Giovanni Fontana was a 15th-century Italian engineer and inventor. His designs included everything from systems for retrieving sunken ships and automating the defence of fortifications to measuring time and producing music. He created locks, clocks, and magic lanterns.

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Sources:

• Fontana, Giovanni. Bellicorum instrumentorum liber cum figuris... Digitized at https://codicon.digitale-sammlungen.de/inventiconCod.icon.%20242.html
• Gilbert, Bennett. “The Dreams of an Inventor in 1420,” Public Domain Review. 2018. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-dreams-of-an-inventor-in-1420/
• Grafton, Anthony. “The Devil as Automaton: Giovanni Fontana and the Meanings of a Fifteenth-Century Machine,” in Genesis Redux: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Artificial Life, edited by Jessica Riskin. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
• Grafton, Anthony. Magic and Technology in Early Modern Europe. Smithsonian Institution Libraries, 2005.
• Grafton, Anthony. Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa. Harvard University Press, 2023.
• Rossi, Cesare and Russo, Flavio. Ancient Engineers' Inventions: Precursors of the Present. Springer, 2016.
• Sparavigna, A.C. “Giovanni de la Fontana, Engineer and Magician.” Cornell University Library, 2013.

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In the late-summer of 1914, a city burns and its university library with it. Unusually for this podcast, the story takes us into WWI, but there are medieval connections to the story of Louvain (Leuven) and what happened when the German army came to town.

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I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• Bazydlo, Angela. “Manuscript lost in WWI fire turns up in Clark Archives.” https://clarknow.clarku.edu/2021/08/30/manuscript-lost-in-wwi-fire-turns-up-in-clark-archives/
• Battles, Matthew. Library: An Unquiet History. W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
• Battles, Matthew. “Knowledge on Fire.” The American Scholar 72, no. 3 (2003): 35–51.
• Bouwman, André. “Book burning in Louvain, 1914.” https://www.leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/book-burning-in-louvain-1914
• Delannoy, Paul. “The Library at the University of Louvain,” The Nineteenth Century, Vol. LXXVII - No. 59, p. 1061 May 1915.
• Derez, Mark. “The Flames of Louvain: a Library as a Cultural Icon and a Political Vehicle,” What do we lose when we lose a library? Proceedings of the conference held at the KU Leuven 9-11 September 2015.
• Gusejnova, Dina. “Librarians as Agents of German Foreign Policy and the Cultural Consequences of the First World War.” The Historical Journal 66, no. 4 (2023): 864–86.
• Kipling, Rudyard. “In Aid of Recruiting.” https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_speeches_29.htm
• Kramer, Alan. Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Matin, A. Michael. “‘The Hun is at the Gate!’: Historicizing Kipling's Militaristic Rhetoric, From the Imperial Periphery to the National Center: Part Two: The French, Russian, and German Threats to Great Britain.” Studies in the Novel 31, no. 4 (1999): 432–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29533357.
• Ovenden, Richard. Burning the Books. Harvard University Press, 2020.
• Ovenden, Richard. “One of Europe’s Great Libraries Didn’t Stand a Chance… In Either of the World Wars.” https://lithub.com/one-of-europes-great-libraries-didnt-stand-a-chance-in-either-of-the-world-wars/   

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The Fernao Mendes Pinto story reaches its conclusion, and he finally reaches Portugal once more.

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I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
• Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986).
• Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997).
• Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).
• Rubiés, Joan Pau. “The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India.” Portuguese Studies 10 (1994).
• Spence, Jonathan D. The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds. W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

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The story of Fernao Mendes Pinto intersects with that of the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, and takes him back to Japan.

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I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
• App, Urs. “St. Francis Xavier’s Discovery of Japanese Buddhism: A Chapter in the European Discovery of Buddhism (Part 1: Before the Arrival in Japan, 1547-1549).” The Eastern Buddhist 30, no. 1 (1997).
• Rubiés, Joan Pau. “Real and Imaginary Dialogues in the Jesuit Mission of Sixteenth-Century Japan.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 2/3 (2012).
• Willis, Clive. “Captain Jorge Álvares and Father Luís Fróis S.J.: Two Early Portuguese Descriptions of Japan and the Japanese.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, no. 2 (2012).

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The first Europeans wash up on Japanese shores, bringing the musket as they do so, and Pinto would have you believe that he is with them.

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I'm on BlueSky @a-devon.bsky.social, Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
• Cooper, Michael. The Southern Barbarians: The First Europeans in Japan. Kodansha, 1971.
• Lidin, Olof G. Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan. Routledge, 2003.
• Perrin, Noel. Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879. David R. Godine, 1979.

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Pinto's story continues, and the Portuguese traveller makes his way across China as a prisoner, describing some its towns, cities, and countryside as he goes. His China, which he may not have actually visited himself, is dotted with the remnants of previous Portuguese actions, an envoy's gravestone and the remnants of failed embassies.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
• Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986): 49–55. 
• Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997): 35–42.
• Rubiés, Joan-Pau. "The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India." Portuguese Studies 10 (1994): 24–43.

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Our Portuguese adventurer resumes his piratical ways and runs into trouble on the coast of China. He and de Faria find silver in abundance, but also shipwreck, poverty, and leeches.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
• Hart, Thomas R. “Style and Substance in the Peregrination.” Portuguese Studies 2 (1986): 49–55. 
• Hart, Thomas R. “True or False: Problems of the ‘Peregrination.’” Portuguese Studies 13 (1997): 35–42.
• Rubiés, Joan-Pau. "The Oriental Voices of Mendes Pinto, or the Traveller as Ethnologist in Portuguese India." Portuguese Studies 10 (1994): 24–43.

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Not a Christmas episode, but a winter one: winter in various Old English sources and winter now. Happy New Year and thanks for listening!

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• Clare, John. Major Works. Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Gopnik, Adam. Winter: Five Windows on the Season. House of Anansi, 2011.
• Hostetter, Aaron K. Translation of "Andreas" - https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/andreas/
• Hostetter, Aaron K. Translation of "The Menologium" - https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-menologium/
• McKennitt, Loreena. To Drive the Cold Winter Away. Quinlan Road, 1987. 
• Parker, Eleanor. Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year. Reaktion Books, 2022.

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Pinto and his colleagues embark on a quest for revenge against a certain pirate, and in the process indulge in quite a bit of piracy themselves along the coasts of Champa and Hainan. Ships are seized, silks are stolen, and brains are squeezed out.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Source:

• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.

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Fernao Mendes Pinto recovers from shipwreck and captivity, neither his first nor his last, and returns to the story of the Aceh Sultanate.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

Sources:

• The Travels of Mendes Pinto, edited and translated by Rebecca D. Catz. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
• Aceh Sultanate: State, Society, Religion and Trade (2 vols.): The Dutch Sources, 1636-1661, edited by Takeshi Ito. Brill, 2015.
• Göksoy, İsmail Hakkı. "Ottoman-Aceh relations as documented in Turkish sources," in Mapping the Acehnese Past, edited by R. Michael Feener, Patrick Daly, and Anthony Reed. Brill, 2011.
• Pinto, Paulo Jorge De Sousa. The Portuguese and the Straits of Melaka, 1575-1619: Power, Trade and Diplomacy. NUS Press, 2012.

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From William of Newburgh's 12th-century chronicle, "History of English Affairs," these stories aren't really about Halloween, but they do feel a little Halloween-ish. There's no Michael Myers, zombies, or vampires, but there are strange portents in the sky, toads locked in stone, faerie banquets, green children, and a good number of demons.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

I'm on Twitter @circus_human, Instagram @humancircuspod, and I have some things on Redbubble.

3 Things:

• At Stanford's Arcade, an article on heavenly portents and fire from the sky during the Little Ice Age.
• At Medievalists.net, an article on the history of monsters, monstrosity, and dehumanization.
• On the British Library's medieval manuscripts blog, charms against evil from their collection.

Sources:

• The Church Historians of England, translated by Joseph Stevenson. Seeley's, 1856. 
• Watkins, C.S.. History and the Supernatural in Medieval England. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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