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Juan Fernández de Heredia’s History of Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Anthony Luttrell
Anthony Luttrell*
Affiliation:
Bath
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Abstract

The Aragonese Hospitaller Juan Fernández de Heredia, Master of Rhodes from 1377 to 1396, was an outstanding patron of historical compilations, all of them translated into Aragonese. He promoted the earliest translations into any western language of Plutarch’s Lives, of parts of Thucydides and of Zonaras’ Epitome of Byzantine history; he also produced a version of the Chronicle of the Morea with an entirely original section which covered much of the fourteenth century. These and other sources in his corpus formed the basis for a unique initiative, a continuous history of Greece.

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Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , 2010 , pp. 30 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2010

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References

1 Detailed treatment and references, mostly not repeated here, in Luttrell, A., ‘Juan Fernández de Heredia and the Compilation of the Aragonese Chronicle of the Morea’, at www.xoan.net/morea Google Scholar. The major study of the literary production is af Geijerstam, R., Juan Fernandez de Heredia: La Grant Cronica de Espayna libros 1-11 (Uppsala 1964)Google Scholar. The most balanced general introduction to the patron and his works is Blecua, J. M. Cacho, El Gran Maestre ]uan Fernández de Heredia (Saragossa 1997)Google Scholar, which lacks footnotes but lists manuscripts, editions, bibliography and much other detail. ]uan Fernández de Heredia y su Ѐpoca: IV Curso sobre Lengua y Literatura en Aragón, ed. Egido, A. — Enguita, J. M. (Saragossa 1996)Google Scholar, presents extensive further studies and references but contains historical inaccuracies.

2 Fernández de Heredia was a pioneer but a thoroughly medieval one; repeated attempts to portray him as a ‘humanist’ are to be rejected, as Cacho, , El Gran Maestre, 130-2, 182-4Google Scholar, emphasizes. The attractive frescoes from Sorgues have frequently been attributed to Fernández de Heredia’s patronage, but incorrectly: Blagg, T. — Luttrell, A., ‘The papal palace and other fourteenth—century buildings at Sorgues near Avignon’, Archaeologia 109 (1991) 184-6Google Scholar.

3 By contrast, Pina, M. C. Marín – Frutos, A. Montaner, ‘Estado actual de los Estudios sobre la Vida y la Obra de Juan Fernández de Heredia’w, in Juan Fernández de Heredia y su Epoca, 279-82Google Scholar, speaks, incorrectly, both of a ‘personal aventura caballeresca’ in the tradition of the French Chronicle of the Morea and also of his desire to take a place in Greek history. The Master’s continuation of the Morea chronicle actually stopped immediately before his own, disastrous, expedition to Epiros. The accepted notion is that the young soldier holding what may be the Hospital’s banner shown in the illumination on the first folio of the Aragonese Chronicle of the Morea represents the Master, but it does not look like him or like a Master, or show him with a Hospitaller cross or, as so frequently elsewhere, bear his arms: Cacho, , El Gran Maestre, 92, fig. 57Google Scholar.

4 Luttrell, at www.xoan.net/morea, p. xxxvii and n. 88, discusses this Bible.

5 Cf. Soria, J. M. Nieto, ‘Las Inquietudes historiográficas del Gran Maestre hospitalario Juan Fernández de Heredia (m. 1396): una aproximación de conjunto’, En la España Medieval 22 (1999) 203-7Google Scholar.

6 Contrary to Marín, — Montaner, , ‘Estado actual’, 279–82Google Scholar. Hauf i Valis, A.-G., ‘Texto y contexto de “La Flor de las Historias de Oriente”: un programa de colaboración cristiano-mongólica’, in Juan Fernández de Heredia y su Época, 155 Google Scholar, holds it evident that Hayton was translated in connection with Fernández de Heredia’s supposed responsibilities for papal crusading strategy.

7 Luttrell, A., ‘Juan Fernández de Heredia and Education in Aragon: 1349-1369’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 17 (1987) 237-44Google Scholar.

8 Idem, , at www.xoan.net/morea, pp. xxvii-xxviii, xxxvii-xxxviiiGoogle Scholar; idem, , ‘La Corona de Aragon y la Grecia Catalana: 1379-1394’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 6 (1969) 219-52Google Scholar.

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10 Luttrell, A., ‘Greek Histories translated and compiled for Juan Fernández de Heredia, Master of Rhodes, 1377-1396’, Speculum 35 (1960) 401-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, , ‘The Greeks of Rhodes under Hospitaller Rule’, Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici no. 29 (1992) 222-3Google Scholar. The earliest known reference to the ancient Colossus as bestriding the harbour at Rhodes is in a pilgrim account of 1395: Vedder, U., ‘A Latin Grand Master, a Greek philosopher and the Colossus of Rhodes’, in Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Classical Archaeology — Common Ground: Archaeology, Art, Science, and Humanities (Oxford 2006) 151-3Google Scholar, suggesting that this myth possibly resulted from Fernández de Heredia’s recent literary activities on Rhodes and the translation there of his Plutarch.

11 Las “Vidas de Hombres ilustres” (núms. 70-72 de la Bibl. Nac. de París: Estudio y edición, ed. Rodríguez, A. Álvarez, 2 vols (Madrid 1983)Google Scholar. Mercati, G., Notizie di Procoro e Demetrio Cidone, Manuele Caleca e Teodoro Meliteniota (Vatican 1931) 147 n. 1 Google Scholar, shows that Niccolò was bishop of Drenopolitan., which he, somewhat unconvincingly, identifies as Drinopoli in Epiros/Albania, but there was no such bishopric there. Latin bishops often held sees in partibus without residing in them, and the location of Niccolò’s see may be of little significance.

12 A point often ignored: cf. Luttrell, , at www.xoan.net/morea, p. xlvi and n. 121 Google Scholar. The missing sections of the Aragonese Plutarch now in Paris survive in Italian translation.

13 Zonaras, Juan, Libro de los Emperadores (versión aragonesa del “Compendio de Historia Universal”, patrocinada por Juan Fernández de Heredia) Google Scholar, ed. Rodríguez, A. Álvarez (Saragossa 2006) xxxviii - livGoogle Scholar.

14 af Geijerstam, R., ‘Un Esbozo de la Grant Crònica de Espanya de Juan Fernandez de Heredia’, Studia Neophilologica 32 (1960) 80–105 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses the correction processes.

15 Luttrell, A., ‘Coluccio Salutati’s Letter to Juan Fernández de Heredia,’ Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 13 (1970) 235-43Google Scholar.

16 Serrano i Caldero, J. — Perearnau i Espelt, Josep, ‘Darrer Inventari de la Biblioteca papal de Peniscola (1423)’, Arxiu de Textos Catalans Antics, 6 (1987) 140 Google Scholar.

17 Published in Tucídides romanceado en el siglo XIV, ed. Molina, L. López ⁼ Boletín de la Real Academia Española, anejo V (Madrid 1960 Google Scholar).

18 Dunstan, R., A Critical Edition of Fernández de Heredia’s Translation into Aragonese of Guido delle Colonna’s “Cronica Troyana” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis: Madison 1928)Google Scholar; cf. Cacho, El Gran Maestre, 147-9; Luttrell, at www.xoan.net/morea, n. 81.

19 The unique manuscript is edited, with an unreliable French translation, in Libro de los Fechos et Conquistas del Principado de la Morea, ed. Morel-Fatio, A. (Geneva 1885)Google Scholar. The literature is extensive: standard treatment in Jacoby, D., ‘Quelques considérations sur les versions de la Chronique de Morée’, Journal des Savants (1968) 133-89Google Scholar, with further considerations and references in Ilieva, A., Frankisb Morea (1205-1262): Socio-Cultural Interaction between the Franks and the Local Population (Athens 1991) 51-5 et passim Google Scholar. Rodríguez, A. Alvarez, ‘Los Extranjerismos en las Traducciones heredianas del Griego al Aragonés’, in Juan Fernández de Heredia y su Epoca, 208-11, suggests a possible Italian version behind the Aragonese Morea, but he incorrectly dates the known Italian version to the fourteenth centuryGoogle Scholar.

20 Detailed analysis in Jacoby, , ‘Quelques considérations’, 169-81Google Scholar.

21 Angold, M., The Fourth Crusade: Event and Context (Harlow 2003) 7–19, 122-5 et passim Google Scholar.

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23 Mango, C., ‘Discontinuity with the classical past in Byzantium’, in Mullett, M. and Scott, R. (eds.), Byzantium and the Classical Tradition (Birmingham 1981) 48–57 Google Scholar.

24 Furon, C., ‘Entre mythes et histoire: les origines de la Principauté d’Achaïe dans la Chronique de Morée ’, REB 64 (2004) 133-57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Libro de los Fechos, l.

26 Cf. Longnon, J., Recherches sur la vie de Geoffroy de Villehardouin (Paris 1939) 76-7Google Scholar.

27 Jacoby, , ‘Quelques considérations’, 165 n.146 Google Scholar; Božilov, L., ‘La Chronique de Morée et l’Histoire de Bulgarie au début du XIHe siècle’, Bulgarian Historical Review 5 part 2 (1977) 47-8, 54Google Scholar.

28 This point has not previously been emphasized clearly.

29 Rubió i Lluch, A., Documents per ¡’Historia de la Cultura catalana mig—eval, I (Barcelona 1908) nos. 433-4Google Scholar.

30 The Zonaras and the Morea were bound together by 1410 at latest, but originally they had different folio numerations written in different inks and hands, while the prologue of the Zonaras made no mention of the Morea and had its own explicit.

31 The Thucydides and the Trojana did lack foliation, tables of contents and Fernández de Heredia’s portrait and arms, bearing instead the arms of a later owner, the Marquis of Santillana, who presumably had the volume bound; the Thucydides had no title and the Troyana only a general title: Schiff, M., La Bibliothèque du Marquis de Santillane (Paris 1905) 16–21 Google Scholar.

32 Torrents, J. Massó, ‘Inventari dels Bens mobles del Rey Martí d’Aragó’, Revue Hispanique 12 (1905) 413–590 Google Scholar.

33 Rubió, , Documents, I, no. 399 Google Scholar; Alvarez, ‘Extranjerismos’, 200, considers the surviving Plutarch volumes at Paris a copy of the very last years of the fourteenth or the early-fifteenth century, but it may have been the final draft from which the fine copy was made or was intended to be made.

34 E.g. Massó, ‘Inventari’, items 2, 33, 62, 206.

35 Supra, , 35 and n. 31 Google Scholar.

36 Item 214 is still being identified as the Morea: e.g. in Marín — Montaner, ‘Estado actual’, 259.

37 Cacho, , El Gran Maestre, 141-2Google Scholar.

38 It seems that no such attempt was made until the nineteenth century.