The rowboat and the skiff

Abstract

If the previous session was dedicated to microstoria - through a textual genealogical investigation of the exergue system in Le Fromage and Carlo Ginzburg's verses  - the following session continues this theme by devoting itself entirely to the intensive analysis of a single episode : the shipwreck of Pietro Querini's Venetian vessel in 1435, whose documentary file has been edited and translated by Claire Judde de Larivière (Naufragés, Toulouse, Anacharsis, 2005). After unravelling the narrative plot and outlining the issues at stake in its documentary preservation, we show that the shipwreck puts the political community of sailors to the test, as they react " à la vénitienne ", discussing, deliberating, voting and casting lots to decide who will be saved, some of whom will join the longboat, others the skiff. This fable of inequality also brings into play the question of otherness, as the castaways are confronted in the far north of the boreal winter with an affluent society they identify as honest and pure. Their return to Venice once again raises the question of Italian accentuation : why is medieval Italy so rich in political experiments and narratives ?

Contents

• A shipwreck story: the Querina in 1432 (Claire Judde de Larivière, Naufragés, 2005)
• Who tells this story? Pietro Querini's account, that of Nicolò de Michiel and Cristoforo Fioravante
• Giovanni Battista Ramusio's Navigationi e viaggi , or the knowledge-power of geography (Fiona Lejosne)
• Querini and the cod eaters: the power of forgery
• "Small true facts are not debris of life, but signs, emblems, appeals" (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Sur les faits divers", 1954)
• "Compiled by Antonio, son of Corado de Cardini of Florence, on December 14, from the report of ser Cristoforo, man of the council, and ser Nicolò de Michiel, ship's writer of the ill-fated hull Querina..." the survivors' voices were solicited ?
• Jonas, Paul, Ulysses: you never fail alone
• Hans Blumenberg'sshipwreck with spectators : politics is an art of survival
• Navem pro republicam : what goes down with the ship is the common form of government
• Les ingouvernables: " As a last resort, we decided to cut off what constituted the crown, honor and ardor of the defeated nef "
• A salute to Jean Delumeau: Fear of the sea, or the city under siege
• Je pleure, nous sombrons: a narrative gap between two stories
• Pietro Querini's regimen : " I addressed them with the right words "
• Public funds and private life: introspection in the Relationi of the Venetian ambassadors
• Novità, narration et expérience (Joël Blanchard, Giovanni Ciappelli and Matthieu Scherman eds., La Correspondance de Girolamo Zorzi. Venetian Ambassador to France (1485-1488), 2020)
• " We decided by a show of hands that if God would appease the wrath of the sea and the wind, we would embark on the longboat and skiff "
• The longboat or the skiff? A Venetian-style decision
• Discourse, deliberation, voting and drawing lots: the crew's on-board culture
• "This advice was not followed, however, for forty-five men chose the skiff, which could only take thirty": concordance and discordance of accounts
• Vox populi vox Dei? The reason of the many
• An eminently political experience (Yves Sintomer and Claire Judde de Larivière)
• "A bestial and enraged hunger": other rafts of the Medusa
• Northern Norway, the Rofoten archipelago and the island of Røst
• "Removing grounds for discord": sharing the stranded porpoise
• Culo mundi ? The disorientation and hospitality of boreal winter schiavoni (Frédérique Laget)
• "We sailed between islands, taking many canals": when the Venetian finds his terra
• A society of pure, honest abundance
• An emotional history of whiteness (Anne Lafont)
• " In truth we can say that from February 3 to May 1432 we remained in the first circle of paradise, far from the confusion and opprobrium of Italian mores "
• A Venetian epilogue: who are the eleven survivors ?
• The longboat and the skiff, or the fable of inequality