BCCCAP00000000000000000000872

406 THE AFRICAN ORIGINS OF THE MISSIO ANTIQUA very first moment. Two African Christian kingdoms played a major part in mo– bilizing papal interest in Kongo and thus in launching the Capuchins on their costly and sacrificial enterprise. By seizing the imagination of papal strategists, Ethiopia was the first Afri– can kingdom to summon Christian Europe to a joint endeavour. In the early fifteenth century, when the papacy was to re-establish itself in Rome after the period of exile in Avignon, Ethiopian rulers and monks were seeking to strengthen their tenuous contacts with western Europe. Already in 1402 an embassy from King Dawit was received in Venice. They brought rare and ex– pensive gifts, four leopards, a large pearl and aromatic gums, and they took back with them a group of artisans and probably a silver-gilt chalice 2 • Five years later Ethiopians were reported in Bologna, and also subsequently at the Council of Constance which recognised Martin V. This pope, who took the risky yet momentous decision to return to Rome, gave safe-conduct passes to three Ethiopians in 1418. King Yishaq in 1428 sent to Alfonso V in Valencia an am– bassador, who received a warm and fruitful response, about which the pope was kept informed by Cardinal de Foix who reported that Yishaq had seventy– two rulers subject to him ofwhom sixty were Christian 3 • These persistent contacts were but a prelude to the impact made by the Ethiopians at the Council of Florence in 1443. This encounter, it has been plausibly argued, was directly responsible for Portuguese interest in the lands of Prester John, providing a strong, and perhaps at times even a predominant, motive for the further vigorous exploration of Africa's Atlantic coast:4. Early Ethiopian attempts to establish close contacts with European Christendom reached a high-point under King Zara Ya'qob. Following his defeat in 1445 of the Muslim ruler of Adal, Zara Ya'qob sent an embassy to Europe which was received by Pope Nicholas V in 1450. The embassy was given books and "scripturil', an unusual specific which, de Witte suggested, might indicate some theological documents setting out Catholic positions, and early in 1451 Nicho- 2 Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270-1527, Oxford 1972, 257. See also, M. E. Heldman, A chalicefrom Venice for Emperor Dawit of Ethiopia, in Bulletin of School of Orien– tal andAfrican Studies 53 (1990) 442-445. 3 R Lefevre, Presenze etiopiche in Italia prima de/ Concilio di Firenze de! 1439, in Rassegna di studi etiopici 23 (1967-68), 5-26; C. de la Ronciere, La dccouverte de l'Afiique au Ml!Jen Age, Cairo 1924-7, II, 115s. 4 F. M. Rogers, 0 Sonho de unidade entre cristaos ocidentais e orientais no scculo XV, Bahia 1960; Id., The travels of the Infante Dom Pedro of Portugal, Cambridge Mass.1961; Id., The questfor Eastern Christians. Travels and ntmour in the Age of Discovery, Minneapolis 1962.