Bertrando de Mignanelli

Bertrando de Mignanelli
Born 1370
Siena, Republic of Siena
Died 1455 or 1460
Occupation merchant
Nationality Republic of Siena
Ethnicity Italian
Notable works “Vita Tamerlani [Life of Tamerlane]" (1416)
Relatives father Leonard de Mignanelli[1]

Bertrando de Mignanelli or Beltramo Mignanelli di Siena[2][3] (1370 – 1455[4] or 1460)[5] was an adventurous and multilingual[6] Italian merchant who lived in Damascus at the beginning of the 15th century[7] and wrote the only Latin language primary source about Tamerlane's conquest of Damascus.[8] Bertrando's father Leonard de Mignanelli was a member of the nobility of Siena.[1] At a very young age Mignanelli left Siena and traveled extensively around the Middle East before settling in Damascus and starting his successful trading business.[9]

Religion

In some sources he is mentioned as a Catholic priest.[10] Although he was a committed Christian his work does not contain much religious bias.[11]

Works

He personally knew Sultan Barquq and spoke Arabic.[12] After he returned to Italy in 1416 he wrote a biography of Barquq and valuable testimony of Timur's capture of the Mamluk region of Syria in 1400—1401. He wrote his works based on what he had heard about the conquest because he fled to Jerusalem during the siege of Damascus and spent the winter of 1400/1401 there.[13][7] After he heard that Damascus had been destroyed, he joined the retreating Mamluk Egyptian army commanded by Faraj ibn Barquq and went to Cairo and Alexandria with a servant.[13]

In his works he also mentions the Battle of Kosovo because he makes a parallel between the conduct of Stefan Lazarević during the Battle of Angora and his father Prince Lazar of Serbia during the Battle of Kosovo.[14] Like many other early Western sources, Mignanelli believed that the Christian Serbian army was victorious.[15] In his 1416 work Mignanelli asserted that the Ottoman sultan Murad I was killed by Prince Lazar himself.[14]

Mignanelli died in 1460.[8]

References

  1. 1 2 Evariste Lévi-Provençal (1959). Arabica. E. J. Brill. p. 60. Retrieved 13 September 2013. born in Siena, Italy, the son of Leonard de Mignanelli, a member of nobility
  2. ↑ Felicitas Schmieder (1994). Europa und die Fremden. Thorbecke. ISBN 978-3-7995-5716-0. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  3. ↑ Manuel Braun; Cornelia Herberichs (2005). Gewalt im Mittelalter: Realitäten, Imaginationen. Wilhelm Fink Verlag. p. 178. ISBN 978-3-7705-3881-2. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  4. ↑ Walter Joseph Fischel (1967). Ibn Khaldūn in Egypt: His Public Functions and His Historical Research, 1382-1406; a Study in Islamic Historiography. University of California Press. p. 107. Retrieved 11 September 2013. Bertrando de Mignanelli (d. 1455)
  5. ↑ "Mamluk Primary Bibliography". Library of the University of Chicago. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  6. ↑ Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. Longmans, Green. 1976. p. 210. Retrieved 13 September 2013. Beltramo Mignanelli, an adventurous and multilingual Sienese who died at the ripe age of 85 in 1455
  7. 1 2 Rika Gyselen; Maria Szuppe (1999). Matériaux Pour L'histoire Économique Du Monde Iranien. Association pour l'Avancement des Etudes Iraniennes. ISBN 978-2-910640-06-4. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  8. 1 2 Walter Joseph Fischel (1967). Ibn Khaldūn in Egypt: His Public Functions and His Historical Research, 1382-1406; a Study in Islamic Historiography. University of California Press. p. 201. Retrieved 10 September 2013. The only extensive Latin account of Tamerlane's deeds in Damascus stem from the pen of Bertrando de Mignanelli
  9. ↑ The Journal of European Economic History. Banco di Roma. 1976. p. 562. Retrieved 13 September 2013. ... who, as a young man, came to Damascus and engaged in commercial activities...
  10. ↑ Amir Temur in world history. United Nations Education Science and Culture Organization. 1996. p. 87. Retrieved 10 September 2013. If the above mentioned sources are famous enough, but the work of the Italian Catholic priest Bertrando de Mignanelli «Vitae Tamer- lani» (Life of Tamerlan) proved to be quite unknown to our scholars.
  11. ↑ Anne Wolff (1 January 2003). How Many Miles to Babylon?: Travels and Adventures to Egypt and Beyond, 1300 to 1640. Liverpool University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-85323-668-9. Retrieved 11 September 2013. Although it was composed by a devout Christian, there was remarkably little religious bias.
  12. ↑ D. Donald Sidney Richards; Chase F. Robinson (1 January 2003). Texts, documents, and artefacts [electronic resource]: Islamic studies in honour of D.S. Richards. BRILL. p. 258. ISBN 978-90-04-12864-4. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  13. 1 2 Evariste Lévi-Provençal (1959). Arabica. E. J. Brill. p. 61. Retrieved 13 September 2013. When Tamerlane, during his second campaign in Syria, laid siege to Damascus in I400, de Mignanelli was in Jerusalem spending the winter there (I400-1401). There he heard of the destruction of Damascus by Tamerlane and joining the...
  14. 1 2 Sima M. Ćirković (1990). Kosovska bitka u istoriografiji: Redakcioni odbor Sima Ćirković (urednik izdanja) [... et al.]. Zmaj. p. 78. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  15. ↑ Реферати и саопштења - Научни састанак слависта у Вукове дане. Међународни славистички центар. 1989. p. 152. Retrieved 11 September 2013. Бројни западни хроничари и ина западна сведочанства говоре о победи Хришћана (Мезијер, Мињанели, писмо фирентинске...)

Further reading

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