Scipio Carafa appears in the letter of Iacopo Antonio Marcello, written in November 1449, one of the oldest Trionfi documents.
The letter and an accompanying book from Martiano da Tortona were translated by Ross Caldwell:
Letter ... http://trionfi.com/jacopo-marcello-letter-1449
Book ... http://trionfi.com/martiano-da-tortona-tractat

Some data of earlier research (c. 2005) had been summarized at ...
http://trionfi.com/scipio-caraffa-venetian-diplomat

A relevant note, according which Scipio Caraffa had been a Venetian diplomat in 1446 at the French court, is online now:
M. Vallet de Viriville, "Histoire de Charles VII, Roi de France, et de son époque 1403-1461" (1865)
http://books.google.de/books?id=EktF5Hv ... 22&f=false

************

Recently some new material to Scipio Carafa was detected (by Phaeded and myself).

Dutch genealogical record
http://www.genealogieonline.nl/west-eur ... 840925.php

According this a "Scipio Carafa" had been Signore in Pascarola (nowadays a part of the city Caivano, 14 km northeast of Naples).
Scipio Carafa is there son of a Galeotto Carafa (died 1415), and a grand-son of Andrea, Signori di Forli, Signore of Forli (this should be not the Forli near Imola and Faenza, but a much smaller Forli del Sannio in the Abruzzen, North of Isternia, which should be the home place of the grand-grand-mother Giovanna d'Isernia. Other places given in the family records belong to the same region, high in the mountains of the abruzzen and controlling the passes likely.

There is also a German/English genealogical record.
http://www.geni.com/people/Andrea-Caraf ... 0742455205
The grandfather Andrea di Carafa has in this record died in the year 1384 (in the Dutch record he has no date). He has in this record no son with the name Galeotto, and consequently also no grand-son Scipio.

Phaeded detected a Scipio Carafa in a treccani article abot "Galeotto Carafa"
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gal ... ografico)/

... l'altro Galeotto signore di Pascarola, figlio di Scipione, o, secondo l'Aldimari, di Andrea, nato nell'anno 1415 circa. Quest'ultimo fu uomo d'arme e capitano di Sulmona nel 1455. Alla morte di Alfonso I d'Aragona si schierò contro Ferdinando, il quale nel 1460 gli tolse la metà del feudo di Pasacarola, che Galeotto aveva ricevuta in eredità dal padre. Nel 1465 divenne capitano de L'Aquila, dove rimase fino al 1469. Intorno a quest'epoca acquistò Civitaluparella, il cui possesso fu confermato dal sovrano agli eredi il 5 nov. 1486. Sposò Rosata di Pietramala, da cui ebbe sei figli; il primogenito, Andrea, fu il primo conte di Santa Severina. Morì nel 1486 ed il figlio maggiore nel 1513 gli fece porre una lapide in S. Domenico Maggiore in Napoli.

I've difficulties to understand this text. Is it Galeotto or Scipio, who is born c. 1415? I assume, it's Galeotto and Scipio is just the father, about whom nothing is told.

A solution to this contradicting information might be, that the earlier Galeotto (dying 1415) had been an illegitimate son or a son in second marriage of Andrea, the grand-father (which might be an easy reason to appear not in the English/German genealogy). Scipio with a son Galeotto in c. 1415 should have been born 1395-1400 at least. He might have been Signore of Pascarola till 1442, and then went possibly with Renee d'Anjou into exile to Provence, as it happened also with Giovanni Cossa, who appears also in the Marcello documents.

http://trionfi.com/giovanni-cossa-messe ... ee-d-anjou

Giovanni Cossa himself was then on the side of the Anjou as his father and uncle, the pope, and he became a leading figure for the Anjou party in the city, defending the Anjou’s interest in Naples till the end in 1442, but he had to capitulate finally, when Alfonso d'Aragon took Naples. Together with Rene d'Anjou and some other companions (Ottino Caracciolo and Giorgio della Magna are mentioned) on 2 Genuese ships he left the city, taking refuge in Florence. He is pardoned in Naples 1/2 year later in Naples by Alfonso, but leaves the city finally in 1448 to Rene in France. There he became enlisted in the just builded Order of the Crescent as Nr. 3, probably it's true, that he helped to found the institution, perhaps it was even his idea or an idea born just by the meeting of Rene and Cossa.

As a possible reason for Scipio Carafa to be chosen as a Venetian diplomat might be just the reason, that he had good access to Renee d'Anjou and knew, how to speak French by his earlier contact.

There's the interesting observation, that the grand-mother of Scipio, Maria di Cornay, had been the daughter of a Peter of Cornay, and Cornay is a French region in the Ardennes, close to Bar and Lorraine (where Peter of Cornay likely came from, probably as a noble knight in the early 1300s; Bar and Lorraine were early regions for Renee d'Anjou). This condition might have opened some French language to the descendents of the family and a natural good contact to the Anjou, which reigned in Naples for a long period already in 13th/14th century. Peter of Cornay had married the Italian girl from Isernia, Giovanni d'Isernia, who died in 1352 (according the German/English genealogy).
Peter of Cornay aka Pietro di Cornay should be an Italian name, the original French name might be quite different.

Cornay
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornay

Huck wrote
As a possible reason for Scipio Carafa to be chosen as a Venetian diplomat might be just the reason...

Per my notes in the original thread, a non-Venetian as an ambasssador for that secretive Republic, especially to the king of France, was an impossibility. Only Venetian patricians were ambassadors. This S. Carafa is not even mentioned in King nor in other releveant books about this time period (see, for instance, Dennis Romano's The Likenes of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, Yale, 2007 - it focuses on his Doge period from 1423 to 1457).

This 19th century "source" (M. Vallet de Viriville, "Histoire de Charles VII, Roi de France, et de son époque 1403-1461", 1865) for the assertion that Carafa was a Venetian ambassador has muddled the facts: S. Carafa had to have been an envoy for Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples to Venice, not for Venice. Malizia Carafa and his son Diomede were the key Neapolitan barons who facilitated the "regime change" in Naples from Joanna to Alfonso (playing a key role in getting the city gates opened), with Diomede becoming one of the king's primary military leaders (as well as being somewhat of a humanist). Scipio must have been from a minor cadet branch of the Carafa, serving in some diplomatic role - undoubtedly looking out for Alfonso's interest in Milan and the shifting alliances that took place from 1446-1449. With Visconti's death and then the swiftly changing Venetian alignment with Sforza that had to have changed Carafa's original mission.

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote:

Huck wrote
As a possible reason for Scipio Carafa to be chosen as a Venetian diplomat might be just the reason...

Per my notes in the original thread, a non-Venetian as an ambasssador for that secretive Republic, especially to the king of France, was an impossibility. Only Venetian patricians were ambassadors. This S. Carafa is not even mentioned in King nor in other releveant books about this time period (see, for instance, Dennis Romano's The Likenes of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, Yale, 2007 - it focuses on his Doge period from 1423 to 1457).

This 19th century "source" (M. Vallet de Viriville, "Histoire de Charles VII, Roi de France, et de son époque 1403-1461", 1865) for the assertion that Carafa was a Venetian ambassador has muddled the facts: S. Carafa had to have been an envoy for Alfonso of Aragon, King of Naples to Venice, not for Venice. Malizia Carafa and his son Diomede were the key Neapolitan barons who facilitated the "regime change" in Naples from Joanna to Alfonso (playing a key role in getting the city gates opened), with Diomede becoming one of the king's primary military leaders (as well as being somewhat of a humanist). Scipio must have been from a minor cadet branch of the Carafa, serving in some diplomatic role - undoubtedly looking out for Alfonso's interest in Milan and the shifting alliances that took place from 1446-1449. With Visconti's death and then the swiftly changing Venetian alignment with Sforza that had to have changed Carafa's original mission.

Phaeded

If he was a man of Alfonso, as you claim, why did Marcello had such an intensive talk with him? If he was such a man of minor importance (in the Venice camp), why did Marcello have such an intensive talk with him? And why did Marcello even care to name him in his letter to Isabella?

Maybe Venice had mostly rather strict rules with their ambassadores, but occasionally not in urgent situations, for instance in the case of a longer war and in the case of rather good-positioned persons at foreign courts?

Maybe the French had desired Carafa (whom they knew) as a Venetian ambassadore, and didn't like to have a Venetian formed according the strict diplomatic rules of Venice? Would you think, that Venice would complicate their own political interests in siuch a case by their own strict rules for the education of their ambassadores?

Or, another possibility, maybe the 19th century French writer misinterpreted the function of Scipio Caraffa, and he was a French ambassadore for Venice? What in the given situation actually looks more probable.

Often enough foreign persons were used by many states as their delegates. Possibly just, cause it was difficult to have native speakers at the right position. If Venice, as you say, was an exception, perhaps Venice also made occasionally an exception?

Wasn't it often not so, that ambassadores worked in two directions, with the knowledge of the both connected states? What is with Marcello himself, who offered his service to Renee d'Anjou?

I’m fairly certain the below resolves the questions concerning not just Scipio Carafa but the very reason why Marcello sent a gift to Isabelle….

First of all, what was Carafa’s original mission? Viriville’s stated context for the assertion that Carafa was working on behalf of Venice (see Huck’s link above with Ross’s transaltion):
"Charles, Duke of Orléans, as the heir of Valentine Visconti, raised legitimate pretensions on the rulership of Asti in Piedmont and on the principality of Milan. On December 27 1446, Charles VII signed a new treaty of alliance with Milan. The following year, the succession of the Duchy was opened by the death of Filippo Maria. Thereupon Charles VII supported the attempts that his cousin of Orléans made in Italy, but in vain."

We’ll never have the clearest picture of what was happening exactly when, as the diplomatic duplicity and swiftness of events makes almost every historical record somewhat suspect here (especially via Viriville), but essentially the King of France (Charles VII) was humoring the designs on Milan by both his own son, the Duke of Orleans, and Louis, the Duke of Savoy – eventually the latter two decided they would partition Milan between themselves. That agreement was in 1446 before Visconti died. Visconti’s life-long enemy, Venice, was naturally seeking these same alliances in its on-going war with Visconti. Scipio Carafa appears on the scene in those circumstances. And certainly not as a Venetian nor a Venetian ambassador – he was Neapolitan and from a highly placed family in Alfonso’s court in Naples.

By May 1446 Visconti’s army was close to over-running Cremona, but was repelled in September 1446 by the Venetians, led at this time by Sforza’s cousin, M. Attendolo (with Marcello at his side); Sforza was busy fighting in the Marche for his remaining possession there of Jesi (he ends up selling it to the pope the following year). By November the counter-attacking Venetian army lead by Attendolo are at the gates of Milan. Campaigning season apparently ends with the onset of winter. March 1447 Visconti is able to retain Sforza once again as his general; Venice declares Sforza a rebel. Venice realigns itself with Alfonso and the pope against Visconti/Sforza in April 1447. By June, and before Sforza can take the field, the Venetian army is back before the gates of Milan. In August, Sforza officially abandons Jesi, but before he can make it to Milan his father-in-law dies the same month. Venice now abandons its alliance with Alfonso and cuts a deal with the new Ambrosian Republic, but the latter doesn’t trust Venice and subsequently hires the now-homeless Sforza (well, he does have Cotignola) as her general. For over a year, Sforza kicks the Venetians’ ass until the treaty of October 1448 when Sforza switches sides to Venice. Marcello is now sent back to Sforza and together they are outside Milan’s gates sometime from December/January through September 1449. February of that year Venice gives a green-light for Venetian troops to assist Sforza in fighting Savoy but then quickly rescinds that order by April to keep France out of Italy (i.e., from assisting Savoy and then growing ambitious in taking Milan for itself). During the same time period Rene is petitioning Venice/Sforza/Florence to help him retake Naples. Perhaps the most baffling entry by King is this one: 18 April 1449: “Senate letter to provveditore Marcello, acquiescing to Sforza’s proposal to send a messenger to Alfonso of Aragon (ASV, SS 18, fol. 18v)” [King, 271] . Was this messenger our Scipio, sent from the Venetian/Sforza camp where he had become friendly, to keep Naples neutral? If so, it failed - Alfonso declared war on Venice on 8 July 1449. 16 August, Rene enrolls Marcello and Sforza into his Order of the Cresent (apparently being at war with Alfonso cemented that). 24 September, Venice dumps Sforza and realigns once again with the Ambrosian Republic – inevitably a Venetian-Neapolitan alliance is taken back up against Sforza (although Alfonso’s main attack was against Sforza’s ally Florence in trying to take Piombino…the Neapolitan army was notably lead in that endeavor by Diomede Carafa, the main branch of the Carafa family and the closest non-Spanish advisors to Alfonso).

So where does that leave our Scipio Carafa? If he was in Venice and then in France in 1446 (the time period mentioned by Viriville) while Charles VII was dealing with the plans for Savoy and Orleans on Milan, then it seems obvious he was promoting Alfonso’s own interest in Milan as an ally of this nascent alliance (he needed to be part of any attack on Milan so he could press his own claims there as part of the winning side). Sforza would have been on Venice’s pay through April 1447 and so not a nominal enemy of Alfonso during that year. Savoy/Orleans were minor players – Alfonso, however, would have wanted to know the dispositions of the primary players, Venice and France, and that is where we find Scipio. France was especially problematic as Rene still had designs on Naples – would Charles VII support Rene against Alfonso? And lo and behold, we eventually find our Neapolitan ambassador suddenly calling upon Rene’s wife. Why? To ascertain Rene’s disposition towards entering the Milanese theatre, hopefully from a talkative wife, before heading home via Milan where he will assess conditions in the field in person. There is no reason for Sforza/Marcello not to receive Scipio as Alfonso is not a belligerent at this time, and even if he were, Scipio was a diplomat and to be received as such. Marcello places Scipio in the camp outside of Milan the “year before” November 1449, which looks like sometime from December 1448 (King has Sforza outside Milan in “January”) to March 1449 when their old calendar year would have ended. Scipio’s stay could have extended for at least another month - returning to the timeline from above, 18 April 1449: “Senate letter to provveditore Marcello, acquiescing to Sforza’s proposal to send a messenger to Alfonso of Aragon (ASV, SS 18, fol. 18v)” [King, 271]. The object seems pretty clear here – keep Alfonso neutral (whether that messenger was Scipio or not [Marcello and Sforza obviously thought they had befriended him, per the tone of the former’s letter to Isabelle], although he does appear to have been in that camp during precisely this time period).

On first blush what is baffling here is that Marcello’s letter is written AFTER Venice and Sforza had parted ways for the last time in September – the letter is dated shortly thereafter, on 12 November 1449. So it is in that context that we must read the opening lines of Marcello’s letter: “Last year in the field of Milan, when I was in the camp of the highest and most celebrated leader Francesco Sforza, I was put in charge of the troops of our most illustrious republic, which he had relieved with assistance while we were waging war against Milan.” Reading between the lines of Marcello’s diplomatically-tinged quill, he is down-playing the enmity between Sforza and Venice (Sforza is merely described as a relieving party to the main Venetian army headed by Marcello) so that Rene will not choose sides in what are now open hostilities between “the highest and most celebrated” Sforza and Venice (and keep in mind that the Florentine ambassador to Venice, Manetti, was petitioning Venice on behalf of Rene to take Naples; so that promise of support by Venice could hopefully hold Rene off) . The flattering reference to Carafa’s previous visit to Isabelle also has to be taken in the context of Alfonso now being Venice’s ally against Sforza (which problematically meant that Venice was technically against Rene, as Alfonso’s ally). The seemingly innocuous letter is pure diplomacy – trying to win Isabelle over to keep her husband from committing to taking the field against Venice for Sforza. In this case, it seems the diplomacy worked as Isabelle died in early 1453 and Rene had still not taken the field.

Finally, the letter of Marcello to Isabelle should be considered in light of two Marcello letters/manuscript gifts of consolation to Rene sent after Isabelle’s death; it is the second one that concerns us and I have written about it on a separate post on this webpage, here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=933&p=13573&hilit= ... llo#p13573

What I wrote at that time about an allegorical/iconographic illumination of an invincible Venice supported by Marcello, included in that manuscript :
“The trionfi-like illumination – oddly having the general aspects of a playing card – that Marcello subsequently sent to King Rene in 1453 (an illuminated page within his commissioned life of St. Maurice, patron saint of Rene’s new order) was to keep Rene, once again, from joining Sforza against Venice. This image has received little attention, as far as I am aware, in regard to the milieu that produced the PMB. Without proposing my own take on this item at this time, just posting scans of the image (could not find it on-line) and Margaret King’s text that describes it in detail (The Death of the Child Valerio Marcello, 1994): [3 scanned pages are attached]”

So it appears that Marcello twice sent Rene, once via his wife, diplomatically charged “trionfi-like” gifts in order to keep him from joining Sforza. Some relevant passages from King regarding the last gift (from the third scan in the link):

The untangled message urges Cossa [Rene’s general] to reconsider his alliance with Sforza and hostile intent against Venice. The sum of the messages enclosed in the pretty manuscript book amount to a last-chance diplomatic plea by Marcello to his French friend’s not to open hostilities against Venice: “Marcello has scarcely veiled a bribe.”….Its dateline was a battlefield, the Venetian army camp lying between two of the towns over which Lombard conflict had hovered for nearly thirty years on the west bank of the Oglio: “1 June 1453, from the most auspicious camp of the Venetians after the victories at Quinzano and Pontevico.” Thus audaciously does the volume close in which intersect the military, the learned, the artistic and the diplomatic vectors of Renaissance culture (125).

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote:I’m fairly certain the below resolves the questions concerning not just Scipio Carafa but the very reason why Marcello sent a gift to Isabelle….

No, imho. But I can live well with differences in the opinions of others. And actually I like to know, why they think different in topics, in which I'm interested myself.
With Diomede Carafa you've surely a point, but Diomede, who lived 20 years outside of Naples cause of his early sympathy with Alfonso d'Aragon, could naturally not present in all phases of his life the opinion of the complete Carafa family.
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/dio ... ografico)/
His biography (treccani.it) doesn't indicate a specific diplomatic commission in 1448/49 in Milan, as far I see it.

Scipio Carafa with his few biographical data, which we can get in the web, looks like a "lost person", if he had belonged to the winners in Naples after Alfonso took Naples, we likely could know more about his actions.

************

First of all, what was Carafa’s original mission? Viriville’s stated context for the assertion that Carafa was working on behalf of Venice (see Huck’s link above with Ross’s transaltion):
"Charles, Duke of Orléans, as the heir of Valentine Visconti, raised legitimate pretensions on the rulership of Asti in Piedmont and on the principality of Milan. On December 27 1446, Charles VII signed a new treaty of alliance with Milan. The following year, the succession of the Duchy was opened by the death of Filippo Maria. Thereupon Charles VII supported the attempts that his cousin of Orléans made in Italy, but in vain."

We’ll never have the clearest picture of what was happening exactly when, as the diplomatic duplicity and swiftness of events makes almost every historical record somewhat suspect here (especially via Viriville), but essentially the King of France (Charles VII) was humoring the designs on Milan by both his own son, the Duke of Orleans, and Louis, the Duke of Savoy – eventually the latter two decided they would partition Milan between themselves. That agreement was in 1446 before Visconti died. Visconti’s life-long enemy, Venice, was naturally seeking these same alliances in its on-going war with Visconti. Scipio Carafa appears on the scene in those circumstances. And certainly not as a Venetian nor a Venetian ambassador – he was Neapolitan and from a highly placed family in Alfonso’s court in Naples.

http://books.google.de/books?id=EktF5Hv ... 22&f=false

Viriville offers a lot of references for this passage and it's not clear, which of them belongs to Scipio Carafa, the Venetian ambassadore. It seems clear, that it happened 1446.
Starting with the first reference, we meet Pierre Dupuy, who got a lot of material from Jacques Auguste de Thou.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Dupuy_(scholar)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Auguste_de_Thou
It's not easy to find these references, I would assume. It's likely a lot of work to transform Scipio Carafa to an Alfonso diplomat, even in the case, that you would be right in your critique.
And it wouldn't change much of Trionfi card history, if you would be successful. And not to forget, Scipio Carafa is confirmed as "active for Venice" by his meeting with Marcello.

The passage refers to various diplomatic activities of the French court (Castille, different German princes, Savoy, Venice). A relation to the court of Naples is not mentioned in this context.
Well, if the footnotes row has some logic, the last reference seems most promising, as Scipio Carafa appears at the end of the passage. That's Escouchy-Beaucourt, which should be "La Chronique d'Escouchy a été éditée en 1863–64 par l'érudit G. du Fresne de Beaucourt".
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathieu_d%27Escouchy

Well, 1863-64 is only a few years before the work of Viriville (1865), that looks promising. There it is ...
http://books.google.de/books/about/Chro ... edir_esc=y
That seems to be Book I, and the page is 113 ...
http://books.google.de/books?id=jQo0qIK ... io&f=false
... which reports the death of pope Eugen (spring 1447). In the article there's a sentence about the king of France and Geneve, and the attack of Venice on Milan.
This is not the base for the sentence about Scipio Caraffa, as far I see it. I've read through "1446", but didn't find a diplomatic relation to Venice of Alfonso mentioned.

Annali Boiorum 1627, p. 512, is this ...
http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de ... pageNo=542
... Carolus septimus rex galliae is mentioned and the yea 1447, but in the context I can't detect anything about Scipio Carafa. Anyway, that's a Bavarian text, and it likely didn't pay attention to Venice-French matters.

Well, I think, it's your battle ...

But this I find at gallica with this description ...

Recueil d'actes des rois Charles VII et Louis XI, actes dont beaucoup sont réduits à l'état de formules. On ne relève dans la présente notice que ceux qui ont encore quelque intérêt soit par les personnes, soit par les lieux ou les établissements qui y sont nommés --1401 Ausführliche Informationen
Manuskript
Beschreibung : janvier 1445 ». ; 184 « Lectre close du Roy au duc de Venise : ... Carissime et specialis amice. Ex serie licterarum vestrarum, quas dilectus noster Scipio Carafa, scutifer, ad nos detulit... Datum in castro Montiliorum prope Turonis. » 1447. En latin. ; 185 Lettre à

http://gallica.bnf.fr/Search?ArianeWire ... &x=17&y=15
... and the document is here ...
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9 ... afa.langDE
... and I would say: "Much fun, dear researcher", 369 pages, handwritten

... :-) ... Look at it,and you understand, what I mean. Well, there's an index (handwritten) connected to numbers (if these are numbers), and likely the number mean pages (?) or numbered documents (?)

... as I said, I think, it's your battle. But I see, that the document with Scipio Carafa has number "184" and the total number of documents is 288 (as given with the "desription") and the already given "Lectre close du Roy au duc de Venise : ... Carissime et specialis amice. Ex serie licterarum vestrarum, quas dilectus noster Scipio Carafa, scutifer, ad nos detulit... Datum in castro Montiliorum prope Turonis." should be the central parts of the text.

"Castro Montiliorum prope Turoni" should be "castle of Montils (today the castle of Plessis in La Riche, western suburbs of Tours)"
... it should have this story:
http://elfinspell.com/RomanticCastles/P ... Tours.html

"Scutifer" should mean "Squire", or "knight"

My computer is too slow for searching this document 184 with Gallica on 369 handwritten pages.
You wanted to prove, that there's a wrong reading.
Perhaps there is. Perhaps Scipio Carafa was a French ambassadore send to Venice occasionally.

Finally - with some help - I found the letter ...

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9 ... o%20carafa

here an enlarged picture of the upper and lower part
http://a-tarot.eu/p/2014/trio-40b.jpg
http://a-tarot.eu/p/2014/trio-40c.jpg

... and here a full picture



I marked the headline, and the name Scipio Carafa and the castle Montilione in the last line. The known shortened translation had been:
"Lectre close du Roy au duc de Venise : ... Carissime et specialis amice. Ex serie licterarum vestrarum, quas dilectus noster Scipio Carafa, scutifer, ad nos detulit... Datum in castro Montiliorum prope Turonis."

Huck,
I will admit that Carafa could have trying to ferret out the French position on a Venetian-Neaploitan alliance that was in the works, but the problem with all of this additional conjecture about Carafa as either a Venetian or French ambassador is the precedent for a non-French or non-Venetian acting as an ambassador for either of those respective realms...especially when another court was the recipient of the delegation in question.

We are used to discussing foreign mercenary "contractors" here - but the same did not exist for diplomacy; those foreign relations secrets stayed 'in-house".

Produce a Venetian or French parallel to Carafa's hypothetical role. I find it unlikely in the extreme.

Phaeded

I don't understand what you want. An example for a foreign diplomat ...?

Uzun Hassan (Persia) had a Spanish Jew as a diplomat, who earlier had worked as physician at the Persian court. He had the advantage to be acquainted to European languages. He worked on the Balkan, in Hungary and in Italy (especially Venice) and likely also in Spain. Later, after Uzun Hassan had died, he worked for the court of Polonia.

He was rather successful, especially at the Balkan. The Osmans got a lot of problems cause of him.

Isaac Beg or Isach hebreo medicho et ambassador


http://books.google.com/books?id=LLuPS1 ... ac&f=false

Issac Beg was an ambassador commissioned by Uzun Hassan
At 1472 in Hungary at the court of Matthias Corvinus, he went then to Venice and Rome (and - perhaps - to Urbino), returned to Hungary (Buda), where he was influential to cause peace between Corvinus and the prince (Voivod) Stephan of Moldavia.
One or two years later a converted Jew of Toledo came to Buda, Martin Cotta (probably with Queen Beatrice of Aragon).

Intensive article to Isaac Beg:
http://mati.tudomanytortenet.hu/otka/tardy_01.pdf
According this Isaac Beg had been already 1471 as "orator" in Venice, his function is observable till 1474.
Later he possibly appeared as ambassador or court physician at the court of the Polish king (in the case, that it is the same man). He died 1509/10.

The above mentioned Stephen of Moldavia is ...
Stephen III of Moldavia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_III_of_Moldavia
and he caused - if one believe in the given numbers - considerable trouble to the Osmanic forces, more than the Christian fleet in 1471-72 and also more than Uzun Hassan in 1473.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=494&p=6535&hilit=m ... uzun#p6535

Here we see him in discussion with Montefeltro, then the first condottiero for the papal armies in 1474.



A super-diplomat of highest rank.

http://www.ediplomat.com/nd/history.htm
Here we have a humble understanding, how diplomacy started ... in 15th century. But shouldn't one assume, that other forms of diplomacy existed earlier? When Petrarca (not a man from Milan) travelled to Paris in 1360 to arrange a French/Milan marriage, wasn't that a form of diplomacy?

Filippo Maria Visconti used Decembrio as a diplomat (for instance in Ferrara). All these delegations to peace negotiations, weren't that diplomatic actions? Filippo Maria used Pietro Lapini da Monalcino (from Siena, not from Milan) for such actions.

Byzanz used Chrysolares to teach Greek in Italy. Weren't that an action of diplomacy? All these delegates at the council of Constance, weren't that diplomats?
Weren't it a common strategy to hire personalities of some fame (and it was not of importance, that they were from the own country) to impress foreign rulers, if necessary, and to use them to speak the right words to achieve some good results?

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http://books.google.de/books?id=CHrnGqF ... cy&f=false
... describes two diplomats, one, Zaccaria, is a foreign diplomat from Pisa, who works for Mantova in Milan.

Huck,
Since you are now waffling on Carafa being either a Venetian or French ambassador, I posed this: “Produce a Venetian or French parallel to Carafa's hypothetical role.”

Instead you found examples from courts not associated with Carafa’s supposed role, but instead primarily in Milan in the persons of Petrarch and Decembrio. I am unclear on their precise roles in each instance you gave, but mull this over:

A Visconti or Gonzaga could send a trusted counsellor or confidential agent, provided with no more than a personal letter of introduction to a fellow tyrant or to some influentential citizen....Such agents could be appointed by an autocratic prince without consultation with anyone. They could be dispatched and recalled at will and paid out of private and unquestionable funds. They could receive their instructions directly from the prince, and report to him directly. They might even be given full ambassadorial credentials to be produced only if an emergency required it…..but such a tentative, experimental technique was impossible for law-bound governments like Florence or Venice. Their foreign affairs were conducted by committees whose members were watchful of one another, and who were, collectively, more or less responsible to deliberative assemblies. The salaries and terms of office of their public officials had to be fixed by law, and their expenses to be met out of properly sealed official document, could guarantee the right of any person to speak for Venice or for Florence. The republics could use secret agents, just as they employed public ambassadors. But an ambiguous combination of the two roles in one person was beyond their power. Therefore when Venice or Florence sent resident diplomatic agents intended to serve as channels of governmental communication, those agents had to be unmistakably official and formally accredited, and this naturally made adoption of the new diplomatic tool a much graver departure from established custom. (Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy,. 1955: 81-2).

Again, Venice strictly used Patricians for both its civil (visdomino =consuls) and military (provvidittore) foreign relations; the former acted somewhat as ambassadors before resident ambassadors became a common feature after 1450, but special embassies would have also been Patricians.

I can find nothing for either Charles VII or Doge Foscari, the rulers of France and Venice respectively for the period that covers the period that Carafa was in Sforza’s camp, that shows them using foreigners as envoys.

For a sense of whom Charles VII used as diplomats see Joycelyne Gledhill Russell, The Congress of Arras, 1435: A Study in Medieval Diplomacy, 1955. (it appears the Treasurer of Anjou, Alain le Queu, was one of his primary diplomats; why a Neapolitan instead of an Angevin or any other Frenchman from one of his vassal states, would have been sent to Marcello/Sforza boggles the mind).

As far as Alfonso goes, “Even as late as 1454 he had no resident ambassador except in Rome, not even one in Venice” (Mattingly, 86). Alfonso was a despot like Visconti, albeit a new one, who would have been more likely to use informal envoys such as Carafa, but again that was the local family that was most helpful to him taking Naples.
Finally, this proves nothing but is more smoke pointing towards Scipio Carafa being a diplomat for Alfonso: a later Carafa, Frabrizio, was the resident ambassador in Milan in 1467 for Alfonso’s successor, Ferrante (Paul Dover, ROYAL DIPLOMACY IN RENAISSANCE ITALY: FERRANTE D’ARAGONA (1458–1494) AND HIS AMBASSADORS, Mediterranean Studies, 14(1), 2005: 66)

More research is warranted here - I for one will be looking into these works: “Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli 1442-2 Iuliglio 1458 , ed. F. Senatore (Naples 1997) http://www.dispaccisforzeschi.it/serie- ... da-napoli/ and Tessa Beverly, “Venetian ambassadors, 1454-1494: An Italian Elite”, PhD dissertation, University of Warrick (1999). Download the latter here: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36358/
P. 47 from Beverly:

First, every individual in the core group was a male patrician. All were Venetian by
birth. Many owned land on the terraferma, and had property in a variety of sestieri in
Venice itself. Every one of them held a number of non-diplomatic posts and offices in
their lifetimes, many of which were political. None of the men in the core group served only
as a diplomat in the course of their careers

Phaeded

Supplemental information for the above in regard to Venetian ambassadors:

“…the first creation in Venice of a special register of ambassadors in 1425 was occasioned by the mission to Milan by Paolo Correr (whose report inaugurated the series) resulting from Doge Francesco Foscari’s new policy of expansion on terrafirma….Common to both Venice and Florence, moreover, was the narrowing of the choice among those eligible for embassies at the highest level of their cursus honorum, thereby raising sensitive constitutional and legal issues. Those increasingly fewer individuals who could boast titles of professionalism and privledge were loath to accept their strict hierachal subordination to the competent bodies, especially when there were margins for discussion and a range of options available. They consequently pressed for effective authority in the exercise of diplomatic missions, as rightfully due to men belonging to the innermost circle of the ruling group.” Riccardo Fubini, "Diplomacy and Government in the Italian-States of the 15th Century (Florence and Venice)”, in Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450-1800, ed. Daniela Frigo, 2000: 41-42)

Huck,
This completely rules out a Neapolitan as a Venetian ambassador; you had to be not only a patrician but a highly placed one at that (which Correr, for instance, certainly was). I’m not even sure why you are grasping at straws here in insisting that Carafa be Venetian (or French) – is it to prop up that completely odd notion that Visconti’s widow somehow had the Marziano deck and yet sold or gave it to Marcello/Sforza (while asking her brother to attack Sforza)? I’ve already provided the likeliest source for the acquisition of the Marziano deck:

“A detailed explanation of how this [auctions] was done survives from the period of the short-lived Ambrosian republic that governed Milan from 1447-1449 ….The need for a regularized system of auction sales was primarily due to the new government’s desparate need for cash to pay its mercenary armies. Everything that could be sold was put up for auction. This included the personal possessions of the deceased Visconti Duke, such as his jewelry as well as his tiles and bricks of his fortress, and the lands once under his control (Evelyn S. Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy 1400-1600, 2005: 189) viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1019&start=60

Phaeded