A Journey to Crete, Constantinople, Naples and Florence - Three Months Abroad by Anna Vivanti

A Journey to Crete, Constantinople, Naples and Florence - Three Months Abroad by Anna Vivanti was published, originally for private circulation, in 1865. Thus we embark on one woman’s perspective of travel in the middle of the nineteenth century. Of course, she travels with her husband, who seems, according to her own estimation, quite an enlightened, liberal male for his time. For instance, he regales against copious silverware ostentatiously displayed on altars in churches that they visit. He opines that the objects might be melted down, sold for profit, which may then, he suggests, be spent on education and healthcare for the ordinary people. One wonder if he still thought the same when he got home?

Indeed, Anna Vivanti herself often seems strangely out of her century. In the Parthenon, she deigns to criticize Lord Elgin for having removed the marble sculptures from the frieze. These still adorn the British Museum and remain bones of contention between the British and Greek governments. There is still much debate around whether Lord Elgin may just have “saved” them for posterity. Anna Vivanti, however, needs no convincing. Taking them away was wrong. Anna Vivanti was not ahead of her time, but she revelled in the concept of authenticity, and the Parthenon without sculptures was surely less than the Parthenon she envisaged. She would surely have frowned upon religious practices that were not Christian, and indeed in Turkey she does just that. But she seems to make an exception for ancient Greek gods, who seemed to form part of her pantheon, a godhead that probably reflects her social class and her obvious respect for a “good” classical education. It was surprising how these self-righteously “civilised” people from the United Kingdom branded as barbaric the practices of ancient warfare, whilst at the same time as turning ever-blinded eyes away from anything perpetrated by ancient Greeks or Romans.

Anna Vivanti shamelessly reeks of middle-class Britain. When culturally challenged, as she finds herself in Constantinople, she recoils in anger and revulsion at anything she cannot understand. It must be said that what revolts her utterly about the Ottomans is their treatment of women. And in her account, she leaves no reader unsure about where she stands on religious practices that she finds unfamiliar.

She is equally judgmental with anyone she encounters who was unlucky enough to have been born with a dark skin. She would clearly like to be on the other side of the street. Italians, it seems, are excepted. In their case, swarthiness is even an advantage, adding to the attractive “foreign” qualities she seems to crave. It is strange, perhaps, for a modern reader to encounter a writer who was so overtly and completely racist. But, as with her opinion on the Elgin marbles, precisely what has changed in the intervening century and half?

Obviously, in 1865, travel is by train, ship, horseback or in a carriage. She does walk here and there, and she is sometimes carried, largely, it has to be noted, because others try to ease her journey. She spends remarkably little time talking about food and is very taken with Dante Alighieri, whose festival she attends in Florence at the end of the book. She left originally from Trieste, still fundamentally Austrian that time, despite sending an “Italian” delegation to the Florence festival.

She finds Crete dusty, Constantinople disgusting, Naples, largely dead, but fascinating, even volcanic, and then drools over Florence. For the modern reader, it might be easy to dismiss her provincialism, her overt Britishness and her racism as manifestations of a more ignorant time. But how many modern travellers could make the same trip nowadays on foot, in carriages along dusty and bumpy roads, or on the back of a donkey? And how many could live from day to day without finding burgers and chips, fried chicken and pizza with cheddar rather than mozzarella?

The Enchantress Of Florence by Salman Rushdie

The Enchantress Of Florence by Salman Rushdie is a thoroughly entertaining read. It’s a super-real experience, so vivid and sharp that the focus starts to blur even imagined distinction between the real, the unreal and the surreal. And when everything becomes clear, the process starts again.

We are transported to the sixteenth century and the court of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar the Great, who has many concerns. Akbar, indeed, has all the concerns you would expect any self-respecting emperor might have. He agonises, for instance, over being “I” or “We”. Usually, of course, as befits his status, he is “We”. He has grown up as “We”, assumed himself to be “We” and continues to recognise himself as “We”. But recently he has tried “I” and found it lies strangely on the tongue and might even have changed his reflection in the mirror.

On top of this, he worries about his succession, the indolence and ambition of his offspring, the comfort of his harem, the performance of his armies, the future of his fortunes. But Akbar is also the ruler of a vivid imagination. His favourite queen, the one who adds grace to his harem, the one whose every step must be upon polished tiles, exists only in his imagination. He spends more time with her than with any other of his wives, and she probably consumes more of the palace budget than anyone, so perfectly does Akbar desire to provide for her insatiable needs.

So what might Akbar the Great make of a fair-haired young man in a multi-coloured coat who arrives with a story to tell, a claim to make and tricks of the hand that can be explained as illusions? His name is Uccello, bird, when we meet him aboard ship. Then he is Vespucci, a relative of he who had in the recent past sailed to and named the real new world that Columbus had both missed and misinterpreted. 

And later he transforms into Mogor dell' Amore, the mughal of love, or perhaps with a little imagination, the Mughal’s love-child. And more than that, he arrives bearing a letter from the Queen of England, herself a virgin in her own legend. Uccello Mogor Vespucci, whoever he might be, also has a claim. He is a direct descendent of the Mogul royal line by virtue of an almost forgotten princess, Qara Köz, who as an infant was abducted, traded, swapped, travelled, perhaps trammelled until she emerged in Florence as a young woman of enchanting, perhaps bewitching beauty.

Mogor Vespucci Uccello related how he and her apparently permanent, inseparable assistant, her Mirror, captivated the interest of Medici Florence. Suitors queued at the door, including Argalia, if indeed that be his name, a soldier of fortune. The abandoned princess is then adopted by European high society and learns to live by its rules. She has liaisons whose confusion is only doubled by the constant proximity of the Mirror, and offspring springs outward. Now for an emperor who already has the facility of imagining his favourite wife, Vespucci Uccello Mogor’s story fires the mind, re-ignites memory and raises possibility.

He dreams dreams, interprets them, re-interprets what he doesn’t like and then seeks them in reality, only to find them. A conjoined history that spans Asia and Europe unfolds and he, alongside the reader, sees the familiar in a new, conflicting light. But in the end, who is telling stories? Are the stories true? And, if we can imagine, who might judge them to be false? Is this trickery? Or is it claim? The Enchantress Of Florence is an enchanting read. It is provocative, humorous and in places iconoclastic. Fiction and fact become blurred and, even in reality, we can hardly distinguish between them. We create stories to enhance our experience and sometimes we believe them. Sometimes we also deign to believe what is real, but often we cannot agree on a definition of the label. It’s a magical experience, a conjuror’s achievement.