Venetians and Pacific navigators

Press, 29 May 1982, Page 16

Venetians and Pacific navigators

The Venetians, by Colin Thubron and the editors of Time-Life Books. Time-Life Books, Amsterdam. 176 pp. $19.95. The Pacific Navigators. By Oliver E. Allen and the editors of Time-Life Books. Time-Life Books, Amsterdam. 176 pp. $19.95. (Reviewed by Angus Ross). These companion volumes, the latest to appear in the series "The Seafarers,” are typical Time-Life Books publications. Impressively bound and superbly illustrated, they might well grace any coffee table of general library shelf. Although the text in each cash is limited, it provides a satisfactory summary account of the particular seafarers under treatment. Scholars seeking a more comprehensive study of the subject, a deeper probing into primary sources material or new interpretations, will turn elsewhere.

The outstanding feature of both books is the success of those responsible for the illustrations. Time-Life staff appear to have drawn on the resources of museums, art galleries, and libraries in England, the United States, Spain, Italy, Australia and other countries in order to secure the best original paintings or artefacts to serve their purposes. While the lists of “Picture Credits” methodically record the location of the originals, here reproduced in colour in large page spreads, they do not always note the name of the painter responsible. Nevertheless, readers are told the names of the artists responsible for the very best of the paintings reproduced so

well. Thus, the artist Vittore Carpaccio painted the scene on Venice’s Grand Canal where merchants crowd the quayside of the Rialto and ships discharge their cargoes of silks and spices; the painter Gentile Bellini was responsible for the portrait of Sultan Mehmed II; William Hodges and Sydney Parkinson provided the paintings of scenes of Cook’s voyages which give us the best pictorical evidence of what impressed the 18th century voyagers. "The Venetians” naturally concentrates on the centuries between 1200 and 1500, when Venice dominated the eastern Mediterranean, and tells of naval exploits associated with the crusades and the winning of commercial victories against various rivals, Egyptians, Genoese and Turks. The author preserves a nice balance between descriptions of fighting and commercial activities: he gives useful descriptions of the various types of sailing and rowing vessels employed by the Venetians. The cogs, carracks and galleys he illustrates a Venetian merchant’s ups and downs by giving an account of the life of Andrea Barbarigo. a 15th century notable; although obviously full of admiration for the achievements of the Venetians, he is not so carried away that he fails to note on one occasion that the "fleet was seen to be shot through with cowardice and incompetence.” Thubron contrasts, too. the pleasing Gothic palaces and marble bridges with the over-crowding of the populace, the open sewers and the plague of crimes. Entertainingly, he explains how the four bronze horses’ which adors the frontage of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice were secured

from the Hippodrome in Constantinople, although originally cast in Rome. His last chapters detail the war with the Turks, culminating in the battle of Lepanto in October 1571. Judged by the numbers of vessels engaged and the casualties suffered on both sides, that battle, here described in graphic detail, was one of the great naval battles of all times.

In "The Pacific Navigators," the author devotes separate chapters to the Spanish, Dutch and French explorers before dealing in two chapters with the contributions to geographical knowledge made by the English, and by James Cook in particular. In New Zealand those seriously interested in the subject will still turn to the works of John Beaglehole, but, for a sound general introduction to the subject, the book under review will suffice.

Allen's' text is straightforward, clear and always to the point but, even in such a short account of such a long story, he makes room to tell a few good stories, such as the one about the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. She was Jean Baret, or rather Jeanne Baret, the valet of Commerson, Bougainville’s botanist. Although she wore the clothes of a man and acted as one until the voyage was more than half over, she shared the botanist’s cabin and was actually his mistress. Commerson mentioned her in his will, “the same will in which ... he had set aside a sum to be awarded annually to some especially virtuous person.” The voyages of discovery were full of perils and hardships but they had their lighter and more pleasurable moments.