Italian Reports on America 1493-1522: Letters, Dispatches, and Papal Bulls (review)

Short Notices 281 Parergon 20.1 (2003) literature, and music. One chapter considers the contribution of women, and the extent to which they were involved in the many changes of the twelfth century. All this is done succinctly, clearly and reliably, and Swanson’s work can be recommended as a good, up-to-date introduction. But he also makes an interesting and useful contribution to the debate over the idea of a ‘twelfthcentury renaissance’, arguing that the phrase, in the sense of ‘intellectual and cultural dynamism’, can be best applied to the development of theology as an academic discipline, supported by philosophical and educational changes. He also postulates other, separate renaissances in the ‘long twelfth century’: one in the area of canon law and political views, and one in the arts, music and vernacular literature. This appears to remove from the idea of a ‘renaissance’ any connection with the classical heritage, but it is a good starting-point for further debate and discussion. Toby Burrows Scholars’Centre The University of Western Australia Symcox, Geoffrey, ed., Italian Reports on America 1493-1522: Letters, Dispatches, and Papal Bulls (Repertorium Columbianum X), Turnhout, Brepols, 2001; cloth; pp. xiii, 161; EUR50.00; ISBN 2503511805. This volume continues the dedicated work, first planned by the late Fredi Chiappelli, of re-editing in a single, up-to-date series, the contemporary sources that relate to Columbus’s four voyages. The documents are transcribed in their original language and then translated into English to make them more easily available to monolingual scholars. Many of the sources have been previously edited, particularly by Guglielmo Berchet (in the Raccolta produced in 1892), and this re-edition is designed not simply to ensure that the new, more readily available series is complete, but also to provide a clearer indication of the chronology of the dissemination of information. This collection, which is largely composed of documents that exist in only one copy, does not involve much philological work although the transcriptions have been meticulously checked against the originals. The main change has been the reorganisation of the material into chronological order. The editor holds that this makes it easier to follow the narrative sequence of the discoveries and their transmission to Italy, first to the princes and then to the populace at large. Destroying the archival 282 Short Notices Parergon 20.1 (2003) composition of the material can, of course, also destroy evidence of the structure of the source, but in this case, where the originals have been long studied, it seems acceptable. The texts and the translations are clear and precise and they are provided with brief biographies of the authors, and some factual identification of the prices of currency and the like. There is no attempt to relate the information in the texts to information from other sources. As most of the texts are letters of ambassadors and others, Geoffrey Symcox devotes some pages of the short introduction to a reconsideration of the position which diplomatic practice had reached at the time, revising Mattingly’s classic statement. While it is a useful summary of the views of Fubini and others, it does not add very obviously to our understanding of the compilation of the texts. Although it is useful to be reminded that diplomacy was not a profession at the time and that the authors of the various letters came from a variety of backgrounds such as law, architecture, scholarship and theology, the argument about the relationship of state centralisation in the period and the rank and appointment of envoys, which is still contentious, seems irrelevant to the production of these reports. Equally, the letters from merchants are seen as probable newsletters similar to those the Fuggers later produced, and the possibility that they emerged from a nascent consular service is not considered. The source from which the writers drew their information is shown to be primarily the Columbus letter, and while the details not in the letter are noted, only probability is argued for their source – gossip at the Spanish court, or the tales of the ordinary mariners. The reasons that led to the three papal bulls, which eventually divided sovereignty of the rest of the world between...