The city of Florence has, until recently, enjoyed little attention as an object of historical study within a Mediterranean framework. Perhaps this is because the major drivers of trade in the eastern Mediterranean from the twelfth century onward had been Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. With the purchase of Port of Pisa in 1421, however, and the building of a galley system, Florence would go on to assume a more active role in Levant trade. 1
On June 30, 1422, Felice di Michele Brancacci, a prominent Florentine silk merchant, and his companion Carlo Federighi , a noted jurist and doctor of canon law, boarded the first of the Florentine galleys sailing to Egypt from the port of Pisa. The pair carried letters of instruction from the City of Florence intended for the newly enthroned Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayf-ad-Din Barsbay (1422–1438) in Cairo . This coupling of a merchant and a jurist was particularly well suited to the Florentine mission to Mamluk Egypt. 2 After acquiring a license to trade with the Muslim nation from the Pope, Florence proposed treaty would allow them to finally challenge Venice’s trade monopoly in the Levant. The mission served to inaugurate the Florentine galley’s presence in the Mediterranean; furthermore, it would have ramifications for Sultan Barsbay’s infamous protectionist economic policies in Mamluk Egypt, the transformation of mercantile culture in Renaissance Florence, and, finally, the patronage of one of the most celebrated and enigmatic frescoes of Renaissance Florence—Masaccio ’s Tribute Money —in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church in Florence. 3
Timelines for the commission and completion of the Brancacci Chapel frescoes typically conceptualize Felice’s time in Egypt in terms of the patron’s “long absence” from Florence—a “lacuna,” in other words. 4 Felice wrote in surprising and often fascinating detail about the tribulations experienced during his “absence” from Florence and during his sea voyage to and from Egypt to meet with Sultan Barsbay and his officials. As he does so, he offers his observations on Mamluk customs and religious practices, alongside Christian holy sites, exotic animals, and other natural phenomena. What comes across most clearly in this experience is his deep feeling of estrangement and disaffection, a response that Brancacci related almost singularly to the monetary payments he made in this unfamiliar—and at times hostile—territory in the absence of established and standard diplomatic protocol. 5 Part official communiqué, part travelogue and confessional, Brancacci’s marvelously rich testimony offers insights into not only transcultural relations in the Mediterranean but also the significant historical shift in the mercantile culture of Renaissance Florence that would unexpectedly reveal itself in Masaccio ’s Tribute Money . 6
Florence was a relative latecomer to maritime trade with Egypt among the Italian city-states. The market had been dominated by Venice since the fourteenth century, when the galley line between Venice and Alexandria opened as a result of the city having procured a long-term trading license from the Holy See in 1345 and having abolished their embargo on the Muslim Mamluk rulers of Cairo . 7 Trade with Cairo and Damascus had grown increasingly important, particularly as other commercial routes to India—including caravan routes in lower Russia and the maritime routes of the Persian Gulf—became less viable. While Florence began her active pursuit of maritime commercial interests in the Levant only after the conquest of Pisa in 1406, the acquisition of the Pisan port in 1420, and the construction of a communal fleet they modeled on the Venetian galley system, Florentine merchants had conducted trade in Egypt and Syria previously. 8 At that time, they had been dependent on Pisan ships and, by and large, posed as Pisans abroad. 9
On the inaugural journey of the Florentine fleet, Brancacci and Federighi sailed, then, as the rightful successor to the Pisans. 10 They were commissioned to procure for Florence three concessions from the Sultan: equality with or advantage over Venetians regarding customs allowances and right of safe conduct 11 ; a permanent consul in Alexandria ; and, most importantly, the right to replace the Venetian ducat with the florin as the currency of the Mamluk territories. 12 The city’s instructions to the ambassadors stressed that this final objective was the most pivotal.
Additionally, that our gold and silver currency be used and accepted as any other, and especially that our florin be regarded as equal to the Venetian ducat …. This task of yours is of the utmost importance—giving them tangible proof of this. Show them that our florin has never been of lesser quality than the ducat , and that in many places it is regarded as having the same value as the ducat and more…. If they won’t make a deal on the currency, do as much as you can. And if you cannot have everything, obtain as much as you can, leaving the fundamental parts unchanged. 13
Florentine Merchant Bankers in Fifteenth-Century Mediterranean
The question of currency was pivotal to this early-fifteenth-century sea-faring mission. Felice was neither a crusading mercenary nor a missionary like St. Francis, who had made a much-celebrated visit to a Sultan of Cairo in the thirteenth century. 14 Rather, he visited Egypt as a merchant, representing a city that prided itself on being the first mercantile state to issue a gold coin—the florin —in the mid-1200s. With the creation of its own galley system in the 1420s, Florence hoped to challenge not only Venetian trade dominance but also the ducat ’s virtual monopoly in the Mamluk territories. 15 The purchase of the port of Pisa and the creation of the Florentine fleet in the early 1420s were in fact systematically coupled to an effort on the part of Florence to strengthen the value of the florin . 16 At the time, Florence perceived the conditions in Egypt to be particularly propitious for the enterprise. 17 Because of the interruption of the trade with Persia that had occurred in the second half of the fourteenth century, the Holy See had lifted its embargo with Egypt and began issuing trading licenses to European nations. 18 At the same time, economic conditions and the imperial strategy being enacted on the part of the Mamluk Sultanate—and, specifically, by Sultan Barsbay —favored the European trade. 19
Much of Florence’s wealth rested on the reputation, value, and stability of the florin as the standard bearer for international currency. 20 However, despite the florin ’s spectacular success, and the fact that Florentine merchants had served as the Pope’s bankers since the beginning of the fifteenth century, the ducat had still maintained a dominant presence in the Levant. Since 1399, the Venetian ducat had become the sole international currency in the region, replacing even the native Dinar as the local Mamluk coin. 21 Prices in Cairo and Damascus were listed in ducats rather than Dinars, generating an enviable source of revenue for the Venetians. 22 The Mamluk Sultans had themselves tried, unsuccessfully, to break the ducat ’s monopoly—banning it and issuing a local Muslim coin. 23 But time and again, the Muslim coin failed to hold its value relati...