Renaissance Orientalism

Author(s): Marianna D. Birnbaum

Source: Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1/4, RUS' WRIT LARGE: LANGUAGES,
HISTORIES, CULTURES: Essays Presented in Honor of Michael S. Flier on His Sixty-Fifth
Birthday (2006), pp. 379-389
Published by: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
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Harvard Ukrainian Studies 28, no. 1-4 (2006): 379-89.

Renaissance Orientalism*

Marianna D. Birnbaum

At is well known that the Greeks and the Romans dubbed barba
those who lived outside their own political cultural world, such as th
ons, the Gauls, or the Germans.1 However, by what we call the Rena
a new distinction was made, most frequently involving people or
that did not subscribe to the Western norms of "civility" A typical
was the "great enemy," the Ottoman Empire, with its seemingly alie
and customs. Throughout the centuries, Western travelers to that th
world continued to condemn Islam and "Turkish cruelty," although th
admit to qualities that matched "sophisticated" European behavior. Li
education, self-discipline, the rational use of human labor in peac
well as during wars, a strong government, and respect for its laws,
Ottoman world an essentially familiar entity. Yet diplomats, merchant
or those unfortunates who penetrated the Ottoman world as Christian
only rarely permitted themselves to even reluctantly praise the imp
achievements they had witnessed. It is also remarkable that European d
always mirrored a sense of superiority although, at the same time, Eu
fighting the Turks for its survival.
Those critics who complimented Islam for their unity only did so
to emphasize, by painful contrast, the warring divisions of Christendo
before Edward Said, Samuel C. Chew writes about the "othering" of I
binarism that created a fundamental enmity between Islam and C
ity.2

Obviously, the "other" is always viewed through the prism of the viewer.3
The most revealing self-image of the Renaissance person is his or her judgment
ofthat "other," in our case of inquiry, the inhabitant of the Ottoman Empire.4
Not that the Renaissance critics made a careful distinction with regard to the

* A longer version of this article recently appeared in my new volume of essays,

Behind the Image, Another Text: Six Essays on Art and Literature (Budapest, 2008),
102-23.

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 38O BIRNBAUM

people of the Orient. Although

eastern object of fear, the "dark
lumped together in a general at
Renaissance humanists were th
and Roman authors. They read t
norms by following the classi
expressed in the works of ant
humanists. The texts below will demonstrate that this- secondhand- humanist
vision of the East created an image of the Orient that survived and flourished,
without much change, well into our own times.6
The "Turkish problem" was real and strategic even for those countries in
continental Europe that had not been exposed directly to the power of the
Ottoman army. The best example for this can be found in England, where the
average theatergoer readily recognized the Turkish characters appearing on
stage. Elizabethan drama demonstrates the powerful position the encounter
with the "Turkes" took in creating England's own cultural identity.7
Ever since people fought people, it was the chroniclers of the wars who
created the image of the adversary. The enemy had to be awesome but not
invincible.8 Consequently in the works of Renaissance historians, the dreaded
"Turkes," once alien and familiar, also had to be fierce and awe-inspiring.9
On the Continent, there was an even greater obsession with the Turks and
their army, especially after the siege of Vienna in 1529.10 Prayer sheets and pam-
phlets concerning the "infidel" appeared in fast sequence. Also, in a number
of harrowing descriptions of the 1541 siege of Buda, the Hungarian capital, it
was related how the Turks sacked the Royal Palace, stole its gold and silver
treasures and the exquisite volumes of the famed Corvin Library, and carried
them off on their galleys to Constantinople. However, when Buda, and later
the whole of Hungary, were liberated from the Turks, while celebrating their
victory, contemporary sources failed to mention that the Christian armies
destroyed all Islamic holy places, "Gul Baba's grave" in Buda and a djami at
Pecs being among the few, notable exceptions.11
The most important and vocal critic of such "double values" was Edward
Said, who introduced and promoted the thesis that the Orient is a European
invention, a place of romance and exotic beings and, therefore, that the Ori-
ent has held a special place in European experience and imagination. It is the
recurring image of the other, forever distinct from the Occident, although it
has been and is a part of European material civilization and culture.12 Said
contends that European consciousness gained its own identity by setting itself
off against the Orient.13 He further states that although a European fantasy,
the Orient "is in truth a body of theory and practice," a hegemony based on
the collective notion of "us" and "them."14

There is no nonpolitical, true knowledge, claims Said.15 Thus, in his view,

while continuously playing a special role inside Europe, the Orient and Islam

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 RENAISSANCE ORIENTALISM 381

were deliberately represented as outsiders.16 There was

ment and acceptance of an "institutionalized Western k
to which the Orient was Orientalized.17 Thus, following
Orient was invented by Europeans and existed merely as
time went by, the picture did not get more realistic, o
grew in number and got more detailed.18
Accepting many of Said's premises, in the followin
small but revealing selection of Renaissance texts writt
the Ottoman Empire. The consistency of configurations
convinced me of the validity of Said's claims. Obviously
"original" meaning of any work remains hidden for th
identify the possible intention of the authors behind t
that- paraphrasing the words of Stanley Fish- anything
language is open to interpretation.
As Said put it, "the Orientalist is outside the Oriental
"Occidentalism," merely the Orient speaking through t
nation.19 I found that when writing about Ottoman Tu
humanist indeed was influenced by the classics and, in
politics and principles of his own world. His intentions
manipulate his "foreign" material for his own purposes
and firmly located himself outside the world he report
The small number of humanist texts I shall examine were written about the

"Empire of the Levant," a region about which the average European had some
knowledge, not just from stories or from the stage- as in England- but also
firsthand, as in Turkish-occupied Hungary or on the Balkan Peninsula.
One of the best-known personalities of those to visit the "Grand Trke" was
Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, a Belgian diplomat in the service of the Habsburgs,
a collector of antiquities, the discoverer of the Crimean Goths, the man who
brought tulips and lilacs to Europe, and the one who was mistakenly credited
with finding the Ancyranum monumentum (1555), the "lost" testament of
Emperor Augustus.20
In his famous "Four Letters," Busbecq displays remarkable ambiguity about
the Ottoman Empire. He is a keen observer, yet clearly influenced by his own
social status. Although contemptuous of the general population, Busbecq is
often appreciative of the viziers, praising their conversational style and diplo-
macy. He is critical of the Porte, but has admiring comments about Emperor
Sleyman and a couple of the grand viziers. Although he despises the Turkish
soldiers for their brutality, he seems to accept Sleyman's having several of his
offspring killed in order to assure the imperial throne for Selim, his favorite
son. One may ponder on how Busbecq would have reported on a similar event,
involving not a Turk, but a European monarch.
In connection with his second ambassadorial trip to the Porte, Busbecq was
forced to stay a number of years in Constantinople. During that time he gained

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 382 BIRNBAUM

an impressive knowledge about th

of his workplace. Most insightfu
social mobility in the Ottoman h
administration's placing personal
becq finds that practice remarka
benefits for the Ottoman army.
of such innovations into his own
the Belgian legate's letters reveal
judgment of the Empire. Howeve
his "First Letter." Gathering kno
gathering intelligence in prepara
Interestingly, among Busbecq'
the medieval hierarchy were es
structure of the Ottoman world.
seems to have been the most ter
lives and security were deeply ro
A violent critic of the Ottoman
factor (agent) of the Augsburg F
delegation on 22 June 1553, alth
own expense.21 His diary contain
bias. This is especially clear when
in the Ottoman administration, o
body in the sultan's surrounding
against the Jews and the privile
writes,

Countless number of Jews live in Turkey, who differ in nationality and

language, but irrespective of their mother tongues, they stick together.
And regardless of which country they have been expelled from, they all
gather in Turkey, like a heap of vermin.... They almost fill Constantinople;
they swarm like ants. The Jews themselves talk about how many they
are.... The Jews tease us, because the Turks cannot arrest them or carry
them off as slaves and sell them. But they consider it a miracle that after
the fall of Buda, the local Jews were moved there by the Turks, and
instead of being sold as slaves, they were let go free; all they had to do was
to pay taxes. Had they sold the Jews of Buda, it would have caused the
total financial collapse of the Turkish Jews, because they- according to
tradition- would have had to ransom their coreligionists. For example,
recently a Turkish boat was captured with many Jews on board. The
ship was taken to Malta and those Jews were ransomed by the Jews of
Constantinople.22

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 RENAISSANCE ORIENTALISM 383

Dernschwam's greatest chagrin was provoked by the

tians and Jews by laws that compelled both groups to
ing, or by their similar treatment- as members of the
subjects)- in front of the Ottoman courts.23
Jews, just like Muslims, are a constant in the Christi
Catholic Church- especially the friars- preached agains
the population against the Jews and spur them to laun
the Muslims.25 In Dernschwam's world, the Jews were
minority, the closest others, familiar but forced to re
the powerful role Jews played in the Ottoman Empire
insulting for Christians.
Luigi Bassano, originally from Zara (today Zadar), and
spy of the Portuguese, spent the years 1532-40 in Turke
things he disliked most during his travels was the Ottom
of the Jews. Bassano sourly comments about the freedo
empire. He complained that in Constantinople, Salnica
allowed to run their own schools, were brazen in their
in palaces, and were permitted to loudly conduct servi
and at their burial sites.28

European diplomacy and information gathering had a

in matters Ottoman throughout the sixteenth century
Busbecq's journey, another famous legate, Gianfranceso
the Council of Venice, warns the Serenissima, stating th
this excellent Council can discuss, none is so important
attention as the great sultan of Turkey, his empire, hi
wealth, his form of government, and finally, what shoul
from that quarter."29
About Turkish meritocracy under the rule of Murad
"The Turks care not at all whether these boys [young C
off by the Turks and trained according to jobs they wer
sultan's administration- MDB] are the children of nobl
and shepherds. All of this explains why their major offi
and impressive, even when their manners are uncouth.
the Janissaries that "the first thing they are made to
religion, which they know so well as to put us to sham
empire a "republic of slaves."
He is just as ferociously critical about the sultanate. A
Signor" (the sultan), he has this to say: "It is not simply
master of everyone and everything, but he uses his gre
that I can safely say that no one ever dreamed of such
brought it into being. He not only puts his subjects to de
them in such an [sic] awe that they accept their fate in

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 384 BIRNBAUM

slightest resistance. He takes w

and even, you might say, their
Morisini delivers a damning ju
serves no one but the sultan "..
were nobility around him, or ev
However, the testimonies of C
were captured and dragged of
negative. Obviously, the recolle
time and place
of their capture
Giovanni Antonio Menavino's m
after his escape, in the late fift
author, caught at the age of tw
of Bayezid II until he reached th
instructed by four tutors. He s
literature, philosophy, mathem
sionally beaten,34 he was clothe
also described the situation of the women in the harem. Each learned how to

read and write, to embroider, and play musical instruments, an education com-
parable only to what young women of the European aristocracy received.
Menavino pointed out that Christian monarchs mistakenly judge the Otto-
mans as barbarians, lacking civility. His views must have been mitigated by
the privileged position he had enjoyed in the sultanate, because none of his
contemporaries, especially those who fell into captivity some decades later,
share his by and large temperate judgment.
Bartul Djurdjevich, captured on 29 August 1526, at the Battle of Mohcs
(a battle that determined the fate of Hungary for several centuries), paints an
entirely negative image of the same country and of his own captors. He is the
author of numerous anti-Turkish works published after his successful escape.
These books, translated into a number of languages, shaped European thinking
about the Turks in many countries.
The son of an impoverished Dalmatian/Croatian nobleman (this may be
assumed, since there was no attempt made to ransom him), Djurdjevich was a
young student when he was carried off into Ottoman slavery. Unused to farm
work, he was resold seven times and had dissatisfied masters on both sides
of the Bosporus. Caught at his first attempt to reach freedom, he had to wait
ninety days in chains until his owner came to claim him. He declares to have
always denied that he was literate for fear of an even harsher treatment. He
declares to have practiced his Christian faith in the utmost secrecy, feigning
illness, in order to keep the prescribed days of fasting.
Djurdjevich does not cease to complain about the brutality of his captors, of
the harsh treatment of Christian prisoners, and of the general lack of civiliza-
tion. Hoping to escape, Djurdjevich accompanied his last master to the Persian

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 RENAISSANCE ORIENTALISM 385

campaign. Finally, in 1535, after Charles V captured Tu

hiding in the woods, later helped by Armenian shephe
he was a Greek), Djurdjevich reached Jerusalem. Fro
returning pilgrims, he was finally able to return to Euro
already the first two, appearing in 1544 (De afflictione
became the favorite reading of the "home front." Djurd
ing advocate of the anti- Turkish, anti-Islamic campaig
he also chose the then popular genre of religious dispu
his masters, a satrap, as well as a certain Chelebi,35 wi
the relative merits of Christianity and Islam. Djurd
a passionate debater of his faith, but his arguments
unprepared champion of the Christian cause. He refuse
shortcomings of Christian life, and fails to concede to
Muslim chastises Christians for permitting dogs to ent
tolerating that animals defecate on the marble floors a
Another young captive, George Hust (or Huszti) of
1532 at the Battle of Kszeg, became the slave of a Ska
he let himself be circumcised, converted to Islam, and
Arab sea captain. Here it should be mentioned that, as
of Spain and Portugal after the "Reconquista," there w
conversions in the Turkish-occupied territories, or eve
captivity. Mostly those prisoners who wanted to make
Ottoman Empire converted to Islam.
Hust escaped from his captors on the back of a cam
after surviving many obstacles. After spending two yea
made it to Jerusalem from where he returned to Euro
However, his fascinating work, Descriptio peregrinatio
did not surface until the second half of the nineteenth
published in 1881. As a fundamentalist Protestant, Hus
Roman Catholics and of Muslims. In his judgment, "Sat
(performed by Catholics) and drinking was as displeasi
of his Ottoman captors. He never explained what ha
Islam- one may assume the only reason having been ex
why, when back in Europe, he reconverted to Protesta

But back to Edward Said and his tenets. Even the few examples above reveal
that the written text as well as the one read primarily mirror the idiosyncratic
attitudes of its author or its reader. Just as we cannot judge the sensitivities of
a contemporary viewer when looking at Leonardo's art, we are just as unable
to safely delineate the readers' responses to the material quoted above.

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 386 BIRNBAUM

The principles of selection rem

to convey, since even photograp
photographer. Naturally, the te
author of these words. Therefor
picked the above quoted materi
could be considered:

1. The first revealing clue would be the numerous references to Hun-

gary, a relatively unimportant political entity by the mid-sixteenth
century.
2. The author's emphasis of Ottoman meritocracy identifies him/her
as a member of a class for which social mobility seems to be an
important benefit.
3. The particular interest the author displays in Christian responses to
Ottoman policies regarding the Jews of the empire may be rooted
in his or her own religious affiliation.
4. The author is clearly an "outsider" vis--vis the Ottoman Empire,
as well as to the daily realities of the Renaissance world. He/she
contemplates experiences gained by others during the previous
centuries.

5. The author belongs to our age, to the Occident, and is, most prob-
ably, European, possibly Hungarian, and of Jewish ancestry. And
this is half the truth- at least.

Notes

1. As is known, the term "barbarian" was first found in Homer (barbaroph

referring- as shown- to language only). Many Greek tragedies set outside G
commented on the inferiority of the non-Greeks. The Romans were more incl
than the Greeks. An expansive power that colonized different peoples and relig
groups, although not without criticism (see Cicero, etc.), the Romans were will
to incorporate the barban into their empire.
2. Richmond Barbour, Before Orientalism: London's Theater of the East, 1576-
Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, 45 (Cambridge, 2
17.

3. For a collection of essays on the subject, see David Blanks and Michael Frassetto,
eds., Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception
of the Other (New York, 1999); see also Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West:
Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks (Philadelphia, 2004).
4. It must be remembered that references made to the "Renaissance man" pertain to
a very low percentage of the population, and even that tiny group was anything
but homogeneous.

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 RENAISSANCE ORIENTALISM 387

5 . Nancy Bisaha points out that Petrarch in his "Western chau

Roman disdain for the "unmanly" Eastern tactic of archery a
ern and western technique of hand-to-hand combat"; see
West, 51. For the "nearer other" it is helpful to analyze Sigi
Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii; see Frank Kmpfer an
eds., 450 Jahre Sigismund von Herbersteins Rerum Mosco
1549-1999 (Wiesbaden, 2002).
6. On this, see also Michael J. Heath, "Renaissance Scholar
Turks," Bibliothque d'humanisme et renaissance 41 (1979
7. For more on this subject see Matthew Dimmock, New T
and the Ottomans in Early Modern England (Aldersho
contribution to the subject, see Samuel C. Chew, The Cres
and England during the Renaissance (New York, 1965 [19
8. See the orations of Julius Caesar, or for that matter, the
in Shakespeare.
9. Such needs governed Richard Knolles' work, The Gener
(London, 1603). Although the Ottoman Empire was compos
I am using contemporary Western terminology. (Inciden
Turkes" was born in England. This coinage did not refer t
to warring religious factions in England, revealing the shif
humanist rhetoric.)
10. Since there is a large body of literature treating the fa
sacking of the city, I chose a much lesser-known event to i
of Western bias.

11. Whereas the sacking of Buda is still described in great detail, few modern sources
comment on the fact that at the end of the nineteenth century, as a gesture of
goodwill, the volumes of the Corviniana were returned unharmed to Hungary. The
above instance is just one example of the hubris and bias permeating the European
vision of Islam.

12. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1994), introduction.

13. Thus he, too, repeats the truism that the "other" is always viewed through the
prism of the viewer.
14. baia, unentaiism, ou. ne empnasizes mat inaia ana me Levant, aitnougn entirely
different entities, evoked similar Western responses.
15. Said, Orientalism, 10.
16. For the non- Western participants in this discourse, see Emmanuel Sivan, "Edward
Said and His Arab Reviewers," Jerusalem Quarterly 35 (Spring 1985): 11-23.
17. Said, Orientalism, 67 and 71, respectively.
18. Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Oxford, 2003 [1960,
1993]).
19. Said, Orientalism, 47.
20. The historical discovery, made during a visit to Sleyman's military headquarters

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 388 BIRNBAUM

in Amasia (Asia Minor), involve

by Johannes Belsius, the person
ian diplomat. Belsius, who was
discovery, failed to publish his
famous Legationis Turcicae Epi
credit was given to Belsius or an
this see Marianna D. Birnbaum,
Hungarian Latinity in the Sixtee
Ohio, 1985), 226-29.
21. I believe I was able to prove tha
Nadasdy, palatine of Hungary (
secret information regarding Tu
garian captives, including the fate
see Marianna D. Birnbaum, "The
Empire," Sdostforschungen 50
22. Hans Dernschwam, Tagebuch
(1553/55), ed. by Franz Babinge
The English translation is mine.
23. For more on this see the essays
Community and Leadership, Indi
1992).
24. Already Pedro Alfonsi's Dialogi contra ludaeos (1106) contained the same slanders
also against Muslims.
25. The drive for a new crusade gained vigor right after the fall of Constantinople, but
slowed down by the end of the fifteenth century.
26. The time when Napoleon ordered the gates of the ghettos to be opened was far
away.

27. See Marianna D. Birnbaum, Croatian and Hungarian Latinity (Zagreb, 1993),
chap. 10: "Prying Open the Gates of the Porte."
28. Nicolas de Nicolay, who in the company of the French ambassador visited the
Ottoman Empire in 1551, expressed similar views. For more on this see Marianna
D. Birnbaum, The Long Journey of Gracia Mendes (Budapest and New York, 2004),
81-82 and passim. The book treats the life and career of a famous Jewish family
living in the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth century.
29. A report by Gianfrancisco Morosini, from 1585. Originally published in E. Alberi,
Le Relazioni degli ambiascatori Veneti durante il secolo decimosesto, ser. 3, vol. 3,
Relazioni degli stati Ottomani (Florence, 1855), 252-372. It was reprinted several
times. Here I quote from James C. Davis, Pursuit of Power: Venetian Ambassadors'
Report on Spain, Turkey, and France in the Age of Philip II, 1560-1600 (New
York, 1970), 125. Henceforth Morosini, followed by the page number from Davis's
anthology.
30. Morosini, 138.

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 RENAISSANCE ORIENTALISM 389

31. Ibid., 145.

32. Ibid., 146.
33. Fiorenza, 1551.
34. Most tutors beat their students at that time, even in Italy. Filelfo and Guarino were
the notable exceptions.
35. elebi is a frequent Turkish name.
36. He is also referred to as George Huszti, or as "Captivus septemcastriensis," having
been imprisoned in the Jedikule, the infamous prison of seven towers.
37. Most probably he never discussed his earlier circumcision with any of his Christian
friends.

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