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E-book Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange

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Penilaian

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In the early 1340s, the painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti (ca. 1290–1348) accepted a commission to paint a series of frescoes illustrating Franciscan narrative scenes for the chapter house of San Francesco in Siena, Italy. In the scene that so intrigued me, The Martyrdom of the Franciscans, Ambrogio depicted the execution of six Franciscans, possibly at a Mongol court in Almalik (Almalyq, Almaliq).1 Almalik, located in present-day Xinjiang Province in China, was in the first half of the fourteenth century part of the Chagatai Khanate, the area ruled by Chinggis Khan’s (ca. 1162–1227) second son, Chagatai (1183–ca. 1242). Ambrogio seemed to have wanted to specifically evoke Mongols, or Tartars, as they were often referred to in contemporaneous Latin sources, through facial characteristics, hats, and textiles cladding the central figures. What, I asked myself, was an illustration of a recent martyrdom that took place thousands of miles away, possibly in the Mongol Empire, doing in a Franciscan chapter house in northern Italy? More importantly, how was Ambrogio able to portray the facial char-acteristics, the clothing elements, and the textiles originating in the Mongol world with such detail? As I searched for the answers to these questions, I began to understand that to get to the bottom of the appearance of Mongol figures in this Italian painting, I would need to better understand the role of Mongol dress in their own courts. With this paint-ing in mind, I sought out other key paintings and textiles that highlight the role of dress in the Mongol world. This book looks at the form and function of Mongol court dress with special interest in the question of how the Mongols, over the course of a century and a half (ca. 1206– 1368), were able to create and spread a recognizable and meaningful courtly artistic vocabulary, primarily through dress and textiles, across Asia and into the Mediterranean. It proposes to systematically define what Mongol dress looked like and how it was made in order to understand what meanings dress and textiles conveyed to both populations under Mongol rule and those outside of the Mongol empire. Through this examination, I will answer the question of how Mongol textile patterns and dress ended up being depicted in paintings such as The Martyrdom of the Franciscans. Among the luxury materials produced for the court and exported by the Yuan dynasty and other Mongol polities, textiles and court dress most clearly express the nuances of the changes brought by Mongol rule, and unambiguously show the reach of Mongol culture. Focusing on elite dress and associated material culture, I elucidate the ways in which Mongol leadership constructed a political and cultural identity for themselves, and how this identity was received and understood by previously established cultures. Beginning in the mid-thirteenth century, Mongol-produced luxury textiles began to spread across the known world and became associated with the Mongol empire, convey-ing power and prestige alongside their material value. A variety of textiles were produced for the Mongol elite, but the most defining textile of the empire were cloths woven with supplementary wefts in gold, most frequently lampas weaves or gold-brocaded silks called nas?j. Gold-woven cloth had an intrinsic value, recognized across Asia and the Mediterranean. Alongside gold-woven cloth, tailored riding coats, boots, and pointed hats became shorthand for Mongols or Tartars in a variety of locales. We find refer-ences to both gold-woven cloths and signature pointed hats among certain members of the khan’s entourage in The Martyrdom of the Franciscans, and the khan himself is in a cinched robe with a golden skirt, clearly evoking Mongol court dress.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

950.2 SHE m

Penerbit

: Routledge., 2020

Deskripsi Fisik

207 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781000027433

Klasifikasi

950.2

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Period of Mongol and Tatar Empires

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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