Marino Sanudo Torsello. The Book of the Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross (Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis), tr. Peter Lock

Abstract

The Venetian Marino Sanudo’s Secreta Fidelium Crucis, compiled between 1306 and 1321, is one of the major literary works of the later middle ages. While part of a genre of post-1274 ‘recovery literature’ designed to assist attempts to re-conquer the Holy Land, it escapes easy categorisation. Wrapped in an assumption of religious purpose, geography, history, economics, logistics, finance, international relations and military planning are all brought together in an encyclopaedic investigation of the practical requirements for a successful crusade. The work survives in over twenty manuscripts, some fragmentary, many of them prestige presentation copies given by the author to popes, kings and princes during a career of exhaustive promotion of a new crusade. The scope of the Secreta is extraordinary, combining a history of Outremer with an analysis of the commercial significance of Egypt and the methods and consequences of an economic blockade. Descriptions of techniques of naval and amphibious warfare in the Nile Delta are matched by details of budgeted costs and methods of recruitment, the play of geopolitics, and minutiae of shipbuilding, catapults, sailors’ diet and cures for ships’ worms. The claims, interests and expertise of Venice feature prominently. Dotted throughout are lively, relevant scriptural and historical anecdotes. Although conventional in the general thrust of his argument, Sanudo reveals wide perspectives of objective analysis, as when he comments: ‘for just as water will naturally flow into valleys, so goods will be attracted to places where they are most sought’. Nine of the surviving manuscripts are accompanied by bespoke selections of maps probably commissioned from the Genoese cartographer Pietro Vesconte, some based on portolan charts. Composed in sophisticated but clear Latin, and littered with apt references to the Scriptures, the Secreta skilfully deploys an impressive array of classical and medieval learning, including references to Seneca, Cicero, Josephus, Augustine, Vegetius, Frontinus, Boethius, Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, John of Salisbury, William of Tyre and his continuators, James of Vitry, Hayton of Corycus and Vincent of Beauvais. In the historical sections, Sanudo adds a number of original details.