Synopsis
Coriolano Cippico (1425–93) was a Dalmatian nobleman from Trogir (Trau in modern Croatia), then part of the Venetian empire. He was a landowner, civil servant, humanist and military commander. From 1470 to 1474 he served as galley captain for a Venetian naval expedition in the eastern Mediterranean under the command of the future doge of Venice, Pietro Mocenigo. Cippico wrote “The Deeds of Commander Pietro Mocenigo” in 1474/75. Its three books describe the campaign as Mocenigo’s fleet engaged in a systematic depredation of the western Anatolian shoreline, helped suppress a political coup in Cyprus and seal the Venetian hold of the island, supported the Venetian diplomatic outreach to the lords of Karaman, the chief Ottoman adversaries in Anatolia, and provided crucial relief to the Venetian-held Albanian stronghold of Skodra (Scutari) besieged by Ottoman troops. Composed in an elegant humanist latin, “The Deeds” offers a sophisticated eyewitness account of the Christian–Ottoman confrontation in the late fifteenth century. Besides its classicizing overtones, “The Deeds” also makes astute and perceptive observations on the entangled relationship between Venice and the East. The brutality of war, the constant traffic in slaves and booty and the almost casual destruction of the ancient remains of Asia Minor form the backdrop to the expert diplomacy, crusade rhetoric, humanist discourse and cultural claims of the Venetian Republic. Cippico uses the language and tropes of the classical past, while the realities of combat and reprisal that he narrates give vivid testimony to the destruction of the last traces of that antiquity. Cippico provides one of the best narratives of how the empire of the Most Serene Republic actually worked. The present edition is the first English translation of “The Deeds,” one of the finest pieces of Renaissance history writing, often and widely reprinted and much appreciated in its time but undeservedly forgotten until recently. Paperback, 148 pages. Introduction, notes, bibliography. 20 illustrations, 3 maps.
About the Author
Coriolano Cippico (1425–93) was a Dalmatian noble of Trogir (Trau), a town on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Coriolano was raised and educated in the humanist culture of the time and learned his Latin in Trogir and possibly some rudimentary Greek. At fifteen he went to Padua, where at the university he polished his classical languages, deepened his knowledge of Roman literature, and developed his rhetorical skill. He also studied nautical matters and military strategy. Back in Trogir after completing his studies, he married the Venetian noblewoman Giacobina Lodi, who died young, and then married Nicoletta de Andreis. Six sons and four daughters were born of these marriages. In 1456, aged thirty-one, Coriolano was already a trustee of Trogir’s cathedral endowment. He is recorded in the office in 1460, 1477 and 1488 and may have held the position throughout. In the 1450s and 1460s, as an already established local magnate, Coriolano acted as a representative of Trogir to the Venetian Senate. He also served as Trogir’s envoy to the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus, and the king granted him the privilege of immunity from baronial jurisdiction. Throughout these decades, he found time to refine his credentials as a man of letters among the Venetian nobles with Renaissance tastes, and he associated with leading Italian humanists of the time. By 1468 Coriolano was a substantial landlord as well. In 1470 spurred by the debacle of the fall of Negroponte to the Ottoman Turks, the Venetian Senate ordered a naval force led by Pietro Mocenigo to conduct a campaign of retribution. Cippico was appointed captain of a Trogir war galley in the Venetian armada. For the next four years, Coriolano sailed the Aegean and Ionian Seas with Mocenigo in a series of depredations on Ottoman coastal settlements, strengthening the resolve of the Christian Orthodox population on the islands and defending Venetian interests in Cyprus and on the Albanian coasts. Immediately upon his return, sometime between late 1474 and July 1475, Cippico composed “The Deeds.” In 1492 their stronghold residence on the Trogir coast caught fire and burned down and Coriolano’s spouse Nicoletta lost her life in the blaze. After a few more months coping with grief, caring for his younger sons and dealing with his estate, Coriolano died in 1493. He was buried in Trogir’s cathedral. Kiril Petkov (Ph.D. NYU) is Professor of Medieval & Mediterranean History at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
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