Practising Diplomacy in the Mamluk Sultanate by Doris Behrens-Abouseif

Author:Doris Behrens-Abouseif [Behrens-Abouseif, Doris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, General Art, Business & Finance, History
ISBN: 9780857735416
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-05-16T04:00:00+00:00

Florence

Florence appeared rather late on the Mamluk diplomatic scene and reports about this relationship are rather meagre. Following the decline of Pisa’s presence in the commercial network of the Mamluks during the fourteenth century, Florence, its rival and conqueror, took over its position. A Florentine commercial community, which exported wool textiles, is reported to have been settled in late fourteenth-century Alexandria. In 1422 a commercial treaty was concluded between the Florentine Republic and Barsbay. Two decades later, in 1444, Florence took the initiative to send trade ships to Alexandria on a regular basis,74 and at the same time requested that the same commercial privileges be granted to other Europeans, notably of Venice and previously of Pisa. This included having a fondaco in the port city. Moreover, Florence wanted its florin (Arabic ifrinti) to have the same status in Mamluk lands as the Venetian sequin, which in the fifteenth century became widespread as the standard gold currency. Shortly afterwards, a Florentine consul was settled in Alexandria, although there is no evidence for the existence of a Florentine fondaco there.75

It took some time, however, for Florence to acquire the full privileges it had asked for. In the late 1470s or early 1480s, during the rule of Lorenzo di Medici, a Florentine embassy was sent to Qaytbay’s court to negotiate a commercial treaty based on the pattern applied with Venice, but with additional items. The negotiations dragged on for some years until Qaytbay sent a special emissary to Lorenzo. The emissary arrived in November 1487 to grant Florence the commercial privileges that Lorenzo eventually approved. While Lorenzo was eager to increase his role in the global commercial scene, Qaytbay, who was getting increasingly nervous about the rising power of the Ottomans, was keen to intensify diplomacy with Europe. In 1496 a commercial treaty was signed between Cairo and Florence, and three years later another more comprehensive one followed.76

The famous gift package that accompanied the embassy of Qaytbay to Lorenzo in 1487 is not recorded in Mamluk narrative sources, although it made a great impact at the Medici court and in Florence in general, where it was echoed in Florentine art of the time. Qaytbay’s gift became a memorable event not only because of its assortment of Chinese porcelain, the like of which had not been seen before – fine cotton textiles including muslin of the kind used for turbans, a tent, a large flask of balsam oil and other drugs and scents including civet perfume and aloewood, large jars of sweets,77 a horse, goats and sheep with long ears and big tails hanging to the ground and a lion – but most of all for the famous giraffe, whose arrival in Florence caused a sensation.78 Lorenzo the Magnificent, surrounded by the city’s high dignitaries, received the ambassador Ibn Mahfuz al-Maghribi in the loggia of the Signoria, which was decorated for the ceremony with hangings and carpets, while a large crowd gathered in the piazza to watch the event. Poems and eulogies were composed

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