Pero Tafur and Bertradon de la Broquière in Constantinople: The Ceremonial Image of Mary of Trabzond and the Diplomatic Meetings around the Council of Ferrara-Florencia (1438-1439)

After the fall of Constantinople (1453), Pero Tafur and Bertrandon de La Broquière make known their works, which are two of the most important travel books written in Europe during the fifteenth century. Both travellers had known, between fifteen and twenty years before, the emperor of Greece, John VIII Palaiologos, Pope Eugene IV and other protagonists of the councils of Basel (1431-1434) and Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439), which decreed the union between the Roman and Greek churches. The travellers were, thus, witnesses, but also informants and active diplomats for the attempts of religious and political union, which Pope Pius II tried to revive after the fall of Constantinople. Tafur and La Broquière met in Constantinople the third wife of the emperor, Mary Comnena of Trabzond, whom they describe in the same way in action: leaving Santa Sofia and riding ceremonially on her horse. The article tries to relate this meeting and image with other diplomatic meetings and pictorial images related with the council and its possible repercussions. Mary of Trabzond’s description reveals the sensitivity of both travellers, but, unlike other static objects (relics, monuments), the attempt to capture her ephemeral beauty could also have a symbolic background with more transcendent implications.