Featured Graduate Student Research: Padraic Rohan

I write to express gratitude for the opportunities the Europe Center has opened up. While in Genoa on my research year 2018-2019, funding from the Europe Center contributed towards many research trips critical for my dissertation, to archives and libraries in Italy, Malta, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom over the period from 1 February to 22 August 2019. I visited the National Library of Malta; the state archives of Palermo in Sicily; the Biblioteca Vaticana and the Archivio Segreto del Vaticano in Rome; the Universitätsbibliothek in Basel, Switzerland; various libraries and archives in Florence; and the British Library and the National Archives in London.

In February I went to Basel and Florence. Basel’s Universitätsbibliothek houses two of the three manuscripts of William of Adam’s crusading tract How to Defeat the Saracens, a crusading tract written by the Dominican William of Adam in the early fourteenth century, in which he proposed a Genoese naval blockade of the Gulf of Aden in order to deprive Mamluk Egypt of the India trade. Unlike the manuscript in Rome, these contain a long description and criticism of the Genoese Officium Robariae, which reimbursed foreigners, even Jews and Muslims, for acts of piracy committed by Genoese citizens. This source complicates the east-to-west narrative, showing that even at this early date Genoese maritime activity had expanded beyond the Mediterranean not only to the west, but to the east; and it also illustrates the continuing importance of the crusade in the fifteenth century, when these manuscripts were produced in connection to the Council of Basel. Several other crusading tracts which criticize Genoese relationships with Muslim rulers are also bundled together with that of William of Adam, and with these I hope to illustrate the pattern of the Genoese commercial and colonial interests undermining the broader Latin crusading efforts.

In Florence, I studied in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, the state archives, and the national library. In the latter two, I was able to study their treasure troves of ancient maps and take away digital copies. These maps include the earliest example of portolan charts, which are practical navigational guides instead of the stylized maps that always place Jerusalem in the center. Used in conjunction with manuscripts in Genoa, these maps have immesurably helped my research. In the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, I studied the Carteggio Acciaioli (Ashburnham 1830), the Memorie di Benedetto Dei (Ashburnam 644) and most important the Laur. Gadd. Reliq. 9 (from the Gaddi family), which is a series of maps including a world map by a Genoese c. 1351. These offer an important Florentine perspective on Genoese activity throughout the Mediterranean and near Atlantic.

In March, I studied in Rome and Palermo. Both the Biblioteca Vaticana and the Archivio Segreto contain valuable archival documentation and manuscripts regarding the Genoese, including an early version of How to Defeat the Saracens. Only three copies of this manuscript are known, and this is by far the earliest. In addition, papal correspondence with the Genoese colonies on Cyprus and Chios offers insight into the Genoese colonial enterprise and the fundamental conflict between their commercial and colonial power and papal crusading efforts. The state archives of Palermo offers a valuable perspective on the Genoese admirals who served the Angevin and Aragonese monarchs here, and Sicily was an important waystation for Genoese commerce to and from the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. I studied numerous registers here, including the Conservatoria di Registro, the Protonotaro del Regno, the Real Cancelleria, the Secrezia, the Spezzone, and the Tribunale del Real Patrimonio.

In early May, I studied in the National Library of Malta, which houses the fourteenth-century archives of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, brought to Malta after the Ottomans ejected them from Rhodes. These archives contain numerous neglected references to the Genoese. And in July and August, I studied in the British Library and the National Archives in London, including in the Particulars of Customs Accounts, the King’s Remembrancer series, many series within the Chancery, and the Ancient Correspondence. The Genoese had a fascinating and long-standing presence in the British Isles from the thirteenth to the late fifteenth century, and many connections between the Mediterranean and near Atlantic. I’m very grateful to the Europe Center for helping to finance these trips, and I’m available to present on any aspect of this research.

Padraic Rohan is a PhD candidae in History.