page_title: Mongol elements in Western medieval art
section_title: Mongol Empire "Tatar" textiles in medieval art
hierarchical_section_title: Mongol elements in Western medieval art / Mongol Empire "Tatar" textiles in medieval art
caption_attribution_description: English: Boniface_VIII_with_Tartar_cloth, 1300
context_page_description: Mongol elements in Western medieval art can be seen in European works of art ranging from the 13th to the 15th century. They encompass artistic areas such as painting and textile manufacture, and mainly consist in the European use of Mongol 'Phags-pa script in Medieval European art, as well as the representation of "Tartar" cloth and Mongol soldiers in a number of contemporary European paintings.
context_section_description: Around 1300, an influx of Mongol Empire textiles found their way to Italy, and were to prove quite influential in Italian art. These textiles even revolutionized Italian textile designs. Between 1265 and 1308, communications between Western and Il-Khanid rulers led to numerous exchanges of people and presents, as when about 100 Mongols in Mongol dress visited Rome for the Papal Jubilee of Pope Boniface VIII in 1300. Large quantities of panni tartarici (Tatar cloth) were recorded in the Papal inventory of 1295, and must have been diplomatic gifts from the Il-Khanate. Later on Western merchants were also able to purchase such textiles from Tabriz, and the Mongol capital of Sultaniya, established by Öljaitü between 1305 and 1313, and until the capture of the Cilician Armenia harbour of Ayas by the Mamluks in 1347. The Tatar cloths were a produce of transcultural exchange under Mongol rule. They are described as Mongol nasij cloth, coming from Mongol, by author Lauren Arnold.
  Mongol Empire textiles had a strong impact on Italian textile design from around 1330. A type of Tartar cloth that was adopted in the West consisted in small-pattern designs in dense composition. This sort of textile is represented in the clothing of the angel Gabriel in the Annunciation by Simone Martini (1333).
  Other designs involved naturally flowing compositions of flowers and vines with fantastic animals. Such a textile is depicted as the background curtain in Giotto's Coronation of the Virgin (circa 1330), the earliest such depiction of a Tartar cloth. Chinese types of floral designs were also adopted, as visible in the mantles of Christ and Mary in Coronation of the Virgin by Paolo Veneziano (circa 1350).
  Transmission of Chinese textile designs from the Mongol Yuan Dynasty also occurred: Textiles of Iran and Iraq in the 14th century incorporated Chinese phoenix designs in silk and gold thread, and Italian weavers adopted such designs from the second half of the 14th century, complete with phoenix designs and silk and gold thread. These designs are of Chinese origin, and reached Europe via the Mongol realm.
caption: Pope Boniface VIII at the 1300 jubilee with a "Tartar cloth" in front of him, with a "rhythmic Sino-Mongolian pattern".[23]
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