RITA COSTA-GOMES

BETWEEN PISA AND PORTO:

AFONSO EANES, MERCHANT OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL

(1426-1440)

The presence of Italian merchants in Portugal during the 1400s is certainlybetter known than that of the Portuguese in Italy. This fact is, to a certain ex-tent, the result of more numerous and richer archives generated by the impor-tant economic activity of the Italians, most notably the Genoese, but also theFlorentines. The presence of the latter was the object of a thorough recon-struction and study by Sergio Tognetti, who explored in depth the extraordin-ary collection of sources related to the activity of the Cambini, bankers of thePortuguese kings, and their commercial agents in Lisbon, an activity docu-mented in detail for the period between the decades of the 1440s and the1470s.1 Tognetti’s research thus superseded the previous and general overviewprovided by Federigo Melis, as well as the meticulous but restricted case stu-dies advanced by Virginia Rau, as he brought new light into the involvementof the Florentines in the promising business opportunities of the expandingAtlantic complexes articulated in the second half of the fifteenth centuryaround Lisbon, the Algarve, and the Atlantic islands. The present essay con-tributes to the available picture centered on the activity of the Italians bybringing to the fore, inversely, a Portuguese perspective. As Tognetti has ob-served, Lisbon was familiar to the Florentine economic agents since, at least,the first decade of the century. Such familiarity would explain, for instance,the early presence in 1413 of the young Andrea Cambini in that port city,«most probably as a factor or representative of a Florentine business ven-ture».2 One element of such familiarity that has been disregarded is the pre-

1 S. TOGNETTI, Il Banco Cambini. Affari e mercati di una compagnia mercantile-bancaria nellaFirenze del XV secolo, Florence, Olschki, 1999.

2 Ibid., 130.

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sence of Portuguese economic agents and merchants in Italy, a presence thatcertainly carries less economic weight and less momentous consequences thantheir Italian counterpart in Iberia, and still remains largely unexplored. Never-theless, the Portuguese merchant presence can be detected, in a somewhatrandom and episodic way, in certain types of sources that are not directly re-lated to economic activities. Such is the case with the set of thirty letters re-ceived in Florence by the Portuguese abbot Gomes Eanes and sent by his fel-low countryman Afonso Eanes, a small documentary series that first lead meinto the research of this problem.3

As a preliminary step, let us consider the chronology and circumstances ofthis specific dyad of correspondents. The letter-collection of abbot GomesEanes shows him at the epicenter, by his personal networks and his involve-ment in diverse spheres of activity, of a small world of Portuguese travelers(and these were not only noblemen and princes), as well as a remarkable arrayof intellectuals, students, ecclesiastic and religious figures who were livingduring the first half of the fifteenth century in the northern and central re-gions of the Italian peninsula. Gomes Eanes was also a member of the royalcouncil of King Duarte of Portugal (r. 1433-1438), where he seems to have par-ticipated in debates by sending letters that represented his views. Since hetook part in the political circles close to the Portuguese prince (and later mon-arch), he should not be seen solely as a religious reformer and a man of wideintellectual and artistic interests, but also as an important political player ofthe age in his country of origin. During the period of his life that Gomeswas living in Florence, he traveled to Portugal on two different missions: be-tween May 1424 and January 1426, and again from September 1435 to October1436. Gomes left Italy definitively in 1441, initiating a new active phase of hisreligious career in Portugal that lasted almost two decades until his death in1459.

The figure of Afonso Eanes, in contrast, is much less known. He does re-present, however, an interesting example of the characteristic mixture of trad-ing activity and public office that was the mark of the agents of the Portu-guese kings in the later medieval period. The first available data about theman shows him in 1420 in his activity as contador of King John I (r. 1385-1433) based in the northern city of Porto.4 The set of letters sent to abbot

3 The epistles, all originals written in paper, are kept at the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana(Florence). In appendix, I provide a list with the respective archival location. I will quote each letterhere by its series number in that list. The quotations of the texts are provided in modern Portuguese.

4 His activity left some traces in book 5 of the chancery register of this monarch, which was partof the original archive of the «Casa dos Contos», and some scattered mentions can also be found in

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Gomes, and other available sources kept in Barcelona and in Portugal docu-ment his two-year stay in Italy, from January 1426 to June 1428. In Italy, Afon-so settled in Pisa, but he also did at least one major stay in the city of Genoa.His presence can be traced in July of 1428 in Barcelona, as we shall see in abrief stop in his return to Portugal. From 1432 on, Afonso was again at theservice of the king of Portugal in Porto. The somewhat mysterious circum-stances of his final demise and disgrace in 1440 will be described in the finalsection of this essay.

How can we define the function and skills that correspond to the office ofa fifteenth-century Portuguese contador? The royal administration of medievalPortugal included central financial institutions which evolved in ways similarto, for instance, the Angevin monarchy or, in the Iberian case, the crown ofAragon. Already during the reign of King Dinis I of Portugal (r. 1279-1325)we find an organized activity of accounting agents, named contadores, whoparticipated in the specialized activities of auditing or verification of royal ac-counts, and of the written record of the king’s revenues and expenses takingplace in a central bureaucratic department.5 After 1350, two major aspects ofthe changing economic realities of the kingdom profoundly influenced the ac-tivities and typical profile of the Portuguese royal central financial officer,which evolved in the later period to become closer to the figure of the mer-chant. On the one hand, indirect and extraordinary taxation became evermore important in the revenues of monarchs, as the general practice of farm-ing the collecting of taxes became prevalent, especially in the fifteenth cen-tury. On the other hand, there was a direct involvement of the kings them-selves in the commercial activities that now originated also a large part oftheir resources through taxation, as can be seen in the exemplary case of KingFernando I (r. 1367-1383).

As for the royal contadores, there were now a growing number of suchagents, easily reaching the scale of the dozens of officers serving simulta-neously, in Lisbon and throughout the country. The «Casa dos Contos» ofthe 1400s had centralized auditing control over financial districts of diverseterritorial extent in the kingdom, and we observe a certain autonomy in theactivity of the contadores settled in the northern city of Porto. A cursory view

the remaining volumes of the chancery. As an example, see the document published by J. MARTINS

DA SILVA MARQUES, Descobrimentos Portugueses – documentos para a sua historia, Lisbon, Institutode Alta Cultura, 1944-1945, Suplemento ao Volume I, 469 (Document 689).

5 V. RAU, A Casa dos Contos, Coimbra, Faculdade de Letras, 1951. A system similar to that of the«tallies» was used for the royal court’s expenses: R. COSTA GOMES, The Making of a Court Society.Kings and Nobles in Late Medieval Portugal, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 351-352.

17

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BETWEEN PISA AND PORTO: AFONSO EANES, MERCHANT OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL

of the identity of such officers in Porto shows their recruitment among themerchant group of the same city, as the tasks and the risks associated withthe office itself approximate their profile to that of the farming agents. Forall intents and purposes, the contador of 1400 was an expert agent and repre-sentative of the economic interests of the king, of the queen or the royalprince in a particular area of the kingdom, or in their households (contadorda casa). The duties and skills required to do this job had some interestingpoints of contact with those of a factor, mostly because the king of Portugalcould act as a merchant and, at the same time, as the ruler of the group ofPortuguese merchants acting in a particular location, or sphere of activity.6

Regardless of such proximity, it is worth noting that Afonso Eanes never callshimself «feitor» (factor) in his letters, although he might be designated as suchby others.

Thus the prince Duarte referred to the presence of Afonso Eanes in Pisaas being part of his regular duties as the king’s agent and officer. In a lettersent to abbot Gomes from Lisbon in October of 1427, the prince mentionedhis need of «golden cloth and other things that are necessary to the festivitiesof our marriage», and that he had charged Afonso Eanes, «contador of theking my father» based in Pisa, to be the purveyor of such goods.7 The exactnature and extent of the mission of Afonso Eanes is not clearly stated in thesesources, but some of the tasks that he is involved in for the length of his Pisanstay seem to be indeed related to such major events, involving both the princeand heir to the throne, Duarte, and his brother Pedro. The usual search forluxury items resulted from the initiative of the court of Portugal, demandingof Afonso Eanes a purchasing activity similar to that of a royal factor, and therelated financial activity aimed at paying for such items. On the other hand,not only the marriage of the heir to the throne but also the travels of the sec-ond son of King John I, the infante Pedro, were part of his concerns. On sev-eral occasions, Afonso reveals in his letters his anxiety to know the prince’swhereabouts. Pedro had left Lisbon in the summer of 1425 reaching first Eng-land and Bruges, and while he was crossing Germany and Austria on his wayto Hungary in the following year, Afonso Eanes repeatedly asked the abbot

6 The classical example being that of the Portuguese royal factor of Bruges: «a minor royal of-ficer, more of a shopping agent than a diplomatic and commercial one, who acquired for the king,always avid of new merchandise, rich cloth and precious objects»: A.H. OLIVEIRA MARQUES, Notaspara a Historia da Feitoria Portuguesa na Flandres, no seculo XV, in Ensaios de Historia Medieval Por-tuguesa, Lisbon, Vega, 1980, 1983. See also V. RAU, Nota sobre os feitores portugueses na Andaluzia, noseculo XV, in Estudos de Historia Medieval, Lisbon, Presenca, 1985, pp. 132-137.

7 Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792 (1716), Vol. I, Fasc. II, 12.

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Gomes for news, as he announced his intention to take the galley of Genoaand from there to go meet an envoy of the prince in Milan, and even try tojoin Pedro «wherever he is».8 The main involvement of Afonso with theprince, as reported in these letters, was in financial transactions. On two dif-ferent occasions, the letters provide details of the tasks of the contador, forinstance, making payments to the envoys of the prince from «his moneys ofthe monte».9 A curious letter received from Bruges and written by a merchantof the Portuguese colony there also reveals the participation of the Pisa agentin the circuit of the letters of change that provided resources for the noblecompanions of the Portuguese prince.10

After the signing of a truce in early 1428 between the Turks and EmperorSigismund, Pedro left the emperor’s service and continued his travels in Italy,visiting Venice and Florence, where he arrived in April. The return of AfonsoEanes to Portugal seems at first glance to be directly related to the similar re-turn itinerary of the prince later in the same year, sailing from Pisa directly toBarcelona. Research done by Themudo Barata in the notarial archives of Bar-celona, however, documents the activity of the contador in the latter city inJuly of 1428. There he obtained credit for a major purchase of precious clothof silk and gold, and signed contracts in the company of two well-known tra-vel companions of the Portuguese prince: his chancellor and doctor in law Es-tevao Afonso, and the nobleman Aires Gomes da Silva.11 Afonso Eanes mighthave stayed behind, always at the service of Duarte and Pedro, as the latterprince continued his return trip to Valencia, where he met the AragoneseKing Alfonso V.12

8 Letter 6: «Eu entendo partir-me com um embaixador do duque que ira daqui a seis dias nas galesde Genova, e daı a Milao, onde me disse que acharia um escudeiro do infante Dom Pedro, e daı ondequer que o infante estiver». See also letters 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 20. In letter 22, Afonso states: «do sen-hor infante Dom Pedro me prazeria haver boas novas, porque e um senhor o qual queria ver muito hon-rado e posto em algum grande estado, e praza a Deus que lhe cumpra seus desejos».

9 Letter 23.10 Letter of Pero Domingues, Portuguese merchant settled in Bruges: Biblioteca Medicea-Lau-

renziana, Ashburnam 1792 (1716), Vol. I, Fasc. V, 7b.11 F. THEMUDO BARATA, Navegacao, Comercio e Relacoes Polıticas: os Portugueses no Mediterra-

neo Ocidental (1385-1466), Lisbon, Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian, 1998, pp. 363-367. The identifica-tion of Afonso Eanes with the ‘‘Alphonso Johannis’’ mentioned in the Barcelonese notarial records isreinforced by his association with Aires Gomes da Silva, clearly documented in the letter mentionedin the previous note. Aires Gomes da Silva himself wrote from Valencia to abbot Gomes in Augustof the same year: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792 (1716), Vol. I, Fasc. VII, 18b.Acording to Themudo Barata, Afonso Eanes was still in Barcelona in 1429.

12 The itinerary and chronology of the prince’s travels was established by F.M. ROGERS, TheTravels of the Infante Dom Pedro, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1961; see also M. SERVULO

CORREIA, As Viagens do Infante Dom Pedro, Lisbon, Gradiva, 2000.

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BETWEEN PISA AND PORTO: AFONSO EANES, MERCHANT OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL

But let us go back to Pisa and investigate the full length of the activities ofAfonso Eanes during his stay there, in order to clarify other important aspectsof our argument. For the letters sent to abbot Gomes by Afonso Eanes and byhis Portuguese collaborator (a man by the name of Goncalo de Sao Simao) al-low us to observe other activities and interests beyond the purchasing of luxurygoods and the transfer of funds, or obtaining credit for the royal court of Por-tugal. While in Pisa, Afonso Eanes devoted himself to a variety of business ac-tivities, most notably to the trading of animal hides in the Florentine market,and of salted fish that was coming from Portugal via the regular ships.13

The regularity of the ship movement that connected Portugal with Pisa isoften mentioned in this correspondence. In December of 1426 Afonso com-ments on the unusual delay of the ships coming from the «ponente»: «it isremarkable that for more than two months no ship came from the ponent.God willing they will come all at the same time. My [man] Goncalo de SaoSimao I believe was in Barcelona around October, according to the messagethat I received from the letters that he carried with him, but not from anymessage that he himself has sent. God willing I will have him here in the nextmonth».14 Some weeks later, he clarifies that «according to the ship that camefrom Valencia, the naus of our land [i.e., Portuguese ships] are in Palamos,and at the first signs of good weather they will arrive here», providing inter-esting detail about the people from Portugal who were traveling in them, andwhat their business was in Italy.15 In November the ships that had broughtsalted fish set sail again.16 Not only were several ships coming from Portugalto Pisa, and making scales in Barcelona or Valencia, but the Genoese convoyswere also regularly used by Portuguese commercial agents and travelers sta-tioned in the Tuscan ports.17 In one of the letters, Afonso mentions that hewill travel to Pietrasanta to embark «in the Genoa galleys», while other Por-tuguese were also using them.18

13 Letters 3, 4, 5, 8, 17.14 Letter 21: «E de espantar que do ponente nao vem navio nenhum passa de dous meses. Prazendo

a Deus todos virao em um. O meu Goncalo de Sao Simao, creio que per o mes de Outubro foi em Bar-celona, segundo o recado que aqui e das letras que levou, mas nao ja de recado seu que eu haja. Prazendoao Senhor neste outro mes tenho-o aqui mentes». In another reference in letter 22: «do meu homemespero por todo Janeiro, com ajuda do Senhor, haver recado. Ele foi em Barcelona encima do mes deOutubro».

15 Letter 23. Afonso seems to be referring here to Palamos, a port of the Catalan coast betweenBarcelona and Perpignan.

16 Letter 17.17 Letter 1.18 Letters 8, 2.

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This scattered information confirms the general picture of the Portuguesepresence in the central and western Mediterranean, and of its commercial cir-cuits and networks, as proposed by authors such as Magalhaes Godinho orJacques Heers.19 It also reinforces the hypothesis that this presence was firmlyestablished by the first decades of the century. In a characteristic way, thePortuguese royal agent inserted himself in the extant trade circuits, comple-menting his official duties with a search for profits in which it is difficult todisentangle his own interests from those of his princely masters. The more re-cent research of Adao da Fonseca and Themudo Barata explored two aspectsof the history of late medieval Portuguese trade that are directly related to thedocumented activities of Afonso Eanes in Pisa in the decade of 1420. In thefirst case, Fonseca discussed the important role played by the merchants fromPorto in the building of such circuits.20 The Porto merchants were active inthe trade of hides as well as salted fish, the first being especially relevant tothe development of the Tuscan leather industry as the fifteenth century pro-gresses, an aspect well studied from the Italian perspective by Marcello Ber-ti.21 The regional and interregional circuits in the north of Portugal that couldprovide such profitable commodities were obviously familiar to a contador ofthe city of Porto. As the demand for animal hides grew, the Portuguese rein-forced and expanded these economic circuits, which from the 1430s on wouldinclude not only the different areas of the hinterland of Portugal, but equallythe hitherto deserted Atlantic islands, Castile, and the north Atlantic produ-cers (most of all, Ireland). As for the importance of salted fish, its role is well

19 J. HEERS, L’Expansion Maritime portugaise a la fin du Moyen Age: la Mediterranee, offprint«Revista da Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa», Lisbon, 1956; V. MAGALHAES GODINHO, O Mediterra-neo no horizonte dos Europeus do Atlantico, inMito e Mercadoria. Utopia e Pratica de Navegar, seculosXIII-XVIII, Lisbon, Difel, 1990, pp. 181-254. For the mid-1400s, the latter author identifies the pre-sence of Portuguese consuls or factors in Barcelona, Valencia, Almeria, Malaga, Seville (Andalucia),Genoa, Florence, Sicily, Venice, Oran, Tlemcen, Tunis, and Chios.

20 L. ADAO DA FONSECA, O Porto nas Rotas do Mediterraneo Ocidental (vesperas da epoca mo-derna), «Revista de Historia», 3 (1980) – Actas do Coloquio ‘‘O Porto na Epoca Moderna’’, Porto,1980, pp. 127-139. See also the previous work by A. CRUZ, O Porto nas Navegacoes e na Expansao,Lisbon, Instituto de Cultura e Lıngua Portuguesa, 1983.

21 M. BERTI, Le aziende da Colle: una finestra sulle relazioni commerciali tra la Toscana e il Por-togallo a meta del Quattrocento, in Nel Mediterraneo ed oltre. Temi di storia e storiografia marittimatoscana (Secoli XIII-XVIII), Pisa, Edizioni ETS, 2000, pp. 191-240.The hides are mentioned in theseletters by the Portuguese word ‘cordovao’. As put succintly by F. MELIS, «Lisbon became in the fif-teenth century – the numbers are very eloquent – the most important emporium for the export ofanimal hides, and while almost all of that merchandise was flowing toward the Mediterranean, 90%of it was unloaded in Livorno» (my translation): Di alcune figure di operatori economici fiorentini at-tivi nel Portogallo nel XV secolo, in I mercanti Italiani nell’Europa Medievale e Rinascimentale, Flor-ence, 1990, p. 10.

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BETWEEN PISA AND PORTO: AFONSO EANES, MERCHANT OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL

known in the trading circuits connecting Porto with the Catalan and Valenciaports, and expanding, as we also see from this correspondence, all the way tothe central area of the Mediterranean.22

But it was undoubtedly in providing much needed services in shippingtransportation that the merchants from Portugal significantly participated inthe complex commercial networks of this part of the Mediterranean. The firstscale of the state fleet of the Florentines in Lisbon took place, as far as weknow, in 1429. But its size and capacity were whole inadequate, as FederigoMelis has shown, to the vast amount and the diversity of products circulatingbetween Florence and the western Mediterranean and Atlantic ports.23 Thecorrespondence of Afonso Eanes shows that, in the decade of 1420, the move-ment between Portugal and the Tuscan ports was assured also by private Por-tuguese merchant ships. Even if they do not allow for any evaluation of thevolume of such activity, these letters provide an eloquent picture of the reg-ularity of the presence of the Portuguese in the Pisan ports. That this move-ment appears connected with other circuits including Valencia or Barcelona,where the contador during his Pisan residence regularly sent his own agentand companion, seems coherent with the data provided by the rich Catalansources regarding the Portuguese presence in those port cities.

The interest of this correspondence, however, goes well beyond the cur-sory and impressionistic view that it allows into Portuguese trade circuits. Atleast as current in these letters as the information about Afonso Eanes’ experttasks in financial transactions and business ventures are his cultural interestsand practices, sometimes mentioned in exquisite detail in the correspondence.The merchant from Porto solicited the abbot, insistently, for guidance andsupervision regarding the books that he was having copied in Florence.Not surprisingly, the most important endeavor seemed to reside in the makingof a book of hours, following the Dominican use.24 The choice of texts to in-clude in this book was partly done by the merchant himself, partly decided byabbot Gomes, with the important input of the chaplain of the Badia of Flor-ence. Most of all, said Afonso Eanes, the work should have the required qual-ity in its miniatures:

22 THEMUDO BARATA, Navegacao, Comercio e Relacoes Polıticas, pp. 299-300.23 BERTI, Nel Mediterraneo, 239; MELIS, Di alcune figure di operatori, cit., pp. 12-13.24 First mentioned in a letter of July 1426: Letter 3. Practically all the letters from 1426-1427 men-

tion this book. Some of these elements were used by the late Albinia de la Mare in her studies aboutthe Florentine book trade, most recently: Notes on Portuguese Patrons of the Florentine Book Tradein the Fifteenth Century, K.J.P. LOWE (ed.), Cultural Links between Portugal and Italy in the Renais-sance, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 167-170.

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I beg of you, have my book painted with miniatures, the Tuscan way with goodfoliage in the margins, and some birds inside those. And in the capital letters let therebe figures, or half-figures as required by the story; this way it will be more beautifuland better, as long as it is done by a good master. Otherwise, they will be worth noth-ing.25

Contrary to what these last words may suggest, the book was not meant to besold by Afonso Eanes upon his return to Portugal, as the merchant declares tohis religious friend: «if this book is well executed, it will be the most prizedjewel, worth more than any other I might have, would it be more expensiveand more valuable».26

Although the writing abilities of Afonso Eanes in his native Portuguese donot denote particular stylistic sophistication, his reading habits and familiaritywith devotional books are revealed in the detailed written instructions regard-ing the religious feasts to be included in the calendar of his book of hours,27 aswell as his request for the manuscript of the prayers copied in «his book» tobe returned to him in Pisa as soon as possible, because he wanted to use thewritten version to pray, since he «did not know all words by heart».28

Such practices can be easily compared with analogous details of the cul-tural sphere of the merchants of Barcelona revealed in their abundant extantwills and property inventories. Books were part of what we might term «do-mestic icons» of devotion for these merchants, and they were among the mostprecious possessions of their households to be transmitted to their descen-dants.29 The use of these books of hours by the merchants was multiform,

25 Letter 18. «O livro vos rogo e peco que o facades bem iluminar, segundo vos ja escrevi, ao modotoscano, com boas folhagens pelas margens e com algumas aves dentro em elas. E se nas letras grandespuderem ser figuras, ou meias-figuras, segundo requerer a historia, sera mais formoso e melhor, contantoque seja feito per bom mestre, doutra guisa nao valerao nada»: Letter 19. On previous letters, prices arementioned: «do iluminamento do meu livro, assas me parece de se despender nelo outro tanto comocustou; que pera tao pequena cousa nao cumpre mui gra despesa, de cinco ate seis florins me pareceque se devia despender; e que devia ser mui bem iluminado, com boas folhagens arredor e per as mar-gens, onde cumprisse, com algumas aves e com algumas figuras dentro das letras; e o azul ser fino, e asoutras colores. Em esto leixo eu a vos o encargo, e serei contente do que vos em elo fizerdes»: Letters 17,and 9: «fazede que as tintas sejam boas, assim do azul como do vermelhao como das outras colores, que euma cousa que faz o lavor formoso».

26 Letter 22: «sendo bem feito, sera a joia de que eu mais serei contento que doutra nenhuma quetenha, ainda que seja alguma de maior custo e valor».

27 Letter 17.28 Letter 16.29 J. AURELL – A. PUIGARNAU, La Cultura del Mercader en la Barcelona del siglo XV, Barcelona,

Omega, 1998, pp. 323-324. See also 235, on the symbolic use of colors in the covers of books of hoursowned by merchants. Afonso Eanes did not want his book bound under the supervision of his Flor-entine friends: he claimed that would see to it himself.

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BETWEEN PISA AND PORTO: AFONSO EANES, MERCHANT OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL

least of all because they associated the sacred words to pictorial representa-tion.30 The available studies for the Portuguese case have focused so far exclu-sively on the extant manuscripts of royal or princely property and commis-sion, almost all of them coming from Flanders.31 The correspondence ofAfonso Eanes contributes to expand the current scholarship by includingthe consideration of nonaristocratic publics who also used such books in latemedieval Portugal.

Other endeavors of the Portuguese merchant during his stay in Pisa areespecially noteworthy for what they reveal about his involvement and his in-terest in the religious reforming activity of his friend, the Benedictine abbot.During the decade of 1420, abbot Gomes intervened in the revitalization ofthe small monastic community of San Donnino in Pisa, then reduced to ascarce community of two: the old abbot and another monk.32 Afonso Eanesnot only followed closely the activities of the small body of monks sent fromFlorence to reform the monastery, but he also provided practical assistance tothem, together with the two Pisan citizens involved in this religious initiative,whose names were Piero Gaetano and Pessino Balbo. In fact, Afonso Eanesmoved «oltrarno» in Pisa to a house located next to San Donnino and itschurch, outside of the walls of the city in the vecinity of Porta a Mare.33

Upon his return to Portugal after 1428, the merchant and royal agent con-tinued to be an active citizen in Porto, as shown by his documented partici-pation in the local municipal government, in parallell to his career as a royalfinancial officer.34 The final letters of Afonso Eanes to his old friend and ab-bot of the Badia of Florence, a decade after he had lived in Italy,35 show him

30 L. POOS, Social history and the Book of Hours, R.S. WIECK (ed.), Time Sanctified: the Book ofHours in Medieval Art and Life, New York, George Braziller/The Walters Art Gallery, 1988, pp. 33-38.

31 T. BOTELHO SERRA, Livros de Horas em Portugal no seculo XV, in A Iluminura em Portugal.Identidade e Influencias, Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, 1999, pp. 363-380. The book of hours of AfonsoEanes would be contemporary of one of the oldest such books kept in Portugal, the so-called ‘‘Bookof Hours of King Duarte’’: M. MARTINS, Guia Geral das Horas Del-Rei Dom Duarte, Lisbon, Broter-ia, 1982, pp. 31-32.

32 E. NUNES, Dom Frey Gomez, Abade de Florenca, Braga, Pax, 1963, vol. 1, pp. 213-233.33 Letter 9. The church of San Donnino was built in the early fourteenth century, and since at

least the 1380s the priory seems to have had an abbot: P. TRONCI, Annali Pisani, ed. G. Sforza, Bo-logna, Forni, 1975 (facsimil edition, 1868-1871), vol. 2 [Anno 1384].

34 There are many citizens of Porto bearing the same name in these years, most notably anhomonymous factor of prince Henry ‘‘The Navigator’’. Nevertheless, the activity of Afonso Eanesis well documented in municipal sources as «contador del rei», for instance dealing with taxationof the trade activities of a merchant from Barcelona: J.A. MACHADO – L.M. DUARTE (eds.), ‘‘Verea-coens’’. 1431-1432, Livro 1, Porto, Camara Municipal do Porto-Arquivo Historico, 1985, p. 84. For hisparticipation in government meetings: ivi, 29, 39, 41, 58, 71.

35 Letters 27, 28, 29 and 30. These letters also clarify the family connections between Afonso

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predictably concerned with family matters, in particular the education of hisson. During the stay of abbot Gomes in Portugal in 1436, the merchant fromPorto had trusted the boy, Luis, to the care of the powerful churchman, whowas then serving as papal legate in Portugal. The network of his Tuscanfriendships was now useful to Afonso Eanes in the placement and the promo-tion of the affairs of the younger members of his family – his son, but also hisniece who was seeking to obtain conformation of her leadership in one of thewealthiest convents of nuns located near Porto.36 The highest hopes were heldfor the future of the young in relation to these connexions for, as one of themissives proclaims with open flattery, «I hope in God that this same momentthat I write you will part of the college of the cardinals [...]».37

What can we conclude of the miniature portrait proposed in the previouspages? The close examination attempted in this essay of the content of a Por-tuguese fragmentary correspondence from the early fifteenth century suggestsa broader scope to the familiarity that the Italian merchants, in particular theFlorentines and other Tuscans, might entertain with the affairs and the tradepractices of the Atlantic kingdom. Their involvement in the business venturesof such relatively distant land, located on the western periphery of Europe,was certainly fueled by their capacity to obtain and channel all sorts of rele-vant and precise information regarding economic and trade opportunities. Adirect contact with Portuguese agents intervening in such circuits, most nota-bly in the Pisan ports, is to be added to the available data that would helpexplain, as it was stated earlier, the presence of ambitious and adventurousmerchants such as the young Andrea Cambini in the city of Lisbon, even be-fore the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. But these letters also reveal a familiarworld, and much that was common to the ‘mental atmosphere’ of merchants,both Tuscan and Portuguese, traveling between Pisa and Porto. As Molhowarns us, this is «an uncompromisingly nonmodern world», a «foreign worldin its sensibilities, its values, its moral priorities» where the ragion di famiglia

Eanes and the better known Joao Rodrigues de Sa, alcaide-mor (the king’s military governor) of thecity of Porto, whose son was also an important ship owner.

36 Letter 28: The convent of Vairao.37 Letter 28: «Folguei saber novas de como ereis ja ala, de paz e saude com toda vossa familia, e

como Luis provara bem no caminho e se fazia ja outro homem, e como o querieis encaminhar aprendergramatica, mas que se nao entendia bem com a linguagem. Senhor, eu tenho-vo-lo em merce. O primeirodia que vos tomastes dele encargo, logo eu perdi dele o cuidado. Porque prazendo a Deus que vosso es-tado seja bem encaminhado, o que eu espero em ele que assim seja, meu filho nao pode haver salvo bem,dando-vos Deus paz e saude, e a ele. Na feitura desta carta tenho esperanca em Deus que em este dia doaventurado apostolo e evangelista Sao Mateus sejais do colegio dos cardeais».

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BETWEEN PISA AND PORTO: AFONSO EANES, MERCHANT OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL

and the ragion di patrimonio prevail over those of the individual.38 Like hisItalian or Catalan counterparts, the world of the Portuguese merchant wasstill solidly rooted in his city of origin, in the interests of his family and, wemight add in this particular case, inextricably linked to the interests of his roy-al master.

The final episode of this tale, related to the latter aspect of Afonso Eanescareer, is obscure and suggestively open-ended. In 1440, the prince that Afon-so Eanes much admired, now ruling the country as regent, condemned thecontador, demoted him from his office and confiscated all his patrimony, al-legedly because «of what he did against our service, and in prejudice and lossof the kingdom».39 His wife, however, was to retain her own property.40 So,when his old friend Gomes returned himself from Italy one year later, hecould have found Afonso Eanes, his fortune lost, dwelving on his misfortune,or maybe already rebuilding with what was left. Wasn’t catastrophe, after all,a recurrent lesson of the merchant’s life?

38 A. MOLHO,Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence, Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 347.39 Arquivo Nacional (Torre do Tombo), Chancelaria de Afonso V, Livro 20, fol. 59.40 Arquivo Nacional (Torre do Tombo), Leitura Nova, Alem-Douro, Livro 4, fols. 238 and 238v:

confiscation of all his goods, «ressalvando o que deles pertence a sua mulher, porque esto queremos queela haja para sua governanca, por entendermos que nao e culpada no mal que seu marido fez».

RITA COSTA-GOMES

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APPENDIX

Letters written by Afonso Eanes addressed to the Abbot Gomes of Portugal.41

1. Pisa, 23 January 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 1a.

2. Pisa, 3 July 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Volume I,Fascicolo VI, 1b.

3. Pisa, 30 July 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Volume I,Fascicolo VI, 2a.

4. Pisa, 7 August 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, VolumeI, Fascicolo VI, 2b.

5. Pisa, 9 August 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, VolumeI, Fascicolo VI, 3a.

6. Pisa, 16 August 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, VolumeI, Fascicolo VI, 4.

7. Pisa, 20 August 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, VolumeI, Fascicolo VI, 5.

8. Pisa, 23 August 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, VolumeI, Fascicolo VI, 6.

9. Pisa, 4 October [1426]; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VII, 17b.

10. Pisa, 22 October 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 11b.

11. Pisa, 29 October 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 7b.

12. Pisa, 29 October 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 7c.

13. Pisa, 3 November 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 8.

41 The dates in brackets are absent from the original text.

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14. Pisa, 11 November [1426]; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792,Volume I, Fascicolo X, 9a.

15. Pisa, 12 November [1426]; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792,Volume I, Fascicolo VIII, 13b.

16. Pisa, 22 November 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 11a.

17. Pisa, 22 November [1426]; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792,Volume I, Fascicolo VI, 10b.

18. Pisa, 27 November 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 12b.

19. Pisa, 5 December 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 12a.

20. Pisa, 10 December 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 12c.

21. Pisa, 11 December 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 3b.

22. Pisa, 22 December 1426; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 14.

23. Pisa, 7 January 1427; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, VolumeI, Fascicolo VI, 18a.

24. Pisa, 10 January 1427; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo IX, 1b.

25. Genoa, 3 October 1427; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 17a.42

26. Pisa, 31 December 1427; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo VI, 15a.

27. Porto, 31 July 1437; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Volume I,Fascicolo VIII, 1b.

28. Porto, 21 September 1437; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792,Volume I, Fascicolo VII, 11.

29. Porto, 25 February 1438; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Vo-lume I, Fascicolo IX, 3.

30. Porto, 7 July 1438; Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnam 1792, Volume I,Fascicolo VII, 14b.

42 Published in A. DIAS DINIS (ed.), Monumenta Henricina, Lisbon, 1961, vol. 3, pp. 169-171.

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RITA COSTA-GOMES