In the previous blog entry we told a story about a literary treasure of Americas - the Popol Vuh. Even today this famous manuscript presents a significant part in the belief system of many Quiche and Mayan people of Central America. They continue to blend Christian and indigenous beliefs. This sacred Book of Natives Americans spread far beyond our continent: it has been translated and published in English, Hungarian, Estonian Spanish and other languages.
Up to our days archeologists continue to discover classic Maya pottery shows some of the main characters of the Popol Vuh as the Hero Twins and the Howler Monkey Gods. There are different versions of the story that continue to influence modern Maya as folk legends. Anthropologists recorded many of them and noted that some stories preserve portions of the ancient tales even in greater detail than the book itself.
The invasion of conquistadors to America resulted in almost total destroyal of documents and manuscripts of Mesoamerican rituals and life. One of a little few that survived the ordeal is located in the Apostolic Library of Vatican. Specialists call this famous manuscript Codex Borgia - it consists of 39 sheets of made of the animal skin. All sheets except one are painted on both sides. Up to this day Codex Borgia remains an enigma: nobody knows its origin, although many believe that it came from someplace on the territory of the modern Mexican state Puebla.
The dsicovery of the manuscript is interesting story by itself. It seems that the document was brought from America to Italy during early Spanish colonial period. The last owner of the manuscript was Italian cardinal Stefano Borgia (which explains the name of the codex). Borgia was a well-known theologian, antiquarian, and historian of the 18th century. When he died in 1804 he left the treasure of invaluable artifacts that he collected throughout his life. Alexander von Humboldt, extraordinary German naturalist and explorer, due to his greatness was allowed by Vatican to organize the artifacts in 1805. This is where Alexander discovered the enigmatic document and realized its importance, as he traveled so many times to America with research expeditions.
Even now specialists can not claim that they decoded every piece of the codex correctly because nobody can understand the ways of ancient Aztec priests. Thus, the largest part of the great manuscript contains the whole story with rituals, ball games and historical events that are not decoded. And up to this day the longest sequence in the document remains a mystery.
In 1486 an ambitious Dominican monk and an inquisitor Heinrich Kramer decided to write an extraordinary manuscript. He wanted to prove in his work the existence oft witchcraft and that the majority of those who were practicing witchcraft were women. Kramer’s document was supposed to serve as some kind of manual for authorities who would hunt witches, find them in local population and “deal” with them accordingly.
As a web analyst I tried to review Kramer’s advertising and marketing “campaign”. The guy was a master crook of his times. Here is what he did.
He spent over a year to complete his project and as a result produced an infamous, opportunistic treatise named “The Hammer of Witches” (in Latin, Malleus Maleficarum). Kramer understood that he was too insignificant for Catholic church, so he decided to add the illustrious name that would give his manuscript credibility. So he added as a co-author the Inquisitor of Germany Jacob Sprenger without the permission of the latter.
After theory comes practice. Thus, equipped with this diabolical manual Kramer tried to unleash a huge anti-witchcraft campaign in his local area but was blocked by authorities. The ambitious Dominican monk added the papal bull on witchcraft as the preface for his book to make it look as the sign of approval from the Pope of Rome. But this did not help him much either.
In search of powerful endorsement Kramer submitted his book to the review of the University of Cologne but failed again. The theologists of the University condemned The Hammer of Witches as unethical and illegal work. This did not prevent Kramer to insert a fake endorsement from the University in his creation.
Undoubted forgeries in the book made Catholic church to ban it completely in the 1490. However, even the Church could not prevent it to become the bestseller of the ignorant masses of the Medieval Europe.
Witch hunters and inquisitors loved The Hammer of Witches and used it as guidance extensively. Up until 1669 it was published almost forty times in multiple editions and was translated in all major European languages.
In the middle of the 15th century through the ways unknown to us, famous organist Antonio Squarcialupi got hold of truly invaluable manuscript. On his death bed Antonio passed this manuscript to his nephew, then the latter passed it to his inheritors. So the document was still in the family until it found its way into the estate of Giuliano de’ Medici, who gave it to the Biblioteca Palatina in the early 16th century. And at the end of the 18th century the manuscript passed into the ownership of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.
Although the manuscript still says in gold letters that its owner is Antonio Squarcialupi and even bears currently his name as the Squarcialupi Codex, originally, it had nothing to do with him. The manuscript was compiled in the Florentine monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, probably in the beginning of the fifteenth century. At least this is what the archives of my local web analytics company claim.
What’s so special about this document, you may ask? Well, first of all, it is the single largest primary source of music of the early Italian Renaissance that took place in the 14th century, known to the experts and specialists as Trecento. This treasure contains of 216 parchment folios, richly illuminated and in good condition. All complete pieces of music are preserved. 353 compositions in the Codex are all secular and belongs to the famous composers of the Trecento such as Francesco Landini, Bartolino da Padova, Niccolò da Perugia, Andrea da Firenze, Jacopo da Bologna, Lorenzo da Firenze, Gherardello da Firenze, Donato da Cascia and others.
The document is priceless. Imagine, that somewhere in the 27th century new generations of people would discover something similar, like all-star catalog of all truly famous composers of the 20th century. And that would be the only book around at this distant future!
In the next blog entry I will tell you about the other part of the heritage that is called Rossi Codex and some mysteries related to both manuscripts.
One of the most famous forgeries of the Dark Ages was the manuscript called the Donation of Constantine. I found this story while going through some internet research for my local web analytics company. This fake Roman imperial edict was evidently devised in the second part of the 8th century for the Pope of Rome Stephen II.
The Donation of Constantine t was used by Catholic church for centuries as the support for its territorial claims. It believed blindly in the authenticity of the famous manuscript. Only in the second part of the fifteenth century, with the revival of Classical scholarship and textual critique, the Church had begun to realize that the document could not possibly be genuine.
In the forgery Roman emperor Constantine allegedly grants to the Popes of Rome dominion over lands in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa, the city of Rome and the entire Western Roman Empire. The manuscript tells that all these territories are presented a gift of the first Christian emperor to the pope Sylvester. All these named lands were a one gigantic “present” from the grateful emperor to the pope for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him, and even miraculously curing Constantine of leprosy.
Pope Stephen II was a shrewd diplomat. He successfully used the forgery to create the foundation of the Papal States. He crossed into Gaul with this manuscript and presented a copy to the new king of Franks Pepin the Short. Pope managed to gain king’s support against Lombards who occupied former Byzantine territories in Italy and threatened to push the Pope out of Rome. In 756 Pepin and his Frankish army forced the Lombards to surrender their conquests to the pope of Rome. These lands would become the Papal States and would be the basis of the Papacy’s secular power for the next eleven centuries.
