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A Breton Adventurer in Naples
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
Extract
The purpose of this note is to discuss a late fourteenth-century tomb slab in the church of Santa Maria della Incoronata in Naples. In the course of collecting material for a study of the medieval tombs of Naples, which the Director of the British School at Rome and the present writer are preparing, this tomb, which is in many ways eccentric to the rest of the series, seemed of sufficient interest to merit treatment on its own.
The slab (pl. XXI, 1), of Greek marble, now stands on end, together with six others, against the south wall of the west aisle. When Cesare d'Engenio saw it in the early seventeenth century it was still in situ in the floor of the same aisle. The figure is carved in low relief beneath a delicately traceried canopy with pinnacles and spiral columns, the whole set within a rectangular inscribed frame.
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- Copyright © British School at Rome 1951
References
1 I am much indebted to the Director for help and advice given during the preparation of this note.
2 This chapel was added after the building of the church, founded by Joanna I in 1352. See Bernich, E., ‘La Chiesa dell' Incoronata’, Napoli Nobilissima, XIII, 1904, pp. 100–3Google Scholar.
3 Cesare d'Engenio, Napoli Sacra, Naples, 1624 ed., p. 481.
4 The letters within round brackets indicate abbreviations; those within square brackets are no longer clear. D'Engenio reads Oenerii for Oliverii and Leoviensis for Leonensis both manifestly impossible.
5 See Sur-Yllon, L. de la Ville, ‘L'Abside della Chiesa di San Lorenzo Maggiore’, Napoli Nobilissima, IV, 1895, p. 38Google Scholar. The surcoat is fringed and the sword has a facetted, pear-shaped pommel with incised cross, a long grip and short, straight quillons.
6 The sword has an incipient-pear-shaped pommel and quillons as Bouchier's; the dagger a roundel pommel and flattened oval guard; mail appears over the instep of the sollerets.
7 On the south wall of the right transept of San Domenico Maggiore.
8 See Napoli Sacra, p. 18. D'Engenio mentions no other tomb in the Duomo in which a son is buried with his father.
9 Fragments of the inscription are preserved in Santa Chiara, in addition to the sarcophagus and a recumbent effigy, traditionally supposed to be that of Penna, but which probably does not belong to the sarcophagus, The tomb was dismembered in 1627.
10 Napoli Sacra, p. 109. These copies are no longer to be found in San Lorenzo Maggiore. Roberto did not state when he put them up, and we do not know when he lived or died. He was the last of the Aldemorisco family; his daughter Cecilia married Ugone Braida and had a daughter who was married in 1559 (C. de Lellis, Discorsi delle Famiglie Nobili del Regno di Napoli, I, 1654, p. 279).
11 T. Valle, La Città Nuova di Piperno, Naples, 1646, pp. 300 and 304, describing the tomb of Antonio Penna.
12 From the pavement of the Suleimoniè mosque; it is now in the Museum. Jacobi, G., Guida dello spedale dei cavalieri e del museo archeologico di Rodi (Ministero della Educazione Nazionale: le Guide dei Musei Italiani), Rome, 1932, pp. 35 and 37, fig. 18Google Scholar.
13 Mail can be seen under the plates on the thighs, but not below the surcoat.
14 The full inscription is as follows: (head, from left to right) + HIC: IACET: SUB: TUMULO: (right side, from head to foot) NOBILIS: ARMIGER: PETRUS: DE: LA: PYMORAYE: REDOVER: DIOCES: IN: BRITANIA: QUI: OBIIT: XXI: DIE: (foot, from right to left) MENSIS: (left side, from foot to head) JANUARII: ANNO: INCARNACIONIS: D(OMI)NI: M: CCCC: CUIUS: ANIMA: REQUIESCAT: IN: PACE: AMEN:
15 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 298, Clementis VII Antipapa ann. IX. Among many other examples: Robert de Florigniac and Agnes his wife of the diocese of Sens are permitted to have a portable altar, 26 June 1386 (fol. 9V); a list of domicelli from the dioceses of Vannes and St.-Pol-de-Léon who are granted the permission to have a confessor, 2 April 1387 (fol. 14V).
16 Arch. Seg. Vat., Collectoriae 434, Processus de vita et miraculis Caroli Ducis Brittaniae 1372. The witnesses are mentioned in a form almost identical with that found on Bouchier's tombstone: nobilis vir dominus Erardus de Leonio miles Leonensis diocesis (fol. 82).
17 Journal de Jean le Fèvre, Évêque de Chartres, ed. Morainville, H., Paris, 1887, p. 201Google Scholar; 25 Nov. 1385.
18 Lobineau, , Histoire de Bretagne, Paris, 1707, II plates of seals, no. ccxvGoogle Scholar.
19 Pol de Courcy, who evidently had not seen the Incoronata tomb, erroneously attributes our Bouchier to the Breton family of Bocher, lords of Kermeidy in the parish of Clécler, who bore three bends with a fess over all and a canton checky of nine pieces. (L'Armorial de Lèon en 1400, republished as L'Armorial de l'Évêché de Saint-Pol-de-Léon by Pol de Courcy in 1846Google Scholar; ed. of M. de Reffuge, Nantes, 1863, p. 26).
20 An alternative possibility has been suggested by the Richmond Herald: the Breton branch was connected with the English family, who bore the cross engrailed, but usually at this time between four water-bougets; a craftsman unfamiliar with the heraldry of northern Europe might have mistaken the water-bougets for halberds, which they resemble when seen from the side.
21 Bernandon de la Salle fought for Urban VI for a short time in 1378, and for Joanna I in 1381; Durrieu, P., Les Gascons en Italie, Auch, 1885, pp. 128 and 136–7Google Scholar.
22 Bretons were among the forces besieging Tarvisio in the summer of 1380 (Annales Bonincontrii in Muratori, , Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. XXI, 38)Google Scholar; and there were others in the band of Giovanni d'Azzo degli Ubaldini in the Appenines in 1381 (Ricotti, E., Storia delle Compagnie di Ventura in Italia, Turin, 1845, II, 182Google Scholar).
23 Otto was appointed Captain General of the Angevin forces in October 1386 (Journal Je Jean le Fèvre, p. 320); Dietrich of Niem says that he went to the kingdom of Sicily while Urban VI was at Lucca, after Dec. 1386 (Theoderici de Nyem de Scismate Libri Tres, ed. Erler, G., Leipsig, 1890, p. 111Google Scholar).
24 Diurnali detti del Duca di Monteleone (ed. Faraglia, N., Società Napoletana di Storia Patria, Naples, 1895, p. 32Google Scholar).
25 Ibid., p. 33.
26 Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Instrumenta Miscellanea 3242, Rotuli receptorum et expensorum a domino Petro Episcopo Magalensi Thesaurario Clementis Papae VII, no. 9, for March 1387, pro guerra, and no. 10, for May 1387, Ibid.,
27 P. Durrieu, op. cit., p. 159.
28 Diario d'Anonimo Fiorentino, in Documenti di Storia Italiana VI, Cronache dei Secoli XIII e XIV, p. 454.
29 Annales Bonicontrii, pp. 45–6.
30 Theoderici de Nyem, p. 98.
31 Chronicon Siculum Incerti Autoris, ed. de Blasiis, J., Società Napoletana di Storia Patria, Naples, 1887, pp. 61 and 65Google Scholar.
32 P. Durrieu, op. cit., p. 126 n.
33 Thomae de Acerno Episcopi Luceriensis de Creatione Urbani VI et Creatione Domini Gebennsis in Antipapam, Muratori, , R.I.SS., III, part II, 718Google Scholar.
34 See especially the account of their visit to Terni, in Diario d'Anonimo Fiorentino, p. 338.
35 P. Durrieu, op. cit., pp. 135, 137.
36 Theoderici de Nyem, p. 115.
37 The two authorities that mention this attack differ as to the day on which i t took place: the Diurnali says The 22 October (p. 34); the Chron. Sic. (p. 71) 31 October. The day of Bouchier's death may provide the correct date.
38 Chron. Sic., p. 21.