Western Artisans (2)
It was not the glassmaker Niccolo alone who chose the road to Jing at Ibn al-Nasir’s side.
The Swiss alchemist Theophrastus was a physician and alchemist whose name was known across Europe. He had earned too much renown too young, however, and his radical course—attacking the authority of the then-dominant Galenic medicine and introducing chemical methods into the healing arts—had made him far too many enemies. Through their intrigues he was excommunicated by the Pope and branded a sorcerer in league with the Devil, until even his life was in danger.
Fleeing Europe under a false identity, he was bound to meet Ibn al-Nasir, who had set out to save a celebrated alchemist. It was, in its way, inevitable. At first he had little taste for departing toward the East, but Ibn al-Nasir knew how to prick a scholar’s curiosity.
“I fear, Master, that you have no idea how advanced a nation Jing truly is.”
“Europe is the center of the world. Even if some Eastern barbarian kingdom has ‘advanced,’ is it not still an empire of nomads?”
“You really know nothing at all.”
Ibn al-Nasir chuckled.
“Oh, certainly Jing lags behind Europe in some respects. Chemistry and glassmaking, for instance.”
“You speak as though it surpassed Europe in others.”
“Of course it does. They can drive roads straight through mountains. They possess vast ironworks that harness the force of rivers to forge steel of their own accord. I will swear that nowhere in Europe—nowhere on any soil I have set foot—will you find ironworks that pour endless steel from furnaces so immense.”
“Th-that advanced?”
“By Allah, it is the plain truth. I myself toured those works. The thrill of that day has never left me.”
Ibn al-Nasir’s testimony was more than enough to erase the prejudice Theophrastus had carried about the East—the image of the Yuan Empire as a cruel horsemen’s realm that only destroyed civilization.
“If their ironworking is so advanced, how is it that glassmaking and chemistry trail Europe’s?”
When Theophrastus asked, puzzled, Ibn al-Nasir only shrugged.
“How should I know? What is certain is that they know it themselves—which is why they are inviting men like you, to take in advanced arts from abroad.”
“Hmm…”
Theophrastus hesitated. The suspicion flickered that Ibn al-Nasir was merely sweet-talking him into being sold as a slave in the East. Yet it was equally clear that he was in no position to pick and choose. His life on the run in Europe was reaching its limit.
“I will go to Jing.”
“You will not regret it.”
And so Theophrastus set out for Jing in Ibn al-Nasir’s company. Beyond him, some fifty skilled hands—unnamed scholars and artisans among them—joined the caravan. Some had pursued research that shattered the old frames and been branded heretics by the Church; some had sunk deep into debt for their experiments; some had simply grown sick of a Europe where birth sealed a man forever from the upper ranks. After months of hard travel along the Silk Road, they at last reached Yunnan.
Having received word, Hui-yeom and Sama Yun came to the lodging house Ibn al-Nasir had rented out entire.
“These are the Western scholars and artisans I brought this time.”
“More than I expected. You have my thanks for the trouble.”
The scholars were startled that their employer should be so young a boy—to Western eyes, an East Asian with a youthful face, and Hui-yeom only just turned eighteen, looked every bit a child—then startled again when fluent Arabic flowed from his mouth.
“Are there any among them of established renown in their own lands? One can hardly treat nameless students and men who have already achieved something in their fields as equals.”
At Hui-yeom’s question, Ibn al-Nasir pointed out Niccolo and Theophrastus.
“Niccolo dal Montera of Murano, Venice, and Theophrastus von Hohenheim of Schwyz, Switzerland. Niccolo is one of the foremost glassmasters in all Venice; his specialty is window glass—above all, the stained glass that goes into cathedrals.”
Hui-yeom’s eyes lit.
“Stained glass for windows… that is no small mastery. And the gentleman beside him—would he, by chance, be the one called Paracelsus?”
“Hm? I can ask him, if you like.”
“No—I will ask myself.”
Hui-yeom turned to Theophrastus and spoke in polished Italian.
“Master Theophrastus—are you by any chance the Paracelsus who studied at the University of Ferrara?”
Theophrastus’s eyes went round.
“How do you know of me?”
How could he not? Hui-yeom had to throw every ounce of will into not whooping like a man who has just learned a forgotten lottery ticket hit the jackpot.
Paracelsus von Hohenheim—true name Theophrastus von Hohenheim. A German-Swiss, the father of modern pharmacy. In an age when gangrene was treated by hacking away the rotted flesh and little else, he had made his name with a method that needed no amputation; he had even held a chair of medicine at the University of Basel. And above all else, he bore another title: father of toxicology.
All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.
That was the man who had left those words. For the Dang Family, a house of poisons, it was no exaggeration to say they had drawn the single best card the age and the world could offer—enough that even Hui-yeom, ordinarily so composed, was hard-pressed to keep his face still.
What a windfall is this? In the original history, Paracelsus may have lived as an outsider, but he never left Europe for the East… Between the locust affair and this, the divergences from that history keep piling up.
Then again—here was a man already excommunicated in the original history for research so progressive and existentialist it bordered on the extreme. And this world was less scientifically advanced than that one.
A man who in the original history would merely have been pushed to the margins of academia and left to wander Europe might well, for the same acts in a world like this, have had a kill order put on his head.
Hui-yeom saw, with perfect clarity, why the man had come to Jing. He smiled and answered Paracelsus’s question with easy care.
“I have many friends. Word of you had reached even here… I was truly grieved to hear of the excommunication. I am a heathen, so I may speak freely: their arrogance has cast one of humanity’s jewels into the mire, and they will live to regret it.”
“Ah…!”
Paracelsus was deeply moved. Even in Europe there had been no few who acknowledged him and followed his path. But to have his name remembered in a land so distant, and to be called a jewel of humanity—it felt like recognition that he had not been wrong.
Not wishing to stir envy, Hui-yeom left the flattery at that and turned next to Niccolo.
“A master of Murano would have been a national treasure in Venice, treated little worse than a noble. What brought you so far?”
“Hahaha! The unknown itself led me here.”
Niccolo laughed freely at Hui-yeom’s fluent Italian—and was thoroughly puzzled by it.
“But where did you learn Italian? The dialect is thick. I can follow it, mind you.”
“Ah… I suppose that comes of teaching myself from books.”
The truth was nearly six centuries of natural language drift, but the men seemed only astonished and pleased that a black-haired foreigner of sorts could speak their tongue so well. Goodwill rose at a stroke, and the negotiations found their channel in moments.
“Those of you who were guild masters of workshops in your own countries, or professors at monasteries and universities, will receive treatment equal to that standing. Apprentice craftsmen and students will be ranked accordingly. Food and climate may differ uncomfortably from home, but I will see that nothing inconveniences your work.”
“Is that true? Our thanks! But one thing we are curious about—will we be free to research under your patronage, or will we work under your direction?”
The first was the patronage so common among Renaissance Europe’s wealthy; the second was employment. Both meant drawing a salary and a budget, yet the natures of the two systems were utterly different. Patronage did not require results. Employment meant working for what you were paid. From a patron’s view, though, patronage was not always the worse bargain: artisans and artists often produced their finest work—and offered it to their patrons—precisely when free creation was not constrained. Even the famous Leonardo da Vinci had been one of the artists sponsored by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
But—
“I run a system of employment-patronage.”
At the unfamiliar phrase, the men murmured.
“What is that?”
“Direct hire, with tasks assigned and work required—that much is employment. Yet any product or concept a craftsman or researcher newly develops in the course of that work earns an incentive, and the patent rights on it are respected so that profit is guaranteed to you. In short, it is not employment that leaves you with only a wage for your labor. Work hard, produce something new, and you may claim more.”
Niccolo cried out.
“The Venetian patent! You mean Jing has such a system as well?”
The world’s first patent system had appeared in 1421, when the Venetian architect Brunelleschi secured rights over a technique used in building the dome of Florence’s cathedral. The Italian artisans and technicians already knew what patents were. Hui-yeom smiled.
“Jing as a whole does not—but our Sichuan Dang Family, and the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, do. And the nature of it will differ from the patent rights you know. Here, a patent does not go to the patron who backed the inventor. It goes to the inventor himself.”
“What?!”
“What do you mean…?”
In those days, when workshop artisans under a wealthy man’s support tried to file a patent, the patent more often than not vested entirely in the workshop. The law might assign it to the individual, but no craftsman could defy the will of the workshop masters and patrons who paid his wages. Hui-yeom chuckled.
“You look as though you cannot believe it—but it is true. In our Dang Family, those who make inventions are entered in the patent rolls, and the inventor himself takes a percentage of the revenue as incentive. File one good patent, and you can live at ease for life.”
“Mamma mia…”
“B-but how are we to believe that? If this is only honeyed talk to deceive us—”
“That is for you to decide. I never force a contract. Even after signing, I will not bind your persons by force. I swear it before Heaven and Earth… or, in your fashion, in the name of the Lord.”
“Mm…”
In an age when the mystery of faith still lingered, an oath sworn on the name of God carried heavy weight. It did not mean the scholars and artisans trusted Hui-yeom completely—but having turned their backs on their homeland and come this far, they no longer had a real choice.
“I will sign.”
Paracelsus, who could not return to Europe in any case, was the first to demand a contract. Hui-yeom wrote it out at once in Italian—Paracelsus was no Italian, but he had taken his doctorate of medicine at the University of Ferrara. Niccolo, laughing grandly, demanded one as well.
“If I’m sent home I’m for certain arrest anyway! At least here they won’t lock me on an island!”
Once the two of them set that tone, the other scholars and artisans asked for contracts and signed. Having prepared no contracts in advance—he had not been told which languages would serve—Hui-yeom found himself at something close to hard labor, yet he scrawled with brush and ink, smiling from ear to ear at the talent flowing in. Then he handed Ibn al-Nasir a distinctly heavy purse of silver as an introduction fee.
“You have my deep thanks this time.”
“Haha—is this not all by Allah’s guidance?”
“Indeed. One more favor, if I may. Would you scout someone for me?”
“Someone you know?”
“Yes.”
Hui-yeom, smiling, watched Paracelsus’s profile as the man talked with those who would be his colleagues.
If the historical Paracelsus, who lived from 1493 to 1541, exists—and if he is now in his late thirties—then the present year is somewhere in the 1520s.
Against the backdrop of a real historical figure, Hui-yeom had at last fixed an approximate date for the present.
And if it is 1520, then that man must exist as well.
Born 1475, died 1564—the great artist and architect who had lived in Florence. One of the greatest artists the Renaissance had produced.
“His name is Michelangelo Buonarroti.”