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Is Ireland worth bothering about? Classical perceptions of Ireland revisited in Renaissance Italy

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Abstract

Whereas in late medieval Italy, Ireland was viewed positively, Renaissance writers had little time for it. This changed attitude is ascribable to the rediscovery of ancient geographers, especially Strabo, for whom Ireland marked the end of the known world and was thus of no concern to theoikoumene, whilst at the same time guaranteeing, by its very position and savagery, the integrity of that Rome-centered world. This view continued to hold sway even after the discovery of the New World, which it also in fact helped to make sense of: the savages of the New World being “Irish-like,” the edge of theoikoumene had not moved further out but simply got thicker, and its center was thus still in Rome. Only for a while in the mid-sixteenth century did Italians take any real interest in Ireland, producing two original descriptions of the country, both, however, in the name of that sameoikoumene: one (negative) to prove the inevitability of Ireland's papally ordained submission to England, the other (positive) to depict the Irish as potential allies against the “anti-ecumenical” menace of Henry VIII. But the Irish were soon of little interest again, except for the (Horatian) entertainment value they provided.

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References

  1. On the economic links between Italy and Ireland see: E. M. Carus-Wilson,Medieval Merchant Venturers, London, Methuen, 1967; A. Cosgrove,Late Medieval Ireland, 1370–1541, Dublin, Helicon, 1981; K. Down, “Colonial Society and Economy in the High Middle Ages,” chap. 15 ofA New History of Ireland. II:Medieval Ireland 1169–1534, ed. A. Cosgrove, Oxford, Clarendon, 1987, pp. 439–91; F. Melis,I mercanti italiani dell'Europa medievale e rinascimentale, Florence, Le Monnier, 1990; M. D. O'Sullivan,Italian Merchant Bankers in Ireland in the Thirteenth Century, Dublin, Figgis, 1962.

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  2. Libro di Benedetto Bordone nel quale si ragiona de tutte l'isole del mondo, Venice, Zoppino, 1528, Libro I, p. Ivo. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in this article are my own. I am greatly indebted to Emeritus Professor John Richmond of University College Dublin for his invaluable assistance in teasing out the meaning of many a Latin turn of phrase, and I apologize to him for not always heading his advice.

  3. I am quoting from the chapter “De Scotia & mirrandis apud Orcades arboribus, suos fructus in aves mutantibus. Item de Hibernia” and the “Praefatio” ofIn Europam, in: A. S. Piccolomini,Opera quae extant omnia, Basle, Henricpetrinus, [1551].

  4. Orlando innamorato, I, vii, 70.

  5. Chiericati's account is reproduced in: M. Purcell, “St Patrick's Purgatory: Francesco chiericati's Letter to Isabella d'Este,”Seanchas Ardmhacha, 12, 2, 1987: 1–10. On the Italian pilgrims to St Patrick's Purgatory see: J.-M. Picard, “The Italian Pilgrims,” in:The Medieval Pilgrimage to St Patrick's Purgatory. Lough Derg and the European Tradition, ed. M. Haren & Y. de Pontfarcy, Enniskillen, Clogher Historical Society, 1988, pp. 169–89.

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  6. F. degli Uberti,Il dittamondo e le rime, ed. G. Corsi, Bari, Laterza, 1952. The lines quoted are: IV, xxvi, 34–36, 32–33, 43–45, 94 (Vol. I, pp. 329–30). The Dante reference is toInferno, XXVI, 117.

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  7. This is what Solinus has to say about Ireland (C. Iulii Solini,Collectanea rerum memorabilium 22, 2–4, ed. T. Mommsen, Berlin, Weidmann, 1958, p. 100): “Hibernia [Brittaniaes insulae] proximat magnitudine, inhumana incolarum ritu aspero, alias ita pabulosa, ut pecua, nisi interdum a pastibus arceantur, ad periculum agat satias. illic nullus anguis avis rara, gens inhospita et bellicosa. sanguine interemptorum hausto prius victores vultus suos oblinunt. fas ac nefas eodem loco ducunt. apis nusquam: advectum inde pulverem seu lapillos si quis sparserit inter alvearia, examina favos deserent” (“Ireland is close in size [to the island of Britain]; it is an inhuman place due to the ferocious behaviour of its inhabitants, but it is so rich in grazing that the livestock, unless it be taken away from the pastures, is at risk from overeating. There are no snakes there, few birds, and the people are inhospitable and warlike. Victors in battle, having first drunk of the blood of those they kill, then paint their faces with it. Right and wrong is all one to them. There are no bees, and if anyone takes dust or stones from there and scatters them in hives, the bees will swarm off, abandoning their combs”).

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  8. J.-M. Boivin, “Le mythe irlandais dans la littérature du moyen âge,”Collection de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure de Jeunes Filles, 41, 1988: 137–54 (p. 142).

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  9. Uberti,Dittamondo, IV, xxvi, 28–31 (pp. 328–29).

  10. Orlando furioso, X, 87–92.

  11. On the closure of St Patrick's Purgatory, see: M. Haren, “The Close of the Medieval Pilgrimage: the Papal Suppression and its Aftermath,” in:The Medieval Pilgrimage to St Patrick's Purgatory, pp. 190–201. Ariosto may have been voicing the scepticism of Chiericati, with whom he would have been acquainted at the very least through Isabella d'Este.

  12. The relevant stanzas regarding Oberto areOrlando furioso, XI, 61–80. When Ruggiero had freed the naked Angelica from the same rock, his thought was of raping her (Orlando furioso, X, 111–15). Oberto's behavior is all the more remarkable in that, according to the romance tradition which inspired Ariosto, the “chevaliers irlandais, hostiles à la chevalerie bretonne, ignorent tout de la chevalerie” (“Irish knights, in their hostility to Breton knights, show a total ignorance of chivalry” [Boivin, “Le mythe irlandais,” p. 147]).

  13. P. Giovio,Descriptio Britanniae, Scotiae, Hyberniae et Orchadum, Venice, Tramezino, 1548. There is a modern edition of the work in: P. IoviiOpera. IX:Dialogi et descriptiones, ed. E. Travi & M. Penco, Rome, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1984, pp. 119–22. All quotations are taken from the modern edition, but have been corrected in places where the editors misread or misunderstood the original edition.

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  14. On Conn O'Neill see: N. Canny,From Reformation to Restoration: Ireland 1534–1660, Dublin, Helicon, 1987; S. G. Ellis,Tudor Ireland. Crown, Community and the Conflict of Cultures 1470–1603, London, Longman, 1985;A New History of Ireland. III:Early Modern Ireland, ed. T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin & F. J. Byrne, Oxford, Clarendon, 1976.

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  15. IoviiOpera. IX, pp. 119, 119, 120, 120, 121, 122, 122.

  16. The Geography of Strabo, with an English Translation by H. L. Jones, Vol. I, London, Heinemann, 1960, pp. 442–43; Vol. II, London, Heinemann, 1923, pp. 258–59. For Solinus's opinion, see n. 7. Pomponius Mela, the other ancient “geographer” most widely available in Renaissance Italy, besides of course Ptolemy (who, because of the nature of his work, does not actually have anything to sayabout (Ireland), writes (Pomponius Mela., Iulius Solinus. Itinerarium Antonini …, Venice, Aldus, 1518, pp. 35vo−36ro—I quote from the only edition available to me): “super Britaniam Ibernia est …cultores eius inconditi sunt, & omnium virtutum ignari …pietatis admodum expertes” (“beyond Britain is Ireland … its inhabitants are uncouth and ignorant of all virtues … and are quite without humanity”). [Modern critical editions, including Pomponii MelaeDe Chorographia libri tres, una cum indice verborum, ed. G. Ranstrand, Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia XXVIII, Göteborg, University of Göteborg, 1971, III, 53 (p. 56), haveIuverna instead ofIbernia.—W.H.]

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  17. Giraldi CambrensisTopographia hibernica et expugnatio hibernica, ed. J. F. Dimock, Wiesbaden, Kraus Reprint, 1964, pp. 151 & 164. Much of course has been written about Gerald, but see in particular: R. Bartlett,Gerald of Wales, Oxford, Clarendon, 1982.

  18. Polydori Vergilii UrbinatisAnglicae historiae libri vigintiseptem, Basle, Guarinus, 1570, pp. 222–23. On Vergil (who will be spelt thus throughout, whereas Virgil will refer to the Roman poet) see:D. Hay, Polydore Vergil, Renaissance Historian and Man of Letters, Oxford, University Press, 1952. There are no negative descriptions of this sort (many of which are derived directly from Giraldus) in Giovio, who passes no remark either on the language of the Irish. In this connection it is interesting to note that the conquerors of the New World, and in particular Columbus, considered what they saw the natives' inability to speak as one of the marks of their inferiority (see: T. Todorov,La conquête de l'Amérique. La question de l'autre, Paris, Seuil, 1982, pp. 36–37).

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  19. I am thinking in particular of the late sixteenth-century works by William Camden (Britannia, sive Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae chorographica descriptio), John Derricke (The Image of Ireland), Raphael Holinshed (The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Irelande) and Richard Stanyhurst (De rebus in Hibernia gestis), on which see: D. B. Quinn,The Elizabethans and the Irish, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1966. Strangely,Representing Ireland. Literature and the Origins of Conflict, 1534–1660, ed. B. Bradshaw, A. Hadfield & W. Malley, Cambridge, University Press, 1993, which is on the same subject and takes as its chronological starting-point the year in which the first edition of Vergil'sAnglica historica came out, does not mention this work, in spite of the influence it is bound to have had on later English representations of Ireland.

  20. Muenster'sCosmography was enormously popular, with a great number of German and French editions, and also Latin and Italian ones (many of them posthumous). His description of Ireland and its variations is a complex matter which deserves fuller investigation, but on which I touch in two forthcoming articles: “Paolo Giovio'sDescriptio Hyberniae: Humanist Chorography or Political Manifesto?” in:Acta International Association for Neo-Latin Studies. IXth Congress (Bari, 29 August–3 September 1994), forthcoming, and “La bruttezza come categoria politica: il caso dell'Irlanda,” in:Disarmonia, bruttezza e bizzarria nel Rinascimento. Atti del VII Convegno internazionale di studi umanistici (Chianciano-Pienza, 17–20 luglio 1995), forthcoming. Suffice it to say here that in the original, German, edition of the work (S. Muenster,Cosmographia. Beschreibung aller Lender, Basle, Henricpetrinus, 1545, p. xxxix —the Basle, 1544 edition is the same, and possibly too the Frankfurt, 1537 edition, which I have not however been able to consult) there is a short description of Ireland, in which it is said of the Irish that they are “grob, unhöfflich und fast ruch” (“coarse, uncivilized and almost wild”) and that “der künig von Engelland ist herr über dise insel” (“the King of England is lord over this island”). This is the description of Ireland which appears in the first Latin (Basle, 1550) and French (Basle, 1552) editions. In the third German edition (Basle, Henricpetrinus, 1556, p. xxxix), as in the third Latin edition (Basle, 1554—I have not been able to consult the second Latin [Basle, 1552] edition), and the two Italian editions (Basle, 1558 & 1757), we find the addition of a reference to Conn O'Neill (decreased—although he died in 1559): “Hultonie grössers theils Hibernie ist vorgestanden su unsern zeiten Conatius Honel berümpt in kriegen, welcher vier tausent reisig und zwölff tausent zu fuss wider Havardum den Engellender gefürt had, darnach ist er in freüntschafft kommen mit den Englellendern, und had frid mit jnen gehalten. Do er nun gestorben …” (“Over Ulster, which is the biggest part of Ireland, there ruled in our times Conn O'Neill, famous in war, who led four thousand horsemen and twelve thousand footmen against Howard the Englishman, then became friends with the English and made peace with them. Now that he is dead …”). By the fifth German edition (Basle, 1556) and the fourth Latin edition (Basle, 1572) the original description of Ireland has been incorporated into a fully-blown plagiarism of Giovio. What happens in the French editions I have not been able to investigate properly.

  21. G. Botero,Relationi universali, Pt. I, Vol. II, Lib. III, Venice, Vecchi, 1618, p. 51: “E questi più che gli altri si sono mantenuti nella sincerità della Fede Cattolica, contra l'arti, e tirannie usate da gl'Inglesi per infettarli dell'empietà di Calvino, e di Zvinglio, Gli habitanti, che (come scrive Strabone) stimavano cosa Iaudabile il mangiare i loro genitori morti, hanno ancora dell'agreste e del salvatico assai” (“And these more than the others have remained steadfast in the truth of, the Catholic Faith against the cunning and tyranny used by the English to infect them with the impiety of Calvin and Zwingli. The inhabitants, who [as Strabo writes] considered it praiseworthy to eat their dead parents, are still quite wild and savage”).

  22. Gerusalemme liberata I, 44, 8. Tasso, it should be noted, had carefully read d'Anania'sUniversale fabrica (see: B. Basile,Poëta melancholicus: tradizione classica e follia nell'ultimo Tasso, Pisa, Pacini, 1984, chap. VI: “Sogni di terre lontane”, pp. 325–68). The story of Astatio and Arrenopia is told inHecatommithi III, i.

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  23. Gerusalemme liberata XV, 32, 1–4.

  24. IoviiOpera, IX, p. 90. As this quotation makes clear (and indeed, as is repeated at the outset of each section of the book), Giovio sees himself in theDescriptio, as completing the work of Ptolemy, filling in the gaps of theGeography, as it were. He is thus providing a “pictura” (“painting”) and the “quale” (the “what”), where Ptolemy had provided a “figuratio” (“figure”) and the “quantum” (the “how much”), to say it in the (Latin) terms used at the beginning of theGeography to explain the difference between geography and chorography (see: Claudii Ptolomei …Geographiae opus …, Argentoratum [Strasbourg], Ioannes Schottus, 1513, p. 5). That Giovio did not intend to write simply about the British Isles is clear from the following quote taken from the dedication of theDescriptio, to Alessandro Farnese (IoviiOpera, IX, pp. 89–90): “Igitur totius cogniti orbis imperia et regiones, regum opes, ingenia, res gestae, gentium item mores, viri bellica virtute aut literis clari, terrarumque demum dotes, atque miracula illustri enarrata ordine nomini tuo dicabuntur … Europam itaque, antiquorum sequentes ordinem, primo describemus, incohantes a Britannia, quanquam iure optimo ab Italia, quondam gentium omnium victrice, ipsaque ab aeterno fatalique imperio augusta urbe initium capere daberemus…” (“Therefore all the kingdoms and regions of the known world, the riches of kings, the talents, the deeds, the customs of peoples, the men famous for their military valor or their learning, the gifts of various lands, and the miracles all clearlytold, are dedicated to your name … So we shall first describe Europe, following the order of the ancients, and start with Britain, although by right we should begin with Italy, once upon a time the conqueror of all peoples, and with that very city made noble for all ages by her imperial destiny”). That is why I say theDescriptio is an embryonic cosmography (on why it was never completed—besides not containing other partstof the world, it is interrupted before Henry VIII's divorce, and death—see my forthcoming article “Paolo Giovio'sDescriptio Hyberniae”), in reply to T. F. Mayer, “Reginald Pole in Paolo Giovio'sDescriptio: A Strategy for Reconversion,”The Sixteenth Century Journal, XVI, 4, 1985: 431–50 (the only scholarly study to date of Giovio'sDescriptio), who claims (quite rightly) that in order to understand the work properly we need to be able to tell to what “genre … it should be assigned.” If Ptolemy is thus the mould into which Giovio pours his geographical knowledge, his models for writing a “cosmography” would have been Strabo (whom he quotes at the beginning of theDescriptio), but also presumably Solinus and Pomponius Mela (whose works had enjoyed great popularity since the advent of printing and were soon to be translated into Italian, just as Strabo was to be—see below n. 28), G. Salmeri, “Tra politica e antiquaria: lettura di Strabone nel XV e XVI secolo,” in:Strabone e l'Italia antica, ed. G. Maddoli, Naples, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1988, pp. 289–312. and amongst the moderns, Pius II (whose much reprintedCosmographia was also shortly to be translated into Italian) and probably Muenster (see above n. 20) S. Muenster,Cosmographia. Beschreibung aller Lender, Basle, Henricpetrinus, 1545, p. xxxix; he would also have been influenced by Pliny and, to a degree, Caesar (both quoted at the beginning of theDescriptio). With regard to what models Giovio might have sought to imitate in his actual descriptions of individual countries (and in particular Ireland), it should be born in mind that his approach is not the same for each one: whereas England (“Britain”) and Scotland are seen more from the perspective of the historian, Ireland, the Hebrides and the Orkneys are described more from the point of view of the ethnographer. It does not appear therfore that Giovio was motivated by the overriding desire to imitate any one author in particular. Moreover, since the authors of antiquity had precious little to say about Ireland, he cannot, in that respect, have been copying an ancient source (indeed a lot of the information he provides appears to have been relayed to him by personal informants). Nevertheless, it seems to me that if there is a specific influence at work in the description of Ireland, it has to be that of Tacitus, who is one of the authors most frequently referred to by name in theDescriptio. Giovio always cites him, however, in connection with theAgricola, whereas it is in fact theGermania, I would venture to say, which is his true inspiration. Besides an equally objective approach to their subject (or at least equally sympathetic—untainted by the kind of “parti pris” one finds, say, in Vergil or Giraldus, or even Solinus and Pomponius Mela, not to mention Strabo), Giovio and Tacitus also seem to share the desire of painting a picture of a foreign people which is both rounded

  25. What I call the Ptolemaic barrier against the New World, linking the British Isles and Spain, was already being erected in the first vernacular work of geography, Francesco Berlinghieri's “terza rima” rendering of Ptolemy (F. Berlinghieri,Geographia, Florence, Todescho, [1480], Bk II, no pag.): “Claudio tholomeo il dí secondo/Ibernia & Albione isole, Hispania/tripartita allo extremo pon del mondo” (“On the second day Claudius Ptolemy sets the islands of Hibernia and Albion, and tripartite Spain at the end of the world”).

  26. G. B. Ramusio,Sommario dell'istoria dell'Indie occidentali cavato dalli libri scritti dal signor don Pietro Martire milanese, in:Navigazioni e viaggi, ed. M. Milanesi, Vol. V, Turin, Einaudi, 1985, pp. 194–95.

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  27. On how the classical tradition played a crucial role in shaping the image of the “new” see:The Classical Tradition and the Americas, Vol. I.1:European Images of the Americas and the Classical Tradition, ed. W. Haase & M. Reinhold, Berlin & New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1994, especially the preface by W. Haase (pp. v–xxxiii), a comprehensive bibliographical essay, as well as the articles by O.A.W. & M. Dilke (“The Adjustment of Ptolemaic Atlases to Feature the New World,” pp. 117–34), and P. Mason (“Classical Ethnography and Its Influence on the European Perception of the Peoples of the New World,” pp. 135–72). Also relevant are: J. Gil, “Los modelos clásicos en el Descubrimiento,”Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana, 1, 1993: 135–54, and H. Hofmann, “Die Geburt Amerikas aus dem Geist der Antike,” in this journal (IJCT), 1.4, Spring 1995: 15–47.

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  28. The first edition of the Guarino/Tifernas translation of Strabo was printed in Rome (by Sweynheym & Pannartz) in 1469, the Greek text was first published, by the Aldine press, in 1516, and the Italian translation, by Buonacciuoli, came out in Venice (Senese) in 1562–65. For more on the Renaissance reception of Strabo see: G. Salmeri, “Tra politica e antiquaria: lettura di Strabone nel XV e XVI secolo,” in:Strabone e l'Italia antica, ed. G. Maddoli, Naples, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1988, pp. 289–312.

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  29. For Giovio see n. 24. D'Anania (Universale fabrica, p. 1) writes: “L'Europa…hebbe in questo nostro hemispero, se ben la minore, la più bella, & la più habitata parte, tanto dell'Asia, quanto dell'Africa…circondandola nel meriggio, e nell'Oriente questo nostro Mediterraneo” (“Europe occupied in this our hemisphere, even though the smallest, yet the most beautiful and populated part, compared with both Asia and Africa, being surrounded to the south and the east by this our Mediterranean”). D'Anania (Universale fabrica, p.2) includes Ireland in“questa felice parte”—“Abraccia questa felice parte nella Zona temperata, oltra l'Isola d'Hirlanda, & d'Inghilterra…” (“This happy land includes, in the temperate zone, besides the island of Hibernia and England…”)—yet I think it is fair to say that he tends to view it as not being quite “like us.” Certainly the way he was read by Tasso would confirm this (see Basile,Poëta melancholicus). In the dedication of theRelationi (no page no.) to Duke Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, Botero says: “Hor, havendo io finito una peregrinatione di tanti anni…nella quale io ho girato l'uno, & l'altro emisfero; ricercato i siti de' paesi…e (quel che mi haveva mosso all'impresa) lo stato della Religione Christiana per il mondo…” (“Now, having completed a peregrination of many years, during which I traveled through one and the other hemisphere, researching the lay of the lands, and [which is what had led me to such an undertaking] the state of the Christian religion throughout the world…”).

  30. Vergil's description of Ireland is preceded by an account of its cession by the pope, Alexander II, to the English King, Henry II (Polydori…Anglicae historiae libri, p. 220): “rex per legatos quamprimum Alexandrum oravit, ut Hyberniam quam ipse nuper domuerat, ad regnum Angliae sua autoritate adiungeret, quod haud gravatè fecit pontifex: nam cum nihil inde emolumenti haberet, & Hyberni rudes atque sylvestres matrimonium (singuli enim pro opibus, quisque quamplurimas uxores habebant) multaque alia quae nostrae religionis sunt, nondum recte servarent, est arbitratus illos cultiores, rerumque divinarum peritiores fore, si uni duntaxat regi Christiano potentissimo parerent” (“the King, through his ambassadors, at once petitioned Alexander to use his authority to join Ireland, which he had just subdued, to the kingdom of England. The pope did so with little hesitation, for Ireland provided him with no income, and the Irish, uncouth and wild as they were, did not yet properly observe matrimony [indeed, depending on how wealthy he was, each man had as many wives as possible] or many of the other practices of our religion; he was thus of the opinion that they would become more civilized and gain a better understanding of divine matters, if they all at least obeyed one, Christian and most mighty king”). Because he believed in the supremacy of Rome, Vergil had serious problems coming to terms with Henry VIII's break with Rome (see Hay,Polydore Vergil).

  31. The Geography of Strabo, Vol. I, pp. 444–45. Ierne is of course Ireland.

  32. On Pius's debt to Strabo see: N. Casella, “Pio II tra geografia e storia: la ‘Cosmografia’,”Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 26, 1972: 35–112.

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  33. Virgil,Georgics I, 30. There are some ways in which Renaissance representations of Ireland and traditional representations of Thule (on which see: M. Mund-Dopchie, “La survie littéraire de la Thulé de Pythéas. Un exemple de la permanence de schémas antiques dans la culture européenne,”L'Antiquité Classique, 59, 1990: 79–97) can be said to overlap, especially with regard to their end-of-world position and function, but there is no evidence that Italians of the Renaissance confused Ireland with Thule (and Ireland was not, it would seem, one of the countries traditionally identified with Thule), which makes Tasso's implied identification all the more “provocative,” alerting us to the fact that there must have been a specific reason for his doing so. Regarding the expression “nihil dignum,” it is interesting to note that it re-surfaces in Mercator (G. Mercator,Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes, Amsterdam, Hondius, 1606, p. 51) with reference to Ulster: “Nihil in his [regionibus] memoratu dignum occurrit nisi Hibernicos regulos commemorare velim,” (“Nothing has occurred in these [regions] which is worthy of being recalled, unless I should mention the Irish chieftains”).

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  34. This interpretation would be at odds with the alleged success of theDesoriptio in Britain (see E. Cochrane,Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance, Chicago, University Press, 1981, p. 367), but is lent strength by Mayer's reading of theDescriptio as a work “designed to present an unfavorable portrait of Henry” (“Reginald Pole,” p. 438).

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  35. The most striking difference between Vergil's and Giovio's descriptions concerns the Irish way of fighting. For Vergil (Polydori…Anglicae historiae libri, p. 222) the Irish are primitive soldiers, on whose methods he does not waste much ink: “Inermes corpore pugnant, idque pro fortitudine animi & robore virium aeque habent, atque ferre arma pro onere ducunt: etsi paulatim suo periculo sapientiores effecti arma iam nunc induere incipiunt. Sine ephippiis equitant…” (“They fight man to man, unarmed, which they consider equally good for their strength of mind and their physical vigour; and bearing arms they hold a burden, although, gradually growing wiser through their own experience, they have now started to wear arms. They ride without saddles…”). Giovio, on the other hand, spends a great deal of time describing the battle customs of the Irish, whom he sees as sophisticated and effective fighters. What is more, Giovio has information on a particularly Irish type of soldiery, the galloglasses, who do not figure at all in Vergil's work (IoviiOpera, IX, p. 122): “Inter omnes Connatius Honel equitatu pollet, et gravis armaturae pedites unus alit…Eques lorica et galea munitur…tanta vero equiti ad regendum atque incitandum equum agilitas, ut nutabundus et eludens miro corporis flexu hostilia tela devitet, atque ea solo sparsa poplite ab ephippio suspensus exporrecta laeva corripiat. Veterano autem pediti praeter galeam et loricam lata ex maculis ferreis fascia guttur munit…Galloglatha autem tanta constantia depugnat, ut nullo mortis metu fortiter vincendum, aut in vestigio honeste cadendum putet” (“Conn O'Neill stands out amongst all for his cavalry and he alone maintains heavily armed footsoldiers…The horsemen wear a breastplate and a helmet…Such is the horseman's dexterity in restraining and spurring his mount, that by ducking and dodging he manages with great agility to avoid enemy darts, and he grabs any that are scattered on the ground in his outstretched left hand, hanging from the saddle by the sheer strength of his knees. The veteran footsoldier, besides his helmet and breastplate, protects his throat with a large collar of chain-mail.…The galloglass fights with such valour, that he thinks only of conquering bravely or dying honourably where he stands, with no fear of death”). The political and ideological implications of such discrepancies are obvious.

  36. This is a view now generally accepted by critics. See in particular: A. Casadei,La strategia delle varianti: le correzioni storiche del terzo “Furioso”, Lucca, Pacini Fazzi, 1988.

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  37. That there were close links between Ferrara and England has already been established (see: L. Chiappini, “Le relazioni tra Ferrara estense e Inghilterra nel ‘400 e nel ‘500,” in:The Renaissance in Ferrara and its European Horizons, ed. J. Salmons & W. Moretti, Cardiff-Ravenna, University of Wales Press-Edizioni del Girasole, 1984, pp. 175–89; and B. Collett, “Universities, Governments and Reform: English Studients at Ferrara during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” in:Alla corte degli Estensi. Filosofia, arte e cultura a Ferrara nei secoli XV e XVI, ed. M. Bertozzi, Ferrara, Univeristà degli Studi, 1994, pp. 125–46). It remains to be established what links there might have been between Ferrara and Ireland, and this is something which I propose with time to investigate.

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  38. I owe this information to colleagues of mine in the History Department of University College Dublin. There should be plentiful information about attitudes to and links with Ireland in Church archives, but access to this information may be restricted.

  39. My view of a “return to Ptolemy,” as it were, does not square entirely with the interpretation of A. Quondam's thought-provoking “(De)scrivere la terra. Il discorso geografico da Tolomeo all'atlante,” in:Culture et société en Italie du moyen-âge à la Renaissance: hommage à André Rochon, Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Renaissance Italienne, no. 13, Paris, Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1985, pp. 11–35. There is not sufficient space here to take issue with Quondam, and I leave that for another occasion.

  40. This, for instance, is what Pius II says (A.S. Piccolomini,Cosmographia, Helmstedt, Sustermann, 1699, pp. 5–6): “Scribendi ordo sic erit: quae propter nostrum aevum gesta sunt memoratu digna…enarrare curabimus….Et quoniam rerum quas scribimus…campus est ipse terrarum orbis…pauca de ipso in communi attingenda sunt, priusquam parteis ejus & locorum historiam aggrediamur” (“The order in which I shall proceed is as follows: I shall make it my case to recount those events of our age which are worth recalling….And since the world itself is the field of the things I write about, I shall first make a few general remarks about it, before dealing with its various parts and the history of its places”). Over a century and a half later, Botero (Relationi, Pt I, Vol. I, Lib. IV, p. 165) expresses the same view: “se la historia è madre della saviezza humana, come può chi si sia sperare di divinir savio senza notitia de' luoghi, ove le cose narrate avvennero?” (“if history is the mother of human wisdom, how can anyone hope to become wise without the knowledge of the places where the things which are recounted took place?”). For a clear and concise account of the different conceptions of geography see: D. Defilippis, “Tra Napoli e Venezia: ilDe Nola di Ambrogio Leone,”Quaderni dell'Istituto nazionale di studi sul rinascimento meridionale, 7, 1991: 23–64. See too: C. van Paassen, “L'eredità della geografia greca classica: Tolomeo e Strabone,” in:Geografia e geografi nel mondo antico. Guida storica e critica, ed. F. Prontera, Bari, Laterza, 1983, pp. 243 ff.

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  41. It is my reading of the texts quoted in this article, as well as a perusal of the two great Renaissance chorographies of Italy (Flavio Biondo'sItalia illustrata and Leandro Alberti'sDescrittione di tutta Italia), which have led me to these conclusions. Though they met with some opposition when my paper was delivered at the Boston Meeting of the ISCT, in particular by G. Salmeri (see above n. 28), G. Salmeri, “Tra politica e antiquaria: lettura di Strabone nel XV e XVI secolo,” in:Strabone e l'Italia antica, ed. G. Maddoli, Naples, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1988, pp. 289–312. whose views I gratefully acknowledge, I would still like to put them forward as a working hypothesis, as I believe there is strong evidence to support them.

  42. Polydori…Anglicae historiae libri, p. 223: “Miracula autem Hyberniae…repetere supervacaneum duximus, arbitrantes nos satis de ea insula hic apposite dixisse. Ceterum unde digressi sumus iam revertamur” (“I considered it superfluous to dwell on the wonders of Ireland, having properly dealt here, in my opinion, with all there is to say about that island. So let us now go back whence we digressed”).

  43. IoviiOpera, IX, p. 89. The “histories” which have been “set aside” are Giovio's better-knownHistoriarum sui temporis libri.

  44. At the beginning of the 16th century Bordone writes (Libro di Benedetto Bordone, ded., no pag.): “deliberai de cercare, se alcuna cosa degna di laude ritrovar potessi, che a lettori, non tanto fosse di giovamento, quanto nelle lor menti alcuno piacevole diletto essi ne prendesse [sic]…delle isole del mondo…io intendo di ragionare” (“I decided to see if anything praiseworthy could be found, which would not so much be useful to readers, as allow their minds the pleasure of enjoyment…of the islands of the world…I intend to speak”). The same words are used by Porcacchi at the end of the century (T. Porcacchi,L'isole più famose del mondo, Venice, Galignani, 1604, proem, no pag.): “non ho voluto lasciar di mettermi a così animosa impresa per giovare & dilettare…a coloro che dello studio della Geographia si dilettano” (“I did not wish to refrain from such a daring undertaking, in order to be useful and pleasing…to those who take pleasure in the study of geography”).

  45. This occurs in the dedication to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini of Pt. I, Vol. II of theRelationi.

  46. In order to get a full picture of Ireland in Renaissance Italy, one should not of course limit oneself to examining the matter from the point of view of classical perceptions (which I do here for reasons of space and because of the theme of the conference at which this paper was originally presented). One could also look at it in the context, for instance, of “la question de l'autre” (see Todorov cit. n. 18) of the question of islands (on which see, i.a., F. Lestringant, “Insulaires de la Renaissance,”Préfaces, 5, 1987–88: 94–98), or of the importance of Ireland as the land of saints and scholars (this aspect is neatly summarized, albeit with many typographical errors, in: J. Barnes, “Il contributo dell'Irlanda alla cultura europea,”Oggi e domani, 18, 9, 1990: 15–22). On the latter point it is interesting to note that, despite the many Irish saints who were venerated in Italy—see: V. Berardis,Italy and Ireland in the Middle Ages, Dublin, Clonmore & Reynolds, 1950—and despite claims that the Irish in Europe were “as famous for their learning as for their religious zeal and the vigour of their monastic rules” (L. Bieler,Ireland, Harbinger of the Middle Ages, London, Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 4), I have uncovered no evidence at all of that fame lasting into the Renaissance (assuming it had ever really made an impression on Italians). Instead what we find (besides the skeptical allusions to St Patrick's Purgatory) is the naïveté of Irish pilgrims who walk past an inn-keeper and his customer discussing the merits of wine in Pontano's dialogueAsinus (G. Pontano,L'Asino e il Caronte, ed. M. Campodonico, Lanciano, Carabba, 1918, pp. 34–36): “CAUPO: Sed, amabo, Hibernine hi sunt? VIATOR: Quin horum aliquot Scotia nuper ab ultima Romam devecti. C.: Quaenam adventus causa? V.: Animi pervicacia quaedam, dum persuadere sibi nullo modo possunt Romano Pontifici liberos esse. Itaque invenerunt Pontificem ipsum filii nuptiis praesidentem aurato in solio, filiam vero Romanas puellas invitantem ad choreas, atque iis ipsis diebus natam Pontifici filiolam alteram…mirificam, mihi crede, Christianae religionis comprobationem! C.: Quinam? V.: Si enim Deo nascuntur nepotuli, numquid non necesse est Christum ipsum mulieris utero prodiisse?” (“INN-KEEPER: Forgive me, but are these then Hibernians? TRAVELLER: Indeed, and some of them have only just come to Rome from the farthest part of Scotland. I-K.: What is the reason for their coming? T.: A kind of obduracy—not being at all able to believe that the Roman Pontiff has children. And so they found the Pontiff himself presiding, on his golden throne, at the wedding of his son, and his daughter inviting Roman girls to dance, and another little daughter born to him at this very time…which is, believe me, a miraculous confirmation of the truth of the Christian religion. I-K.: How so? T.: Well, if grandchildren are born to God, must it not follow that Christ himself came forth from the womb of a woman?”). This quote possibly holds a clue as to why the Irish saints and scholars may not have made an impression on Italians: there appears to have been some confusion as to who they actually were and where they came from—were they Hibernians, Irish, Picts, Scots…?

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  1. Department of Italian, University College Dublin, Dublin, 4, Ireland

    Eric G. Haywood

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This article is based on a paper given at the Third Meeting of the International Society for the Classical Trandition (ISCT), held at Boston University, March 8–12, 1995.

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Haywood, E.G. Is Ireland worth bothering about? Classical perceptions of Ireland revisited in Renaissance Italy. International Journal of the Classical Tradition 2, 467–486 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02677885

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