A standalone episode on medieval diplomacy, on the travels, career, and narrative of a 14th and 15th century Ming Dynasty diplomat and administrator, and on the history around him. Chen Cheng would suffer professional setbacks outside of his control, as the the Jianwen Emperor would be replaced by the Yongle Emperor, and he would make the overland journey from China to see Shah Rukh, the son of Timur (Tamerlane), in Timurid Herat.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:

Hecker, Felicia J. “A Fifteenth-Century Chinese Diplomat in Herat.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3, no. 1 (1993): 85–98.

Rossabi, Morris. “Two Ming Envoys to Inner Asia.” T’oung Pao 62, no. 1/3 (1976): 1–34.


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Medieval Lives 4: Chen Cheng, his Travels, and his Troubles at Work

A narrative history podcast following the journeys of medieval travellers and their roles in larger historical events. Telling great stories, showing the interconnected nature of the medieval world, and meeting Mongols, Ottomans, Franciscans, merchants, ambassadors, and adventurers along the way.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Giovanni Fontana was a 15th-century Italian engineer and inventor. His designs included everything from systems for retrieving sunken ships and automating the defence of fortifications to measuring time and producing music. He created locks, clocks, and magic lanterns.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:

Fontana, Giovanni. Bellicorum instrumentorum liber cum figuris... Digitized at https://codicon.digitale-sammlungen.de/inventiconCod.icon.%20242.html


Gilbert, Bennett. “The Dreams of an Inventor in 1420,” Public Domain Review. 2018. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-dreams-of-an-inventor-in-1420/


Grafton, Anthony. “The Devil as Automaton: Giovanni Fontana and the Meanings of a Fifteenth-Century Machine,” in Genesis Redux: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Artificial Life, edited by Jessica Riskin. University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Grafton, Anthony. Magic and Technology in Early Modern Europe. Smithsonian Institution Libraries, 2005.

Grafton, Anthony. Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa. Harvard University Press, 2023.

Rossi, Cesare and Russo, Flavio. Ancient Engineers' Inventions: Precursors of the Present. Springer, 2016.

Sparavigna, A.C. “Giovanni de la Fontana, Engineer and Magician.” Cornell University Library, 2013.


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Medieval Lives 8: Giovanni Fontana

In the late-summer of 1914, a city burns and its university library with it. Unusually for this podcast, the story takes us into WWI, but there are medieval connections to the story of Louvain (Leuven) and what happened when the German army came to town.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:

Bazydlo, Angela. “Manuscript lost in WWI fire turns up in Clark Archives.” https://clarknow.clarku.edu/2021/08/30/manuscript-lost-in-wwi-fire-turns-up-in-clark-archives/


Battles, Matthew. Library: An Unquiet History. W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.

Battles, Matthew. “Knowledge on Fire.” The American Scholar 72, no. 3 (2003): 35–51.

Bouwman, André. “Book burning in Louvain, 1914.” https://www.leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/book-burning-in-louvain-1914


Delannoy, Paul. “The Library at the University of Louvain,” The Nineteenth Century, Vol. LXXVII - No. 59, p. 1061 May 1915.

Derez, Mark. “The Flames of Louvain: a Library as a Cultural Icon and a Political Vehicle,” What do we lose when we lose a library? Proceedings of the conference held at the KU Leuven 9-11 September 2015.


Gusejnova, Dina. “Librarians as Agents of German Foreign Policy and the Cultural Consequences of the First World War.” The Historical Journal 66, no. 4 (2023): 864–86.

Kipling, Rudyard. “In Aid of Recruiting.” https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_speeches_29.htm


Kramer, Alan. Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Matin, A. Michael. “‘The Hun is at the Gate!’: Historicizing Kipling's Militaristic Rhetoric, From the Imperial Periphery to the National Center: Part Two: The French, Russian, and German Threats to Great Britain.” Studies in the Novel 31, no. 4 (1999): 432–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29533357.


Ovenden, Richard. Burning the Books. Harvard University Press, 2020.

Ovenden, Richard. “One of Europe’s Great Libraries Didn’t Stand a Chance… In Either of the World Wars.” https://lithub.com/one-of-europes-great-libraries-didnt-stand-a-chance-in-either-of-the-world-wars/   


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Fire at Louvain

The Fernao Mendes Pinto story reaches its conclusion, and he finally reaches Portugal once more.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986).

Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997).

Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).

Rubiés, Joan Pau. “The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India.” Portuguese Studies 10 (1994).

Spence, Jonathan D. The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds. W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fernao Mendes Pinto 10: Lisbon at Last

The story of Fernao Mendes Pinto intersects with that of the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, and takes him back to Japan.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

App, Urs. “St. Francis Xavier’s Discovery of Japanese Buddhism: A Chapter in the European Discovery of Buddhism (Part 1: Before the Arrival in Japan, 1547-1549).” The Eastern Buddhist 30, no. 1 (1997).

Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).

Willis, Clive. “Captain Jorge Álvares and Father Luís Fróis S.J.: Two Early Portuguese Descriptions of Japan and the Japanese.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, no. 2 (2012).


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fernao Mendes Pinto 9: With Francis Xavier in Japan

The first Europeans wash up on Japanese shores, bringing the musket as they do so, and Pinto would have you believe that he is with them.
If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.
I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.
Sources:


The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Cooper, Michael. The Southern Barbarians: The First Europeans in Japan. Kodansha, 1971.

Lidin, Olof G. Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan. Routledge, 2003.

Perrin, Noel. Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879. David R. Godine, 1979.


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Medieval Lives 4: Chen Cheng, his Travels, and his Troubles at Work

Download our free app to listen on your phone