From Icons of Evil to Features of Princely Pleasure: Mongols in Fourteenth-Century Italian Illuminated Manuscripts

Abstract

The representation of Mongols in Late-Medieval Italian illuminated manuscripts undergoes a transformation in the fourteenth century. In literature connected to the Crusades and in historical writings they are usually portrayed as symbols of Evil or of the Deadly Vices. In other instances, nonetheless, they seem to lose this significant iconic value and to turn into an exotic component for the amusement of princely patrons. It is certainly not by chance that illuminations comprising Mongols were produced in the cities most strongly tied to the East by trading routes and commercial interests, like Venice and Genoa. The appearance of Mongols within more widespread iconographies, both sacred and secular, and their metamorphosis as exotic decorations are connected to manuscript illumination at the Angevin court in Naples. This contribution re-evaluates both types of instances, with the purpose of achieving a survey of these types of representation in Italian gothic illuminated manuscripts.