Antwerp vs Bruges and the shift that changed their fortunes
The rise of international trade and the goods representations in works of art by Renaissance painters
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It is in itself a rewarding experience to study history, my first degree,- reliving through inspiring turning points in times past, and witnessing as to how they paved way to modernity, civility and reason.
In times of iniquity, violence and dogma — dignity and enlightenment were sought by a network of few, valuing knowledge in its many representations, like literature and art, while striving to utilise the long-forgotten utilitarian forms of it.
Such was a network of 14th century Florentine Niccolò de' Niccoli, encyclopedist and the inventor of italic writing or one of Vespasiano da Bisticci who procured, transcribed and published books for Cosimo Medici, later becoming his biographer — all revelling in rediscovering objects of the past, having them translated, dissected and applied.
The very translation power of one Manuel Chrysoloras, a Greek Byzantine who became in 1397 a professor of Greek language in Florence and pushed forward translation of barely readable imported manuscripts, paved way to rediscovery of Strabo and Ptolemy Geography, that inspired one Christopher Columbus to attempt his voyage.
And that, changing the fabric of trade, disrupting well maintained routes monopolised by Italian Republics (already reeling from Osman Empire advancement to Byzantyne routes and shocks in the Balkans that were controlled by the Venetians, Florentines and the Genoese), allowed Spain and Portugal to come to the fore — leading to redevelopment of routes on the European continent.
As told previously in the review of Florentines championing international finance via scaled application of fintech tools of the time, Bruges was a major transit hub for Italians trading cotton coming from England, and goods from Spain. That, in a way, paid for the now famous Arnolfini Portrait, by a Flemish painter Jan van Eyck in 1434.
The symbolic elements placed in the painting demonstrate a growing individualisation of one’s life, still full of penance. Yet they also show the importance of Bruges as a major European trading hub: shown in Arnolfini’s and his late wife’s gowns, interior of their living space, elements placed in it.
How quickly all that changed: the silting up of the channel system that brought ships into Bruges harbour — the city receiving according to a statute that only it can then forward goods to be traded in the continent — reversed its fortune. It slowly lost its primacy to Antwerp — that won because the very network of trade changed.
The slowing of trade trough Osman domains and opening of new routes across Africa and then the new world — made Antwerp a major hub of inter-continental maritime trade vs. Bruges being a hub for a x-European one.
Individual life and values changed as well: the Reformation found its way into paintings written in early 16th century: one by Antwerp based painter Quentin Matsys, paying respect to van Eyck in form of several symbols the latter placed in Arnolfini’s portrait — and another by his follower, Marinus van Reymerswaele — demonstrate, in a way, the repercussions of the 1517 major act by Martin Luther to denounce the papal usurpation of faith.
What remained was a commercial world, scaled further by technological tools, employed by individual ambition. As demonstrated in history numerious times, a no guarantee for constant supremacy.
