© Richard Barker
(Presented in May 2002, at the joint XI Reunião Internacional
da História da Náutica e da Hidrografia and VIII Jornadas
de História Ibero-Americana, in Portimão; published in "translation"
by Instituto de Cultura Ibero-Atlântica, in As novidades do mundo;
conhecimento e representação na época moderna,
Colibri, Lisbon 2003). A "translation" was sent for approval a few weeks
before publication, and contained some 250 errors that changed the meaning
of the text. The published result was hardly better. The author wishes
to dissociate himself from the published version.)
Dom Manuel's prestige and apparent wealth benefitted from the new route to India. It is one representation of that, in its various guises, that will be discussed in this paper. Just as cartographers placed national flags on territories as symbols of discovery, occupation and power, Manuel set out to show the flag - in its more modern and imperial sense, in 1521, when he sent an armada to waft his daughter Beatriz to Villefranche in Savoy. This was by no means the first or last such Portuguese odyssey, but is perhaps the most grandiose and dramatically recorded.
His intention is clear, especially in Gaspar Correia's account1; as in the very considerable expenditure made on the voyage, and in the retinue ordered afloat: the fleet was sent explicitly to impress the cities along the route with his new wealth and maritime power:
There is also, perhaps, a representation of this voyage in the painting3 now at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and entitled "Portuguese carracks off a rocky coast". This painting has an obscure history, but is likely to be connected with this voyage - without doubt it incorporates both Manueline and Savoyard vessels - though not necessarily exactly contemporary or made on the spot, and there are counter arguments. The Savoyard vessels are drawn as on their own coast, and this limits the period of special interest to the lifetime of Beatriz, and would exclude the other major Portuguese expedition into the Mediterranean in 1535, to Tunis4. It is an open question who commissioned the painting, but its first known location is northern Italy, and that suggests a commission for or by Beatriz herself. (There is no evidence presented that the painting was known in Portugal before about 1921).
The painting itself, which is possibly the finest maritime artwork extant from before the seventeenth century, presents a considerable problem as a piece of art: it is anonymous, and simply does not fit a widely accepted history of maritime art, centred on the Low Countries. It has never been properly studied, and this paper cannot draw on any scientific study of the painting or its oak panel to confirm its date or provenance.
The saga ties together a wide range of themes, from developments in shipbuilding - in particular the use of stern galleries - and naval artillery, to diplomatic matters. In the event, the episode came close to being a diplomatic disaster; coincidentally or not, it also culminated in Manuel's death. The story concludes with a delightful comment on Manueline prescience, from a few months after Beatriz' death.
Beginnings
In 1428 the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck travelled with ambassadors to Portugal (coasting on Venetian galleys), charged with painting a portrait of the Infanta Isabel, whose marriage by proxy with Philip of Burgundy followed on 25 July 1429. Van Eyck was in Lisbon and Avis from 14 December 1428 to at least 12 February 1429; though Vasconcellos5 has him touring Iberia from Santiago to Granada with the ambassadors after the painting was done. There is a lengthy contemporary account of the ambassadors' travels, which offers interesting insights into the potential problems of travel - and not just by sea: the ambassadors' report to the Duke of Burgundy was sent by two separate couriers overland, and two by sea (though only one painting is ever referred to), the reply arriving over two months later6. Was van Eyck already using a concave mirror for rapid sketching of portraits, perhaps in multiple here? - this was within a year or so of their first dateable use by Flemish painters including van Eyck7. The Royal party actually embarked on 27 September in Lisbon, proceeded to Restel eight days later when the remaining ships were ready, and the armada of 14 ships (20 in Morosini) and a suite of 2,000 (or, 3,000) Portuguese including Isabel's brother Fernando then sailed from Cascais, only to return after two days because of contrary winds. They finally sailed from Cascais on 17 October. By the 22 October four ships had reached Viveiro in Galicia, the rest scattered by contrary winds. A fifth had rejoined when they sailed again on 9 November, only to anchor in Ribadeo where Isabel disembarked, ill (sea-sick?). There they chanced on two Florentine galleys, and she embarked in one of these. The Infanta was overdue in Bruges by 30 November, by which time two ships had reached Flanders, and six Southampton, but the whereabouts of Isabel were unknown. In fact the seven vessels reached Plymouth with some difficulty after pilot error nearly put them ashore near the Lizard. This account has Isabel leaving the galleys at Plymouth on 29 November, and reaching Sluys on 25 December, with marriage celebrations commencing on 7 January8. We may however suppose that she travelled overland to London, and we know that £100 was authorised there for her entertainment on 6 December. There were other consequences of maritime interest. The marriage enhanced links between Flanders and Portugal, with Burgundian artillery going south, for example, and in 1438-9 Portuguese shipwrights built two vessels for the Duke in Flanders, certainly amongst the first carvel vessels in the north (excluding the French Rouen galleys).
Van Eyck himself is credited with developing a new realistic style of painting water - not seascapes, but elaborate ripples and reflections, initially in miniatures, about 1412-7 (possibly originated by the Limbourg brothers, who died in 1416). He certainly developed the use of clear varnishes in oil painting at about the same time. We have also noted that this period coincides with the first use of optical devices for painting - though for portraits and still life, not for ships or seascapes requiring rather more dynamic techniques. Van Eyck's style, reinforced perhaps by the experience of the courtiers who travelled from Portugal, and subsequently by the many Flemish artists employed in Portugal, many of whom settled there, engendered a new style of painting in Portugal.
A century later maritime art in Portugal is far advanced, and another armada sailed from Lisbon, to waft the Infanta Beatriz to Savoy, as its new Duchess. It is the intertwining of these two strands that is the subject of this paper.
Another unexpected Royal arrival had taken place in England in 1506. Philip of Burgundy and Joanna of Castile embarked at Armuyden for Spain on 7 January but were caught in two storms that drove them from off Southampton to Biscay and back, sinking several of their fleet and scattering the rest from Falmouth to Portland. The king's own ship jettisoned all the deck guns, was gunwale-under for half an hour, and caught fire three times; he himself was "hurled below" by the violence of the ship's movements and thought to be dead (perhaps not unrelated to a sickness he suffered in England, and his sudden death after his arrival in Spain). The party was immediately taken to meet Henry VII and stayed for two months. Their voyage from Falmouth to Corunna was also fraught, only concluded on 26 April9. The omens for Royal travel by sea were not too good, it seems.
The contract
Góis tells us that Charles III, Duke of Savoy, first sought the hand of Beatriz in 1516, and was rejected on the grounds of her age (twelve), but persisted with further embassies, and in 1520 Manuel instituted enquiries about his suitabilty and the status that would result for his daughter. Resende says only that the Duke "never ceased" to press for the marriage from 1516. In fact it is clear from other sources that the match was not favoured widely in the Portuguese court; and neither was Charles as assiduous as the diplomatic version of events would suggest. (That may reflect a common habit of threatening adverse dynastic marriages as part of negotiations - as by Henry V for example; equally, Charles V had been engaged to Mary Tudor for five years when he married Isabel of Portugal in 1526.) As late as 18 October 1516 he was contractually married to Joanna of Aragon, daughter of the King of Naples, for example. His name was linked with a number of other ladies in the period10. Osório's assurance that Charles had contracted a violent affection for a lady no less famed for her beauty than for her good sense and sweet disposition is perhaps equally diplomatic11. The marriage was agreed with new ambassadors sent in February 1521, and contracted during March and April12. From that point Manuel and the court commenced their preparations, including the selection of "strong, new, great, and swift-sailing" ships.
The fleet
The number of ships assembled varies from one account to another, but was about twenty. That included four great naos belonging to Manuel, probably one Savoyard ship ("the Ambassador's"), four other naos, two galeões, three caravelas, four galleys, up to four smaller oared vessels, store ships, and a store ship belonging to the Archbishop; variously eighteen to twenty-five in total13.
Two store ships were the Infanta's, and one, interestingly, a ship laden with conserves and fruit from Madeira (Correia). Whether that was primarily a provision for the Royal party, or a reflection of the known value of some citrus fruits as anti-scorbutics (da Gama having sought them out, very clearly, at every port of call on his first voyage, and marmelada being a standard provision - albeit of uncertain value in that sense), is not known. According to Resende, one caravela carried only aves e caça - hunting birds and dogs, and the exotic birds and animals paraded in Nice, rather than provisions.
Resende records that the fleet was issued with 537 additional bronze guns for the voyage: 102 heavy bombards, 35 falcões, 50 lagartixas (a type name otherwise almost unknown) and 350 berços. The last three types were smaller guns, usually mounted on swivels in the castles and on the gunwales of ships. How these were distributed is not known, but if the figure is reliable, it would have required significant alterations to the ships, as they retained all the guns they were wont to carry. If distributed in proportion to tonnage, the Santa Catarina would have received some 20 extra heavy guns, and almost 90 swivel guns. That is in fact not far short of the maximum number discernible in the Greenwich painting. A large caravela might receive four heavy guns, and sixteen others - approximately the maximum number known to have been carried by lateen caravelas at any time. It is however known that from about this time, the new galeões at least were intended to carry much heavier armaments, exceeding the numbers at least of heavy guns supposed for the Santa Catarina, in smaller ships; though whether the guns were normally available in such numbers is another matter.
The flagship
The flagship was the Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai - a name reflecting pre-occupation with Prester John. This was a vessel of 700 or 800 toneís14, built in Cochim in India from c.1512, but only commissioned in 1517, just in time for the attack on Jeddah - it appears in one of Correia's sketches for Lendas da Índia, notionally, and in that it has four masts and a relatively low forecastle15. It had made two voyages to Lisbon by 1521. According to Rodrigues it was the largest and most powerful ship of the Carreira da Índia at that time16; though commenced before the advent of galeões as explicit fighting units. Certainly the ships depicted in the Greenwich painting are naos from that era, with relatively little heavy artillery, and none below the weather deck.
The structural changes made to the ship, only recorded by Correia, included major internal changes to create cabins and wardrobes in the lower decks of the sterncastle, and isolating them for the Ladies, with spiral staircases (caracois) for access. That in turn required the main capstan to be moved, and the construction of a gallery on the side and stern for the seamen to get to the rudder - explicitly worked from outside the ship. A second gallery was provided for additional accommodation. (Galleries are discussed below). The upper deck was given a false and level floor on the tolda, or half-deck, and covered with brocade canopies - conspicuously absent in the Greenwich painting - and gilded within, and the receptions were held there. It also served as the dining room for the Infanta and nobility. This sala was probably no more than about 10 metres long, tapering from 11 to 7 metres broad17. The apartments were fitted with lavish hangings and furniture, cited at length by Resende; who also claims that the damask tilt on the sterncastle extended to the water like that of a galley. We might notice that in the Tunis tapestries from the Real Alcazar, Seville, depicting the events of 1535, the Portuguese São João, alone amongst the allied fleet, is depicted with a tented structure in rich fabrics over the half-deck, and another over the poop-deck, whose drapes do indeed extend much further as in the tilt of a galley, though not to the water. The smaller Portuguese ships in the background also have the awnings over the poop-deck, displaying armillary spheres.
Access to the ship from the bulwarks of the Terreiro do Paço was by a wooden bridge built over boats, arcaded, and hung with tapestries, and with staircases up to the ship's rail, and down to the half-deck.
The subsequent history of the ship is controversial. It made one return voyage to India in the fleet of August 1523, as da Gama's flagship, reaching Goa in September 1524. It set out again from Cochim in January 1525, carrying D.Luís de Menezes, and in company with a second ship returning the disgraced D.Duarte de Menezes to Lisbon, and one other. They reached Moçambique, and the brothers probably deliberately delayed to hear news from Lisbon from the 1524 fleet. In the event they wintered there - the Santa Catarina was besides said to be so leaky on arrival that it had to be unloaded for repairs - an indication of how fast a ship could decay, even when built, as this ship presumably was, of teak. When they did sail D.Duarte turned aside to water at Saldanha (itself surprising), the third ship with it; and they were supposed to meet at Santa Helena. There was then a severe storm that nearly drove D.Duarte's ship ashore at Saldanha. No more was ever seen of the Santa Catarina. Rumour (which sparked searches of the East African coast on Manuel's orders, obviously rather belatedly) said that the ship had turned back deliberately because D.Luís did not wish to return to Portugal; even that he had taken up piracy. Some years later a ring was delivered to João III purporting to have been taken from D.Luís by French pirates who had intercepted the weakened and sinking ship off southern Portugal, heading for the Algarve, and the crew had been slaughtered and the ship robbed and sunk. In 1536 a captured French pirate was identified as the brother of the pirate in that incident. Whether true or not, this led to vicious reprisals against those French, and reciprocal atrocities. De la Roncière notes letters of marque generally in the period 1524-1537, but does not record these episodes. A more likely explanation is simply that the ship sank in the Southern Atlantic, probably in the storm experienced by D.Duarte, unable to reach Santa Helena, let alone the Azores, or the Algarve direct.
The retinue
It is clear from the chronicles that a large number of courtiers were ordered to attend the Infanta, and also that they vied with each other to make the most ostentatious displays of wealth; borrowing attire, and probably money too. Resende's account is dominated by the titles and dress of all concerned. Including three named professional masters of ships, some 93 Portuguese are named, thirteen of them the Infanta's Ladies, with minor discrepancies between lists. That did not include the Ambassador's party, lesser fidalgos, clerics and choirboys, twenty-four musicians, "guards for the Ladies", "white slave girls" 18, and something over fifty assorted servants. The overall command was given to D.Martinho de Castelo Branco, Conde de Vila Nova de Portimão, as Captain-Major, but the entourage included D.Martinho da Costa, Archbishop of Lisbon, to whom the Infanta was entrusted, the Marshall, D.Alvaro Coutinho, and da Gamas, Albuquerques, etc. Most of the Ladies, and a few others, were to remain with Beatriz in Savoy. There were several days of festivities and farewells before embarkation at the Ribeira. The fleet anchored at Belém, to await a wind, and the King's party travelled there in a galley for further farewells.
The voyage
The fleet finally sailed from Belém on 9 August, and headed for Cabo São Vicente, ran along the Algarve coast and through the Straits. A deliberate detour took them past Tangiers, Alcaçer, Tarifa, where salutes were made, and Ceuta, where vessels came out to greet them too. Stops were made at Malaga (fifteen days, for adverse winds), Alicante (in ruins, also for fifteen days), and Marseilles, at least, but probably also Cartagena and other ports at distances of a days' sailing. Salutes were exchanged, only, at Nice, there being no shelter there; and this presumably also confirmed the arrival of the Infanta off Savoy.
Correia states that the fleet stayed close to the coast in the Mediterranean, always seeking the safest harbours and awaiting favourable winds. Even so, one nao was dismasted in a storm off Cartagena, and remained there. The galleys were used to maintain supplies of fresh provisions and water; but they coasted the Gulf of Narbonne, while the sailing ships went straight across to Marseilles. By the Portuguese account each visit was accompanied by gun salutes, and the admiration of the local populations for the fleet and its artillery ("for although Marseilles was the arsenal of France they had nothing in it to compare…"), and the splendour of the retinue. This has to be tempered by the admission of Correia that in Marseilles there was a very beautiful French fleet, and a ship captured from the Viceroy of Naples a few days earlier19, which was "the most beautiful ever seen", so presumably grander than the Santa Catarina. In Marseilles many of the Gentlemen went ashore, and Correia comments on their admiration for a local style of portrait painting on canvas. At Alicante, the Marquis of Belez could not greet the Infanta, as he was away re-taking another rebel town, Arryola. The fleet arrived at Villefranche on 29 September, some 50 days from Lisbon: the time was mostly spent in port waiting for favourable winds, and the actual passage at a more respectable speed than one knot. According to Gioffredo four galleys and a galeota only arrived off Nice on 5 October (presumably part of his original total of 25 vessels, and possibly only moved round from Villefranche).
The aftermath
The reception in Savoy caused great distress to the Portuguese party: it was not grand enough. There were perhaps two reasons for this - the Infanta may have arrived earlier than anticipated, and certainly wished to get ashore immediately (according to Gioffredo this occurred by torch-light and artillery salute at three in the morning); and the Duke may have intended full ceremonials not at Villefranche but in Nice, where a Cardinal had been sent by the Pope. That is where the celebrations began on the following day, for eight days, though most of the Portuguese were excluded. Beatriz toured the Duchy during 1522-3, and the grandest ceremonies were in fact held in Geneva in 1523, with the inhabitants dressed in her colours, 300 ladies dressed as Amazons, and mock naval battles on the Lake20. Correia's account is full of comparisons though: the bridge (or arcaded jetty) provided for the landing had the arms of the Duke and Infanta on "sheets of paper, and only one carpet, not very good…." and the Duke wearing "a jerkin ….and a very slender chain".
At several points it seems that different customs and expectations - in the matter of public kissing, and dancing for example, caused misunderstandings, certainly in Marseilles and Nice. Language problems and differing valuations of the dowry are also cited by Sousa Viterbo21.
Correia reports that the Duke's soldiers forcibly turned back the Portuguese entourage, including the personal servants of the Ladies, when his court moved back to Piemonte at the end of that week, leaving them destitute on the road. The fleet sailed after 26 days in harbour, waiting for a wind. Be all that as it may, several of the ladies remained in the Court and married Savoyard nobles; close relations were maintained between Beatriz and João III, with frequent visitors to Beatriz. Nonetheless, gloom supposedly descended on the Archbishop and Count, blamed for allowing Beatriz to disembark immediately, without full assurances and protocols (though one might suppose that the Archbishop was committed by the negotiations and marriage in Lisbon, though further disputes about costs arose ashore that caused much bitterness). That gloom reached Manuel in Lisbon, with news not only of the supposed diplomatic disaster but of the death of the Archbishop himself on 22 November in Gibraltar. Rumour attributed his death to a fever brought on by events; but a more likely explanation is that he succumbed to a sickness (peste) that swept through the fleet almost as soon as it reached Savoy22. News reached Manuel overland from Gibraltar; and after hearing the account of the Conde de Vila Nova on 4 December, he almost immediately declined, and died on 14 December; though his death is also attributed to a serious outbreak of modorra (encephalitis lethargica) in Lisbon23.
Thus says Correia - relying, clearly, on accounts reaching India, perhaps from the crew of the Santa Catarina. Rodrigues and Sanuto both hint at the diplomatic disaster; Sanuto associates the death of the Archbishop with grief at that outcome. Documents collected by Sousa Viterbo, Guichenon and Claretta suggest a much less dramatic situation, and perhaps the root of the story is the hasty and limited reception in Villefranche, observed by the Portuguese as a stark contrast to the pomp of their departure, and even at ports of call. Góis hints at some concern before the marriage about the suitability of the Duke's position, but speaks only of the pomp at Beatriz' reception.
Beatriz' life in Savoy, where she was idolised, was actually overshadowed by political disasters for the Duke. Under the influence of Portuguese preference for Charles V - married to Beatriz' older sister, Isabel,in 1526 - and Góis suggests also of his mother, the Duke abandoned his alliance with Francis of France, and in the continuing Franco-Spanish wars lost virtually all his possessions. By 1538 he was reduced to Nice alone. Beatriz had nine children, most dying in infancy, and only Emanuel surviving to succeed his father. (He made peace with Francis' son Henry of France, and recovered lands). Beatriz died, possibly of tuberculosis, but certainly after a three-year illness, in January 1538. Guichenon says24 "Beatriz of Portugal was one of the finest (belle) and wisest Princesses of her time, but changed according to the vice of her nation. ….she had [for her] device a lion that is being driven away by a hand holding a burning torch, with this Castillian word con estas, to signify that small things often bring fear to the greatest….. Others say that she had three torches, coming from the sky, which made the lion flee, representing faith, hope and charity, and the lion Satan. ...unshakeable constancy during the troubles of the Duke… silver medals stuck during her lifetime…".
The Greenwich painting
The painting at Greenwich remains a mystery: who painted it, for whom, when and where? It has had many attributions, currently school of Patinier, but including Gregório Lopes, Pieter Breugel, Patinier and Cornelis Anthoniszoon. There has been a greater consensus that it represents the arrival of the armada of the Infanta Beatriz in Villefranche in 1521, and in particular the flagship, Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai. It is dated to 1520-30, though in the continuing absence of scientific evidence this really refers to a consensus on the date of the ships depicted. This writer's personal conclusions are, on balance, that it is by a Portuguese artist; more definitely that it is of a Portuguese ship of about the right date, and that it is intended to represent Villefranche. That it is the Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai, drawn from life, is however unlikely. There must be at least a possibility that this painting was done for the Infanta herself25, and was in Savoy and Italy from some time in the 1520's until 1903. Proof is another matter.
Emergence of the painting, and history of its descriptions
The painting was evidently not known to Sousa Viterbo, who collected a mass of documentation for the events of 1521. That is significant, as he might have been expected to know the whereabouts of such a painting. Neither was it known in Lisbon in 1921, when a query was received from Germany, with a photograph. The first two recorded owners were Germans. Neither José de Figueiredo of the Museu da Arte Antiga, nor Henrique Lopes de Mendonça had been aware of it; but they both published descriptions in Lusitania in 192526. Neither can be considered reliable accounts, on many grounds, but especially in the light of Correia's text, published only in 1992. We have that photograph from 1921 (Fig.1), which clearly shows two damaged joints - it is on an oak panel. It was restored in 1955, but it seems that no technical analysis was done; and of course no dendrochronology was done at that date either. It is clear that much gold paint has been lost, but not what restoration may have done to details, covering up the open joints for example.
What of the movements of the painting? According to Figueiredo, in an unsourced footnote in Lusitania, it had been in the "Beira Alta". The files of the Museu offer no evidence27. It was exhibited in Brussels in 1935, as by Pieter Bruegel, and purchased for Greenwich in 1936. Greenwich were never able to establish any more about its provenance, except that on the reverse of the painting is an inscription "Villa Baccinetti, Firenze, 1903". It also passed through Vienna28. That does not seem to be widely known (though Greenwich informed D.Markl in1974), and remains unexplained. Had it always been in Italy? Was it exhibited or sold in Florence in 1903? How did it then get to Beira Alta in 1911? - probably it did not, but we cannot even state whether it was painted in Portugal or in Italy.
The painting is very widely reproduced, but rarely with satisfactory descriptions. It often appears attributed to Cornelis Anthoniszoon, but that is quite incompatible with the attribution of the Henry VIII embarkation painting (an ostensibly later, inferior and very different work) to Anthoniszoon. There are questionable statements about it in Russell's major work on the development of early maritime art, but such are almost the norm29. Dr João da Gama Pimentel Barata disposed of another nonsensical account30.
The sea and background in the Greenwich painting; and other early maritime paintings
What does the art tell us? The attribution to northern painters, and especially Patinier, comes primarily from the background. Rocks, castles and islands such as these in general form and tones appear routinely in Flemish art, supposedly inspired by Patinier, around 1500. Many writers have supposed that the painting was created in the north. This writer sees no reason to suppose that, pending scientific analysis, rather that the style was widespread amongst emigrant Flemish painters and their pupils. They were numerous in Portugal in the Manueline era, and had included Van Eyck in the previous century, as noted above, involved in the early realistic portrayal of water in oil paints.
The sea then is another matter. Patinier favoured calm water, with minimal rippling of the surface, supposedly for symbolic reasons. His Charon's boat seems to be as near as he gets to the marine. Bles is supposed to have re-introduced waves about 1535, and the style spread widely over the next 20 years. By 1568, severe storms are represented tolerably realistically by Bruegel, for example. The Greenwich painting has a broken sea surface, with distinct and realistic waves, slopping against the hulls. That says it ought to be later than 1530, but it is so different from other paintings of the sixteenth century that we might suppose it to belong to another school altogether, that is not covered by the emphasis on Netherlands painters.
There are good reasons for supposing that, in other paintings associated with Portugal in that period. In the Santa Auta panels the sea is graduated from pronounced rolling waves picked out by white lines, and breaking into flower-like bursts against walls and hulls in the foreground, to a flat paler sea near the horizon; but it also has spray along the ships' hulls in the middle-ground. It is said to have been commissioned by D.Leonor about 1517, and probably installed in 1522, and it is another that simply does not fit the northern history. The principal ship itself has considerable similarities with the Greenwich painting. Though the painting is currently attributed to Portuguese artists31 it actually includes remarkable details in the small boats, which are clinker-built - essentially a northern trait, at least in modern times32.
The Mestre de Lourinhã is identified with Álvaro Pires, and worked in Portugal in the early sixteenth century. Part of the background of his Saint John on Patmos, of about 151433, is a match to the general style of the Greenwich painting. One might observe here that if such a background, blue-green tones, rocky outcrops, wooded and be-castled, were always an indication of northern artists, a substantial part of the contents of the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga would have to be re-attributed. The water surface is rippled to a lesser extent but the ship is a competent rendering of a large ship of its time (though Pimentel Barata34 criticised minor details of the rigging - indeed most works mentioned here have been criticised for incorrect rigging details).
The Leiden drawing, of about 1550 (the date is disputed: some say 1535 or 1570's) is by another artist capable of superb maritime detail, though in a different style, who must have been in Lisbon, and was probably Portuguese, from the captions. Francisco de Holanda, who was educated with families involved in the 1521 events (albeit he was not born until 1517/8, and he is certainly not noted as a painter of ships, or in oils), was in Rome in 1538-40: his patron was Pedro de Mascarenhas, the Captain of the Galleys of 1521. The Infanta had just died, but Holanda travelled via Nice; and had already visited her sister Isabel, his own father's patron, in Spain. Holanda himself singles out for praise Perino del Vaga's oil painting of Aeneas' ships in a storm, in the Doria Palace in Genoa. His father was a noted miniaturist, in Portugal from 1496, and said to have worked on the Leitura Nova35 from 1504-11; and was also active in the right period.
Russell states (p40) "very occasionally we find marine paintings anticipating in their composition the ideals of the seventeenth century Dutch school". It should be clear from the several examples above, from a short but early period, and essentially one place, but actually in different styles, that that limited view omits a flourishing tradition of competent maritime painting in Portugal, producing ship-portraiture and sea-scapes almost a century earlier (and much of which would have perished in the earthquake of 1755). That is not something that can be claimed for the school of Patinier, where realistic ships and boats seem to be conspicuous by their absence. They occurred in the work of northern panoramic draughtsmen and in the late fifteenth century woodcuts of "WA", but not in northern oil paintings of the period. They appear in earlier Italian work - Carpaccio, Dossi, etc, but not in full seascapes. Few artists other than Bruegel and Vroom, supposedly rather later in the sixteenth century, could match the realistic detail of this group of Portuguese maritime images.
But wait: Lourinhã? Hendrick Vroom passed that way about 1591-2, and we may suppose that he was introduced to Portuguese maritime paintings in Lourinhã, Lisbon and Setúbal, from the details of his biography, collected by Russell. Two of his early works - not especially distinguished yet, judging by one small reproduction, and an original in MNAA, survive from this period in Portugal36. He was shipwrecked off the Berlengas, and sold a painting of that event in Lisbon, followed by others. His marine artwork seems effectively to have started in Portugal - his survival is attributed to his religious paintings drifting ashore, and his maritime work extant in Portugal is crude (he had been a ceramic painter). What school was he copying? It is suggested, also speculatively, that he had earlier painted some crude marines while in Italy in the late 1580's; the commission for the Armada tapestry sketches is only post-Portugal (1592?), but he had a reputation in Haarlem by 159437. But for the late date implied, might not an early Vroom be a candidate for the Greenwich painting? He had been to sea, previously travelled from Spain to southern France, and thence to Italy - possibly via Villefranche. (Having said that, the four Vrooms of about c.1592 have little of the "northern" rocks of the Greenwich painting38). There is another problem with the date: no such ship was being built to serve as a model at that date - not least it is so categorically Manueline. That is not to say that such ships did not still exist, or were being represented. Ships are represented in the Monumenta Cartographica of about 1565, which have the same round stern as the Greenwich ship, and conspicuously the wales (or seam battens?) extending low down the hull; few guns low in the hull. The sea is rather stylised, not to say idiosyncratic. But they are conventionally identical to ships in the Atlas of Lopo Homem-Reinéis of 1519: artists have a habit of copying from other images rather than life.
It has been noted that there are marked similarities between the Greenwich painting and a series of engravings by Frans Huys of 1565, based on drawings by Bruegel the elder, and one in particular39. There are similarities. The mainsails, formed into distinct bunts; the wedge between the wales of the hull, and those of the sterncastle; the arrangement of the stern with its counters and guns above the transom; and the pavesses with the saltires. But that is where it ends: Bruegel's are manifestly later ships. They have gunports in the hull itself, and square sterns, not the earlier round stern of the Portuguese ship. They have too three masts, and topgallants; northern skids on the hull; the mainsail is in two pieces not four. While Bruegel may have copied aspects of the painting (hardly the other way round) the images are similar, as ships themselves were similar, and any direct link is improbable. The seas alone would distinguish two painters, but Breugel's style is to set people telling a story in a landscape; though an engraving from his Three men of war with furled sails before a water fortress is nearer the mark (and with four masts and no topgallants). Bruegel also painted, perhaps around 1558, a "Naval battle in the Gulf of Naples", with topography loosely from a pair of sketches made in 1552-4. While this has the same elevated vantage point as the Greenwich painting, the individual ships are not especially prominent. Treatment of the water is inferior, and we might certainly question any "unifying wind".
There is another Italian painting which has been noted as similar to ours, said to represent the arrival of the Emperor Charles V at Genoa in 153340. Charles V did not arrive in Genoa by sea in 1533; he departed from it, and with a fleet mostly of galleys, not sailing ships. On this voyage he embarked the Infanta Beatriz at San Remo41, to take her and her son to Madrid, via Barcelona. In fact the weather was too rough and the Duchess was put ashore almost immediately at Nice. Her son died in Madrid. The painting is more likely to be the arrival of Charles V at Genoa in 1529.
Villefranche (- or Marseille?)
Could the scene be Villefranche? Fig.2 is from a chart of 1845. Villefranche de Nice is a safe natural harbour for the major town of Nice, a few miles to the west. The old town is well up the bay. The present coastal citadel was not begun before 1538 (it bears the date 1557) and covers so much of the part of the town that might be in the painting that we cannot expect too much resemblance. Conversely, if the painting were of Villefranche, any sketches for it must have been made before 1538.
But Mont Alban fortress on the hill has outer curtain walls (surely older than the present prominent fortress, and pre-gunpowder), as does the town of the painting; the hills rise to 200 metres; the shoreline is very steep. There should be the back of Cap Ferrat, and there should be no island, but allowing some artistic licence - notably in the exaggerated peak and castle at the extreme right of the picture, it is not wholly different. The general style of architecture looks vaguely eastern.
Note the little promontory with the Tourelle. There are two of these in the painting. This tower existed in Beatriz' time. It appears to be something like the tower of the painting, on a promontory - it is still there, incorporated in the fishermens' chapel, though no longer on the actual shoreline.
However, the clearest indicator for Villefranche is the heraldry. On the ship coming towards us from the background there is one perfectly clear cross of Savoy. The galley in the foreground has the lion of Savoy on the tilt over the stern. Both vessels have the same colour scheme for flags and pavesses, and streamers. They share that colour scheme with three of the four large four-masted ships at anchor inshore.
One suggestion has been that the setting for the painting is Marseilles. Although the fleet did call in Marseilles, that can be dismissed out of hand, from maps - whether Braun or modern charts: no match at all. If the painting had been commissioned there, it ought to have been on canvas, from Correia's account.
Maritime details
So: what can we learn from the paintings of the Portuguese ships themselves?
This writer's interest started with the sails (Fig.3). The great mainsail is clearly a vela quarteada, a sail made in four parts42 - it was vast, of course, perhaps 30 metres broad: supposed to be a Portuguese characteristic, and the weight in a single piece would have exceeded a tonne, even bone dry43 . It is laced together at its edges, and forms distinct bunts, with additional rigging to the junctions. We can clearly see the paired letters to ensure it was put together correctly, supposedly spelling out some sort of rosary44. It does not have reef points to reduce its area in strong winds, but bonnets, to increase it in light winds. Here we have a single bonnet, which has the letters at its foot - there was provision for a second bonnet. That matches texts for a later period. We cannot read too much into the details: there are different numbers of sailcloths on the front and rear of the sail, for example. One character is an A with a bar - which has led to suggestions that the painting itself is Dutch and by Anthoniszoon; but in fact it appears cast on contemporary Portuguese artillery too: it is a til. Correia says that the sails of the flagship were of white Levant cotton.
The use of bonnets links to the supposition that sails were reduced or furled at that time by lowering the yard as a whole. Yards are thus often shown lowered (as in one ship in the Santa Auta painting). In that case it is likely that the ship of unknown nationality anchored inshore is about to depart, with its yards hoisted and sails about to be unfurled.
We rarely see such clear details of mastheads as on the mizzen mast of the central ship. It is very square, with double sheaves for the halyards set within it, in the calces. That is a clear Mediterranean style - it is categorically different from northern Europe in general, and Dutch in particular. The main mast is the characteristic, colossal made-mast of the period.
The hull of the central ship very clearly has a round stern - planking curved up to a straight transom, with no sternframe. This style certainly persisted to mid-century, but is an early form - square "transom" sterns (flat panels with fashion frames) only appear from about 147045 anywhere. The central Portuguese ships - and also the three Savoyard ships at anchor inshore - are four-masters. This was quite normal for the period, albeit the great majority of ships, of smaller size, had only three.Unfortunately the absence of topgallants is no clear proof of dating either: the São João of 1535 has a main topgallant, but so did Henry VII's larger ships in the 1490's, but topgallants remained the exception during the sixteenth century.
There are numerous guns on each large ship, but they are mostly small bronze swivel guns - pointing upwards when loaded. There is no formal gundeck; no guns in the hull below the waist. That suggests a fairly old hull, in 1521. There are heavy guns in the sterncastle. However there is not a gunport lid in sight, which is fair evidence of an early date for the painting itself46. Resende states categorically that the fleet as a whole was issued with 537 additional guns, many of them large bronze guns, for this voyage. The heavy guns in the painting are all iron47, and there just are not enough. In short, the ship may be big, but it is not big enough; it may even be a whole deck short of what the Santa Catarina had. Just as an aside, the chronicles talk about the fine spacious chambers made for the party of royal Ladies for the voyage of 1521. We should remember that these fine chambers were actually full of guns, too, in most of the windows, which have no sign of any glazing or other closures.
It has been said that the painting shows one Portuguese ship from different viewpoints. Actually, there are many small differences. The flags of distinction at the mastheads - two on the central ship, one only on the others; the pavesses to the rear of the maintops. The planking details are different, the sterns are slightly different, the numbers of guns in the castles differs a little. The gunwales and their hances in the waist are different. There were, incidentally, only two unusually large ships in Beatriz' armada that could be construed as alike; and only two in the painting that can strictly be claimed to be similar - the third is largely obscured by its own sails.
Flags and decorations
The flags here are Manueline, and exactly as described by Resende48: the red and white flags actually have the remains of gold armillary spheres on them. That is another argument for an intention to depict the Beatriz voyage. Lopes de Mendonça noted one interesting point about these standards - the national arms and the armillary spheres. They are drawn as rigid squares in the wind - to be seen. The same is seen in the Santa Auta details, incidentally (and in the Royal standards, only, of the roughly contemporary painting of Henry VIII's embarkation; and in Pettyt's drawing of ships off Dover, also of about 154049). The contrast with the curling streamers in all these is marked. We have the national arms - in two different forms; and banners of the Cross of Christ. What we do not have is the Cross of Christ on the sails, and Correia's chronicle is explicit: there should have been, on the Santa Catarina - on one set of sails at least50.
The tilt over the stern was draped like that of a galley to reach the water, made of damask, lined with silks: flags and pavesses were of similar richness. While the principal colours were the Manueline crimson and white, with gold armillery spheres, there was also a lot of yellow and blue.
One other curiosity in this group: Greenwich, Leiden and Santa Auta all have flags or pennants on staves projecting forward and downwards from low down in the bows of one or more vessels, which is unusual.
Galleries (varandas)
We can see four overhanging counters in successive decks. However, there are no stern galleries. In fact stern galleries (varandas), distinct from garderobes and bellatoria51, only occur in dated depictions from about 1546, anywhere - none in any Breugel, even in 1565. They occur in chronicles such as Correia, for 1510, but written about 1560; and Barros for 1537 and 1539, but also retrospective. However, the 1533 text by Correia, only published in 1992, describes at some length the changes made to the ship. The royal Ladies simply took over the whole sterncastle for several decks down. For seamen to get at the rudder, a gallery was built outside the ship - presumably the tiller was reversed and worked with tackles, though at this period most of the steering was done with the sails. A second gallery was added above it to provide accommodation for the numerous fidalgos on board.
There are no galleries in the painting. That is almost the death-knell for any view that this was the Santa Catarina, painted from life in 1521. Correia may have been writing in India, but the ship went back there not long afterwards, and we may suppose that he saw the ship and talked to members of the crew. This writer trusts Correia implicitlyon this: not only is he the most practical of the chroniclers, but he has a rationale for the galleries, and for twin galleries, some decades before they existed anywhere else. Correia was dead long before twin galleries were common. At least, they did not exist on ships - it is an Hispano-arabic architectural term52.
In 1521 a Venetian fleet of five galleasses en route to the North called in Lisbon, and the General, Alexandre de Pesaro, was instructed to seek an audience with Dom Manuel about the spice trades. As described by Damião de Góis53, he was led into the Palace up a spiral staircase, and into the varandas of the Palace. Now those varandas are visible in Dirk Stoop's painting of the Terreiro do Paço - arcaded, open structures. Correia even describes the use of spiral staircases for the Ladies to move within the ship; a quite remarkable invention, if coincidental, otherwise. Is it coincidence that stern galleries came to be called varanda, if we consider that the Santa Catarina was moored just off the Palace? The Varanda das Damas was still part of the Palace in 1755, and features in many illustrations.
The Leiden drawing, incidentally, shows a primitive gallery on one vessel (and possibly a second) - the implications for dating the drawing and the spread of galleries have yet to be resolved.
Galleys
The pair of galleys in Savoyard colours suggests a setting not too far from Villefranche. There are crows-nests aft of the masts (necessary for tacking lateeners); there are huge lanterns, and decorated tilts draped down to the water. One curious detail appears on the first galley: a very large bronze gun on the corsia, as noted by Archibald54; but it is aft of the mainmast. One would expect such a gun to be on the centreline, and forward, but evidently not in this case. The galley also has at least five smaller guns in a row at the prow, as normal in galleys.
Henry VIII's embarkation in 1520 - a comparison denying the Beatriz connection
One final point about the likelihood that this painting is the arrival of the Infanta - or indeed the departure of the fleet from Villefranche. The painting supposedly by Cornelis Anthoniszoon and of the departure of Henry VIII from Dover in 1520 (only painted c.1540-50) ought to serve similar purposes55. The ships are similar, but we note that there are more guns in the hull, on a lower deck, and a different style of rig - more and smaller sails: topgallants, but no velas quarteadas. Two sails are painted as though of cloth of gold. We note the rigid Royal Standards, just as in the Greenwich painting. The sea incidentally is a lot less realistic than the Greenwich painting. But it is also far from smooth. It seems to this writer that this is another painting, possibly by a Dutch artist(s), which does not fit well with a single theory of sea painting.
But there is a crucial difference. This painting is about courtiers and royal egos. Henry VIII is central in the waist of one ship - it could be no one else. But the ships are alive with people in brilliant clothing who are not the crews. That above all is missing in the Greenwich painting. There are only a few seamen in the rigging, and heads seen above the pavesses; and no sign of any important personages on board, even though the chronicles name around a hundred of them.
Summary of other problems with the identification of the Greenwich painting
In addition to the absence of any of the retinue, the grandeur of which any painting of the event ought to be celebrating, there are several specific discrepancies in relation to the ship. From the chronicles, there ought to be Crosses of Christ on the sails, there ought to be double stern and side galleries, there ought to be frameworks for awnings, at the very least, on the sterncastle. There ought also to be rather more heavy guns (at least if we credit Resende's numbers), and these should certainly all be bronze, not iron.
At present, the discussion is also confined to the subject matter of the painting, which also defines the dating, since no proper tests such as dendrochronology have ever been attempted. Neither is the board construction reported for any indicators56, beyond "oak" (which only renders Italian work less likely). There is no actual evidence that the painting was made in the north or by a northerner; rather the opposite. This writer is not pretending to put in place any complete alternative theory of the wider history of maritime art, but it is apparent that what we have is not just hazy, but murky. This painting alone, and several others extant in Portugal from the same period, make that abundantly clear.
Mermaids - Gil Vicente
On a lighter note, there is one final omission from the painting, if it were indeed the arrival of the Infanta Beatriz. Gil Vicente wrote and produced the court masque for the marriage ceremonies in Lisbon, As Cortes de Jupiter. This recounts how Jupiter and Neptune agreed that 130,000 mermaids should be on duty during the voyage, to sing for the Infanta. That works out at around one every five metres, but curiously they were only to be in the Mediterranean. However that at least is explained: merpeople prefer warmer waters57.
Villefranche 1538
In 1521, Manuel had a pontoon bridge built from the walls of the Terreiro do Paço to the flagship, over which the Royal parties processed. Correia emphasises the care taken to ensure that it did not collapse under them. Since he was writing about 1532-3, Correia can have had no knowledge of what followed in 1538, at Villefranche. The Emperor Charles V had a "bridge" built out some 50 paces from his lodging ashore to the berth for flag-galleys, and met a large party of visitors arrived by galley on that bridge. The group included the Emperor, the Queen and Dauphine of France, two duchesses, the Duke of Savoy, six other dukes and three princes, and many another - the lists differ. The bridge collapsed, and they all ended up in the sea58. The accounts say that they laughed it off, but Royal egos were probably bruised. But it makes a nice contrast to end on, with the care lavished by Manuel in 1521 on "showing the flag", which is undoubtedly what that voyage was about. Whether the painting is actually a direct record of the voyage is another matter.
Acknowledgements
João Pedro Vaz provided the Correia document, vital for this
study; José Virgílio Pissarra, Nuno Varela Rubim, António
Estácio dos Reis and Paul Bloesch have also offered materials.
Footnotes
1 J.Pereira da Costa, ed, G.Correia, Crónicas de D.Manuel e de D.João III (até 1533), Lisbon 1992; kindly drawn to the writer's attention by João Pedro Vaz.
2 G.Claretta, Notizie storiche…Beatrice…., Turin 1863, pp44-5, citing L.Revelli, de memorabilibus, as given by P.Gioffredo, Storia delle Alpi marittimi, Turin 1839, Vol.IV, pp486-491.
3 Inv.BHC0705. File consulted by courtesy of Roger Quarm. The painting is 1.45x0.77m.
4 That allied fleet assembled at Barcelona (Bosio has Cagliana in Sardinia); and the central ship in the Greenwich painting is most certainly not the São João of 1535, a far more heavily armed warship of a later generation, with numerous heavy guns below the weather deck, as seen in the Tunis tapestries, even if the textual record is a little exaggerated. Hernâni Xavier presented a paper at the Academia de Marinha in 2001, touching on the Greenwich painting and the Tunis tapestry. It was reported that the ship of the painting was identified with the São João in 1535, though notes subsequently kindly provided by Xavier in fact discount this.
5 J. de Vasconcellos, ed., "Voyage de Jehan Van-Eyck", in Revista de Guimarães, Vol.XIV, 1897, pp5-45, 145-160. The evidence for travels within Iberia (p7) is not explicit: the actual text states that they descended at Baiona for four days, but their journey ended at Cascais, which suggests they were still on the galleys. Van Eyck may have been on a similar mission to Aragon in 1427, which reached Valencia: this may have been the secret journey for which he was paid in October 1428. (Texts also in J.Paviot, Portugal et Bourgogne au XVe siècle, 1995, pp204-18).
6 J. de Vasconcellos, op.cit., p16. Note also that the seas were perhaps perilous from an Anglo-French war at that time.
7 David Hockney, Secret knowledge. Rediscovering the lost techniques of the old masters, 2001, pp72ff.
8 Compiled from Vasconcellos, op.cit.; G.Lefèvre-Pontalis, ed., Chronique d'Antonio Morosini, extraits relatifs à l'histoire de France, Vol.III, Paris 1901, pp237-245; F.M.Rogers, The travels of the Infante Dom Pedro of Portugal, Cambridge MA 1961, pp31-7.
9 There are graphic accounts (at second-hand) collected by the Venetian ambassador Quirini; published from Venetian letterbooks in Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, Vol.I (1202-1509), London 1864.
10 Letters and Paper, Foreign and Domestic of the reign of Henry VIII, Part II, London 1864. For examples - 30 June 1515: "Duke of Savoy told the Pope that Renée, sister of French Queen, was offered to him". Spinelli to Wolsey, 21 Dec 1515: "the Emperor will rather give the Lady Margaret to the Duke of Savoy". Spinelli to Wolsey, 16 Jan 1517: "Duke of Savoy demands a daughter of Portugal in marriage". Spinelli to Henry VIII, 21 June 1518: "hears that after his disappointment here and in Portugal, is endeavouring to obtain the Elector of Brandenburg's daughter".
11 De rebus emanuelis, Lisbon 1571, Book 12, p467; and translation by J.Gibbs, London 1752.
12 At least three dates are given, perhaps for different stages. Curiously, Henry VIII was advised by ambassadors from the Duke about 23 October 1520 that the marriage was definite. Diarii di Marino Sanuto, ed. F.Stefani et al, Vol.XXIX, Venice 1890, col.404 (and correction in index). Report to the Signory from their Ambassador in London.
13 From the detailed lists of Correia, Góis and Resende. Osório has 22 (but 19 in Gibbs' 1752 translation); an Italian source 25.
14 Góis has 1,000; Correia only 450 toneís, which is small for all the decks described. Osório claims that some of the fleet were the largest ships ever seen in Portugal, not literally true even for the Santa Catarina at 1,000, but two were unusually large.
15 Felner ed. 1861, Vol.2.2. The text at least was compiled much later - c.1560.
16 Bernardo Rodrigues, Anais de Arzila, ed. D.Lopes, Lisbon 1915, Book 2 Chapter 77 (Vol.I, pp333-4). Though this text was not written until about 1560, Rodrigues was in Arzila about 1521. He records a general state of hunger and plague in both North Africa and "all Spain" that year, so that many of the ships returned from Villefranche, on Manuel's instructions, via Sicily and Puglia, to load wheat for Lisbon.
17 Based on 800 toneís, 18 rumo keel, 55 palmos de goa maximum breadth, a transom of 28 palmos, and proportions of the upperworks estimated from the painting. They are indicative dimensions only, probably correct to about a metre, but all very debatable.
18 Possibly some of the high-caste Indian women reputedly sent toQueen D.Maria by Albuquerque in 1510, or from Malaca in 1511; though the latter may not have survived the shipwreck of the Flor de la Mar.
19 Untraced in any other history, as yet, unless that reported to Wolsey in March 1522 as "a ship of eight s..…?". The Santa Catarina was not a large ship in European terms at that time, when an arms race had begun in warship design. The French Atlantic fleet in 1520 for example included ships of 1,500, 1,000, 800 and two of 700 tons.
20 S.Guichenon, Histoire Genéalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoie, Vol.II, 1778, p202.
21 Francisco (Marques de) Sousa Viterbo, "O Dote de D.Beatriz de Portugal, Duqueza de Saboya", in Arquivo Histórico Portuguez, VI, 1908, pp118-137; VII, 1909, pp29-41, 102-120, 161-8, 293-307. Claretta, op.cit., pp44ff, extant documents: 35 pieces of tapestry, 1590 ducats assessed as 1056; a Turkey carpet 26x9 palmos, 47 as 30.
22 Sousa Viterbo, op.cit., p123. Gioffredo, Vol.IV p491, states that the peste arrived with the Portuguese (obviously another flashpoint), embittering the public reception, and lingered for seven years in Nice.
23 J.da Felicidade Alves, Francisco d'Holanda, Da fábrica….Lisboa, Lisbon 1984, p96.
24 Guichenon, op.cit., pp228-30.
25 Perhaps as a subsequent gift, to explain the setting; but not part of her dowry, which included "tapestries and other things" among the household effects. No paintings are listed by A.Caetano de Sousa in the inventory made in Savoy - Provas da história genealógica da Casa Real Portuguesa, Coimbra 1948 edition, Vol.II, pp18-81. Elaborate farewells were made between Beatriz and her aunt, D.Leonor, widow of João II: a noted patron of all arts, and of the Santa Auta panels in particular. Leonor must be a candidate.
26 José de Figueiredo,"Armada Portuguesa num pôrto do mar: pintura de Gregório Lopes…", in Lusitania, parts V/VI (Camoniano), Lisbon 1925, un-numbered pages between 262-3 + plate; H.Lopes de Mendonca, "Uma armada Portuguesa do século XVI", in Lusitania, Lisbon, Dec.1925 (Vol.III), pp141-151+ plates. Both contain a degree of wishful thinking, and demonstrable inaccuracies.
27 Information kindly provided by Paula Pelúcia Aparício.
28 Kindly re-examined by Pieter van der Merwe in 2001. The date could possibly read 1905, or 1902.
29 M.Russell, Visions of the Sea, Leiden 1983. "The school of Patinier shares one common characteristic with the Venetians, and indeed all painters of water in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries…smooth undisturbed surface of water" (p11) - consider only Greenwich, Santa Auta, etc. "It has at last been generally agreed…a Northern artist…c1520-30….Anthoniszoon a likely candidate" (p41). At page 55, Russell dismisses the "tiny rippling wave crests that hardly disturb …the Patinier-like calm", ignoring the water lapping up the hulls, and makes much of the absence of a "unifying force of the wind" direction, whereas discrepancies from one ship to another are marginal at most. The main yard of the central ship may appear squared and not compatible with the wave patterns, but the centreline of the sail is slewed well out to starboard - witness the position of the main stay pressed by the sail, itself unusual. Albeit the picture is a collection of individual portraits, the composition is more suspect on the grounds of ships under full sail in such confined waters, and one having just sailed through the position of a galley.
Or, R.Preston, The seventeenth century marine painters of the Netherlands, 1974, pp72: "…Bruegel perhaps the first master inspired to paint a truly marine painting….Greenwich painting by Anthoniszoon [pre-Bruegel, note]…..a work quite isolated in its concept…..turn of the century before a school of marine painting became recognisable in the Netherlands…. less surprising that the Low Countries should produce the first and greatest school of marine painting…. their artists painted the sea because they were never far from it". This manifestly ignores early Portuguese works, and the proximity of Portugal to the sea.
It does seem perverse to ascribe the Greenwich painting to a North Netherlandish school effectively on the basis of the background, when those schools could not match the wealth of the subjects in the foreground - the ships and the sea - at the supposed date.
30 J.da Gama Pimentel Barata, "The Rock of Sintra: Columbus' landfall: notes on the article of Dr.R.Rose (MM, Vol.63, 1977, p227-230)" [including a comment by E.H.H.Archibald], in Mariner's Mirror, Vol.64, 1978, pp186-7. There is an error in this: a ship in the background identified as an archaic two-masted type actually has a fore-course on close examination. Pimentel Barata appears to follow Figueiredo in believing that the painting was in Portugal until 1911, but again gives no evidence.
31 Portugal e os descobrimentos, ed F.Faria Paulino, 1992 (EXPO catalogue), between pp236-40. See also the MNAA online catalogue for the history.
32 These are not considered in the major study Retábulo de Santa Auta, estudo de investigação, Instituto de Alta Cultura, Lisbon 1972.
33 M.Batoreo in Catalogue: Um pintor em Évora no tempo de D.Manuel I, 1997, pp177-9.
34 J.da Gama Pimentel Barata, "Estudo dos navios…" in Retábulo de Santa Auta, op.cit., p27, fn12.
35 The well-known miniature of the Leitura Nova (Além-Douro 4), attributed to Álvaro Pires, is sometimes said to represent the departure of Beatriz' armada. Unfortunately, the associated text was dated 1513, and the ships represented are more mediaeval than Manueline.
36 Both reproduced by L.R.Santos, "Hendrick Vroom em Portugal", in Bol. Museu Nac. Arte Antiga, Vol.1, 1947, pp207-211+Figs.1, 2.
37 Russell, op.cit., pp102, 116-121, 141 and notes.
38 Russell reproduces three of the four: MNAA, Rome and Budapest (Figs 113-5). The latter is actually radically different, and probably later, with Dutch ships only, bare poles and a prominent foreground shore scene.
39 "Man of war and the fall of Icarus". Collected in for example T.I.Gunn-Graham, "The marine engravings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder", in American Neptune, Vol.58, 1998, pp329-340. The Greenwich file seems to attribute the comparison to E.T.Coelho, 1955. It is often said that these must be based on Italian models from 1551-2; yet they include some very northern types like busses and fluyts.
40 Genoa, Collezione Eridania, reproduced in E.Poleggi, Iconografia di Genova e delle riviere, Genoa 1976, p58, Fig.37; "Arrivo a Genova di Carlo V nel 1533".
41 J.de Vandenesse, Journal des voyages de Charles-Quint de 1514 a 1551, Bruxelles 1874, p106 (Claretta p85 has Savona).
42 A term only seen by this writer in the Palha MSS (of D.António de Ataide), Port. 4794, Harvard University Library, eg in the Velame da nao S.Bartolomeu (1624). A query in Mariner's Mirror, Vol.75, 1989, p77, elicited no other instances, but there seems little doubt that the practice at least is older, and illustrated in this painting.
43 Later No.1 naval canvas was 20 kgs per bolt, which converts to about one kilogram per square metre, sewn up, but without reinforcments, boltropes, etc.
44 This idea exists as a wider principle, and is indeed drawn as AMGP, Ave Maria Gratia Plena, on the single join between sail and bonnet in Palacio's Instruccion Nautica of 1587. In commentaries it is traceable only as far as João Braz de Oliveira, Os navios da descoberta, Clube Militar Naval, 1894; published as "Navios portuguezes do tempo das descobertas e conquistas", in Revista Portugueza colonial e maritima, Vol.1, pt 2, 1897-8, pp 526-546; 1940 edition, p26, (copy kindly provided by João Pedro Vaz) but which in fact gives no evidence. The letters on the sails here are not readable in any complete sequence. The practical function is not in doubt, bearing in mind the size and weight of the bundled sail, often to be handled in adverse conditions.
45 Pers.comm.: Brad Loewen; from a Basque votive painting, reproduced by the Museo Naval, San Sebastian.
46 This contrasts with the Tunis tapestries, where there are gunport lids on the São João, but in fact the guns are universally depicted black - iron guns, and surely incorrect.
47 A further contrast with the Hampton Court painting, where both iron and bronze are portrayed.
48 Garcia de Resende, Ida da Infanta Dona Breatiz pera Saboya. In E.Verdelho, Livro das obras de Garcia de Resende, Lisbon 1994, pp491-506+notes p627. Resende emerges as a pedantic sycophant, with little knowledge outside the court; no wonder he was to Gil Vicente the bloated and derided Tamboril (the monkfish), in Cortes de Jupiter, written for this occasion.
49 F.Howard, Sailing ships of war, 1400-1860, London 1979, pp46-7.
50 Decoration of sails by painters was probably the exception rather than the norm, and may not have been applied to spare sets. None are shown in the Santa Auta painting or Leiden drawing either. Technically the Cross of Christ should only have been borne by Royal ships or ships with members of the Order on board.
51 Bellatoria were fighting galleries on the aft side of the sterncastle, itself built above the hulls of thirteenth century Mediterranean ships and sometimes also enclosing the looms of side rudders (eg J.H.Pryor, "The naval architecture of crusader transport ships- II", in Mariner's Mirror, Vol.70, 1984, p275-292). While there seems to be no continuity, this remains another possible origin for galleries; and certainly soldiers were stationed on galleries in action.
52 It is sometimes said that the word varanda was adopted from India, whence it also spread to England. In fact Hobson Jobson is adamant that while there is a similar Sanskrit word it is not the origin, and the term was taken to India by the Portuguese. João Braz d'Oliveira in Os navios de Vasco da Gama, Lisbon 1892, p12, suggested that galleries themselves were adopted in sixteenth century Portuguese ships from the old houses of Portugal (da provincia), but offers no date or other evidence.
53 Damião de Góis, Crónica do felicíssimo rei D.Manuel, Part IV, Coimbra 1955, Chapter LXXXI. Sanuto names the Captain of the Flanders galleys as Vincenzo de Priuli, who reached Plymouth on 8 December 1521; this meeting was after the departure of Beatriz.
54 E.H.H.Archibald, The dictionary of sea-painters of Europe and America, 3rd ed 2000, p48.
55 N.Beet. "Cornelis Anthonisz", in Oud Holland, 1939, pp160-184, 199-221. Summary by G.Callendar, "Cornelis Anthoniszoon", in Mariner's Mirror, Vol.25, 1939, pp442-4. (Cornelis was not the brother of Anthony; there were at least three painters involved, and an equally plausible suggestion is that it was in fact for an event of 1532).
56 L.Preston, Sea and river painters of the Netherlands in the 17th century, Oxford 1937, p74, notes varying preferences for board thickness and bevelling of edges; Nuno Gonçalves. Novos documentos. Estudo da pintura portuguesa do séc.XV, Inst.Port.Museus, Lisbon 1994, presents a detailed study of the boards in the St.Vincent panels in the MNAA.
57 J.K.Rowling; alias Newt Scamander, Fantastic beasts & where to find them, Obscurus Books, 2001; aka 0-7475-5466-8.
58 Guichenon, op.cit., p220; J.de Vandenesse, op.cit., pp140-2; Gioffredo, op.cit., Vol.V, pp109-110.
