 These sections vary in tone and in the nature of the information given. The overview of the history of the Ottomans consists of a concise genealogy of the sultans, beginning with Osman (Ottomanno) and ending with Bayezid II, the then reigning sultan. While the text makes brief side comments about the deeds of various sultans, noting that Mehmed II “conquered two empires and twelve kingdoms,” for example, it has a relatively neutral tone overall. The Chronicle elsewhere repeats a common understanding as to the origin of the Turks, stating: I see that many in our time, not only credible teachers and poets, but also historians, commit the error of calling the Turks Teucros due, I believe, to the fact that the Turks are in possession of Troy, which was once occupied by the Teucros.…The Turks are from Scythia, and have so expanded that they possess Asia and Greece, to the dismay of the Latin and Christian name.15 Humanists debated the origins of the Turks with some sources suggesting, as the Chronicle notes, that they descended from the Trojans. Yet as Meserve explains, the majority of humanists understood the Turks to descend from the Scythians, a territory described since classical antiquity as being to the north and east of the Black Sea. This point of origin was further understood as an explanation for what was seen as the barbarous nature of the Turks, as Scythia and the Caucasus were recognized as the “nurseries of barbarian invaders.”16 The Chronicle thus demonstrates up-to-date understanding in line with contemporary knowledge trends.17 The tone of the text shifts noticeably in the account of the life of Muhammad, which includes numerous derogatory comments and repeats common European Christian misconceptions about Islam.18 The text describes Muhammad in connection with Christian heresies, specifically Nestorianism, a common framing of Islam since the Middle Ages.19 Muhammad is described as introducing polygamy to gain more followers, and the text concludes with a statement that he “died in the Year of the Lord 632, after having indulged himself in adultery, drunkenness and wantonness.” These are again common polemical framings with a long history in European discussions of Islam. The text further states that “Mohammed called himself the Great Prophet of God, and he deceived the people of Asia and Africa by black magic.” Islam is also cast as an inherently expansionist force and as a contemporary threat: “This false faith now holds the upper hand more than before; for all Asia and Africa, and a large part of Europe, has been subordinated to Mohammedan princes. Now by land and sea they [the Turks] are attempting to drive us out of this small corner of Europe.” The text repeats standard falsehoods about Muhammad and contextualizes the contemporary Ottoman expanse within a longer historical narrative of Islamic conquest.

20  From Saracen to Turk The 1453 conquest of Constantinople, described as being “devastated and defiled in the third year of said Mohammed” (Mehmed II) also frames the Ottomans in highly negative terms. After providing a brief discussion of the battle tactics employed by the Ottomans, the text continues with a lurid description of the suffering of the Byzantine inhabitants: The Greek emperor, Constantinus Paleologus was beheaded, and all persons six years of age, or over, were slain. The priests and inmates of the cloisters were murdered by various forms of martyrdom, while the rest of the people were slain by the sword. So much blood was spilled that it ran through the city in rivulets. The churches and other houses of God were shamefully and horribly defiled and dishonored, while many inhuman misdeeds were practiced by the raving Turks upon those of Christian blood.20 The details of slaughter and inhumanity – the killing of all inhabitants over age 6, the murder of monks and the rivers of blood flowing through the streets, for example – echo descriptions that circulated widely in the wake of the city’s conquest and are not original to Schedel.21 The summary passage toward the end of the book has a similarly negative assessment, reminding the reader of the “invasions, violence and oppressions frequently visited on the Christians by the Turks.” The Nuremberg Chronicle is a massive book, and I am not intending to suggest that Dürer read every page or was familiar with every detail. The passages related to the Ottomans and Islam presented in the Chronicle rather suggest the framework of understanding about the Ottomans and Islam he would have been exposed to and common assumptions he likely shared. These sections provide a survey of widely accepted points of view then in circulation in humanist as well as more popular texts and additionally provide insight into what Silver calls the “contemporary German urban understanding of Muhammad,” which I would extend to include the Ottomans.22 These views were largely negative and reiterated a view of the Ottomans as unceasingly expansionist and as sadistic persecutors of innocent Christians. Dürer also had a direct connection to Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools, a moralizing satire of human folly, as he is thought to have done illustrations to the work during his time in Basel as a young artist.23 His illustrations are furthermore seen as demonstrating a close understanding of Brant’s text, so it is fair to assume that he knew and understood the book’s contents.24 The text includes discussion of the Ottomans and Islam at several points. Turks and Saracens are first mentioned in passing in Chapter 98, “On Outlandish Fools,” where he writes: “Turks, pagans, Saracens – in brief/All those who have not true beliefe.”25 Chapter 99, “On the Decline of the Faith,” lists Muhammad and Islam as a major cause of this decline, writing: “That Christians’ faith has met distress/For daily it diminishes…. And then Mohammed shamefully/Abused its noble sanctity/With heresy and base intent.” After listing lands conquered by the Ottomans, Brant continues: So strong the Turks have grown to be They hold the ocean not alone, The Danube too is now their own. They make their inroads when they will, Bishoprics, churches suffer ill, Now they attack Apulia,

From Saracen to Turk 21 Tomorrow e’en Sicilia, And next to it is Italy, Wherefore a victim Rome may be And Lombardy and Romance land, We have the archfoe close at hand, We perish sleeping one and all. Brant continues later in the chapter: “For Europe’s gates are open wide, the foe encircles every side, With sleep or rest he’s not content, On Christian blood alone he’s bent.”26 The text paints an image of Europe under siege by the rapacious Ottomans, whose conquest spells not only territorial loss but also an existential threat to Christianity. Brant also discussed the Ottomans in his broadsheet “Von der wunderbaren Su zuo Landser,” on the so-called wonderous sow of Landser, a pig reportedly born on March 1, 1496 in Alsace with two bodies attached to a single head.27 The text, which was published both in a Latin and German edition, not only contextualizes the pig and its birth within a tradition of miraculous natural happenings, understood as divine signs, but also interprets it through a political lens. Notably, the pig, seen as an unclean animal, is compared explicitly to the Ottomans. Brant further writes: “the sow is brother to the Turk, both are the same as the Antichrist” and raises alarm about the danger posed by the ­Ottomans.28 The publication was dedicated to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and thus functioned as propaganda for the emperor and his plans for a crusade against the Ottomans, a cause which Brant repeatedly supported.29 Dürer made an engraving of the animal described in Brant’s broadsheet, his Miraculous Sow of Landser (c. 1496). While his depiction of the pig differs, his view of the background village is close to the one depicted on the broadsheet, and he almost certainly drew on the broadsheet as a source.30 While Dürer’s depiction of the animal is divorced from the political reading given by Brant, he would have been aware of the negative view of the Ottomans that Brant presented. Dürer was no doubt familiar with other printed texts that addressed the Ottomans and/or Islam, which presumably fleshed out further his received knowledge on these topics and shaped his thinking. Even looking solely at those texts we know he had direct contact with, we can demonstrate that Dürer was certainly cognizant of the main lines of contemporary discussion about Islam and the Ottomans prevalent among both humanist writers and that were circulating in more popular sources. These include theories of Ottoman origin, stories of wartime atrocities, fear over Ottoman military advances, the lineage of the sultans, negative and inaccurate understandings of Muhammad and the origins of Islam, the intrinsic expansionist nature of Islam, perceptions of the ongoing threat of the Ottomans to European territories and calls for crusade. The overwhelming framing of both the Ottomans and Islam found in the material he was directly familiar with was negative, fearful and reactionary. Turbans and Dress Linked to Muslim Identity in 15th-Century Northern European Painting Friedman has described how “systems of identity formation in which a dominant group describes a weaker or alien one through religion, race, diet or costume have long used headgear to indicate its wearer’s alterity.”31 Figures wearing turbans or other headgear associated with Muslim dress were stock figures in medieval art, and turbans were part of a larger proliferation of exoticized and sometimes fantastic headgear that appeared in

22  From Saracen to Turk late medieval Northern European art and increased during the 15th century. Turbans could be connected to Muslim identity and were used at points to depict individuals identified as Saracens. In the 14th century Holkham Bible, for example, figures labeled as Saracens wear the tortil, a single long piece of cloth wrapped once around the head, with the top of the head left visible.32 Noting the use of a turban to identify an executioner as Muslim, Strickland underlines the “special importance of headgear in Saracen imagery.”33 Yet the majority of turbaned figures in medieval art are not Muslim. As Mellinkoff has shown, the turban bore a number of symbolic functions, which can make its significance difficult to decipher in any one instance.34 Turbans could be used to express foreignness, evil or could simply designate non-Christian status. Most often, turbans denote either Jewish or Roman biblical figures and appear on figures ranging from Cain, to persecutors of Christ, to Old Testament prophets, to Pontius Pilate. Swan uses the term “ethnographic eclecticism” to refer to the usage of turbans and other types of clothing or accessories associated with Muslim-majority societies as a way of visually gesturing to antiquity, whether biblical, classical or other, in a way that lacks ethnographic specificity.35 Turbaned figures found in late medieval art and in paintings from 15th century Northern Europe reflect both the fluidity of the turban as a signifier and its fundamental connotation of otherness. Kubiski has argued that in the early years of the 15th century, a group of French manuscript illuminators, notably the Cité des Dames Master, the Limbourg Brothers and the Boucicault Master began to depict eastern costumes including headgear that denoted specific groups including Mongols, Byzantines, Mamluks and Turks among others with a variety and quantity not seen previously in medieval art. Arguing persuasively that the source of this variety was likely related both to French and Burgundian soldiers encountering the Ottomans at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 and the long-term stay of the Byzantine emperor and his court in Paris at the turn of the 15th century, Kubiski demonstrates the surprising accuracy in depictions of a variety of distinctive headgear and clothing types. An example is the Mocking of Christ from the Belles Heures by the Limbourg Brothers (1405–08/09), where Christ’s tormentors are shown wearing “a variety of turban-wrapped headgear, a Persian hat with a floppy brim, a face with distinct Mongol features, a tunic girded in eastern fashion with a sash rather than a belt and a shield with a distinct Byzantine profile”36 (Figure 1.2). The proliferation of eastern clothing types, particularly headgear, continues in 15thcentury Netherlandish art. Jan van Eyck’s Crucifixion (1440–41), for example, includes multiple turbaned figures (Figure 1.3). One of the turbaned figures also wears a long single braid of hair down his back, a hairstyle commonly associated by the later Middle Ages with Central Asian ethnic groups including the Mongols and Turkic peoples.37 He and the figure next to him bear curved sabers and round shields, while one holds a recurve bow, all weapons linked to west and central Asia. Longinus wears a hat with similarities to a Turkish sharbush, a fur trimmed hat with an upturned brim, rounded profile and sometimes a circular knob or button on the top.38 Campin’s Betrothal of the Virgin (1420–30) includes figures with eastern clothing types, notably multiple turbaned figures and a man wearing a sharbush-like hat. The work also shows other headgear types including the funnel-shaped hat associated with Jewish identity in the Middle Ages.39 Additionally, Campin includes at least one woman with a turban-like headdress made of a strip of white cloth wrapped around patterned fabric. As Friedman has shown, Northern artists in this period did sometimes show turbans on women as well as men, typically as a similarly exoticizing gesture.40 Turbaned figures also appear in Rogier van der Weyden’s

From Saracen to Turk 23

Figure 1.2 Limbourg Brothers, Mocking of Christ, Belles Heures du Duc du Berry, fol. 131v, 1405–08/09, tempera, gold and ink on vellum, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

St. Columba Altarpiece (c. 1455) and the Descent from the Cross (mid-15th century) attributed to his circle, in both cases on figures with prominent facial hair, which was often associated with otherness and later specifically with Turkish identity.41 Geertgen tot Sint Jans included multiple figures with turbans and other items associated with eastern dress, such as curved swords and facial hair, in his Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist (after 1484), specifically on figures who make up the entourage of the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate.42 While figures with turbans and other aspects of dress coded as eastern or Muslim sometimes appear in secular contexts where their dress is intended to reference a specific contemporary ethnic identity, such as the Princes of the East by the Cité des Dames Master, more commonly these items of dress appear on figures within religious images, as seen in the examples above. Turbans and other forms of visibly non-European headgear serve to transpose the scene to a distant, “foreign” location, and may perhaps be intended to signal the location of biblical events in the eastern Mediterranean. As Friedman comments about turbans depicted on women in this period, “the turban … helps to

24  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.3 Jan Van Eyck, The Crucifixion and Last Judgement, c. 1440–41, oil on canvas transferred from wood, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

focus our attention on the … figure’s slightly off-key exoticism, not quite contemporary and yet not quite historical.”43 Turbans were also used to indicate non-Christian identity and could signify more specific ethnic and religious identities, particularly in the context of images of Christ’s Passion. Mellinkoff indicates that turbans are often shown on the figures of officials at the crucifixion and may be intended to identify Jewish priests. Mellinkoff also contextualizes the use of headgear, including the turban, to visually mark figures in the crucifixion narrative as Jewish. “Most of Christ’s enemies in the New Testament are unnamed – the anonymous scoffers, tormentors, soldiers, executioners and Roman officials. And yet the visual arts, especially of Northern Europe, depict Jews as responsible for the persecution of Christ and the saints. To convey this idea a repertoire of attributes was gradually created to label and stigmatize figures as Jewish.”44 Coupled with the visible foreignness of the turban, which was “meant to evoke a fear of and distaste for their wearers,”45 the turban, depending on its use, could be a specifically antisemitic tool as well as a more general device whose resonance was based on xenophobia.46 Strickland explains the broader meaning of turbaned figures and others where Jewish and Muslim identity is conflated within crucifixion imagery: “Although it is an utter anachronism … the inclusion of the Saracen along with the Jews serves to ‘update’ the iconography of the scene by identifying Christ’s tormentors with both old and (relatively) new Christian enemies.”47 This deliberate blurring of identities through the mixing of visual signifiers for the purpose of

From Saracen to Turk 25 condemnation relates back to the idea of interrelated otherness discussed in the Introduction and is visible in numerous 15th-century images. A survey of 15th-century Netherlandish images of the crucifixion indicates that figures wearing turbans, tortils and other forms of headgear linked to the east are commonplace among the crowd at the base of the cross, although the specific identity that is intended to be conveyed is often not clear. The figures in the other examples mentioned here likely bore specific identities and were not intended simply as representing a generic nonChristian or exotic staffage. The figures in Campin’s Betrothal of the Virgin, for example, are doubtless to be interpreted as Jewish, while the turbans in the St. Columba Altarpiece gesture to the distant origin of the Magi. Turbans can also indicate Roman identity, as in Geertgen tot Sint Jans’s Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist. The above is by no means an exhaustive catalogue but should serve to indicate the frequency with which turbans and other elements of dress associated specifically with the east and with particular Muslim-majority societies appeared in 15th-century Netherlandish art. Yet this aspect of these works has tended to go underexamined. The two most prominent such figures from Van Eyck’s Crucifixion have been described as “two exotically dressed onlookers,” of interest primarily due to their compositional function and the reflective properties of the rightmost figure’s shield.48 The Prado entry for Campin’s Bethrothal of the Virgin notes simply the “characteristic exoticism of the international style” seen in the work.49 Kubiski describes how two canonical treatments of 15th-­ century Netherlandish art gloss over the references to non-European dress and ethnicity: “Millard Meiss rarely refers to the exotic and orientalizing motifs in French manuscript illumination and never attempts to explain them. Nor does Erwin Panofsky in his Early Netherlandish Painting.”50 Clearly there is more work to be done on this topic. Similar examples of turbaned figures are found in 15th-century German art, particularly, although not exclusively in works by artists influenced by Netherlandish style. ­Stefan Lochner’s Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne (1440s) shows several turbaned figures in the scene of the Adoration of the Magi in the central panel (Figure 1.4). On the far right, a turbaned figure bears a curved sword and wears a sash and a sleeveless outer coat with wide openings at the shoulder that reveal the patterned fabric of the garment beneath. This kind of layering with outer garments cut to display the fabric of the inner garments was a feature of Ottoman dress.51 Two other turbaned figures are visible in the entourage of the Magi, while the figure immediately behind the kneeling Magus holds a fur-brimmed rounded hat that shows similarities to a sharbush. The Crucifixion by Conrad Laib (c. 1449) and the Crucifixion by the Master of 1477 (1477) both include turbaned figures in the crowd of figures beneath the cross52 (Figure 1.5). Laib’s crucifixion includes a turbaned figure with long robe belted with a sash holding a recurve bow. The Master of 1477 placed two bearded figures with complex folded turbans in a prominent location in the foreground at the foot of the cross. The figure in front wears a long, layered garment, tied with a sash and frog closures down the front and made from a lavish textile with an ornamental print that is suggestive of an Ottoman kaftan. Since he looks to Christ and points to him with an expression of some urgency he may be intended to represent the centurion in his moment of recognition.53 Similar to the examples already discussed, the appearance of turbans is used to signify non-Christian identity in the context of religious imagery. As is evident from this brief survey of both Netherlandish and German art, a welldeveloped tradition of the depiction of figures wearing turbans and other forms of headgear, costume and weaponry associated with the East and with Muslim-majority societies

26  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.4 Stefan Lochner, Adoration of the Magi, central panel of the Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne/Dombild, c. 1445, tempera on oak, Cologne Cathedral, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

existed in 15th-century Northern European art. While the specifics of the attire depicted could vary, the meaning of this dress and the subject matter contexts where it tended to appear were relatively stable. Notable also is the higher degree of accuracy that existed in these depictions than is often recognized. Referencing Mellinkoff’s characterization of later medieval and 15th-century turbans as “fanciful and elaborate,” Friedman comments that “she perhaps overstates the fantastical nature of the Eastern costume she discusses.”54 The images discussed above and others like them are in no way models of ethnographic description and are typically miscellanies of disparate elements, fabrications and artistic invention. Yet in many cases, and in many more than is often recognized, the dress depicted does share recognizable similarities with known forms of dress from various societies and ethnic groups associated with Islam and with west and central Asia. Those examples must be ultimately based on some type of source, however distant, either written or visual that related to the actual dress.55 Visual Precedents for Dürer in Later 15th-Century German Prints The German artist with the most extensive use of turbaned figures prior to Dürer is Martin Schongauer. Given his direct impact on Dürer, his depictions of turbans and other aspects of dress associated with Islam necessitate a closer look. Schongauer was strongly influenced by Early Netherlandish art, particularly works by Rogier van der Weyden.

From Saracen to Turk 27

Figure 1.5  Master of 1477, Crucifixion, 1477, panel, Augsburg, Staatsgalerie.

Direct traces of several of his paintings, including the St. Columba Altarpiece, are found in Schongauer’s work, providing at least one likely point of inspiration for his depiction of orientalized figures.56 Although Schongauer’s usage of these figures remains within the established tradition for the most part, we can see innovation and a shift in intended meaning in some of his images. Turbaned figures appear in a number of Schongauer’s engravings, notably his The Road to Calvary (1475–80), several scenes from his Passion series (c. 1480), The Battle of St. James at Clavijo (1470s), Adoration of the Magi (c. 1475) and Two Moors in Conversation (n.d.). They also appear in several drawings, including his Head of a Bearded Oriental, Head of Two Orientals and Head of an Oriental Woman (group dated c. 1480–90).57 His turbans vary in shape: a wrapped turban forming a curved oval shape is worn by the bearded rider in the Bearing of the Cross, tightly wound round turbans adorn figures in The Road to Calvary, while a turban comprised of a wrapped horizontal band around a cone-shaped cloth protrusion is found on figures in a number of images including works from his engraved Passion series, for example, in his Betrayal of Christ. In addition to cloth turbans, Schongauer also includes turban-shaped helmets in his The Road to Calvary, Resurrection (c. 1470–75) and Battle of Clavijo.58 Turban helmets, which have a rounded, conical shape and ridges to imitate the folds of a turban were found throughout the Islamic world in this period with numerous examples surviving in museum collections.59 Schongauer’s turbaned figures function similarly to the use and meaning of similar figures in the previously discussed examples. They are exotic staffage types who add visual interest in scenes replete with elaborate costuming. Yet the headgear worn by these

28  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.6 Martin Schongauer, The Road to Calvary, 1485–91, engraving, Art Institute of Chicago.

figures was also intended to bear meaning. It should again be understood to signal nonChristian identities and in some cases functioned to more clearly delineate ethnic and/ or religious identities. In several instances, Schongauer’s turbans are likely intended to indicate Roman identity. The turbaned rider in The Road to Calvary, for example, appears to be a Roman official supervising the event while a turbaned figure at the base of the cross in his Crucifixion is likely the Roman centurion (Figure 1.6). Yet Schongauer’s linkage of a turban with Roman identity is not systematic as he shows Pilate wearing a different type of headgear throughout the Passion series. The primary turban-wearing figure in Schongauer’s Passion (c. 1480) is a man who is repeated in several images and functions as a guard who leads Christ through events in the narrative sequence. The figure appears first in the Betrayal of Christ where he holds a flail with heavy ball and pulls the bound Christ away by a rope (Figure 1.7). He appears again in scenes including Christ Before Annas, Ecce Homo and The Road to Calvary, recognizable through his headgear, which matches that shown on other “oriental” figures by Schongauer, as well as his role within the scene, facial depiction, rope and details of his tunic. The distinctive decorative edging on his tunic may also be a reference to eastern dress.60 The specific identity of this figure is ambiguous. Given the context, he could be intended to represent a Roman soldier, but he could also be intended to be interpreted as Jewish, particularly given his presence and actions in several crowd scenes. As discussed above, this interpretative ambiguity of turbans and turban-like headgear, particularly within Passion imagery, is common in 15th-century usages.

From Saracen to Turk 29

Figure 1.7 Schongauer, Betrayal of Christ, c. 1480, engraving, Art Institute of Chicago.

Several figures in Schongauer’s Adoration of the Magi (c. 1475) also wear turbans (Figure 1.8). Most prominent is the turbaned rider bearing a large banner with a crescent and star who looks directly out at the viewer. Another turbaned figure is present in the crowd on the right. The turbans in Schongauer’s Adoration are similar to the Adoration panel from Rogier van der Weyden’s St. Columba Altarpiece, an influence on Schongauer’s work, as well as those found in other 15th-century Adoration scenes.61 Turbans connect to a larger tradition of exoticism in the depiction of the Magi where they function as signifiers of the east and the Magi’s distant point of origin. Magi depictions in this period were often replete with imagery intended to evoke faraway lands, whether animals, trappings or fabrics, and the turban functions effectively as an exoticizing device.62 The turban also likely reflects the by-then well-established tradition of differentiated ethnic identity among the Magi, where the three Magi were seen to represent the three known continents of Asia, Africa and Europe.63 While the turbaned figures depicted by Schongauer are not the Magi, but rather part of their larger entourage, their presence suggests the multi-ethnic identity of the Magi themselves and underscore the Magi’s essential foreignness.

30  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.8 Schongauer, Adoration of the Magi, 1470–75, engraving, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Imagery on the banners borne by the Magi, a motif within Adoration imagery that predates Schongauer, further works to delineate their identities. Lochner’s Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of the City of Cologne is a prominent earlier German example with banners. Lochner included the crescent and star as one of three banners depicting the so-called arms of the Magi, the earliest example of which is found in the Geltre Book of Arms (1369–75).64 Schongauer, who likely saw Lochner’s work in Cologne during his wanderjahre, included the same three banners – the crescent and star, stars on a blue background and the figure of a Black man in profile. Since Schongauer compressed the retinue of the Magi on the right side, the banners overlap, so that only the crescent and star banner is fully visible. The three banners are interpreted as representing the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa.65 The crescent and star banner in Schongauer’s work, as in Lochner, likely signifies Islam in addition to Asia, as the crescent was by then widely recognized by Europeans as a symbol of Islam and was increasingly identified specifically with the Ottomans. The origins and adoption of the crescent as a symbol of

From Saracen to Turk 31 Islam and the Ottomans are much debated although it is clear that the symbol predates the Ottomans.66 Berger suggests that the crescent began to be widely used in an Islamic context in the 14th and 15th centuries and was associated with Islam by Europeans by the end of the 14th century.67 Numerous European images from the 15th century on, including maps and more popular imagery, indicate Ottoman identity through a crescent,68 although the Ottomans did not officially adopt the crescent as a state symbol until the 18th century.69 The title image to the Türkisch Chronik (1513) by the German writer Johannes Adelphus provides an example of the use of the crescent banner to identify the contemporary Ottomans in print media70 (Figure 1.9). Schongauer’s work uses the by-then conventional motif of the Magian banners together with turbans to point to Islam. The turbans and banner underscore the fundamental message of the Adoration scene – that all the world has arrived to worship the Christ child – and suggests the eventual conversion of contemporary non-Christians, notably the Muslim Ottomans. At the same time, the relegation of the turbaned and crescent banner-bearing figures to the

Figure 1.9 Anon., title page to Die Türkisch Chronik, woodcut, 1513/1516, Bayerische Staats­ bibliothek, Rar 148.

32  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.10 Schongauer, Battle of St. James at Clavijo, c. 1470–75, engraving, Rijksmuseum.

background, distanced and spatially separated from the Holy Family by architecture, has a marginalizing effect. Schongauer’s Battle of St. James at Clavijo (c. 1470–75) provides a singular instance of dress associated with Islam in a non-biblical setting in his work, and at least one instance where he very clearly intended turbans and other dress markers to signal Muslim identity71 (Figure 1.10). The fictitious 9th-century battle of Clavijo was supposed to have taken place between the forces of the Asturian king Ramiro I and Abd al-Rahman II, the Muslim emir of Córdoba. The tale of the miraculous appearance of St. James, who was said to have intervened on the field of battle by coming down from heaven on a horse to lead the forces of King Ramiro to a seemingly impossible victory, helped give rise to the legend of Santiago Matamoros, St. James the Moor-slayer.72 This subject has few visual precedents in a non-Spanish context and the story as a whole was not well known outside of Spain in this period. Schongauer’s depiction of it thus suggests a need for further explanation. A Spanish trip on the part of Schongauer has long been hypothesized, most recently by Anzelewsky, in part on the basis of this image.73 As Anzelewsky describes, much of the dress and weaponry in this image, which may appear a fanciful hodgepodge at first glance, in fact, provides an accurate assemblage of contemporary costume from the Iberian Peninsula, both Christian and Muslim. The double-lobed leather shield or adarga, originally a Muslim shield type and later adopted by the Christian Spanish, is shown four times in the Battle of Clavijo, borne by fighters on the Muslim side.74 Other accurate and appropriate costume details include the distinctively Spanish sword type held by the Muslim rider in the foreground, details of spur types and a North-African burnus (hooded cloak) worn by the Muslim rider on the right side.75 The leg position of the riders on the Muslim side is also noticeably different from

From Saracen to Turk 33 the riders on the Christian side. St. James’s long right leg with unbent knee continues the straight line of his body that begins at his elbow and creates a focal point in the image. By contrast, the Muslim riders are shown with bent knees and shorter stirrups with a broader foot base. This reflects their riding style à la gineta/jineta, a style associated with Muslims from North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.76 Schongauer’s battle scene shows marked similarities in costume, riding style and overall concept of a cavalry battle between Spanish Christians and Muslims to a scene showing war “contra paganos” from the Prayerbook of Alphonso V of Aragon (fol 78r), a scene which Spissu has described as “a visual embodiment of the struggle against the Muslim enemy”77 (Figure 1.11). In this image, the Christian knights, clad in full armor, riding straight-legged with wheel spurs charge from the left side of the image to battle Muslim fighters wearing burnuses, carrying adarga and riding à la jineta. Although there is no reason to suggest that Schongauer knew this particular image, the similarities underscore his image’s broader theme of battle between Christian and Muslim forces and confirm the aspects of his image that correspond to Iberian motifs.

Figure 1.11 Anon., page from Prayerbook of Alphonso V of Aragon, fol. 78r. 1436–43, British Library, Add MS 28962.

34  From Saracen to Turk The reasons for Schongauer’s depiction of this unusual scene are unknown, although Anzelewsky notes the prominence of the cult of St. James in Alsace and the existence of a chapel of St. James in Colmar during the 15th century, suggesting a likely patronage connection. Anzelewsky also points to a possible Ottoman connection.78 A scene of divinely assisted Christian victory against a more powerful Muslim force would have had considerable resonance in 15th-century Germany and indeed could even have been read as a typological precedent given the ongoing Ottoman military advance. Regardless of the original intent, Schongauer’s Battle of St. James at Clavijo is notable as a singular example within his work of Muslim costume used in a historical context, with the clear aim of denoting ethnic and religious identity with some degree of accuracy. Similar costume details also appear in the Road to Calvary, such as the adarga visible on the far right, or the decorative belt, dagger and pouch combination on the lance-bearer to the left of Christ. An adarga is also worn by one of the guards in his Resurrection, an image that also includes a turban and turban helmet. Anzelewsky also places Schongauer’s turbans and turban figure studies within this hypothesized Spanish context.79 If so, these figures and their headgear should also be read as Muslim and as bearing a specific cultural identity. If Schongauer indeed traveled to Spain, his images of Iberian costume, both Christian and Muslim, would have also had the status of eyewitness authority, imbuing his battle scene with a claim to documentary realism. Schongauer’s engravings circulated widely in Germany and beyond. The young Dürer was exposed to them, and he also traveled to Colmar in 1492 during his wanderjahre, almost certainly to visit Schongauer.80 While Dürer was unsuccessful, as Schongauer had died in 1491, he likely stayed with Schongauer’s brother. He was presumably further able to study Schongauer’s works as a result, and his use of specific pictorial motifs shows the clear influence of Schongauer.81 Dürer would not have come to these works unaware of visual conventions related to turbans and their range of possible meanings. In addition to being an established visual tradition, they are also present within works associated with Dürer’s apprenticeship period. Schongauer’s prints, however, would have exposed the young artist to his particular turbaned figure type and usage. Two printed books that are also in the orbit of Dürer’s early influences feature images with turbaned figures: the Schatzbehalter (1491) and the already discussed Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). Both were produced in Michael Wolgemut’s workshop, although both were published after Dürer had left on his wanderjahre. Dürer may have participated in early work on one or both projects, as discussed above, and regardless of his direct involvement, they demonstrate conceptions of turbaned figures and their meaning in his early artistic environment and provide a useful starting point for a consideration of his development of this motif. The Schatzbehalter, a devotional work, pairs meditational texts by Stephan Fridolin with images by Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff.82 Two turbaned figures appear in the Schatzbehalter. Pilate wears a turban in a scene of Christ before Pilate while the prophet Nathan is shown turbaned with a curved sword in a depiction of King Solomon being anointed king (Figure 1.12).83 In both cases, the turbans are used conventionally to indicate the alterity of biblical figures. In contrast to the biblical turbaned figures of the Schatzbehalter, the intended significance of turbans in the Nuremberg Chronicle shifts depending on context. The turban worn by Muhammad (fol. CLv) is clearly related to Islam, while the tortillike headgear worn by Cyrus, ruler of Persia (fol. LXIX), suggests a more generic exoticism (Figure 1.13). Turbans also appear within biblical contexts, as in the Judgment of Solomon (fol XLVIIv), where two figures to the left of Solomon, seemingly

From Saracen to Turk 35

Figure 1.12 Workshop of Michael Wolgemut, Christ Before Pilate, Schatzbehalter, Figur 63, 1491, woodcut, Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

counselors, wear turbans and a figure in the crowd on the right may wear headgear associated with the Ottoman janissaries (börk). Solomon himself wears a Europeanstyle crown. The Nuremberg Chronicle also includes a figure labeled Ottomannus who accompanies a brief history of the Ottoman dynasty (fol. CCXXVIII). Ottomannus (Osman I) does not wear a turban, instead wearing a pointed cap suggestive of the headgear worn by Ottoman janissaries, which is coupled with a curved saber and ankle-length robe closed with fabric fasteners and worn with a sash slung around his hips (Figure 1.14). In a scene of the destruction of Jerusalem (fols. LXIIIv and LXIIIIr), several small figures in the left and center foreground appear to have turbans and orientalized robes, while a mounted figure in the background may wear a janissary börk, although details are hard to make out84 (Figure 1.15). In addition to these costume suggestions, the ancient city has been ahistorically transformed into an Umayyad or later version of the city with prominent Islamic landmarks substituting for earlier structures. The temple, shown on the left side, labeled “Templu(m) Salomo(n)is” and engulfed in flames, is topped with a bulbous dome with a large crescent on top. In the background of the image on the right side, a centrally planned domed structure is labeled “Calvarie.” An open courtyard stretches in front of it,

36  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.13 Muhammad, Nuremberg Chronicle, fol. CLv, 1493, woodcut, Cambridge University Library.

ending with a minaret-like structure topped with another large crescent. The two structures suggest the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque. These details may derive from a drawing of Jerusalem attributed to the Nuremberg patrician Sebald Rieter the Younger, who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1479 with Hans Tucher.85 The conflation of the Temple of Solomon with the Dome of the Rock seen in the image has a history in Christian sources dating back to the crusades.86 This view of Islamic Jerusalem contrasts with an image of Jerusalem on fol. XVIIr, which lacks the crescents, minarets and bulbous domes, although the temple of Solomon is again shown as a centrally planned, domed structure. There was clearly a deliberate choice to Islamicize the city in the view of the destruction of the city, which Moore suggests should be read as supporting renewed calls for crusade in the later 15th century.87 By the late 15th century, some artistic representations had begun to represent costume from the Islamic world more accurately, often even recognizing cultural differences

From Saracen to Turk 37

Figure 1.14 Ottomannus, Nuremberg Chronicle, fol. CCXXVIII, 1493, woodcut, Cambridge University Library.

between ethnic and national groups in dress and headgear. This change was largely the result of travel to the eastern Mediterranean on the part of Europeans, particularly pilgrims and artists who provided views of contemporary Muslim dress imbued with the authority of personal experience. A key episode in terms of its impact on the visual tradition was the 1483 pilgrimage of the Mainz cleric Bernhard von Breydenbach, which resulted in the 1486 publication of the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam.88 This popular, widely disseminated travelogue included the artist Erhard Reuwich’s woodcuts of eastern Mediterranean cityscapes, costumes and animals. Reuwich’s woodcuts were widely known and were regarded by contemporaries as an important source with eyewitness credibility. The woodcuts were particularly renowned for their meticulously detailed depictions of architecture. The view of Rhodes, for example, even showed damage sustained during the Turkish attack of 1480.89 Artists subsequently mined Reuwich’s woodcuts for visual motifs as disparate as the skyline of Venice and the dress of various Eastern Mediterranean ethnic groups.

38  From Saracen to Turk

  Figure 1.15 Destruction of Jerusalem, Nuremberg Chronicle, fols. LXIIIv and LXIIIIr, 1493, woodcut, Cambridge University Library.

Two woodcuts by Reuwich are of particular significance here: an image of Saracen costume, and a view of mounted Turks (Figures 1.1 and 1.16). The Saracen costume study was perhaps the most influential image from the book in terms of costume study. The veiled Saracen woman in particular was repeated in European imagery to the end of the 16th century.90 The image also includes three turbaned men armed with a short, curved dagger, longer, curved sword and recurve bow. The riders in Reuwich’s Mounted Turks bear two labels: genetzer (janissary) and turci. The labels together with the several figures playing musical instruments, including a drum (nakkare) and wind instrument (zurna) indicate that these are janissaries accompanied by a military band (mehter), which corresponds to actual practice.91 The accompanying text notes that the image depicts Turks during peacetime. While the figures are shown with several different types of headgear, of particular significance is the folded, pointed cap or janissary börk worn by the second rider, and the two turbans with small cone-shaped protrusions in the center, suggestive of the distinctive Ottoman turban type. They also wear long robes layered over other garments, plumes in their headgear and the frontmost figures rides with a shortened stirrup and bent knee. Yet as Ross notes, the members of Breydenbach’s pilgrimage did not visit Ottoman territory and it is unclear if Reuwich would have actually seen any actual janissaries.92 Reuwich’s Mounted Turks had less of an influential afterlife than his Saracen woman or various architectural details from his views of the Levant. The Housebook Master’s Turkish Rider (c. 1490) drypoint shows notable similarities, however, and combines

From Saracen to Turk 39

Figure 1.16 Reuwich, Mounted Turks, fol 152r from Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam, 1486, woodcut, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 1 Inc.c.a. 2022m.

attributes of several of Reuwich’s Turkish figures93 (Figure 1.17). The figure wears an Ottoman-style turban, ankle-length robe with hanging sleeves and closed with buttons, recurve bow in a bow quiver and saddle drum, all depicted with accuracy.94 These are all elements found in Reuwich’s image although they are all more finely detailed here and the decoration on the quiver and saddle cloth suggests a figure of status. The sword is straight rather than curved, however. Indeed, the similarities between this figure and Reuwich’s group have been seen as evidence to help identify the Housebook Master as Reuwich.95 While Dürer’s works show no obvious dependence on the Reuwich figures, the turbaned figure in his Six Warriors/Five Landsknechte and an Oriental Man on Horseback has some similarities to the Housebook Master’s rider. Dürer was moreover certainly aware of Reuwich’s imagery, as the Peregrinatio had a direct influence on images produced in Michael Wolgemut’s workshop during his apprenticeship period.96 Dürer’s Early Works There are few turbans in Dürer’s work from the period of his wanderjahre, when he was at work as a journeyman on several larger printed projects, or indeed prior to 1494–95.

40  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.17 Housebook Master/Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Turkish Rider, 1488–92, drypoint, Rijksmuseum.

Their depiction, when they appear, nevertheless indicates the clear influence of Schongauer’s prototypes. The earliest depictions of turbans in Dürer’s work appear in a series of drawings illustrating the Comedies of Terence executed in 1492 during his stay in Basel.97 The illustrations to The Mother in Law feature nine appearances of a turbaned figure, who should probably be identified as Laches, father of the main male character Pamphilus (Figure 1.18). Visually, the turbans recall Schongauer’s turbans, specifically those seen in his The Road to Calvary, Head of a Moor and background figure from his Christ Before Pilate. They are bulky with numerous pieces of cloth woven across the front in an interlocking diagonal pattern. Yet the turban in this instance does not seem to indicate any ethnic or religious identity as Laches is Athenian, as are all the characters in the play.

From Saracen to Turk 41

Figure 1.18 Dürer (attributed), Pamphilus, Sostrata and Laches in Conversation, Comedies of ­Terrence, c. 1492, pen and ink, Kunstmuseum Basel.

A second turbaned figure in Dürer’s early work is a woodcut from his illustrations of the Basel edition of Der Ritter vom Turn by Geoffroy de la Tour Landry from 1493.98 The figure appears in the forty-second illustration, which depicts Kathon’s son saving a condemned thief from execution by hanging (Figure 1.19). This figure shows an even closer link to Schongauer, as Dürer’s figure is a simplified version of the turbaned man who leads Christ by a rope around his neck in Schongauer’s Betrayal, and who reappears in subsequent scenes of the Passion. Both figures wear a turban with a horizontal band of cloth wrapped around a twisted cone, knee-high boots and a short tunic with buttons and decoration above the elbow. The figures, moreover, have a similar function: both are a prison guard or minor official who leads the accused before the deciding authority, or in this case to execution. Dürer may well have borrowed this figure, turban and all, because they perform similar roles, although as will be discussed in Chapter 4, the placement of a turban on an executioner figure also carries a particular resonance. These early examples suggest Dürer’s awareness and assimilation of the prior tradition of turbaned or otherwise orientalized figures in 15th-century Northern art. Turbaned figures clearly had not yet become a dominant motif in his work; nor do they have a consistent internal logic or bear any particular ethnic or religious identity. Yet Dürer in many respects never departed from Schongauer’s basic usage of the turban even as his depictions of turbans changed, a change that resulted from another pivotal artistic encounter that took place early in his career, namely with Gentile Bellini and the Venetian tradition.

42  From Saracen to Turk

Figure 1.19 Dürer, Page from Der Ritter vom Turn, 1493, woodcut, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 631.

Notes 1 The term Saracen predates Islam and was originally used by the Romans. Saraceni was used to mean Arab during the early Byzantine period. See Shahid, Rome and the Arabs, 31 and Bethencourt, Racisms, 17. An early use of the term linked specifically to Islam appears in the 7th century Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, where Saracens are equated with the Ishmaelites. Tolan, Saracens, 10–11 and 287 n. 25. This usage of Saracen to refer generically to Muslim continues throughout the Middle Ages. 2 Fichtner, Terror and Toleration, 7, Meserve, Empires of Islam, viii. 3 Fleet, “The Absence of the Ottoman Empire,” 39. 4 Following Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 6 n. 9, I am referring to the city as Istanbul after the 1453 conquest and Constantinople prior, although the name Constantinople persisted among the Ottomans for quite some time after. 5 Scholarly literature on the subject of European views of Islam and various Muslim-majority societies in the medieval and early modern periods is extensive. Recent discussions include Akbari, Idols in the East; Meserve, Empires of Islam; Bisaha, Creating East and West; Johnson, Cultural Hierarchy in Sixteenth Century Europe; Miller, The Turks and Islam; Noel Malcolm, Useful Enemies; and Francisco, Martin Luther and Islam. Older but still useful are Schwoebel,

From Saracen to Turk 43 Shadow of the Crescent and Bohnstedt, “The Infidel Scourge.” On images of the Ottomans and Islam in visual art in Central Europe, see Smith, Images of Islam. 6 On the relationship of Renaissance writings, particularly those by humanists, to the medieval tradition see particularly Meserve, Empires of Islam and Bisaha, Creating East and West. 7 Meserve, Empires of Islam, 11. 8 The returned captive Georgius de Hungaria, whose Tractatus de Moribus (first edition Rome, 1481) was published in numerous editions in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and found a wide readership, is a good example of this. Despite his highly negative overall view of the Ottomans, he nevertheless praised aspects of Ottoman society, including what he saw as their morality and honor and the discipline of the janissary corps. Georgius stated that he nearly converted to Islam, and although he spoke negatively of Islam as a religion throughout, he also conveyed considerable information about Muslim beliefs and practices. See Classen, “The World of the Turks.” On Erasmus and Luther see Johnson, Cultural Hierarchy, Miller, The Turks and Islam and Francisco, Martin Luther and Islam. 9 According to Füssel, Chronicle of the World, 634, Schedel derived more than 90 percent of the text directly from his sources and should more properly be termed a compiler. See also Green, The Nuremberg Chronicle, 9, Reske, Produktion der Schedelschen Weltchronik, 156. 10 While Dürer’s participation was long assumed, Reske’s analysis of the dating of contracts, the earliest of which is from 1491, leads to the conclusion that it is “unlikely” that Dürer was involved and also states that the dating “excludes the potential participation of Albrecht Dürer.” Reske, Produktion der Schedelschen Weltchronik, 166–169, 201. Dürer left on his travels in April of 1490. Füssel, Chronicle of the World, 18 argues that design work was likely already substantially underway prior to the contracts and suggests that there is support to argue for involvement by the young Dürer. 11 Yoon, “Dürer’s First Journey,” 79–83. 12 On Dürer’s ongoing connection to Wolgemut see Yoon, “Dürer’s First Journey,” 82 and Hutchinson, Albrecht Dürer, 25. 13 Folio numbers taken from the German language edition of 1493, translated by Georg Alt. 14 As noted by Reske, Produktion der Schedelschen Weltchronik, 154, the discussion on fol. CCLXXIIIr is a point of difference between the German and Latin editions. The Latin edition includes the conquest of Constantinople while the section in the German edition is brief and refers back to a prior section of the text. Reske, 155–156 notes that the end sections of the Latin and German editions differ significantly, with the Latin being considerably lengthier. 15 Fol. CCLXXIIv in German edition. Fol CCLXXIv in English translation. English translations of the Nuremberg Chronicle are all from First English Edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center. 16 Meserve, Empires of Islam, 84. On the broader intellectual history of the Turks as Scythians vs. Trojans see Meserve, particularly Ch. 1 and 2. 17 Meserve, Empires of Islam, 79 cites Flavio Biondo’s discussion of the origins of the Turks as Schedel’s source. Smith, Images of Islam, 14 also cites writings by Theophanes the Confessor, Giovanni Mario Filelfo, Theodore Gaza as well as Flavio Biondo as containing parallel discussions that could have been sources. 18 See Silver, “Muhammad, Mandeville and Maximilian,” 233–235 for a discussion of this section of the text. 19 On medieval discussions of Islam and Muhammad see Akbari, Idols of the East, Ch. 5. 20 Fol. CCXLIXr. 21 See Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, Ch. 1. The inaccurate claim that the Ottomans had killed all above the age of 6, for example, is found in a letter sent by the Venetians to Pope Nicholas V a month after the conquest and was repeated frequently, Schwobel, 1. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, described the killing of all over 6, the beheading of the emperor, the rivers of blood that ran through the streets among other details in a letter to Pope Nicholas V, written shortly after the conquest. Pius II, Reject Aeneas, Embrace Pius, 310, all details that would be found repeatedly in accounts of the conquest. 22 Silver, “Muhammad, Mandeville and Maximilian,” 233. 23 Since Dürer’s activities during his wanderjahre are minimally documented, there is debate over Dürer’s participation and over the attribution of specific images to him. Yoon, “Navigating Dürer’s Woodcuts,” states that about 2/3 of the illustrations are today attributed to Dürer

44  From Saracen to Turk while Roth, “Albrecht Dürer and Strasbourg” states that “most of the printing block designs. . . [for the] Ship of Fools have now been successfully linked to Dürer, although this is not unanimously accepted,” 40. See also Schmidt, “The Upper Rhine Question.” 24 Yoon, “Navigating Dürer’s Woodcuts.” 25 Brant, Ship of Fools, 314. 26 Brant, Ship of Fools, 316–318. 27 See https://www.e-rara.ch/bau_1/content/titleinfo/1957955. Accessed May 23, 2022. 28 Spinks, Monstrous Births, 35. 29 On Brant, Maximilian and crusade see Silver, Marketing Maximilian. 30 Spinks, Monstrous Births, 39, Schmitt, “The Young Dürer,” 169. 31 Friedman, “The Art of the Exotic,” 173. 32 Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 67. See also Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews, particularly Chapter 4, “Saracens” on depictions of Muslims in Medieval art. 33 Strickland, ibid, 174. 34 See Chapter 3, “Headgear” in Mellinkoff, Outcasts. 35 Swan, Rarities of these Lands, 134. Swan notes that the term is from Paul Vandenbroeck. 36 Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume,” 170. 37 Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume,” 165 and 178, n. 30. 38 Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume,”169. See also Bolman, Monastic Visions, 118. An Abbasid edition of the Maqamat of al-Hariri showing an amir with several attendants all wearing the sharbush, Bibliotheque Nationale MS Arabe 5847 59r provides a point of comparison to the European works. 39 On the appearance of headgear associated with Jews in medieval art see Mellinkoff, Outcasts, especially 57–66. 40 Friedman, “Art of the Exotic.” In the examples he examines by the later 15th century illuminator Testard, he finds turbans appearing on women who are “always identifiably pagans, mythological figures, or geographical and historical exotics,” 187. Turkish women did not wear turbans, instead wearing hats with a scarf that wrapped under the chin. Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 18. 41 Kaplan, “Black Turks,” 45, Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews, 77–78. According to Strickland, beards specifically could be associated with sin and sexuality. 42 Interestingly, it is frequently argued that the commission of the work was prompted by the gift of relics associated with John the Baptist from Sultan Bayezid II to the order of the Knights of Rhodes, an event which occurred in 1484. Bruyn, “Een Gedachtenisvenster,” 104. 43 Friedman, “Art of the Exotic,” 191. 44 Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 65. 45 Mellinkoff, ibid, 68. 46 Strickland also notes the crossover between Jewish and Muslim iconography in medieval conceptions of non-Christians. See Saracens, Demons and Jews, chapter 4, in particular pages 167 and 174. 47 Strickland, ibid, 177. 48 Ainsworth and Christiansen eds., From Van Eyck to Bruegel, 88. 49 See https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-betrothal-of-the-virgin/ 6f303c39-3d03-4d48-8bb0-ffe162d017dd. Accessed May 12, 2022. 50 Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume,” 176, n. 3. 51 Chapius, Stefan Lochner, 58 notes the several turbaned figures and the curved sword, seeing them as “an allusion to Islam and Asia.” 52 Mellinkoff, 69 references both images and suggests that the turbaned figured at the base of the cross in the Master of 1477’s work and at the left side in Laib’s may represent Jewish officials. 53 A slightly later German example of the centurion at the crucifixion can be seen in Cranach the Elder’s Crucifixion with Converted Centurion (1538). The centurion in Cranach’s image is placed at the base of the cross and looks up and gestures at Christ. 54 Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 61, Friedman, “The Art of the Exotic,” 173. 55 Netherlandish art did produce highly detailed, precise depictions of Islamic carpets, as is demonstrated by the “Memling gul” carpet type, so named because of its appearance in works by Hans Memling. Denny, Islamic Carpets, 62–64. Of course, copying a portable good that was imported into Europe in sizable quantities like a carpet is much more straightforward than

From Saracen to Turk 45 imitating dress worn by groups artists would rarely if ever encounter. An example of a 15thcentury written source that includes accurate descriptions of both costume and weaponry from the eastern Mediterranean is Bertrandon de la Broquière’s Le Voyage d’Outre-Mer, which describes his travels of 1432–33. 56 Shestack, 34. 57 These drawings are generally seen as part of a larger group of head studies. The attribution of either the group as a whole or individual images to Schongauer has been disputed. See Mielke and Müller, From Schongauer to Holbein, 38–39. 58 Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 72 notes the turban helmets figures located in the center and upper left. A figure with a similar helmet stands in the right foreground of the Battle of Clavijo. 59 Alexander, Islamic Arms and Armor, 70. For an example see https://skd-online-collection.skd. museum/Details/Index/286808. Accessed May 16, 2022. 60 Jirousek, “More than Oriental Splendor,” 25 notes that elaborate edgings on dress are one way in which European artists indicated dress that was intended to evoke the Muslim world and specifically calls out similar decoration on a figure to the left of the cross in Schongauer’s Road to Calvary. Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 72. 61 Dirk Bouts’s Adoration of the Magi (c. 1465) is also cited as an influence. Shestack, cat. 39. It includes numerous turbaned figures within the Magi’s entourage. 62 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus circa 1500,” 45 discusses this in the context of early 16th-century images of the Adoration of the Magi. 63 On the development of Magi iconography in terms of ethnic differentiation see Kaplan, The Rise of the Black Magus, Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus circa 1500,” 7–91 and Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, 79. 64 Kaplan, Rise of the Black Magus, 91–94. 65 Chapius, Stefan Lochner, 58–59, identifies the meaning of the banners in Lochner’s work thusly: the banner with stars signifies Europe, the banner with the African man in armor symbolizes Africa while the crescent and star links to both Asia and Islam. Kaplan, Images of the Magi, 92 suggests that the crescent and star banner in its first uses as part of the arms of the Magi might have been intended to signify Byzantium and proposes alternate readings for the other banners as well. 66 The crescent as symbol may ultimately derive from Sasanian imagery and is found on Islamic military banners by the Middle Ages. Berger, The Crescent on the Temple, 164. 67 Berger, The Crescent on the Temple, 160–165. 68 Brummett, “Turks and Christians,” 166. See, for example the crescents on the flags shown in a depiction of the Siege of Rhodes in Guillaume Caorsin, Rhodiorum Vicecancellarij (1496), those borne by Ottomans in the Türkisch Chronik by Johannes Adelphus (1516), a crescent and cross on Hagia Sophia on the depiction of Constantinople from fol. CCLVIIv the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) or on the Vavassore map of Constantinople (1520, based on a sketch from c. 1480). 69 Brummett, “Turks and Christians,” 166. According to Babinger, Sultan Mehmed II adopted the crescent and star after his conquest of Constantinople as a symbol of sovereignty. Babinger, Mehmet the Conqueror and his Time, 108. Necipoglu-Kafadar, “Süleyman the Magnificent,” 412 states that the crescent was officially adopted as the emblem of the sultan in 1526. 70 Smith, Images of Islam, 15, notes the threatening tone of this image, particularly due to the obvious weapons, particularly the large arrow. 71 The work’s attribution to Schongauer has been contested. Koreny, “Notes on Martin ­Schongauer,” rejects the attribution to Schongauer and calls it the work of a follower. Shestack’s review of the evidence leads him to accept the attribution, seeing it as an early, unfinished work, cat. 42. Anzelewsky, 6 sees it as a work done in collaboration with his brother. There does not yet seem to be consensus, with some museum collections retaining the attribution and others rejecting it. For the purposes of this discussion I will discuss it as a Schongauer work, recognizing the questions around its authorship. 72 Anzelewsky, “Schongauers Spanienreise,” 15. See also Rowe, “Saint and Nation,” 22–33. 73 Shestack p. 34 summarizes evidence for this hypothesis, notably his depiction of “Moorish” types in several works, the appearance of a date palm and dragon tree, a plant native to the northwest coast of Africa and islands off the coast, in his Flight into Egypt, as well as this work. Mason, “A Dragon Tree,” discusses the religious symbolism that became attached to the

46  From Saracen to Turk dragon tree and cites Schongauer’s work as likely the earliest representation of a dragon tree in European art, p. 177. 74 An extant adarga, today in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, demonstrates the form and materials of this shield type. The Viennese example is leather lined with silk and includes writing invoking Allah, indicating its Muslim provenance. The museum notes the origin of this shield type’s use for light cavalry, indicating the appropriateness of its use by Schongauer. https://www.khm.at/en/objectdb/detail/373719/?offset=0&lv=list. Accessed June 15, 2022. 75 Anzelewsky, “Schongauers Spanienreise,” 6, notes the distinctive curved crossguard on the sword and contrasts the “langhalsigen Radsporen” of the Christian fighters with the “stachelsporen” of the Muslim fighters. 76 This riding style was adopted by Christian Spanish by the mid-15th century and later exported to the Americas with Spanish colonization. Renton, “Muy grandes hombres,” 218–219 provides an overview of the origins, nature and resonances of this riding style. A similar style of riding was also associated with Central Asian peoples, as will be discussed below. 77 Spissu, “Reckoning with the Illuminated Dreams,” 32, Spissu also links the king’s depiction with the iconography of Santiago Matamoros. The prayerbook is dated 1436–1443. British Library Add MS 28962. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_28962. Accessed June 15, 2022. 78 Anzelewsky, “Schongauers Spanienreise,” 18. 79 See Anzelewsky, ibid, 6–11 for his discussion of costume and 11 for his discussion of turbans. Stillman notes that the wearing of the turban (imama) was limited in Muslim Spain, however. Stillman, Arab Dress: A Short History, 91. As discussed above, turban helmets are associated with Central Asia and Turkic groups, not Iberia. 80 Christoph Scheurl, a friend of Dürer’s, wrote in 1515 that Dürer’s father had wanted him to be apprenticed to Schongauer. Hutchison suggests that this likely refers to an arrangement made by Dürer’s father for him to go to Colmar once he became a journeyman. Albrecht Dürer, 27–30. 81 Schmidt, “Dürer and Schongauer,” 314 states that “Dürer studied engravings by Schongauer quite closely.” Schmidt also notes that he owned three drawings by Schongauer. 82 Smith, Nuremberg, A Renaissance City, p. 93. 83 Schatzbehalter Figur 63 and Figur 80. 84 The specific destruction depicted is ambiguous. The image immediately follows a depiction of Nebuchadnezzar conquering and destroying the city, yet some of the specifically Christian details, for example, the depiction of Christ being tempted by the devil, suggest a later destruction. The text itself refers to five different destructions of the city. Moore, The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land, 206 identifies this as the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 CE. Schmauch and Hadavas identify the two figures in the left foreground as Turks and also note the Middle Eastern quality of the city. Schmauch and Hadavas, First English Edition of the Nuremberg World Chronicle (Madison: University of Wisconsin Digital Collection, 2010), commentary to Fols. LXIIIv and LXIIIIr. 85 See Moore, ibid, 165, 198, 206, for discussion relevant to this image. Moore notes that the Holy Sepulchre is also present in the view of the Destruction of Jerusalem. The image from the Nuremberg Chronicle is not a strict copy of Rieter’s image, but has clear borrowings, most clearly in the shape and detailing of the minarets and the double-domed structure of the Dome of the Rock. 86 Berger, The Crescent on the Temple discusses the conflation of the Dome of the Rock with the temple of Solomon from the 9th century through the Renaissance. Although Berger does not discuss the image of the destruction of Jerusalem from the Nuremberg Chronicle, the image of Jerusalem on fol. XVIIr is discussed and seen as inspired by Reuwich’s panorama of Jerusalem from Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam, 154. Both Reuwich and Rieter label the Dome of the Rock as the temple of Solomon. 87 Moore 206. 88 See Noonan, The Road to Jerusalem, 29–45, Ross, “Mainz at the Crossroads Between Utrecht and Venice” and Ross, Picturing Experience for more on Breydenbach and Reuwich. 89 Ross, Picturing Experience, 67.

From Saracen to Turk 47 90 She appears, for example, throughout works by Venetian Orientalists, and as late as 1590 as the Donna del Cairo in Cesare Vecellio’s Degli Habiti antichi et moderni. Ross, Picturing ­Experience, 83–84 discusses how the figure was adapted by Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini. 91 Ross, Picturing Experience, 80. Jirousek, “Ottoman Influences,” 241. 92 Ross, ibid. 93 Schmidt, “Dürer and Schongauer,” summarizes questions related to the influence of the ­Housebook Master on Dürer. 94 Messling, The Sultan’s World, 208 notes the accuracy of the depiction and states that it is “­uncertain how the artist, active in the middle Rhenish region acquired such extensive knowledge regarding the appearance of these Ottoman objects.” 95 Ross summarizes the debate in Picturing Experience, 14–17. Kok suggests the Housebook ­Master’s use of a Reuwich model, potentially a lost drawing. Kok, The Master of the A ­ msterdam Cabinet, 171–172. 96 Hutchison 33. Hutchison also notes Dürer’s borrowing of Reuwich’s “string of pearls” technique for depicting trees in the distance. 97 Like many of Dürer’s works from this period, the attribution of the drawings connected to the never published edition of the Comedies of Terence has been debated. Schmidt, “The Upper Rhine Question,” 426 summarizes the issues. 98 Roth, “Albrecht Dürer and Strasbourg,” 40 states that the attribution of the woodcuts of Der Ritter von Thurm to Dürer “remains widely accepted.”

2

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman Dress and Identity in Dürer’s Art After 1495

Dürer’s rather haphazard, occasional inclusion of turbaned figures in several of his early works is notably different from what was to follow, the result of a pivotal artistic encounter. In 1494–95, Dürer made the first of two visits to Venice.1 Venice during this period was an epicenter of contact with the Ottomans, and a subgenre, dubbed Venetian Orientalism by art historians, emerged in late 15th-century Venetian painting. The genre featured costumes, landscapes and cityscapes from the eastern Mediterranean with varying degrees of accuracy.2 While both of Dürer’s Venetian visits would contribute to his work in significant ways, of importance here is Dürer’s adoption of the Ottoman turban type after studying the work of Gentile Bellini, presumably during his first Venetian sojourn. A letter from Dürer written to Willibald Pirckheimer from Venice in 1506 during his second trip describes how “Sambelling [Giovanni Bellini] has praised me highly in the presence of many czentillomen [gentlemen]. He would like to have something of mine and came to me himself and asked me to do something for him.”3 This documents an acquaintanceship during his second visit, and evidence from Dürer’s earlier works supports an assumption that he encountered one or both of the Bellini during his prior visit as well. Specifically, time spent in the Bellini studio during his first stay in Venice is hypothesized due to his direct knowledge of at least one work by Gentile Bellini during this period. Gentile Bellini famously traveled to Istanbul in 1479 to work at the court of Sultan Mehmed II, remaining there for 16 months.4 Most of Bellini’s eclectic commissions from the sultan have been lost, and their content and range have been the subject of much speculation and debate. He did produce at least two images of Mehmed II – a painted portrait, which remained in the Sultan’s possession and a medal – as well as the elegant watercolor Seated Scribe, likely a depiction of a member of the court, which also remained in Istanbul5 (Figure 2.1). Bellini returned to Venice with personal knowledge of Ottoman dress and court hierarchy and a body of drawings done in Istanbul showing individuals of various ethnicities and statuses wearing their characteristic dress, thought to have been made for his personal use.6 While some of these drawings are now attributed to the workshop of Gentile Bellini, those attributed to him include drawings of a Greek woman, a seated janissary and a seated woman. Those by his studio include a standing man with a turban and a standing janissary. Although Bellini himself does not seem to have used these figures in his own works, they were copied by other Italian artists, such as Pinturicchio, indicating that they were known and available to other artists and presumably had cachet given Bellini’s status as an eyewitness.7 Bellini’s incorporation of Ottoman figures into works such as his Procession in the Piazza San Marco and Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria further gained them wide circulation. DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628-3

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 49

Figure 2.1  Gentile Bellini, Mehmed II, 1480, bronze, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Dürer in Venice Gentile Bellini was central in importing and disseminating a newly authentic image of Ottoman dress, and it is his image of Ottoman dress that is reflected in Dürer’s work.8 Unlike the German-language sources discussing the Ottomans and Islam that Dürer would have been familiar with in Nuremberg with their largely negative portrayals, Dürer would have found both a more accurate and a more neutral image of the Ottomans in Bellini’s imagery. Indeed, a claim to accurate documentation and truthful imagery, specifically in relation to his experiences at the Ottoman court, was central to Bellini’s self-fashioning after his return to Venice.9 Dürer’s direct study of Bellini’s Ottoman figures is documented by his pen and ink drawing known as the Three Orientals (c. 1495), which copies three turbaned figures from Bellini’s Procession in the Piazza San Marco (1496)10 (Figure 2.2). Dürer’s drawing is a copy of a figure group located in the right background of Bellini’s work. They are one of a number of clusters of figures who stand in the piazza while the procession of the True Cross moves around the perimeter. Dürer copied Bellini’s figures closely although he made several modifications. Namely, he is generally understood to have made the third figure Black, changed the facial hair of the middle figure, altered the garment colors slightly and modified the foot placement of the third figure so that he is standing rather than stepping forward.11 As Bellini’s painting was not completed until 1496, Dürer must have copied a preparatory sketch or seen the unfinished painting in Bellini’s workshop.12 While Dürer never made use of the three figures from Bellini as a group, the middle figure did provide the model for the Ottoman in his much later Landscape with Cannon (1518), indicating that he kept the drawing in his studio for over two decades and used it as a reference.13

50  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman

Figure 2.2 Dürer, Three Orientals, c. 1495, pen and ink with watercolor, British Museum.

The presence of the three Ottoman figures in Bellini’s work is not explained, but as the work is an exemplar of what Brown has termed the Venetian eyewitness style, a type of painting from the late 15th and early 16th centuries that shows highly detailed panoramas of Venetian life replete with quotidian details, they have been taken as an acknowledgement of the fact that Ottoman individuals did make up a part of the urban fabric of Venice at this time.14 Two turbaned figures in the left background of Carpaccio’s Miracle of the True Cross at the Rialto Bridge (1496) from the same cycle are understood in the same way.15 The presence of these figures in paintings depicting the urban life of Venice prompts the question of how common Ottoman individuals were in Renaissance Venice and whether or not Dürer might have seen actual Ottomans during his stay. The frequency of visits by Ottomans to Venice and the numbers involved during this period is debated, but Dursteler states that there was a small Ottoman Muslim merchant presence in Venice from the early 15th century.16 In addition to merchants, Ottoman diplomatic envoys visited the city at points throughout this period.17 While there is no suggestion in his works that Dürer saw, much less drew actual Ottomans in Venice, it does not seem wholly improbable that he might have seen individual Ottomans at some point during his

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 51 stays and that those possible sightings may have added to his interest in Ottoman figure types and to his mental storehouse of imagery.18 Several other Ottoman-themed drawings are dated to the time of Dürer’s first Venetian stay, showing a clear uptick in his interest in Ottoman figures during this period. These include the so-called Oriental Rider (c. 1495), a head of an Ottoman included on a sheet of sketches (c. 1494–95) and his Oriental Ruler Enthroned (c. 1495).19 Scholarship has tended to assume that all of Dürer’s Ottoman-themed drawings must derive from Gentile Bellini, whether or not a known prototype by Bellini exists. This assumption is based on his documented connection to Giovanni Bellini during his second Venice sojourn, which has suggested a visit during the first Venetian trip, together with the undisputed fact that the Three Orientals is a direct copy of Gentile Bellini, and must seemingly have been made either directly from the image or from preparatory drawings in the studio. Recent work suggests that the assumption that all of Dürer’s Ottoman imagery stems from Bellini is incorrect and opens up the intriguing possibility that he sought out, studied and drew from other sources of Ottoman imagery with a claim to eyewitness accuracy. Namely, Dürer’s Oriental Rider has generally been understood to derive from a now lost Bellini original, although there are no images of Ottoman riders or similar figures in Bellini’s extant work (Figure 2.3). Strauss’s comment that the work is based on “a model drawing, probably one by Gentile Bellini,” is representative of this view.20 Yet as Messling as well as Jardine and Brotton have commented, the work bears close similarities to the equestrian portrait of Sultan Mehmed II on the reverse of a well-known medal by Costanzo da Ferrara (Costanzo di Moysis) dated to 1481 (Figure 2.4).21 Costanzo da Ferrara, like Gentile Bellini, spent time in Istanbul at the court of M ­ ehmed II, likely toward the end of the 1470s. His medal was one of several produced by Italian artists in the last years of Mehmed II’s reign that circulated widely and that reflect Mehmed’s interest in his image-making through portraiture.22 The medal is inscribed in Latin and uses the traditional format of the equestrian portrait, suggesting Mehmed’s awareness of the form and its meaning in a European context. Dürer’s drawing shares overall similarities with the medal, such as the orientation and pose as well as specifics such as the positioning of the hands, the knot in the horse’s tail and the positioning and shape of the sword. There are modifications as well, some of which seem to reflect Dürer’s lack of familiarity with aspects of Ottoman riding style, such as the round wheel spurs and the lesser bend in the knee.23 Other modifications seem more deliberate. It is clear that Dürer understood this figure as a commanding ruler and tweaked his model to further emphasize status and authority: The mace, a signifier of command, is altered to become more prominent, the turban is enlarged, the horse’s trappings are accentuated with gold and the horse’s bearing is made more formal, controlled and dignified.24 Jardine and Brotton claim “the image became a standard, immediately recognizable representation of eastern power.”25 It is unclear where Dürer could have seen the medal or perhaps a work after it, a­ lthough contemporary Italian accounts indicate that medals of the sultan were widely known.26 If Dürer’s drawing is understood as based on Costanzo da Ferrara’s medal, the accepted narrative of Dürer’s relationship to Ottoman imagery is transformed. His imagery is then not limited solely to work derived from Bellini and it furthermore suggests that Dürer actively sought out Ottoman imagery that was understood as authentic. As the modifications he made to both the Oriental Rider and the Three Orientals show, Dürer

52  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman

Figure 2.3 Dürer, Oriental Rider, c. 1495, pen and ink with watercolor, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 53

Figure 2.4 Costanzo da Ferrara (Costanzo di Moysis), Portrait of Mehmed II, 1481, bronze, ­National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

also transformed his sources in small ways – improving on the position of the horse or modifying the stance of one of Bellini’s figures – as well as more major alterations – for example, changing a figure’s racial identity. Dürer’s transformational use of the Ottoman imagery he encountered in Venice is a subject to which we will return. Scholarly discussion of the influence of Venice on Dürer in terms of his depiction of Ottoman imagery has focused wholly on the depiction of Ottoman figures. This is unsurprising, as Dürer’s art shows his interest in Ottoman imagery to center on human figures, their dress and accessories.27 This is unlike other contemporary artists, Northern and Italian, who depicted items in their works such as carpets, textiles, metalware and ceramics that derived from trade with the Eastern Mediterranean.28 Yet it is worth thinking briefly about the exposure to Ottoman material culture that Dürer presumably experienced in Venice. Venice was famously “the bazaar of Europe,” an entrepôt where goods from the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond were brought by merchant ships to be sold in Venice or distributed throughout Western Europe.29 While the types of luxury goods known to have been readily available in Venice are not depicted in Dürer’s works as they were by other artists, hints of the types of objects he likely encountered can be found in his letters from Venice and through inferences about his encounters. Dürer specifically mentions visiting merchants on Riva degli Schiavoni, the waterfront in front of the Doge’s Palace where sea-going boats docked.30 As Howard describes, “the waterfront formed a liminal zone through which artefacts and ideas permeated back and forth between Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.”31

54  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman Gentile Bellini famously returned to Venice with Ottoman clothing, described in the 1490s as “a Phrygian mantle, a headdress, high boots and a gold collar” along with a gold chain and medallion supposedly bestowed on him by the sultan. Another contemporary also mentions the “many gifts” from the sultan he returned to Venice with.32 A medallion and chain that appear on the portrait of Gentile in his St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria have been argued to be the items presented by the sultan, with Chong suggesting that the medallion depicts the sultan’s insignia, likely his tughra.33 The possibility that Bellini possessed examples of Ottoman material culture 15 years later that Dürer may have been shown should not be overlooked. Dürer’s mention of specific Turkish items that he acquired on his journey to the Netherlands in 1520–21, notably an “old Turkish whip” and a “printed Turkish cloth,” indicates a later interest in Turkish material culture, which we might read back onto his Venetian stay.34 Dürer’s collecting activities in Venice were largely at the behest of ­Willibald Pirckheimer, although he does mention buying some unspecified things for himself. We can assume that he saw Ottoman objects while browsing for items that included jewels, books in Greek and particularly carpets.35 Although the carpets he purchased for Pirckheimer are not specified as to type, they were presumably from the Eastern Mediterranean, and likely from Anatolia. Venice was well known as an importer of carpets from the East and was the main purveyor of carpets from the Islamic world to Western Europe in this period.36 A discerning consumer like Pirckheimer interested in the purchase of carpets from Venice would almost certainly have expected Anatolian carpets. As Dürer describes his travails trying to find the perfect carpets for Pirckheimer, lamenting that they only have long and narrow carpets rather than the wide carpets his friend desires, and assuring him that he will purchase “the most attractive, broadest and best value” carpets, we can imagine him coming into repeated contact with Venetian carpet merchants and their imported goods.37 While exposure to Ottoman luxury goods in Venice left no obvious trace in Dürer’s works, these experiences surely helped shape his ideas about the Ottomans and their visual culture. Dürer’s Ottoman Imagery in the Wake of His First Venetian Trip Figures with the distinctive Ottoman turban begin to populate Dürer’s imagery from the date of his encounter with Bellini’s work in 1494–95, and feature particularly in his graphic work. These figures appear above all in his religious subjects, particularly martyrdom scenes and scenes from Christ’s Passion. In his woodcuts, turbaned figures appear in the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (1495), the Martyrdom of the 10,000 (1496), Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria (1497–98), in four images from his Apocalypse series (1498), in several images from his Large Passion sequence (1498), in an image of Judith at the camp of Holofernes from Der Beschlossen Gart des Rosenkrantz Mariae (1505) attributed by some to Dürer, in the Adoration of the Magi and Crucifixion scenes from the Life of the Virgin series (begun 1501/2) and in an image of the Beheading of John the Baptist (1510). Figures with the Ottoman turban also appear in Dürer’s engravings, notably his Six Warriors, also titled Five Landsknecte and an Oriental on Horseback (1495), the misnamed Oriental/Turkish Family (1496), the incomplete Oriental Ruler Enthroned (1497) based on his earlier drawing, several scenes from the Engraved Passion series (1512) and his Landscape with Cannon (1518). Drawings for his Green Passion (1504) include figures with Ottoman turbans, as does a figure from his preparatory drawings for the

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 55 Oblong Passion Bearing of The Cross (1520) and a drawing of the Burial of Christ (1521). A turbaned Ottoman also appears in Dürer’s drawings for the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (1513–15), along with a more enigmatic “Oriental” ruler figure. His late drawn Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (1526), likely a copy of a painting that was itself based on a portrait medal or print, is a singular example of sultan portraiture within his work.38 While turbaned figures are less common in his paintings, they do appear in several where they largely parallel their appearances in his graphic work: two panels from his Seven Sorrows of the Virgin altarpiece (1496), Lot and his Daughters (1496/99), the Adoration of the Magi (1504), the Martyrdom of the 10,000 (1508) and his Road to Calvary (1527), known only through copies. In the wake of his Venetian sojourn, Dürer’s turbaned figures bear a recognizable cultural identity, at least in terms of the details of their dress, which is now clearly Ottoman, rather than vaguely exotic. This shift is most visible in his turban type. The two turbaned figures seated on horseback in the Bearing of the Cross from the Large Passion provide a clear example (Figure 2.5). Dürer clearly studied the distinctive form of the

Figure 2.5 Dürer, Bearing of the Cross, Large Passion, 1498–99, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

56  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman

Figure 2.6 Gentile Bellini, St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Scala, Art Resource, NY.

formal Ottoman turban while in Venice, presumably through his access to the work of Gentile Bellini. Multiple surviving works by Bellini demonstrate his use of this turban type, including his painted and medallion portrait of Sultan Mehmed II (1480) and his St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1507) (Figures 2.1 and 2.6). The Ottoman turban type is recognizable by the bands of white cloth, typically cotton, which are carefully wrapped around a vertically ribbed red felt cap usually called a tāj.39 The shape, height and color of both the turban and the tāj were connected to status and occupation and were strictly regulated and codified in sumptuary laws set out first by Sultan Mehmed II and further developed under Sultan Suleyman II.40 Numerous 15th and 16th-century O ­ ttoman paintings attest to the accuracy of this depiction as does a surviving 16th-century Ottoman turban from the Schloss Ambras collection of Archduke Ferdinand II, today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Dürer’s turbans after 1494, like Bellini’s, are large, even pillowy, and very clearly show a multi-lobed, ribbed tāj topped with a button rising from the center of the wound cloth. His painted images also indicate his awareness that the turban cloth was white and the tāj red, although he sometimes varied the color scheme. The color of the turban and tāj could in fact vary, as is documented by both contemporary Ottoman miniatures and sumptuary laws.41 These turbans are clearly distinct from both his previous depictions of turbans and those found in Schongauer’s work and are also more accurate than the turbans shown in Reuwich’s Mounted Turks. The börk worn by the janissaries, the Ottoman warrior elite, also appears in the aftermath of Dürer’s Venetian stay. Typically made of felt, the börk is recognizable from its vertical height in the front, sometimes accentuated by a decorative horizontal band, and a long extension which hung down the back of the head and upper torso of the wearer.42 A börk is visible on an onlooker in the Martyrdom of St. John from the Apocalypse, in his images of the Martyrdom of the 10,000 and others (Figure 2.7). While no drawings of janissary costumes by Dürer survive to indicate a clear point of origin, Bellini’s drawing of a seated janissary shows the börk clearly. Dürer would also have known this headgear type from Reuwich. The accuracy of the börk is similarly underscored by contemporary Ottoman miniatures depicting the janissary corps and by surviving examples.43

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 57

Figure 2.7 Dürer, Martyrdom of St. John, Apocalypse, 1498, woodcut, Rijksmuseum.

58  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman While headgear in the form of the turban with tāj and to a lesser degree the börk continued to be the primary visual designation used by Dürer, his images suggest that his study of Italian art also provided him with models of Ottoman dress, which he then referenced in his works. As such, it is useful to briefly discuss the nature of Ottoman dress.44 As Jirousek explains, Ottoman dress was characterized by loose, layered garments for both men and women. The base layer was a shirt and loose trousers, known in Turkish as salvar.45 Over this would be worn a buttoned jacket, typically with tight sleeves (cepken/ salta), over which was worn a long, loose coat, generally known as a kaftan, which was designed to display the fabric of the garment underneath, for example, through short sleeves or long hanging sleeves, cut to allow the arm and undersleeve to fit through.46 The length and volume of sleeves also corresponded to status, with long, voluminous sleeves being associated with the elite.47 Coats opened at the front and were fastened with buttons or frog closures, where braided fabric and loops created an ornamental effect.48 Colored fabric sashes rather than belts were worn at the waist and could have a secondary function of holding items. Ottoman weaponry was also distinctive and clearly known to European audiences in this period. Dürer’s images depict a limited range of Ottoman weaponry, indicating that he was aware of the most commonly recognized types and associated them with his depictions of Ottoman dress. The most frequently shown weapon was the curved saber or scimitar, a single-bladed weapon type that originated in Central Asia, was adopted by the Mongols and Turkic groups by the 8th century and was widely used in Muslimmajority societies including the Ottomans, by the 14th century.49 The specific Ottoman form of this sword type is the kiliç.50 Ottoman archers wielded recurve or reflexive bows, so named due to the curve outward at the ends in the relaxed state, and kept both bows and arrows in quivers (sadak/tirkes), which could be highly ornamented.51 Dürer’s Mamluk Figures Dürer also included Mamluk turban types in his work for a short period after his second visit to Venice in 1505–07. These provided a visual reference to the Mamluk Empire of the eastern Mediterranean, which was brought to an end by the Ottoman conquest of Cairo in 1517. Mamluk imagery saw a rise in popularity in early 16th-century Venetian art, in what Raby has termed the Mamluk mode, encouraged in part by the ongoing close contacts between Venice and the Mamluks.52 The Mamluk mode includes works by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, notably the Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, as well as works by Vittore Carpaccio and Giovanni Mansueti. Contemporary images from both Venice and the Ottomans show the Mamluk turban as taller than the Ottoman, without a tāj, with primarily vertical rather than horizontal and diagonal wrapped folds and having an ellipse shape.53 An additional type of Mamluk headgear that is featured in Dürer’s work is the zamt, a red, tufted semi-circular cap.54 Mamluk imagery appears primarily in Dürer’s Small Passion series from 1510, where Pilate is shown wearing a Mamluk turban in several scenes55 (Figure 2.8). In several instances, Dürer combines Mamluk and Ottoman imagery. His painting of the Martyrdom of the 10,000 (1508) includes both Mamluk turbans and Ottoman turbans as does his 1511 Adoration of the Magi (Figures 2.9 and 4.2). Even the Small Passion, the primary locus for Dürer’s Mamluk imagery, includes Ottoman turbans at points, for example, in the Entombment. Dürer’s Mamluk turbans are higher in profile than his Ottoman turbans and show a bulge over the head of the wearer when depicted from the side, which is likely intended

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 59

Figure 2.8 Dürer, Christ Before Pilate, Small Passion, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

to correspond to what Raby describes as the “curled peak” found on some Mamluk turbans.56 The turbans are shown as tied in the back, with long cloth ends coming over the shoulders and draping over the front of the wearer’s robe. Several frontal views of the turban show two prominent diagonally crossed strips of fabric across the front. Dürer also included figures wearing the zamt in the Flagellation and Pilate Washing his Hands from the Small Passion as well as in the painted Martyrdom of the 10,000. Raby attributes Dürer’s shift to Mamluk turbans again to the influence of Gentile Bellini. Bellini had by then switched to a Mamluk type in his own work despite his own personal lack of familiarity with Egypt, a change likely related to a broader shift toward Mamluk imagery in Venetian Orientalism and perhaps necessitated by his St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, given its Egyptian setting. Messling has recently suggested that Dürer modeled his figure of a ruler wearing a Mamluk turban in his painted Martyrdom of the 10,000 on a figure from St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria. This work, which was begun by Gentile Bellini and finished by Giovanni Bellini after his brother’s death in 1507, features a wide range of Mamluk headgear as well as Ottoman costume and other types of dress. A similarly posed figure in a Mamluk turban stands at the bottom right of the image. While the figures are not identical, their similar stance and placement within the images plausibly suggests a link. Messling hypothesizes that Dürer was allowed to

60  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman

Figure 2.9 Dürer, Martyrdom of the 10,000, 1508, oil on panel, Kunsthistoriches Museum, V ­ ienna, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

study the unfinished work in the Bellini studio, in which case the point of origin of his Mamluk figures can be paralleled to the genesis of his Ottoman figures from the Procession in Piazza San Marco.57 In all of the cases where Mamluk imagery appears in his work, the Mamluk turban is linked to a specific ruler – Pilate, the second Magus and an eastern ruler, likely Sapor II – with figures wearing the zamt appearing as members of that ruler’s retinue. This suggests that Dürer did not adopt Mamluk dress haphazardly or simply to correspond to what was then fashionable in Venice, but rather to further nuance his delineation of character types.

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 61 In the Martyrdom of the 10,000, as discussed further in Chapter 3, the ruler in Ottoman dress is likely Roman while the ruler in Mamluk dress is Sasanian. Despite this possible greater precision for character identification, Dürer’s usage of Mamluk imagery was ultimately limited to approximately 1508–11. A use of Ottoman imagery without Mamluk imagery is already visible in his Engraved Passion, a work executed between 1507 and 1512, where Pilate again wears an Ottoman style turban and dress.58 Mamluk imagery does not make any noticeable subsequent appearances. Although there is no clear reason for this cessation, it may be due to the waning influence of the Mamluks and their eventual conquest by the Ottomans, which led to a similar drop off on Venetian Mamluk imagery in the later 1510s. With the Ottoman conquest of Jerusalem in 1516, Ottoman dress would be newly relevant for attempts to depict the Holy Land with costume accurate to its contemporary rulers. Although this is often seen as a motivation for Dürer’s contemporaries, particularly Italian, who clad biblical figures in contemporary costume from the Eastern Mediterranean, it is not clear that it was ever Dürer’s motivation. More generally, the Ottomans were by far the more relevant Muslim power in Germany and Central Europe. Turbaned Figures in Dürer’s Works: Patterns and Meaning This brief survey indicates the prevalence of turbaned figures within Dürer’s works, particularly his graphic works, and also shows a clear pattern. Dürer’s use of turbans spiked after his first Venetian visit, almost certainly as a result of the influence of Gentile Bellini. This increase should also be seen as related to the type of subject matter he produced on his return from the first Venetian visit, particularly in his graphic oeuvre, namely subjects in which turbaned figures were by then commonplace. Turbaned figures are numerous in his works for roughly the next two decades, showing a drop off by the second half of the 1510s. This may be related to a lessened influence of Venice on his work and also reflects a waning of Venetian Orientalism as a genre by the 1520s.59 The lessening of turbaned figures is also likely related to a shift in subject matter, as Dürer was not as focused on Passion imagery during the second half of the 1510s.60 Despite this decrease in frequency, it is clear that Dürer understood turbaned figures as an integral component of certain scenes – notably scenes from the Passion narrative – throughout his career. This is demonstrated by several drawings from the 1520s, including preparatory work for his never-completed Oblong Passion that include figures wearing Ottoman turbans, such as his Lamentation (1521–28), Deposition (1521) and Road to Calvary (1520). Turbans also feature prominently in his lost Road to Calvary (1527), likely his final painting61 (Figure 2.10). Turbans are placed on multiple mounted figures within the procession including on the man on the left who holds aloft a large banner displaying a single-headedeagle, visibly identifying the group as Roman. These late examples demonstrate that the turban motif never entirely disappeared from his work. Dürer’s turbaned figures have an internal logic as a group and they all bear certain recognizable features. He did not simply place a turban on a figure who is otherwise depicted as European or retain a vague conception of the medieval Saracen, nor do his figures exactly mimic his prototypes apart from his initial copies made in Venice. Dürer instead clearly developed and propagated his own specific conception of the appearance of an Ottoman, which nevertheless resonated with contemporary notions of Ottoman identity and corresponding visual markers. In addition to the newly authentic turban type, other details of costume became fixed in his work and were always associated with his Ottoman turbans, notably details of weaponry and robes. His turbaned

62  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman

Figure 2.10 Dürer (copy after), Way to Calvary, first half of the 16th century, oil on beech wood, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, bpk Bildagentur, Art Resource, NY.

figures wear distinctive (and similar) robes, usually tied with a sash at the waist and typically with decorative frog closures or button loops down the front of the garment. In some instances, Dürer shows the garments as layered, with overgarments cut to reveal the sleeves of the undergarment. A clear example can be seen in the mounted figure with an Ottoman turban in the painted Martyrdom of the 10,000, where the richly patterned outer coat has a wide opening at the mid upper arm, banded with gold, allowing the red sleeves of the undergarment to pass through. A hanging sleeve is visible on the figure with an Ottoman turban shown from the back in the middle ground of the same work. As described above, these details are all accurate to contemporary Ottoman costume. In some cases, the garments are elaborately patterned, for example, the Ottoman figure in the painted Martyrdom of the 10,000. This patterning suggests the decorative quality of Turkish textiles, prized luxury objects throughout Europe, and is also reminiscent of the luxurious patterned textiles that appear within Venetian Orientalist works. Most of these costume details can be traced back to Gentile Bellini. Waist sashes, long over garments worn over long-sleeved inner garments, and shorter knee-length tunics are all found in Bellini’s Ottoman images, and the decoration found on some of the robes is reminiscent of, although not identical to, the patterning seen in Bellini’s painted Ottoman figures. The only major detail in Dürer’s figures, in fact, which cannot be found in Bellini is Dürer’s repeated use of frog closures; the garments worn by Bellini’s Ottomans close with buttons. The Mamluk figures in St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria do show prominent vertical closures across the chest, corresponding to extant 16th-century Ottoman kaftans in appearance, which have decorative braid in horizontal rows attached to

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 63 buttons. Yet these are different from the decorative crossed and looped closures found on some of Dürer’s figures. Crossed fabric tie closures are shown on the Ottoman figure in the Nuremberg Chronicle, however, and frog closures appear in slightly later travelers’ images, suggesting their basic accuracy as well as a potential point of origin for their appearance in Dürer’s work. Dürer’s warrior figures also show a limited, yet generally accurate depiction of Ottoman weaponry. They typically wear a knee-length robe and carry a short, curved sword ending in a blunt half-circle point. A sheathed curved sword is prominently featured in Dürer’s drawing of an Oriental Rider. As described above, this corresponds to the curved saber of the Ottomans, numerous examples of which are preserved in collections today. This sword type also appears frequently in other contemporary European images of Ottoman warriors, indicating that it was widely recognized as a specifically Turkish weapon.63 Curved swords would also have resonated with more general depictions of a scimitar-like weapon, which had long been connected with Muslim identity in medieval art.64 Other armed figures carry recurve bows – a long bow with curved ends – a weapon type that is again accurate to contemporary Ottoman weaponry. The curved bow with accompanying sheath appears in Bellini’s work and also in Reuwich’s Mounted Turks. Physiognomy with reference to characterizations of the Ottomans in this period is a debated topic. Wilson, discussing 16th-century Venetian printed depictions of Ottomans comments that “stereotypes about group behavior were not yet ascribed to distinctive facial features.”65 Yet a clear linkage of physiognomy with identity exists in medieval images of the Saracen and images of other minoritized, stigmatized and racialized groups such as Jews. Mellinkoff states that “distortions, deformities, and stereotyped racial and ethnic features were exhibited preeminently by the face.”66 Dürer can be seen to make a linkage between Ottoman costume, Ottoman identity and a limited, indeed stereotyped physiognomy. This can be seen in the family resemblance shared by the faces of Dürer’s Ottoman figures, which is evident when comparing the faces of the turbaned figures in the Martyrdom of St. John. Their characteristic features include slanted, slightly hooded eyes, a dark, drooping moustache that may curl up at the end, a somewhat pointed or hooked nose, and often either a short, pointed beard or a long curly beard. Dürer’s turbaned figures have facial features in common with Bellini’s Ottomans, particularly his portraits of Mehmed II and his seated janissary, in that they feature beards, moustaches and, in the case of Mehmed, a long, sharp nose. Yet the sensitivity and immediacy of the facial features in Bellini’s janissary is lessened in Dürer’s figures, which seem to respond to an already prevalent physiognomic stereotype of Ottoman figures seen, for example, in Reuwich’s Mounted Turks, with their angular features and prominent facial hair. The frequency with which this defined set of facial features is associated with the turban and other aspects of Ottoman dress by Dürer (and indeed by other artists) suggests an understood link between this range of facial features with Ottoman identity. Both the overlap and difference between the physiognomy of Dürer’s Turks and the physiognomy of the medieval Saracen should be noted. Skin tone helped define the ­Saracen, and the Black or dark-skinned Saracen is a commonplace in medieval art and literature, although there was also a parallel tradition of the white Saracen.67 Dürer’s drawing of Sultan Süleyman I includes his handwritten notation that the sultan’s skin was the color of leather.68 This presumably reflects his notes on the original painting’s colors, as he also notes the color of various components of the sultan’s dress. Yet it also indicates 62

64  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman that Dürer saw skin tone as a distinctive aspect that helped characterize the appearance of the sultan and could suggest a more general conception of Ottoman skin tone. Indeed, the skin tone of the Ottoman figure in his 1504 painting of the Adoration of the Magi is light brown, contrasting with the pale skin of Mary and the Christ child. Saracens were commonly shown with bulbous noses as opposed to the hooked noses found in the stereotypical medieval physiognomy associated with Jewish identity. Beards were associated with both Saracen and Jewish identity, and the faces of both groups are often shown grimacing or are made grotesque through distortion.69 Dürer’s Ottomans show a clear concept of a defining “Ottoman” physiognomy, which has some overlap with, yet clear distinctions from both the previous dominant image of the Muslim in Northern art and the dominant image of Europe’s primary othered and raced identity, namely Jewish. Dürer’s Ottomans are composite creations, borrowing liberally, and in some instances literally from Gentile Bellini whose Istanbul stay lent his depictions of Ottomans an instant authority. Yet Dürer himself displayed considerable invention in these figures. His figures are by no means rote copies of Bellini’s prototypes and although they trade in recognizable stereotypes, Dürer does provide some degree of variation within the type. While all of his figures wear versions of Ottoman dress and exhibit a similar facial type, they are not simply carbon copies of one another. The Martyrdom of St. John from Dürer’s Apocalypse series with its four turbaned figures provides a useful point of comparison and highlights how Dürer manipulated Ottoman imagery to heighten characterization (Figure 2.6). This scene focuses on the Emperor Domitian, who is seated under an elaborate canopied dais from which he observes the torture of John in a kettle of boiling oil directly before him. The turbaned figure of Domitian is assisted by another turbaned figure carrying a highly decorated sword. In the midst of the group of middle ground spectators, another Ottoman stands and gestures toward John, while the top of a second turban is just visible at the back of the group. The man directly in front of this turban may be an additional Ottoman type, as his headgear resembles a janissary börk. This final figure is difficult to securely identify as his headgear is cut off by the overlapping figure at his side. While the facial features of the Ottomans in the Martyrdom of St. John clearly correspond to Dürer’s generic orientalized type, individual differences are visible. The shape of the beards differs between each man, and the three are clearly of different ages. Moreover, each demonstrates a markedly different response to John’s torture. Domitian o ­ bserves the scene intently, mouth open as if to speak. Leaning in, he gestures encouragingly toward the torturer. Given that Dürer has marked him with an anachronistic Ottoman turban, his sadistic delight could easily be related to contemporary reports of Turkish ferocity and of the vicious cruelties that were allegedly performed at the behest of the omnipotent sultans.70 The spectator in the middle ground is clearly interested in the scene but appears more as a casual onlooker. Unlike either Domitian or the turbaned spectator, the impassive sword-bearer is disinterested in the events occurring before him. While all of the Ottomans correspond to his stock type, Dürer has taken care to particularize their appearance through details of appearance and manner. This is not one figure from several views (as is often effectively the case), but different figures who display a range of emotions and actions appropriate to their role in the scene. Dürer’s manipulation of these figures, and his role in the creation of an iconography of the Ottoman is especially visible in the figure of Domitian. The oppressing emperor is clearly marked as royal through his accessories and luxurious garments. He carries

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 65

Figure 2.11 Dürer, Whore of Babylon, Apocalypse, 1498, woodcut, Rijksmuseum.

a scepter, wears an ermine-edged cloak, is draped with garlands and jewels and has an elaborate turban, complete with decorative folds and a garland. These royal garments are similar to those that also appear on the prominent Ottoman figure in the Whore of Babylon from his Apocalypse and on his incomplete drawing of an Oriental Ruler Enthroned (Figures 2.11 and 2.12). What is notable about all of these figures is that the royal regalia they wear is almost wholly Western, and bears little resemblance to the actual attributes of the Ottoman sultans, to whom Western style accoutrements such as crowns, scepters and orbs were foreign.71 The costume, which is treated in particular detail in the Martyrdom of St. John, does not resemble the elaborate kaftans worn by the Sultan. Nor did Ottoman sultans wear jewelry like the large jeweled pendant worn by both the Ruler and Domitian.72 Domitian’s throne has a highly decorated backdrop, presumably a cloth of honor. The Election of Maximilian I from his Triumphal Arch, produced by Dürer’s workshop in 1516, shows Maximilian seated on a dais with a similarly patterned backdrop. Yet extant Ottoman thrones are quite different in appearance from European thrones and also from Dürer’s depiction of a throne in this image. While technically inauthentic, the consistency of the depiction of these “easternized” royal figures suggests that

66  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman

Figure 2.12 Dürer, Oriental Ruler Enthroned, c. 1495, pen and ink, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

these figures were intended to be specifically recognizable as rulers by viewers familiar with Western trappings of power. In the majority of his completed works, Dürer’s turbaned figures operate within the then-conventional usage, where the turban signifies a non-Christian. Indeed, multiple precedents can be found in 15th-century German painting and graphic art for the majority of his turbaned figures – Pilate, ruler figures shown torturing Christian martyrs, a Magus or bystander at the Adoration, or figures within crucifixion scenes.73 In the Large Passion series, Pilate as well as several Roman officials are shown wearing Ottoman turbans (Figure 2.13). In other Dürer prints, such as his martyrdoms of St. Sebastian (martyred under Emperor Diocletian) and St. Catherine of Alexandria (martyred under Emperor Maxentius), either the emperor or his presiding henchmen are designated as Ottomans through their turban types and, in the St. Sebastian image, a janissary börk (Figure 2.14). The appearance of these figures is not surprising and shows Dürer participating in the

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 67

Figure 2.13 Dürer, Ecce Homo, Large Passion, 1498–99, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

artistic convention (verging on cliché) by which the ancient, usually Roman, potentially tyrannical figure is depicted with a turban. Dürer also never veered away from Schongauer’s turban usage in some respects, although he can be seen as systematizing it. His similarity to Schongauer’s turban usage is clearest in his Adoration of the Magi scenes, particularly his Adoration from the Life of the Virgin (Figure 2.15). Like Schongauer’s Adoration, his image includes a turbaned figure with a crescent and star banner among the figures processing from the background. As in Schongauer’s image, the turban and banner function to differentiate the Magi and their entourage in terms of identity: non-Christian and non-European. Elsewhere, Schongauer’s turbans primarily occur in Passion imagery, notably in his The Way to Calvary, signally on the mounted official who seems to supervise the proceedings, and on figures participating in his Passion series, notably in the Betrayal/­Arrest of Christ, Christ Before Annas and Christ Before Pilate. While Schongauer was not unique in this usage, his images are a clear precedent that Dürer unquestionably knew. Dürer’s extensive use of turbaned figures within Passion imagery throughout his career in many respects follows Schongauer’s example.

68  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman

Figure 2.14 Dürer, Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1497, woodcut, Rijksmuseum.

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 69

Figure 2.15 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi from The Life of the Virgin, 1503, woodcut, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

70  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman Yet a significant difference is found between Dürer and Schongauer’s turban usage within Passion scenes. As discussed in Chapter 1, in several cases, Schongauer’s turbaned figures appear to be Roman. Yet in others, the identity of these figures is ambiguous and may be intended to read as Jewish, following a deliberate instability of meaning seen in turban usage elsewhere in 15th-century art. Dürer’s turbaned figures within his Passion scenes, by contrast, do not generally seem to share this potential identity fluctuation. Pilate is always shown wearing a turban. When other turbaned figures appear in the Passion sequences, they typically appear as officials who seem to oversee the action, usually on horseback, as in the Bearing of the Cross. The late painted Road to Calvary makes their Roman identity overt through the single-headed eagle banner held by one of the figures.74 Turbaned figures are also placed at the foot of the cross in the Crucifixion from the Large Passion, and on a mounted figure on the far right who gestures at Christ in both that image and in the Crucifixion from the Small Passion, where a turbaned figure stands next to Longinus. In both cases, the turbaned figure likely represents the Roman centurion. By contrast, turbaned figures do not feature within the crowds tormenting Christ throughout his various Passion sequences, although there is a figure with a janissary börk who is an onlooker in the Ecce Homo from the Small Passion. Dürer’s turban usage does show some potential inconsistencies, however. An exception to his usual equation of a turban with Roman identity occurs regularly in his Passion imagery. In a number, although not all of his scenes involving the events after Christ’s death, a turbaned figure appears, notably the Entombment from the Large Passion, the Deposition and Entombment from the Small Passion, the Lamentation from the Seven Sorrows of Mary and a Lamentation drawing from 1521. This figure is likely either Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus. According to Mellinkoff, both figures were often shown in orientalized costume in later medieval art, in which case, Dürer follows iconographic precedent.75 While Dürer does not generally use turbans to indicate Judaism, an exception occurs in the scene of Christ before the Doctors in the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin altarpiece (1496–97) where a turbaned figure leans in toward Christ. The turban is moreover yellow, a color long associated with Jewish headgear, particularly in Italy. Yet this usage is not repeated in Dürer’s later depictions of this scene, whether his painting of 1507 or in his Life of the Virgin series. Moreover, other Jewish figures, such as Caiaphas and Annas, are not given turbans when they appear in Dürer’s Passion imagery.76 Another anomalous use of a turban can be seen in Lot and his Daughters (1496/99), where Lot wears a turban-style headdress with twisted yellow fabric surrounding a green tāj. Unlike Dürer’s other turban depictions, the tāj emerges from a double-lobed maroon cloth extending above the turban wrapping. Lot’s sleeveless, fur-lined outer garment, cut to allow the long sleeves of his undergarment to fit through, suggest an element of Ottoman dress, although his tunic and hose are not related to Ottoman styles. The use of a turban for Lot has no obvious precedent, unsurprising given that the scene was not yet common: Dürer’s work is cited as the first panel painting to depict the subject.77 Apart from Adam and Eve, imagery from the Hebrew Bible was also not widespread in Dürer’s work. Lot’s turban marks him as non-Christian and displaces him in time and space, but its meaning beyond that is less clear, particularly given scholarly interpretations of the painting as typological and as symbolizing God’s redemption.78 Lot and his Daughters and the scene from the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin are both early works that show a potentially unstable meaning of the turban as identity signifier. Yet the meaning of the turban tightens over time in Dürer’s works.

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 71 The specificity and overall accuracy of dress worn by Dürer’s turbaned figures sets them apart from the previous tradition and from Schongauer. Dürer’s turbaned figures also have a regularity and internal logic lacking in Schongauer: their placement is not haphazard but is clearly based on an underlying logic of what (or whom) a turban signifies. Both artists use the turban to indicate alterity and non-Christianity. In Dürer’s case, the turban is thus used to indicate Roman polytheism or the faith of the Magi.79 Unlike Schongauer or the previous visual tradition, however, Dürer’s turbans do not typically seem to be intended to indicate Jewish identity. In Dürer’s work in the wake of his Venetian trips, turbans also correspond to a particular group within the contemporary Muslim world – the Ottomans, or in some cases, the Mamluks. Yet this heightened sensitivity to detail and new accuracy in costume type should not be assumed to represent a new openness to cultural difference or a fundamental shift in attitude away from the broadly negative conceptions Dürer would have encountered in the 15th-century tradition. Bethencourt, discussing the formation of human typologies and the establishment of criteria of ethnic identification in the Middle Ages, describes a “more acute perception of detail in ethnic assessment – one where everything counts. Physical appearances, temperament, hair and beard styles, hair ornaments, fabrics, forms and pieces of clothing and jewelry became the main descriptors. This extreme attention to detail was used to build up standardized prejudices against specific peoples.”80 A highly specific, even fairly accurate image of the Ottoman could still accompany familiar prejudices and negative conceptions and in fact could potentially even convey them more effectively.

Notes 1 Luber questioned the long-standing assumption that Dürer traveled to Venice in 1494, noting that only circumstantial evidence supports it. Albrecht Dürer and the Venetian Renaissance, 40–76. Most scholars, however, continue to accept the first journey. See Morall, “Dürer and Venice,” Yoon, “Dürer’s First Journey to Venice” and Foister, “Dürer’s Early Journeys: Fact and Fiction.” I am proceeding with an assumption that the first Venetian visit did take place, as this remains the scholarly consensus, although the issue of where and how Dürer viewed Bellini’s work is less important here than the fact of Dürer’s clear knowledge of and reliance on Bellini’s figures. 2 See Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, Mack, Chapter 9 in Bazaar to Piazza and Arcangeli, “‘Orientalist’ Painting in Venice.” 3 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 139. 4 At least one other Italian artist, the somewhat enigmatic Costanzo da Ferrara/Costanzo di Moysis, was also a recipient of the Sultan’s patronage. On Bellini’s visit see Campbell and Chong, Bellini and the East, Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, 22–30 and Rodini, Gentile Bellini’s Portrait, Ch. 2 and 3. 5 Bellini and the East, 122. The attribution of the Seated Scribe has been debated but is now convincingly attributed to Bellini. The image is a fascinating example of cross-cultural visual exchange, as it was sent to Tabriz in the 15th century and was in the Safavid court by the 16th century, where it was copied by multiple artists. 6 Bellini and the East, 99. 7 Pinturicchio copied both the standing man with turban and seated janissary in works for the Sala dei Santi in the Vatican. Campbell and Chong, Bellini and the East, 99. 8 See Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode and Koreny in Renaissance Venice and the North for further discussion of Dürer’s borrowings from Gentile Bellini. 9 Rodini, Gentile Bellini’s Portrait, 42–47. An interpretation of the fragmentary inscription on Bellini’s painted portrait of Mehmed II visible only through scientific examination cited by Rodini, 45, makes this particularly evident: “the true skill of Gentile Bellini, nature’s golden

72  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman solider, recalls the Sultan’s [appearance], [and] represents all things in their particularities. [Gentile] made this same image on the 25th day of the month of November, 1480.” The statement underlines Bellini’s eyewitness authority and claims truth in his representation. 10 See Koreny in Renaissance Venice and the North, 266 and Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, 25, for discussions of this image. Luber, doubting the first Venetian stay, sees this image as copied not directly from Bellini, but rather suggests a pattern book as the original source and points to turbaned figures in Reuwich and the Nuremberg Chronicle. Luber, ­Albrecht Dürer, 57–58. As has been established above, however, the specific details of Ottoman costume found in Dürer’s post-1494 imagery correspond closely to Bellini’s, but not to either of these sources despite Dürer’s undisputed knowledge of them. 11 Kaplan, “Black Turks,” 51 discusses the change of the third figure’s race although he sees the figure in Bellini as “racially ambiguous.” Close scrutiny of Bellini’s work makes it clear that this figure is not depicted as a Black African. 12 Koreny, Renaissance Venice and the North, points to Bellini’s similar drawing of Three Gentlemen, figures who also appear in the painting, as an example of the type of drawings likely used in Bellini’s preparatory process. 13 Messling, “The Northern View,” 54. 14 Brown, Venetian Narrative Painting. See also Rodini, “Describing Narrative,” 40 who notes how “traces of the many Venetian connections with the Levant pervade this canvas. . . exotically clad figures scattered across the piazza to the colourful carpets gracing the windows. . . several of the women who look on. . . are veiled ‘in the Arabic manner.’” Rodini, 41 interprets the image as thematizing East-West translation and as presenting “a powerful visual narrative of Venetian authority in the Levant.” 15 Dursteler, Venetians in Constantinople, 169. Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, 66 suggests that the turbaned figure on the left in Carpaccio’s work may in fact be North African, as he wears a tahnik, or neck covering. The right figure appears Ottoman. 16 Ibid. Dursteler stresses that the perception that Ottoman Muslims did not travel outside of Islamic lands is false, describing “compelling evidence from throughout Europe and the Near East” and states that there are reports of Ottoman Muslims in the city from throughout the 15th century. Howard, “Venice, the Bazaar of Europe,” 24–26 rejects the idea of a noticeable Ottoman presence in Venice at this point, arguing that the idea that there were colonies of “Arabs, Turks and Persians. . . does not stand up to serious scrutiny” and that the idea of Muslim artisans in Venice is a 19th-century fabrication. Howard does comment that there were “infrequent arrivals” of diplomatic envoys. 17 To give two examples, an Ottoman envoy of 1474 with a sizable retinue was described by contemporary sources and an envoy was sent after the end of the war of 1499–1503 to negotiate prisoner release and borders. Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, 16. Pedani, “Ottoman Envoys,” 112. Pedani also describes the letters sent by the sultan carried by envoys, stating that there were 26 sent to Venice from the time of Mehmed II to the middle of the 16th century. 18 Messling, “The Northern View,” 54 describes how “the notion of Dürer immediately sketching any Ottomans he might have encountered frequently in the lanes of Venice would be an anachronistic projection.” While Dürer evidently studied costumes from life, as indicated by image notations and comments in his diary from his Netherlands trip, there is no indication that this was his practice at the time of the Venetian visits. Messling does state that Dürer “inevitably encountered” actual Ottomans while in Venice, The Sultan’s World, 211. 19 See Strauss, The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, vol. 1, 284–297. 20 Strauss, ibid, 286. The fuller quote is instructive in terms of Dürer’s technique: “the fact that the contours were drawn first and then filled in points to the use of a model drawing, probably one by Gentile Bellini. The Three Orientals was done in the same manner.” 21 Messling in The Sultan’s World, 211, Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 42. 22 Raby, “Opening Gambits,” 65–69, 86–89. 23 Ottoman riding style originated from the riding style found among Central Asian peoples and paralleled the previously discussed à la jineta style from North Africa. It featured a short stirrup, bent knees and a more forward position of the body. Landry, “The Making of the English Hunting Seat,” 144.

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 73 24 Messling, The Sultan’s World, 211 notes that the mace corresponds to Western forms. Maces were used in the Ottoman Empire to signify command with the most typical form being the bulbous head seen in the Mehmed II medallion, although Faroqhi notes that they could also be studded or given sharp protuberances. Faroqhi, A Cultural History, 134. Some extant maces from the Ottoman Empire do show flanged heads, as depicted by Dürer, although the examples I have found all date later than this image. See for example https://www.khm.at/objektdb/­ detail/373694/. Accessed June 15, 2022. 25 Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 42. 26 Raby, “Opening Gambits,” 69. 27 Dackerman, “Dürer’s Knots” indicates the influence of Islamic metalwork on Dürer’s Six Knots from c. 1507. This suggests that there may be other, less immediately evident influences in his work to be explored. 28 See Mack, Bazaar to Piazza. 29 Howard, “Venice, the Bazaar of Europe.” 30 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 136. Dürer comments unfavorably about the merchants on the “Riv’.” 31 Howard, “Venice, the Bazaar of Europe,” 12. 32 The 1490s source is Francesco Negro. “Many gifts” is from Jacopo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo who also refers to the “insignia and chain.” Chong, “Gentile Bellini in Istanbul,” 108, 116. 33 Chong, “Gentile Bellini in Istanbul,” 116. The tughra is a calligraphic insignia comprised of the sultan’s official titles. 34 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 561, 572. 35 In addition to his comment indicating he had visited the Riva degli Schiavoni, he also describes, for example, how he “spent two entire days. . . going round all the goldsmiths in the whole of Venice” and discusses his findings on the range of items available at printers of potential interest to Pirckheimer. Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 144. 36 Denny, “Oriental Carpets.” Denny also states that there was not a local carpet production in Venice at this time, 181–182. 37 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 152. Pirckheimer was evidently very particular in his carpet requests, as Dürer details in several letters the difficulties he has finding carpets to meet his specifications, describing how “I’m still looking out every day,” 159. Dürer’s final letter from Venice indicates that he finally purchased the carpets at some expense and “shall pack them with my own things,” 168. 38 Silver, “East is East,” 189. 39 See Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, Chapter 2, particularly page 21 for a discussion of Ottoman headgear. Raby states that “the ribbed cap – the tāj – is alleged to have been introduced into Turkey in this form by Sultan Mehmed II, and the turban and tāj seen in Venetian depictions should be compared with contemporary portraits of Mehmed himself.” Some authors, including Faroqhi, A Cultural History of the Ottomans, refer to the central cap as a kavuk. Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 16 states that “the lexicon of terms of the various forms of hats and turbans is immense.” Jirousek refers to the central cap as the tāc. Silver, “Muhammad,” 224 notes that the Italian term for the cap was corno, as documented in Cesare Vecellio’s later 16th-century costume book. Jirosek, Ottoman Dress, 16 notes that men of lower status would wear a simpler form of the turban with a scarf wrapped loosely around a hat or the hat alone could be worn. Turbans were worn exclusively by men. 40 Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 16–17, 62–64, 83. 41 Jews in the Ottoman Empire, for example, wore a yellow turban and manuscript illuminations show examples of the tāj in different colors, for example, green. Karaba, “Ethnicity,” 144 and Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 64. 42 Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 104. Jirousek states that the length, decoration and color of a börk could vary and was related to status. 43 Two examples of early modern janissary börks are preserved in European collections. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna has one dated to c. 1550 that derives from Archduke Ferdinand II’s collection of Turkish objects and the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, which uses the term keçe for this headgear type, has one from the 17th century. According to the Landesmuseum’s catalogue entry, only three janissary headdresses of this type survive, in

74  Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman part as the janissaries switched to turbans in the 18th century. The surviving examples indicate that the color could vary, as one is red and gold and the other is white with green, and their ornamentation differs. https://katalog.landesmuseum.de/object/1599FC084C0F06FD17F72F9 EFAF35727/Kopfbedeckung. Accessed May 12, 2022. 44 It is important to note in this discussion that the forms of dress being discussed are those worn by Ottoman Muslims. The dress worn by members of other religious and ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire was different. See Karaba, “Ethnicity,” for a discussion of dress worn by nonMuslims in the Ottoman Empire. 45 See Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, particularly 12–15 and Jirousek, “Ottoman Influences” for an overview of Ottoman dress. 46 Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume” 164, indicates that hanging sleeves are traceable to at least 4th-century Iran and were worn by multiple ethnic groups, including Turks, in the Middle Ages. 47 Stillman, Arab Dress, 65 48 Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume,” 164 notes that frog closures were used by Saljuqs, Ayybids, Mamluks and Ottomans in the 15th century. 49 Kubiski, ibid, 165. 50 This sword type is distinguished by its curved blade, which widens approximately two-thirds from the tip. This became the characteristic shape of Ottoman swords. See Atil, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, 147–166. 51 See www.khm.at/de/object/10a7314fe6/. Accessed May 13, 2022. 52 See Howard, “Venice and the Mamluks” and Schmidt Arcangeli, “Orientalist Painting in Venice.” 53 The Selimname (c. 1521–24) fol. 235r shows a depiction of the Ottomans besieging Damascus, providing a contrast between Ottoman and Mamluk military headgear. Among European works, the anonymous Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus (1511) is generally understood to provide the most accurate view of both costume and setting. Mayer, ­Mamluk Costume, 17 suggests that the tall Mamluk turbans depicted in this work, may be a type of turban termed the takhifîta saghîra. 54 See Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, Chapter 3 for a discussion of Mamluk dress and page 30 for discussion of Dürer’s Mamluk mode. See also Fuess, “Sultans with Horns” for a more in-depth discussion of Mamluk headgear. A surviving zamt in the Coptic Museum in Cairo is illustrated in Raby. 55 Christ Before Pilate, The Flagellation, Christ Crowned with Thorns, Pilate Washing his Hands, Ecce Homo. 56 Raby, ibid, 40. 57 Messling, “The Northern View,” 55. 58 Christ Before Pilate, Ecce Homo, Pilate Washing his Hands, all dated to 1512. A turbaned figure is also visible in the rear of the Flagellation, but the details of the turban are not visible. 59 Arcangeli, “Orientalist Painting in Venice,” 121. Although Muslim, generally Ottoman figures, continue to appear in Venetian art well after this date, the specific combination of Islamic ­settings – accurate and fictive – dress and other trappings from the Ottoman and Mamluk worlds found in artists like Carpaccio and Mansueti largely in the context of religious imagery is specific to the 1490s–1520s. 60 Cowen, “Albrecht Dürer’s Late Passion Drawings,” 241 indicates that Dürer only completed a few images related to the Passion between 1513 and the start of his renewed interest in the subject around the time of his visit to the Netherlands in 1520. 61 Cowen, ibid, 249 states that the Dresden version, illustrated here, is likely the earliest copy and is the closest to his drawn versions. 62 See, for example, Atil, Age of Sultan Suleyman, 185, 190 and 191. 63 See Wheatcroft, Infidels, 262 on the larger significance of the scimitar as a marker of Turkish identity in the 16th century and later. 64 Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews, 181. 65 Wilson, The World in Venice, 224. 66 Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 121.

Ottoman, Mamluk and Roman 75 67 See the discussion of Saracens and race in chapter 4. Sources include de Weever, Sheba’s ­Daughters, Heng, The Invention of Race, 187–189 and Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews, 173–174. 68 “Die leibfarb ist ganz lederfarb.” Strauss, 2320. See discussion below. 69 Mellinkoff, Chapter 6 and Strickland, ibid, 173 and 187. 70 See Wheatcroft, The Ottomans, Chapter 8, Bohnstedt, "The Infidel Scourge of God,” 18–20, Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent, Chapter 6, and Patrides, “The Bloody and Cruelle Turk,” for discussions of reports of Turkish cruelty. 71 See Atil, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, particularly 113–173 and NecipoğluKafadar, “Süleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power,” 407. 72 Atil, ibid. Accessories and jewelry were limited to jeweled kaftan fastenings, inlaid belts and turban decorations. 73 In addition to the already mentioned works by Conrad Laib and the Master of 1477, which place turbaned figures at the base of the cross, other examples include the Martyrdom of St. Catherine by the Master of the Friedrichsaltar (c. 1440), the altar from the Nuremberg Augustiner church from the workshop of Hans Traut (1487), the Beheading of St. Columba by the Master of the Life of Mary (1473) or the Bearing of the Cross by Master LCz (1480s). 74 Cowen, “Albrecht Dürer’s Late Passion Drawings,” 250 notes that the eagle banner identifies the figures as Roman soldiers. 75 Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 75. 76 See the scenes of Christ before Annas and Christ before Caiaphus in the Small Passion and Engraved Passion. 77 Hand, German Painting, citing Anzelewsky, 55. Hand also describes Lot’s headgear as Turkish and notes the strong Venetian influence visible on the Madonna and Child on the obverse of the work. Mellinkoff, 73–74 does note that turbans did sometimes appear on figures from the Hebrew Bible in medieval art, although also shows that these figures could wear funnel-shaped hats, Phrygian hats and other various headgear types. 78 Ibid. This is based on medieval interpretations of the story of Lot as prefiguring Christ in Limbo. 79 It should be noted that Islam was depicted as a type of paganism in numerous medieval texts. See Tolan, Saracens, 105–134. 80 Bethencourt, Racisms, 49.

3

Ottomans as Ottomans Portraiture, Genre and Polemical Imagery

While Dürer’s Ottomans often simply continue iconographic tradition, his images are more complex in some notable instances. Neither unquestioning negative stereotype nor mere staffage, they are an intriguing combination of the polemical, the historical, the aesthetic and, occasionally, the fantastic. It is clear, moreover, that in some instances, Dürer did understand his Ottoman turbans to correspond to Ottoman identity. Highly sensitized to detail and fascinated by costumes, Dürer produced an oeuvre that abounds with figures with clear cultural or social identities conveyed primarily through dress. This interest unsurprisingly extended to Ottoman costumes, and a number of his drawings and engravings depict Ottoman figures in various guises with no link to religious imagery. Some of these works are the already discussed copies from other authoritative sources: his Three Orientals and Oriental Rider (Figures 2.2 and 2.3). These images thus served as authoritative models that clearly linked Ottoman costume to identity in both original and copy. Developments in Dürer’s Ottoman Figures: Portraiture Another example of copying occurred late in Dürer’s career, showing his ongoing interest in Ottoman imagery and his continued efforts to seek out and copy sources understood as authoritative. Dürer’s drawn portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (1526) is part of a set of European images, both Italian and Northern, that derive from a common prototype (Figure 3.1). While the original source for the group is unclear, and likely lost, numerous copies in various media testify to the popularity of the image type.1 Dürer’s image features a bust-length profile view of the sultan facing to the left. The sultan’s features are carefully delineated, including a thin mustache, prominent nose, chin and Adam’s apple and a deep-set eye with wrinkles at the corner. A second outline on the back of the neck indicates that Dürer reworked this area, likely trying to correct the neck and its curvature from his model. A sizable turban with a tāj sits atop the sultan’s head, slightly pressing down on his ear. Details of the fabric of the sultan’s robes are indicated, suggesting patterning and hinting at opulence. The sultan appears resolute, youthful and perhaps has a slight smile or quirk to the lips.2 He is not caricatured or visually disparaged and appears plausibly to be the depiction of a specific individual. Dürer made notes directly on the image, writing that “the color of the body is the color of leather throughout” also noting “yellow” on the chest, “red” on the shoulder and “green” on the collar.3 Most scholars have taken this to mean that Dürer was copying a painting and was noting the color scheme, rather than understanding these notes as indicating his proposed color scheme for a planned painting.4 DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628-4

Ottomans as Ottomans 77

Figure 3.1 Dürer, Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, 1526, silverpoint drawing, Musée Bonnat-Helleu, © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

78  Ottomans as Ottomans

Figure 3.2 Anon (School of Gentile Bellini), Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, c. 1520, oil on panel, © Private Collection, courtesy of Sotheby’s.

A contemporary painting, attributed to a follower of Gentile Bellini, shows a close resemblance to Dürer’s work5 (Figure 3.2). The colors of the painting do not correspond to Dürer’s written notes, and there is an important difference in the written inscriptions, so this cannot be Dürer’s actual model, but it gives an indication of the type of object he likely worked from. In addition to Dürer’s drawing and the painting, several other works from the 1520s belong to the same image family. They include an engraving attributed to the Monogrammist AA (1526), an engraving by Hieronymous Hopfer (1535), an anonymous woodcut that is known today only in a single state (early 1520s) and several Northern Italian portrait medals (c. 1520)6 (Figures 3.3 and 3.4). The images from this group all depict profile views of the sultan showing similar facial features and a turban. There are slight variances across the group. The images by Hopfer and Monogrammist AA show the sultan facing to the right rather than the left – as these are both prints, it suggests that the original faced to the left, as the printing process would reverse the image. The medal shows only the head and neck. The detailing of the fabric also differs, with Monogrammist AA showing a geometric print while the painting and the anonymous woodcut show a floral print. The Venetian ambassador Bartolomeo Contarini described the appearance of Süleyman shortly before his accession: “he is tall but thin, with a delicate complexion. His nose is a little too long, his features fine and his nose aquiline.

Ottomans as Ottomans 79

Figure 3.3  Monogrammist AA (attributed), Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, 1526, engraving, ­Albertina, Vienna.

Figure 3.4 Anon. (Italian/Venetian). Sultan Süleyman I, c. 1520, bronze, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

80  Ottomans as Ottomans He has the shadow of a moustache and a short beard. His general appearance is pleasing, although he is a little pale.”7 This eyewitness description closely corresponds to the features shown in the image group apart from the beard. The images all bear an inscription giving Süleyman’s name and the title emperor, a styling aimed at a European audience. Dürer includes the Latin title Svleyman Imperator in block capitals, as does Monogrammist AA, with the addition of a T. This presumably corresponds to the “Turcorum” on the Latin inscription on the painting, which spells Süleyman’s name Svleiman and adds the honorific Maximus, or the abbreviated “TVR” on the medals, which spell his name Solyman or Solimanus. Hopfer’s title is in German: “Svleyman ain Kaiser der Tirkei.” Some, but not all of the images include a second inscription in Arabic, which reads “Sultan Suleyman Shah bin Selim Shah.”8 The text gives Süleyman’s name, indicates that he is the son of Selim, and names them both Shah, one of the titles used by the Ottoman sultans.9 The form of the text matches inscriptions on some of the coins from Suleyman’s reign and is very similar to the title found on his tughra, his official insignia.10 The accuracy with which the title is given indicates that the artist who created the original image must have had direct access to the written formulation, which prompts intriguing questions. The Arabic inscription is included on the woodcut, the prints by Monogrammist AA and Hopfer and also on Dürer’s drawing. The text is flawed in all of the versions. Donati, who argues that the woodcut version is the original, states that the initial syllable of the title is missing from this image, and that the cutter deformed the letters, presumably due to a lack of knowledge of Arabic. The Arabic text in subsequent versions moves further away in accuracy according to Donati, with Monogrammist AA, for example, omitting the diacritical marks.11 Turning to Dürer’s image, the upper right-hand corner of the image shows Dürer imitating the Arabic text. Presumably due to space considerations on the page, he split the text in half, and his letter formation only approximates the original, producing a text described as “garbled.”12 Nevertheless, it is remarkable to see Dürer trying his hand at Arabic characters. Although it is not my intent to try to parse the relationship between the images, some comments are necessary to situate Dürer’s work within the group. Overall, Dürer’s image is closest to the anonymous woodcut and to Monogrammist AA, although there are differences from both works. Dürer uses the Latin title found in both works, including spelling the name as Svleyman, although he omits T or TVR. The Arabic text is at the top of the image, although the other images both have the text centered rather than at the right, while the Arabic text is on the bottom right of Hopfer’s work. Dürer’s fabric depiction resembles the floral and abstract texture found in the woodcut rather than the geometric designs in Monogrammist AA. Yet Dürer’s depiction of the turban more closely resembles Monogrammist AA rather than any of the others, as both show the turban wrapping with a noticeable curve to the side as it folds under the sweep of fabric that comes from back to front. Dürer’s work shows a few hairs escaping at the back of the turban, a detail not seen on any of the other images. Ultimately, it does not seem that Dürer worked from any of these images, but presumably had a closely related model, likely a painting given his notes as to color. Beyond connoisseurial concerns about prototype and copy, the broader significance of this drawing is that it shows Dürer responding to an image type that clearly circulated widely in the 1520s, copying an image seen as authoritative late in his career, and engaging with a broader genre of Ottoman imagery that we see few traces of in his work prior to this point, namely, sultan portraits.

Ottomans as Ottomans 81 European images of the Ottoman sultans appear frequently from the 15th century on in both Northern and Italian Renaissance art and are found particularly in prints. Some were polemical and were designed to further inflame European fears of the Ottomans. In numerous instances, however, printed sultan portraits were more neutral depictions that were intended to convey a supposedly accurate representation of the individual portrayed. It is clear that the Ottoman sultans and their genealogy were subjects of interest to western Europeans, and printed images such as portraits and portrait series of the sultans helped feed this interest. Dürer’s portrait and the wider circle of images it relates to are part of this larger trend. Süleyman gained new interest on the international stage with his accession to the throne in 1520 at the age of 25. Under Süleyman, Ottoman military advances returned to central Europe after several decades of Ottoman focus on the Eastern Mediterranean. His armies began to advance into Europe, conquering Belgrade in 1521, Rhodes in 1522, defeating Louis II of Hungary at the battle of Mohács in 1526 and culminating in the unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1529. The image group to which Dürer’s drawing belongs represents the first major group of European images of Süleyman and corresponds to the early years of his rule.13 The printed portrait by Monogrammist AA was paired with a portrait of Louis II of Hungary, indicating that image was almost certainly done as a direct response to the battle of Mohács. Hopfer’s image has a series of biblical texts appended, which suggest that Suleyman is an instrument of divine punishment, a common interpretation of the Ottoman military threat.14 It is intriguing to speculate whether Dürer, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, had a particularly strong response to the battle of Mohács, particularly given the dating of his drawing to 1526 and the pairing of Monogrammist AA work’s with Louis II of Hungary. Although Dürer’s image was highly topical, it does not have any polemical content or a context to suggest that was his intent, and fits within the tradition of relatively neutral portraits of Ottoman sultans. Genre Scenes Dürer’s oeuvre includes several genre images that incorporate Ottoman figures within compositions that are wholly his invention. In these images, Dürer uses Ottoman figures to create suggestive, albeit opaque imagery, which hinges on a recognition that Ottoman dress signals Ottoman identity and moreover places Ottomans figures within military contexts. The Six Warriors (c. 1496), also titled Five Landsknechte and an Oriental Man on Horseback, depicts a mounted Ottoman with five German soldiers (Figure 3.5). Dürer’s use of the figure here goes beyond costume study. The meaning of the scene is ambiguous and has received different interpretations. The mounted figure seems to clearly represent an Ottoman, although there has been some debate around this point.15 The turbaned figure shows some similarities to the Housebook Master’s Turkish Rider, particularly in the face and the voluminous turban, which comprised wrapped bands of cloth around a clearly visible tāj (Figure 1.17). The military nature of the scene suggests contemporary conflicts, and each of the figures is armed. The Ottoman in particular seems an unfriendly presence at the very least, with his grim expression and hand grasping his weapon. He seems to potentially be engaged in a confrontation with the figure in front of him, whose hand is also on his sword and whose lance runs diagonally across the Ottoman’s body, placing a physical barrier between the Ottoman and the viewer. Yet attempts to provide a narrative for the scene are unconvincing. Neither the Ottoman nor the landsknechts appear to be captives, the casualness of the poses of the landsknechts

82  Ottomans as Ottomans

Figure 3.5 Dürer, Six Warriors (Five Landsknecte and an Oriental Man on Horseback), c. 1495, engraving, Art Institute of Chicago.

reject a reading of military engagement, and Hale’s suggestion that the image depicts a recruiting scene seems insufficiently supported by the image. Silver, who interprets the mounted figure as Turkish, suggests that the “entire scene looks like an artificially constructed conversation that displays costumes and weapons of this new solider class.”16 Regardless of the specific meaning of this image, the depiction of a figure in recognizably Ottoman dress within the scene places the Ottomans within a contemporary, secular sphere, absent previously in Dürer’s work, and links the contemporary Ottomans to weapons, guarded hostility and military figures. The ambiguous Landscape with Cannon (1518) depicts a figure in Ottoman dress placed opposite a cannon (Figure 3.6). A group of figures stands behind him while the two figures next to the cannon can be identified as a landsknecht wearing characteristic slashed sleeves and a figure in hunting gear. The stance and clothing of the Ottoman are based on the middle figure from Dürer’s Three Orientals after Gentile Bellini. The depiction of the turban, facial features and the pronounced jut forward of the neck differ, however.17 Fetvacı suggests that the facial features resemble those found on a sultan portrait medal, and indeed, the shape of the nose, set of the eyes and bulge of the brow show similarities to the medal of Mehmed II by Costanzo da Ferrara, which, as discussed in Chapter 2, Dürer appears to have known. There has been some debate over whether or not this figure should be understood as Ottoman. Metzger argues, for example, that “the details of the costume and equipment were not sharply distinguished in the contemporary

Ottomans as Ottomans 83

Figure 3.6 Dürer, Landscape with a Cannon, 1518, etching, Art Institute of Chicago.

84  Ottomans as Ottomans imagination and do not allow an explicit allocation to one or the other ethnic group.”18 Following Silver and Fetvacı, I interpret this figure as an Ottoman due both to the unambiguous Ottoman identity in Dürer’s model and as Dürer clearly understood and manipulated markers of Ottoman identity in his imagery, and should be understood as doing so intentionally here as well. The Ottoman figure stands in front of a group of figures whose identity is less clear, although they are typically read as foreign. Fetvacı suggests that the figure behind the Ottoman should also be identified as an “oriental” figure. The headgear depicted on this figure is unclear. It could be a janissary börk viewed from the front with the top bulge suggesting the back fold. Dürer usually depicted the börk with a wide horizontal band circling the base, corresponding to the actual appearance of this headgear type, and the angle does not make clear whether the back extension is present. The robe, particularly the closures, does correspond to dress seen on other Ottoman figures by Dürer. A bow, resting in a large bow quiver, sits on his left hip and the top of the shafts of his arrows are visible over his shoulder. The Ottomans housed their bows in decorative bow quivers (sadak) which were worn on the left hip, the arrow quiver on the right.19 Whether or not Dürer intended to show specifically Ottoman accessories is less clear. Bows were largely obsolete in western European armies by the early 16th century, while they continued to be an important weapon for Ottoman forces.20 The European bow form was typically a long bow, so the presence of the recurve bow again suggests at the least the foreign identity of the warrior, and he can be read as Ottoman. The group has also been interpreted as Hungarian or as an Ottoman leading a group of representative peoples of Central Europe threatened by Ottoman expanse.21 Burg­ kmair’s depiction of Hungarian combatants from the Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I (1516–19) was plausibly known to Dürer, given his work on the same project (Figure 3.7). The work shows a contemporary German idea of Hungarian dress in a ceremonial yet military context as the figures were grouped into a section showing foot

Figure 3.7 Hans Burgkmair, Hungarian Combatants, Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I, 1516–19, woodcut, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.

Ottomans as Ottomans 85 combatants (gefecht). The surviving dictation for the image states that it is to depict “Five men (dressed in Hungarian style) with pafessen (Hungarian shields); they shall have Hungarian maces.”22 The details of costume, apart from some similarities to the second figure’s robe, do not otherwise correspond to Dürer’s figures. A later print by Jörg Breu of Hungarian lancers from the Entry of Charles V into Augsburg (1530) shows a number of the lancers wearing a top hat-like headgear similar to that worn by one of the figures in Dürer’s group, suggesting that the type of headgear was associated with Hungarian identity, and perhaps should be understood similarly here.23 The cannon bears the Nuremberg coat of arms and is placed in the foreground of a deep landscape with a village and mountainous peak. The setting is based on a silverpoint drawing Dürer made, although there is some question as to the specific location depicted.24 Regardless, the houses and setting are recognizably German and reflect domestic structures from the area around Nuremberg.25 The cannon, grasped by an armed landsknecht, faces the Ottoman, perhaps suggesting the power of German artillery against the Ottoman forces. Yet the cannon was a type that was already out of date by 1518, the transport of the cannon seems to have come to a halt, and this is not a scene of active military engagement.26 Some have read the pose of the Ottoman figure, with arms behind his back, as implying captivity, while others have suggested he represents a visiting Ottoman ambassador.27 Although Ottoman diplomatic envoys were not common visitors to the Holy Roman Empire, a visit had occurred in 1497, when an envoy sent by Sultan Bayezid II visited Emperor Maximilian I in Innsbruck.28 Silver argues that the image needs to be understood within the context of Maximilian I’s ongoing calls for crusade against the Ottomans, which he would repeat again in 1518, the year of this print, at the Diet of Augsburg.29 Messling suggests that the image “visualize[s] the uncertainty about the future with a view to the conflict between the Ottomans on the one hand and the Empire as well as the Bohemian-Hungarian personal union on the other.”30 The image creates a clear visual opposition between the Ottoman on the one side and the landsknecht on the other, who leans on the cannon that points directly at the Ottoman. Between the two a curving road divides the image, further separating them. The tone of the image is one of watchfulness and wariness – the Ottoman and landsknecht make eye contact, their expressions unfriendly, a sense of tension created by their visual standoff. The figure behind the Ottoman gazes intently at something out of the image, grasping the helm of his sheathed sword as he looks over his shoulder, seemingly ready to draw his weapon. The other figures look in various directions, several with hands on their weapons, none of them appearing relaxed. Even a tiny figure in the middle ground stands watchful, hand on hip, gazing toward the group in the foreground. It is not clear why an Ottoman and his companions, with their ambiguous but, nevertheless, recognizably foreign garb should be present on the outskirts of a quiet village in Germany. Perhaps it is to suggest that the Ottoman advance threatens Germany, although in 1518, that threat was still yet to be realized. The engaged, defensive posture of German armaments and soldiers is also underscored. If read in light of Maximilian and his calls for crusade, the message seems to be that the imperial city of Nuremberg stands ready to oppose the Ottomans and stands with the emperor, albeit with an outmoded cannon. While the meaning of this image may ultimately remain opaque, interpretations of it hinge on a reading of the turbaned figure as a contemporary Ottoman, which then suggest meanings that resonate in the context of 16th-century European political and military engagements with the Ottoman Empire.

86  Ottomans as Ottomans The Landscape with Cannon and Six Warriors are authentically genre images and diverge from the turban as staffage tradition. In each instance, the turban and associated dress is clearly intended to convey a specific ethnic identity: these figures are contemporary Ottomans. Moreover, in both images, the association of an Ottoman with soldiers on the one hand, and a solider and weapon technology on the other, has unmistakable contemporary political overtones in a time of ongoing military conflict with the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the pro-imperial context of Nuremberg and in light of Dürer’s ongoing work for Maximilian I during the 1510s. Contemporary Resonances Dürer’s placement of recognizably Ottoman figures within the fraught context of his Apocalypse series is arguably his most innovative and complex use of such figures.31 Although these are religious images, Dürer’s depiction of Ottoman figures here is distinct from his usual use of Ottoman figures in religious scenes and offers an interpretative possibility with clear contemporary resonance. With the exception of the Martyrdom of St. John, neither the text of the Apocalypse nor artistic precedent demanded or even suggested the need for Ottoman figures in the four scenes where they appear.32 A key question, then, is whether these figures, visually delineated as Ottoman through costume, should be identified as Ottoman in any discussion of meaning. The depiction of Domitian with an Ottoman turban in the Martyrdom of St. John, for instance, is commonly interpreted as one more example of Dürer’s use of a turban to identify a pagan leader, which one level it certainly is33 (Figure 2.6). While the impetus for Domitian’s turban may lie in convention, his turban also bears a deeper and more specific connotation within the context of the Apocalypse. Apocalyptic interpreters commonly spoke of Antichrist types preceding the arrival of the final Antichrist, and many of these types were designated as such because of their persecution of Christians. Along with Nero, Simon Magus and Muhammad, Domitian was commonly considered as a type for the Antichrist.34 In this scene, Domitian as historic and apocalyptic figure is visually linked (through the turban) to the Ottoman Empire. Through this visual connection, the conventional use of the turban ties together the past, present and future persecutors of Christianity to create a composite, extra-historical symbol of evil. The appearance of Turkish types within the Whore of Babylon also suggests a clear relevance to contemporary apocalyptic thought (Figure 2.9). The Whore of Babylon shows the whore seated on the Sea Monster. The diversely costumed throng before her includes a turbaned figure.35 This Ottoman may be read as simply representing one of the many nations seduced by the whore. Yet the second and more prominent Ottoman figure placed in the foreground of the same scene encourages a deeper reading and fuller explanation. Dürer depicted this second figure as an Ottoman prince or ruler. His cloak is edged with ermine, he wears a chain of office around his neck and his turban is embellished with a floral garland. His costume is very similar to the figure of Domitian and also to Dürer’s Oriental Ruler Enthroned. The turbaned “prince” actively gestures toward the whore, as if mediating between her and the group. Yet the text of Revelations does not indicate a mediating temporal figure between the monster-riding Whore and the rest of the nations of the earth, and this figure does not have precedents in traditional apocalyptic illustration, suggesting a particular significance must be attached to his appearance here. By giving prominent foreground placement to this unexplained turbaned figure, Dürer inserts a polemical aspect into the overall meaning of the scene. By the 15th century,

Ottomans as Ottomans 87 apocalyptic interpretations of the Ottoman threat commonly linked the seven heads of the monster to the Ottoman dynasty, where the seven heads were understood to reference seven sultans.36 According to several contemporary prophecies, the apocalypse would begin during the reign of the seventh sultan, who was further identified as Bayezid II (ruled 1481–1512). Seen through the lens of contemporary apocalyptic rhetoric, the Ottoman prince before the Babylonian Whore suggests that an Ottoman sultan, potentially even the currently reigning sultan, will usher in the apocalypse. Yet the sultan, and indeed the Ottomans as a whole, the image suggests, will ultimately be vanquished by the armies of Christ, visible at the upper left, and fall into the Bottomless Pit behind the Whore. The Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I is an even clearer instance where Dürer placed figures coded as Ottoman and/or Muslim in images where their depiction matches their intended identity and where the images are intended to be interpreted in light of contemporary issues. The Prayerbook, which dates between 1513 and 1515, exists today only in several proof editions. The most famous of these is an illustrated copy containing drawings by Dürer, Hans Burgkmair, Hans Baldung, Jörg Breu, Albrecht Altdorfer and Altdorfer’s workshop.37 The Prayerbook was almost certainly intended for members of the Order of St. George, a chivalric order founded by Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III in 1467 and dedicated to crusade, specifically through war against the Ottomans.38 Maximilian renewed and expanded the order in 1494. Dürer’s figure leading a dromedary on folio 42v is clearly marked as Ottoman through his Ottoman-style turban, his dress and his curved saber (Figure 3.8). The presence of the monkey, a traditional symbol of sin and deceit, suggests a negative reading for this figure. The accompanying text, Psalm 45:1–6, includes lines on the facing page which can be related to the enemies of God: “Thine arrows are sharp. The people fall under thee, as they pierce the heart of the king’s enemies.” Strauss suggests that the presence of the Ottoman was “probably inspired by the line ‘thine arrows are sharp’” and notes that the scene has been understood “as part of the theme enemies of the true faith.”39 Folio 26v again shows Dürer framing Islam within an apocalyptic context (Figure 3.9). Although the imagery is not explicitly Ottoman, it can be understood as a commentary not just on Islam in general but also on the Ottomans as the most proximate representatives of Islam and the most immediately threatening, particularly given Maximilian’s focus on the Ottomans. The image shows Christ as Salvator Mundi, St. Michael battling the dragon and a procession consisting of a crowned figure seated in a chariot pulled by a goat and led by a putto seated on a hobby-horse. The figure is commonly called an Oriental ruler due to his regalia, which consists of a crescent-topped orb, scepter and sword. As discussed in Chapter 1, the crescent was commonly associated with Islam among Renaissance viewers. An orb topped with a crescent would be interpreted as the regalia of a Muslim ruler in the same way that Christian rulers often bore orbs topped with a cross as part of their regalia. The larger meaning of the image within the Prayerbook is underscored by the accompanying text, the first three verses of Psalm 57. The text includes the lines: “Be merciful to me, O God … in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until these calamities have passed. I cry to God most high … He will send from heaven and save me, he will put to shame those who trample on me.”40 This text is David’s prayer for help in his fight against his enemy, Saul. The conjunction of text and image figures the Oriental ruler, the representative of Islam, as the enemy conjured up by this plea. Yet the figure is not wholly threatening, and even has an element of parody, due to his appearance in a carnivalesque procession. The figure’s dignity is further undermined by the goat who pulls the chariot, rather than a dashing steed. As the

88  Ottomans as Ottomans

Figure 3.8 Dürer, Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, folio 42v, 1513–15, pen and ink on parchment, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 L.impr.membr. 64.

goat is traditionally a symbol of those who will perish at the Last Judgment, the figure’s ultimate destiny is clear. The overall meaning of the page is quite clear: As St. Michael triumphs over the apocalyptic beast, so too will Christ triumph over Islam, the arch-enemy of Christianity, through the instrument of Maximilian and his crusaders, the order of St. George, who operate under divine protection. Ottoman figures also appear in Dürer’s two depictions of the Martyrdom of the 10,000 and provide an additional example of works where religious imagery likely intersects with contemporary commentary. The story of the martyrdom of the 10,000 was not commonly depicted, although some earlier versions do exist, notably from Cologne.41 There is no known direct visual prototype for either of Dürer’s images, although some of the details have precedents in previous works. The legend of the martyrdom of the 10,000 appears to have originated in the 12th century, was further elaborated by the Dominicans in the 13th century and was included in several later 15th-century vernacular German works including the Nuremberg Chronicle.42 There are in fact two different

Ottomans as Ottomans 89

Figure 3.9 Dürer, Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, folio 26v, 1513–15, pen and ink on parchment, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 L.impr.membr. 64.

90  Ottomans as Ottomans apocryphal stories involving 10,000 early Christian martyrs with broadly similar contours. Moreover, the better known of the two had multiple additions and variants over the course of its development. Dürer’s images may show one or the other of these stories, and likely conflates details from different versions. The more well-known legend relates the martyrdom under Emperors Hadrian and Antonius of 10,000 Roman soldiers led by St. Achacius (or Achatius), who is sometimes named as a bishop.43 The pagan soldiers, fighting on a campaign in the Euphrates, were converted to Christianity by an angel, as a result of which they won their battle, only to be pressured into recanting by Hadrian. When they refused, they were subjected to various tortures and eventually crucified on Mt. Ararat. In some versions, the 10,000 are said to have been crucified in 343 CE by an army under the leadership of the Sasanian ruler Sapor (Shāpūr) II, who was notorious for his persecution of Christians.44 Sapor II is described as acting alone or as part of a group of eastern rulers who conducted the martyrdoms in collusion with Hadrian, despite Hadrian and Sapor II reigning some two centuries apart. In a variant of the story popularized by the Dominicans, the story of the martyrdom of the 10,000 is combined with the story of the persecution and eventual beheading of the bishop St. Simon Barsabae and his companions by Sapor II.45 A separate tale relates the torture and martyrdom under Emperor Diocletian of a large number of Christians, including the bishop Anthimos, whose torture included being thrown into thorns.46 The Nuremberg Chronicle, a potential source for Dürer, relates the story largely following the details of the more familiar version of the legend.47 The event is described as the martyrdom of Achacius and his companions on Mt. Ararat with the martyrs being scourged and put to death at the instigation of Emperor Hadrian. The narrative instability of the legend has obvious implications for any attempt to interpret Dürer’s usage of turbaned figures in these images. The woodcut Martyrdom of the 10,000 shows the persecuted Christians chained together and forced up a hill (Figure 3.10). Once at the top, they are pushed off and impaled on the thorns below. This graphic depiction of suffering is amplified by a scene of flaying in the center, a group on the right boring out the eyes of a prostrate bishop and the decapitated bodies and heads which are strewn across the scene. Several of the figures within the scene are depicted wearing Ottoman dress. The reason for this choice of dress is not immediately obvious. As there was not an established visual tradition for this scene, and as the few earlier images of the scene lacked turbaned figures, the inclusion of these figures, like the turbaned figures in his Apocalypse, is again Dürer’s invention. The turbaned figures all play a major role in conducting the massacre. The Ottoman standing beside the crowned ruler with ermine mantle, who is likely the Roman emperor responsible for the torture, gestures toward the dead bishop as if to claim responsibility for the act. The ornately patterned fabric of his dress indicates that he is a figure of status. The turbaned figure behind the emperor and the figure behind him wearing a janissary börk are presumably other officials, while an Ottoman on the hillside drives the chained band of Christians up the hill with a whip. Dürer may again use Ottoman dress here to signify Roman identity. Given the presence of the bishop in the foreground and the martyrdom of the Christians on thorns, Talbot suggests that the image likely depicts, or at least incorporates, details from the legend of the torture of Anthimos and his companions.48 If that is the case, the ruler should be understood as Diocletian and the turbaned figures represent Roman officials. Dürer could be instead using Ottoman costume here to indicate that the events occurred under an eastern ruler, namely Sapor II acting in collusion with the Roman emperor Hadrian. The ambiguity of the narrative here makes a definitive identification difficult.

Ottomans as Ottomans 91

Figure 3.10 Dürer, Martyrdom of the 10,000, 1496, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Durer reworked this subject in a painted version from 1508, which was commissioned by Friedrich the Wise of Saxony for the All Saints’ Collegiate church in Wittenberg (Figure 2.9). The church housed Friedrich’s large collection of relics, including relics associated with the 10,000 martyrs and St. Achacius.49 The image includes figures in both Ottoman and Mamluk dress. Rising prominently above the mass of bodies, a mounted figure looking out at the viewer wears a large Ottoman turban. This figure is clearly to be understood as a ruler due to his commanding presence within the image as well as his depiction. He wears an overcoat of sumptuous fabric shimmering with gold thread over an inner garment made of a similarly rich textile. The ovoid shape atop his gold mace corresponds to Ottoman mace types and indicates his status as a figure of authority. The figure’s sword, visible under his left arm, is fitted with gold. The trappings on his horse are ornamented with gold rosettes and hanging gold pendants while the horse’s forelock is ornamented with baubles and extended with a long red tassel. The Ottomans did have ornamented horse trappings, as is attested to by a passage in the letters of the mid-16th century Habsburg ambassador to Istanbul, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. He described a mounted procession of the sultan and officials: “The spectacle presented by a Turkish horseman is indeed magnificent. His high-bred steed generally comes from Cappadocia

92  Ottomans as Ottomans or Syria, and its trappings and saddle sparkle with gold and jewels in silver settings.”50 The specific details of the ornamentation on Dürer’s figure suggest more of a generalized attempt to create an image of the foreign ruler with perhaps some vague notion of horse adornment as an Ottoman phenomenon rather than an accurate rendering of actual objects as the ornamentation does not correspond in its details to extant objects.51 Several additional figures involved in the massacre also wear Ottoman headgear, notably the figure in blue with an Ottoman turban in front of the crucified bishop and the figure in blue directly above the mounted Ottoman who wears a long, red janissary börk. Two figures in the group on the upper left pushing the martyrs to their deaths also bear Ottomanstyle arms, including a curved sword and two round shields. Additionally, two prominent figures in front of the ruler’s horse wear Mamluk turbans and several figures wear the tufted red Mamluk zamt. The tormentors are not all clad in Ottoman or Mamluk garb, however, and European style armor and weaponry is also visible. The addition of the crucifixion scene in the bottom left foreground suggests that the painting shows the dominant version of this story, where the martyrdom occurs at the behest of Hadrian, perhaps with the collusion of Sapor II. The presence of the bishop figure in the left middle ground and the victims being driven off the cliffs to be impaled on thorns, however, suggest that the image may conflate different versions of the story. Scholars have generally identified the mounted Ottoman as Hadrian, which would follow Dürer’s typical use of Ottoman dress for Roman emperors, with Sapor II as the figure in Mamluk dress at the bottom right who is shown directing the torment.52 If that is the case, Dürer can be seen to delineate two different types of non-Christian identity through two different types of Muslim dress, where Ottoman garb signals Roman identity, as it normally does in Dürer’s religious images, and Mamluk garb signals Sasanian identity. If that is the case, it is possible that Dürer also used Mamluk costume as an attempt to add accuracy to a historical scene through the use of contemporary exotic costume to reference a distant land, with the potentially more foreign (to Dürer) Mamluks used to represent the more distant Sasanian Empire. While this type of usage is not seen elsewhere in Dürer’s work, it was common in contemporary Venetian Orientalist works. The original impetus for Dürer’s use of Ottoman, and later Mamluk dress within the Martyrdom of the 10,000 scenes was doubtless the familiar use of turbans to indicate non-Christian figures and is another instance where Dürer placed turbans on tyrannical figures involved in martyrdoms. Yet any scene of Ottomans and violence would have had great resonance for the European population during this period, given the reality of the Ottoman advance into Europe and the ongoing Ottoman raids and border skirmishes, particularly in eastern Europe. Moreover, the threat posed by the Ottomans had further revived a view of Muslims, now specifically the Ottomans, as warlike, bloodthirsty and mercilessly cruel. Stories abounded describing the cruelty exhibited by the Ottomans toward conquered towns and the absolute despotism of the sultans. The story of the martyrdom of the 10,000 in particular also has clear overtones with a well-publicized contemporary event: the Ottoman siege of Otranto in 1480, where actions on the part of the Ottoman troops were widely reported as atrocities against innocent Christians. Reportedly, a group of 800 were led to the top of a hill and offered death or conversion to Islam. The 800 were said to have refused and thus met their death through impalement or beheading (reports varied on this point). Moreover, the archbishop of Otranto was said to have met his death in a particularly horrific manner, and in total, 12,000 were killed.53 Dürer’s martyrdom scene – with its image of a bishop undergoing brutal torture, Christians driven up a hill and subsequently impaled on thorns and decapitated bodies strewn

Ottomans as Ottomans 93 across the scene – suggests a conflation of the recent and historical past, where innocent Christian victims, steadfast in their faith, are subjected to physical torment by merciless tyrants and are ultimately made martyrs. The image furthermore features impaling, which would become a key signifier of Turkish atrocities in later propaganda prints.54 The depiction of crucified figures, including a prominent foreground figure wearing a crown of thorns, makes an overt parallel to Christ, indicating that the martyrs are Christlike in their suffering and can expect a heavenly reward. Read through a contemporary lens, those who suffer at the hands of the Ottomans can similarly be seen as martyrs to the faith.55 Although the turbaned figures in these scenes are ostensibly the historical perpetrators of atrocities, Dürer’s images again suggest a typological reading where past persecutors are made types of current persecutors. As in his Apocalypse, religious imagery is brought to bear on contemporary reality and contemporary events are given a Christian framing and interpretation. Dürer’s Ottoman imagery ultimately presents a complex mediation of multiple visual traditions and contemporary concerns. While his Ottoman imagery largely continued a long-standing medieval tradition related to turbaned figures and notions of non-Christian otherness, he placed new value on eyewitness authority and accuracy, as seen in his swift adoption of the more accurate costume stylings he encountered in Venice. His works intersect with new Renaissance interests in ethnography, the semiotics of dress and a cultural fascination with the non-Christian other and the exotic. Dürer’s imagery also engages at points, albeit obliquely, with contemporary political commentary, alluding to the reported ferocity of the Ottoman forces, the potency and reputed cruelty of their sultans and holding out hope for their ultimate defeat. Yet his work also reflects a genre sensibility where the Ottoman Turks and their dress are exotic subjects of curiosity who can, nevertheless, be woven into the vast panorama of contemporary life. Dürer’s images are thus in many ways the most interesting use of Ottoman imagery from this period, precisely because of their malleability and multivalence. Yet at the same time, his towering status as an artist rendered his own second-hand images authoritative in their own right to his German contemporaries, creating a sort of Orientalist self-referential echo chamber.56 His usage of the print medium, with its fluid crossing of artistic and national boundaries, ensured that it was his image of the Ottomans that became widely disseminated and thus widely recognized, and became a veritable visual shorthand for Ottoman identity. Notes 1 Discussions of this group are found in Capellen and Baǧci , “The Age of Magnificence,” Donati, “Due Immagini,” and Strauss, The Illustrated Bartsch, 24:4, 276. 2 Capellen and Baǧci, “The Age of Magnificence,” 98 describe him as showing “sardonic amusuement.” 3 Strauss, Complete Drawings, 2320. “die leibfarb ist ganz lederfarb/gell/rot/grün.” 4 Capellen and Baǧci “The Age of Magnificence,” 98 suggest either a painting or a colored drawing. A hand-colored print is presumably also a possibility. Strauss, Complete Drawings, 2320, following Panofsky, suggests a painting as the source. 5 See Sotheby’s Arts of the Islamic World, entry 129. I am grateful to Astrid Chater for assistance with this work and to the owner for giving permission to publish it. 6 The woodcut is bound into Cod. Chigiano G. II. 39 in the Vatican Library, which contains the Historiae senenses by Sigismondo Tizio. The volume records events from 1520 to 1525, meaning that the woodcut must date to 1525 or earlier. https://opac.vatlib.it/gds/detail/20049189. Accessed May 21, 2022. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has two of the portrait medallions

94  Ottomans as Ottomans from this group see: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/194512. Accessed May 21, 2022. This version has an extra swag of drapery on the top of the turban as seen in the other images from the group. The second medallion does not. 7 Clot, Suleiman the Magnificent, 30. 8 Capellen and Baǧci, “The Age of Magnificence,” 110. 9 For a discussion of the various titles used by the Ottoman sultans, their derivation and significance, see Bang and Kolodziejczky, Universal Empire, 177–178. They state that Shah, or Padishah was the favorite title of the Ottoman sultans. 10 Suleyman’s tughra, a calligraphic device used as a signature on official documents, read “Suleyman Shah ibn Selim Shah Khan, may his victory endure” Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, 510. An example of a coin with a similar inscription is https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/ object/C_2001-1201-2767. Accessed May 21, 2022. 11 Donati, “Due Immagini,” 228. 12 Capellen and Baǧci, “The Age of Magnificence,” 98. Since Arabic reads right to left, Dürer’s split also puts the first half of the text below the second half. 13 Capellen and Baǧci in “The Age of Magnificence” describe a second and third group of European portraits of Süleyman from subsequent decades. 14 Donati, “Due Immagini,” 224. The first quotation, for example is Ezra 9:7: “From the days of our ancestors to this day we have been deep in guilt, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been handed over to the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as is now the case.” 15 Hale interprets this as a scene of recruitment, with civilian recruiters discussing terms with soldiers for hire and describes the mounted figure as a “Balkan light cavalryman.” Hale, Artists and Warfare, 2. Silver rejects this reading. The Plains of Mars, 61. 16 Silver, The Plains of Mars, 59. 17 The Ottoman is often seen to bear Dürer’s own features, see Silver, “East is East,” 95. Fetvacı suggests that the features resemble those from a medal of the sultan by Hans Schwarz after either Gentile Bellini or Costanza da Ferrara. “The Grand and the Terrible,” 33. 18 A Renaissance of Etching, 64. 19 https://www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/566835/. Accessed May 24, 2022. 20 See Rogers, Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare, 441–443 on European bows and use and 96 on Ottoman bows. Rogers states that recurve bows, described as the “traditional weapon” of the janissaries, continued to be an important weapon for Ottoman forces until the 17th century. 21 Metzger, A Renaissance of Etching, 64. 22 Appelbaum, Triumph of Maximilian, 7. The mace borne by the second to left figure is very similar to the mace held by Dürer’s Oriental Rider. Faroqhi describes the spread of the mace as a symbol of power from the Ottoman Empire to Central Europe, particularly Hungary and Transylvania. A Cultural History, 134. 23 Silver, The Plains of Mars, 64, suggests that there is a “confusion between Turkish and Hungarian costume in this print.” 24 The setting has usually been identified as Kirchehrenbach near Forchheim. See, for example, Silver in The Plains of Mars, 64. According to Metzger, this identification is incorrect and the setting does not resemble that depicted by Dürer. The Museum Boymans van Beunigen, which owns the landscape sketch, titles it a view of Reuth near Bamberg. Metzger states that the drawing depicts Eschenau with the Lindelberg hill in the background as seen from a property belonging to a friend. The Renaissance of Etching, 54, 271 n. 1. 25 Metzger, A Renaissance of Etching, 64 indicates that these are “Schwedenhäuser,” a type of structure commonly found to the north and northwest of Nuremberg. 26 Metzger, ibid, says that this type of cannon was retired by the city of Nuremberg in 1512. See also Messling, The Sultan’s World, 214. 27 See Aikema’s catalogue entry on this work in Renaissance Venice and the North, 414. See also Silver, “East is East,” 195. 28 Dziewulski and Born, “The Influences,” 70. This visit is commemorated in a depiction of a stag hunt organized for the occasion in the Tirolerfischereibuch of Maximilian I, fol 12v (1504) executed by Maximilian’s court artist Jörg Kolderer. Suner, “Der Türkische Gesandte,” 416 states that the envoy was Andrea Graeco Pontcaracca, a Greek Catholic Ottoman subject. Ottoman

Ottomans as Ottomans 95 envoys to Habsburg lands occurred on an ad-hoc basis in this period as resident ambassadors in Vienna did not occur until a later period. According to Radway, an incomplete list of Ottoman envoys to the Austrian Habsburgs in the 16th century lists 12 such visits, but work still needs to be done on this subject. “The Captive Self,” 483. 29 Silver, Plains of War, 65. Metzger concurs with this reading, The Renaissance of Etching, 64. 30 Messling, The Sultan’s World, 214. 31 For a fuller discussion of Ottoman imagery within Dürer’s Apocalypse and its relationship to traditions of apocalyptic interpretation, see Madar, “Dürer’s Depictions of the Ottoman Turks.” 32 In addition to the Martyrdom of St. John, turbaned figures also appear in the Babylonian Whore, Opening of the Fifth and Sixth Seals and The Sea Monster and the Beast with Lamb’s Horns. 33 Panofsky, “Introduction,” 4 gives this explanation for Domitian's turban. 34 McGinn and Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages, 119. 35 The figure in front of the first Ottoman, who wears a long stocking-cap like headpiece could be intended to represent an Ottoman janissary wearing the characteristic long-pointed felt börk. 36 One widely published example was a letter addressed in the 1480s by Nanni di Viterbo to a number of European rulers including Pope Sixtus IV and the kings of France, Spain, Sicily and Hungary. See Setton, Western Hostility to Islam, 18. A similar interpretation of the seven heads representing seven sultans is found in Wolfgang Aytinger's 1496 Commentary on Methodius. See McGinn, Visions of the End, 274–275. 37 The Prayerbook, like many of Maximilian I’s commissions, has a complicated history, and was left unfinished, possibly due to the calendar, which was not approved until after the emperor’s death. For longer discussions of the Prayerbook project and the book as a whole see Strauss, The Book of Hours, Panofsky, The Art and Life, 182–184, and Strickland, Maximilian as Patron. 38 Strauss, The Book of Hours, 322. 39 Strauss, The Book of Hours, 84. 40 Prayerbook translations are from Strauss, The Book of Hours. 41 Stöcker, “Dürer, Celtis und der falsche Bischof Acatius” illustrates several late medieval versions. 42 Klauner dates the story to the 12th century. “Gedanken zu Dürers Allheiligenbildern,” 59. Bacon, “Humanism in Wittenberg,” cites the Lübecker Passional (1480) as well as the Heiligenleben (Augsburg, 1472), 12. 43 Stöcker argues persuasively that the naming of the bishop as Achacius is an iconographic error. Citing contemporary liturgical texts, including texts known in late 15th-century Nuremberg, Stöcker states that the bishop in the scene should be correctly named Hermolaus, who was also the baptizer of the 10,000. Achacius was instead a solider and one of the leaders of the 10,000. “Dürer, Celtis und der falsche Bischof Acatius.” 44 Panofsky, Art and Life of Albrecht Dürer, 50. See also Bacon, “Humanism in Wittenberg,” 8–12. 45 Bacon, “Humanism in Wittenberg,” 15. 46 Talbot, Dürer in America, 160. 47 Fol. CXIIv. 48 Talbot, Dürer in America, 160. 49 Klauner, “Gedanken,” 59. A 1509 catalogue of the relic collection lists two whole bones and 23 particles from the “10,000 rittern.” Stöcker, 130 also notes the catalogue reference to a particle from “Sant Ermolao.” Bacon, “Humanism in Wittenberg,” 9 also discusses the relics associated with the martyrs in the possession of the Elector. 50 Busbecq, The Life and Letters, 283. 51 The Badisches Landesmuseum has a number of examples of ornate Ottoman horse trappings made from materials including silk, silver, gold-plated silver and saffiano leather. See, for example, https://katalog.landesmuseum.de/object/A9C91ABB4E1B2149A8BB5EBF6EA51EA0/ Zaumzeug. Accessed June 15, 2022. It is possible that some of the details reflect a misunderstanding of an actual element on Dürer’s part. Ottoman horse trappings could include a throat hanging made of horse hair, for example, which may explain the forelock tassel. Equally likely is that this is Dürer’s invention.

96  Ottomans as Ottomans 52 Messling, The Sultan’s World, 117. Bacon “Humanism in Wittenberg” 2, identifies the mounted figure as Sapor II. Based on Dürer’s usual use of Ottoman costume to identify Roman emperors, I see the interpretation of the figure as Hadrian to be more plausible, particularly as the Ottoman figure is shown as the more dominant. 53 Schwoebel, Shadow of the Crescent, 132. The archbishop was reportedly sawn in two. Impaling was also mentioned in reports of the siege of Negroponte in 1471. 54 See Madar, “Dracula, the Turks and the Rhetoric of Impaling.” Smith, Images of Islam, particularly Chapter 2 also addresses depictions of alleged Turkish atrocities. 55 Bacon suggests that the Dominican interpolation of Sapor II into the legend should be understood in light of the crusades and framed Christianity as in constant struggle against “enemies of the faith.” Bacon further suggests that Dürer’s use of Ottoman costume was to identify the Ottomans as the current threat to the Holy Roman Empire and Christendom, akin to the Sasanian Empire. “Humanism in Wittenberg, 16–17.” 56 Dürer’s impact in this regard is discussed particularly by Silver, “East is East,” and also referenced by Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 42, Smith, Images of Islam, 39.

4

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks Racial Difference in Dürer’s Depictions of Muslim Figures

One of Dürer’s earliest images of turbaned figures where the costume shows an accurate knowledge of Ottoman dress depicts a Black figure. Notably, his Three Orientals, a pen and ink drawing with watercolor shows three standing figures wearing Ottoman costume, one of whom is Black (Figure 2.2). As discussed in Chapter 2, this image is a copy of a trio found toward the back of Gentile Bellini’s Procession in the Piazza San Marco. As has been often noted, Dürer altered the third figure, whose skin tone and facial features were similar to the other two figures in the original.1 In Dürer’s copy, the figure is given dark skin and his facial features are modified to correspond to the contemporary stereotype of Black physiognomy. The reason for this significant change from his source material is unclear, and it is the only major change Dürer made from Bellini’s original. The other changes, including an alteration to the facial hair on the middle figure and modifications to the color of the garments, are minor by comparison. Since Dürer was working either from the unfinished painting or a preparatory drawing, it is also possible that the change was Bellini’s. This image is the first, but far from the last of images where Dürer combined dress associated with Muslim identity and Muslim-majority societies with Black figures. In fact, the majority of Dürer’s Black figures appear together with figures wearing dress associated with Muslim identity and in scenes with religious subject matter. This chapter will explore these images, examine the way that Dürer depicts Muslim identity in tandem with Black identity and consider how these compounding signs of visible difference impact meaning in his works. The Black Magus and the Turbaned Magus Black identity and Muslim identity are combined most visibly in Dürer’s representations of the Adoration of the Magi. Dürer made several versions of the Adoration of the Magi – his painted version of 1504, a woodcut from the Life of the Virgin series (1503), a woodcut from 1511 and a pen and ink drawing from 15242 (Figures 2.15, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3). The 1524 drawing may have been connected to a planned but never realized print series.3 In each one of these images, Dürer includes turbaned figures and also depicts one of the Magi/Kings as Black. Racial identity is obvious in the 1504 painting, as the third Magus is depicted with dark skin and an earring, an attribute which was connected to African identity in European understanding.4 The three graphic images do not depict the third Magus with dark skin, yet Dürer’s depiction of these figures with what were by then conventionally accepted markers of Black physiognomy indicates that he intended them to read as Black. As art historians have noted, Renaissance printmakers clearly struggled to depict skin tones other than the tone of the paper, which effectively meant any skin tones DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628-5

98  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks

Figure 4.1 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1504, oil on wood, Uffizi, © Alinari Archives/Art ­ Resource, NY.

other than white. This is due to a fundamental aspect of print technique when working with line-based print types such as woodcut and engraving, which are monochromatic (black and white) and where printmakers relied on a graphic vocabulary to indicate tone.5 The hatching techniques used to create dark tones in prints can obscure what is being depicted as can be seen, for example, in the more heavily shadowed regions of Schongauer’s and Dürer’s printed Adorations. This would be particularly undesirable for faces, where legibility is key. Koerner cites a woodcut illustration in an edition of Andrea Alciati’s Livret des emblems, which highlights the issue. In this image, the face of an Ethiopian man is rendered effectively illegible and his body obscured through the parallel hatchings used to depict his dark skin tone.6 With his depiction of one of the Magi as Black in his four Adoration of the Magi scenes, Dürer was working within a by then well-established iconographical trope found in German art and in Renaissance art more broadly. The appearance and significance of the Black Magus has received considerable scholarly attention.7 The Black Magus first appeared in German art around 1400, becoming common around 1440 and widespread after 1460. While initially found primarily in German depictions, the Black Magus became

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 99

Figure 4.2 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

100  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks

Figure 4.3 Dürer, Adoration of the Magi, 1524, pen and ink, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.

a visual convention across western European art from 1470 on. The conceptual origins of the Black Magus can be found in the Middle Ages. According to Kaplan, the identification of one of the Magi as both African and Black was familiar to educated Europeans by the end of the 14th century.8 The increasing popularity of Prester John, a legendary eastern Christian king whose location became fixed in Ethiopia by the 14th century, and the identification of Prester John as heir of the Magi in textual sources also appears to have encouraged the iconographical shift. Kaplan states: “As the black version of the Prester became common knowledge at least 30 years before the black Magus/King achieved such a status, we must presume it was the Prester who to some degree imparted his blackness to the Magus/King and not vice versa.”9 While typically the third and youngest Magus is shown as Black, it is sometimes the second, middle-aged Magus. The Magus name generally associated with the Black Magus is Caspar, although he is sometimes identified as Balthasar.10 Koerner’s incisive analysis of Northern European depictions of the Black Magus from circa 1500 examines the visual use of this figure and his larger resonance to Christian European viewers. Identifying the Black Magus as an aesthetic device, Koerner describes how “the black Magus consists of two essential features: dark skin and an eccentric placement.”11 Koerner demonstrates how the Black Magus was marked by stereotypical features and was typically placed in a marginal space within the image or in a way that visually marked his difference and separation. Stressing the central function of the Black Magus as a compositional device, Koerner describes how “his primary function is to structure visibility.12 Scholars have also emphasized that the interest in and positive characteristics of sacred Black figures, such as the Black Magus, but also including figures such as the

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 101 Black St. Maurice, should not be understood to reflect actual understandings or concepts of contemporary Black Africans. As Koerner states: “The dark-skinned king neither records what Europe recognized actual Africans to be nor is even the centerpiece of a coherent ‘image of the black.’ As difference made visible, he was a function of someone else’s identity and someone else’s image.”13 Heng’s concept of hermeneutic blackness is also useful here: In contemplating epidermal race, it is thus useful to recognize a distinction between hermeneutic blackness, in which exegetical considerations are paramount and often explicitly foregrounded, and physiognomic blackness linked to the characterization of black Africans in the phenomena that extended beyond immediate theological exegesis. It is equally vital, of course, to recognize that distinct and distinguishable discourses on blackness might also at times converge and intertwine for ideological ends.14 The Blackness of the Black Magus is its own construct, separate in key ways from actual, contemporary Black men and women and European discursive frameworks about them. The broader meaning of the Black Magus, or to use Heng’s framing, the exegetical function of the Black Magus, was to stress Christian universalism – the coming of all nations and all corners of the world to Christianity – and served as a way of integrating the world outside of Europe into the European Christian worldview.15 The gifts of the Magi further underlined that as the Magi brought the riches of their places of origin to Christ, so to would global commodities be brought to European Christendom. This was a particularly potent message during the early years of European colonization and the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade when enslavement was explicitly justified by the church because it brought new souls to Christ16 and when goods from around the globe flooded European markets. Dürer’s three main depictions of the Adoration of the Magi – a 1503 woodcut from his Life of the Virgin series, the 1504 painted version and a 1511 woodcut – share close compositional affinities with Schongauer’s engraving of the Adoration of the Magi (1470/75), which is widely recognized as influenced by Netherlandish prototypes17 (Figure 1.6). Mary and the Christ child are displaced to the side of the image with the mid line of each image on the first or second Magus. Architecture, typically a prominent feature in Adoration scenes, is used to structure each image.18 Arches are prominent and used to delineate zones within the compositions and to draw attention to certain figures. In Schongauer’s engraving and the 1503 Adoration, Mary and the Christ Child are placed under a large arch. Arches are used differently in the 1504 painting than in the earlier works, but remain central structuring devices. As Koerner describes, the arches are used to create a compositional grouping that excludes the Black Magus, and effectively “sandwiches the African between arches.”19 In the 1511 woodcut, the most prominent architectural frame is the wooden beam and pillar in the foreground, while smaller arches frame the second Magus and Joseph. In all of the images, the primary figures are placed within the architectural space, while the side of the image outside of the architectural frame opens up into a deep landscape where additional members of the Magi’s entourage congregate.20 The 1524 drawing has key compositional differences, notably that focus is kept on the six figures at the front of the picture plane, and the extraneous figures have been eliminated. The horizontal orientation, shared by a number of Dürer’s drawings of Passion scenes from the 1520s, also has a frieze-like effect.21

102  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks Schongauer’s engraving and all four of Dürer’s Adorations include a Black Magus as the third and youngest of the group. This is not unexpected – as seen above, the Black Magus was already common in German art by the time of Schongauer’s work. In each case, this figure is marginalized through his placement within the composition: he is placed at the back of the group, forced to look over the kneeling figure of the first Magus and is at the edge of or outside of the architectural frame. In all three of Dürer’s printed works, the central moment of encounter between the Magi and Christ child occurs on top of a raised platform, which is the focal point of the composition. The Black Magus is either at the edge of the raised platform (1504, 1511) or has not yet ascended the stairs (1503). This compositional marginalization of the Black Magus is familiar as Koerner has described. In the three printed versions, Dürer’s Black Magus is also a figure of movement who strides closer to the central moment, unlike the static poses of the first and second Magi. He is still actively coming to the scene, whereas the other two have already arrived. The Black Magus also performs a communicative function in Dürer’s works by either communicating with others in the image or by directing the viewer’s gaze and movement through the image. In the 1503 and 1524 images, he appears to communicate with the second Magus. This communication is quite clear in the 1524 version where the two Magi look directly at one another and share a charged moment. The expression of the second Magus reads as somewhat stern due to his lowered brows, and he places his hand on the arm of the Black Magus, seeming to hold him back or stay his gesture. At the same time, the Black Magus can also be interpreted as exchanging glances with the Christ child, who looks up and seemingly at him. The communication between the two Magi is more ambiguous in the 1503 image. The Black Magus is placed below the second Magus and appears to look up at him while the second Magus looks back and gestures toward him, his other hand extending his offering to the child in the opposite direction. In the 1504 painting, the Black Magus is posed frontally, facing the viewer, while his head and offering hand incline toward the Christ child. The second Magus, often read as a selfportrait, looks back at him. Koerner describes Dürer’s “posing the Black Magus as if he has nothing to do but receive our gaze … allowing the second Magus to mime – like a chorus – our own attention.”22 In the 1511 woodcut, the Black Magus steps forward at the same time that he looks back and seems to communicate with one of his attendants. He thus functions as a transitional figure within the image, mediating between the central and more peripheral figures. This emphasis on the communicative aspect of the Black Magus and his depiction as a central figure within a network of human relationships and interactions is not unique to Dürer. It is distinctive, however, and is also not found in Schongauer’s work, his closest pictorial precedent. In Schongauer’s image, the Black Magus’s gaze, body and gesture incline the viewer toward the Christ child, but he remains a somewhat psychologically isolated figure within the image, interacting directly neither with the viewer nor with other figures within the scene. In the several cases where Dürer’s Black Magus either looks to the viewer or gestures to indicate the desired direction of looking his role within the image echoes the well-known Albertian device of the commentator, the figure who connects visually with the viewer to shape their response. Koerner discusses instances of the Black Magus as Albertian commentator, where the Black Magus acts as a pivot within the image and functions to make visible the invisible, seeing this as a central function of the Black Magus in Northern imagery around 1500.23 The communicative and relational role of Dürer’s Black Magus, whether with the viewer or with others within the scene, further enhances his pivotal role within these images. He is not only shown as

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 103 coming to Christ – very literally, given the particular stress on his movement – but also as bringing others, including the viewer, thus underscoring the message of evangelism inherent to these images. Dürer and Schongauer both used the scene of the Adoration of the Magi to depict difference through costume, accessories and facial features. In addition to their depiction of the Black Magus, all of Dürer’s Adoration scenes also show additional figures in the scene wearing turbans or show turbans that have been removed. Following Schongauer, Dürer’s 1503 Adoration includes a crescent and star banner in the background, held by a mounted, turbaned rider. As discussed in Chapter 1, either generic turbans or identifiably Ottoman imagery appeared in 15th century Northern European Adoration scenes predating Schongauer. Adoration imagery contemporary to Dürer frequently included additional imagery referencing the non-European world and its commodities.24 Yet the combination and specificity of Dürer’s imagery is notable. As discussed in Chapter 2, it is clear that Dürer recognized turban types to bear specific cultural meaning, rather than functioning as generic markers of exoticism. In his 1503 Adoration, a mounted figure in Ottoman garb holding a bow and quiver of arrows is placed between the Black Magus and the figure holding the crescent and star banner, a symbol already associated with the Ottoman Empire.25 The 1504 Adoration, long noted for its successful synthesis of Northern and Italian styles,26 also includes multiple references to different non-European cultures. As with the 1503 woodcut, a figure in a distinctive Ottoman turban is placed behind the Black Magus while a mounted turbaned figure is visible in the background. The skin tone of the Ottoman figure is darkened, as is evident in comparison to Mary, the Christ child and the other two Magi, who are shown as white Europeans. Dürer’s 1511 Adoration woodcut makes references to multiple non-European cultures with the turbans, and with them their connotations of specific contemporary Muslim lands, moved to the forefront. The Black Magus is now accompanied not by two white Europeans, but by the first Magus, who wears an Ottoman turban, and the second Magus, who wears a Mamluk turban. An additional turbaned figure, seen from the back, with curved sword visible from beneath his robe, is placed to the left of the Black Magus, outside the architectural frame. Next to him, truncated by the far left of the image, is a face that seems to represent another Black figure. His skin tone reads as darker due to Dürer’s use of close, parallel hatchings on a slight curve to render the contours of his face, and his features and placement are similar to those of the Black Mamluk shown in the Flagellation, discussed below. To the right of the turbaned figure also appears to be another Black man, his darker skin tone again conveyed through close parallel hatchings and wearing what may be a zamt, given the conical shape and tufted texture of his headgear. On the back right of the same group, barely visible is a fragment of what appears to be another turban, the rest of the head and body cut off from view by the bodies in front. While none of the figures in the 1524 Adoration wear turbans, the Black Magus holds an Ottoman turban, presumably his own, which he has just removed, while a circular wrapped cloth headdress, suggestive of a turban, sits on the ground below the first Magus. The meaning of the turbaned figures and the combination of the turbaned figures with the Black Magus in Dürer’s Adorations are presumably to convey through visual means the standard understanding of the Epiphany as spotlighting the moment of Christ’s acknowledgment by the wider world and the promise of Christian universalism. Yet more can be inferred through the juxtaposition and combinations of the figures. Brisman has drawn attention to the oddity of the Ottoman’s depiction in the 1504 Adoration, both

104  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks the disappearance of his lower half, presumably behind the ground he leans on, and the ambiguity of his action as he reaches into a satchel. The figure and his gesture are likely inspired by a similar figure in Schongauer’s Adoration, whose use of his bag is explained by the orb he appears to take from it, although Schongauer’s figure does not wear a turban. In Schongauer’s work, the servant’s actions are explainable, unlike Dürer’s Ottoman where it is “unclear whether he is returning or taking, dutiful or deceptive … Dürer seems to condemn a member of the infidel world who averts his gaze from the incarnate presence to whom attention should be paid.”27 The core message of the Adoration of the Magi – conversion of non-Christians from distant lands and their being brought within the folds of the universal church – is underscored by Dürer’s newly accurate costume types in combination with an old iconographic motif. Adoration of the Magi scenes had long shown at least the first, if not all of the Magi removing their headgear as they approach and kneel before the Christ child. While the Magi in some cases simply hold their headgear in their hands, frequently at least the first Magus lays his headgear on the ground. This motif is generally mentioned as a sign of reverence, and Schiller notes its appearance as early as the Adoration scene from the Verdun Altar (1181), where the kneeling Magus has removed his crown and placed it to the side while the second one appears to be about to remove his.28 As headgear in Adoration scenes became deliberately exoticized in the 15th century, the crowns set aside in earlier scenes become a range of vaguely eastern looking headgear that is removed. Examples include the furry-brimmed hat with a conical point seen in Schongauer’s ­ Adoration or the dome-shaped hat with folded brim and metallic finial in the Adoration (1470) by Dirk Bouts, both placed prominently on the ground in the left foreground. Dürer utilizes this motif in all but his 1511 Adoration, where the first Magus kneels, yet neglects to remove his turban. In the 1504 painting, the first Magus’s headgear is a bronze-colored hat with a bulbous shape and conical point, wrapped with a green cloth at the base. The hat resembles the shape of a turban helmet, although this is not a type of headgear Dürer typically depicted elsewhere in his work.29 The first Magus’s headgear from the 1524 Adoration has the distinctive wrappings of a turban, although it has a flat central cap rather than a tāj, while the Black Magus holds an Ottoman turban in his hand. This motif takes on a particular resonance in Dürer’s 1503 Adoration, where the first Magus kneels before the child with his removed headgear placed in front of him on the steps. The headgear is an Ottoman-style turban. The turban is given visual prominence as it is placed compositionally just to the right of the midpoint of the image and the turban appears to jut into the viewer’s space since the steps are at the picture plane. Dürer made use of a long-established iconographic motif in his depictions of removed turbans in his Adoration scenes. Yet due to the clear cultural marking of the turban as Ottoman, and the significance in contemporary discourse of donning and removing culturally marked clothing, the motif gains a significance here that it does not elsewhere. The concept of “turning Turk” in this period, a phrase that related to the anxieties and ambivalences around conversion, whether voluntary or forced, to Islam, has been addressed by scholars in multiple fields.30 Wilson has discussed how the act of donning Turkish apparel, including the turban, could be seen as evidence of becoming a Turk, and thus a Muslim.31 The removal of the Ottoman turban, in particular by the Magus from the 1503 Adoration as he kneels reverently before the Christ child, suggests not simply conversion to Christianity, but moreover a rejection of Islam. This interpretation is underscored by a common reading of Carpaccio’s Baptism of the Selenites (1507), from his St. George cycle, where the significance of the baptism

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 105 is signaled by the setting aside of the turban, which is perched on the stairs in the foreground of the image. As Jardine and Brotton describe: “the iconographic emphasis is on the Christian soldier’s heroic capacity to compel the infidel to convert to Christianity … [St. George] uses his individual act of courage as the inspirational means to bring his faith to non-believers without the use of force; they lay their turbans to one side as they are baptized.”32 Carpaccio may well have taken inspiration from Dürer’s 1503 Adoration for his depiction of the set aside Ottoman turban. Vasari reported that Marcantonio Raimondi was selling his copies of Dürer’s Life of the Virgin sequence in Venice in 1506,33 so it is entirely possible that Carpaccio, who is known to have used motifs from other printed works in his paintings, saw and borrowed Dürer’s motif. Regardless, the meaning in both is the same – in the guise of sacred history, the removal of the turban can be understood as a depiction of wish fulfillment, that even the Ottomans will be converted to Christianity. A statement by Dürer, made in the context of his so-called “Lament for Luther,” a passage in his Diary written in response to a report of Luther’s capture and possible death, supports a reading of his Adoration images as depicting universal conversion: “Heavenly Father, give thy Holy Spirit instead to another who will bring together again thy holy Christian Church throughout the world, that we may live once more as one Christendom, and by our Christian works convert to our faith all unbelievers, like Turks, heathen and Indians, so that they accept Christian beliefs.”34 While this is a conventional statement, seen in the context of a heartfelt written reflection it attests to Dürer’s personal beliefs about the global non-Christian other and their place within his Christian world view. The statement moreover encapsulates the meaning of the turbaned and Black figures in his Adoration imagery. Dürer’s Racialized Executioners Dürer also combines images of the Ottomans with Black and racially ambiguous figures in another group of religious imagery, notably scenes of executions. European medieval art had a long tradition of depicting executioners as Black.35 Well-known examples include the executioner of John the Baptist on the tympanum of the north portal of the west façade at Rouen cathedral or the executioner shown in the Martyrdom of St. Mark in the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry. The executioner was a despised figure, and his association with Black skin seems clearly designed to other and further marginalize a taboo occupation. There is minimal historical evidence to suggest any factual basis to this iconographic trend.36 Heng sees this as an example of a cultural practice that “disclose[s] historical thinking that pronounces decisively on the ethical, ontological and moral value of black and white” and as an example of medieval racialized thinking.37 Although Devisse and Mollat claim that this iconographic trend ended by the mid to late 15th century, Kaplan sees it as revived in the Renaissance, citing Carpaccio’s Martyrdom of St. Ursula and Veronese’s Martyrdom of St. Justine.38 At the same time, medieval art also had a parallel trend of showing executioners as Saracens, and thus as Muslim. Strickland documents several appearances of the Saracen executioner in medieval scenes of saints’ martyrdoms from the 12th and 14th centuries, where a turbaned executioner violently attacks the saint. Strickland interprets these depictions as “a new iconographical addition meant to represent what at the time were the new enemies of Christendom: the Saracens … [it] provides a visual opposition by juxtaposing God’s favored … with God’s hated.”39 Closer in time and space to Dürer, Stefan

106  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks Figure 4.4 Stefan Lochner, Two Altarpiece Wings with the Martyrdom of the Apostles, after 1435, mixed technique on wood, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 107 Lochner also showed Muslim executioners throughout the extensive cataloging of saints’ brutal deaths that is the focus of his Martyrdom of the Apostles (after 1435) (Figure 4.4). A multi-scene, two panel work, it originally formed part of a large, composite altarpiece with a scene of the Last Judgment at the center. A variety of headgear used to depict Muslims is visible throughout, including turbans, turban helmets and tortils. In the particularly graphic scene of the flaying of St. Bartholomew, the bearded torturer at the front of the image, shown busily slicing open the saint’s thigh, wears a turban. Strapped to his body is a curved sword, which is worn slung over one shoulder, crossing the body diagonally to rest on the opposite hip. This is suggestive of a baldric, a feature of the costume of both Mamluk sultans and Ottoman infantry troops, which was used to hold a sword and was worn over one shoulder to allow the sword to rest at the hip.40 Particularly interesting is the stylized writing around his shoulder, which Chapius identifies as an illegible combination of Arabic Kufic calligraphy and Hebrew. This hybrid writing is found on several other torturers, and Chapius sees it as “confirming their foreignness.”41 Another example can be seen in the three out of the four figures who tie Peter to the cross who wear some form of Muslim-identified headgear, including a turban, turban helmet and a white wrapped headband that suggests a tortil. The figure in the front also has a small circular metal shield of the type carried by Ottoman soldiers.42 Bystanders, including figures clearly showing rulers and dignitaries also wear dress suggesting Muslim identity, for example, the figure taunting Philip by sticking his tongue out, who wears an opulent outer robe of a rich patterned textile tied at the waist with a fabric sash and with a layered undergarment visible at the bottom. A dignitary observing the martyrdom of James the Less wears a richly ornamented turban. The executioners and torturers do not all wear dress indicating Muslim identity, however, and a group of turbaned women appear to listen attentively to St. Andrew. As the hybrid Kufic and Hebrew script indicates, the images also combine imagery associated with Islam with a range of motifs intended to otherize and disparage the figures, for example, noticeable hooked noses and corpulent figures. Several of these motifs were linked to antisemitic imagery.43 The painting seems less interested in clearly delineating cultural and religious identities than with assembling a range of motifs intended to signify otherness, and nonChristianness, thus visually marking those seen as enemies of Christ, the saints and the church. This is underscored by the deliberate parallels between the tormentor figures and figures shown in the damned section of the Last Judgment, where both turbans and Jews’ hats are prevalent.44 The visual precedent of showing executioners as Black or as Muslim in later medieval and 15th century Northern art provides a relevant context for interpreting Dürer’s depictions of executioners. Dürer included executioners in several scenes: the figure holding the sword to the immediate right of the saint in the woodcut Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria (1498), the kneeling figure who operates the bellows for the fire under the saint in the Martyrdom of St. John from his Apocalypse series, the figure holding a sword and the head in the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1510), the executioner in the early drawing Youth Kneeling Before an Executioner (c. 1493) and the executioner in a pen and ink drawing of the Martyrdom of St. Catherine (1510) (Figures 2.14, 2.7, 4.5 and 4.6). All these figures are visually othered and exoticized and can also be understood as racialized. The executioner figures share common features with one another, indicating that Dürer had a broader notion of the executioner as a figure type. There are also differences visible between the four, suggesting that he experimented with these figures and did not necessarily have a completely stable conception of the executioner. At least

108  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks

Figure 4.5 Dürer, Beheading of John the Baptist, 1510, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

one executioner figure, found in his Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (c. 1500) does not correspond to this general pattern, again suggesting that his concept of this figure type was somewhat fluid. The most notable feature that links these figures visually is again headgear. The executioner figures wear a tight-fitting head covering that is unique to these figures within the context of Dürer’s work.45 The cloth of the head covering comes together at the back with a circular knot or fastening at the nape of the neck in the woodcut St. Catherine and John the Baptist figures, and is pulled to the front in the figure from the Apocalypse and the drawn executioner with a kneeling youth. The head covering from the St. Catherine drawing is less detailed, but appears to be gathered at the nape of the neck into a twisted or braided piece of fabric that extends over the top of the head while a separate knot protrudes at the front. Additionally, the faces of the executioners are all shown in profile and they are all viewed from the back apart from the 1493 drawing. All three printed figures have short beards and moustaches. While their hair is covered by the head covering, short curly tendrils peep out from the back. The executioner of St. Catherine and in the Apocalypse also share a long, pointed nose and a similar tapering eye shape, which is similar to the facial features of a number of Dürer’s figures wearing Ottoman dress. Unlike the

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 109

Figure 4.6 Dürer, Martyrdom of St. Catherine, 1510, pen and ink, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.

other two, the executioner of St. Catherine wears a flamboyant striped costume, which, as Mellinkoff has described, would not have been seen as socially respectable.46 There is a significant and important difference in the depiction of the facial features of the executioners, however. As first noted by Kaplan, the facial features of the executioner in the St. Catherine drawing indicate that Dürer conceived of him as Black.47 Although details of the drawing are only lightly sketched, the features of the executioner do appear to correspond to contemporary concepts of Black physiognomy. The racial identity of the figure from the 1493 drawing is more ambiguous, although the greater line density and shading on the face give the impression of a darker skin tone, particularly in contrast with the youth. While the executioner in the St. Catherine drawing is the most obviously shown as non-white, the facial features of the three executioners from the prints also read as racially other, particularly when compared with the white European figures in the same images. The Houghton Library copy of the Apocalypse, which has hand coloring likely contemporary to Dürer, provides additional evidence for a reading of this figure as racially ambiguous. While the hand coloring was not done by Dürer, and cannot be used to gauge how Dürer conceived of this figure, it can be taken as an index of how a contemporary understood the figure.48 It is notable in this context then that the face of the executioner figure is given a light brown tone, which is distinct from the light pink tone with rosy cheeks used on the majority of the other figures in the image, and that his beard is left black, rather than shaded brown or yellow. Given the long tradition in European art of depicting executioners as Black or as Saracen/Muslim, the visual cues provided by Dürer suggest that he understood, or at least provided sufficient hints to allow these figures to be read as culturally, racially and

110  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks religiously other, even if their specific identities are not overtly telegraphed. The executioner figures in the prints and the St. Catherine drawing are also all associated with more dominant or leader figures who wear Ottoman turbans and who are ultimately responsible for the torment of the saints.49 The executioners merely act out their directives. Dürer again links the racialized others, here explicitly linking otherness with evil and violent opposition to the saints and thus to Christianity. The Black Attendant Dürer also combines Muslim and Black figures in a way that suggests collusion in evil and against Christianity in another way, notably in two scenes from his Small Passion and his painted Martyrdom of the 10,000. In both the Flagellation and Pilate Washing his Hands from the Small Passion, Pilate, who wears the distinctive Mamluk turban, is accompanied by an attendant wearing the tufted Mamluk zamt whose facial features are clearly depicted as Black (Figures 2.9, 4.7 and 4.8).50 Significantly, the skin tone of this figure is depicted as dark through Dürer’s use of close, horizontal hatching, despite the usual avoidance of depicting darker skin tone in prints seen in Dürer and other printmakers. While the facial features of the man in the Flagellation read fairly clearly, the features of the same figure in the image of Pilate washing his hands are almost completely

Figure 4.7 Dürer, Flagellation, Small Passion, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 111

Figure 4.8 Dürer, Pilate Washing his Hands, Small Passion, 1511, woodcut, Metropolitan ­Museum of Art.

obscured due to Dürer’s use of close horizontal hatchings. The Martyrdom of the 10,000 also shows several Black figures. A figure in a red robe and zamt is placed to the right of the central figures of Dürer and Conrad Celtis and two Black figures in turbans (which are not clearly marked in terms of type) are in the orbit of the mounted emperor. The second figure wearing a zamt below the emperor may also be Black, given the other Black figures in zamts, although since he is seen from behind his face is not visible and the color of his hand is ambiguous. Significantly, each of these images is associated with Dürer’s use of Mamluk imagery, which may provide an explanation for why he depicted Black figures in these images and not elsewhere. In Dürer’s Passion images that show Pilate in an Ottoman turban, for example, there is not a similar Black figure, although the Ecce Homo from the Large Passion does show a figure on the steps behind Christ and Pilate wearing the same tightly wrapped headgear as Dürer’s executioners, seemingly a corollary henchman type (Figure 2.13). In each instance discussed above, the Black figure is subservient to the Mamluk ruler and acts in accordance to the will of the ruler, fulfilling his cruel directives. The figure in the Flagellation gestures and steps forward, seeming to participate in Christ’s torture, while Pilate looks down. He holds the basin as Pilate washes his hands,

112  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks absolving him of responsibility. The central figure wearing the zamt in the Martyrdom of the 10,000 holds the ropes binding the nude figures as he helps drive them up the hill to their death. The other figures are less active, but are clearly colluding. Although the main emperor figure wears an Ottoman turban, he does not actively direct the action, which seems to be delegated to the pointing figure who stands next to the horse and wears a Mamluk turban. He is the one who seemingly commands the torture, likely showing Sapor II conducting the martyrdoms on behalf of Hadrian, as discussed in Chapter 3. The Black figures thus follow his orders. The point of origin of these figures is almost certainly again Venice, as Black figures appear in a number of examples of Venetian Orientalist painting, often, although not exclusively, in images where Mamluk imagery predominates. A Black youth wearing a zamt with a yellow kerchief sits on horseback behind several turbaned figures in Carpaccio’s Triumph of St. George (1501–07). Mansueti’s Nativity (early 16th century) shows a Black rider wearing a high Mamluk turban as one of several figures accompanying a rider wearing the so-called horned turban of the Mamluk sultan. Bellini’s St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria also shows several Black figures in the crowd of Mamluk-dressed observers (Figure 2.6). At the front of the image, a Black man is one of a group of three richly dressed figures wearing tall red taqiyya headdresses, who converse at the left foreground of the image. Two additional Black men are visible in the left middleground among the group wearing zamts while several others appear in the background. Given Dürer’s links to Bellini and his apparent use of the work as a source for his pointing Mamluk (see Chapter 2), this work is a likely source for Dürer’s Black Mamluks. None of the figures in the Venetian works are threatening or colluding, however, instead reading as a natural, expected part of the social groups depicted. A more aggressive depiction of a Black figure is seen in Carpaccio’s Martyrdom of St. Ursula (1490–1500), where a Black trumpeter wearing an Ottoman turban rides across the field of violence, where Ursula and her company are put to death at the hands of the Huns. This image does not feature Orientalist imagery extensively apart from this figure, although the tents visible behind the horseman resemble Ottoman tents. Kaplan argues that the “point can only be to equate the antique brutality of the Huns with the modern threat of Islamic rule, specifically that of the Ottomans,” noting that the banner directly to the left of the horseman shows an insignia with two sets of three crowns, which was also used by Sultan Mehmed II.51 Given the date of Carpaccio’s work, Dürer could have seen it on one of his trips to Venice. Kaplan indicates that Venetian art showed an awareness of the racial diversity of the Mamluk Empire by the inclusion of Black African figures in images with Mamluk figures, or set in locations then under the control of the Mamluk Empire.52 Dürer’s depiction of Black figures in these three images is clearly linked to his use of Mamluk imagery, and suggests that he understood these figures as specifically associated with Mamluk identity, since they cease to appear once he moved away from Mamluk imagery. If this is accurate, it suggests that Dürer’s Mamluk figures, even though they were used to depict figures from sacred history in a way that seems interchangeable to his use of Ottoman figures, must have carried some residual link to their Mamluk identity in his conception of them. It is also notable that Dürer’s Black Mamluks exist in subordinate roles to rulers who are not depicted as Black. Returning to Dürer’s first image of a Black Muslim, his Three Orientals, it is significant that he altered the race on the figure who can be interpreted as lower in status and potentially subordinate to the other two. The third figure walks slightly behind the other

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 113 two, who appear to be engaged in an interaction, given the hand gesture and sideways glance of the first figure at the second. The clothing of the three is also differentiated, with the third figure wearing a knee length garment, while the first two wear floor length robes. The first figure in Dürer’s work has diagonal strokes extending from the top of his turban which may be intended to indicate a plume, a common device to indicate status among the Ottoman elite.53 The fabric of the garment worn by the second figure appears to be more ornate in Bellini’s painting, although this distinction does not appear in Dürer’s copy. These visual cues suggest that the trio should actually be read as a pair of elites with a lesser member of their retinue following behind. Kaplan reads this image similarly, suggesting that “Dürer may have in this case applied a ‘racial’ hierarchy that was more conspicuous in contemporary Venetian society and applied it to his Ottoman figures.”54 In addition to reflecting the ethnic and racial diversity of both the Ottoman and Mamluk Empires, Dürer seems to have understood the Black Muslims that appeared in his work as subordinate figures, as servants, or perhaps as enslaved individuals. This is despite the fact that Venetian Orientalist paintings with Black figures did not generally show them as subordinate in any overt way. Dürer’s placement of his Black Muslim figures into subordinate positions seems unlikely to reflect any insight on his part into the social hierarchies of either the Mamluk or Ottoman empires, and more likely reflects his own linkage of Blackness with subordinate status.55 The broader question of why Black figures only occur in his images with Mamluk imagery and not those with Ottoman imagery, apart from the single instance of the Three Orientals, is less clear, although it may reflect what specific images that included both Black and Muslim figures he saw in Venice. If Bellini’s St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, which shows Mamluk figures in a setting intended to evoke the Egyptian city, was his sole or primary source, that may have led him to associate Black figures in Muslim societies solely with the Mamluks. Islam had long been linked with dark skin in European imaginings. The trope of the Black Saracen, typically characterized by dark skin, abnormal strength and distorted features, is one with long roots in the Middle Ages and is found particularly in medieval literature such as the chansons de geste. The linkage of Blackness with Islam also intersected with a common medieval association of the color black with sin, evil and the demonic, whereby negative associations with the color black and with Black skin were read onto and fused with negative concepts of Islam. At the same time, the Black Saracen could be combined or contrasted with the white Saracen, who was generally characterized as noble, attractive and physically similar to white Europeans.56 Akbari writes that “the medieval discourse of bodily diversity … was a continuum, with the monstrous races found at the fringes of the ecumene located on one end and the normative European body on the other. Saracen bodies are located along this continuum, which is precisely why the Saracen body is so variable in the literature.”57 Although Dürer operated in a different cultural sphere, as discussed in Chapter 1 there is a throughline of medieval conceptions of Islam into the 15th and 16th centuries.58 While Dürer does not juxtapose his Muslim figures, whether Ottoman or Mamluk, in a way that is similar to the older trope of the Black versus white Saracen, his depiction of Black Muslims, particularly in contexts where they are connected to or explicitly act out evil, is laden with ideological charge and historical resonance. Dürer’s works which combine Black figures with figures bearing signs of Ottoman or Mamluk identity (whether or not Dürer intended them to be literally read as Ottoman or Mamluk) show Dürer negotiating multiple discursive frameworks and visual tropes. The concepts are not original to Dürer, whether the Black Magus, the Black or Muslim

114  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks executioner or the Black Muslim, and his images have visual precedents even when he manipulates these ideas and visual motifs in new and original ways. We can also see Dürer experimenting with these received concepts and images, and it is clear that there is a fair degree of iconographic fluidity and even experimentation in some of his concepts, for example in his depiction of executioners. It is not evident that any of these images can be said to provide an authentic window onto Dürer’s own concepts of Islam or Black Africans, apart from a seemingly sincerely expressed desire for universal conversion to Christianity and perhaps a view of Black Africans as subordinate in status. For images that represent more direct experiences where Dürer works less through the constraints or mediation of traditional iconography or tradition, we turn now to the two most wellknown depictions of Black individuals in his oeuvre. Notes 1 Massing, Image of the Black, 29. 2 Some sources attribute an additional woodcut Adoration of the Magi from a Salus animae to Dürer. According to the Albertina collection’s entry for this image, this work was formerly attributed to Dürer but is no longer. It may be by Michael Wolgemut. Accordingly, this work will not be discussed. See https://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=search=/record/objectnum bersearch=[DG1961/38]&showtype=record, accessed May 17th, 2022. 3 The entry in Albertina Sammlungen Online suggests a never realized Infancy of Christ series. See https://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=search=/record/objectnumbersearch=[4837] &showtype=record, accessed May 17th, 2022. The drawing has also been connected to the socalled Oblong Passion series, a set of drawings from the early 1520s that were likely preparatory works for a printed Passion series. The Adoration drawing has been posited as a possible preface for this series. Cowen, 241. 4 Kaplan, “Calenberg Altarpiece,” 25. 5 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” states that as a printmaker, Dürer “must indicate Africans not through skin color but through an outlined physiognomy alone,” 89. See also Kaplan, “Introduction,” 23, where he describes the technical issue and also cites the Master ES as an earlier 15th century example of prints that indicate a Black figure through physiognomy alone. Kaplan, “Italy,” comments on the related issue in drawing technique, 102. 6 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 19–20. 7 See particularly Kaplan, The Rise of the Black Magus and Koerner, ibid. Kaplan’s recent “­Geographies of the Black Magus Tradition” provides a useful overview. 8 Kaplan, The Rise of the Black Magus, 19. 9 Ibid, 61–62. 10 Kaplan, “Italy,” 111–112. Kaplan also notes that the Magi’s names are generally not explicitly indicated in Adoration images and so it is not always clear which name is linked to which Magus. See also Kaplan, Rise of the Black Magus, 27 and 63 for discussion of medieval textual sources and the naming of the Black Magus. 11 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 35. 12 Koerner, ibid, 29. 13 Koerner, ibid, 16. 14 Heng, Invention of Race, 185. Emphasis in original. 15 Kaplan, The Rise of the Black Magus, 119. 16 Saunders, A Social History, 38, Metcalf, Go-Betweens, 168. The 1455 Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex, authored by Nicholas V, articulates this explicitly. 17 Shestack, Fifteenth Century Engravings, cat. 39. 18 Shestack, ibid, discusses the symbolism of the incomplete or crumbling building in Adoration scenes, cat 11. 19 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 92. 20 Shestack, Fifteenth Century Engraving, relates Schongauer’s depiction of a crowd of riders and other figures on the right side of the image to the Adoration of the Magi by Dirk Bouts

Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks 115 (c. 1465), cat. 39, although this can be seen in other earlier Northern works as well, such as the Adoration of the Magi in the Trés Riches Heures, which also features numerous turbaned figures in the crowd. 21 Cowen, “Albrecht Dürer’s Late Passion Drawings,” discusses the effect of the shift in orientation from vertical to horizontal in the context of the Oblong Passion series drawings, 243. 22 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 91. 23 Ibid, 61–63. Baxandall also discusses the role of gesture, the visual conveyance of relationships within the image and the connection to Alberti and religious drama in Florentine Renaissance art, 71–76. Describing an angel in Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ who looks out at the viewer, thus initiating a relationship with the viewer, Baxandall states that this device “depends on our disposition to expect and work for tacit relationships with and within a group of people. . . we become active accessories to the event.” Painting and Experience, 76. 24 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” discusses exotic imagery in Netherlandish Adoration scenes from around 1500, 82. Famously, the Portuguese artist Vasco Fernandes depicted the third Magus as Tupinambá in his Adoration of the Magi from 1501 to 1502. 25 Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, 25 suggests that the second banner in the image, which is just visible at the left edge of the print, depicts the Dhu’l Faqar, the bifurcated sword of Ali. This motif is known to have been used on Ottoman battle standards, and an example dating from the reign of Selim I (reigned 1512–1520) is preserved today in the Topkapi palace. An extant Hungarian shield dated 1500–1550, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also shows the Dhu’l Faqar. While this is an intriguing suggestion, it seems that the scissor-like shape shown on the banner stems from a misunderstanding of Schongauer’s image on the part of Dürer. As discussed in Chapter 1, Schongauer includes the three Arms of the Magi, one of which was a standing Black man. Schongauer compressed his image, causing the figure to be visible only from the knees down. It is clear that this is a human body, however, as the feet are clearly visible. Dürer’s image is much more stylized and also shows the form as cut off at what would be the waist, as there is blank space clearly visible between the form and the other banner. It is also not clear how Dürer would have known of the Dhu’l Faqar, as this motif does not yet appear to be familiar in European imagery. 26 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 90. 27 Brisman, Albrecht Dürer and the Epistolary Mode, 22, 24. 28 Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, vol. 1, 108. 29 The Resurrection from the Engraved Passion shows a figure wearing headgear similar to a turban helmet. This may follow the appearance of a turban helmet in Schongauer’s Resurrection. 30 See, for example, Vitkus, Turning Turk and Degenhardt, Islamic Conversion. 31 Wilson, “Reflecting on the Turk,” 49. 32 Jardine and Brotton, Global Interests, 18. 33 See https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_H-3-168, accessed May 17, 2022. 34 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 581. 35 See Devisse, “Christians and Black,” Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 24–25, 127, Devisse and Mollat, The Image of the Black, 59–106 and Heng, The Invention of Race, 187. 36 According to Kaplan, there is only one plausible example in Italy in the 1460s and no evidence of Black executioners in Germany. Kaplan, “Calenburg Altarpiece,” 23. 37 Heng, The Invention of Race, 16. 38 Devisse and Mollat, The Image of the Black, 230. Kaplan, “Italy,” 117, 139. 39 Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews, 174. Strickland follows Cynthia Hahn in this interpretation. 40 Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume,” 164. 41 Chapius, Stefan Lochner, 41. Pseudo-Kufic and pseudo-Hebrew are found elsewhere in 14th and 15th century art, although pseudo-Kufic has been more commonly identified in Italian works. See Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, Chapter 3. 42 Kubiski, 165 indicates that the circular shield derived from Central Asia. Numerous examples survive in museum collections. See for example https://www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/390650/, accessed May 18, 2022. 43 Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 127. 44 Chapius, Stefan Lochner, 50 notes the linkage of Jews with other non-Christians in the Last Judgment and states further that “by associating the Jews with those who assaulted the apostles,

116  Black Ottomans and Black Mamluks Lochner places them on the same moral level and brands them as enemies of the Church.” The same could be said for the figures visually signaled as Muslim. Chapius contextualizes the overt antisemitism in the work in light of Cologne’s recent expulsion of its Jewish population. 45 There are several other roughly contemporary images that show a similar head covering, for example, Geertgen tot Sint Jans’s Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist (after 1484), where the central figure shoveling the saint’s bones wears a green version and Quintin Massys’s Carrying the Cross (1510–1515) where a tormentor figure wears a similar white head covering. This does not seem to be a type of headgear that was widely depicted, however, raising the question as to its origin in Dürer’s images. I have only found this headgear on two other figures in Dürer’s work – an accomplice figure who stands behind Pilate in the Ecce Homo from the Large Passion and a drawing referred to as an Oriental Rider with Sword and Whip (1493). Strauss, Complete Drawings, 174, indicates that there are some authenticity questions with the drawing but states that it is generally accepted as Dürer’s. While neither figure acts as an executioner, in both cases they are linked to Ottoman identity. Pilate wears an Ottoman turban in the Ecce Homo and the rider bears a distinctive, Ottoman-style curved sword in the drawing. 46 Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 25. Pastoureau, The Devil’s Cloth, has also discussed the transgressive nature of stripes, and how they were used to visually mark social outcasts in this period. 47 Kaplan, “Calenburg Altarpiece,” 23. The image is not extensively discussed in the scholarly literature. There are short entries in Winkler, Die Zeichnungen Albrecht Dürers, 135, Strauss, Complete Drawings, 1230 and Kaulbach, Deutsche Zeichnungen, 104–105. The drawing appears to have been a preparatory sketch for a wall painting, a project for which there are otherwise no traces. The date is in the same ink as the drawing. I am grateful to Bertram Kaschek of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart for his assistance with this image. 48 See Dackerman, Painted Prints for a discussion of issues around hand-colored prints from Dürer’s era. 49 In the case of the two St. Catherines, this is Emperor Maxentius, for John the Evangelist, ­Emperor Domitian. The identity of the figure wearing a turban in the Beheading of St. John is less obvious. He is not Herod, who is shown in the companion woodcut, Salome Presenting the Head of John the Baptist to Herodias, wearing different headgear, although a figure in a turban is again present behind Salome. Dürer does not place Herod in a turban in other images. The figure is presumably to be understood as an official acting on behalf of Herod. 50 Massing identifies these two figures in The Image of the Black, 29. 51 Kaplan, “Black Turks,” 49. 52 Kaplan, “Black Turks,” 47. 53 Jirousek, Ottoman Dress, 15. 54 Kaplan, “Black Turks,” 51. 55 Christ, Trading Conflicts, 140 states that: “Racial differentiation was common in the MamlukEgyptian society. Besides this differentiation, there existed not simply a stigmatizing prejudice but also outright vilification of black Africans.… This racial differentiation divided slaves into two main groups.… The ‘abd, the – mainly African – slave, was at the bottom of the social pyramid.” Barker, That Most Precious Merchandise, 2 indicates that African enslaved persons were primarily used for domestic work in the Mamluk Empire. Kaplan, “Black Turks,” 41 discusses the presence of Black Africans in the Ottoman Empire, noting that some were local residents of territories in the upper Nile Valley and along the Red Sea coast that the Ottomans gained after their conquest of the Mamluk Empire while some were enslaved persons and the descendants of enslaved persons. 56 Heng, The Invention of Race, 16 and 186–188, Strickland, Saracens, Demons and Jews, 173– 182, 188–189, Akbari, Idols in the East, Chapter 4. 57 Akbari, Idols in the East, 160. 58 Meserve, Empires of Islam, discusses continuities as well as divergences focusing specifically on humanist writing about the Ottomans. See particularly 168–169 and 244–245.

5

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man Black Presence in Renaissance Europe

In John Akomfrah’s 2012 short film Peripeteia, a young Black woman dressed in heavy skirts and a white head covering strides alone through a barren landscape.1 Trauma is suggested in closeups, which reveal a troubled expression as she gazes into the distance, eyes welling with tears. Juxtaposition with ethnographic photos from the collection of the Africa Museum (the former Royal Museum for Central Africa, a museum founded on colonial violence) implies brutality and dislocation. Akomfrah’s work here and elsewhere explores the African diaspora and fleshes out the lives of Africans in Europe.2 The woman from Peripeteia is directly inspired by Dürer’s 1521 drawing of a woman identified as “Katharina, allt 20 jar,” with dimensions of approximately 8 × 5½ inches (Figure 5.1). The drawing, like the figure in Akomfrah’s work, is haunting. Katharina is posed frontally, yet her eyes are downcast, her air pensive and perhaps melancholic. Nothing is known about her apart from Dürer’s brief notation that he “made a silverpoint likeness of his Moorish woman,”3 referencing one of Dürer’s hosts in Antwerp.4 Also brought to life in Peripeteia is the sitter for another of Dürer’s drawings, Portrait of a Young Man (1508), often referred to as Portrait of an African Man in the literature. As the film states, he, like Katharina is otherwise “lost to the winds of history.”5 Both figures are striking for their individualization and for the psychological presence captured by the artist, all the more so given that they represent a Black woman and a Black man. Unlike the majority of Black figures in European art prior to and contemporary with these images, including those by Dürer, these two portraits stand apart as compelling representations of individuals. This striking individuality and seeming sensitivity to the humanity of the sitters has led some to project a personal tolerance and ability to discern a shared humanity onto Dürer.6 An examination of what can be deduced about the likely life histories of the sitters as well as an exploration of Dürer’s motivations and interests related to these images is the focus of this chapter. Katharina Dürer’s drawing of Katharina has been referenced and reproduced repeatedly in scholarly discussions, yet the discussions are typically brief and often do not go much beyond the description provided above. In Dürer scholarship, the portrait is contextualized within Dürer’s trip to the Netherlands and serves to demonstrate the network of connections he made and his activities while visiting the booming city of Antwerp. From an art historical perspective, the image can be examined in light of Dürer’s burst of activity as a portraitist during his trip. Katharina’s image has also been used as a signifier of the presence of Black men and women in Northern Europe during the early modern period, becoming an DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628-6

118  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man

Figure 5.1 Dürer, Katharina, 1521, silverpoint drawing, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe, Uffizi, Scala/Ministero per I Beni e le Attività culturali/Art Resource, NY.

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  119 avatar of Black women’s presence in particular. A reproduction appeared, for example, on the cover of the 2021 Routledge Companion to Black Women’s Cultural Histories, where the mere fact of her depiction attests not only to her presence but to the countless Black women whose identities and presence were not similarly recorded. Jones has described how “Black women from early modern Iberia have been aesthetically, culturally and institutionally robbed of their agency and humanity,”7 and cites Joyce Green MacDonald on the work that Black feminist scholarship has done to “restore women of African descent to historical visibility.”8 Jones’s book argues that early modern Spanish literary and dramatic texts that employ Black characters who speak in habla de negros “do, in fact, render legible the voices and experiences of black Africans”9 and uses several of these texts to locate Black women’s subjectivity, agency and identity construction in early modern Spain. Due to the inherent differences in a visual object versus a literary text, it is not possible to read through the portrait to locate Katharina herself as an authentic subject in a way parallel to Jones’s textual analysis. I suggest that it is possible, however, to read around the portrait to gain a fuller understanding of the likely circumstances of Katharina’s life, to propose some aspects of her identity and to recenter the portrait and its interpretation on her. Dürer encountered Katharina in the house of João Brandão, who was the Portuguese factor (feitor). Delving further into the identity and role of Brandão helps illuminate Katharina’s status and also fleshes out some of the contours of her probable lived experience. As factor, Brandão was the head administrator of the Feitoria de Flandres, the name given to the Portuguese trade office and warehouses in the Netherlands. Sponsored by the Portuguese crown, the feitoria in Antwerp was one of an increasing number of Portuguese feitorias globally, and as an institution was central to the management of Portugal’s global trade.10 Although Portuguese trading activities in the Netherlands had been centered in Bruges in the 15th century, where the feitoria was first established in 1456, they shifted to Antwerp in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.11 The feitoria was the distribution point in Northern Europe for Portuguese trade goods including pepper, spices, sugar and luxury commodities from Africa and Asia that were brought by ship from Lisbon to Antwerp.12 Indeed, Antwerp’s cosmopolitan nature and role as a hub of global trade in the 16th century is due in large part to the presence of the Portuguese and their use of Antwerp as a trading base in this period.13 Brandão was the Portuguese factor in Antwerp from 1509–14 and again from 1520– 25.14 As factor, Brandão was the head trade representative for the Portuguese crown in Antwerp, acted as a commercial agent for the king and would also have had diplomatic responsibilities as part of his role. His role as the Portuguese factor is mentioned in Dürer literature and also in literature related to the history of Antwerp and its commerce in the 16th century. What seems to have gone unnoticed in these discussions is that the Portuguese factor João Brandão is the same João Brandão who authored a book titled the Grandeza e Abastança de Lisboa em 1552.15 Addressed to the Portuguese king João III, the work is a census of inhabitants of Lisbon in 1552 by occupation and type and also a sort of economic survey of contemporary Lisbon which casts the city, and thus its ruler, in an overall positive and indeed flattering light. Connecting these two episodes in the life of João Brandão provides additional information about him, which can help further contextualize Katharina and permit some inferences about her life. João Brandão was a wealthy Portuguese nobleman from a high-ranking family with multi-generational ties to the Portuguese monarchy.16 His connection to the king is demonstrated by his appointment as administrator to the royal chapels of King Alfonso IV and

120  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man Queen Beatriz in the Cathedral of Lisbon by royal charter in 1504, a position previously held by his father, and he was also granted a stipend by royal charter in 1521. Brandão fought in two Portuguese campaigns in Morocco and in between his two terms as factor also served as a secretary on a Portuguese embassy to Charles V in 1517. Brandão was married to Isabel da Cunha, also from a noble family, and they had several children.17 Although the exact date of Brandão’s birth is unknown, it was likely around 1480, and he died in 1562. A fundamental issue in discussions of the portrait of Katharina is how the writer names her status, specifically, whether or not she understood to have been enslaved and whether she is referred to as a servant or a slave. The Dürer literature, by and large, refers to her as Brandão’s servant. To cite just one example, van den Brink in the catalog of a recent Dürer exhibit described the image as a “drawing of the young black servant Katharina.”18 Wolfthal addresses the uncertainty around this issue: “it is unclear whether Katharina was the slave of Brandão, but she was certainly his servant.”19 Citations of the image in scholarship by historians of early modern Portugal, the slave trade and economic history tend to refer to her as enslaved. Wojciehowski, who mentions the image in a discussion of 16th-century Antwerp as a commercial center, describes it thusly: “this sharply melancholic portrait presents a domestic image of chattel slavery in Antwerp; the reality was in all likelihood grimmer still.”20 Given the specific context of Katharina’s life, it is highly likely that she was enslaved.21 Although Katharina’s status as free or enslaved is not recorded, documents indicate that a later Portuguese factor in Antwerp had an enslaved person named Simon. Simon sought his freedom while accompanying the factor on a trip to Mainz in March, 1532, and the factor went to Mary of Hungary, then regent of the Netherlands, to try to have her intervene.22 This demonstrates that in this instance, and presumably others, Portuguese factors had enslaved persons in their entourages while in the Netherlands. Several other references preserved in archival sources point to the presence of other enslaved persons in the Netherlands connected to the Portuguese merchant community, suggesting that this was commonplace. In 1516, for example, a reward was offered by the city of Antwerp for the return of “two Moors” (twee Mooren) to the Portuguese merchant George de Sulco Lobo.23 As a Portuguese nobleman in the 16th century, Brandão’s possession of an enslaved person or persons would have been unremarkable and even expected. Brandão himself wrote in 1552 that in the city of Lisbon, 7,000 nobles and clerics possessed slaves.24 Brandão’s text discusses enslaved Black persons and specifically enslaved Black women at multiple points, enabling us to have the perspective of Katharina’s enslaver on slavery in his own words. The tone of Brandão’s discussion of slavery is matter of fact. He presents slavery as part of the accepted, indeed unquestioned social and economic fabric of the city, focusing on the economics of slavery, for example, the cost and number of enslaved persons in Lisbon, and on the various occupations undertaken by enslaved persons.25 Although likely not of direct relevance to Katharina’s lived experience, his accounting of professions turns more anecdotal at points, with surprisingly vivid descriptions of Black women selling various foodstuffs on the street, for example, providing a glimpse into quotidian life in 16th-century Lisbon.26 As an enslaved woman in Brandão’s house, Katharina would almost certainly have functioned as a domestic worker, which was a common use of enslaved women in the Iberian Peninsula in this period. Brandão mentions domestic slavery in his text, although he does not detail the specifics of the labor they provided. The Flemish humanist Nicholas Cleynaerts, who visited Portugal from 1533 to 1538 provides more detail about the

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  121 expected labors of enslaved women in domestic contexts: “She is the one who goes to the market to buy the necessary things, who washes the clothes, sweeps the house, carries water and deals with the rubbish at the appropriate time.”27 Being in a noble household, Katharina’s role may have been slightly different, however. As Saunders explains, enslaved persons were an expected part of the display and conspicuous consumption of Portuguese nobles in this period, in part because of expense. “The nobility’s real need for domestic slaves was often very slight. In the aristocratic society of the Iberian Peninsula, possession of a large retinue was the principal means of demonstrating wealth and power.”28 Women enslaved by the Portuguese royal family who served the Queen and princesses are understood to have sometimes had a status approaching a lady in waiting.29 The noble status of Brandão and his family and the differing uses of enslaved persons in Portuguese noble households could account for the visible expense of Katharina’s clothing, as identified by Wolfthal, which contrasts with the expected plain clothing of domestic workers.30 Wolfthal describes Katharina’s dress as a “shimmering, bordered moiré jacket, probably made of silk.”31 Katharina’s cloth head covering, which covers her hair and ears and is wrapped tightly against her face, differs from contemporary Portuguese or Netherlandish fashion. Although Wolfthal sees this as a deliberate exoticism and attempt by Dürer to visually link her to Africa, her head covering appears similar to the white cloth head covering worn by the Black woman in Velazquez’s Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus (c. 1617–18), with whom she shares a similarly downcast gaze and pensive air.32 According to Stoichita, the head covering shown in this image is the typical head covering worn by female Black servants and can also be found in illustrations for theater productions from the early 16th century.33 The plain, monochromatic garb worn by the Velazquez figure, which Stoichita also says is typical for maidservants, contrasts with Katharina’s dress. Black women visible in a later 16th-century painting of the Chafariz d’el-Rei in Lisbon also wear white head coverings and simple monochromatic dresses.34 The figure who appears most similar – although not identical – to Katharina in terms of dress is a Black woman attendant shown in a 16th-century Portuguese painting of the Birth of the Virgin or Birth of John the Baptist, most recently attributed to Garcia Fernandes and Jorge Leal. This woman similarly wears a tight-fitting white cloth head covering and a more elaborate costume comprising several layers, fabrics and colors. Her clothing is in keeping with the other figures in the image, who wear clothing of rich fabrics and in several cases are ornamented with elaborate jewels, suggesting that the scene takes place in a well-off home.35 These several rare images of Black women in European domestic contexts taken together testify to the lived existence of countless others.36 Questions regarding the status of Katharina as servant or enslaved are related in part to the fact that there were a small number of free and freed Black men and women in Portugal in this period.37 Due to the small number and also to the fact that freedom was typically gained either by purchasing it or by manumission upon the death of the enslaver, it seems unlikely that Katharina was in this category. Another likely reason for questions as to her exact status is that when Dürer portrayed her, she lived in Antwerp rather than Portugal. The legal status of enslaved persons was not settled in 1520s Antwerp. Antwerp’s city rights from 1582 states: “I. Within the city and surroundings of Antwerp all people are free and no slaves” and “II. The same holds true for all slaves that have come to the city and its surrounding, who are free and outside of the power of their Masters or [their masters’] Wives.” The statement goes on to place the onus of attaining freedom on the enslaved person: “As far as they try to keep them as slaves or have them

122  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man serve them against their will may proclaim ad libertatem patriae; and can have their Masters or [their Masters’] Wives brought before court and can have themselves proclaimed free there.”38 Batselé argues that a case brought before the Council of Malines in 1532 helped to define the legal position on slavery held in Antwerp and in the Netherlands more broadly. The result was to articulate that “slavery was not recognized by the laws of the XVII provinces.”39 Even in the wake of that decision, documents show that slavery existed in Antwerp, authorities did not consider enslaved persons to be immediately freed once reaching the Low Countries and the onus remained on the enslaved person to seek their freedom from the courts. Katharina’s presumed status as an enslaved person in a Portuguese context provides additional context to explore the contours of her potential life experience. Her specific geographic origin is unknown and was likely unrecorded at the time. As Saunders states: “the Portuguese showed little interest in the slaves’ nationality”40 and indeed Brandão simply describes the enslaved Black population of Lisbon as “vinha de Guiné,”41 a relatively unspecific term that was commonly used in the early modern period to indicate subSaharan origin. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the Portuguese enslaved people from several regions along the West African coast, but those sent to Europe typically came from the area encompassing modern-day Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone, a region sometimes referred to as Upper Guinea. More specifically, Saunders states that “the Valencian registers which record the slaves received from Lisbon between 1479–1516 indicate that the majority were Wolofs from Senegambia.”42 It is impossible to be more specific about Katharina’s likely geographical origins, and it should also be noted that contemporary sources point to a highly diverse population, which has been flattened through the type of generalization seen in Brandão. The Jesuit Manuel Correra described “over 20 diverse black nations in the city” in the mid-1580s, and Lowe suggests that likely underestimates the true diversity.43 Katharina may have been born in Portugal of African descent, as by the time of her birth around the turn of the 16th century, several generations of enslaved persons had been born in Portugal.44 She may have been enslaved in Africa. Enslaved persons destined for the European continent were typically sent to Arguin, one of three Portuguese entrepôts for the trade in enslaved people.45 After being transited on caravals or navios under harsh conditions, enslaved Africans were brought to Portugal. Beginning in 1512, Lisbon became the sole port of landing for enslaved persons in Portugal. Those who were to be kept in Portugal were sent to the Casa dos Escravos where they would be appraised while naked and sold either directly or indirectly through slave merchants. Brandão records the number of slave merchants in Lisbon in 1552 as 60–70 although official records record only 3.46 Enslaved persons were required to be baptized either upon arrival in Portugal or shortly thereafter and a baptismal font in the church of Nossa Senhora de Conçeição was erected with papal support specifically for the baptism of enslaved persons.47 While Katharina’s name indicates that she was a Christian, this should not be taken to indicate anything about her own personal beliefs or that she herself chose baptism, although some enslaved and formerly enslaved persons were devout and participated actively in the life of the Catholic church.48 With her move to Antwerp as part of the household of João Brandão, Katharina presumably suffered a secondary displacement.49 In addition to the trauma of enslavement and forced removal from Africa, she would also have been removed from Lisbon, a context in which there were a sizable number of Black men and women of African origin, where some elements of African cultures persisted and where a Black diaspora

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  123 community with relational ties and solidarity can be shown to have existed. Modern estimates place the number of enslaved Africans in Lisbon at around 10,000 in the 16th century, or about 10% of the population.50 In Antwerp, by contrast, while it is clear that there were some enslaved Africans in the city, typically brought by Portuguese or Spanish citizens, the numbers would have been far fewer and there are no records of the kind of diasporic community that existed in Iberian cities like Lisbon or Valencia.51 While in Antwerp, Katharina would have resided in the official residence of the Portuguese factor, a large house in Kipdorf outside of Antwerp,52 as enslaved persons typically resided in the same house as their enslaver.53 The Portuguese king provisioned Brandão with luxury foodstuffs every year in consideration of the large parties he was obligated to host in his role as a representative of the Portuguese crown, with the Kipdorf house serving as an official gathering place for the Portuguese merchant community in Antwerp.54 Dürer was a frequent visitor to this house and it is in this context that he encountered Katharina, potentially on more than one occasion. Dürer recorded multiple visits to the house of the Portuguese factor in his diary of his journey to the Netherlands and named Brandão, Rodrigo (Rui) Fernandez d’Almada, then the secretary of the factor and later himself factor, and the previous factor Francisco Pesão numerous times. Dürer’s diary is not a diary or journal in a modern sense and may be more accurately referred to as an account book. In addition to recording his movements, he also kept track of his expenses and earnings, noted his acquisitions and remarked on his social and artistic contacts. Dürer repeatedly commented that he had eaten with one or more of the Portuguese representatives and carefully recorded the numerous gifts he received from them as well as works of art he gave to them. In an entry that covers December 14, 1520 to April 6, 1521, he described how “Factor Brandão of Portugal made me the present of two large, pure white sugar-loaves, a dish full of glazed sweets, two green pots of candied sugar and four ells of black silk.”55 In that same entry, he also comments that he “ate with the new Factor iiiiiiii times.” As Brandão took up the role of factor for the second time on December 1, 1521, Dürer appears to have made his acquaintance and added Brandão to his network of contacts in Antwerp quickly.56 Dürer also recorded the works of art he made for Brandão and other members of the Portuguese delegation. The diary states that he “did a charcoal likeness of the new factor” and also made an oil painting of St. Veronica for Brandão.57 Dürer reported sketching Katharina while also sketching Brandão’s clerk as well as Fernandez: “I did a charcoal drawing of Factor Brandão’s clerk and a silverpoint likeness of his Moorish woman. And took a likeness of Rodrigo on a large sheet of paper.”58 A drawing of Fernandez, presumably the one mentioned in the diary, is extant and a painted portrait by Dürer, characteristic of his style and showing the sitter in a lush fur, is generally thought to depict Fernandez due to the similarities to the drawing59 (Figure 5.2). The pattern of meals, exchange of gifts and the execution of works of art that Dürer documented with the Portuguese delegation in his diary are highly typical of his accounting of his social contacts during his time in the Netherlands. As Hirschfelder has described, Dürer engaged in a carefully monitored economy of gift exchange and his notes in his diary indicate that he was highly conscious of issues of reciprocity, advantageous gifting and seemingly slights or inequalities, in particular a lack of reciprocity or unequal gifting that disadvantaged him. Dürer’s drawn portraits from the Netherlands need to be understood in this context. Hirschfelder counts 107 drawings mentioned by Dürer in the Diary, the majority of which are portrait drawings, most large format drawings in charcoal or chalk, although notes that he made more portrait drawings than he

124  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man

Figure 5.2 Dürer, A Man in a Fur Coat, likely Rodrigo Fernandez d’Almada, 1521, oil on oak panel, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

mentioned.60 Hirschfelder concludes that Dürer’s portrait drawings were used as gifts to patrons, clients, friends and artist colleagues from whom he profited in various ways and whom he respected.61 The knowledge that these portraits were of individuals with whom Dürer had a social connection adds to the sense of intimacy of these images as they record a relationship as well as an individual. Dürer often received gifts that related to the profession of the giver. It is notable in this context that many of the gifts he recorded being given by the Portuguese reflect Portuguese trade goods. In particular, Dürer mentioned sugar, which would have come from Madeira and was central to Portuguese trade in this period as well as Portuguese wine and various preserved sweets. He also mentioned intriguing collectibles from outside Europe that would have been brought to Antwerp on Portuguese ships, unloaded at the feitoria, and which reflected Portuguese overseas trade, for example, parrots, coconuts, medicine, “Calicut cloths” and porcelain bowls.62 In return, whether to the Portuguese or his other acquaintances, Dürer typically gave his own works of art as gifts. In some cases, these were prints that he had brought with him and in other cases these were works of art he

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  125 made while in Antwerp. The portrait drawings he recorded making were also typically given to their sitters as one aspect of his gift giving – we can assume, for example, that the portraits he mentions of Brandão and Fernandez were given to them. There is also a larger significance to the portrait drawings related to Dürer’s evolving consciousness of drawings as finished works of art and a broader shift in interest in drawings by collectors in the 16th century, which is relevant to his use of drawings within his economy of gift exchange.63 The portrait of Katharina comes out of the broader context of Dürer’s drawn portraits from his Netherlandish trip both in the specifics of its creation in the house of Brandão and as a large format portrait drawing. Yet the work stands somewhat apart from these considerations discussed above, whether of Dürer’s strategic use of portraiture in his economy of gift exchange or his implicit claims for a new status of drawing as a finished work of art. The use of silverpoint as a medium for the drawing of Katharina, one of 20 silverpoint works that he mentions in the diary and one of four silverpoint portraits mentioned, indicates that this drawing was likely not intended to be presented and Dürer presumably created the drawing intending to keep it for himself.64 Why he created this portrait of a Black woman with the intent to keep it for his own use is less clear. The simplest explanation is that Dürer intended to keep the drawing as a study sheet. What he intended this study sheet for is not obvious. While Black men appeared frequently in depictions of the Adoration of the Magi as discussed in Chapter 4, Black women did not have a clear iconographic use within an early 16th-century German artist’s repertoire.65 Yet many of Dürer’s drawings do not have a direct relationship to a completed work, and it seems clear from other drawings that Dürer in some cases sketched to record something or someone of interest to him. Dürer’s theoretical works on human proportion also reflect a desire to create a methodology for the representation of human faces and bodies and he reports study of many bodies to this end. The portrait of Katharina may have been intended for the artist’s own visual database of human forms for later study in this context. Regardless of Dürer’s intent, Katharina’s downcast eyes and psychological withdrawal suggest discomfort with becoming both object and subject of the artist’s eye. Unlike a typical sitter from this period, who actively sought out representation in portraiture for a variety of motives, Katharina’s agency in this image-making should be questioned. Portrait of a Young Man

While the details provided by Dürer on the image itself and in his diary allow some degree of deduction to be made about Katharina and her probable life experience, the same cannot be said for the man depicted in Dürer’s Portrait of a Young Man (Figure 5.3). The large format (12 ½ × 8 ½ inches) chalk drawing, generally understood as the first known portrait of a Black man in European art, lacks the contextual information provided with the drawing of Katharina. Given the total lack of preserved information related to the sitter of the Portrait of a Young Man, it is impossible to locate his identity or subjectivity in any substantive way. Yet it is possible to sketch a series of hypotheticals which suggest contexts for interpretation and indicate avenues for further research. The sole piece of information on the drawing apart from the image itself and Dürer’s monogram is the date of 1508. There is some debate as to whether or not the date is legitimate or was added later, perhaps even after Dürer’s death. The authenticity of the image itself is not in question, however. The dating is important because it could shed light on where Dürer encountered the man, based on what we know of Dürer’s movements, which in turn might elucidate some facets of his identity. If in Germany, this would also be a signally

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Figure 5.3 Dürer, Portrait of a Young Man, 1508, black chalk, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.

important data point that would add to the currently very limited knowledge of the presence of Black Africans in Germany during this period. If the date of 1508 is accepted, Dürer presumably must have encountered the man in his home town of Nuremberg. Dürer’s activities in 1508 are relatively well documented due to the preservation of a series of letters he wrote to Jakob Heller, the patron of the Heller altarpiece. This large work occupied the majority of Dürer’s artistic activity in 1508 and was only completed in 1509.66 While it is possible that he left Nuremberg at a point not covered by the letters for a short trip, perhaps to a nearby city, there is no indication that this was the case. How and under what circumstances Dürer could have encountered the sitter in Nuremberg is unclear. Nuremberg was an imperial city and an important mercantile center in this period that was situated on major trade routes, notably the trade axis of Nuremberg, Cologne and Antwerp. Nuremberg merchants were a cosmopolitan group, with several Nuremberg trading houses having branches outside of the city, for example, the Imhoff family, who had agents in Portugal from 1503.67 Nuremberg also regularly received visitors from elsewhere. The Portuguese secretary, later Factor, Rodrigo (Rui) Fernandez, for example, visited Nuremberg in 1519 on a commercial trip, raising the possibility that Dürer first made his acquaintance in Nuremberg.68 A Spanish or Portuguese delegation to the city, such as Fernandez’s trip, could

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  127 have been accompanied by servants or enslaved persons. German merchants in Southern Europe did sometimes have enslaved persons although I have not seen documentary evidence of this related to Nuremberg specifically.69 The question of if and how Dürer could have encountered the sitter of his portrait of an African man in Nuremberg or elsewhere in Germany connects to broader questions about the presence and role of Black Africans in early modern Germany and the role of Germany in slavery. The authors of the introduction to the recent volume Beyond Exceptionalism, focusing on a period beginning in the 17th century, describe “the assumption that there had been no German involvement in slavery and the slave trade and therefore no Black presence in the German-speaking lands,” an assumption they work to dismantle. This assumption is despite the well-documented involvement of German trading companies, particularly the Augsburg-based Welser company, in 16th-century colonialism and the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade.70 Kuhlmann-Smirnov similarly describes the erasure of Black people from German historiography.71 Recent work by scholars in multiple disciplines has started to uncover the presence of Black men and women in Renaissance Germany and illuminates the broader ­circumstances of their arrival in Europe and their activities once there. This work surely represents only a beginning and a small fraction of individuals still effaced by the historical record. A survey of these known individuals can suggest some possible parallels for the man depicted by Dürer and some potential frameworks to explore a hypothetical identity. In the 15th century, Leo of Rozmital, a Bohemian nobleman, visited Portugal and ­requested two Black enslaved persons from king Alfonso V, whom he subsequently brought back to central Europe. Kaplan has suggested that their daughter or granddaughter may be recorded in the Calenburg altarpiece (1515), a work commissioned by Catherine of Saxony, the great niece of Leo of Rozmital and attributed to the Master of the Goslar Sibyls.72 The Calenburg altarpiece includes a Black woman dressed as a lady in waiting who stands as part of Catherine’s courtly entourage. Similarly, a Black woman dressed in contemporary European dress is present in Barthel Beham’s Discovery of the True Cross (1530) kneeling behind the Bavarian duchess Jacobäa of Baden as St. Helena. No documentary evidence exists to suggest a Black lady in waiting at the Bavarian court in this period, but the figure is clearly part of the entourage of the Duchess, and Kaplan posits her identity as a courtier.73 An additional example of a Black person in a German courtly context during Dürer’s lifetime is a Black man who is recorded as an attendant for an elephant brought to Germany during the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III. The elephant traveled from town to town with an imperial servant and was recorded as stopping in Cologne and Frankfurt.74 Dürer’s Portrait of a Young Man shares some important similarities with Mostaert’s slightly later Portrait of an African Man (c. 1525–30) (Figure 5.4). While Dürer’s work is the earliest surviving independent portrait of a Black man in European art, the work by the Netherlandish artist Mostaert is the earliest surviving independent painted portrait of a Black man in European art. The two works also share some similarities in format, with the sitter in each shown in ¾ view facing to the left, although Dürer’s image is bust length while Mostaert’s ends at the sitter’s hip. Both men have short curly hair, a mustache and beard and the clothing worn by the two appears potentially similar, although the dress worn by Dürer’s sitter is only lightly detailed.75 The individual represented in Mostaert’s painting has been provisionally identified as Christophle le More, an individual for whom the contours of a life in Europe are possible to sketch out.76 The limited reconstructed biography of Christophle le More is useful in suggesting what the life history of Dürer’s sitter might possibly have been in the absence of additional specifics.

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Figure 5.4  Jan Jansz Mostaert, Portrait of an African Man, c. 1525–30, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum.

Christophle le More, who was almost certainly Black based on the various names/ descriptors given to him in surviving archival documents, is documented from 1501 to 1521 as a groom and later a bodyguard and archer in the Netherlandish court of Philip the Fair and then Charles V. Although it is unclear how Christophle may have come to the Netherlands, van den Boogaart suggests that he may have been part of the wedding retinue of Juana of Castile in 1496, which included numerous “Moorish servants.”77 Another Black man, Jacques le Morre, was also documented as an archer at the Netherlandish court from 1505 to 1515. Given the mobility of the Habsburgs, it is not surprising that both men are recorded as traveling – both Christophle and Jacques are recorded in connection with Philip the Fair’s trip to Spain in 1506 and Christophle is recorded on an account from Mainz in 1521 when he traveled with Charles V, potentially in connection with the Diet of Worms. As we have previously seen, Simon, who sought freedom from a Portuguese factor in 1532, was also traveling to Mainz. These documented instances – in all cases fragmentary and in most cases only fleeting glimpses – show how Black men and women arrived and moved in Northern Europe in this period and whose presence can be discerned in Germany as well as in the Netherlands. The Portuguese, Spanish and Habsburg contexts are a through line in each of these instances as is the courtly dimension. This does not bring us any closer to identifying the

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  129 man in Dürer’s image, although it suggests ways and contexts in which Dürer could have encountered him given the limited knowledge we currently have about Black presence in Germany in the 16th century. An additional complication in any attempt to further contextualize and perhaps posit an identity for the sitter of Dürer’s portrait is the uncertainty of the date. While many scholars accept the 1508 date on the image, there is no universal agreement. The Tietzes suggested around 1515 as a possible date for the work, rejecting the monogram and date as not in Dürer’s hand. Their analysis also called out the lack of similarity between the drawing and the numerous drawings related to the Heller altarpiece from 1508, notably the more painterly qualities of this work as opposed to the more line-focused work for the Heller altarpiece.78 A dating of c. 1515 would connect the work to a series of large format portrait drawings from that period.79 1515 does not yield any further insights in terms of Dürer’s movements as to where and how he could have met the sitter – written documentation from that year again suggests he remained in Nuremberg.80 Koreny, based on an analysis of the spelling of the monogram and the number 5 in the date, and also seeing similarities to work done in that period, suggested that the work was created during his second stay in Venice in 1505–07.81 Dürer did do large format portrait drawings in 1503 and 1504, although Hirschfelder, who does not address Portrait of a Young Man, states that in the years after 1504 and prior to around 1514, Dürer drew only isolated portraits, also noting also that it is difficult in some instances to distinguish portraits from heads created for study in this period.82 If the portrait does indeed date from his second Venetian trip, the question of the circumstances under which he encountered the sitter has a clearer answer. Venice had a documented population of Black men and women, enslaved and free, during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Sub-Saharan Africans were brought to Venice through one of several routes – via Portugal or through North Africa via a trans-Saharan route. While some became free while in Venice, Lowe states that nearly all sub-Saharan Africans were enslaved when brought to Venice.83 Their presence is attested to visually in several well-known images, notably Carpaccio’s Hunting on the Lagoon (c. 1490–95) and Miracle of the True Cross at the Rialto Bridge (c. 1496) and Gentile Bellini’s Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo (1500).84 If the work does indeed date from his second Venice trip, it provides another important example of the pivotal encounters Dürer had in Venice, and the ways in which his Venetian travels contributed to his representations of racial as well as cultural and religious difference. The question of where Dürer encountered the man depicted in his Portrait of a Young Man and his possible identity is compelling for several reasons. The sitter in the portrait has a strong sense of presence and individuality with his resolute gaze and finely demarcated features. Although in the absence of any larger context we cannot know for sure that this is a depiction of a specific individual who sat for Dürer, as Koerner states, the “image seems strongly to claim that its subject is an actual African drawn from life.”85 Knowing the identity of this individual is of interest simply to know who this visually striking man was. As with Katharina, however, this man’s identity and the context of his presence in early 16th-century Europe has the potential to illuminate more than a single life story and can assist with the broader scholarly effort to recover the lost lives and histories of Black Europeans in the premodern period. The significance of this sitter and this image to Dürer is also of interest. The high degree of finish on the face indicates that this was not a hastily drawn image, although the clothing is more quickly sketched in, providing an impression rather than finished

130  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man rendering. Clearly, it was the man’s face that was of interest to Dürer. The provenance of the drawing is well established and sheds some light on Dürer’s intent. The drawing was one of a number of Dürer works collected by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.86 Rudolf II acquired a number of Dürer’s drawings from the Imhoff family, who had in turn acquired works from Dürer’s heirs.87 This indicates that the drawing, like that of Katharina, remained in his studio for his own use. Some have suggested that his interest in this figure would have been a study sheet, perhaps as a potential model for a Black Magus.88 The only Adoration images by Dürer that postdate this image (assuming the 1515 suggested dating is incorrect) are his 1511 woodcut and 1524 pen drawing of the Adoration of the Magi. The Magus from the 1511 Adoration does not bear a resemblance to the man in the portrait. The Magus in the 1524 drawing shares some similarities, particularly the hairline and cheekbones, yet is not a copy of the sitter from the portrait and shows clear differences in other aspects, such as the set of the eyes, the tilt of the nose and the facial hair. As with Katharina, his interest may have been as simple as recording the features of a person who interested him, potentially in relation to his broader project of analysis of a diversity of human forms in relation to his proportion studies. The firm gaze and quiet confidence of the sitter suggests that he may not have been an unwilling participant in the portrait process, although insight into his identity would shed light on the potential dynamics at play in this particular artist/sitter encounter. Dürer’s Portrait of a Young Man and Katharina are singular images as the first known independent portraits of a Black man and Black woman in European art. Dürer’s artistic strengths as both a portraitist and as a draftsman are on full display in these works, which are affecting, engaging images. The broader contexts of these images and their sitters, whether recoverable in specific or general ways, help illuminate the contours of Black lives in early 16th-century Europe. Yet these images cannot be seen outside of Dürer’s other works depicting Black men (there are no other images of Black women in his oeuvre) and the broader contexts and racialized discourses in which they participate. Dürer and Heraldic Blackness A singular image of a Black man demonstrates Dürer participating in a further visual trope related to Blackness in a way that was remarkably personal, notably through heraldry. The Dürer family coat of arms, depicted by Dürer on the back of his painted portrait of his father, Albrecht Dürer the Elder (1490) and in a woodcut image (1523), shows the bust-length profile of a Black man (Figure 5.5). Dürer’s coat of arms is a modified version of the family coat of arms he painted on the reverse of his 1490 portrait of his father, which showed the joining of the Dürer family with the Holper family of his mother Barbara. The eagle wings and bust of the Black man were imagery used by the Holper, while the door is from Dürer’s father and represents a visualization of the name of Ajtós (meaning door), his Hungarian place of origin.89 Dürer turned the bust and the helm from frontal to profile in his modified version and eliminated the shield from his mother’s family. The man’s head is shown with the stereotypical physiognomy associated with Blackness and also with an earring, as mentioned above, an adornment commonly given to Black figures in European art. In Nuremberg, the patrician Tucher family also had a coat of arms with a Black man’s head, which Dürer depicted on the reverse of his portrait of Hans Tucher (1499), and which is found in various media across centuries.90

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  131

Figure 5.5 Dürer, Coat of Arms of Albrecht Dürer, 1523, woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The reverse of Dürer’s portrait of Hieronymous Holzschuher (1526) also depicts a similar figure as part of a heraldic device. In the late middle ages, a fashion emerged for the heraldic use of a head of a Black man, commonly referred to as a Moor’s head, in Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe.91 The reason for a visual linkage of an elite family with Blackness is recoverable in some cases. Historical connection to crusading activity, family involvement in long-distance trade, in some cases including trade in enslaved people, or wordplay connecting the family name to the word moor are cited as reasons.92 Yet in many instances there is no obvious reason, rendering the meaning of this device somewhat ambiguous, although it is clear that it was not understood as negative or derogatory and indeed became rather fashionable. The motif is generally understood to have become conventional and to have been largely voided of its original significance by around 1400.93 Lowe has identified this heraldic device as a form of “notional blackness,” and argues that it must have gone beyond mere representation to have shaped conceptions of Black appearance.94

132  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man The appearance of the profile head of a Black man within Dürer’s family coat of arms was not invented by him and can be explained by the specific circumstances of his family iconography and contextualized within broader practice. It is difficult to know if Dürer ascribed any particular meaning to either his coat of arms in general or to this figure specifically, although Koerner suggests he might have identified with the door imagery on the coat of arms both as an artist and as the child of an immigrant.95 The profile head presumably confirmed for Dürer his status of belonging to a certain group of elite, both locally and beyond who bore the “Moor’s head” as a heraldic emblem. The larger size of the woodcut image is also notable. According to Bartrum, most printed coats of arms that have survived were smaller and functioned as book plates. A larger size might have functioned as a sort of label, perhaps to label items during travel.96 If that is accurate, the coat of arms would have had a visible, public-facing function, further connecting Dürer’s identity to this image. On a visual level, the figure from the coat of arms can also be considered in terms of Dürer’s larger conception of Blackness and race and his engagement in related visual tropes and stereotypes across the range of fictive, notional and real.97 This figure does not resemble the Black figures done earlier in his career, nor does it look like the heads from the coats of arms on the reverse of the painted portraits he did of his father, Hans Tucher or Hieronymous Holzschuher. The head from his coat of arms does, however, share some similarities with the face of the Magus from the 1524 Adoration drawing and particularly the profile head showing African physiognomy from his Four Books of Human Proportion, discussed in the next section. In particular, the head from the coat of arms and the profile from the Four Books, which are both shown facing to the viewer’s right, share the same jaw line and chin and the delineation of the eyebrow and brow ridge is similar. The two heads are not identical and other features show differences, for example, the facial hair and outline of the nose. The links between these three images from the 1520s suggest Dürer’s evolving conception of Black physiognomy, which we furthermore see him working to theorize in his writings from the same time period. What ultimately should be made of Dürer’s representations of Black figures? Kaplan singles Dürer out as one of a handful of early modern European artists, naming the others as Mantegna, Veronese, Rubens and Rembrandt, who depicted Black Africans with frequency and in a broad array of subjects.98 While these figures constitute only a tiny part of Dürer’s overall output, his writing and image-making suggests that they took on greater importance for him than their numbers might initially suggest. Heng, drawing on Stoler, argues that “racial discourses are always both ‘new and renewed’ through historical time … always ‘well-worn’ and ‘innovative’… and ‘draw on the past’ as they ‘harness themselves to new visions and projects’.”99 Dürer’s work aligns closely with this assessment. His figures, for the most part, are wholly expected and follow medieval iconographical tropes – the Black Magus, the racialized executioner, the heraldic figure – given Renaissance form through Dürer’s unmistakable style. These familiar conventions moreover gain new currency and suasory power through Renaissance naturalism. In other respects, Dürer is unique in the early 16th-century context, creating the first known portraits of a Black man and Black woman in European art, and imbuing those images with sensitivity, poignancy and a deep humanity. Yet these remained private images, with no apparent impact on his larger artistic output. Dürer’s theoretical writings, to which we turn now, give insight into Dürer’s conceptions of human difference, including racial difference, and its relevance to the artist, even as they fall short of illuminating these images in a deeper sense.

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  133 Notes 1 My thanks to David Lawson of Smoking Dogs films and Andrew Price of Lissom Gallery for making it possible for me to view the film. 2 Pitzer Art Galleries, “Glyphs. Acts of Interpretation.” 3 Translation of “sein morin.” Jeffrey Ashcroft, Albrecht Dürer: Documentary Biography, vol 1. New Haven: Yale University Press, 577, 614, n. 284. 4 The Portuguese factor (trade representative) João Brandão. See below. Smith, “The 2010 Josephine Waters Bennet Lecture,” 26. 5 Peripeteria opens with this description of Dürer’s drawing: “In 1508 the painter Albrecht Dürer made this drawing. Everything else about this man is now lost to the winds of history.” 6 See for example Devisse and Mollat, The Image of the Black, 2.2, particularly 257–258. 7 Jones, Staging Habla de Negros, 119. 8 Ibid, 124–5. 9 Ibid, 5. Habla de negros is defined by Jones as Africanized Castilian, Africanized Portuguese or Black speech in Spanish literary and dramatic texts from the 16th through the 18th centuries. See page 4 and following. 10 See Ebert, Between Empires, Chapter 2 and Diffie and Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, Chapter 18. Diffie and Winius, 313 note that the word feitoria is often translated as factory but describe the potential confusion as the feitorias did not have a manufacturing aspect as the word factory implies. For this reason, I am choosing to leave the term untranslated. 11 Many sources cite 1508 as the date of the founding of the feitoria in Antwerp. This date seems to derive ultimately from Herman Van Der Wee via Fernand Braudel. Van Der Wee, 129. More specialized studies indicate that the transfer from Bruges to Antwerp in fact took place at the end of the 15th century and was complete by the early 16th century. See Elbl, “Nation, Bolsa and Factory,” 10, following Goris, and Diffie and Winius, 314. Elbl gives the date of the movement of the feitoria from Bruges to Antwerp as 1498/99 while Diffie and Winius describe it as the “end of the 15th century.” Van Der Wee, 128, citing Goris, states that a representative of the Portuguese king was permanently based in Antwerp from 1499. Goris, Étude sur les Colonies. 230 and 232 states that Thomé Lopez, factor from 1498 to 1505 was the first representative of the Portuguese king in Antwerp and that during the tenure of Silvestre Nunez as factor from 1515 to 1517 the Portuguese definitively gave up their presence in Bruges. 12 See Goris, Étude sur les Colonies, Wojciehowski, Group Identity and Pohle, “Sugar, Pepper, Precious Stones,” for additional details about the structure and role of the Feitoria. 13 Göttler, Ramakers and Woodall, “Trading Values,” 15. 14 Goris, Étude sur les Colonies, 215. References to Brandão in the Dürer literature typically simply state his role, sometimes with dates. His first term as factor tends to be omitted, and there is confusion in some sources related to the dates for the second stay. Although older, Goris’s Étude sur les Colonies Marchandes Méridionales à Anvers remains the definitive source on the chronology and workings of the Feitoria. 15 Alves, Introdução, 8 and Tavares, Descobrimentos e navegações, 88 state that the João Brandão (de Buarcos) who authored the text also served as factor in Flanders: “foi feitor na Flandres.” They both follow the earlier Portuguese scholar Gomes de Brito who transcribed and analyzed Brandão’s text. As there was no other factor with this name in this time period, it is clearly the same individual. Annual letters from Brandão’s second term as factor are preserved in the Portuguese national archive. Traslados de cartas régias para que se enviasse anualmente a João Brandão, enquanto fosse feitor da Flandres. 16 Biographical details taken from Alves and Tavares, ibid. 17 The name of Brandão’s wife is provided by Alves and is also found, together with a list of their children and their family connections, in Gaio, Nobiliário de Famílias de Portugal, vol VII: Brandoens, §21 no. 2 and Vol. XVII: Limas, §14, no. 12. 18 Van den Brink, “Portrait Drawings,” 204. 19 Wolfthal, “Household Help,” 18. 20 Wojciehowski, Group Identity, 162. 21 This is also the conclusion of Kaplan, an art historian who has written extensively on representations of Black men and women in European medieval and Renaissance art. He states that she “was almost certainly enslaved.” Kaplan, “Black Women,” 53.

134  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man 22 Batselé, Liberty, Slavery and the Law, 92–93. Wojciehowski, Group Identity, 162. Mary of Hungary took this to the Great Council of Malines. This is the same case referenced above. The name of the factor in question is not given in either source, but based on Goris’s list of factors it was presumably Jorge de Barros, Étude sur les Colonies, 217. 23 Wojciehowski, Group Identity, 161, Batselé, Liberty, Slavery and the Law, 516. Wojciehowski also cites the story of Balthasar the Moor, who described his place of birth as the Portuguese Indies. Batselé cites archival records related to manumission and a proof of sale although the nationality of the enslavers are not noted. 24 Brandão, Grandeza e Abastança, 69. Saunders, A Social History, 64, notes that this is likely an exaggeration and clarifies that “most slaves were owned by the aristocracy, priests and religious institutions, government officials and professional men.” 25 Brandão’s economic discussion of slavery in Lisbon focuses particularly on the increased cost of enslaved persons, Grandeza e Abastança, 59. 26 Brandão, Grandeza e Abastança, 72. 27 Quoted in Fonseca, “Black Africans,” 116. 28 Saunders, A Social History, 66 29 Saunders, A Social History, 82. See also Jordan, “Images of Empire,” particularly pp. 169–171. Jordan also describes how “the slaves at [Catherine of Austria’s] court also functioned as visual symbols of her power, literally representing the various frontiers of her rule,” 175. 30 According to Saunders, “work clothes for menial servants tended to be drab in all ages – some slaves of the nobility and the crown wore livery.” A Social History, 92. 31 Wolfthal, “Household Help,” 17. 32 See Tiffany, Diego Velazquez’s Early Paintings for a more extensive discussion of this image and on slavery in Seville. 33 Stoichita, “The Image of the Black in Spanish Art,” 204. 34 The painting is in a private collection in Lisbon. It has been reproduced in several mainstream sources. See for example, Gschwend and Lowe, The Global City, 63. 35 This image is reproduced in several sources including Devisse and Mollat, The Image of the Black and Gshwend and Lowe, The Global City. 36 As Wolfthal points out, working women, particularly domestic workers, have been largely ignored by early modern art historians, “Household Help,” 5. Kaplan references another depiction of a Black woman attendant in a fresco depicting the Birth of the Virgin at San Francesco in Subiaco, Italy attributed to either Il Sodoma or Vincenzo Tamagni. Kaplan, “Italy,” 107. The woman there similarly wears a white cloth head covering, which covers her hair, and a simple dress in a rich orange hue. 37 According to Saunders, A Social History, free and freed individuals were only a small fraction of the total population, estimated at 1% and never more than 2%, even in areas where enslaved persons were common, 59. Saunders states that manumission by enslavers did not happen in large numbers, 147. Jones also discusses the status of Black women in early modern Iberia and the lives of free Black women. Jones, “Black Women.” 38 Article 36, I-II Vanden Staet ende Conditie van Persoonen from Rechten, ende costumen van Antwepen, cited in Batselé, Liberty, Slavery and the Law, 91. According to Batselé, Charles V ordered that all customs be written down in 1531. Antwerp’s customs were first written down in 1547–48. 39 Ibid, 93. 40 Saunders, A Social History, 14. 41 Brandão, 59. 42 Saunders, A Social History, 14. Saunders, 19 also notes that the records of the Casa de Guiné and the Casa dos Escravos were destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, meaning that specifics such as the precise number of enslaved persons brought to Lisbon or transited through Lisbon can likely never be exactly known. 43 Lowe, “The Population of Renaissance Lisbon,” 61. 44 Magalhães, “Africans, Indians and Slavery,” 144. 45 Mendes, “Africaines esclaves au Portugal,” 53. 46 Brandão, Grandeza e abastança, 207, Saunders, A Social History, 17. 47 Several laws were made regarding the baptism of enslaved Africans. Nicholas V declared this requirement in 1454 as did Manual in 1514. Lahon, “Black African Slaves,” 271, Metcalf,

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  135 Go-Betweens, 169. The papal bull Eximiae devotionis from Leo X related to the font, a request by the king to the pope, Lahon, ibid. See also Saunders, A Social History, 90 and Heng, The Invention of Race, 25. 48 A particularly interesting example is the Black confraternities in Lisbon and also Valencia, which have been shown to have been an important source of community and solidarity and also worked for manumission of currently enslaved individuals. See Lahon, “Black African Slaves,” Blumenthal “La Casa dels Negres,” Otele, African Europeans. 49 It should be noted that by the early 16th century, there were several generations of Black men and women born in Portugal to enslaved and formerly enslaved persons. Those numbers would have been considerably smaller than the constantly added to numbers of enslaved persons, so it is more likely that Katharina’s origin was in Africa. Lowe states “by far the majority were slaves because newly enslaved people arrived every year.” “The Population of Renaissance Lisbon,” 61. 50 Saunders, A Social History, 87. 51 There has been some debate over the number of diasporic Africans in Antwerp in the 16th century, with J. Denuncé arguing that Antwerp had the second highest population of Africans in Europe after Lisbon, a statement which has been repeated in some subsequent sources. Given the number of enslaved and free Africans in Spanish cities such as Seville and Valencia, this seems unlikely, although it does appear likely that Antwerp had the first sizable Black presence in Northern Europe. Batselé, Liberty, Slavery and the Law, 97 states, “Unfortunately, we do not know much more about the presence of slaves in Antwerp. . . No one seems to have conducted a thorough analysis of the Antwerp municipal archives to measure the presence of slaves in Antwerp.” Wojciehowski, Group Identity, 161 indicates that “clearly more work needs to be done in this field, which has been neglected for decades.” 52 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 600. 53 Mendes, “Africaines esclaves au Portugal,” 51. 54 Goris, Étude sur Les Colonies Marchandes, 234. Goris, ibid, 38 and 39, refers to the house as a “belle maison” and as the “maison de Portugal.” Goris also relates a dispute at the end of Brandão’s first term as factor where he initially refused to give up the house to his successor, 219. 55 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 575. 56 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 610, states that the “new factor” was Francisco Pesão. Dürer’s entry lines up chronologically with Brandão’s assumption of the role of factor on December 1, 1520, so this does not seem to be correct. It seems clear that the entry and the subsequent mentions of the “new” factor must reference Brandão. Regardless, the entry that describes Dürer’s execution of Katharina’s portrait clearly states that he drew “Factor Brandao’s clerk and. . . his Moorish woman.” 57 Ibid, p. 572, 573. 58 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 577. 59 Borchert, “Albrecht Dürer and Portrait Painting,” 90–91. 60 Hirschfelder, “Bildniszeichnungen als Tauschobjekte” 110. 61 Ibid, 119. 62 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 600. Hirschfelder, “Bildniszeichnungen als Tauschobjekte,” 116. 63 See Hirchfelder ibid and Van den Brink, “Portrait Drawings” for a fuller consideration of this aspect of the portrait drawings. 64 Van den Brink, ibid, 213. 65 There are examples of a Black Queen of Sheba dating back to the Middle Ages. Contemporary to Dürer, St. Fidis, the fictitious sister of St. Maurice was created by Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg. St. Maurice had a long history of being depicted as Black in Germany and St. Fidis was accordingly depicted as Black. Yet neither of these are standard subjects nor connect to Dürer’s oeuvre. See Kaplan, “Calenburg Altarpiece,” 31–32 on St. Fidis and Kaplan, Rise of the Black Magus, 9 on the Queen of Sheba. 66 Dürer wrote letters to Heller in March, August and November of 1508, stressing in each that he was deep in his work on the altarpiece. Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 213–218. 67 Häberlein, “Connected Histories,” 37.

136  Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man 68 Hirchfelder, “Bildniszeichnungen als Tauschobjekte,” 116. Fernandez’s larger role in Portuguese-German relations is likely of interest. Goris notes that Fernandez wrote a long letter to the Portuguese king in November of 1520, incidentally the period in which he and Dürer interacted regularly, describing the financial situation and political influence of the main German nobles, Étude sur Les Colonies Marchandes, 221. 69 Martin, Schwarze Teufel, 58–61. 70 See in particular Roth, “Sugar and Slaves” and Häberlein, “Connected Histories.” Roth also states that Fuggers, to a lesser degree than the Welsers, were connected to early Spanish colonial endeavors, including slavery. The Welsers established an outpost for sugar in Santo Domingo in Hispaniola in the 1523 and “contracted with the Spanish crown for the colonization of Venezuela [and] shipment of 4000 African slaves to America” in 1528. Häberlein, 40. 71 Kuhlmann-Smirnov, Schwarze Europäer im Alten Reich. 72 Kaplan, “Calenburg Altarpiece,” 28–30. 73 Kaplan, “Calenburg Altarpiece,” 30–31. 74 Martin, Schwarze Teufel, 61. Martin gives the date as 1482, other sources give the date of the elephant’s travels as 1483. The elephant may have been recorded in a print by Schongauer, who shows two small figures peering out from the carriage on its back. Neither figure is clearly represented as Black. Shestack, Fifteenth Century Engravings provides additional details of the elephant’s visit in a discussion of Schongauer’s print. The elephant’s presence was recorded in a letter asking the officials of Frankfurt to allow entrance to Hans Filshover (Hans Vyltzhover in Martin) and his “helffandt.” cat. 87. 75 Kok and de Winkel, “Een Portret” detail the clothing worn by Mostaert’s sitter. They note that his clothing would have been out of date for the time the portrait was created, although facial hair for men did not become fashionable until about 1515. 76 See van den Boogaart, “Christophle le More,” 420. Despite some similarities between the two images, it seems unlikely that they are connected. If Mostaert’s image does depict Christophle le More, there is not an obvious way in which Dürer could have met him during the window when the image was likely created, although Christophle is not cited in any documents between 1507 and 1517. Mostaert and Dürer do not appear to have met while Dürer was in the Netherlands, although their visits to the court of Margaret of Austria at Mechelen took place close in time. Mostaert visited in early 1521 and Dürer visited in June 1521. It is improbable that Mostaert knew Dürer’s image. 77 Ibid, 418. 78 Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, 98. See also Robison and Schroeder, Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, 42. 79 See Hirschfelder, “Bildniszeichnungen als Tauschobjekte,” 127 on Dürer’s large format portrait drawings from 1514 to 1518. 80 See Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 403–405, 413–417. 81 Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, 98. See also Robison and Schroeder, Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, 42. 82 Hirschfelder, “Bildniszeichnungen als Tauschobjekte,” 127. 83 Lowe, “Visible Lives,” 420. Lowe also notes that Venice had long had a trade in enslaved persons and also served as an entrepôt for other Italian cities. 84 Lowe, ibid, 428 argues convincingly that the depictions of Black gondoliers by Carpaccio are accurate reflections of the time. She states that “there is unambiguous documentary evidence that black freed former slaves worked as gondoliers at gondola stations across the city.” 85 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 18. 86 Albertina Sammlungen Online. See https://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=search=/record/ objectnumbersearch=[3122]&showtype=record, accessed June 16, 2022. 87 The Imhoff were a prominent Nuremberg patrician family. After the death of Agnes, Dürer’s wife, his estate, including the drawings from his workshop, passed to Endres Dürer, his brother, and subsequently to his brother’s heir. After her death, Willibald Imhoff, grandson of Willibald Pirckheimer, acquired the contents of the estate. Later members of the Imhoff family sold the drawings and other items from the estate. Bartrum, Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy, 266. See Bubenik for a broader discussion of the reception of Dürer at the court of Rudolf II. 88 Dürer-Cranach-Holbein, 98. 89 Bartrum, Albrecht Dürer and His Legacy, 85.

Katharina and Portrait of a Young Man  137 90 Lowe, “Black Diaspora,” 46. The Tucher family later ran a brewery and used the family’s heraldic Moor’s head as a labelling device. Museun Tucherschloss. https://museums.nuernberg.de/ museum-tucher-mansion/the-tucher-merchant-dynasty, accessed June 16, 2022. Tucher beer is still made, now under the umbrella of the Carlsberg group, with the label continuing to display the insignia. The continued use of “Moor” imagery and terminology is a contested issue today, with, for example, calls for the renaming of Nuremberg’s Mohrengasse. See “‘Mohrengasse’ noch zeitgemäß? BCF Nürnberg fordert Umbenennung,” Franken Fernsehen, 12/22/2020. 91 See Devisse and Mollat, The Image of the Black in Western Art, Martin, Schwarze Teufel, edle Mohren. 92 Lowe, “Black Diaspora,” identifies two cases of an explicit linkage to trade in enslaved persons, 45. 93 Kaplan, Rise of the Black Magus, 73. 94 Lowe, “Black Diaspora,” 48. 95 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 92. 96 Bartum, Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy, 85. 97 Lowe identifies these as “three different categories of Black Africans in German speaking areas.” Lowe, “Black Diaspora,” 38. 98 Kaplan, “Italy,” 134. 99 Heng, The Invention of Race, 20.

6

Conclusion Dürer’s Theories of Human Difference

Dürer’s depictions of human diversity, including his Black figures, depictions of figures visibly coded as Muslim and his portraits of Black individuals should also be viewed in the context of his writings, particularly his brief discussion of racial difference and his comments on human “types” in a text commonly referred to as his “Aesthetic Excursus.” This theoretical writing, which Ashcroft refers to as the “Discourse on Aesthetics,” was placed at the end of the third book of his Four Books of Human Proportion (Vier Bücher von Menschlichen Proportion).1 The Four Books were first published after Dürer’s death in 1528 with a dedication to Willibald Pirckheimer, who helped see it through the publication process.2 The text is comprised largely of highly technical drawings showing measurements and proportional calculations on a series of male and female bodies together with a wide variety of facial renderings interspersed with instructive text.3 Panofsky describes the project as “comparative or differential anthropometry,” the intent of which “was to provide him not with one canon but with specimens and methods which would enable him to produce within the widest limits of human nature and on the basis of sheer measurement, all possible kinds of figures.”4 Dürer’s aim to systematize, analyze and make reproducible the outward markers of human physical difference together with comments in his writing regarding the relevance of human difference for the artist can provide insight into what he intended, on a broad level, in his depiction of figures marked with visible signs of difference, whether shown through costume, skin tone or physiognomy. Described by Parshall as “among the most astonishing reflections on art making to be found anywhere in the Renaissance,” the “Aesthetic Excursus” is a key document providing insight into Dürer’s conceptions of art, beauty, the role of the artist and the act of representation together with specific instructions and exhortations directed at fellow artists.5 Among other noteworthy aspects, it has the distinction of being the “earliest discursive writings by an artist in a modern European language other than Renaissance Italian,” and a draft includes the earliest recorded term referring to the Renaissance as a phenomenon.6 Dürer’s theoretical writings went through a lengthy gestation and drafting process, and the “Aesthetic Excursus” is no exception. According to Ashcroft, the earliest extensive draft dates to around 1519, although it incorporates ideas developed in earlier, more fragmentary drafts dating to around 1515 and is related to a text on beauty, intended as an introduction to a never completed handbook on painting, that was first drafted around 1508 and subsequently revised in 1512–13.7 The text thus incorporates ideas Dürer had been working through for over a decade. It ranges widely over topics including the nature of beauty, artistic depictions of beauty, the fallen nature of human perception, the representation of human forms and figure types as well as physical DOI: 10.4324/9781003099628-7

Conclusion 139 differences. Dürer’s authorial voice is distinctive and his opinions come through the text clearly. The “Aesthetic Excursus” is also notable for including a brief comment on race and Dürer included a Black figure in one of the illustrations in his Four Books. This is not an expected topic in Renaissance art theory, and it shows him incorporating Blackness into his larger system for the representation of human difference. The statement in the “Aesthetic Excursus” reads: For many kinds of images many kinds of people are there to be copied. They belong to two races, white and black. There is a difference to be observed in their types, between them and us. The faces of Moors are seldom handsome because of their squashed noses and thick lips, likewise, their shins, knees and feet are too knotted, not as good as white people’s, similarly their hands. But I have seen a number of them who otherwise are so well-made and comely in their whole bodies as I have never seen better formed nor can imagine, with very good kinds of arms and all things, as they could not be better. Thus one finds among the human races all kinds and types useful for a whole variety of images, according to complexion.8 An earlier draft includes a similar statement and shows that Dürer made some significant modifications in his revision process: There are many kinds of people to copy, black and white. The difference is easy to notice, on account of the natural characteristics they share. A moor’s face is seldom handsome, as you know. Likewise, their legs are knotted and usually scrawny. Yet you will find many among them who in their whole body down to the buttocks are well built and comely, their arms too. However, white people have better hands, likewise legs. Even so each can be usable in its own right. For in achieving the differences of a wide variety of image, it is necessary to copy examples of the whole variety of complexions.9 There are a number of issues to unpack with this statement. The first is that Dürer is clearly engaged in this passage in race thinking and in formulating a conception of racial difference based on somatic markers.10 I am using the term race thinking as explained by Akhimie, who describes “a key feature of race thinking, the impulse toward classification or speciation … it persists whether it is accomplished through the imagined significance of differences between human bodies or groups segregated by region, religion, rank or by other means.” This aspect is also notably made more explicit in the revisions from the draft to the published version. In the published version, Dürer clearly describes “two races” (zweyerley geschlect).11 At the end of the statement, he refers to “human races” (den geschlechten der menschen). Ashcroft notes that geschlect meant “family” or “gender” and that rasse was a later 16th-century loan word from French.12 Dürer’s conceptualization of racial difference as “geschlect” in the published version pushes further his earlier distinction of merely “many different types of people” (mencherley menschen). Dürer explicitly defines his conception of two races, which are white and Moor (weyß und Morn).13 Moor (sein Morin) is also how Dürer described Katharina in his diary. The term Moor and its cognates in various European languages had been used since the Middle Ages with a range of possible meanings – although Moor could signify Muslim, it was commonly associated with sub-Saharan origin.14 While Moor did not necessarily indicate

140  Conclusion skin color in Renaissance usage, it is clear from the context and due to its placement in direct opposition to white that Dürer uses Moor to indicate Black in this passage. This racialized conception of Moor further leads Dürer to separate white and Moor as separate categories, as is underscored by the subsequent mention of “der weyssen”15 and his oppositional phrasing “them and us,” where them is clearly to be identified with Moor/ Black, and us with white.16 The draft statement also indicates his conception of racial difference as resulting from shared “natural characteristics” that are clearly visible to the eye. Dürer’s categorization process, where he names Black/Moor as distinct from white and articulates what he sees as distinct physical qualities that correspond with racial identity, is aligned with Heng’s definition of race as “a structural relationship for the articulation and management of human differences.”17 The construction of Blackness in opposition to whiteness, with the corollary that this construction in turn begins to define whiteness is also significant. Bethencourt, referring to the Renaissance and European expansion, states that “the definition of European whiteness is another important issue in this period,” a phenomenon seen as connected to increased awareness of human diversity and increased movement – voluntary and involuntary – of peoples.18 Akhimie’s statement that “race is a realm of ideas about difference” where “processes of inclusion and exclusion are always underway,” also speaks to the differentiation on the basis of somatic features and evaluative nature of Dürer’s discussion.19 Dürer’s views on what he understands as Black physiognomy are stated in largely negative terms in this passage. Black faces are “seldom handsome,”20 a statement he goes on to detail in the published version with derogatory descriptions related to specific body parts. The preliminary draft further gestures to an understood common knowledge among his readers with his “as you know,” thus framing his assessment within what he understands to be a shared perception. Dürer articulates the preferred nature of white physiognomy in relation to his observations of shins, knees and feet: “not as good as white people’s.”21 He does allow that he has seen some who are “so well-made and comely,”22 noting specifically their “good kinds of arms.”23 These individuals approach his conception of physical beauty, although his “otherwise” indicates that he does not see them as achieving ideal beauty. In the section just prior to this passage, Dürer repeats the Renaissance commonplace that the artist needs to look to many figures to select perfect features from each to combine into an overall image of perfection as “everyone has a flaw.”24 Yet these Black exceptions who are seen as near-perfect in bodily form seem largely excluded from the possibility of facial perfection, given the preceding assessment of Black faces, suggesting that he sees their “flaw” as less an individual quirk, and more a broader shared deficiency. Stoichita’s reading of this passage sees the differential regard of Black faces and bodies as “imply[ing] a potential cleavage of aesthetic criteria depending on the object of a partialist gaze, the black body being more appreciated than the black face.”25 Dürer’s categorization of what he sees as deficiencies in Black physiognomy which are placed in opposition to white physiognomy also links to Akhimie’s characterization of “racist thinking that link a social process of differentiation … to the naturalization of such difference – the stigmatization of bodily markers imagined to be biological, inheritable, socially meaningful and indelible.”26 Dürer’s concession to Black beauty suggests his ability to perceive the beauty of an individual. Kaplan sees that ability manifested in the image of Katharina: “Dürer has been able to see and make a kind of loveliness for this face that both avoids idealization and yet makes Katharina’s beauty unmistakable to the European viewer.”27 Koerner meanwhile suggests that “Africans held up the hope of allowing the artist to transcend

Conclusion 141 his temporally and spatially specific beauty ideal.” It is of particular interest that both of his images of actual Black individuals focus on their faces, given his written statements regarding Black faces and bodies. This may be because his portraits were typically bust length, although his extensive oeuvre of drawn costume studies from life show those subjects full length, suggesting that the aim of these two works was different, and his interest was indeed in their faces. Dürer exhorts artists to “seek out those who are deemed attractive,”29 when drawing living people, suggesting that he would have selected Katharina and the sitter for the Portrait of a Young Man at least in part due to his perception of their innate physical appeal. Katharina and the Portrait of a Young Man taken in the context of the “Aesthetic Excursus” passage also highlight the apparent contradictions within Dürer’s conception of Blackness. He had the capacity to create incredibly sensitive portraits showing full humanity and individuality and he described his own perception of Black individuals whom he sees as possessing beauty and near physical perfection. Yet the “otherwise” that is the pivot point of his discussion of Black physiognomy (“a number of them who otherwise are so well-made and comely”) suggests Dürer’s ultimate inability to break out of his racial characterizations, which include his perpetuating of negative and essentializing stereotypes. While he may see certain individuals as exceptional, this does not cause him to reassess his thinking about how he has defined the broader racial category. The primary takeaway of the passage remains a generalized conception of Black physiognomy which is negatively evaluated against an implied standard and in specific reference to white physiognomy. The development of Dürer’s thought in his theoretical writing, culminating in the “Aesthetic Excursus” suggests an evolution toward a rejection of a single, physical ideal originating in classical prototypes, a perhaps surprising position for a Renaissance artist deeply concerned with Italian models.30 Panofsky sees this motivation as undergirding his study of proportion as an enterprise: 28

After his return from Venice, Dürer was forever convinced that there was not one absolute beauty … but many forms of relative beauty.… The purpose of the theory of proportions was to provide him not with one canon but with specimens and methods which would enable him to produce within the widest limits of human nature and on the basis of sheer measurement, all possible kinds of figures.31 Dürer’s reflections on human physiognomy seem to push him to a questioning of received standards of beauty causing him to come to the conclusion that there may be no universal standard of human beauty, or at one least perceivable by human eyes. He states: “I believe there is no one alive capable of perceiving the ultimate ideal of beauty embodied in the least of living creatures, let along in a human being, which is the special creation of God.”32 Although his statements about Black physiognomy imply the existence of an ideal (white) standard, with the corollary that there are many bodies that fall short of that ideal, his writings at the same time suggest a nascent relativism. Yet Dürer’s thoughts and vision are framed and seemingly curtailed by contemporary discourse. This can be seen in his “as you know” with reference to Black faces in the draft version of his statement or in his use of expected racial tropes (the Black Magus, the exoticized executioner, the Moor’s head) in his images. In these instances, he resorts to convention and expected constructions of race and racial difference. The portrait drawings in particular seem to show his unmediated experience pitted against his received

142  Conclusion frameworks. This opposition is also shown linguistically with the “as you know” appeal to an imagined consensus which is opposed to the but/otherwise (“yet” in the draft) construction. His appeal to the authority of common understanding is offset by his experiential evidence of “I have seen,” where his own eyewitness authority as an artist trumps convention and offsets, yet does not ultimately override or cause him to reject racialized and racist thinking. Koerner’s discussion of Dürer’s quest for beauty, his expression of his inability to know it – “although what beauty is, I do not know”33 – and his efforts to extract true beauty from a multitude of diverse examples also highlights what is termed a “completely novel project of differential anthropometry.”34 Dürer claimed elsewhere to have “investigated two or three hundred persons” in the process of his investigations into human proportions.35 This statement and his broader practice of study aligns with a clear implication of the passage on Black physiognomy from the “Aesthetic Excursus” where he states that “I have seen a number of them.” The claim in this statement is that Dürer personally has seen and examined with his artist’s eye – if not pen – multiple Black people.36 Indeed, Dürer’s discussion of race does not frame Blackness as something unknown or highly unusual to either him or to his assumed audience, as seen in the comment “as you know” in the draft. His comments on physical features such as knees, shinbones and feet, features that would typically be covered by clothing, offer a level of specificity that furthermore suggests some degree of anatomical scrutiny. We know of two Black sitters – Katharina and the sitter for his Portrait of a Young Man. His statement opens up the question as to where and under what circumstances this apparently more extensive study occurred, to the point that Dürer feels he can speak with authority about Black bodies. This has important implications not only for our understanding of Dürer’s work and artistic practice, but of Black presence in Renaissance Europe more broadly. His rhetorical stress on the familiarity of Black figures to both him and his anticipated audience points suggestively to still hidden realities of Black women and men’s lived experiences in early modern Europe. Dürer’s visual reflections on Blackness and the place of Blackness within an overall scheme of human difference are also visible in two images, the second included in the Four Books of Human Proportion. Koerner has described Dürer as devising an “aesthetics of difference” that celebrates artistic invention and the endless capacity for the creation of difference.37 It is in this context that Koerner reads a study sheet, now in Berlin, where Dürer sketched ten profile heads of men (Figure 6.1). The series of heads appear as a sort of theme and variations on the first profile, shown at the far right of the sheet, which is an idealized, classicizing bust. In addition to faces with a range of altered, often exaggerated features – protruding chins, flattened foreheads, overlarge noses – the last of the heads shows Black physiognomy, exaggerated to the point of stereotype. Unlike the other nine heads, this man looks out at the viewer from his one eye that is visible in profile, closing the loop of the visual path, creating a focal point and seeming to acknowledge his placement within this array. The figure within the image who makes visual contact with the viewer has a long history in Renaissance art and theory, serving as a device to bring the viewer into the image or alternatively to repel them, as discussed above in the context of the Black Magus.38 Facial manipulation with the goal of depicting a range of human differences is also shown in a series of profiles from the third book of the Four Books on Human Proportion (Figure 6.2). This image comes in the context of a discussion and diagrammatic demonstration of how to modify the proportions of the body by the use of geometric

Conclusion 143

Figure 6.1 Dürer, Ten Profiles and Drapery Study, 1513, pen and ink, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, bpk Bildagentur, Jörg P. Anders, Art Resource, NY.

principles applied first to the body, the limbs and then to the face.39 Dürer demonstrates how to modify the face by adjusting the lines on the grid which he uses to construct faces. Panofsky describes his method as follows: Each head is inscribed in a square and in each case the proportions, the placing of the features and the very contours of the profile are determined by geometrical lines drawn within the square – lines which in a normal face are parallel will either diverge or converge, straight lines will be replaced either by concave or convex curves, horizontals will either be raised or lowered, verticals will be shifted either to the right or to the left and the basic contrasts thus created can be diversified ad infinitum.40 The first demonstrations are straightforward – the grid lines are widened and the face widens, the grid lines are pushed closer together and the face narrows.41 The possible variances move toward the exaggerated and extreme, with compressed noses, bulbous chins, flattened foreheads and underbites. The fourth face on the last of a series of pages showing such modifications is a profile with features that denote the figure’s race as Black.42 While arrived at differently from the ten heads in profile, the end result is similar: the face of the Black man is shown as one of a range of possible variances in human

144  Conclusion

Figure 6.2 Dürer, Four Proportional Studies of Heads, Four Books on Human Proportion, 90v, 1528, woodcut, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 612.

physiognomy, the variance here arrived at through geometrical manipulation rather than through the apparent free play of line. What then to make of the ten profile heads drawing, which is carefully constructed at the same time that it reads as a kind of visual exercise? Koerner sees this image as “inscribing the image of the black into a structure not of difference but of diversity,”43 which is further connected to an attempt by the artist to reconstruct lost beauty, as seen in Adam and Eve before the Fall, through the comparative study of a wide range of individuals.44 For Stoichita, this drawing “set[s] up an illusory aesthetic hierarchy,” which Stoichita links to later comparative works of racial physiognomy, the product of 18th century racism.45 The drawing shows a visual experiment on a range of

Conclusion 145 possibilities within the spectrum of human physical diversity. Yet it is impossible to look at it and not see a profile that Renaissance viewers would recognize as the ideal followed by deviations from that ideal, where stereotyped African physiognomy is placed alongside heads with caricatured features, several of which – the fourth figure with beak-like lips, the sixth figure with a cartoonishly large nose, the eight figure with flattened forehead and nose and massively protruding chin – are exaggerated beyond the point of believable reality.46 Similarly, the African head in the Four Books of Human Proportion reads not simply as neutral variance but as deviance from an ideal given its placement after profiles showing obvious facial distortions. Although this image appears prior to the “Aesthetic Excursus,” it is also impossible not to read back onto that face the description of Black faces which follows at the end of the third book. This is despite the face itself possessing a rhythmic harmony and linear grace, which is quite different in effect from the cramped distortions and linear clutter of other faces on the same page. The passage describing Blackness and the broader context provided by the surrounding text of the “Aesthetic Excursus” makes clear that for Dürer, the primary value of racial diversity from an artistic perspective is that it is a type of physical difference that is available to the artist to provide variety and thus visual interest for image making. Dürer describes in a subsequent passage in the “Aesthetic Excursus” how a “powerful artist … should be practiced and knowledgeable in many different ways and about all types. That enables him to portray whichever category of image may be demanded of him.”47 Black physiognomy thus becomes another human type for Dürer, which the artist may be called upon to depict due to its appropriateness for a given work of art. The primary example of an image necessitating a Black figure for him, based on his art, would be a scene of the Adoration of the Magi. Although Dürer does not anywhere in the text address differentiation on the basis of religion, ethnicity or nationality, it does not seem too much of a stretch to see that Ottoman or Muslim costume can also be understood as another of Dürer’s human types, which he saw certain subject matters – the Passion sequence, the Adoration of the Magi – as requiring, in the same way that an image might require a “choleric” type or “Martial figure.”48 Dürer expands on his understanding of types (art) of people in the section immediately preceding this passage, which fleshes out this concept, central to his understanding of human difference. Types of people might include age (youth, middle age, old age) or “thin, fat, soft and hard people, strong ones and weak ones.”49 Ashcroft explains the implications of Dürer’s choice of the word art when discussing types of people: “In Renaissance contexts, applied to human beings, it … came to denote typological categories of people.… Albrecht Dürer links art in this typological sense with his terms of contrast and categories of difference.”50 Dürer instructs that these differing physical forms can be studied by the artist for the purpose of using them as characters in different images and also warns against combining different types in one body.51 A young body must have all young parts, for example, and not include some middle-aged and old features.52 Dürer here can be seen as constructing a series of oppositional dyads to define human difference – thin/fat, soft/hard, strong/weak, Black/white – yet of these, Black/white is the one he expounds upon. He does not provide a similar paragraph detailing the physical tendencies of strong people, for example, which assesses the idiosyncratic qualities of their limbs. Dürer instead uses race, in the form of Black/white, as a primary lens through which to probe human difference, perhaps because he sees race as constituting the greatest difference that structures categories of humans.

146  Conclusion Dürer’s comments on bodies with disabilities, another category of otherness, further clarify his conception of difference, the artistic utility of difference and suggest where other types of bodies fit into his larger conceptual framework. Dürer cautions artists against “showing things that are not fit for purpose in pictures when otherwise we aim at beauty.” As examples of “deformity and discordance”53 he cites “the blind and the lame, emaciated cripples and those that limp.”54 These are to be avoided because he sees them as “ugly,” and suggests instead including figures that “people commonly like” as that is what will be perceived as beautiful.55 Dürer’s aim in part throughout the “Aesthetic Excursus” is to identify and codify the creation of beauty, inasmuch as he sees this as possible due to the “unreliable” and “limited” nature of human perception. Given this, Dürer must understand Black bodies, and presumably other bodies marked with signs of cultural, ethnic or religious difference, to have a utility for the artist and a potential for beauty or at least visual appeal. This is made clear through a contrast with his discussion of bodies with disabilities, which he describes as lacking both beauty and utility and as physical types to be avoided by the artist. The “Aesthetic Excursus” speaks to artistic practice and the working methods of the professional artist in several passages. Relevant to the discussion of Dürer’s understanding of difference as reflecting categories of human types and their practical use is his description of what might be understood a mental database of human forms that the artist should compile: “By much faithful copying he has stocked his mind full … a wellpracticed artist does not need to copy living images for every picture he makes, for he pours out a sufficiency from what he has garnered over time … such an artist has what he needs for his work.”56 The discussion suggests additional insight into Dürer’s motivations in making, and keeping, the portrait of Katharina and the Portrait of a Young Man and supports an assumption that he kept them as reference or study images for his own purposes, as a way of contributing to his personal storehouse of examples of human physical diversity. A similar motivation may have provided at least one stimulus for his drawings after Gentile Bellini, Costanzo da Ferrara and his source for the portrait of Sultan Süleyman I. His models in each case were purportedly accurate depiction of Ottoman dignitaries and the face and body of two sultans. The individuals depicted could also be understood to represent a larger figure type, whether Muslim, Ottoman, or ruler from the East. Dürer likely copied these images, at least in part, in order to add to his visual archive of human difference and to have them for reference. He described the utility of copying in the Excursus: “it is very useful for anyone in this walk of life to see many examples of good images and often [copy] those done by famous good masters.”57 He also points out that “it is always right to spot their mistakes and work out how to improve them,” which provides an explanation for some of the changes he made to his prototypes – modifying a foot placement in the Three Orientals, the horse’s stance in the Oriental Rider or the width and curve of Suleyman’s neck.58 Like Katharina’s portrait, the Portrait of a Young Man and indeed the majority of his costume studies, these images also found no direct use in his completed works, apart from the one figure from the Three Orientals who appeared in the Landscape with Cannon two decades later. Turbaned and Black figures cannot be said to be a major part of Dürer’s oeuvre, yet they are not insignificant either, particularly in comparison to the work of his contemporaries. Using his theoretical writings as an interpretative guide, the broader purpose of these figures can be explained as the representation of various human types, which are a necessary part of the artist’s repertoire to be deployed as needed when subject matter

Conclusion 147 dictated their presence. It is important for the artist to study humanity with a voracious eye, and this includes figures representing human difference in many forms. While Dürer’s writings provide an artistic rationale for the study and deployment of these figures in a general sense, his writings do not disclose the ideological freight that these figures bear. It is clear that these figures are more than mere stock types and are far from neutral, even when their use is dictated by long-standing iconographical precedents. Dürer reflects, engages in and furthers contemporary notions of Muslims, Ottomans and Black Africans through his repeated, intentional deployment of his turbaned and Black figures in specific, often charged contexts: the cruel despot, the subordinate Black man, the racialized evildoer, the potential convert, the implacable opponent, the possessor of desirable commodities. This is despite his amassing and keeping in his possession a range of works that documented the range of human difference visible in late 15th and early 16th century Renaissance Europe with a more neutral, quasi-ethnographic gaze. These could derive from his own eyewitness observations, such as his portraits of Katharina and the sitter for the Portrait of a Young Man, or his numerous costume studies. In other cases, these works came from putatively authoritative sources, such as Gentile Bellini or the Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I. In a broader perspective, Dürer’s images and writings participated in Renaissance racial discourses and indeed actively contributed to those discourses, which themselves were in flux between older medieval concepts and later pseudo-scientific racist ideologies. According to Bethencourt, “the diversity of humankind seemed to be at the core of the Renaissance, and the categorization of the different parts of the world … emerged as a response to this apparent chaos.” Dürer’s imagery and theoretical discussion fits into this broader context. While he does not construct a hierarchy of races and his comments on racial difference are only one small – albeit key – part of his theoretical text, his images reflect an effort to systematize human difference through a codification of visual signs of difference, some of which are assessed as better than others. In light of later classification systems from the 18th and 19th centuries, this undertaking has a fraught resonance.59 Given Dürer’s artistic status, his use of printmaking and his intent to publish his writings, his conceptions and representations of racial, ethnic, cultural and religious difference had the potential for an outsize impact due to the expectation that they would be disseminated widely. Although his Black figures do not appear to have had an immediate impact, likely as their presence was limited to drawings and as ancillary figures within a few larger scenes, it is clear that his images of Ottomans had precisely this effect. Dürer’s images of turbaned and Black figures are frequently compelling in their visual appeal and conceptual innovation. Despite his appearing to struggle with and even reject received notions at points, Dürer’s images also remain profoundly of their time. Notes 1 Ashcroft states that “its customary title of ‘Aesthetic Excursus’ is misleading, to the extent that it suggests that the discussion is not integral to D[ürer]’s instruction on human proportion and that its central theme, the nature of beauty, is peripheral or supplementary.” “Art in German,” 383. 2 Ashcroft discusses the circumstances around the final editing and printing of the Four Books of Human Proportion along with unresolved questions about the process. Documentary Biography, 863–864. 3 The first book shows five different body types in their male and female versions (marked A, B, C, D, E), measuring seven, eight, nine and ten heads. B and C are described as “moderate” while A is “coarse and rustic” and D and E are “long and thin.” The second book adds

148  Conclusion additional types, with the text establishing 26 basic human types in all. The third book discusses ways to modify the proportions of a given figure, including how to alter facial features, while the fourth book addresses movement. Panofsky, The Art and Life of Albrecht Dürer, 266–270, Ashcroft, “Art in German,” 383. 4 Panofsky, Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, 266. 5 Parshall, “Graphic Knowledge,” 495. 6 Ashcroft, “Art in German,” 378–379. 7 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 252, 364–367, 425–426, 518–519, 882. See also Ashcroft, “Art in German.” All quotations are from the published version of 1528 except where noted. 8 Translation by Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 878. 9 Ibid, 525. 10 Akhimie, Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference, 13. 11 Original German text taken from the 1528 edition, Hierinn sind begriffen vier Bucher von menschlicher Proportion. 12 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 883. Bethencourt, Racisms, 6 discusses the evolution of the word race in Western European languages beginning in the Middle Ages, locating the emergence of a connection to ethnicity and hierarchy in early modern Spain. 13 Ashcroft translates Dürer’s use of “Moor” as Black. 14 Bethencourt, Racisms, 17–18. The word originally derives from the Latin maurus. See also Lowe, “The Black Diaspora,” 39. 15 Translated as “white people” by Ashcroft. 16 ihn vnnd vns. This passage occurs on Fol. 107r using the hand numbering on the copy in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. 17 Heng, The Invention of Race, 3. 18 Bethencourt, Racisms, 64. 19 Akhimie, Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference, 11. 20 sind selten hubsch. 21 nit so gut zu sehen als der weyssen. 22 so wol geschickt vnnd ertig. 23 gantz gutter art von armen. 24 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 878. “yedlicher hat ein mangel,” Fol. 107r. The idea of finding perfection through the combination of perfect forms taken from multiple observed figures ultimately goes back to the story of Zeuxis choosing models in Pliny’s Natural History. Alberti makes reference to this in On Painting (II, 56) and Raphael famously alluded to the story in reference to his Galatea. Ashcroft discusses this notion with reference to a passage by Dürer in an earlier draft, “Art in German,” 382. Both Ashcroft and Parshall, “Graphic Knowledge,” address Dürer’s knowledge of other writings on art. Parshall states: “There has been much speculation over what Dürer might have known of Italian writings and workshop conversation on art, particularly with regard to the accomplishments of Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo, although the evidence of a positive connection has never been solid.” 394–395. Parshall mentions Dürer’s reference to the Zeuxis story on p. 396. Ashcroft, “Art in German,” argues that Dürer must have accessed writings of Pliny, Lucian and Alberti in Nuremberg, potentially with the assistance of his humanist friends, 383. 25 Stoichita, Darker Shades, 66. 26 Akhimie, Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference, 11. 27 Kaplan, “Black Women,” 53–54. 28 Koerner, “The Epiphany,” 89. 29 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 877. 30 Koerner, “The Epiphany of the Black Magus,” 84–88. See also the discussion of the “Aesthetic Excursus” in Spicer, “European Perceptions of Blackness,” 46–47. 31 Panofsky, The Art and Life of Albrecht Dürer, 266. 32 Ashcroft, “Art in German,” 385. 33 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 252. The statement is from the 1508 “On Beauty,” from his draft to the “Introduction to the Manual on Painting.” A longer statement about the impossibility of a human conception of beauty is found in the “Aesthetic Excursus.” “I believe there is no one alive capable of perceiving the ultimate ideal of beauty embodied in the least of living creatures, let alone in a human being, which is the special creation of God.” Ibid, 875.

Conclusion 149 4 Koerner, “The Epiphany,” 86. 3 35 Panofsky, Art and Life of Albrecht Dürer, 266. 36 Ashcroft also makes this point. Documentary Biography, 530. 37 Koerner, “The Epiphany,” 87. 38 Both Koerner, “The Epiphany,” 84 and Stoichita, Darker Shades, 34 connect this figure to the Albertian commentator. Koerner provides a longer discussion of the commentator/festaiuolo, 61–63. 39 Panofsky, Art and Life of Albrecht Dürer, 268–269. 40 Panofsky, Art and Life of Albrecht Dürer, 270. 41 Dürer refers back to this in the “Aesthetic Excursus.” “As seen before with the altered faces.… If you shift the lines closer together you will shorten the spaces between them. If you move them further from each other the spaces become wider.” Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 874. 42 Spicer, “European Perceptions,” 46 notes that the image comes in the context of a discussion on nasal variety: “wide or narrow, pointed, with corners or round,” where this figure is intended to represent a round nose. The text is on the page following the illustration: “Es werdenn auch breyt oder schmal nasenn/es sey oben oder unden krum oder schlecht/kolbet oder spitzig/ecket oder rund.” A discussion on nostrils follows. Dürer, Hierinn sind begriffen vier Bucher, 91r. The text nowhere indicates that this figure is Black, but there is scholarly consensus on this point. 43 Koerner, “The Epiphany,” 84. This stress on diversity rather than difference is also related to his argument against previous scholars who characterized the last figure as not fully human. This is to be understood as the diversity of human forms rather than absolute difference. 44 Ibid, 86. 45 Stoichita, Darker Shades, 33. 46 Koerner, “The Epiphany,” 85 notes that it is likely that Dürer had seen Leonardo’s famous grotesques in some form by the time he created this work. 47 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 880. 48 Ibid. 49 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 878. “magern/feysten/linden vnnd herten menschen/starck oder swach,” 107r. 50 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 883. 51 Panofsky states that the warnings against mixing types, for example, fat/lean, paraphrase similar discussions in Alberti and Leonardo. The Art and Life of Albrecht Dürer, 277. 52 “So that the character type is consistent throughout the whole body, in all images, whether that type is harder or softer, fleshy or skinny. One part must not be fat if the other is thin.… Hence also in every image in all parts of the limbs a consistent age should be depicted, not the head of a youth, the breast of an old person, hands and feet of a middle-aged one.” Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 877. 53 vngestalt vn vnschicklickeyt, 107v. 54 den blinden, lamen vn verdorten krupelen vnd hinckenden der Gleichen, 107v. 55 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 879. 56 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 879. 57 Ashcroft, Documentary Biography, 880. 58 Copying was of course standard artistic practice in the Renaissance. See Ames-Lewis, The Intellectual Life, Chapter 1. 59 Bethencourt explains how “racial classification formulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and the United States for scientific purposes, was intended to include all people of the world in a relational, systemic and hierarchical arrangement,” Racisms, 2.

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate figures. Adelphus, Johannes, 31, 45n68; Die Türkisch Chronik, 31, 31, 45n68 Adoration imagery, 30, 101, 104, 114n10, 115n24, 125 see also Black Magus, the; Dürer, Albrecht, Adoration imagery; individual images Adoration of the Magi (Dürer, 1504), 55, 64, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103–4 Adoration of the Magi (Dürer, 1511), 58, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103–4, 130 Adoration of the Magi (Dürer, 1524), 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 114n4, 130 Adoration of the Magi (Lochner), 25, 26 Adoration of the Magi (Schongauer), 27, 30, 98, 101, 102, 104; banners in, 29, 30, 31, 67, 103, 115n25 Adoration of the Magi from The Life of the Virgin (Dürer, 1503), 67, 69, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105 “Aesthetic Excursus” (Dürer, Four Books of Human Proportion), 11–12, 13n11, 138–42, 148n24, 149n41, 149n52; and beauty, 138, 140–42, 144, 147n1, 148n33; Blackness and, 139–42, 145, 146 Africa, 29, 30, 45n65, 119, 122–23; clothing from, 13n17, 32, 33, 72n15; Islam and, 19, 32–33; Sierra Leone, 8–9, 122; sub-Saharan, 8–9, 122, 129, 139 see also Black Africans/Afro-descendants; North Africa Akbari, Suzanne Conklin, 113 Akhimie, Patricia, 9, 139, 140 Akomfrah, John: Peripeteia, 117, 133n5 Anonymous: page from the Prayerbook of Alphonso V of Aragon, 33, 33; Sultan Süleyman I, 78, 79; title page to Die Türkisch Chronik, 31, 31, 45n68 Antichrist, the, 21, 86 see also apocalypse, the antisemitism, 10, 14n48, 24, 107, 115n44 see also Jews

Antwerp, 8, 117, 123, 124–25, 126; Dürer in, 117, 119, 123–24; feitorias in, 119, 124, 133n15, 133nn10–11 (see also Brandão, João); slavery in, 120, 121–23, 134n38, 135n51 see also Netherlands, the Anzelewsky, Fedja, 32, 33, 45n71, 46n75, 46n79 Apocalypse (Dürer), 1, 7, 54, 86, 90, 93, 108, 109; Martyrdom of St. John, 56, 57, 63, 64, 65, 86, 107, 108; Whore of Babylon, 2, 65, 65, 86–87 apocalypse, the, 17, 86–87, 88, 95n31 see also Antichrist, the Arabic text, 80, 94n12, 107, 115n41 armor, 8, 33, 45n65, 92 see also shields; turban helmets Ashcroft, Jeffrey, 11, 135n56, 138, 139, 145, 147nn1–2, 148n24 Asia, 6, 19, 33n51, 119; in Adoration imagery, 29, 30, 45n65; central, 22, 26, 46n79, 58, 73n23, 115n42; western, 22, 26 see also India Austria, 1, 2, 17–18, 94n28, 134n29, 136n76 Ayooghi, Sarvenaz, 3 Bacon, Paul M., 95n49, 96n52, 96n55 banners, 45n65, 112, 115n25; crescent and star motif, 29, 30, 45n65, 67, 103; crescent motif, 31, 45n66; eagle motif, 61, 70, 75n74 baptism, 104–5, 122, 134n47 see also Christianity, conversion to Bartrum, Giulia, 132 Batselé, Filip, 122, 134n23, 134n38, 135n51 Battle of St. James at Clavijo (Schongauer), 27, 32, 32–34, 45n58, 45n71, 46n74 Baxandall, Michael, 115n23 Bayezid II (sultan), 19, 44n42, 85, 87 see also Ottoman Empire, the

162 Index beards, 25, 44n41, 64, 71, 80, 108; and Black figures, 109, 127; and turbans, 25, 28, 63, 107 see also facial hair Bearing of the Cross, Large Passion (Dürer), 55, 55–56, 70 beauty, 10, 138, 140–42, 144, 146, 147n1, 148n33 Beheading of John the Baptist (Dürer), 54, 107, 108, 108, 116n49 Bellini, Gentile, 2, 17, 58, 129; as Ottoman authority, 48–49, 54, 64, 71n9, 147; Mehmed II (medal), 48, 49, 63; Mehmed II (painting), 48, 71n9; Procession in the Piazza San Marco, 48, 49, 60, 72n14, 72nn11–12, 97; Seated Scribe, 48, 71n5 see also St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (Bellini) Bellini, Gentile, influence on Dürer, 48, 51, 71n1, 72n20, 146; Mamluk dress and, 58–60, 62–63; Ottoman dress and, 54–56, 63, 64; Procession in the Piazza San Marco as, 48, 49, 51, 60, 72n10; St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria as, 48, 56, 58, 59–60, 62, 112 Bellini, Gentile (school of): Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, 78, 78 Bellini, Giovanni, 48, 51, 58, 59 belts, 22, 34, 75n72 see also sashes Berger, Pamela, 30, 46n86 Bethencourt, Francisco, 7, 9, 71, 140, 147, 149n59 Betrayal of Christ (Schongauer), 27, 28, 29, 41 Black Africans/Afro-descendants, 10, 132, 135n65, 137n97, 146, 147; in Antwerp, 120, 121–23, 134n38, 135n51; diaspora of, 117, 122–23, 133n9, 135n51 (see also enslaved persons; slave trade); as executioners, 105, 107, 108–10, 113–14, 115n36; in the Four Books of Human Proportion, 138, 139, 143–44, 145, 146–47; free, 120, 121–22, 129, 134n23, 134n37, 135n51, 136n84; in Germany, 125–27, 128–29, 137n97; as heraldic motifs, 30, 115n25, 130–32, 137n90, 141; in Iberia, 119, 120–21, 122–23, 133n9, 134n37, 135n48 (see also Portugal; Spain); in Italy, 129, 134n36, 136n83; Christophle le More, 127–28, 136n76; in the Netherlands, 3, 117, 120, 128; Saracens as, 63, 113; status and, 112–13, 114, 116n55, 140, 147 (see also enslaved persons); women, 119, 120–21, 125, 127, 130, 134nn36–37 (see also Katharina (Dürer)) see also individual Adoration images; Peripeteia (Akomfrah); physiognomy, Black;

Portrait of a Young Man (Dürer); Portrait of an African Man (Mostaert); stereotypes of Blackness; Three Orientals (Dürer) Black Magus, the, 97–103, 104, 113–14, 114n5, 130, 132 Black Muslims, 97–105, 112–13, 114; Mamluks, 103, 110, 111–12, 113–14, 116n55; Ottomans, 97, 103, 104, 105, 112, 113, 116n55 Blackness, 10, 113, 114, 132; the Black Magus and, 100, 101; Four Books of Human Proportion and, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145; heraldic, 30, 115n25, 130–32, 137n90, 141 Boogaart, Ernst van den, 128 börks, 35, 38, 58, 73n42 börks in Dürer’s work, 56, 73n43, 84, 90, 92, 95n35; anachronistic, 64, 66, 70 Bouts, Dirk, 45n61, 104, 114n20 bows, 84, 92, 103; bow quivers, 39, 58, 84 bows, recurve, 22, 25, 84; as Ottoman, 38, 39, 47n94, 58, 63, 94n20 Brandão, João, 121, 133n17; Dürer’s interaction with, 123, 125, 135n56; as factor, 119–20, 122–23, 133n14, 135n54, 135n56; Grandeza e Abastança de Lisboa em 1552, 119, 120, 122, 133n15, 134nn24–25 see also Portugal Brant, Sebastian: Ship of Fools, 18, 20–21, 43n23; “Von der wunderbaren Su zuo Landser” (Miraculous Sow of Landser), 18, 21 Breu, Jörg, 6, 87; Entry of Charles V into Augsburg, 85, 94nn23–24 Breydenbach, Bernhard von: Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam, 15, 16, 18, 37–38, 39, 39, 46n86 Brink, Peter van den, 120 Brisman, Shira, 103–4 bronze: Mehmed II (Bellini), 48, 49, 63; Portrait of Mehmed II (Ferrara), 51, 53, 73n24, 82, 94n17; Sultan Süleyman I (Anon.), 78, 79 Brotton, Jerry, 51, 105 Brown, Patricia Fortini, 50 Burgkmair, Hans, 1, 6, 13n16, 87; Hungarian Combatants, Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I, 84, 84–85 burnuses, 32, 33 Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselin de, 91–92 Byzantium, 20, 22, 42n1, 45n65 Calicut, 8–9, 14n37, 124 Calvary, 35–36; Road to Calvary (Dürer), 2, 55, 61, 70; The Road to Calvary

Index  163 (Schongauer), 27, 28, 28, 34, 40, 45n60, 67, 70; Way to Calvary (copy after Dürer), 2, 62, 74n61 Campin, Robert: Betrothal of the Virgin, 22, 25 Carpaccio, Vittore, 1, 58, 72n15, 74n59; Baptism of the Selenites, 104–5; Martyrdom of St. Ursula, 105, 112; Miracle of the True Cross at the Rialto Bridge, 50, 129, 136n84 carpets, 1, 2, 44n55, 53, 54, 72n14, 73nn36–37 see also luxury goods Celtis, Conrad, 18, 111 centurions, Roman, 22, 25, 28, 44n53, 70 Chapuis, Julien, 44n51, 45n65, 107, 115n44 Charles V (emperor), 8, 13n32, 120, 128, 134n38; Entry of Charles V into Augsburg (Breu), 85, 94nn23–24 Chong, Alan, 54, 73n32 Christ Among the Doctors (Dürer), 10 Christ Before Annas (Schongauer), 28, 67 Christ Before Pilate, Schatzbehalter (workshop of Wolgemut), 34, 35 Christ Before Pilate, Small Passion (Dürer), 58–59, 59, 67 Christianity, conversion to, 90, 101, 103, 104, 105, 114; of enslaved persons, 122, 134n47 see also baptism Christianity, enemies of, 20–21, 32–33, 87–88, 96n55, 107, 110; Jews as, 24–25, 115n44; Saracens as, 24, 105 see also crusading Cité des Dames Master, 22; Princes of the East, 23 Cleynaerts, Nicholas, 120–21 Coat of Arms of Albrecht Dürer (Dürer), 130–32, 131 Cologne, 11, 88, 115n44, 126, 127; Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne (Lochner), 25, 26, 30 see also Germany colonization, 2, 6, 46n76, 101, 117, 127, 140; Spanish, 46n76, 136n70 Constantinople (Istanbul), 91; conquest of, 17, 19, 20, 42n4, 43n14, 43n21, 45n69; Italian artists in, 17, 48, 51, 64; the Nuremburg Chronicle (Schedel) and, 19, 20, 43n21, 45n68 Coudert, Alison P., 7 Cowen, Dana, 74nn60–61, 75n74, 115n21 crescent motifs, 45n69, 87; in architecture, 35–36, 45n68; banners and, 29, 30–32, 45n68, 45nn65–66, 67, 103 crowns, 87, 90, 93, 104, 112; as European, 35, 65 see also headgear Crucifixion (Laib), 25, 44n52 Crucifixion (Master of 1477), 25, 27, 44n52

The Crucifixion and Last Judgement (Van Eyck), 22, 24, 25 crusading, 18, 21, 36, 96n55, 131; Maximilian I and, 10, 85, 87, 88 Destruction of Jerusalem, Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 35, 36, 38, 46nn84–86 Devisse, Jean, 105 Die Türkisch Chronik, 31, 31, 45n68 Diocletian (emperor), 66, 90 see also Romans diversity, 11, 15, 138, 140, 142, 146–47; class, 2, 6, 9–10; cultural, 2, 5–6, 12, 36–37, 71, 129; ethnic, 2, 6, 12, 145, 146 (see also ethnicity); physical, 12, 113, 130, 144–45, 146, 149nn42–43; religious, 12, 129, 139, 146, 147 (see also Islam; Jews; Muslims) see also ethnography, early modern; Four Books of Human Proportion (Dürer); race diversity, racial, 2, 9–10, 112–13, 122, 144–45; facial features and, 3, 103, 139, 140 (see also physiognomy); Four Books of Human Proportion and, 11, 138, 139–40, 145, 147, 149n43 Dome of the Rock, 36, 46nn85–86 Dominicans, 88, 90, 96n55 Domitian (emperor), 64–65, 86, 116n49 see also Romans Donati, Lamberto, 80 drawings: by Gentile Bellini, 48, 56, 72n12, 72n20, 97; by Sebald Rieter, 36, 46nn85–86 drawings by Albrecht Dürer, 12, 14n41, 27, 45n57, 129, 147; after Costanzo da Ferrara, 51, 146; after Gentile Bellini, 49, 51, 146; and European costume, 2–4, 13n9; and gift exchange, 123–24, 125; Passion imagery and, 55, 61, 70, 101, 114n3, 116n45 see also Four Books of Human Proportion (Dürer); individual drawing media drawings, brush and ink: Young Woman in Netherlandish Dress (Dürer), 2, 3, 4, 13n9 drawings, chalk/charcoal, 123–25 see also Portrait of a Young Man (Dürer) drawings, pen and ink, 2; A Lady from Nuremberg and a Lady from Venice (Dürer), 2, 3; Martyrdom of St. Catherine (Dürer), 107, 109, 109, 110, 116n47; Oriental Ruler Enthroned (Dürer), 51, 54, 65, 66, 86; Pamphilus, Sostrata and Laches in Conversation, Comedies of Terrence (Dürer), 40, 41, 47n97; Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (Dürer), 4–5,

164 Index 5, 55, 87–88, 88, 89; Ten Profiles and Drapery Study (Dürer), 142, 143, 144; Youth Kneeling Before an Executioner (Dürer), 107, 108, 109 see also Adoration of the Magi (Dürer, 1524); Oriental Rider (Dürer); Three Orientals (Dürer) drawings, silverpoint, 85, 94n24; Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (Dürer), 55, 63–64, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81 see also Katharina (Dürer) dress, accuracy of, 12, 74n53, 92, 104; in 15th-Century Northern European painting, 21–26, 44n55; Erhard Reuwich and, 36–37, 39, 47n94; Gentile Bellini and, 49, 56, 97, 146; Iberian, 32–33, 34; Ottoman, in general, 47n94, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 71; Venetian art and, 48, 55–56, 74n59, 93 see also eyewitness; Mamluk dress; Ottoman dress drypoint: Turkish Rider (Housebook Master/ Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet), 38–39, 40, 81 Dürer, Albrecht, 1, 94n17; apprenticeship of, 18, 34, 39, 46n80; as collector, 1, 2, 7, 8–9, 14n41, 54, 124; diary of, 2, 8, 72n18, 105, 123, 125, 139; early works, 39–41; family history, 11, 14nn55–56; influence on other artists, 97, 105 (see also Four Books of Human Proportion (Dürer)); interest in European costume, 2–3, 13n10, 103; Passion imagery and, 10, 61, 67, 70, 101, 111, 145 (see also individual works); Adoration of the Magi (1504), 55, 64, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103–4; Adoration of the Magi (1511), 58, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103–4, 130; Adoration of the Magi (1524), 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 114n4, 130; Adoration of the Magi from The Life of the Virgin (1503), 67, 69, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105; Bearing of the Cross, Large Passion, 55, 55–56, 70; Beheading of John the Baptist, 54, 107, 108, 108, 116n49; Christ Among the Doctors, 10; Christ Before Pilate, Small Passion, 58– 59, 59, 67; Coat of Arms of Albrecht Dürer, 130–32, 131; Ecce Homo, Large Passion, 67, 111, 116n45; Engraved Passion, 27, 54, 61, 115n29; Flagellation, Small Passion, 59, 74n58, 103, 110, 110–11; Four Books of Human Proportion, 11, 132, 138, 139, 142–43, 144, 145, 147nn2–3; Four Proportional Studies of Heads, Four

Books on Human Proportion, 142–44, 144, 149n42; A Lady from Nuremberg and a Lady from Venice, 2, 3; Life of the Virgin, 54, 67, 69, 70, 97, 101, 105; Lot and his Daughters, 55, 70, 75nn77–78; A Man in a Fur Coat, 123, 124; Martyrdom of St. Catherine, 107, 109, 109, 110, 116n47; Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, 54, 66, 68, 107, 108; Martyrdom of St. John, Apocalypse, 56, 57, 63, 64, 65, 86, 107, 108; Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, 54, 66, 108; Martyrdom of the 10,000 (1496), 54, 56, 88, 90, 91, 92–93 (see also Martyrdom of the 10,000 (Dürer, 1508)); Miraculous Sow of Landser, 21; Oblong Passion, 55, 61, 114n3; Oriental Rider, 51, 52, 53, 63, 73n24, 76, 94n22, 146; Oriental Ruler Enthroned, 51, 54, 65, 66, 86; Ottoman imagery sources (Bellini and Ferrara), 51, 53; Page from Der Ritter vom Turn, 2, 41, 42; Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (fol. 26v), 87–88, 89; Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (fol. 41r), 4–5, 5; Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (fol. 42v), 87, 88; Pilate Washing his Hands, Small Passion, 59, 110–12, 111; Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, 55, 63–64, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81; Road to Calvary (1527), 2, 55, 61, 62, 70; Seven Sorrows of the Virgin, 55, 70; Six Warriors (Five Landsknecte and an Oriental Man on Horseback), 39, 55, 81, 82, 86, 94n15; Ten Profiles and Drapery Study, 142, 143, 144; Turkish or Oriental Family, 10, 54; Whore of Babylon, Apocalypse, 2, 65, 65, 86–87, 95n35; Young Woman in Netherlandish Dress, 2, 3, 4, 13n9 see also “Aesthetic Excursus” (Dürer, Four Books of Human Proportion); Katharina (Dürer); Landscape with Cannon (Dürer); Portrait of a Young Man (Dürer); Schongauer, Martin, influence on Dürer; Three Orientals (Dürer) Dürer, Albrecht, Adoration imagery, 1–2, 66, 97, 98, 103–5, 145; influence of Schongauer on, 67, 101, 103, 104 see also Black Magus, the Dürer, Albrecht, copies after: Way to Calvary, 2, 62, 74n61 Dürer, Albrecht, copies by, 2, 4, 61, 64, 93, 146; Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I,

Index  165 55, 63–64, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81 see also Three Orientals (Dürer) Dürer, Albrecht, Large Passion, 1, 54, 66, 70; Bearing of the Cross, 55, 55–56, 70; Ecce Homo, 67, 111, 116n45 Dürer, Albrecht, Small Passion, 1, 10, 58–59, 59, 70, 110–11, 110–11; Christ Before Pilate, 58–59, 59, 67; Flagellation, 59, 74n58, 103, 110, 110–11; Pilate Washing His Hands, 59, 110–12, 111 Dürer, Albrecht, travels of: in Antwerp, 117, 119, 123–24; in the Netherlands, 2, 8–9, 11, 13n9, 54, 72n18, 74n60; wanderjahre, 2, 18, 30, 34, 39, 43n10, 43n23 see also Venice, Dürer in Dürer, Albrecht (attributed), 43n23, 47n98; Pamphilus, Sostrata and Laches in Conversation, Comedies of Terrence, 40, 41, 47n97 Dursteler, Eric, 50, 72nn15–16 Ecce Homo, Large Passion (Dürer), 67, 111, 116n45 Egypt, 59, 113, 116n55 see also Mamluk Empire, the engravings, 12, 78, 98; Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (Monogrammist AA, attributed), 78, 79, 80, 81 engravings, Dürer, 21, 54–55, 76; Six Warriors (Five Landsknecte and an Oriental Man on Horseback), 39, 55, 81, 82, 86, 94n15 engravings, Schongauer, 27, 34, 46n81; Battle of St. James at Clavijo, 27, 32, 32–34, 45n58, 45n71, 46n74; Betrayal of Christ, 27, 28, 29, 41; The Road to Calvary, 27, 28, 28, 34, 40, 45n60, 67, 70 see also Adoration of the Magi (Schongauer) enslaved persons, 120–23, 126–27, 129, 134n47, 135n51; Black Muslims as, 113, 116n55; and freedom, 120, 121– 22, 134n23, 134nn37–38, 135n48, 136n84 see also Katharina (person); slave trade enslaved persons in Portugal, 120, 122–23, 127, 134nn24–25, 134n37, 134n42, 135nn48–49 Entry of Charles V into Augsburg (Breu), 85, 94nn23–24 Epiphany, the, 103–4, 114n5, 115n24, 149n46 Eser, Thomas, 2 etchings see Landscape with Cannon (Dürer) ethnicity, 9–10, 23, 25, 84, 145, 146, 147; Central Asian, 22, 26; diversity of, 2, 6, 12, 145, 146; diversity of, Ottoman, 15, 48, 74n44, 113; Hungarian, 11,

14n55; within Islam, 26, 34, 37, 74n46; and physiognomy, 63, 71; and prejudice, 9, 71, 148n12; Turkic, 15, 22, 74n46 see also Jews; Mamluk Empire, the; Ottomans; Romans; Saracens; Turks ethnography, early modern, 6, 22, 26, 93; Dürer’s, 6, 10, 12, 15, 17, 147 Europe, 2, 6, 84, 92, 147; Black presence in, 121, 122, 125–28, 129, 130, 135n51, 142 (see also enslaved persons; individual cities; slave trade); conception of Africans, 97, 101, 117, 130; eastern, 11, 92; engagement with the Ottomans, 6, 7, 11, 15–17, 81, 85, 92; interest in Ottoman sultans, 76, 80, 81; knowledge of Ottoman weaponry, 58, 63; Muslim presence in, 50, 72n16; racism in, 9, 12, 71; and Saracens, 36, 113; as under threat, 6, 7, 19, 20–21, 81, 84, 92; trade markets of, 1, 44, 50, 53–54, 62, 101, 124; world outside of, 6–7, 8, 13n16, 37, 101 (see also exoticism; Orientalism and orientalizing); written sources on the Ottomans, 17–19, 20–21, 30–31 see also Black Magus, the; colonization; individual regions, countries, and cities; Jews; Middle Ages, the; non-Europeans Europe, central, 42n5, 61, 81, 84, 94n22, 127 see also Hungary Europe, northern, 103, 107; the Black Magus and, 100–101, 102; Black presence in, 117, 119, 128, 135n51 (see also individual cities); representation of Muslims in, 16, 17, 64, 107; and representation of Ottoman sultans, 76–81; and trade, 53, 119; turban imagery and, 22–26, 103 see also Black Magus, the Europe, western, 7, 11, 12, 84, 148n12; the Black Magus and, 98, 100; interest in Ottoman sultans, 76–81; race and, 148n12; trade and, 15, 53–54; world outside of, 1, 3, 12, 15 evil, 22, 86, 110, 113, 147 executioners, 24, 41, 111; as Muslim, 22, 105, 107, 109–10, 113–14; racialized, 105– 10, 113–14, 115n36, 132, 141 exoticism, 6–7, 25, 34, 72n14, 93; Blackness and, 12, 121, 141; and curiosities, 1, 2, 8–9; Mamluk costume and, 1, 92; and the marvelous, 7–8, 13n32; and othering, 7, 12, 107; Ottoman costume and, 1, 7, 15, 93; and trade, 1, 10–11 see also foreignness; Orientalism and orientalizing

166 Index exoticism, turbans and, 12, 21, 25, 27–28, 55; in Adoration scenes, 29, 103, 104, 115n24; on women, 22, 23–24, 44n40 Eyck, Jan van: The Crucifixion and Last Judgement, 22, 24, 25 eyewitness, 4, 79–80, 147; as authority, 17, 34, 37, 51, 71n9, 93, 142; Gentile Bellini as, 17, 48, 50, 71n9 facial hair, 23, 49, 97, 130, 132, 136n75; mustaches, 63, 76, 80, 127 see also beards Faroqhi, Suraiya, 72n24, 94 feathers, 4, 8, 13n16, 13n32, 38, 113 Fernandez d’Almada, Rodrigo (Rui), 123, 124, 125, 126–27, 136n68 see also Portugal Ferrara, Costanzo da (Costanzo di Moysis), 71n4, 146; Portrait of Mehmed II, 51, 53, 73n24, 82, 94n17 Fetvacı, Emine, 82, 84, 94n17 Fichtner, Paula Sutter, 15 Flagellation, Small Passion (Dürer), 59, 74n58, 103, 110, 110–11 Fleet, Kate, 15–16 foreignness, 29, 84, 85, 92, 107; and the exotic, 6, 8; Ottomans/Mamluks and, 84, 92; turbans and, 22, 23, 24, 107 see also exoticism; non-Europeans Four Books of Human Proportion (Dürer), 11, 132, 142–43, 143, 147n2 see also “Aesthetic Excursus” (Dürer) Four Proportional Studies of Heads, Four Books on Human Proportion (Dürer), 142–44, 144, 149n42 France, 18, 22, 25, 95n36 Frankfurt, 10, 127, 136n74 see also Germany Friedman, John Block, 21, 22, 23–24, 26 frog closures, 25, 58, 62, 63, 74n48 fur, 2, 22, 25, 70, 104, 123; ermine, 65, 86, 90 Geertgen, tot Sint Jans: Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist, 23, 25, 116n45 genre scenes, 16, 81–86, 93 Germany, 2, 61, 127, 131, 136n68; Black presence in, 125–27, 128–29, 137n97; Islam and the Ottomans in, 17–21, 34, 49, 85; landsknechts of, 81–82, 82, 85; slave trade and, 129, 136n70 see also Cologne; Frankfurt; Mainz; Nuremberg Germany, art traditions of, 6, 125, 131, 135n65; crescent motif in, 30–32, 35–36; and Islamic dress in general, 32–34, 36–39, 93; turbans and, 25–29, 32, 34–35, 66 see also Black Magus, the gift exchange, 8, 123–25 gold, 51, 73n35, 91–92; from the Americas, 8, 13n32; in textiles, 54, 62, 91

Grandeza e Abastança de Lisboa em 1552 (Brandão), 119, 120, 122, 133n15, 134nn24–25 Greece, 19, 20, 48, 54, 94n28; Rhodes, 37, 44n42, 45n68, 81 Greenblatt, Stephen, 7–8 Habsburgs, 17–18, 91, 94n28, 128 Hadrian (emperor), 90, 92, 96n52, 112 see also Romans hair, 22, 71, 80, 127; covered, 108, 121, 134n36 (see also hats; headgear; turbans) Hale, J. R., 82, 94n15 Hand, Oliver John, 75n77 hats, 73n39, 95n35, 104; funnel-shaped, 22, 75n77; Jewishness and, 22, 107; sharbushes, 22, 25, 44n38; tājes, 56, 58, 70, 73n39, 73n41, 76, 81 see also zamts headgear, 21, 23, 37, 64, 74n53, 108; eastern, 22, 25–26, 54, 104, 111, 116n35; Jewish, 22, 24, 70; Mamluk, 22, 58, 59, 74n53, 112; Muslim, 21–22, 25–26, 34, 37, 107; and non-Christian identity, 27–28, 34, 116n45; Ottoman, 35, 54, 73n39, 74n53, 84, 92; tortils, 22, 25, 34, 107; Turkish, 22, 75n77; western, 2, 3, 85 see also börks; crowns; Jews: turbans signifying; turban helmets; turbans Heller, Jakob, 126, 129, 135n66 Heng, Geraldine, 9–10, 101, 105, 132, 140 heraldic Blackness, 30, 115n25, 130–32, 137n90, 141 hierarchies, 9–10, 48, 113, 144, 147, 148n12, 149n59 Hirschfelder, Dagmar, 123–24, 129 Hopfer, Hieronymous, 78, 80, 81, 94n14 horsemanship, 91–92; à la jineta, 33, 38, 46n76, 51, 72n23 Housebook Master/Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet: Turkish Rider, 38–39, 40, 81 Howard, Deborah, 53–54, 72n16 human proportion, 125, 142, 147n1; Four Books of Human Proportion (Dürer), 11, 132, 138, 142, 144, 145, 147n2 see also “Aesthetic Excursus” (Dürer) Hungarian Combatants, Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I (Burgkmair), 84, 84–85 Hungary, 14n56, 43n8, 81, 84–85, 94nn22–23, 95n36; armor of, 85, 115n25; Dürer’s family origins in, 11, 14n56, 130; Mary of Hungary, 120, 134n22

Index  167 Iberia, 32–33, 34, 46n79, 121, 123; Black women in, 119, 120, 134n37 see also Portugal; Spain impalement, 90, 92–93, 96n53 India, 1, 6, 8–9, 105; Calicut, 8–9, 14n37, 124 Indigenous Americans, 1, 4–5, 5, 6, 10, 13n16, 13n19; Aztecs, 2, 8, 9, 13n32 Islam, 32, 46n74, 73n27, 107, 114; accuracy of dress associated with, 26, 32, 36–37; and apocalyptic thought, 17, 21, 86–88, 95n36; Sebastian Brant and, 18, 20–21; conversion from/to, 15, 43n8, 92, 104–5; crescent motifs and, 30–31, 45nn65–66, 87; European understanding of, 7, 15, 17–21, 49; as expansionist, 19, 21; Jerusalem and, 35–36, 46nn85–86; the Nuremburg Chronicle (Schedel) and, 19–20; as threat, 19, 21, 87, 112 see also Black Muslims; Mamluk Empire, the; Muhammad; Muslims; Orientalism and orientalizing; Ottoman Empire, the; Saracens; swords, curved; turbans; Venetian Orientalism Istanbul (Constantinople), 91; conquest of, 17, 19, 20, 42n4, 43n14, 43n21, 45n69; Italian artists in, 17, 48, 51, 64; the Nuremburg Chronicle (Schedel) and, 19, 20, 43n21, 45n68 Italy, 17, 21, 53, 70, 115n23; Black presence in, 134n36, 136n83; Dürer’s style and, 16, 58, 103, 141, 148n24; representation of Muslims/Islam, 16, 76, 78, 79, 115n41; representation of Ottoman sultans, 51, 78, 79, 80, 81 see also Bellini, Gentile; Ferrara, Costanzo da (Costanzo di Moysis); Venetian Orientalism; Venice janissaries, 1, 38, 43n8, 94n20; in Bellini’s work, 48, 56, 63, 71n7 see also börks; Ottoman Empire, the Jardine, Lisa, 51, 105 Jerusalem, 35, 36, 38, 46nn84–86, 61 jewelry, 13, 65, 71, 75n72, 97, 130 Jews, 10, 71, 73n41, 115n44; conflated with Muslims, 24, 44n46; hats signifying, 22, 107; Hebrew script, 107, 115n41; physiognomy of, 63, 64; turbans signifying, 22, 24, 25, 28, 44n52, 70 see also antisemitism Jirousek, Charlotte, 44n40, 45n58, 45n60, 58, 73n39, 73n42 John the Baptist, 44n42, 105, 108, 121; Beheading of John the Baptist (Dürer), 54, 107, 108, 108, 116n49; Legend

of the Relics of St. John the Baptist (Geertgen), 23, 25, 116n45 Johnson, Carina L., 8 Jones, Nicholas R., 119, 133n9, 134n37 Jordan, Annemarie, 134n29 kaftans, 25, 58, 62–63, 65, 75n72 Kaplan, Paul H. D., 72n11, 113, 114n5, 127, 132, 134n36; on Black executioners, 105, 109, 115n36; on the Black Magus, 100, 114n10; on the Black presence in the Muslim world, 112, 116n55; on Katharina, 133n21, 140–41; on the Magi in general, 45n65, 114n10 Katharina (Dürer), 117, 118, 121, 123, 135n56, 140–41; as reference image, 125, 130, 146 Katharina (person), 3, 119, 125, 135n49, 135n56, 142; as enslaved, 120–21, 122–23, 133n21 Khanmohamadi, Shirin, 6 Koerner, Joseph Leo, 2, 11, 98, 115n24, 129, 132; on the Black Magus, 100–101, 102, 114n5; on Dürer and beauty, 140–41, 142, 144 Kok, Jan Piet Filedt, 47n95, 136n75 Koreny, Fritz, 45n71, 72n12, 129 Kubiski, Joyce, 22, 25, 74n46, 74n48, 115n42 Kuhlmann-Smirnov, Anne, 127 A Lady from Nuremberg and a Lady from Venice (Dürer), 2, 3 Laib, Conrad: Crucifixion, 25, 44n52 Landscape with Cannon (Dürer), 55, 83, 84, 85–86, 94nn25–26; and Three Orientals (Dürer), 49, 82, 146 Lange-Krach, Heidrun, 3 Last Judgment, the, 88, 107, 115n44 leather, 32, 46n74, 63, 76, 95n51 Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist (Geertgen), 23, 25, 116n45 Leitch, Stephanie, 6 Limbourg Brothers: Mocking of Christ, Belles Heures du Duc du Berry, 22, 23 Lisbon, 119, 121; enslaved persons in, 120, 122–23, 134n25, 134n42, 135n48, 135n51 see also Portugal Lochner, Stefan, 115n44; Adoration of the Magi, 25, 26; Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne, 25, 26, 30; Two Altarpiece Wings with the Martyrdom of the Apostles, 106, 107 Longinus, 22, 70 see also Romans Low Countries, the, 2, 122 Lowe, Kate, 122, 129, 131, 135n49, 136nn83–84, 137n97 Luber, Katherine Crawford, 71n1, 72n10

168 Index Luther, Martin, 18, 105 luxury goods, 1, 2, 15, 53–54, 62, 119, 123 see also carpets maces: Ottoman, 73n24, 91; signifying status, 51, 73n24, 94n22; western, 51, 73n24, 85, 94n22 Magi, the, 71, 104, 114n10; arms of, 30, 31, 45n65, 115n25; exoticism of, 25, 29, 67, 101 see also Adoration imagery; Black Magus, the; individual Adoration images Mainz, 120, 128 see also Germany Mamluk dress, 58, 71, 107; Black Mamluks and, 103, 110, 111–12, 113–14, 116n55; Dürer’s depiction of, 1, 58–59, 60–61, 91, 92; headgear, 22, 58, 59, 74n53; signifying Sasanians, 61, 92; in Venetian art, 1, 2, 58, 59–60, 62, 74n59 see also turbans, Mamluk; zamts Mamluk Empire, the, 58, 112, 113, 116n55 A Man in a Fur Coat (Dürer), 123, 124 Mansueti, Giovanni, 58, 74n59, 112 martyrdom, 20, 92, 93; legend of the 10,000, 88, 90, 91, 92, 95n43, 95n49, 96n55 Martyrdom of St. Catherine (Dürer), 107, 109, 109, 110, 116n47 Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria (Dürer), 54, 66, 68, 107, 108 Martyrdom of St. John, Apocalypse (Dürer), 56, 57, 63, 64, 65, 86, 107, 108 Martyrdom of the 10,000 (Dürer, 1496), 54, 56, 88, 90, 91, 92–93 Martyrdom of the 10,000 (Dürer, 1508), 60, 88, 91–93; Black figures in, 110, 111, 112; Mamluk imagery in, 58, 59, 92; Ottoman imagery in, 58, 59, 62, 91, 92, 93 Mary of Hungary, 120, 134n22 Mason, Peter, 6, 45n73 Massing, Jean Michel, 1, 13nn16–17 Master of 1477: Crucifixion, 25, 27, 44n52 Maximilian I (emperor), 5, 13n19, 65; crusading and defending the faith, 10 85–86, 21, 87, 88, 94n28 medals and medallions, 51, 54, 55, 78, 80; Mehmed II (Bellini), 48, 49, 63; Portrait of Mehmed II (Ferrara), 51, 53, 73n24, 82, 94n17 medieval period see Middle Ages, the Mediterranean, eastern, 37–38, 44n55, 48, 53–54, 58, 81; architecture of, 1, 46; as biblical setting, 23, 61; the Levant, 38, 72n14 Mehmed II (medal, Bellini), 48, 49, 63 Mehmed II (sultan), 17, 19, 71n4, 72n17, 73n39, 112; conquest of

Constantinople, 19, 20, 45n69; Gentile Bellini and, 48, 54 see also Ottoman Empire, the Mehmed II, portraits of, 19; by Gentile Bellini, 48, 49, 56, 63, 71n9; by Costanzo da Ferrara, 51, 53, 73n24, 82, 94n17 Mellinkoff, Ruth, 22, 24, 26, 44n52, 63, 70, 75n77, 109 Meserve, Margaret, 15, 18, 19 Messling, Guido, 14n49, 47n94, 51, 59–60, 72n18, 73n24, 85 Metger, Christof, 82, 84, 94nn24–26 Middle Ages, the, 6, 17, 70; Black figures in, 100, 105, 107, 113, 131, 132, 135n65; characterization of Islam in, 19, 75n79, 113; ethnicity in, 9, 22, 71, 74n46; the exotic in, 6–8, 21–22; images of Muslim dress in, 22, 44n46, 63; Jews in, 22, 44n42, 63, 64; race and, 9–10, 100, 105, 135n65, 139, 147, 148n12; turbaned figures and, 21–22, 26, 70, 75n77, 93 Middle Ages, the, Saracens and, 17, 61, 64; as Black, 63, 113; as term for Muslim, 15, 22, 42n1, 105 mixed media: Two Altarpiece Wings with the Martyrdom of the Apostles (Lochner), 106, 107 Mocking of Christ, Belles Heures du Duc du Berry (Limbourg Brothers), 22, 23 Mollat, Michael, 105 Mongols, 10, 22, 58 Monogrammist AA (attributed): Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I, 78, 79, 80, 81 Moore, Kathryn Blair, 36, 46nn84–85 Moors, 32, 45n73, 120, 128, 134n23, 139– 40; “Aesthetic Excursus” and, 139; Katharina as, 117, 123, 135n56, 139; “Moor’s head” imagery, 131, 132, 137n90, 141 More, Christophle le, 127–28, 136n76 Mostaert, Jan Jansz: Portrait of an African Man, 127, 128, 136nn75–76 Mounted Turks (Reuwich), 38–39, 39, 56, 63 Muhammad, 18, 19, 20, 21, 34, 86; depictions of, 19, 34, 36 Muhammad, Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 19, 34, 36 Muslim world, 6, 7, 45n60, 71, 72n16, 103; horsemanship of, 33, 38, 46n76, 51, 72n23, 91–92 see also Mamluk Empire, the; Ottoman Empire, the Muslims, 7, 15, 16, 17–18, 87, 138; conflated with Jews, 24, 44n46; conversion to Christianity, 31, 105; as dangerous/evil, 7, 33–34, 92, 110; European perception of, 7, 47, 64, 147; as executioners,

Index  169 105, 107, 108–9, 113–14; as human type, 145, 146; Iberian, 32, 33, 34 (see also Moors); Moors as, 139 see also Black Muslims; Christianity, enemies of; Islam; Mamluk Empire, the; Orientalism and orientalizing; Ottoman Empire, the; Saracens; Turks; Venetian Orientalism Muslims, dress of, 6, 22, 25–26, 87, 104, 145; contemporary identity and, 23, 37; decoration and, 45n60, 107; Iberian/North African, 32–33, 34 see also Black Muslims; Mamluk dress; Ottoman dress; turbans Netherlands, the, 119, 120, 122; art of, 22, 25–27, 44n55, 101, 115n24, 127; Black presence in, 3, 117, 120, 128 (see also Katharina (Dürer)); costume of, 2, 3, 4, 13n9, 72n18, 121; Dürer in, 11, 54, 74n60, 123–24, 136n76 (see also Antwerp: Dürer in; Dürer, Albrecht: diary of); Dürer’s collecting in, 8, 54, 124; Portuguese presence in, 119 see also Antwerp; Eyck, Jan van; Mostaert, Jan Jansz Nicholas V (pope), 43n21, 134n47 non-Christians, 12, 25, 28, 44n46, 92, 115n44; conversion of, 31, 104; otherness and, 93, 105, 107 non-Christians, turbans signifying, 24, 25, 93; in Dürer, 66, 67, 70, 71, 92; Jews, 22, 24, 25, 28, 44n52, 70; in Schongauer, 27–28, 31–32, 67, 71 see also Romans; turbans, Mamluk; turbans, Ottoman non-Europeans, 12, 25, 67, 103; exoticism and, 6, 8–9; headgear signifying, 15, 23, 67, 103 (see also turbans) North Africa, 32–33, 72n15, 72n23, 129 Nuremberg, 11, 18, 36, 85; Black presence in, 126–27, 129; imperial relationship, 10, 14n51, 86, 126; as trade center, 10, 11, 126; women’s costume of, 1, 2, 3, 13n5 see also Germany Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 18, 19–20, 34–35, 43nn9–10, 72n10, 90; Destruction of Jerusalem, 35, 36, 38, 46nn84–86; Muhammad, 19, 34, 36; Ottomannus, 19, 35, 37 Nürnberg, Jörg von, 18 oil painting: Adoration of the Magi (Dürer, 1504), 55, 64, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103–4; The Crucifixion and Last Judgment (Eyck), 22, 24, 25; A Man in a Fur Coat (Dürer), 123, 124; Portrait of an African Man (Mostaert),

127, 128, 136nn75–76; Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (school of Gentile Bellini), 78, 78; Way to Calvary (copy after Dürer), 2, 62, 74n61 see also Martyrdom of the 10,000 (Dürer, 1508); St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (Bellini) Oriental Rider (Dürer), 51, 52, 53, 63, 73n24, 76, 94n22, 146 Oriental Ruler Enthroned (Dürer), 51, 54, 65, 66, 86 orientalism, Venetian, 1, 17, 47n90, 48, 62; Black figures in, 112, 113; Mamluk imagery in, 58–61, 74n59, 92, 112, 113; Ottoman imagery in, 17, 48, 73n39, 74n59 (see also Bellini, Gentile; Carpaccio, Vittore) see also Carpaccio, Vittore orientalism and orientalizing, 7, 25, 35, 41, 70, 93 orientalized figures, 2, 15, 28, 41, 64, 84, 112; rulers, 55, 87–88; Schongauer’s influence and, 2, 17, 27 Osman I (sultan), 19, 35, 37 other, the, 6, 7, 11, 23, 105, 107, 146; interrelated otherness, 12, 24–25; Jews as, 10, 64; Ottoman Empire as, 7, 93; race and, 105, 109, 110; turbans as signifying, 22, 93 see also foreignness; non-Christians; non-Europeans; turbans Ottoman dress, 15, 58, 74n44, 107; accuracy of, 47n94, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 71; in Carpaccio, 1, 72n15, 74n59; combined with Mamluk, 58, 59; combined with Western regalia, 65–66, 87; in Dürer’s Apocalypse, Adoration, and martyrdom imagery, 64–65, 86–87, 88, 90–93, 103–5; frog closures, 25, 58, 62, 63, 74n48; headgear, 35, 54, 73n39, 74n53, 84, 92, 113; kaftans, 25, 58, 62–63, 65, 75n72; layering in, 25, 38, 58, 62; in Ottoman artwork, 56, 74n53; signifying Romans, 61, 64–65, 66, 90, 91, 96n52; tājes, 56, 58, 70, 73n39, 73n41, 76, 81; Three Orientals as template for, 49, 82, 84, 97, 146 see also börks; bows; swords; turbans, Ottoman; Turks, costume and appearance of; Venice, Dürer in Ottoman dress, authority of representation, 37, 64, 71n9, 76, 93, 147; and authenticity, 2, 4, 51–52, 61; Bellini and, 1, 17, 48–50, 54, 60, 62–63, 72n10 Ottoman Empire, the, 7, 30–31, 73n24, 115n25, 147; Sebastian Brant and,

170 Index 18, 20–21; contemporary writing on, 17–21, 35, 43n8; court of, 48, 49, 51; diplomats of, 50, 72nn16–17, 85, 94n28; diversity of, 15, 113; European engagement with, 6, 15, 17–18, 22, 38; as face of Muslim world, 6, 7, 61, 87; horses and horsemanship of, 51, 72n23, 91–92, 95n51; non-Muslims in, 15, 73n41, 74n44; and racial hierarchy, 113–14, 116n55; sultans of, 64, 65, 81, 87, 91–92, 93 (see also Bayezid II; Mehmed II; Süleyman I); and the term “Turks,” 4, 15–16, 19, 20–21, 93; trade with, 15, 18, 50, 53 see also bows, recurve; janissaries; swords, curved; turban helmets Ottoman Empire as dangerous, 7, 16–17, 45n70, 112; and apocalyptic/biblical thought, 17, 21, 81, 86–88, 95n36; martyrdom imagery and, 92–93, 96n55, 107; in military scenes, 81–82, 84, 85–86; in the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, 87–88; and reported atrocities, 20, 21, 43n21, 92–93 see also crusading Ottoman expansion, 10, 18, 34, 61, 81; battles with Europeans, 11, 22, 34, 85, 92; into Central Europe, 84, 85–86; conquest of Constantinople, 17, 19, 20, 42n4, 43n14, 43n21, 45n69; conquest of the Mamluk Empire, 58, 61; into Hungary, 11, 14n56, 81, 84; the Nuremburg Chronicle (Schedel) and, 19–20; Ship of Fools (Brant) and, 20–21; siege of Rhodes, 37, 45n68 Ottomans, 31, 56, 62, 63, 82, 147; in Dürer’s genre scenes, 81–86; Dürer’s portraiture of, 76–78, 80–81; Dürer’s types of, 51, 53, 61–71, 76, 108, 145, 146 (see also Three Orientals (Dürer)); physiognomy of, 63–64, 76, 82, 146 Ottomannus, Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 19, 35, 37 Page from Der Ritter vom Turn (Dürer), 2, 41, 42 Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (Dürer) (fol. 41r), 4–5, 5 Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (fol. 26v) (Dürer), 87–88, 89 Page from the Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I (fol. 42v) (Dürer), 87, 88 Pamphilus, Sostrata and Laches in Conversation, Comedies of Terrence (Dürer, attributed), 40, 41, 47n97 Panofsky, Erwin, 25, 138, 141, 143, 149n51

Parshall, Peter, 138, 148n24 Passion imagery, 10, 28, 74n60, 101, 145; turbans and, 24, 28, 61, 67, 70, 111 see also individual works Pedani, Maria Pia, 72n17 Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (Breydenbach), 15, 16, 18, 37–38, 39, 39, 46n86 Peripeteia (Akomfrah), 117, 133n5 Persia, 22, 34, 72n16 physiognomy, 3, 107–8, 141, 143–44; Jewish, 64, 107; Ottoman, 63–64, 76, 82, 146 see also Four Books of Human Proportion (Dürer) physiognomy, Black, 101, 109, 114n5, 132, 143–45, 146–47; as inferior, 139, 140–41; stereotyped, 97, 142, 145 Pilate, Pontius, 22, 28, 34, 66, 70; Mamluk costume and, 58, 59, 60, 110; Ottoman costume and, 61, 111, 116n45 Pilate Washing his Hands, Small Passion (Dürer), 59, 110–12, 111 Pinturicchio, 48, 71n7 Pirckheimer, Willibald, 2, 18, 54, 73n35, 136n87, 138; Dürer’s letters to, 48, 73n37 Pleydenwurff, Wilhelm, 18, 34 Portrait of a Young Man (Dürer), 125–26, 126, 136n87, 146; Peripeteia (Akomfrah) and, 117, 133n5; and Portrait of an African Man (Mostaert), 127, 136n76; sitter of, 129–30, 141, 142 Portrait of an African Man (Mostaert), 127, 128, 136nn75–76 Portrait of Mehmed II (Ferrara), 51, 53, 73n24, 82, 94n17 Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (Dürer), 55, 63–64, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81 Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (Monogrammist AA, attributed), 78, 79, 80, 81 Portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (school of Bellini), 78, 78 Portugal, 8, 119–21, 122–23, 124, 126–27, 134n23; Black presence in, 127, 133n9, 135n49 (see also Lisbon: enslaved persons in); feitorias of, 119, 124, 133nn10–11 see also Brandão, João; Fernandez d’Almada, Rodrigo (Rui); Lisbon Prayerbook of Alphonso V of Aragon, 33, 33 Prayerbook of Emperor Maximilian I, 1, 5, 7, 55, 87, 88–89, 95n37 prejudice, 9, 12, 71, 116n55, 148n12 see also stereotypes Prester John, 100 see also Black Magus, the Procession in the Piazza San Marco (Bellini), 48, 49, 60, 72n14, 72nn11–12, 97

Index  171 Raby, Julian, 58, 59, 72n15, 73n39, 115n25 race: conception of, 9–10, 132, 139, 148n12, 149n59; physiognomy and, 9, 63, 64, 144, 145 see also Black Africans/Afrodescendants; diversity, racial racialization, 10, 12, 105–10, 139–40, 142, 147; discourses of, 130, 132 Renaissance, the, 7–8, 93, 98; art theory and, 115n23, 138, 139, 141, 142, 145; and Islam, 15, 17, 87 (see also Ottoman Empire, the); Orientalism/orientalizing and, 7, 15; and race, 105, 127, 140, 147 (see also Black Africans/Afrodescendants; Black Magus, the) Reuwich, Erhard, 37–38, 46n86, 47nn95–96, 72n10; influence on Dürer, 47n96, 63; Mounted Turks, 38–39, 39, 56, 63; Saracens, 15, 16 Rhodes, 37, 44n42, 45n68, 81 Rieter, Sebald the Younger, 36, 46nn85–86 The Road to Calvary (Schongauer), 27, 28, 28, 34, 40, 45n60, 67, 70 robes, 59, 63, 76, 84, 85, 103, 111; long, 25, 35, 38, 39, 113; with sashes, 25, 35, 61–62, 107 Romani, 10, 14n49 Romans, 28, 46n84, 90; banners signifying, 61, 70, 75n74; centurions, 22, 25, 28, 44n53, 70; Diocletian (emperor), 66, 90; Domitian (emperor), 64–65, 86, 116n49; Hadrian (emperor), 90, 92, 96n52, 112; in Ottoman dress, 61, 64–65, 66, 90, 91, 96n52; turbans signifying, 22, 25, 27, 66–67, 70, 71, 86 Roth, Michael, 43n23, 47n98, 136n70 sabers see swords, curved Said, Edward, 7 Sapor II, 60, 90, 92, 96n52, 96n55, 112 see also Sasanian Empire Saracens, 10, 20, 24, 61; as Black, 63, 113; costume of, 22, 38; as executioners, 105, 108–9; the Middle Ages and, 17, 42n1, 61, 63, 105; physiognomy of, 64, 113; term as problematic, 15, 42n1 Saracens (Reuwich), 15, 16 Sasanian Empire, 45n66, 90, 96n55; Mamluk dress signifying, 61, 92 see also Sapor II sashes, 22, 25, 35, 58, 62, 107 see also belts Saunders, A.C. de C.M., 121, 122, 134n24, 134n30, 134n37, 134n42 Schedel, Hartmann see Nuremberg Chronicle Schiller, Gertrud, 104 Schongauer, Martin, 26–27, 45n57, 46nn80– 81, 114n20, 136n74; travels of, 30, 32, 34, 45n73; visual influences of, 26–27,

29, 32, 33; Adoration of the Magi, 27, 29–32, 30, 98, 101, 102, 104; Battle of St. James at Clavijo, 27, 32, 32–34, 45n58, 45n71, 46n74; Betrayal of Christ, 27, 28, 29, 41; Christ Before Annas, 28, 67; Passion series, 27, 28, 41, 67; The Road to Calvary, 27, 28, 28, 34, 40, 45n60, 67, 70 see also Adoration of the Magi (Schongauer) Schongauer, Martin, influence on Dürer, 2, 17, 34, 40–41, 46nn80–81, 67, 70; Adoration imagery and, 101, 102, 103, 104, 115n25 Schongauer, Martin, turban depiction by, 31, 34, 40, 56, 70, 71; as exoticism, 27, 29, 67; as Roman, 28, 70 scimitars see swords, curved Selim I (sultan), 80, 94n10, 115n25 Shestack, Alan, 45n73, 114n18, 114n20 shields, 8, 22, 25, 92, 107, 115n42, 130; adargas, 32, 33, 34, 46n74; Hungarian, 85, 115n25 Ship of Fools (Brant), 18, 20–21, 43n23 silk, 8, 46n74, 95n51, 121, 123 see also textiles Silver, Larry, 20, 82, 84, 85 Simon (enslaved person), 120, 128 Six Warriors (Five Landsknecte and an Oriental Man on Horseback) (Dürer), 39, 82 skin color/tone, 97–98, 108, 109, 138, 139– 40; Black, 97, 98, 101, 103, 105, 110, 113, 114n5; Ottomans and, 63–64, 76, 103; Saracens and, 63, 113 slave trade, 101, 120, 122, 127, 131, 136n70, 137n92; Venice and, 129, 136n83 sleeves, 2, 39, 58, 62, 70, 74n46, 82 Small Passion (Dürer), 1, 10, 58–59, 59, 70, 110–11, 110–11 Smith, Jeffrey Chipps, 9 Solomon, 34–35; temple of, 35, 36, 46n86 Spain, 2, 95n36; Black presence in, 119, 123, 133n9, 135n51; St. James and, 32, 34 Spissu, Maria Vittoria, 33, 46n77 St. Achacius, 90, 91, 95n43 St. George, 1, 87, 88, 104–5, 112 St. James, 32, 34; Battle of St. James at Clavijo, 27, 32, 32–34, 45n58; as Santiago Matamoros, 33, 46n77 St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (Bellini), 1, 54, 56, 56; Mamluk imagery in, 58, 59, 62, 112, 113 stereotypes, 63–64, 76 see also prejudice stereotypes of Blackness, 97, 100, 130, 132, 142, 145; as ugly, 139, 140, 141 Stoichita, Victor, 12, 121, 140, 144 Strauss, Walter, 51, 72n20, 87, 116n45

172 Index Strickland, Debra Higgs, 6–7, 22, 24, 44n41, 44n44, 105 Süleyman I (sultan), 55, 56, 63, 76–80, 77–79, 81, 146; tughra of, 54, 73n33, 80, 94n10 see also individual portraits Sultan Süleyman I (Anon.), 78, 79 Swan, Claudia, 22 swords, 39, 46n75, 64, 91, 107, 115n25; European, 32, 85 swords, curved, 25, 35; as Asian/eastern, 22, 23, 44n51; in biblical/martyrdom imagery, 34, 87, 92, 103, 107, 116n45; contemporary Ottoman, 38, 51, 58, 63, 74n50, 81 tājes, 56, 58, 70, 73n39, 73n41, 76, 81 see also turbans, Ottoman Talbot, Charles, 90 tempera: Adoration of the Magi (Lochner), 25, 26; Mocking of Christ, Belles Heures du Duc du Berry (Limbourg Brothers), 22, 23 Ten Profiles and Drapery Study (Dürer), 142, 143, 144 textiles, 1, 25, 53, 62, 91, 107; silk, 8, 46n74, 95n51, 121, 123 see also carpets Three Orientals (Dürer), 50, 51, 53, 72n10, 72n20, 76, 82, 146; Black figures in, 49, 97, 112, 113 tortils, 22, 25, 34, 107 torture, 64, 90, 92, 111–12; turbans associated with, 66, 107, 147 Tucher, Hans, 36, 130, 132 tughras, 54, 73n33, 80, 94n10 tunics, 22, 28, 41, 62, 70 turban helmets, 27, 34, 45n58, 46n79, 104, 115n29 see also Ottoman dress turbans, 16, 17, 51, 73n39, 73n43, 146, 147; in 15th-Century Northern European painting, 21–26, 41; associated with executioners, 41, 105, 107; associated with torture, 66, 107, 147; in Carpaccio’s works, 50, 72n15, 104–5, 112; designating evil, 22, 86, 92; and exoticism, 22, 24, 27, 29, 44n40, 103; as foreignness, 22–24, 25, 29, 40, 75n77, 116n49; in genre scenes, 81, 82, 86; in later 15th-Century German prints, 26–39; the Magi and, 25, 97, 103–5; in Muslim Spain, 34, 46n79; Passion imagery and, 24, 28, 61, 67, 70, 111; as polyvalent, 22, 28, 34, 70, 71, 90; in portraiture, 76, 77–79, 78, 80; and Saracens, 22, 38; and stock figures, 21, 27, 75n73, 86; tortils and, 22, 25, 34, 107; visual conventions and, 34, 66–67, 70, 86

see also Procession in the Piazza San Marco (Bellini); Schongauer, Martin, turban depiction by; turbans, Mamluk; turbans, Ottoman turbans, Black figures and, 12, 97; Mamluks, 103, 111, 112; Ottomans, 103, 104, 105, 112 turbans, Dürer’s influences for, 17, 34–35, 38– 39, 72n10; Schongauer as, 67, 70, 71; in Venice, 49–51, 54–56, 58, 61, 71 turbans, non-Christian identity and, 31, 92, 93, 95n32; signifying Jews, 22, 24, 25, 28, 44n52, 70; signifying Muslims, 12, 21–22, 24, 32, 44n51, 107 (see also Muslims); signifying Romans, 22, 25, 27, 66–67, 70, 71, 86 (see also Diocletian (emperor); Domitian (emperor); Hadrian (emperor); Pilate, Pontius) turbans, Schongauer and, 26–29, 31, 34, 39– 41, 56; influence on Dürer, 67, 70, 71 turbans, Mamluk, 58–59, 60, 74n53, 92; anachronistic, 59–60, 103, 110, 112 turbans, Ottoman, 15, 38, 47n94, 54–55, 58–59, 61–62; associated with torture/ execution, 64, 90, 109, 110, 112; Bellini’s depiction of, 48, 49, 56, 56; and Ottoman identity, 61, 63, 76, 81, 87; removed/set aside, 103, 104–5 see also tājes turbans, Ottoman, anachronistic, 91, 92, 112; Adoration imagery and, 103, 104, 105; in the Martyrdom of St. John (Dürer), 64–65, 86; in Passion imagery, 66, 70, 86, 90, 111, 116n45 Turkey, 1, 2, 8, 54, 62, 73n39 see also carpets; Ottoman Empire, the Turkic peoples, 15, 22, 46n79, 58 Turkish Rider (Housebook Master/Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet), 38–39, 40, 81 Turks, 10, 46n84, 72n16, 82, 91–92, 105; as dangerous, 7, 19–21, 37, 64, 93; as exotic, 6, 15, 93; Mounted Turks (Reuwich), 38–39, 39, 56, 63; Nuremburg Chronicle (Schedel) and, 19–20, 46n84; term as problematic, 15–16; Whore of Babylon, Apocalypse and, 65, 86–87 see also Ottoman Empire, the; Ottomans Turks, costume and appearance of, 23, 63, 74n46, 93, 94n23, 104; headgear, 38–39, 44n40, 73n39, 73n43, 75n77; sharbushes, 22, 25, 44n38 see also Ottoman dress Two Altarpiece Wings with the Martyrdom of the Apostles (Lochner), 106, 107 typology, 34, 70, 93, 145

Index  173 Van Der Wee, Herman, 133n11 veils, 38, 72n14 Venetian Orientalism, 1, 17, 47n90, 48, 62; Black figures in, 112, 113; Mamluk imagery in, 58, 59, 60, 61, 74n59, 92, 112, 113; Ottoman imagery in, 17, 48, 73n39, 74n59 see also Bellini, Gentile; Carpaccio, Vittore Venetian–Ottoman relationship, 18, 43n21, 48, 53–54, 72n18; envoys/ambassadors between, 50, 72nn16–17, 74n53, 78, 80 Venice, 58, 72n14, 75n77, 113; Black presence in, 129, 136n83; women’s costume of, 2, 3 Venice, Dürer in, 17, 49–54, 72n18, 112, 141; first trip, 48–51, 54, 55–56, 61, 71n1, 72n10; second trip, 48, 51, 58, 129; shopping, 53, 54, 73n30, 73n35, 73n37 Vienna, 81, 94n28 watercolor, 48, 50, 52, 97 Way to Calvary (copy after Dürer), 2, 62, 74n61 weapons, 25–26, 44n55, 58, 63; arrows, 45n70, 58, 84, 87, 103; lances, 4, 34, 81, 85; whips, 8, 54, 90 see also bows; swords Wenderhorst, Alfred, 10 Weyden, Rogier van der, 26; St. Columba Altarpiece, 22–23, 25, 27, 29 Weyden, Rogier van der (circle of): Descent from the Cross, 22–23 Whore of Babylon, Apocalypse (Dürer), 2, 65, 65, 86–87 Wilson, Bronwen, 63, 104 Winkel, Marieke de, 47n95, 136n75 Wojciehowski, Hannah Chapelle, 120, 134n23, 135n51 Wolfthal, Diane, 120, 121, 134n36 Wolgemut, Michael, 18, 34, 39, 114n2 Wolgemut, Michael (workshop): Christ Before Pilate, Schatzbehalter, 34, 35; Nuremburg Chronicle (Schedel) and, 18, 34, 36, 37, 38; Schatzbehalter, 34–35, 35 woodcuts, 13n16, 78, 80, 93n6, 98, 114n2; Adoration of the Magi (Dürer, 1511), 58, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103–4, 130;

Adoration of the Magi from The Life of the Virgin (Dürer, 1503), 67, 69, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105; Bearing of the Cross, Large Passion (Dürer), 55, 55–56, 70; Beheading of John the Baptist (Dürer), 54, 107, 108, 108, 116n49; Christ Before Pilate, Schatzbehalter, 34, 35; Christ Before Pilate, Small Passion (Dürer), 58–59, 59, 67; Coat of Arms of Albrecht Dürer (Dürer), 130–32, 131; Destruction of Jerusalem, Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 35, 36, 38, 46nn84–86; Die Türkisch Chronik, 31, 31, 45n68; Ecce Homo, Large Passion (Dürer), 67, 111, 116n45; Flagellation, Small Passion (Dürer), 59, 74n58, 103, 110, 110–11; Four Proportional Studies of Heads, Four Books on Human Proportion (Dürer), 142–44, 144, 149n42; Hungarian Combatants, Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I (Burgkmair), 84, 84–85; Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria (Dürer), 54, 66, 68, 107, 108; Martyrdom of St. John, Apocalypse (Dürer), 56, 57, 63, 64, 65, 86, 107, 108; Martyrdom of the 10,000 (Dürer, 1496), 54, 56, 88, 90, 91, 92–93; Mounted Turks (Reuwich), 38–39, 39, 56, 63; Muhammad, Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 19, 34, 36; Ottomannus, Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 19, 35, 37; Page from Der Ritter vom Turn (Dürer), 2, 41, 42; Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (Breydenbach), 15, 16, 18, 37–38, 39, 39, 46n86; Pilate Washing his Hands, Small Passion (Dürer), 59, 110–12, 111; Saracens (Reuwich), 15, 16; Whore of Babylon, Apocalypse (Dürer), 2, 65, 65, 86–87, 95n35 Yoon, Rangsook, 18, 43n23 Young Woman in Netherlandish Dress (Dürer), 4, 13n9 zamts, 58, 59, 60, 92, 103, 112; Black figures and, 110, 111, 112