Storia do Mogor 9.2
Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 9.2
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9.2.1
I have failed in obtaining much trace of Father F. Eusebius, of Bourges, Capuchin, while in India, and nothing at all about him after his return to Europe. Manucci, in Part IV., fol. 193, speaking of 1704, says that a short time before that year Eusebius had arrived at Madras from Surat, on his way to France. He went on to Pondicherry, where the Jesuits spread reports that he had been excommunicated, and thus every door was shut in his face. I do not know what became of him; but we learn from Morelli that he made over the books to the then ambassador of the Venetian Senate at Paris, Lorenzo Tiepolo (son of Francesco, son of Marco), a man of distinguished ancestry, whose family tree is given in vol. viii. of Count Pompeo Litta's 'Celebri famiglie Italiane' (Milano, n.d., ? 1835). There is a biography of him on p. 162 of vol. xxii. of Gerolamo Boccardo's 'Nuova Enciclopedia Italiana' (Torino, 1887), and in 'Il campodoglio Veneto' of Girolamo Alessandro Capellari, vol. iv. (of which the manuscript is in the library of San Marco). In the same library, Class VII., Codex DCCCCL, is the manuscript of Tiepolo's 'Relazione della sua ambasciata a Luigi XIV. di Francia.' In the State Archives at I Frari his dispatches from Paris are preserved. The first is dated April 4, 1704, and the last April 27, 1708. In none of these sources could I find any mention of Manucci's work, of its arrival in Paris, or its transmission to Venice. The Abbé Morelli, librarian from 1778, says on p.
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46 of his 'Della pubblica Libreria di San Marco' (Venice, 1774), that Tiepolo obtained the Codex in France in 1722, but I do not know what authority he has for this statement. The year seems much too late; but 1712 might be correct. Tiepolo, who is described as a man of vast erudition, became procurator of St. Mark, and in 1736 was appointed librarian. He died in 1742, at the age of sixty-nine. Under Tiepolo's auspices as librarian, Antonio Maria Zanetti, the younger, drew up a catalogue of the San Marco collection, which appeared under the title of 'Latina et Italica D. Marci Bibliotheca Codicum manuscriptorum per titulos digesta' [&ca], folio, Venice, 1741. On p. 235 we have the following account of the Manucci manuscript: 'Codex XLIV., in folio, paper, ff. 778, of the eighteenth century. "Historical Memoirs of the Mogul Empire," by Niccolo Manuzzi, Veneziano, divided into four parts, written partly in Italian, partly in Portuguese, and partly in French. From the beginning of the fifteenth to about the eighteenth century.' From the first three parts of this work, carried to France by Monsieur Deslandes in 1700, Father Catrou derived his 'Histoire de l'Empire Mogul,' published at Paris in 1705, two volumes, octavo, and at the Hague, 1708, in 12mo.; translated into Italian in 1731, and printed at Venice.
9.2.3
This celebrated literary man, although he had compiled various notices of that kingdom from other authors, nevertheless renders due justice to the labours of our Manuzzi, and he admits him to be the support and foundation of all his statements, wisely dwelling on the character of that author, who was not a simple traveller or merchant (people who are forced either to hurry hither and thither, or to confine themselves solely to cities near the sea), but in truth a medical man, whose profession had detained him at the court for a period of forty or more years, whereby was thrown open to him access to particular information, concealed from every other European, and the means of transcribing the original chronicles themselves. The said Father observes, furthermore, that in the mode of Manuzzi's narration, in spite of the text being in various and obscure languages, there is found a certain ardour of imagination fitted to sustain the historian who works on such materials; to which may be added that at the same time we discover in all these writings a certain air of unstudied simplicity and honest frankness, which still can be detected even when heightened and embellished by a chastened style [i.e. Catrou's]. This production of Father Catrou, although much honoured by Manuzzi, had not the fortune to please him when it reached him in India;
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on the contrary, he was deeply offended that Catrou had inserted the accounts of other people, and had omitted from his book certain statements which Manuzzi considered important. Therefore the author decided to send his own original manuscript to Europe through a Capuchin Father, who gave a pledge that he would hand it over to the first official of the Venetian Republic that he encountered. This monk did as promised, and on reaching Paris delivered it to the Cavaliere Lorenzo Tiepolo, then Venetian ambassador at that court, at present procurator of San Marco, and its illustrious, most meritorious librarian. The gift of Manuzzi was addressed to the Senate with a Latin letter, and these were speedily sent on to Venice by the ambassador. In addition to the above-entered four parts of the 'Historical Memoirs,' there was also a fifth, which went on with the same subject. There was also another volume, with pictures of the gods, priests, and other matters connected with the idolaters who dwell in that country. These pictures are often referred to in the course of the work, and serve to explain the religious beliefs and rites of the ancient inhabitants of Hindustan. But what is more precious for its beauty and its magnificence is a volume containing the portraits of the Mogul emperors, of their families, and other illustrious personages among those idolaters. These are painted with incredible labour, and present the most lovely colouring, heightened by much gilding;
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and although they do not display all the requisites of correct drawing, or of light and shade, yet the figures are not wanting in naturalness, and, if one may infer it from the diversity of idea and from certain details of the faces, the portraits must be very like their originals. Father Catrou, who had seen the pictures, would have liked to reproduce them in his history, but he feared to add to the expense of a first edition. We have felt ourselves constrained to give, at the least, a selection of three, and we have chosen the portraits of our Manuzzi, of Tamerlane, and of Orangzeb; the first as being that of the author of the work, the second as that of the first of the emperors, the third as being that of the ruler under whom the writer lived and dwelt in India. The portrait, then, of Manuzzi is in the highest degree like him, as is asseverated by more than one person who had personal knowledge of him. He is clothed in Mogul attire, and in the act of feeling the pulse of an Indian patient, giving in this way a sign of his profession.
9.2.6
Tamerlane, or Timur-lenk, a name much spoken of in many histories, was the first among the Tartars who conquered and ruled over Hindustan. He is represented out hunting, in which he greatly delighted, in the act of slaying a lion with an arquebuss. The hunting of these wild beasts the Moguls carry out by throwing down in the path a sheep bound with cords. On seeing it, the wild beast rushes at once to devour it; meanwhile they watch, and can easily kill it. The attire of Tamerlane is noticeable, still more his armour, which consists in a corslet of mail richly adorned with gems. Perhaps this costume was peculiar to the Tartars before that of Hindustan began to prevail among them. The posture of this prince, who is kneeling, is asserted by some as intended to indicate that from birth he was weak in the legs, because the second half of his name — that is, lenk — means in the Tartar language 'The Lame.'
9.2.7
Orangzeb, eleventh emperor, who died in 1707, after a very long reign, left behind him a resounding memory as the man who to gain the summit felled and slew — partly by deceit, partly by force — all his three brothers, and as one who for many a day held his own father a prisoner. Before he became emperor he was of a certain sect of the Mahomedans who style themselves faqirs, and maintained throughout his life an assumed exterior of religion. Thus the artist succeeds in taking him to the very life in the act of reading the Quran, in an attitude full of piety and composure, to which there is not wanting any sanctimonious detail.
9.2.8
In many aspects, then, this manuscript of Manuzzi is of value, and the gathering together of all these different books is worthy of high praise. Certainly the public has benefited by a considerable portion of them in the compilation of Father Catrou. All the same, without advertence to the absence of any extracts from the last two parts, it seems that still other chapters from the Memoirs of our author are called for as additions to Catrou's publication. One chapter ought certainly to be on the natural history of Hindustan, which could be gathered so easily from many dispersed passages to be found in Manuzzi's story, and in his notes on his medical practice, where plants, animals, and other rare products are spoken of, not omitting the marvellous properties of the elephant. Another chapter should be on the private habits of the Indians and the Tartars, which could be deduced from particular instances. But let this suffice for a general notice of this Codex, thus deviating no further from our original scheme.