4 / 2020 The Journal for Renaissance and Early Modern Diplomatic Studies Beatrice Saletti University of Ferrara IMITATION GAMES. SOME NOTES ON THE ENVOYS SENT BY BORSO D’ESTE TO UTHMAN, RULER OF TUNIS Abstract In April 1464 Borso d’Este, Lord of Ferrara, sent two of his servants to Tunis in order to purchase prized horses, giving precise instructions for off ering his regards and presenting his gifts to the ruler of Tunis. Th e letter that the Marquis entrusts to his two servants is a mine of information, because Borso leaves nothing to chance. His instructions cover every aspect of the ambassadorial visit: when to show the gifts, how and in what order to show them, the speech to be given. Many of the instructions given to ambassadors by their governments are yet to be investigated: how much room for manoeuvre did they leave in achieving the objectives of the mission, for example? In the case of the Marquis of Ferrara, Borso intends to exhibit his kingship through the staging of the presentation of his gifts, and through the posture, the gestures and the words of his representatives. Th e analysis of his letter can off er an interpretative guide for examining the appearances and public celebrations organized by Borso during his rule, which took place in an age of great experimentation. Keywords: Italian Renaissance diplomacy, Borso d’Este, Caliph Uthman, gift-giving, Abbasid, Tunisia Inspired by two exchanges of the mid-fi fteenth century between Tunis and Ferrara, this study refl ects on gifts, diplomacy, politics and social customs. Th e exchanges in question are the delegations sent respectively by the Lord of Ferrara to Uthman, the ruler of Tunis,1 in the spring of 1 Uthman was an independent amīr, but for Europeans he was a ‘King’. http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/LEGATIO.2020.04 76 Beatrice Saletti 1464 and from Uthman to Borso2 during the following winter. Gifts and their symbolism in human societies became a subject of research in the twentieth century: fi rst for anthropologists, then for sociologists and cultural historians.3 At a general level, gifts are, to some extent, a representation of the identity of the giver.4 Given that diplomacy thrives on symbols and representations, which by their nature are polysemous, the study of diplomatic gifts can be a rich mine of informa- tion for historians. For example, in 801 CE the Caliph al-Rashid gave Charlemagne, among other things, a very rare albino elephant, and in 807 he gave him monkeys and a mechanical bronze watch. Th ese gifts exhibited both the technological excellence of the Abbasid culture and the wealth and diversity of the kingdom ruled by the Caliph.5 To seal the Treaty of Tilsit, Napoleon gave Tsar Alexander a porcelain dinner service from Sèvres, which represented the pride of French artistic production.6 2 Th e lineage assumed the title of Marquis of Este in the eleventh century, and it ruled Ferrara as holder of a vicariate granted by the pope from the thirteenth century onwards. Borso therefore was the Lord of Ferrara, but not the Marquis of Ferrara, and the title of Duke of Ferrara was not granted to him until April 1471, about four months before his death. For these reasons, to simplify, I will only refer to ‘Marquis’ Borso in this study. 3 On the nature, meaning and function of the gift in groups and cultures it is mandatory to cite the fundamental work by Marcel Mauss, ‘Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques’, L’Année sociologique, 1, second série (1923–24); and subsequent scholars after him, such as David Cheal, Th e Gift Economy (London: Routledge, 1988); and Maurice Godelier, L’Énigme du don (Paris: Fayard, 1996). Historians have also dealt with the specifi c characteristics that gift-giving assumed in the contexts they examined: for example Natalie Zemon Davis, Th e Gift in Sixteenth- -Century France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange, ed. by Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner, Bernhard Jussen (Göt- tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003); Th e Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Wendy Davies, Paul Fouracre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 4 For a clear example of an analysis of diplomatic gifts as tools of self-representation and political legitimation, see: Valentin Groebner, Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts: Presents and Politics at the End of the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), p. 44. 5 Francis W. Buckler, Harunu’l-Rashid and Charles the Great (Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1931), p. 42. 6 Bernard Chevallier, ‘Sévres et l’Egypte’, in Napoleone Bonaparte in Egitto: una spedizione tra conquista e conoscenza 1798-1801, ed. by Cristina Cannelli, Giulia Gorgone, Luigi Mascilli Migliorini (Roma: Gangemi, 2000), p. 67. Imitation Games 77 TUNISIA AND ITALY Before going into the details of the delegation sent to the Maghreb by Borso d’Este, it might be useful to examine the historical context concerning Tunisia and its primary Italian partners. Tunisia was at the heart of the caravan traffi c between sub-Saharan and north-west African countries on the one hand and Egypt and its neighbours on the other hand. From 1229 until the Ottoman conquest (1573), Tunisia was ruled by the Hafsid dynasty. Th e fi rst Hafsid ruler of Tunisia, Abu Zakariyya, is famous for his construction of markets in Tunis and his support for commercial institutions. During his reign, several communities of European merchants were allotted warehouses in Tunis harbour so that they could trade. Pisa was the fi rst Italian state whose merchants established residence in Tunis: a warehouse for Pisan merchants and their families was mentioned in a treaty as early as 1157.7 In the following centuries, the Hafsids continued to renew the treaty with Pisa until 1421, when Florence conquered the city and its harbour. Th en Florence started to rival Genoa in the Western Mediterranean, especially along the shores of Tunisia and aspired to compete with Venice in the trade of spices from the Near East.8 In 1231, Venice and Abu Zakariyya signed a forty-year treaty, and Genoa obtained its fi rst commercial treaty with Abu Zakariyya in 1236.9 Th e kingdom of Tunis controlled the maritime access route which connected the Aragonese territories and the Levant. Th e Hafsids were so closely related to the kingdom of Sicily that, when the Angevin dynasty supplanted the Swabian dynasty, Tunis refused to recognize its sovereignty.10 From the end of the fourteenth century, due 7 Olivia Remie Constable, Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 128–33. 8 Raúl González Arévalo, ‘Italian Renaissance Diplomacy and Commerce with Western Mediterranean Islam: Venice, Florence, and the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in the Fifteenth Century’, I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 18 (2015), pp. 215–32. 9 Dominique Valérian, ‘Gênes, l’Afrique et l’Orient: le Maghreb almohade dans la politique génoise en Méditerranée’, in Chemins d’outre-mer: Études d’histoire sur la Méditerranée médiévale off ertes à Michel Balard, ed. by Damien Coulon, Catherine Otten-Froux, Paule Pagès et al. (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004), pp. 827–37. 10 Francesco Cerone, ‘La politica orientale di Alfonso di Aragona’, Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane, 27 (1902), 380–456 (p. 385). 78 Beatrice Saletti to a drastic decline in agricultural and manufacturing production in the Mamluk empire, European merchants importing oriental products such as spices and corals to the West, began selling fabrics (cotton and wool), wheat and oil to Egypt, both from Italy and from the Maghreb. Th e majority of the shipping trade of Maghreb merchandise was in European hands, but the Hafsid rulers made a considerable amount of money through taxes and duties on European exports.11 In the case of the Marquis Borso d’Este, his relationship with Tunis did not depend on foreign aff airs. Th e Este possessed valleys, salt pans and mines, and resold raw materials both to their own subjects and outside their domain. Th ey also owned numerous commercial enterprises: ovens, mills, inns, taverns and so on.12 Furthermore, passing through Ferrara was unavoidable for anyone travelling to Venice either from the north or the centre of Italy, and the Este exploited this position by charging travellers high prices for goods.13 Nevertheless, the Este state had no direct maritime interests. From 1325, Comacchio, a town near the Adriatic Sea, was acquired by the Este family. Still, the power of Venice to the north, and of the Pontiff to the south, prevented the Este family from exploiting the potential of its port. It was probably with the aim of protecting Ravenna and its harbour from future aggression that Sigismondo Malatesta, in 1461, sent a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, and to the Ottoman sultan.14 Th e commercial strength of the Este did not reside in maritime trade but rather in the vastness of 11 Dominique Valérian, ‘L’essor de l’activité commerciale de la façade maritime du Maghreb aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles’, in Les ports et la navigation en Méditerranée au moyen âge, ed. by Ghislaine Fabre, Daniel Leblévec, Denis Menjot (Paris: Editions du Manuscrit, 2009), pp. 229–30. 12 Guido Guerzoni, La colonia sotto casa (Torino–London: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2008), pp. 19–26. 13 Beatrice Saletti, ‘Assente ingiustifi cata. Per la storia economica di Ferrara nel Tre e Quattrocento’, in Centri di produzione, scambio e distribuzione nell’Italia centro-settentrionale.