87This study deals with Oriental silks. I have purposelychosen the term “Oriental” rather than “Islamic” for sev-eral reasons. One of them is to exclude silks woven in Is-lamic-ruled territories of the Iberian peninsula or perpet-uating their artistic and technical traditions under Chris-tian dominion. The other is related to 13th-century de-velopments in the production and trade of silks in thewake of the Mongol conquests in a region extendingfrom the Mediterranean to China, thus partly outside theIslamic world. My purpose here is to trace the flow ofthese silks and others produced in Mamluk-ruled Egyptand Syria to the Christian or Latin West of the later Mid-dle Ages and explain its gradual decline.Before engaging in that investigation, it may prove usefulto return to the early 12th century1. By that time, a long-term social, cultural and economic evolution in the LatinWest stimulated a growing demand for high and medi-um-grade silks, which was no more confined to the socialelite and rich ecclesiastical institutions. That demand,first attested in Italy, spread to other regions of the LatinWest. It was largely, though not exclusively, satisfied byByzantine silks. The Latin West also imported silk fabricsproduced in Islamic Spain and the Levant. In the 12thcentury, the Crusades, Latin settlement in the Frankishstates founded in the Levant in the course of the FirstCrusade, the intensification of trans-Mediterraneantrade, and growing pilgrimage to the Holy Land ac-quainted the Latins more intimately with Oriental silksand stimulated their flow to the Latin West. Most of thesesilks were manufactured in the Islamic Near East andMiddle East, others in the Frankish states whose weaversbelonged to the indigenous communities and maintainedtheir technical and ornamental traditions under Frankishrule2. Western vernacular literature abundantly illustratesthe visual impact of Oriental silks upon the upper socialranks, the cumulative effect of acquaintance with theirvariety and, indirectly, their diffusion and availability inthe Latin West3.Despite growing Western imports from Byzantium, theLevant and Islamic Spain, there was still room in the tex-tile market for the manufacture of high-grade silks in theLatin West. The weaving of such silks, both plain andpatterned, began in Lucca around the mid-12th century,while Venice launched its production in the early 13thcentury in the wake of the Fourth Crusade. The domi-nance of Byzantine silks in the West until that period isreflected both by their ongoing import and by their im-pact upon the textiles produced by the two Italian cities,most of which bore Byzantine names. The Byzantine im-print was also notable in the ornamental language of pat-terned silks, especially in Venice. In addition, however,

Lucchese and Venetian silk weavers departed fromByzantine models and created new weaves and designsbased upon them. By the late 12th century, Lucca also be-gan to imitate a type of silk fabric originally woven inBaghdad, which circulated in the West as bagadell,baldekyn and similar names. Venice, too, manufacturedsuch imitations by the 1260s. The expansion of silk man-ufacture in Lucca and Venice in the 13th century did nothalt the flow of various types of silks from the EasternMediterranean to the West. Genoa and Venice, the mainimporters of these textiles, also served as transit stationsfor their diffusion in Italy and beyond the Alps.The balance between imported Byzantine and Orientalsilks appears to have gradually changed in the first half ofthe 13th century. The Fourth Crusade, which ended in1204 with the conquest of Constantinople by Latinforces, resulted in the collapse of the city’s silk industry,until then an important source of textiles for the West.Admittedly, the dismemberment of the Byzantine Empirefollowing the Fourth Crusade enabled Latin merchantsand entrepreneurs easier access to silk manufacturers inThebes, Negroponte in the island of Euboea and Andros,and promoted the import of their products to the LatinWest. Nevertheless, the volume of Oriental silks shipped4

across the Mediterranean appears to have grown muchfaster5.A new phase in the trans-Mediterranean silk trade beganin the 1260s, after the consolidation of Mongol rule northof the Black Sea and over western Asia in the previousdecades. The (growing) flow of Oriental silks to the Westgained additional impetus and underwent a change incharacter marked by the appearance of new types of fab-rics called panni tartarici, dras de tartais or tartaires inWestern sources. These appellations point to the Mon-gols, yet in fact “Tartar cloth” was a generic name appliedto a large and varied group of silks woven in Mongol-ruled territories of Central Asia and the Middle East witha long tradition of silk weaving. The name covered pre-viously unknown types of fabrics made of silk interwov-en with gold, or cloths of gold, as well as patterned andplain silks, regardless of diversity among them in techni-cal features and decoration. Many of the patterned silkscombined in a dynamic and dramatic fashion Chinese,Central Asian and Islamic motifs and patterns that dis-tinguished them from silk textiles manufactured in theFar East, the West, earlier Islamic silks, as well ascontemporary silks woven in Mamluk Egypt and Syria6.The rich hybrid decorative repertory of “Tartar” clothswas the result of forcible transfers of artists and qualifiedweavers across Asia from one cultural zone of the Mon-gol empire to another, first attested in 1221 when Muslim

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artisans from the western regions arrived in China. It isnoteworthy that two colonies of transferred Muslimweavers had teaching responsibilities7. In the late 13thcentury, Marco Polo encountered groups of transplantedMuslim weavers in northern China producing nach andnassic, two distinct types among the new sumptuouscloths of gold8. The state-sponsored relocation ofweavers was followed by the spontaneous mobility ofskilled workers. In addition, the exchange of gifts be-tween rulers and especially the free commercial flow oftextiles across the vast Mongol territories contributed toartistic contacts, exchanges and interaction9. The circula-tion of albums of designs may have also been influentialin that respect10. Finally, the high regard for Chinese artsand crafts in Islamic central and western Asia may havehastened the assimilation of Chinese silk designs andtechniques in these regions (fig. 1)11. A specific group ofTartar textiles reveals that around 1.300 Chinese andCentral Asian motifs had been incorporated into the dec-orative language of silks woven in Mongol-ruled Iran12.Three steps are required for the reconstruction of theflow toward the Latin West of Oriental silks woven inMongol and Mamluk territories, and also their diffusionin that region in the later Middle Ages: identifying the na-ture of the pieces and the specific group to which theybelong, dating their arrival at their destination and trac-ing their itinerary. These steps encounter serious difficul-ties. The sources documenting silks, namely, written tes-timonies, visual representations and extant textiles, lackcontinuity and are widely dispersed. The identificationand description of silks in medieval written sources lackuniformity, and the interchangeable names used by thecompilers of inventories, some examples of which appearbelow, blur the distinctions between silk types. Moreover,it is not always possible to ascertain whether the same ordifferent silk pieces are listed in consecutive inventoriesof the same institution or office; as a result, the date oftheir arrival in the West cannot be determined. Writtensources sometimes describe the composition of fabrics, asin the case of half-silks or gold interwoven textiles, anddepict colours, motifs and patterns, yet fail to describethe disposition of ornamental elements or to offer tech-nical information regarding the weaves13.Some painters faithfully reproduced silks14, while othersoccasionally simplified motifs and patterns or selectedthem from several fabrics and created new ornamentaldesigns by their combination and different outlay15. Theegg tempera technique used by painters in the 14th cen-tury was unsuited for the rendering of fine distinctions oftexture, especially for velvets, achieved only after Flem-ish painters had perfected the oil technique in the early15th century. A discrepancy also existed between certaincolours obtained in the picturing of silks and those of ac-tual textiles16. Extant fabrics provide precise visual andtechnical information, yet only if linked to specific datedobjects or events or retrieved from securely datable con-texts do they offer chronological clues regarding the pro-duction or arrival of distinctive types of ornamental ele-ments in the Latin West. This is the case as regards some

david jacobyIslamic silk pieces adorned with Arabic tiraz inscriptionsenclosed in bands along their edges, which in the best ofcases mention the name of the ruler or the name of theofficial who had ordered their manufacture, as well as thelocation of the workshop and the year in which they hadbeen produced. Originally, tiraz inscriptions decoratedrobes of honour granted by rulers. Over time, these in-scriptions became fashionable within larger and lower-ranking sectors of society, were also used on privateclothing and became more conventional. Unfortunately,many tiraz inscriptions, especially those on Mamluk silks,are very short and lack any chronological clues17.An additional obstacle to our investigation derives fromthe wide chronological gap existing at times between pro-duction and the use or recording of Oriental silks. In-ventories describe some pieces as being old18. EmperorRudolf IV of Habsburg was buried in 1365 in a silk ap-parently woven in Tabriz, Iran, at least thirty years earli-er, between 1319 and 1335, a chronological frame pro-vided by the Arabic inscription adorning that piece19.Dating the arrival of Oriental silks in the West is alsohampered by the reuse of motifs and patterns by thesame painter or school of painters over several decades.Silks were used as hangings and vestments in liturgicalcontexts over long periods of time. Some parchmentleaves with ornamental designs from a Venetian silkweaving workshop active in the later 14th century wereincorporated by Jacopo Bellini in one of his design al-bums around 143020. Geographic appellations do not al-ways indicate origin, since imitations bearing the samenames were common21.Even written sources that directly refer to trading do notnecessarily provide solid chronological clues. Silks weresometimes stored over long periods before being market-ed, transferred to customers or used. This was presum-ably the case with various silks sold by Italian merchantsresiding in Paris, London and other cities to royal andprincely courts, and remaining for some time in the lat-ter’s treasuries before being made up into clothing or be-ing embroidered22. On the other hand, written sourcesmay occasionally reveal the approximate date when silksarrived at a specific destination. In short, the varioustypes of evidence must be used with extreme caution.Their correlation may enable the identification of extanttextiles with some of the types recorded in other cate-gories of sources and allow for the reconstruction of theirflow and diffusion.As noted above, Tartar cloths appear under that namefrom the 1260s onward. The fabrics belonging to Eudes,count of Nevers, who died in Acre in 1266, had clearlybeen bought in that city. The Tartar silks attested some-what earlier in Hungary had been acquired in Venice or,in any event, from Venetian merchants, who enjoyed adominant position in Acre’s trade after the ouster of theGenoese from the city in 1258. The Venetians maintainedthat position until Acre’s fall to the forces of MamlukEgypt in 129123. Tartar silks were purchased in Flandersin 1276-1277, and in large numbers around 128124.Around 1300 they were already enjoying broad diffusion

in the West25. The papal inventory of 1295 records a con-siderable number and a wide variety of them purchasedor obtained as gifts over some thirty-five years26. A decreeissued by King Edward I of England in 1302 states thetax to be paid for the sale of «Tartar cloths of silk»27. Acardinal who died in Naples in 1300, another in Lucca in1311 and a third in Avignon in 1312 owned ecclesiasticalgarments made of “Tartar cloth”28. The collective termTartar continued to be applied to silks recorded in in-ventories as late as the 1380s, yet may have then been tak-en over from earlier listings since it seldom appears atthat time29.The term “Tartar cloths” covered several types of silktextiles distinguished by specific appellations. To besure, the Latins were already acquainted with nassic silksby the mid-13th century. A piece of nassic was grantedto the Franciscan monk William of Rubruck during hismission to the Mongols on behalf of King Louis IX ofFrance, and was sold by his interpreter in 1255 inCyprus for a large sum, despite its having been dam-aged30. However, only from the late 13th century onwardare this term and other specific appellations of Tartarfabrics found in Western commercial documents. A Ge-noese notarial charter records the sale of nach and nas-sic, the cloths of gold mentioned above, in the Black Seaport of Caffa in 128931. Several charters drafted in 1300in Famagusta refer to Tartar silks under their particularnames. Five pieces of nach were deposited as surety fora loan of 160 Cypriot white bezants32. A merchantowned two pieces of camoca and a blanket of nassic.Thirty-seven pieces of nach, thirty of camoca, one oftaffeta and seven of velvet, all Oriental silks, were beingshipped to Provence. The handle or the scabbard of asword belonging to a Genoese official stationed in Fam-agusta was covered in camoca33.In addition, the papal inventory of 1295 lists silks manu-factured in Tabriz and others apparently woven in Tarsus,a city of southeastern Asia Minor in the kingdom of Cili-cian Armenia34. Pieces of “Tars” cloth are also attested inLondon in 1295, and additional ones at other places inEngland in the following years, two of them beingadorned with gold disks35. Incidentally, a silk fabric dis-playing gold disks called “Tartar” is recorded at theFrench royal court in 131736. Other “Tars” fabrics appearin France and Flanders from 1315 to 132237. The weav-ing of Tars silks in Cilicia, suggested here, explains whyone of them was listed in 1315 as «de opere de Turky»and others appear in 1331-1333 in a group of vestmentsmade of «pann’ de Tarsen’ & Turkey». In such instances“Turkey” stands for Asia Minor, and points either to Cili-cian Armenia or to the Turkish emirates. Marco Polo re-ported in the 1290s that Armenians and Greeks underTurkish rule produce beautiful carpets and many kinds ofsilks, yet without specifying that the latter were “Tartar”silks38.Cloths of gold «de Turkye», far more expensive than oth-er cloths of gold, were being listed in English royal ac-counts by 1300/0139. They are registered in the wardrobeof Queen Isabella of England, who wore a garment of

that cloth at her wedding to Edward II in 130840. Manyof these silks «shining like gold» were offered in 1321 toPeterborough Abbey41. In 1316 and 1317, the treasury ofthe French king Philip V contained “Turkish” cloths ofgold, some of which are described as naques, which re-veals that appellations often depended upon the compil-ers or authors of documents recording silks42. Accordingto the tariff compiled in Paris in the first half of the 14thcentury, the «drap de Turquie» was the most heavilytaxed silk cloth, thus confirming its high cost mentionedabove43. Incidentally, an inventory of 1317 refers to «tar-taires apelez taphetaz» and «que l’en claime taphetaz»,which illustrates once more the interchangeability of ap-pellations applied to “Tartar” silks44.New and costly types of Oriental silks generated an evo-lution in taste and fashion which rapidly spread fromItaly to the entire Latin West. The strong fascination withthe Orient, the pronounced taste for bright and lustrouscolours, the sheen provided by gold and silver threadsand the exotic patterns adorning the new types of Orien-tal silks ensured their success and a broad diffusion incourtly circles and among urban elites. Plain Tartar silks,cheaper than figured and gold interwoven fabrics, wereoften embroidered or adorned with embroidered bordersafter arriving in the West45. The diffusion of luxury tex-

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1. Cloth of gold with fantastic animals and floral designs, Central Asia, 13th-14th century. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973.269

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tiles was also promoted by their social functions. Theywere offered by rulers to courtiers, served as markers ofsocial standing and their conspicuous display stimulatedemulation. In Venice, even children among the social elitewore clothes made of such textiles, as attested by a sump-tuary law adopted in 1334 that prohibited new clothesmade of cloths of gold, especially of nassic, the most ex-pensive one, for men or women over the age of ten46. Thesumptuary laws enacted in Italian cities from the 13thcentury onward were intended to prevent the ruinous ef-fects of heightened luxury consumption in clothing, aswell as the immobilization of capital, which would bedetrimental to the operation of the economy47. Yet theirfrequent repetition proves that they were effective forshort periods only, and did not prevent the growing con-sumption of costly fabrics48. Italian merchants, especiallythose of Venice and Genoa, closely observed these socialmanifestations and stimulated demand by varying theirimports of Tartar and other Oriental silks. The full splendour of these silk textiles is conveyed by ex-tant pieces and paintings. King Rudolf I of Bohemia, whodied in 1308, was buried in two silk and gold lampas fab-rics adorned with different designs that belong to a groupmanufactured in Central Asia49. A green and gold textilethat formed the sleeves of the dalmatic of St. Valerius atLérida, woven between the late 13th and the mid-14th

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century, illustrates the arrival of Tartar fabrics in Spainfrom Central Asia50. Cangrande I della Scala, ruler ofVerona, was buried in 1329 in sumptuous Oriental silks,to which other pieces were added when he was reburiedduring the following decade51. One of them is a stripedsilk textile decorated with two parallel bands enclosing ashort Arabic inscription repeated several times in an ele-gant and stylized cursive nashki script that was based ona model common in Mamluk Egypt and Syria. The in-scription reads: «To thee belong the loftiest honour andglory (?)» (fig. 2)52. A similar silk textile with an identicalinscription and striped layout, though with different or-namental patterns, has been found at Las Huelgas deBurgos, Spain, among the burial objects of Alfonso de laCerda who died in 1333. The two silks, used in burials atdifferent places within the same decade, were apparentlymanufactured somewhat earlier in Mongol territory, pre-sumably in Tabriz. The attribution to Tabriz is enhancedby the similarity of these pieces with a silk depicted in aPersian miniature presumably executed in that cityaround 1330 (fig. 3). However, in view of their commonMamluk features, it is likely that the two extant pieceswere designed for export to Mamluk Egypt and Syria53.Such textiles recall the Tartar silk textile «according toSyrian fashion» («ad modum suriani») recorded in thepapal inventory of 131154. Two other silks produced forthat market illustrate the success and broad diffusion of

2. Reconstruction by Paola Frattaroli of the pattern adorning theinscribed silk found in the tomb of Cangrande I della Scala, lordof Verona, Tabriz (?), first decades of 14th century. Original inVerona, Museo di Castelvecchio

3. Miniature in the Shanama “Demotte”, Tabriz (?), ca. 1330.Settignano, Villa I Tatti, Berenson Collection

such fabrics in the Latin West. One of them is a CentralAsian silk of the early 14th century preserved in Regens-burg55. The second one, attributed to Khorasan and dat-ed to the second half of the 14th century, belonged to theMarienkirche in Gdansk56. Genuine Mamluk silks not in-cluded among the Tartar textiles also reached the LatinWest. The inventory of 1311 lists «panni suriani», or Syr-ian textiles, and the sale of silks called suria is attested inCastile from the 1260s to the mid-14th century57. ASienese chronicle reports that a large consignment of pre-cious silks from Syria arrived in Siena in 1338. It includ-ed patterned pieces, cloths of gold, belts made of goldcloth in Syrian fashion, as well as striped multicolouredsilks that were clearly Mamluk, unless manufactured forthe Mamluk market58. In addition, some Chinese silksreached the West in the first half of the 14th century. Atwill-damask from the Yuan period has been found inLondon in a deposit dating to the second quarter of thatcentury59. Another, the imperial “Eagle Dalmatic”, wasfirst worn in 1350 by Charles IV at his coronation as em-peror of the Holy Roman Empire60.The growing success and diffusion of Tartar silks in Italyis illustrated by their reproduction in Italian paintingsfrom the first decade of the 14th century onward. Theirmotifs and designs rapidly became fashionable visualcomponents in the depiction of dress and furnishings. Inaddition, the painters copied or imitated the inscriptionsenclosed in bands along the edges of cloth pieces or gar-ments, some of which were in Arabic characters, othersof which appeared in a Tibetan script called Phags-pa.

The latter is the case in all of Giotto’s frescoes represent-ing Christ and the Virgin in the Cappella degli Scrovegniin Padua, which he executed between 1302 and 1306 (fig.4)61. These inscriptions were viewed in the Latin West asdecorative elements, which partly accounts for the suc-cess of inscribed silks in lay and ecclesiastical circles. Si-mone Martini’s painting St Louis of Toulouse CrowningRobert of Anjou, King of Naples, assigned to 1317, pro-vides a rich visual representation of the new types of Ori-ental fabrics62. Most silks reproduced by Giotto and oth-er Italian painters of the first half of the 14th centurywere presumably genuine Oriental textiles, yet some mayhave been Italian imitations, a possibility which will soonbe examined.Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), who was the guest of Can-grande I della Scala in Verona from 1312/1313 to circa1318, provides a suggestive literary illustration of the pre-cious Oriental silks common in the first two decades ofthe 14th century among the social elites of northern Italywith whom he was acquainted63. In his description of themonster Geryon, he refers to the lavish decorative fea-tures and colours of “Tartar” and “Turkish” textiles (In-ferno, XVII, 14-17). Incidentally, the association betweenthese two groups of silks recalls the connection betweentheir appellations in documentary sources64. Jacopo dellaLana, Dante’s first commentator, wrote in circa 1324-1328, a few years after the poet’s death, that the referencewas to camoca, taffeta, nach and similar silks. As notedabove, some of these silk types were included under thegeneral heading of Tartar cloths. Boccaccio, who com-

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4. Giotto, Soldiers wearing inscribed garments, detail of the Resurrection,1303-1305. Padua, Cappella degli Scrovegni

attenzione: prima giotto di bondone,qui solo giotto

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mented the same passage between 1373 and 1375, statedthat no painter can reproduce the splendour of Tartarsilks65. Dante mentions «roundels» (rotelle) among theornamental elements adorning these fabrics. It has al-ready been observed that these recall the gold disks ap-pearing on some Tartar fabrics66.Tartar silks reached the Latin West along several itiner-aries. Initially Acre was one of the main markets and ex-porters of these fabrics in the Frankish Levant, a functionit maintained until its fall to the Mamluks in 129167. Ayas,called Laiazzo by the Italians, in the kingdom of CilicianArmenia, served from the 1250s onward as a majorMediterranean outlet of the trans-Asian trade route pass-ing through Tabriz. The list of toll stations between thetwo cities included in the trade manual of the Florentinemerchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, compiled in thelate 1330s, reflects the close commercial link, and sug-gests intensive Italian trading between the two cities in anearlier period68. It is likely that the Tartar silks purchasedin Flanders in the 1270s and 1280s, the origin of which isunknown, were shipped by Genoese merchants from La-iazzo and reached their final destination via Genoa andthe fairs of Champagne69. The treaty concluded in 1288between King Leo II of Cilician Armenia and Genoaspecifies the customs rate for a camel-load of silks, whichhints at the Genoese trade in silks as being fairly large involume70. Laiazzo’s share in that traffic clearly increasedsoon after the fall of Acre. Marco Polo mentions in thelate 1290s that Venetian and Genoese merchants wereshipping carpets and silks manufactured in Asia Minorthrough Laiazzo71. The Venetian commercial manualknown as Zibaldone da Canal, completed in the 1320s,reports that the sale of silks and cloths of gold in the citywas not taxed72. However, Laiazzo gradually lost its func-tion as a silk market and exporter from the 1320s onfollowing Mamluk attacks, and especially after its fall tothe Mamluks in 133773. By the mid-14th century, Beirut,which served as maritime outlet to Damascus, and Cypri-ot Famagusta had replaced both Acre and Laiazzo as atransit station for many silks on their way from Syria andEgypt to the West74. The large Syrian consignment ofsilks reaching Siena in 1338, which included cloths ofgold and multicoloured striped Mamluk samites was pre-sumably shipped from Beirut75. Some of the textiles leav-ing Beirut were manufactured in Syria, while others camefrom workshops operating further east. In addition to thesilks and cloths of gold it produced, Damascus traded infabrics coming from Baghdad and Tabriz76. Camoca man-ufactured in Damascus, Baghdad, Tabriz and Nishapur,Iran, passed through Beirut and Famagusta77. There werealso direct shipments to the West of silks manufacturedin Alexandria78.Tabriz served as capital of the Il-Khans, or Mongol rulersof Iran, from sometime between 1265 and 1282 until1304. It was a major inland crossroads with a cosmopol-itan population, which fulfilled a pivotal role in the fu-sion of various artistic trends, as well as in the circulationand diffusion of goods. Its important role as a silk mar-ket was promoted by its own silk manufacturing and the

david jacobymarketing of silks arriving from other Iranian cities andinner Asia79. The Italian merchants residing in Tabrizfrom the 1260s to the 1330s, mainly Venetians and Ge-noese, were clearly involved in the silk trade80. In addi-tion to its connections to Laiazzo, mentioned above,Tabriz also served as transit station on the way to Trebi-zond in northeastern Asia Minor. The anonymous Flo-rentine trade manual compiled around 1320, mentionedearlier, reports that «from Trebizond are exported all thecommodities exported from Tabriz»81. These included“Tartar” silks. Indeed, the Venetian treaties of 1319 and1364 with the Greek empire of Trebizond mention silksand cloths of gold apparently brought from Tabriz,among them camoca of either Chinese or Persian origin82.The trilingual glossary of Latin, Cuman or Turkic andPersian words known as the Codex Cumanicus, com-piled in 1324/25, lists nach, nassic and camoca among thecommodities traded in the Black Sea region. The compi-lation of this work has recently been ascribed to Caffa83.However, the apparent absence of the silk trade in Caffaduring that period, and the inclusion of Persian equiva-lents in the glossary, suggest that the latter was complet-ed in Trebizond, which as noted had strong commerciallinks to Tabriz84. Silks also reached Trebizond from Sul-taniyeh, located southeast of Tabriz85. The Spanish envoyRuy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who visited Sultaniyeh in 1403,refers to silk fabrics arriving in the city from the region ofShiraz in southwestern Iran86.Until its fall to the Ottomans in 1453, Constantinoplefunctioned as a collection centre and transit station forsilks arriving from Trebizond, as well as from inner Asiathrough Tana, a port at the mouth of the Don River, and,occasionally, it seems, through Caffa in the Crimea as in145287. The Florentine commercial manual of circa 1320records large consignments of silks, including velvetsshipped to the West from Constantinople and Pera, theGenoese suburb of the city, as well as silks and cloths ofgold from Tana, Sarai on the Volga River and Urgench inUzbekistan88. In the late 1330s, Pegolotti records the var-ious Oriental silks available in Constantinople, amongthem camoca, nach and nassic, and the transfer of clothsof gold from Trebizond89. In addition, the manual of cir-ca 1320 reports that Phocea in western Asia Minor wasexporting velvets from Romania and Turkey, in that in-stance from Byzantine and Turkish territories of Asia Mi-nor, respectively90.The disturbances and military confrontations of the1340s in Central Asia did not put an end to long-distancetrade across the continent. As earlier, this trade was pri-marily conducted by Asian merchants in stages through aseries of interconnected regional networks and along al-ternative routes, when required91. Western merchantsceased to travel as far as China, yet still ventured beyondTrebizond and Tana into western Asia. In 1399, a Venet-ian lost a bale of silk fabrics between Sultaniyeh and Tre-bizond92. In 1405, a merchant acting on behalf of twoLucchese entrepreneurs operating a silk workshop inVenice and their Venetian partners proceeded with vel-vets, cloths of gold and camoca from Constantinople to

Trebizond and Iran, Tabriz being presumably his finaldestination93. In 1363, a merchant intended to travel fromTana to buy silk in Urgench94. Others went in 1390 and1391 to Samaxi, located some 100 kilometres west ofBaku in Azerbaijan. In Tana, one of them had silk fabricsof unknown origin95. In 1403, the Spanish envoy Clavijonoted that Venetian and Genoese merchants were travel-ling to Samaxi to buy silk96. A Genoese merchant isattested in that city in 141097. Although several of thesepieces of evidence only refer to silk as raw material, thereis good reason to believe that these or other merchantsacquired Oriental silk fabrics in the course of their jour-neys in inner Asia. Indeed, Western imports of these tex-tiles continued in the second half of the 14th and in the15th century, both from the Black Sea and from the East-ern Mediterranean. Yet before dealing with them, the im-pact of the growing influx of Tartar and other Orientalsilks upon Italy warrants our attention.The evidence adduced above convincingly illustrates achange in Italian taste and fashion. The success of Tartarsilks prompted Lucchese and Venetian entrepreneursand craftsmen to borrow the motifs, designs and weavesof these textiles, and compete with them by the manu-facture of imitations. This development is suggested asearly as 1302 by an inventory compiled for the count ofArtois. It mentions a red «tartare [sic] d’outremer», orTartar silk from overseas, a genuine Oriental cloth im-ported from the Levant, clearly to differentiate it fromItalian imitations98. The distinction between genuine Ori-ental silks and Italian imitations was sometimes difficult.In 1311, the compilers of a papal inventory could not de-termine whether a certain white silk with red and goldstripes was “Tartar” or Lucchese99, while other silk pieceswere listed as «appearing to be Tartar», «like a barbaric[sic] velvet», or made «according to the fashion of Tartarfabrics»100. Several «tartaires de Luques», in other words,Lucchese imitations, are directly attested in 1317 amongthe silks recorded in the treasury of King Philip V ofFrance. The same inventory lists two silks from Luccawith a striped pattern presumably borrowed from Mam-luk silks. Lucca and Venice were also manufacturing im-itations of nach by that time. Strangely, a Lucchese silk isregistered as being «without gold», while a Venetian nachis described as woven of silk and hemp101. The manufac-ture of half-silks blending silk with other fibers had al-ready been practiced in Italy by the 13th century102. Thisdownscaling of the raw material was now applied to themanufacture of cheaper imitations of Oriental silks,which nevertheless retained their high quality and,thanks to their attractive prices, must have enjoyed a fair-ly broad diffusion103. A silk and linen samite in the MuséeCluny in Paris has recently been identified as an early im-itation of a Tartar silk, presumably produced in Venicearound 1300104. Thus we see that by the first quarter ofthe 14th century, Venice was manufacturing various typesof Tartar fabrics except for camoca105. Lucca and Flo-rence were weaving that fabric by 1329 and 1344, re-spectively106. Immigrant silk weavers from Lucca mayhave introduced its production to Florence107.

The silk weaving regulations issued in Lucca in 1376 il-lustrate the growing importance of silks imitating Orien-tal fabrics in the city’s production. The regulations dealwith twenty-one types of cloth, some plain and otherspatterned, which reflect the wide variety in texture, de-sign and quality of the silks108. They specify the composi-tion and the weaving techniques for the textiles, whichranged from very light fabrics to heavy brocades, and in-cluded lampas weaves. Significantly, the Lucchese regu-lations include ten types of silks bearing “Oriental”names; this is in sharp contrast to the 13th-century Ital-ian statutes in which imitations of Byzantine textiles wereprominent109. Among the patterned silks, the Luccheseregulations mention three types of baldachini, two typesof camoca, cigattoni, the name of which derived fromArabic siglatun, two types of zectani, in addition to sara-cinati and attabi, plain textiles originally woven in the Is-lamic Middle East110. Several of these silks required spe-cial looms. A loom for the weaving of camoca was sold inLucca in 1379111. Soriani, obviously imitations of Mam-luk textiles woven in Syria, were added in the revisedLucchese statutes of 1382112. Their production must havestarted earlier. They were presumably similar to an in-scribed, multicoloured striped cloth of gold from Luccaimitating Mamluk textiles that was granted to Westmin-ster Abbey before 1376, and to another fabric appearingon the Despenser Retable, Norwich, painted around thattime113. It is noteworthy that the vast majority of the silkspurchased by the English royal court in the 14th and 15thcenturies bore Oriental names, and very few Byzantineappellations114.While Italian imitations borrowed the names of Orientalsilks, they partly differed from them in the compositionof the weave, in the texture and in the quality115. In thecourse of the 14th century, Italian designers proceededbeyond the reproduction of motifs and designs appearingon Oriental silks and their integration within their ownindigenous patterns. Central Asian silks were pivotal inthe transmission of Chinese motifs and patterns to Italy,which inspired the creation of highly imaginative new de-signs frequently using palmettes, flowers, fantastic ani-mals and birds in the second half of the 14th century (fig.5). These patterns continued to be produced in the early15th century. Mamluk designs also inspired silks wovenin Italy in the second half of the 14th century116. In addi-tion, the manufacture of velvet in Italy, first recorded inLucca in 1311, became increasingly complex and variedin the course of the 14th century; by 1400, Italian weaverswere producing many types of patterned and gold-bro-caded velvets (tav. 3). In the 15th century, they further de-vised new techniques that enabled the weaving of evermore sumptuous types117. Variants of the pomegranatemotif, such as pine and artichoke in multiple composi-tional patterns and colours, became highly fashionable inthe 15th century, and were reproduced in painting118. Inaddition to aesthetic considerations, these developmentswere clearly motivated by the desire of Italian silk entre-preneurs and weavers to counter the import of Orientalsilks and enlarge their own market share in the Latin

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West. Beyond that goal, the production of the new typesof Italian silks and velvets enabled Western merchants tocompete with Oriental silks in the Islamic and MongolEast, as we shall see below.The diffusion of Italian silks was also promoted by a rev-olutionary technological innovation that enabled sub-stantial savings in manpower and also lowered produc-tion costs. Contrary to common belief, the silk-throwingcircular machine used for the drafting, twisting andwinding of silk fibres onto reels to produce a strong yarnis first attested in Lucca in 1330, and somewhat later inVenice and Bologna. In this city, it also appeared in a wa-ter-powered version which, however, did not entirely dis-place the man-powered device for a long time and, at anyrate, could not be used in Venice. The diffusion of thesilk-throwing machine seems to have been connectedwith the migration of Lucchese silk entrepreneurs andcraftsmen, which was caused by political turmoil in theirhome city119.Most silks bearing Oriental appellations are listed inWestern inventories of the 14th century without any in-dication of provenance. Once Italian imitations of thesesame fabrics were being produced, it became impossibleto determine whether they were genuine Oriental silks.This is the case of nach, camoca and “Tartar” clothsrecorded in the papal treasury at Avignon from 1314 to1376120. The same applies to suriani, attested from 1342to 1359121. On the other hand, the Oriental origin ofcloths of gold called raca is beyond doubt, since theywere not imitated in Italy. These silks, attested in theWest from 1317 to 1353, were presumably woven inNishapur, Iran, which was already manufacturing themby the tenth century122. It is possible that their ornamen-tal designs were not adapted to the new fashions of the14th century, which may explain their disappearancefrom Western sources after a brief period.Oriental silks coupled with Oriental geographic nameshave already been mentioned above. It is noteworthy,though, that while Outremer, or the Levant, is continu-ously mentioned in Western inventories and accountsthroughout the 14th century, names such as “Tars” and“Turkey” practically disappear from them in the secondhalf of that period. Instead, Damascus and Alexandriafeature prominently in these documents. These changesreveal a partial shift in the nature and origin of the Ori-ental silks flowing to the Latin West, while failing to re-flect their entire range. Several camoca pieces from Outremer, a number of themdescribed as being «fine», were delivered to the Frenchroyal court in 1342; others were bought in 1352123. Camo-ca pieces from Damascus are recorded in the sameyear124. Papal inventories mention gold embroidery fromDamascus in 1342 and 1353, yet the two listings may re-fer to the same piece125. Camoca fabrics with damasceneembroidery are registered in 1371126. «Draps d’or deDamas» were bought by the French court in 1352 andothers were recorded in 1353127, while an account of 1387mentions silks from Damascus128. Silks mentioned as «deDamasco» appear in papal inventories129. In 1377, a Ge-

david jacobynoese galley returning from Beirut carried cloths of gold,and another, in 1395, carried camoca130. Some Syriansilks were presumably shipped from Beirut via Famagus-ta to Genoa, such as the camoca bolts re-exported toNaples, Provence and Spain in 1377131. In 1372, Eleanorof Aragon, widow of King Peter I of Cyprus, sent silk fab-rics manufactured in Damascus to Eleanor of Sicily, wifeof King Pedro IV of Aragon132. Baldekyns from Out-remer are recorded next to baldekyn from Lucca amongthe silks purchased for the English court in the 1350s and1360s, while cloths of gold from Alexandria and fromDamascus appear in the 1370s, and silks from that city inthe 1390s133.Other inventories of the second half of the 14th centuryoffer similar information about Western imports of Ori-ental silks. The one compiled after the death of KingCharles V of France in 1380 lists several camoca, zatanin,cloths of gold and other silks from Outremer, someadorned with small golden disks called “besants”, othersstriped and with or without Arabic inscriptions, obvious-ly from Mamluk territories or produced for them. Onepiece had “Sarrasin” embroidery134. An inscribed camo-ca and an embroidered zatanin are mentioned as being«from Damascus». In the latter case, it is unclear whetherthe reference is to the fabric or to the embroidery135. Allthese pieces had been acquired in the past and some ofthem were called “old”.A cloth of gold from Damascus is mentioned in 1386, onewas used for furnishings at the court of Burgundy in 1389and several pieces were bought for that court in1394/95136. Some silks already used in the past are men-tioned in 1404 next to a cloth of gold with damasceneembroidery137. Cloths of gold and other silks from Dam-ascus appear in 1405 among the possessions of the thirdson of King John II of France, Duke John of Berry; oth-er silks appear in 1416 after his death. However, it is like-ly that they had arrived in France before the sack of Dam-ascus in 1401138. This is suggested by a chapele made ofsilk recorded in 1405 as having belonged to the widow ofKing Philip VI of France, Queen Blanche of Navarra,who had died in 1398139.An inventory compiled in 1366 for King Pedro IV ofAragon lists numerous Oriental fabrics, among them vel-vets and cloths of gold from Damascus140. The listing ofsilks for Queen Eleonora of Sicily, the third wife of KingPedro IV, in 1373/74, includes a silken tunic in variouscolours from Alexandria, a tunic made of gold cloth fromDamascus and two pieces of zeitun or zatanin bought inAlexandria. From 1388 to 1407, their two sons and suc-cessors also requested cloths of gold, silks and velvetseach time they learned that ships were leaving for theLevant141. Yet there were also commercial imports fromBeirut to Barcelona, as in 1391 and 1395, and as attestedby the sumptuous Mamluk silks used for ecclesiasticalvestments in Spain, one of them apparently in the regionof Valencia142.Tiraz inscriptions referring to Egyptian sultans adornsome extant Mamluk silks, and reveal the period whenthey were manufactured143. However, most Mamluk fab-

rics fail to yield precise chronological clues about theirweaving within the period extending from 1250 to theOttoman conquest of 1517144. As a result, the arrival ofthese pieces in the West cannot be dated. A case in pointis offered by a Mamluk damask with eight-lobedroundels filled with inscriptions, woven between 1320and 1430, which, after arriving in the West, was made in-to an orphrey and sewn onto an ecclesiastical garment atan unknown date145.From the evidence adduced above, it is clear that Orien-tal silks originating in Alexandria and Damascus werehighly valued and considered as objects of prestige in theWest. Like “Tartar” cloths, Mamluk silks are depicted inItalian paintings, a reflection of their success and diffu-sion146. The French chronicler Froissart reports thatwhen Isabella of Bavaria arrived in Paris in 1385 to mar-ry Charles VI of France, camlets and silk fabrics werespread above the entire length of Rue Saint-Denis «as ifone were at Alexandria or at Damascus»147. This sugges-tive description of the late 14th century also reveals fa-miliarity with the public ceremonial display of silks in theMamluk cities from which they were imported. However, not all references to Damascus appended tovarious silks imply imports from the Syrian city. Formu-

lations such as «drap de Damas», «drap de soie deDamas» and «drap d’or de Damas» bought in Paris in1386 clearly point to origin148. This is the most frequenttype of registration. On the other hand, «silks à la façonde Damas» produced in Lucca, purchased by the Frenchroyal court in 1398, were clearly imitations of Damascusfabrics149. Listings such as “damas” on its own, “damas-co” and “damaschino” refer to damask cloths. This is al-so the case of silks recorded in the accounts of the Eng-lish court of 1394 to 1398 as «pann’ s[er]ici damask»,and those of 1420 to 1422 as «damasc’ ad aur’»150. Thenature of damasco or dommasco is explained in the com-mentary to a 15th-century silk weaving treatise compiledin Florence151. As the name suggests, a specific type ofsilk woven in Damascus gave rise to the manufacture andappellation of Italian damasks. Indeed, Mamlukdamasks, whether woven in Syria or in Egypt, predate theItalian ones152. It is noteworthy that damask is not listedamong the silks produced in Lucca in 1376 and 1382153.A loom for weaving it («pro texendis drappis damaschi-nis») was nevertheless sold in the city in 1390154. For thetime being, therefore, the beginning of damask manufac-ture in Lucca remains an open question. Appellationswhich seem to refer to Alexandria also require clarifica-tion. While “de Alexandria” points to the city, adjectivessuch as “alexandrinus”, “alexandrain” and variations ap-pended to the name of a cloth point to colour155. This isespecially obvious in lists enumerating the colours ofmonochrome silks156.The quantitative data regarding silks shipped from theLevant to the Latin West is extremely meagre. In 1386,Venetian merchants purchased in Damascus a total of1.400 silk pieces before the departure of the galleys fromBeirut. Four Venetian galleys returned from Beirut withsixteen bolts of silks in 1394, 800 pieces of camoca in1395 and 360 silk pieces packed in 24 bundles in 1399157.It is impossible to determine whether all these silks hadbeen manufactured in Damascus, or whether the con-signments also included textiles woven at other locations.At first glance, the figures just mentioned seem impres-sive; yet one should take into account that they repre-sented annual shipments from Beirut to Venice intendedfor distribution throughout the entire Latin West. As not-ed above, Genoese and Catalan merchants also returnedwith silks from Beirut and Alexandria, yet their share ofthe trade was smaller than the Venetian one158. However,the absence of adequate evidence prevents any assess-ment of the total volume of Oriental silks imported to theLatin West in a single year, let alone fluctuations overtime. In 1401 the Mongol ruler Timur, or Tamerlane, con-quered Damascus, devastated it and deported its quali-fied artisans, including the silk weavers, to his capitalSamarkand in Central Asia159. The collapse of silk weav-ing in Damascus is reflected by letters exchanged shortlyafterwards. King Martin I of Aragon had ordered fromDamascus patterned silk and gold textiles decorated witha specific design, «segons la dita mostra». The Catalanconsul in Alexandria notified him some time before 5th

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5. Silk with fantastic animals, floral motifs and pseudo-Arabicinscription, Italy, second half of 14th century. Cleveland, Museumof Art, 1928.653

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November 1401 that they could not be manufactured be-cause of the destruction of Damascus by Timur. Howev-er, he found a weaver capable of performing the work inAlexandria160. This craftsman may have been one of thosewho managed to escape from Damascus, as opposed to alocal weaver161.Significantly, the last recorded purchase of silks fromDamascus by the English court occurred in 1399 to 1400,shortly before Timur’s sack of the city162. Sixteen bales ofsilks were sent from Beirut to Venice in 1405163. It is un-likely that the fabrics had been manufactured in Damas-cus so soon after the sack. Damascus rose from its ruinssome twenty years later during the reign of Sultan Bars-bay (825-41/1422-38). The Cretan Emmanuel Piloti re-ports in his treatise, composed between 1420 and 1438,that large quantities of silks were being produced inDamascus. His statement reflects the revival of silk man-ufacture within the framework of the city’s recovery,which he witnessed in that period164. The Florentinefreight tariff of 1442 lists silks and cloths of gold amongthe commodities carried from Syria and Alexandria165.Alexandria was the other major Mamluk producer of silktextiles. The Egyptian historian al-Makrizi states that thesilk workforce in the city shrunk substantially from14.000 weavers in 1394 to 800 only in 1434166. The Cre-tan Emmanuel Piloti, who resided in Alexandria from1394 to 1397 and 1416 to 1419 and later visited the city,reports from hearsay that 130.000 silk and linen work-shops once operated in the city167. The large figures pre-sented by these authors are clearly unreliable, yet thecontraction of silk manufacture in Alexandria around1400 is beyond a doubt. It has been claimed that the de-cline of the Egyptian textile industries was the outcomeof an ongoing process generated by the accumulation ofseveral factors, mainly internal. These have been listed asfollows: the closure of the sultan’s textile workshops inCairo and Alexandria shortly after 1341, the devastatingplague of 1348, further depopulation resulting in a short-age of qualified workers and high labour costs, heavy tax-ation, technological stagnation resulting from the failureof the workshops to adopt the new water-powered silk-throwing machine and, finally, the influx of cheaperVenetian and Florentine silks, which were highly prizedin Mamluk society from the reign of Sultan Barkuk(reigned 1382 to 1389, 1390 to 1399). The economic cri-sis of the first decade of the 15th century and the longcivil war in the reign of Sultan Faradj (reigned 1399 to1412) deepened the crisis in the Mamluk textile indus-tries168.This line of argumentation requires several qualificationswith respect to silks. As noted above, both Syria andEgypt produced and exported a fair amount of silk tex-tiles to the West throughout the 14th century, and Dam-ascus in particular displayed continuous vitality in thatrespect until its sack by Timur in 1401. However, there isconvincing circumstantial evidence, adduced below,pointing to declining exports in the second half of the14th century, and especially in the first half of the 15thcentury. Two relevant factors in that respect have been

david jacobyoverlooked so far: the strong competition of Italian silksin the West, already observed above, which must have re-sulted in a contraction of Western outlets for Mamluksilks, and the growing diffusion of Italian silks among theMamluk elites of Egypt and Syria, which began wellbefore 1382. The conjunction of the two factors un-doubtedly contributed to the decline of Mamluk silkmanufacture, in particular in Alexandria, as recorded bythe contemporary Egyptian historian al-Makrizi, men-tioned above.Emmanuel Piloti provides a precious insight into thesedevelopments. After establishing a correlation betweenAlexandria’s depopulation and the small volume of silksthat the city is producing, he notes that a portion of thefabrics must be supplied to the sultan’s court, while theremainder is sent to the western Maghreb, Tunis, Turkeyand Syria, although large quantities are being producedin Damascus. The conspicuous absence of a reference toItaly in that context is highly significant. It implies that inthe 1420s, or rather the 1430s, the period in which Piloticompiled his treatise, Alexandria’s silks could hardlycompete with Italian textiles in the West169.The flow of Italian silks to Mamluk markets began as ear-ly as the second half of the 13th century. The Arab histo-rian Ibn Wasil reports the taxation of fine Venetian fab-rics in Egypt in 1263170. These were undoubtedly silks, assuggested by somewhat later evidence. In 1277, a Venet-ian exported locally produced samites to the Levant, andin 1283 we find the first instance of Venetian samites andother silks on their way to Alexandria171. The treaty of1290 between Genoa and Egypt provides further evi-dence for that period. It refers to Genoese exports of sev-eral types of silks to Egypt, specifically cendals andsamites. These silks clearly originated in Lucca, sinceGenoa was the maritime outlet for the textiles of thatimportant silk manufacturing centre172. Shipments ofWestern silks must have been rather modest at first. Yettheir volume clearly increased once the Italian workshopsbegan to produce a large volume of imitations and varia-tions of “Tartar” and Mamluk textiles that could competewith authentic Oriental fabrics. Velvets presumably pro-duced in Lucca were exported from Genoa via Fama-gusta to Beirut in 1376, and from Spain to Alexandria inthe following year173. The volume of Venetian shipmentsmust have been larger than that of other cities, sinceVenice acquired a dominant position in the Levant tradefrom the second half of the 14th century onward. Itssilks, cloths of gold and velvets reached Cairo via Alexan-dria and Damascus via Beirut during that period174.Documentary sources provide data on the sale and pricesof Venetian samites and velvets in Alexandria, Beirut,Tripoli, Hama and Damascus in the first half of the 15thcentury. The export of silks to the Levant increasedduring that period. It was initially furthered by the de-struction of the silk industry in Damascus in 1401, andthe sharp reduction in silk manufacture in Alexandria. Asingle consignment of patterned velvets, cloths of goldand camoca sent by two Venetian partners to Alexandriain 1405 was valued 10.000 ducats, yet not all the pieces

could be sold175. Emmanuel Piloti confirms the shippingof Venetian velvets and cloths of gold to Alexandria andDamascus in the 1420s or 1430s176. Two somewhat laterFlorentine trade manuals offer similar evidence. The one,completed by Giovanni Uzzano in 1440, lists varioustypes of Venetian velvet in several colours and other silks,and the equivalent of Venice’s cloth measurement unit inAlexandria177. The manual by Giorgio Chiarini, compiledaround the mid-15th century, mentions the sale of Venet-ian samites, velvets, cloths of gold and camoca in Alexan-dria and Damascus178. Interestingly, the range of velvetsextended from the most expensive to cheap, low-gradetypes with wefts of filoselle, second-rate silk, or of greige,the untreated silk filament still surrounded by gumsericin, which prevents proper dyeing179. The high quali-ty of most silks exported from Venice to Egypt is con-firmed by a trial that took place in 1425, in which Bernar-do Morosini accused a silk entrepreneur of having deliv-ered to him velvets inferior in quality to those customar-ily shipped to Alexandria, which was in violation of thecontract between them. However, by 1457 the high qual-ity requirement for Venetian silks exported overseas wasrelaxed in order to target a larger clientele180.Florence was a latecomer in the large-scale production ofhigh-grade silks181. The decisive growth in its silk manu-facture began in the last quarter of the 14th century182.One of the Florentine state galleys sailing to Alexandriain 1422, the first year they reached Egypt, carried Flo-rentine ambassadors bringing cloths of gold and othersilks in various colours as gifts to the Egyptian sultan,Barsbay. Significantly, one of the members of the delega-tion was Felice Brancacci, the silk entrepreneur whocommissioned frescoes from Masolino and Masaccio forthe Carmine church in Florence183. While customary, thepresentation of textile gifts to foreign dignitaries was al-so a way of promoting their diffusion. In addition,Benedetto Strozzi, who embarked on one of the galleys,carried with him silk fabrics for sale. In 1429, Florenceasked the Banco di San Giorgio of Genoa to reduce thefreight charges on Florentine silks shipped to the Levanton board Genoese vessels184. The Florentine freight tariffof 1442 mentions silks, cloths of gold and others of silver,obviously Florentine fabrics, as well as taffeta fromBologna sent to Islamic countries from the Maghreb east-ward185. An Anconitan vessel that sank in 1448 on theway to Syria carried silks owned by merchants of Ragusathat may well have been produced in Florence186. How-ever, it would seem that the shipping of Florentine silksto Mamluk territories remained rather limited, presum-ably because of heavy Venetian competition.The first half of the 15th century also witnessed an in-creasing flow of Venetian silks to Constantinople en routeto Ottoman and Mongol territories. The city acted as dis-tribution centre to Adrianople, the Ottoman capital from1402 onward, to Ottoman Bursa in Asia Minor, to Tana,the gateway to inner Asia, as well as to Trebizond and viathis city to Tabriz. The Venetian silks included camocaand velvets187. Nevertheless, Western purchases of Ori-ental textiles did not cease. Indeed, Oriental camoca was

shipped from Caffa to Genoa in 1452188.

The evidence regarding Oriental silks reveals some basictrends in their trade across the Mediterranean and theirdistribution in the Latin West during the later MiddleAges. An increasing volume of new types of high-gradeOriental silks manufactured in Mongol-ruled territorieswas shipped from the 1260s onward through Acre, La-iazzo and Constantinople. From around 1300, there wasalso a fairly large flow of Mamluk silks produced inEgypt and Syria leaving Alexandria, Beirut and Fama-gusta in response to Western demand. On the otherhand, beginning around that time, Lucca and Venice be-gan to produce imitations of silks manufactured in Mon-gol and Mamluk territories. In the second half of the 14thcentury, Italian silks increasingly challenged the diffusionof Oriental textiles in the West, thanks to the variety oftheir weaves, their innovative and imaginative motifs andpatterns, and the range of their qualities. Their competi-tiveness was also furthered by lower production costs,achieved by more advanced technologies in manufacture,the use of sophisticated managerial methods and struc-tures in entrepreneurship and trade, and the support ofefficient and dependable trading and transportation net-works. As noted above, the provenance of the vast majority ofsilks recorded in Western inventories and accounts fromthe 14th century is not stated, and Italian place names areonly seldom cited in them. Lack of interest in the originof the silks may safely be discounted. The frequent ab-sence of geographical references, then, may be related toa change in the supply system. The growing volume ofItalian imitations gradually altered the balance betweenimported and indigenous silks on the market. It is possi-ble, therefore, that the compilers of some Western inven-tories and accounts considered that there was no need tostate the origin of silks if they were Italian, since this wasself-evident. Extant silks that can be fairly well dated and Westernpaintings convincingly reflect the declining import ofOriental silks to the Latin West and the concurrent grow-ing dominance of Italian silks in Western markets andfashion from the second half of the 14thcentury, and es-pecially during the 15th century. Significantly, the paint-ings depict almost exclusively Italian silks, easily identifi-able by their texture and especially their ornamental de-signs, among which variants of the so-called pomegran-ate motif became prominent. These paintings illustratethe broad diffusion of these fabrics among ecclesiasticaland lay elites, both in Italy and beyond the Alps. Outsideof Italy, the marketing of Italian silks was promoted byItalian merchants in Paris, London and Bruges, as well asby the Hanseatic League. A few testimonies regardingNorthern and Central Europe will suffice at this stage.Italian patterned silks, half-velvets and plain satin madeinto clothing and furnishings are dominant in excavateddeposits reflecting silk consumption by the citizens ofLondon in the late 14th century189. Jan van Eyck paintedvarious types of Italian silks from 1432 to 1437, including

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figured and brocaded velvet. The garment worn by Chan-cellor Rolin in the painting of the Madonna bearing hisname, executed in 1435, is made of a costly pomegranatevelvet (fig. 6)190. The cloth of honour depicted on a smallpanel of the Madonna and Child Crowned by Angels, as-cribed to the young Stephan Lochner, is similarly an Ital-ian silk displaying the pomegranate motif191. Lochner iscredited with the introduction of that motif into Colognepainting192. Italian silks also reached Sweden. The earliestattested piece is a cope, tentatively attributed to Lucca,which Archbishop Nils Alleson brought to Uppsala in

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1296, following his consecration by Pope Boniface VIII inAnagni the previous year193. Uppsala cathedral and otherSwedish churches preserve Italian imitations of “Tartar”silks produced in the 14th century194. An Italian silk wo-ven in the mid- to late 14th century with a Chinese designis preserved at the Historical Museum in Stockholm195.We may safely assume that these silks reached Swedenalong commercial routes. Bohemian painters were in-spired by Italian silks, such as the nach (called nachone)adorned with motifs derived from Chinese models be-longing to Prague Cathedral in 1387196.

6. Jan van Eyck, The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, ca. 1435. Paris, Musée du Louvre

There was yet another facet to the growing diffusion ofItalian silks in the second half of the 14th and in the 15thcentury. Some of their motifs and designs were absorbedwithin indigenous patterns adorning silks produced inthe Near East and even in China, partly to compete withimported Italian silks197. The increasing import of thesesilks to the Levant was among the factors responsible forthe decline of Mamluk silk manufacture around 1400,which in turn further reduced the supply of Oriental silkfabrics to Western customers. In the first half of the 15thcentury, Italian damasks and sumptuous velvets gainedsubstantial ground at the expense of similar Oriental andIslamic weaves. It is in that period that Italian silks de-finitively consolidated their dominance in the Latin West.

1 For the following overview, see D. Jacoby, «Silk crosses theMediterranean», in: Le vie del Mediterraneo. Idee, uomini, oggetti(secoli XI-XVI) (Università degli studi di Genova, Collana dell’Is-tituto di storia del medioevo e della espansione europea, 1), ed. byG. Airaldi, Genova 1997, pp. 55-79, reprinted with corrections in:D. Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean,Aldershot 2001, no. X; D. Jacoby, «Dalla materia prima ai drappitra Bisanzio, il Levante e Venezia: la prima fase dell’industria ser-ica veneziana», in: La seta in Italia dal Medioevo al Seicento. Dalbaco al drappo, ed. by L. Molà, R.C. Mueller, C. Zanier, Venezia2000, pp. 265-304; D. Jacoby, «Genoa, Silk Trade and Silk Pro-duction in the Mediterranean region (ca. 1100-1300)», in: Tessuti,oreficerie, miniature in Liguria, XIII-XV secolo, ed. by M. Marce-naro, Genova-Bordighera 1999, pp. 11-40. The last two studiesare reprinted in: D. Jacoby, Commercial Exchange across theMediterranean: Byzantium, the Crusader Levant, Egypt and Italy,Aldershot 2005, nos. X and XI, respectively. See these two stud-ies for references to Genoa, Lucca and Venice appearing below.2 On silk weaving in Frankish Antioch and Tripoli, see D. Jacoby,«The Economic Function of the Crusader States of the Levant: aNew Approach», in: Relazioni economiche tra Europa e mondo is-lamico. Secc. XIII-XVIII, ed. by S. Cavaciocchi (Istituto Inter-nazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini”, Atti delle “Settimanedi Studi” e altri Convegni, 38), Firenze 2007, pp. 164, 174-175.3 Numerous examples in F. Michel, Recherches sur le commerce, lafabrication et l’usage des étoffes de soie, d’or et d’argent, et autrestissus précieux en Occident, principalement en France, pendant lemoyen âge, Paris 1852-1854, and in other publications too numer-ous to be cited here. For a recent treatment of the topic in Cru-sade narratives composed in Northern France in the 12th century,especially in the later part of that period, see S.G. Heller, «Fash-ion in French Crusade Literature: Desiring Infidel Textiles», in:Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress. Objects, Texts, Images,ed. by D.G. Koslin & J.E. Snyder, New York 2002, pp. 103-119.Heller focuses on the impact of the Crusades upon the rise of anew fashion system in the West, yet does not clearly distinguishbetween Oriental silk textiles, favoured by Western consumers,and Oriental dress, which was not adopted. Nor does she seemaware of the wide commercial diffusion of these silks.4 For Constantinople, see D. Jacoby, «The Economy of Latin Con-stantinople, 1204-1261», in: Urbs capta. The Fourth Crusade andits Consequences. La IVe Croisade et ses conséquences, ed. by A.Laiou (Réalités Byzantines, 10), Paris 2005, pp. 195-199; for theother manufacturing centres, see D. Jacoby, «Changing Econom-ic Patterns in Latin Romania: The Impact of the West», in: TheCrusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World,ed. by A.E. Laiou & R.P. Mottahedeh, Washington, D.C. 2001,pp. 205-206, reprinted in: Jacoby, 2005 (as in n. 1), no. IX; D. Ja-coby, «The Production of Silk Textiles in Latin Greece», in:Teknognosia ste latinokratoumene Ellada (Technology in Latin-Occupied Greece), Athens 2000, pp. 22-35, reprinted in: Jacoby,

2005 (as in n. 1), no. XII; D. Jacoby, «Silk in Medieval Andros»,in: Captain and Scholar. Papers in Memory of D.I. Polemis, ed. byE. Chrysos & E. Zachariadou (in press). 5 See above, n. 1.6 A.E. Wardwell, «Panni Tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Wovenwith Gold and Silver (13th and 14th Centuries)», in: Islamic Art,III, 1988/89, pp. 95-173, offers the most comprehensive analysisof these silks, based upon documentary evidence and extantpieces, and stresses their novelty. The reference to a Chinese silkibid., pp. 134 and 135, no. 5, is mistaken, since cinericeus means“ash grey”. The list of figured pieces recorded in eleven invento-ries, the earliest one from 1295, omits plain “Tartar” silks: ibid.,pp. 134-144. L. Monnas, «L’origine orientale delle stoffe di Can-grande: confronti e problemi», in: Cangrande della Scala. La mortee il corredo di un principe nel medioevo europeo, Exhibition cata-logue (Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio, 2004), ed. by P. Marini, E.Napione & G.M. Varanini, Venezia 2004, pp. 125-126, includesdamask and velvet among the “Tartar” cloths. See also J.C.Y.Watt, «A Note on Artistic Exchanges in the Mongol Empire», in:The Legacy of Genghis Khan. Courtly Art and Culture in WesternAsia, 1256-1353, Exhibition catalogue (New York, The Metropol-itan Museum of Art), ed. by L. Komaroff & S. Carboni, NewHaven/London 2002, pp. 62-73, and L. Komaroff, «The Trans-mission and Dissemination of a New Visual Language», in: ibid.,pp. 168-195. 7 On these transfers, see A.E. Wardwell, «Two Silk and Gold Tex-tiles of the Early Mongol Period», in: The Bulletin of the ClevelandMuseum of Art, LXXIX, 1992, pp. 354-377, esp. 364-366; T.T.Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire, Cam-bridge 1997, pp. 30-36, 38-45, 95-96; Id., Technician Transfers inthe Mongolian Empire (The Central Eurasian Studies Lectures 2,Indiana University), Bloomington/IN 2002, esp. p. 6.8 Marco Polo, Il Milione, ed. by L.F. Benedetto, Firenze 1928, p.61, chap. LXXIV; P. Pelliot, «Une ville musulmane dans la Chinedu nord sous les Mongols», in: Journal Asiatique, CXX, 1927, pp.267-279. Nach and nassic were two distinct categories of silks, con-trary to the common assumption that the terms stood for the sametype of textile. They were originally produced in China, yet by the1330s also in Iran, Baghdad and Asia Minor: see D. Jacoby, «SilkEconomics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium,the Muslim World and the Christian West», in: Dumbarton OaksPapers, LVIII, 2004, pp. 233-234 and no. 208. The separate listingof the two fabrics one after the other in the Codex Cumanicus con-firms the distinction between them; on that compilation, see be-low.9 On economic connections between Iran and China, see T.T.Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia, Cambridge 2001,pp. 41-56; on Western trade with Mongol territories, see L. Pe-tech, «Les marchands italiens dans l’empire mongol», in: JournalAsiatique, CCL, 1962, pp. 549-574; N. Di Cosmo, «Mongols andMerchants on the Black Sea Frontier in the Thirteenth and Four-teenth Centuries: Convergences and Conflicts», in: Mongols,Turks and Others. Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World, ed.by R. Amitai & M. Biran, Leiden/Boston 2005, pp. 391-424.10 With reference to two albums preserved in the library of theTopkapi palace in Istanbul, see Watt, 2002 (as in n. 6), pp. 184-194; Monnas, 2004 (as in n. 6), p. 124, 11 Allsen, 2002 (as in n. 7), pp. 17-20.12 Monnas, 2004 (as in n. 6), pp. 136-137. 13 On half-silks, see Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 8), p. 209. The nature ofthe “golden” material in cloths of gold differed widely from oneregion to the other: see Wardwell, 1988/89 (as in n. 6), pp. 96,115-117, 133. On the Mediterranean trade in gold thread, see Ja-coby, 2004 (as in n. 8), pp. 236-238.14 P. Frattaroli, «I tessili medievali nell’entroterra veneto, dallametà del XIII alla metà del XIV secolo. Aspetti tecnici e desinen-ze ornamentali», in: Tessuti nel Veneto. Venezia e la Terraferma, ed.by G. Ericani & P. Frattaroli, Verona 1993, pp. 192-193, consid-ers Simone Martini very meticulous in the rendering of designs,yet has some reservations regarding the reliability of otherpainters.

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15 A.E. Wardwell, «The Stylistic Development of 14th- and 15th-Century Italian Silk Design», in: Aachener Kunstblätter, XLVII,1976/77, pp. 178-179, considers that the reproduction of silks is«by and large […] remarkably accurate». On the other hand,D.M. Cottrell, «Unraveling the Mystery of Jan van Eyck’s Clothsof Honor: The Ghent Altarpiece», in: Encountering Medieval Tex-tiles, 2002 (as in n. 3), pp. 187-189, points to combination in thedesigns.16 L. Monnas, «Developments in Figured Velvet Weaving in Italyduring the 14th Century», in: CIETA – Bulletin, LXXXIII/IV,1986, p. 63; D. Koslin, «Value-Added Stuffs and Shifts in Mean-ing: An Overview and Case Study of Medieval Textile Paradigms»,in: Encountering Medieval Textiles, 2002 (as in n. 3), pp. 235-236,observes that the intense blue obtained by the use of lapis lazuli inthe colouring of garments in illuminated manuscripts could nothave been attained in actual cloth since that dyestuff is not solu-ble in water.17 Tiraz was the term used in the Islamic world for bands display-ing official honorific inscriptions woven into or embroidered on-to a cloth. On the widely differing nature of tiraz inscriptions, seeJacoby, 2004 (as in n. 8), pp. 203, 216-217, with earlier bibliogra-phy. Datable tiraz inscriptions on Mamluk silks are mentioned byL.W. Mackie, «Toward an Understanding of Mamluk Silks: Na-tional and International Considerations», in: Muqarnas, II, 1984,pp. 128-135, 137, 139-140. A silk cloth imitating striped Mamluksilk fabrics woven in southern Spain in the late 14th or early 15thcentury displays a poetic inscription worth citing: «I exist forpleasure, welcome. For pleasure am I. And he who beholds mesees joy and well-being»: ibid., pp. 139-140, and Cosmophilia. Is-lamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen, Exhibition cat-alogue (McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2006), ed. byS.S. Blair & J.M. Bloom, Chestnut Hill/MA 2006, p. 189 and fig.109. On short inscriptions, see C. Louca & O. Valensot, «Étoffesmamlukes du Musée des Tissus de Lyon», in: CIETA – Bulletin,LXXII, 1994, p. 31.18 Old and damaged in the papal inventory of 1295: «Inventairedu trésor du Saint Siège sous Boniface VIII (1295)», in: Biblio-thèque de l’École des Chartes (hereafter: BEC), XLVII, ed. by É.Molinier, Paris 1886, pp. 662-663, nos. 1441, 1447; in 1311; alsoin «Inventarium thesauri Ecclesiae Romanae apud Perusium as-servati iussu Clementis Papae V factum anno MCCCXI», in:Regesti Clementis papae V Appendices, I, Roma 1892, p. 441: «depanno barbarico [sic] antiquo». 19 Wardwell, 1988/89 (as in n. 6), pp. 108-109; Monnas, 2004 (asin n. 6), pp. 127-129.20 B. Degenhart & A. Schmitt, Jacopo Bellini. Der Zeichnungsbanddes Louvre, München 1984, p. 12 and pl. 113. B. Degenhart & A.Schmitt, Corpus der Italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450, Teil II,Venedig. Jacopo Bellini, Berlin 1990, Vol. 6, p. 427.21 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 8), pp. 217 –222. 22 Examples of such sales appear below.23 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 8), pp. 231-232.24 Documents et extraits divers concernant l’histoire de l’art dans laFlandre, l’Artois et le Hainaut avant le XVe siècle, ed. by C. De-haisnes, Vol. I, Lille 1886, pp. 71, 75. 25 Further evidence regarding the diffusion of specific types of“Tartar” silks in the same period appears below26 Molinier, 1886 (as in n. 18), in: BEC, XLVI, 46 1885, pp. 20, 26-35, 40-44; BEC, XLVII, 1886, pp. 647, 652-653, 662; BEC, XLIX,1888, p. 228.27 Lateinische Schriftquellen zur Kunst in England, Wales undSchottland vom Jahre 901 bis zum Jahre 1307, ed. by O. Lehmann-Brockhaus, Vol. III, München 1956, pp. 93-94, no. 5489: «de pan-nis tartenis [sic] de serico».28 A. Paravicini Bagliani, I testamenti dei cardinali del Duecento(Miscellanea della Società romana di storia patria 25), Roma 1980,respectively pp. 323-324, no. 10, 387, no. 15, and 349, no. 56, forthe textiles, and pp. 67, 80 and 82, for the cardinals. 29 Inventaire du mobilier de Charles V, roi de France (1380), ed. byJ. Labarte, Paris 1879, pp. 364-365, among pieces acquired earli-er.

david jacoby30 Sinica franciscana, I. Itinera et relationes Fratrum Minorum sae-culi XIII et XIV, ed. by A. Van den Wyngaert, Quaracchi/Firenze1929, p. 259, chap. XXIX, par. 21, and p. 298, chap. XXXIV, par.2. 31 Actes des notaires génois de Péra et de Caffa de la fin du treizièmesiècle (1281-1290), ed. by G.I. Bratianu, Bucharest 1927, p. 198,no. 139.32 Notai genovesi in Oltremare. Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto diSambuceto (3 luglio 1300 - 3 agosto 1301) (Collana storica di fontie studi, diretta da Geo Pistarino, 31), ed. by V. Polonio, Genova,1982, pp. 21-23, no. 20.33 «Actes passés à Famagouste de 1299 à 1301 par devant le no-taire génois Lamberto di Sambuceto», in: Archives de l’OrientLatin, II/2, ed. by C. Desimoni, 1884, pp. 25-28, esp. 27, no. 42;also, p. 29, no 46; p. 101-103, no. 189. Camoca (Italian for the Per-sian kamkha) was a costly figured silk, either monochrome orpolychrome, sometimes brocaded with designs in gold thread,originally produced in China: see L. Monnas, «Textiles for theCoronation of Edward III», in: Textile History, XXXII, 2001, pp.7-8. 34 D. Jacoby, «Dall’oriente all’Italia. Commerci di stoffe preziosenel Duecento e nel primo Trecento», in: Cangrande della Scala,2004 (as in n. 6), pp. 143-145. 35 Lehmann-Brockhaus, 1956 (as in n. 27), Vol. II, pp. 196, 202,204, 323, 341, 527, respectively nos. 2911, 2915 (“besantato de au-ro”), 2916, 3427, 3507, 4205. Two pieces of “Tars” silk were do-nated to Westminster Abbey in 1303: ibid., II, p. 224, no. 2969. 36 Nouveau recueil de comptes de l’argenterie des rois de France, ed.by L. Douët-d’Arcq, Paris 1874, p. 16: “tartaires besantés d’or”.On Oriental silks adorned with gold disks, see M. Sonday, «AGroup of Possibly Thirteenth-Century Velvets with Gold Disks inOffset Rows», in: The Textile Museum Journal, XXXVIII/IX,1999/2000, pp. 101-14837 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 34), p. 145. To the references cited ibid.,p. 152, n. 28, add the following: J.M. Richard, Une petite nièce deSaint-Louis. Mahaut, comtesse d’Artois et de Bourgogne (1302-1329). Étude sur la vie privée, les arts et l’industrie, en Artois et àParis au commencement du XIVe siècle, Paris 1887, p. 395, “drapde Tarze” in 1315; in 1354, a London notary bequeathed a smallpsalter covered with cloth of Tars to his daughter: see MedievalFinds from Excavations in London, 4: Textiles and Clothing, c.1150 - c. 1450, ed. by E. Crowfoot, F. Pritchard & K. Staniland,London 1992, p. 100.38 Marco Polo, 1928 (as in n. 8), pp. 13-14, pars. XX-XXI. 39 F. Lachaud, «Les soieries importées en Angleterre (fin XIIe etXIIIe siècles)», in: Techniques et culture, XXXIV, Juillet-décembre1999 (Soieries médiévales), pp. 181-182. 40 W.E. Rhodes, «The Inventory of the Jewels and Wardrobe ofQueen Isabella (1307-1308)», in: English Historical Review, XII,1897, pp. 517-521, esp. 519-520.41 Lehmann-Brockhaus, 1956 (as in n. 27), Vol. II, p. 341, no.3508.42 Comptes de l’argenterie des rois de France au XIVe siècle, ed. byL. Douët-d’Arcq, Paris 1851, p. 65; Douët-d’Arcq, 1874 (as in n.36), pp. 6-9, 13, 18 («des draps d’or appelés naques ou Turquie»).See also Monnas, 2001 (as in n. 33), pp. 3-4, on nach. 43 L. Douët d’Arcq, «Tarif des marchandises qui se vendaient àParis à la fin du XIIIe siècle», in: Revue archéologique, IX, 1852,p. 224. Convincing dating of the tariff by R.-H. Bautier, «La placede la draperie brabançonne et plus particulièrement bruxelloisedans l’industrie textile du Moyen Age», in: Annales de la Sociétéroyale d’archéologie de Bruxelles, volume jubilaire, Brussels 1962,pp. 35-36, esp. 36, n. 1, reprinted in: idem, Sur l’histoireéconomique de la France médiévale. La route, le fleuve, la foire,London 1991, no. X.44 Douët-d’Arcq, 1874 (as in n. 36), pp. 4, 9-11, 14, 16, 18.45 Molinier, 1886 (as in n. 18), in: BEC, XLVI, 1885, p. 32, no. 987:«unam planetam de panno tartarico quasi violaceo cum [...] frixiode opere cyprensi cum imaginibus in tabernaculis». Frixium wasused for embroidery or a small piece of embroidered cloth: ibid.,p. 21, n. 1. “Cypriot embroidery” defines a type of embroidery

and does not necessarily imply that the work was carried out inCyprus.46 Il Magistrato alle Pompe nella Repubblica di Venezia. Studio stori-co, ed. by G. Bistort, Bologna 1969, pp. 333-341.47 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 8), p. 206.48 See M.G. Muzzarelli, «Seta posseduta e seta consentita: dalle as-pirazioni individuali alle norme santuarie nel basso medioevo», in:La seta in Italia, 2000 (as in n. 1), pp. 211-232.49 Monnas, 2004 (as in n. 6), p. 130; M. Bravermanová, «RodolfoI re di Boemia e il suo corredo funebre», in: Cangrande della Scala,2004 (as in n. 6), pp. 235-245; M. Flury-Lemberg and M. Braver-manová, «Il corredo funebre di Rodolfo I re di Boemia», in: ibid.,pp. 295-297.50 On this silk piece, see A.E. Wardwell, «Indigenous Elements inCentral Asian Silk Designs of the Mongol Period, and their Im-pact on Italian Gothic Silks», in: CIETA – Bulletin, LXXVII,2000, pp. 92-93 and fig. 9.51 On the reburial, see E. Napione, «Cangrande della Scala: il fu-nerale, le traslazioni, le tombe», in: Cangrande della Scala, 2004 (asin n. 6), pp. 34-40. On the silks, see P. Frattaroli, «I tessuti di Can-grande: studi e ricerche dal 1921 a oggi», in: ibid., pp. 85-103; P.Frattaroli, F. Cervini, «Il corredo funebre di Cangrande», in: ibid.,pp. 283-293.52 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 34), p. 149, new reading by Prof. MosheSharon, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.53 Ibid., pp. 149-150; Monnas, 2004 (as in n. 6), pp. 129, 136-137,and the figure on p. 122. P. Frattaroli attributes the piece to Cen-tral Asia in the late 13th or early 14th century, yet without takinginto account the factors adduced here: Cangrande della Scala,2004 (as in n. 6), pp. 283-284.54 «Inventarium thesauri», 1892 (as in n. 18), p. 430.55 Europa und der Orient: 800-1900, Exhibition catalogue (Berlin,Berliner Festspiele, 1989), ed. by G. Sievenich & H. Budde,Gütersloh/München 1989, p. 569, no. 4/42.56 Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, Exhibition catalogue(Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1991), ed. by J.A.Levenson, New Haven/London 1991, p. 133, no. 17. 57 «Inventarium thesauri», 1892 (as in n. 18), p. 431; M. Del Car-men Martínez Meléndez, Los nombres de tejidos en castellano me-dieval, Granada 1989, pp. 349-351.58 «Cronaca attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, dettaCronaca maggiore», ed. A. Lisini & F. Iacometti, in: Rerum Itali-carum Scriptores 2, Vol. XV/6, Bologna, n. d., p. 521. See also Ja-coby, 2004 (as in n. 34), pp. 146-148.59 Crowfoot et al., 1992 (as in n. 37), p. 88.60 L. Monnas, «Dress and Textiles in the St. Louis Altarpiece. NewLight on Simone Martini’s Working Practice», in: Apollo, 137,March 1993, p. 169 and fig. 5.61 See H. Tanaka, «Oriental Scripts in the Paintings of Giotto’s Pe-riod», in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6e Période, CXIII, 131e année1989, pp. 214-226; on Giotto and other painters, see H. Tanaka,«La testimonianza estremorientale nella pittura italiana all’epocadi Giotto», in: La seta e la sua via, ed. by M.T. Lucidi, Roma 1994,pp. 129-132.62 See Monnas, 1993 (as in n. 60), pp. 166-174; Wardwell, 1988/89(as in n. 6), p. 111. For various other paintings, see above.63 On “Tartar” silks in Verona, see above, p. On Dante’s sojourn,see G. Arnaldi, «L’immagine di Cangrande e le profezie del cantoXVII del Paradiso», in: Cangrande della Scala, 2004 (as in n. 6), pp.3-9. 64 See above, p. 65 P. Toynbee, «Tartar Cloths (Inferno, XVII, 14-17)», in: Roma-nia, XXIX, 1900, pp. 559-564, cites the relevant passages of thethree authors. Contrary to Toynbee, Dante points to woven andnot to embroidered patterns. 66 Ibid., p. 561. On gold disks, see above, n. 36.67 Jacoby, 2007 (as in n. 2), pp. 175-176.68 F. Balducci Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, ed. by A. Evans,Cambridge/MA, 1936, pp. 28-29, for the list; see also the com-mentary, ibid., pp. 389-391. Various sections of this manual reflectearlier conditions, and some were completely outdated by the

1330s. On the decline of Laiazzo in that period, see below.69 On these silks, see above, p. Alternatively, the silks may havebeen shipped from a Black Sea port, such as Caffa, as in 1289: seeabove, n. 31. 70 I Libri iurium della Repubblica di Genova (Fonti per la Storiadella Liguria, XV; Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, FontiXXXV), ed. by E. Pallavicino, Vol. I/7, Genova 2001, pp. 74-77,esp. 76, no. 1188. See also Jacoby, 1999 (as in n. 1), pp. 25-26.71 See above, n. 38. An anonymous Florentine trade manual com-piled around 1320 states that red samites dyed with kermes inSivas, Asia Minor, are exported via Laiazzo: excerpt in R.H. Bau-tier, «Les relations économiques des Occidentaux avec les paysd’Orient au moyen âge. Points de vue et documents», in: Sociétéset compagnies de commerce en Orient et dans l’Océan indien (Actesdu Huitième colloque international d’histoire maritime, Beyrouth,1966), ed. by M. Mollat, Paris 1970, p. 318, reprinted in: R.H.Bautier, Commerce méditerranéen et banquiers italiens au moyenâge, Aldershot 1992, no. IV; dating ibid., pp. 311-313. These plainsilks were not “Tartar” cloths. The manual nevertheless confirmsthe role of Laiazzo as outlet for silks manufactured in central AsiaMinor.72 Zibaldone da Canal. Manoscritto mercantile del sec. XIV (Fontiper la storia di Venezia, Sez. V - Fondi vari), ed. by A. Stussi,Venezia 1967, p. 6373 See A.D. Stewart, The Armenian Kingdom and the Mamluks.War and Diplomacy during the Reigns of Het’um II (1289-1307),Leiden/Boston/Köln 2001, pp. 187, 189-191; P. Edbury, The King-dom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374, Cambridge 1991, pp.135, 152, 158, 161. 74 On the rise of Famagusta after the fall of Acre, see D. Jacoby,«To emporio kai he oikonomia tes Kuprou (1191-1489)» in: His-toria tes Kuprou, IV/1, Mesaionikon Basileion, Enetokratia (Tradeand the Economy of Cyprus, 1191-1489), in: History of Cyprus,IV/1, The Medieval Kingdom, Venetian Rule (Archbishop Makar-ios III Foundation), ed. by Th. Papadopoullos, Nicosia 1995, pp.398-415 [in Greek]; with respect to Laiazzo, see also Edbury, 1991(as in n. 73), p. 152. On trade in Oriental silks in Famagusta in1300, see above, p.75 See above, p.76 Bautier, 1992 (as in n. 71), p. 319. 77 The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325-1354, trans. by H.A.R.Gibb, Cambridge 1962; V. Gay, Glossaire archéologique du MoyenÂge et de la Renaissance, Paris 1887, Vol. I, p. 267, for Damascusin 1352; transit via Famagusta: Pegolotti, 1936 (as in n. 68), p. 79. 78 See below.79 Wardwell, 1988/89 (as in n. 6), p. 109; Monnas, 2004 (as in n. 6),p. 124; Bautier, 1992 (as in n. 71), pp. 280-286, 291; E. Ashtor, Lev-ant Trade in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton/NJ 1983, pp. 56-61.See also next note. 80 On their residence and activity, see Petech, 1962 (as in n. 9), pp.560-570. 81 Bautier, 1992 (as in n. 71), p. 317.82 D. Jacoby, «The Silk Trade of Late Byzantine Constantinople»,in: 550th Anniversary of the Istanbul University. InternationalByzantine and Ottoman Symposium (XVth century), 30th-31st May2003, ed. by S. Atasoy, Istanbul 2004, pp. 140-141. 83 Codex Cumanicus. Édition diplomatique avec fac-similés, ed. byV. Drimba, Bucharest 2000, p. 95. L. Balletto, «Il mondo del com-mercio nel Codex Comanicus: alcuni riflessioni», in: Il CodiceCumanico e il suo mondo, ed. by F. Schmieder and P. Schreiner,Roma 2005, p. 165, provides the dating and suggests Caffa, ibid.,p. 182. 84 Silks do not appear among the commodities exported from Caf-fa in the Florentine manual of circa 1320, nor in Pegolotti’s man-ual: Bautier, 1992 (as in n. 71), p. 315; Pegolotti, 1936 (as in n. 68),pp. 25-26.85 See below, n. 92.86 R. González de Clavijo, Embajada a Tamorlán. Estudio y ediciónde un manuscrito del siglo XV, chap. VI, 12, ed. by F. López deEstrada, Madrid 1999, p. 206.87 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 82), pp. 140-141; Id., «Late Byzantium be-

oriental silks go west

101

102

tween the Mediterranean and Asia: Trade and Material Culture»,in: Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557): Perspectives on LateByzantine Art and Culture, ed. by S.T. Brooks, The MetropolitanMuseum of Art Symposia, New Haven/London 2007, pp. 24-28.No silks seem to have passed through Caffa in the 1320s and1330s: see above, n. 84. On 1452, see below, p. 88 Bautier, 1992 (as in n. 71), pp. 313-314, 316.89 Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 1936 (as in n. 68), pp. 36and 32. 90 Bautier, 1992 (as in n. 71), p. 317. The city of Philadelpheia andits region remained Byzantine amidst Turkish emirates until 1390:see P. Schreiner, «Zur Geschichte Philadelpheias im 14. Jahrhun-dert (1293-1390)», in: Orientalia Christiana Periodica, XXXV,1969, pp. 375-411.91 Allsen, 2001 (as in n. 9), p. 41; Di Cosmo, 2005 (as in n. 9), pp.393-395. 92 Loss recorded in the following year: Petech, 1962 (as in n. 9), p.570.93 L. Molà, La comunità dei Lucchesi a Venezia. Immigrazione e in-dustria della seta nel tardo medioevo (Istituto Veneto di Scienze,Lettere ed Arti. Memorie, Classe di Scienze morali, Lettere ed Ar-ti, LIII), Venezia 1994, p. 257. 94 Ibid., pp. 215-216.95 A. Tzavara, «Morts en terre étrangère. Les Vénitiens en Orient(seconde moitié du XIVe - première moitié du XVe siècle)», The-saurismata, XXX, 2000, pp. 199-211.96 See above, n. 86.97 See K. Fleet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early OttomanState. The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey, Cambridge 1999, pp.98-99 and n. 40, yet she wrongly identifies Samaxi with Amasra onthe Black Sea coast of Asia Minor, east of Zonguldak.98 Dehaisnes, 1886 (as in n. 24), Vol. I, p. 123.99 «Inventarium thesauri», 1892 (as in n. 18), p. 422. 100 Ibid., pp. 436-438 («qui videtur tartaricus», «quasi tartaricus»);ibid., p. 437 («quasi velluto barbarico»); ibid., p. 438 («ad modumpanni tartarici»). 101 Douët-d’Arcq, 1874 (as in n. 36), pp. 2-3 («sus chanvre»), 5-6,13, 15, 17 («nachis de Luques sans or»), 19. Nach is not listed inthe Lucchese silk regulations of 1376 (on which see below, n. 108).One may wonder, therefore, whether it appears under anothername, or whether Lucca discontinued its production.102 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 8), p. 230.103 On downscaling, see ibid., p. 216. 104 S. Desrosiers, Soieries et autres textiles de l’Antiquité au XVIesiècle. Musée national du moyen âge - Thermes de Cluny, Paris2004, p. 256, no. 136. See also Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 8), p. 235.For the coronation of Edward III in 1327 the English royal courtbought some cloths of gold woven of silk and hemp, the origin ofwhich is not stated: Monnas, 2001 (as in n. 33), pp. 27-28, 35.They may have been of Venetian origin.105 See above, p.106 Gay, 1887 (as in n. 77), Vol. I, p. 267. Trade in camoca is men-tioned in a Florentine statute of 1335, while manufacture isattested by 1344: Statuti dell’arte di Por’ S. Maria nel tempo dellaRepubblica, ed. by U. Dorini, Firenze 1934-1937, pp. 19 and 220.F. Franceschi, «I forestieri e l’industria della seta fiorentina fraMedioevo e Rinascimento», in: La seta in Italia, 2000 (as in n. 1),p. 409, fails to distinguish between the two activities. Lucchesecamoca was marketed in Catalonia by 1366: Documents per l’his-toria de la cultura catalana mig-eval, ed. by A. Rubió i Lluch, Vol.I, Barcelona 1908-1921, p. 210, no. 215. Three silks tentativelyidentified as camoca have recently been attributed to Lucca anddated to the middle or third quarter of the 14th century:Desrosiers, 2004 (as in n. 104), pp. 352-355, nos. 191-193. 107 On their presence in Florence before 1352, alongside Venetianweavers, see Dorini, 1934-1937 (as in n. 106), pp. 255, 257. Camo-ca continued to be produced in Florence by 1429: ibid., p. 491.108 D. & M. King, «Silk Weaves of Lucca in 1376», in: Opera Tex-tilia Variorum Temporum, To Honour Agnes Geijer on her Nineti-eth Birthday, 26th October 1988, ed. by I. Estham and M. Nock-ert, Stockholm 1988, pp. 67-76.

david jacoby109 See for instance the Venetian Capitulare samitariorum of 1265:I capitolari delle Arti sottoposte alla Giustizia e poi alla GiustiziaVecchia dalle origini al MCCCXXX, ed. by G. Monticolo and E.Besta, Roma 1896-1914, II, 27-38; also Jacoby, 2000, (as in n. 1),pp. 282-283.110 On the derivation of Italian cigattone from siglatun, see A. vonBrunn, Katalanische Stoffe, Kleider und Lederarbeiten orientalis-chen Ursprungs, Freiburg 1982, pp.130-145. Siglatun was a type ofsilk cloth produced in Iran, Baghdad and Spain: see ibid., pp. 139-141. The term siglatun was originally derived from the ByzantineGreek siglatos, identified as pointing to a fabric adorned withroundels enclosing birds, animals or designs. The term was laterapplied to a type of cloth: see D. Jacoby, «Silk in Western Byzan-tium before the Fourth Crusade», in: Byzantinische Zeitschrift,LXXXIV/V, 1991/92, p. 460, n. 36, reprinted in Id., Trade, Com-modities and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean, Aldershot1997, no. VII. The weaving of zectani/zatanin, satins originallyproduced in the Chinese city of Zayton, was practiced in variousAsian cities in the 14th century: see W. Heyd, Histoire du com-merce du Levant au moyen-âge, Leipzig 1885-1886, Vol. II, pp.701-702. On the original nature of attabi, a half-silk at first woven inBaghdad, see M. Lombard, Les textiles dans le monde musulman,VIIe-XIIe siècles, Paris 1978, pp. 246-247. 111 T. Bini, I Lucchesi a Venezia. Alcuni studi sopra i secoli XIII eXIV, Lucca 1853, Vol. I, pp. 65-66. 112 See King, 1988 (as in n. 108), p. 75. 113 Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400, Exhi-bition catalogue (Royal Academy of Arts), ed. by J. Alexander andP. Binski, London 1987, pp. 516-517, no. 711. The attribution toSpain is also considered. On Spanish imitations of striped Mam-luk silks, see above, n. 17. 114 L. Monnas, «Silk Cloths Purchased for the Great Wardrobe ofthe Kings of England, 1325-1462», in: Textile History, XX, 1989,pp. 294-302.115 See above, p.116 Wardwell, 1976/77 (as in n. 15), pp. 177-226; A.E. Wardwell,«Flight of the Phoenix: Crosscurrents in Late Thirteenth- to Four-teenth-Century Silk Patterns and Motifs», in: The Bulletin of theCleveland Museum of Art, LXXIV, 1987, pp. 2-35; Wardwell, 2000(as in n. 50), pp. 87-98. 117 Monnas, 1986 (as in n. 16), pp. 63-100; S. Desrosiers, «Sur l’o-rigine d’un tissu qui a participé à la fortune de Venise: le veloursde soie», in: La seta in Italia, 2000 (as in n. 1), pp. 35-61, with cri-teria for differentiating Italian from Oriental velvets and lists ofextant fabrics belonging to these two categories118 R. Bonito Fanelli, «The Pomegranate Motif in Italian Renais-sance Silks: A Semiological Interpretation of Pattern and Color»,in: La seta in Europa, secc. XIII-XX, ed. by S. Cavacchiochi (Isti-tuto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini”, Atti delle“Settimane di Studi” e altri Convegni, 24), Firenze 1993, pp. 507-530. For a reproduction of the motif in painting, see below, p.119 Molà, 1994 (as in n. 93), pp. 139-144. On the technological in-novations, see also F. Crippa, «Il torcitoio circolare da seta:evoluzione, macchine superstiti, restauri», in: Quaderni Storici,n.s. LXXIII, a. XXV, 1990, pp. 169-212, and Id., «Dal baco al fi-lo», in: La seta in Italia, 2000 (as in n. 1), pp. 15-33. However,Crippa’s location and dating of the early developments is mistak-en. 120 Die Inventare des päpstlichen Schatzes in Avignon, 1314-1376(Studi e Testi 111), ed. by H. Hoberg, Città del Vaticano 1944, p.14 («de nacto tartarico ad aurum», in 1342), 208 (“maquetz” in1353), 460 (“nat” in 1369); see also index, p. 376, sub verbo camo-catum, camocax, and p. 612, sub verbo tartaricum.121 Ibid., pp. 56, 63, 212, 314, 317-318, 320.122 Douët-d’Arcq, 1874 (as in n. 36), pp. 4, 9-11; Hoberg, 1944 (asin n. 120), p. 63 («vocati de raca»), in 1342; pp. 197, 207-209, 284,314 (“rataz”, “racatz”), in 1353. On the origin, see N. vonSchulthess-Ulrich, «Zu einigen Gewerbebezeichnungen oriental-ischer Herkunft», in: Vox Romanica, XXV, 1966, pp. 283-284,286.123 Douët-d’Arcq, 1874 (as in n. 36), pp. 21, 27-29, 32, and Douët-

d’Arcq, 1851 (as in n. 42), pp. 120, 158. 124 Gay, 1887 (as in n. 77), Vol. I, p. 267125 Hoberg, 1944 (as in n. 120), pp. 63, 213.126 Ibid., p. 482.127 Douët-d’Arcq, 1851 (as in n. 42), pp. 103, 120-121, 326.128 Douët-d’Arcq, 1874 (as in n. 36), pp. 140, 142, 147; note alsogold thread from Damascus in the same inventory, ibid., p. 200. 129 Hoberg, 1944 (as in n. 120), p. 585, index, sub verbo de Dam-asco.130 E. Ashtor, «Il volume del commercio levantino di Genova nelsecondo Trecento», in: Saggi e documenti I (Civico Istituto Colom-biano. Studi e testi, Serie storica a cura di Geo Pistarino), Geno-va 1978, pp. 415, 424-425, reprinted in: E. Ashtor, East-West Tradein the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. by B. Z. Kedar, London 1986,no. V. The amount of import tax paid in 1377 does not allow anyconclusion regarding quantity. The cargo of 1395 consisted of 26tole of camoca. I have been unable to find the meaning of tole.131 From Beirut: Les douanes de Gênes, 1376-1377, ed. by J. Day,Paris 1963, pp. 662, 669, 676, 719, 762, 768, 899; re-export: ibid.,pp. 245, 256, 321, 346.132 M. T. Ferrer i Mallol, «La reina Leonor de Chipre y los Cata-lanes de su entorno», in: Chemins d’outre-mer. Études sur laMéditerranée médiévale offertes à Michel Balard, ed. by D. Coulon,C. Otten-Froux, P. Pagès and D. Valérian (Byzantina Sorbonensia20), Paris 2004, p. 313.133 Monnas, 1989 (as in n. 114), p. 296: «pann’ adaur’ de Damas-co» and «pann’ s[er]ici de Alisaundr’» in 1370-71; p. 298: lastrecorded «pann’ s[er]ici de Damask» in 1399-1400.134 Labarte, Inventaire, 1879 (as in n. 29), pp 137-139, 341-343,345-348, 364-365, 394-395. For specific features: with gold disks,nos. 1064 bis and 1073; striped silks: nos. 3316, 3326; inscribedwith Arabic characters: nos. 3371, 3374, 3384, 3388; “Sarrasin”embroidery, nos. 3381, 3386-3387, 3389-3390.135???????????????????????136 Dehaisnes, 1886 (as in n. 24), Vol. II, p. 637; Itinéraires dePhilippe le Hardi et de Jean sans Peur, ducs de Bourgogne (1363-1419), d’après les comptes de dépenses de leur hôtel, ed. by E. Pe-tit, Paris 1888, pp. 537, 549. «Drap de soye de Damas», ibid., p.549, undoubtedly points to origin, as distinct from damask; thismay also be safely assumed for «piece de drap de Damas» and for«dras de Damas». The first piece was worth 12,50 francs, exactlyhalf the price of the others, presumably because it was half theirsize. 137 Dehaisnes, 1886 (as in n. 24), Vol. II, pp. 814, 836, 838, 842.138 On which see below, p.139 Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry (1401-1416), ed. by J. Guiffrey,Vol. II, Paris 1894, pp. 151, 153-155, 239, nos. 1259, 1268, 1275,1279, 532.140 Rubió i Lluch, 1908-1921 (as in n. 106), Vol. I, p. 210, no. 215.141 D. Coulon, Barcelone et le grand commerce d’Orient au MoyenAge: un siècle de relations avec l’Egypte et la Syrie-Palestine, ca.1330 - ca. 1430, Madrid/Barcelona 2004, p. 482 and nn. 146-148.142 E. Ashtor, «The Volume of Levantine Trade in the Later Mid-dle Ages (1370-1498)», in: Journal of European Economic History,IV, 1975, p. 587, reprinted in: E. Ashtor, Studies on the LevantineTrade in the Middle Ages, London 1978, no. X; E. Atil, Renais-sance of Islam. Art of the Mamluks, Exhibition catalogue, Wash-ington, D.C. 1981, pp. 232-233, no. 116.143 Mackie, 1984 (as in n. 17).144 Louca & Valensot, 1994 (as in n. 17), pp. 30-31.145 Ibid., pp. 27-28; Mackie, 1984 (as in n. 17), p. 133; Desrosiers,2004 (as in n. 104), pp. 335-336, no. 180, attributes this fabric tothe 14th century.146 An example of 1354 in Mackie, 1984 (as in n. 17), p. 130, pl. 5.147 Froissart, Les chroniques, in: Historiens et chroniqueurs dumoyen âge. Robert de Clari, Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart,Commynes, ed. by A. Pauphilet, Paris 1952, p. 611.148 Douët-d’Arcq, 1874 (as in n. 36), pp. 140, 142, 147.149 Gay, 1887 (as in n. 77), Vol. I, p. 581.150 Monnas, 1989 (as in n. 114), pp. 298, 300151 L’arte della seta in Firenze. Trattato del secolo XV, pubblicato per

la prima volta, e dialoghi, ed. by G. Gargiolli, Firenze 1868, p. 215.152 Mackie, 1984 (as in n. 17), p. 144, n. 22. Criteria differentiat-ing Mamluk silks woven in Syria from those produced in Egypt,including damasks, have not been established so far. See twodamasks attributed either to Syria or to Egypt in Desrosiers, 2004(as in n. 104), pp. 335-338, nos. 180-181.153 See above, p.154 Bini, 1853 (as in n. 111), p. 66155 Hoberg, 1944 (as in n. 120), pp. 457-458; Douët-d’Arcq, 1874(as in n. 36), p. 142: «veloux azur alexandrain».156 In the papal inventory mentioned in the previous note, as wellas in an entry of 1437 in a Venetian account book referring to silksimported from Venice: Il libro dei conti di Giacomo Badoer(Costantinopoli, 1436-1440) (Il Nuovo Ramusio, III), ed. by U.Dorini and T. Bertelè, Roma 1956, p. 228: «damascin biancho [...],damascin alesandrin». I have been unable to identify the colour.In 1415 and 1422, the Egyptian sultans granted the Venetian am-bassadors garments made respectively of «camocha alexandrine»and «camocha de seda alexandrina»: Diplomatarium veneto-levan-tinum, ed. by G.M. Thomas & R. Predelli, Vol. II, Venezia 1890-1899, pp. 308, 330. Based on these instances, Heyd, 1885-1886 (asin n. 110), Vol. II, p. 697, has mistakenly concluded that camocawas also produced in Alexandria. A comparison with a similar giftof a «vesta honorevele de color salbach», made in 1442, confirmsthat alexandrine/alesandrin refers to colour.157 E. Ashtor, «The Volume», 1978 (as in n. 142), p. 581; F. Melis,Aspetti della vita economica medievale (Studi nell’archivio Datini diPrato), Siena 1962, p. 383; E. Ashtor, «L’exportation de textilesoccidentaux dans le Proche-Orient musulman au bas Moyen Age(1370-1517)», in: Studi in memoria di Federigo Melis, Vol. II,Napoli 1978, p. 371, reprinted in: E. Ashtor, East-West, no. IV; J.Heers, «Il commercio nel Mediterraneo alla fine del sec. XIV enei primi anni del XV», in: Archivio Storico Italiano, CXIII, 1955,pp. 185-186.158 Venetian supremacy in the Levant trade was already obvious inthe second half of the 14th and consolidated in the 15th century:see Ashtor, 1983 (as in n. 79), pp. 103 sqq. Ashtor’s assessment inthat respect remains valid despite the criticism of other authors.159 Abu l-Mahasin ibn Taghri Birdi’s History of Egypt, 1382-1469,A.D., trans. by W. Popper, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1954-1963, PartII, pp. 50-51, on the city’s devastation; R. González de Clavijo,1999 (as in n. 86), chap. VIII, 23, p. 312, on the deportation; ex-cerpts from letters of Western merchants from the end of 1400 re-porting rumours about the sack of Damascus, edited by Melis,1962 (as in n. 157), pp. 30-32.160 Diplomatari de l’Orient català, ed. by A. Rubió i Lluch,Barcelona 1947, pp. 692-693, no. 668.161 A Western letter reports that some Muslim residents fled fromDamascus: Melis, 1962 (as in n. 157), p. 30.162 See above, n. 133.163 Heers, 1955 (as in n. 157), p. 168.164 Traité d’Emmanuel Piloti sur le Passage en Terre Sainte (1420),ed. by P.-H. Dopp, Louvain-Paris 1958, pp. 90-91, 240. For thedating, see D. Coulon, «Du nouveau sur Emmanuel Piloti et sontémoignage à la lumière de documents d’archives occidentaux»,in: Chemins d’outre-mer (as in n. 132), Vol. I, pp. 160, 169.165 Documenti sulle relazioni delle città toscane coll’Oriente cris-tiano e coi Turchi fino all’anno MDXXXI, ed. by G. Müller, Firen-ze 1879, p. 358. Dating by Ashtor, 1983 (as in n. 79), p. 351.166 Abu l-Mahasin ibn Taghri Birdi, 1954-1963 (as in n. 159), PartIV, p. 112167 Dopp, 1958 (as in n. 164), pp. 90-91. New dating by Coulon,2004 (as in n. 164), pp. 159-171.168 See P.L. Baker, Islamic Textiles, London 1995, pp. 78-79, andAshtor, 1983 (as in n. 79), pp. 200-206, who mainly deals withwoolens. Sultan Barkuk (reigned 1382-1389, 1390-1399) prohibit-ed his courtiers to wear costly silken garments: ibid., p. 202. Thisdecree had only a short-term impact.169 Dopp, 1958 (as in n. 164), pp. 90-92. On some silks exportedfrom Alexandria at a somewhat later period, see above, n. 165.170 Histoire des sultans mamelouks de l’Egypte écrite en arabe psr

oriental silks go west

103

104

Taki-Eddin-Ahmed-Makrizi, trans. by E.M. Quatremère, Vol. I/1,Paris 1837-1845, p. 252.171 Jacoby, 2000 (as in n. 1), p. 292; Deliberazioni del Maggior Con-siglio di Venezia, ed. by R. Cessi, Vol. III, Bologna 1931-1950, pp.32-33, par. 76. The decree first mentions goods brought from theLevant, among them silk textiles, being re-exported to the west-ern Mediterranean, and proceeds with the dispatch of «setasomnes et xamittos in Alexandriam» without referring to their ori-gin. It follows that these were Venetian, and not Levantine silks.172 Pallavicino, 2001 (as in n. 70), pp. 78-83, esp. 80, no. 1189.173 Day, 1963 (as in n. 131), pp. 228 and 523, respectively.174 Ashtor, 1983 (as in n. 79), p. 205, for demand in Cairo in 1392;prices in Damascus in 1379 and 1395: Ashtor, «L’exportation»,1978 (as in n. 157), p. 362.175 Molà, 1994 (as in n. 93), pp. 258-259.176 Dopp, 1958 (as in n. 164), pp. 108-110, 150.177 G.F. Pagnini del Ventura, Della decima e di varie altre gravezzeimposte dal comune di Firenze, Lisbonna-Lucca, 1765-1766, Vol.II/4, pp. 110, 113. It also states the equivalents of the cloth meas-ures of Venice, Florence and Genoa in Damascus, yet without re-ferring to the import of silks: ibid., p. 114. On problems regard-ing the dating of the information assembled in that manual, see U.Tucci, «Per un’edizione moderna della pratica di mercatura del-l’Uzzano», in: Studi di storia economica toscana nel medioevo e nelRinascimento in memoria di Federigo Melis, Ospedaletto (Pisa)1987, pp. 365-389.178 G. di Lorenzo Chiarini, El libro di mercatantie et usanze de’ pae-si, ed. by F. Borlandi, Torino 1936, pp. 47, 73, 81. For the dating,see ibid., pp. xlviii-l.179 On exports to the Levant, Ashtor, 1983 (as in n. 79), p. 205 andn. 31; Ashtor, 1978, «L’exportation» (as in n. 157), pp. 363-366,371-373; Molà, La comunità, 1994 (as in n. 93), pp. 255-261, esp.260, n. 138. Lucca also produced silk velvets of inferior quality by1376: Monnas, 1986 (as in n. 16), pp. 68-69, and on such extantvelvets, ibid., p. 66. For the meaning of folesellus or filugello inTuscany, see S. Bongi, Della mercatura dei Lucchesi nei secoli XIIIe XIV, Lucca 1858, p. 35 and n. 1.180 Molà, 1994 (as in n. 93), p. 256 and n. 151.181 Some were already produced by the 1340s: see above, n. 106.182 F. Franceschi, «Florence and Silk in the Fifteenth Century: theOrigins of a Long and Felicitous Union», in: Italian History andCulture, I, 1995, pp. 3-22; Franceschi, 2000 (as in n. 106), pp. 401-422; S. Tognetti, Un’industria di lusso al servizio del grande com-mercio. Il mercato dei drappi serici e della seta nella Firenze delQuattrocento, Firenze 2002, pp. 12-39.183 D. Catellacci, «Diario di Felice Brancacci ambasciatore conCarlo Federighi al Cairo per il Comune di Firenze (1422) », in:Archivio Storico Italiano, 4a serie, VIII, 1881, p. 173: «Una pezzad’alto e basso di chremisi broccato d’oro, una d’azurro per lo sim-il modo, una di verde e nero, tutte di braccia 40 o circa, e un pan-no di grana e uno di turchino». On the sailing, see M.E. Mallett,The Florentine Galleys in the Fifteenth Century, Oxford 1967, pp.35-38.184 Ashtor, 1983 (as in n. 79), pp. 350, 352.185 Müller, 1879 (as in n. 165), p. 357.186 Ashtor, 1983 (as in n. 79), p. 360. These were either Venetianor Florentine silks.187 Jacoby, 2004 (as in n. 82), pp. 140-143; Venetian velvets weresent to Trebizond in 1434: Ashtor, 1978 (as in n. 157), p. 366. Flo-rence did apparently not join Venice in the export of silks to Con-stantinople until after the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453:see Tognetti, 2002 (as in n. 182), pp. 174-179.188

189 Italian silks ousted Spanish fabrics from the English market inthe 14th century. See Medieval Finds, 1992 (as in n. 37), p. 89.190 L. Trench, «Italian Silks in Fifteenth-Century NetherlandishPainting», in: New Perspectives. Studies in Art History in Honourof Anne Crookshank, ed. by J. Fenlon, N. Figgis and C. Marshall,Dublin 1987, pp. 61-73; B. Tietzel, «Sein und Schein in Jan vanEycks gemalte Stoffen», in: Festschrift für Brigitte Klesse, ed. by I.Guntermann, Berlin 1994, pp. 217-231; see also Cottrell, 2002 (as

david jacoby

in n. 15).191 Textiles in Daily Life in the Middle Ages, Exhibition catalogue(The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1985), ed. by R. Martin, Bloom-ington/IN 1985, pp. 33-35.192 B. Klesse, «Darstellung von Seidenstoffen in der AltkölnerMalerei», in: Mouseion. Studien aus Kunst und Geschichte fur Ot-to H. Förster, Köln 1960, pp. 217-225; A. Koch, Darstellung vonSeidenstoffen in der Kölner Malerei der ersten Hälfte des 15.Jahrhunderts, Weimar 1995. In 1391 a merchant from Colognepurchased silks in Lucca: ibid., p. 23.193 A. Geyer, Textile Treasures of Uppsala Cathedral from Eight Cen-turies, Stockholm 1964, pp. 26-27.194 Ibid., pp. 29-32; M. Knockert, «Italian Silks of the Thirteenthand Fourteenth Centuries in Scandinavia», in: Textile History,XXX/1, 2001, pp. 114-118.195 Wardwell, 2000 (as in n. 50), pp. 92-93 and fig. 8.196 Chrámov́y Poklad u Sv. Vita Praze, ed. by A. Podlaha & E. Sit-tler, Praze 1903, XLV, no. 439 and p. XLVI, no. 475; Wardwell,1976/77 (as in n. 15), p. 185. Further evidence on northern paint-ing appears throughout that study.197 On that absorption, see Wardwell, 1987 (as in n. 116), pp. 5, 16-17; Wardwell, 1988/89 (as in n. 6), pp. 102, 114-115