Afonso De Albuquerque and the Consumption of Material Culture in the Indian Ocean (1506-1515) Ana Cardoso Maia Moás Janeiro
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Afonso de Albuquerque and the Consumption of Material Culture in the Indian Ocean (1506-1515) Ana Cardoso Maia Moás Dissertação de Mestrado em História da Arte Moderna Janeiro, 2016 Dissertação apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em História da Arte, realizada sob a orientação científica do Professor Doutor Nuno Senos e a coorientação da Professora Doutora Alexandra Pelúcia. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would not have been able to produce the present thesis without the help of a number of people whom I would like to acknowledge. First and foremost I wish to thank my advisor, professor Nuno Senos, for his excellent guidance, patience, and support. His rigour and suggestions during the more than one year that took the completion of this work had a significant impact on my intellectual development. I also am indebted to professor Alexandra Pelúcia, my co-advisor, who has been supportive of my work from the first moment to the last. I am grateful to Hugo Miguel Crespo for his interest and bibliographic suggestions, and for his significant comments on some chapters. I am also grateful to Susana and Pedro Aguiar Branco for allowing me to combine the writing of this dissertation with work. I would like to thank my colleagues and friends – Diana Rafaela Pereira, João Xavier, Manuel Apóstolo, Miguel Monteiro, Miguel Ribeiro Soares, and Tânia Vasco – who often had to endure my distracted company, and who as a good friends were always willing to help and provide their best suggestions for the stylistic improvements in the title. Finally, I must express my gratitude to my parents and to Joana for providing me with unconditional support throughout my years of study and through the process of writing this thesis. AFONSO DE ALBUQUERQUE AND THE CONSUMPTION OF MATERIAL CULTURE IN THE INDIAN OCEAN (1506-1515) Ana Moás RESUMO PALAVRAS-CHAVE: cultura material, consumos artísticos, arte da expansão, Afonso de Albuquerque Nesta dissertação pretendem-se identificar as práticas de Afonso de Albuquerque enquanto consumidor de arte e avaliar até que ponto são paradiGmáticas do seu tempo ou constituem um marco taxativo na periodização do consumo de arte. O Governador (entre 1509 e 1515, mas na Ásia desde 1506) do que viria a ser o Estado da Índia teve um papel fundamental enquanto receptor e distribuidor de presentes diplomáticos, mas são também inteliGíveis nos textos coevos apontamentos sobre as suas estratéGias pessoais de usufruto e exibição de objectos artísticos. O texto explora como eram tomadas as decisões quanto à cultura material num momento de trocas intensas e sem precedentes com a Ásia. ArGumenta-se que as práticas alteraram-se siGnificativamente durante o período de Governo de Albuquerque, motivadas pela sua (rápida) apreensão da Geopolítica asiática. A dissertação divide-se em duas partes. Na primeira produz-se uma leitura historioGráfica do interesse portuGuês na Ásia durante os anos finais do século XV e os primeiros do XVI. Esta síntese serve para mapear a conjuntura em que as situações descritas no seGundo capítulo tiveram luGar. O seGundo capítulo, mais extenso do que o precedente, produz uma leitura crítica das estratéGias de consumo (aquisição, manutenção, exibição, e transferência de posse) de objectos por Afonso de Albuquerque. Divide-se em três tendências fundamentais que, de acordo com o que é proposto, formataram o interesse portuGuês por objectos asiáticos: os saques, as ofertas diplomáticas, e o consumo de corte. Na parte final do capítulo esboça-se uma proposta de interpretação de como foram recebidos em PortuGal os objectos artísticos enviados, com diversos propósitos, por Afonso de Albuquerque. ABSTRACT KEYWORDS: material culture, consumption studies, Afonso de Albuquerque This thesis attempts to understand the practices of material culture consumption performed by Afonso de Albuquerque, and to assess if they served as a paradigm or a new tendency in sixteenth-century art consumption. The governor (from 1509-1515, but in Asia since 1506) of the future ‘Estado da Índia’ had a central role as a receiver and distributor of diplomatic gifts, but contemporary documents hint at a personal strategy in the use of art. This text explores how decisions were made in a moment of unprecedented and intensive material culture exchange with Asia. It will try to argue that practices changed in the course of Albuquerque’s government, following his (fast) apprehension of Asian geopolitics. This thesis is divided into two chapters. The first consists in a historiographical reading of the Portuguese interest in Asia during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. This summary serves as a basis to understand the stage where the episodes described in chapter II took place. Chapter II, far more extensive than the former, consists in a critical reading of the consumption strategies (acquisition, maintenance, display, and transfer) used by Afonso de Albuquerque. It is divided into three fundamental tendencies which, it is argued, shaped the Portuguese interest for Asiatica: looting, diplomatic gift-exchange, and courtly consumption. The final part of the chapter provides some suggestions on how the material culture sent by Albuquerque with various intents was received in Portugal. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 The Problem 1 Sources and methods 3 Structure 7 I. THE PORTUGUESE INTEREST IN ASIA I. 1. The long decade, 1498-1509 9 I. 2. Reorientations, 1509-1515 16 II. THE CONSUMPTION OF MATERIAL CULTURE II. 1. The Portuguese interest in Asian material culture 27 II. 2. Modes of consumption 30 II.2.1. Loot and wrecks 33 II.2.2. Diplomatic gift-exchange 54 II.2.3. Courtly representation 93 II. 3. Reception in Portugal 114 II.3.1. Present and future strategies 114 II.3.2. Short and long term effects 124 CONCLUSION 127 BIBLIOGRAPHY 131 APPENDIX – Images 171 INTRODUCTION The Problem The history of the acquisition and transformation of Asian objects carried out by Afonso de Albuquerque, governor of Portuguese India (g. 1509-1515), opens up new avenues for the study of material culture consumption, as well as for the study of the Portuguese overseas expansion. This engagement with material culture is significant since tangible artefacts record the interests and tastes of particular social and cultural groups, and their analysis thus reorients our sense of what defined (and meant) the desire for those artefacts.1 Since 1505 – when D. Francisco de Almeida was appointed for a three-year term as first viceroy of India by King D. Manuel (r. 1495-1521) – Portuguese governors were the privileged intermediaries between Kings, acting as agents as well as making decisions themselves. Afonso de Albuquerque succeeded Almeida in late 1509 but by that time he had already been sailing the Indian Ocean for more than three years. Up to his death in December 1515, Albuquerque would be personally involved in the conquest of several Asian cities – such as Hormuz, Goa, and Malacca – and would maintain diplomatic relations with potentates as diverse as Safavid Persia, the Sultanate of Gujarat, the Kingdom of Siam, and the Hindu empire of Vijayanagara. Albuquerque has since been understood by the historiography of Portugal as one of the greatest captains and diplomats in its history.2 Historians of the European Renaissance have argued that material culture played a distinct role in initiating and controlling social relations in the European setting.3 Early sixteenth-century Portuguese narratives hint to a similar action taking place in Asia, where the Portuguese interacted with several foreign and unKnown cultures. 1 RUBLACK 2013, pp. 41-42 2 In a recent (albeit controversial) public poll contest Afonso de Albuquerque was voted the 42nd greatest figure in Portuguese history (Os Grandes Portugueses, organized by the public broadcasting station ‘RTP’, 2006-2007) 3 The bibliography on this topic is vast. For reference see AJMAR-WOLLHEIM & DENIS 2010; BAXANDALL 1980; DASTON 2004; JARDINE 1997; MOTTURE & O’MALLEY 2011; RUBLACK 2013; WELCH 2005. 1 In 1498 the Portuguese captain Vasco da Gama led the first European fleet to arrive in India having travelled round the Cape of Good Hope. He met the ruler of Calicut and offered him twelve pieces of cloth, four red caps, six hats, four coral branches, six ceramic basins, one sugar box, two barrels of olive oil, and two barrels of honey.4 In 1515 another Asian sovereign, the Persian Shah Ismail, received from Afonso de Albuquerque a large gift of armament (including armour, firearms, and ceremonial cold weapons), garments and fabrics, jewellery, coins, and samples of tradable raw materials, amounting to more than 500 pieces.5 The years between these events were of unprecedented and intensive material culture exchange with Asia. They were also years of necessarily fast apprehension of Asian geopolitics by the Portuguese men acting within that geography. The first question in this dissertation is why were there such sharp changes in the official terms of engagement with material culture during the government of Afonso de Albuquerque. Based on this query, I will narrow the field of investigation to the domain of Albuquerque’s practices of consumption. This will provide a basic understanding of the relations established between materiality (whichever its geopolitical origins) and its stately functions. An underlying conviction that material culture contributed to the shaping of a period’s values and practices, rather than just representing existing values and ideals, will be present.6 These questions will also lead to the issue of the coeval reception of an Asian materiality in Lisbon and address the reinvention of meanings and functions for objects in disparate locations.7 I will argue that the stately needs and events were paramount to the development of new practices of consumption in the geography in which Albuquerque was acting. I will further argue that these practices of consumption had 4 VELHO 1969, p. 49: “...tinha o capitão estas coisas para mandar a el-rei: a saber: doze lambéis; quatro capuzes de grã e seis chapéus; e quatro ramais de coral; e um fardo de bacias, em que havia seis bacias; e uma caixa de açúcar; e quatro barris cheios, dois de azeite e dois de mel” 5 CAA, II, pp.