scholarly journals Grand Ducal ambitions and Venetian counter-intelligence. The Tuscan failure in the 1607 attack on Cyprus.

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Trentacoste Davide
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Total Failure ◽  
Archival Documentation ◽  
Logistical Problem

In June 1607, a Tuscan fleet of about twenty ships and two thousand two hundred men attacked the fortress of Famagusta in Cyprus, with the aim of making it the base for the subsequent occupation of the whole island, which had been in Ottoman hands since 1570. The attack was a total failure: the Tuscan fleet, divided into two parts, did not meet as planned and the Greek inhabitants of the island, who according to Tuscan information should have rebelled, did not. Moreover, the Ottoman garrison was aware of the attack, which meant that the attempt at a surprise attack was in vain. It is clear that, excluding the logistical problem of the fleet meeting up, the enterprise’s lack of success was due to a total inadequacy of what we today would call “intelligence”. The information in Tuscans’ hands did not turn out to be completely correct and they were unable to keep the planned operation secret. However, by contrast, the Venetian intelligence was able to manage the information in its possession in a more cautious way, taking advantage of the situation effectively. Through this case study, the article aims to follow the scholarship on information-gathering in the Early Modern Mediterranean world, showing, once again, how important and extensive such networks were. The aim of this short study, which is based largely on archival documentation, is not to deal with the Tuscan raid on the island, but to identify the faults of the Tuscan “intelligence” that led to the misfortunate attack. Moreover, through the analysis of the documents, it is also possible to add some elements to the knowledge about the Tuscan Grand Duke’s Levantine network.

Venice's Intimate Empire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Maglaque
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Archival Documentation ◽  
Intimate Life

During the Renaissance, the Venetian Mediterranean empire stretched from the lagoon city’s shores to the island of Cyprus. This vast empire was governed by aristocratic men: educated as humanists, they were sent out into the empire armed with ancient geographies and classical epics. Once there, they married women who were their own subjects, and in doing so crossed the boundaries of ethnic and religious identity which divided the early modern Mediterranean world. An Intimate Empire undertakes the first study of this relationship between humanism, empire, and family. Mining private writings, humanist geographies, letters, and extensive archival documentation, the book takes an intimate view into the emotions and subjectivities of imperial governors. It finds that it was within intimate life that one’s relationship to empire – to its politics, its shifting social structures, its metropolitan and colonial cultures – was determined.

English News in Papal Rome: Cross-Confessional Information Exchange in Reformation Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 350-366
Author(s):  
Charles R. Keenan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Major Event ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Modern Europe

Abstract This essay argues that confessional differences had a direct impact on the circulation of news in early modern Europe. By examining how the Roman curia struggled to gather information about England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, it demonstrates how the Reformation both shaped and limited the information-gathering channels available to the papacy. The article begins by examining the various means by which the curia sought to collect news about English affairs, including via apostolic nuncios, Jesuits, and lay intelligencers, although fears of misinformation and imposters were always present. It then investigates the death of Elizabeth in 1603 as a case study to explore how quickly, and by what means, the Roman curia was able to verify news of a major event in a Protestant land.

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

MapTap and Cornelia Slow Digital Art History and Formal Art Historical Social Network Research

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koenraad Brosens ◽  
Klara Alen ◽  
Astrid Slegten ◽  
Fred Truyen
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Art History ◽  
Digital Art ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Network Research ◽  
Custom Made

Abstract The essay introduces MapTap, a research project that zooms in on the ever-changing social networks underpinning Flemish tapestry (1620 – 1720). MapTap develops the young and still slightly amorphous field of Formal Art Historical Social Network Research (FAHSNR) and is fueled by Cornelia, a custom-made database. Cornelia’s unique data model allows researchers to organize attribution and relational data from a wide array of sources in such a way that the complex multiplex and multimode networks emerging from the data can be transformed into partial unimode networks that enable proper FAHSNR. A case study revealing the key roles played by women in the tapestry landscape shows how this kind of slow digital art history can further our understanding of early modern creative communities and industries.

They Lived Under That Rule as Do Those Who Have Succeeded Them: Simultaneity and Conflict in the Foundation Narratives of a French Women’s Convent (10th–18th Centuries)

2021 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-97
Author(s):  
Steven Vanderputten
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Women Religious ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Memory Culture

While foundation accounts of medieval religious institutions have been the focus of intense scholarly interest for decades, so far there has been comparatively little interest in how successive versions related to each other in the perception of medieval and early modern observers. This essay considers that question via a case study of three such narratives about the 930s creation of Bouxières Abbey, a convent of women religious in France’s eastern region of Lorraine. At the heart of its argument stands the hypothesis that these conflicting narratives of origins were allowed to coexist in the memory culture of this small convent because they related to different arguments in its identity narrative. As such, it hopes to contribute to an ill-understood aspect of foundation narratives as a literary genre and a memorial practice in religious communities, with particular attention to long-term developments.

unrechtliche peinliche schmehung oder dem gemeinen nutz nuetzlich?Eine Fallstudie zur Normenkonkurrenz im Schmähschriftprozess des 16. Jahrhunderts

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Jan Siegemund
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The City ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractLibel played an important and extraordinary role in early modern conflict culture. The article discusses their functions and the way they were assessed in court. The case study illustrates argumentative spaces and different levels of normative references in libel trials in 16th century electoral Saxony. In 1569, Andreas Langener – in consequence of a long stagnating private conflict – posted several libels against the nobleman Tham Pflugk in different public places in the city of Dresden. Consequently, he was arrested and charged with ‘libelling’. Depending on the reference to conflicting social and legal norms, he had therefore been either threatened with corporal punishment including his execution, or rewarded with laudations. In this case, the act of libelling could be seen as slander, but also as a service to the community, which Langener had informed about potentially harmful transgression of norms. While the common good was the highest maxim, different and sometimes conflicting legally protected interests had to be discussed. The situational decision depended on whether the articulated charges where true and relevant for the public, on the invective language, and especially on the quality and size of the public sphere reached by the libel.

GLOSSING THE GLOSS: READING PETER LOMBARD’SCOLLECTANEAON THE PAULINE EPISTLES AS A HISTORICAL ACT

Traditio ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 73 ◽  
pp. 83-116
Author(s):  
PETER O'HAGAN
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Classroom Activity ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
History Of ◽  
Extended Analysis

Peter Lombard's influential commentary on the Pauline Epistles, theCollectanea in omnes divi Pauli epistolas,has received little extended analysis in scholarly literature, despite its recognized importance both in its own right and as key for the development of hisSentences.This article presents a new approach to studying theCollectaneaby analyzing how Lombard's commentary builds on theGlossa “Ordinaria”on the Pauline Epistles. The article argues for treating theCollectaneaas a “historical act,” focusing on how Lombard engages with the biblical text and with authoritative sources within which he encounters the same biblical text embedded. The article further argues for the necessity of turning to the manuscripts of both theCollectaneaand theGlossa,rather than continuing to rely on inadequate early modern printed editions or thePatrologia Latina.The article then uses Lombard's discussion of faith at Romans 1:17 as a case study, demonstrating the way in which Lombard begins from theGlossa,clarifies its ambiguities, and moves his analysis forward through his use of otherauctoritatesand theologicalquaestiones.A comparison with Lombard's treatment of faith in theSentenceshighlights the close links between Lombard's biblical lectures and this later work. The article concludes by arguing that scholastic biblical exegesis and theology should be treated as primarily a classroom activity, with the glossed Bible as the central focus. Discussion of Lombard's work should draw on much recent scholarship that has begun to uncover the layers of orality within the textual history of scholastic works.

Cultural Clientelism and Brokerage Networks in Early Modern Florence and Rome: New Correspondence between the Barberini and Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger*

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 729-788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janie Cole
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Music Theater ◽  
Michelangelo Buonarroti ◽  
Cultural Brokers ◽  
Early Modern Italy ◽  
Significant Area ◽  
Archival Documentation ◽  
Cultural Brokerage ◽  
Significant Figures

AbstractThis study draws on the unpublished correspondence between Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, a Florentine poet and grandnephew of the artist, and the Barberini family, in an attempt to examine the wider concepts of cultural clientelism and brokerage networks in the early modern process of cultural dissemination (in the areas of literature, music, theater, painting, architecture, and science) in Florence and Rome. Reconsidering the definition and role of a Seicento cultural broker added to the traditional model of patron and client, it analyzes Michelangelo the Younger’s activity as broker, patron-broker, and broker-client in connection with such significant figures as Maffeo Barberini (the future Urban VIII), Galileo, and the painter Lodovico Cigoli, exploring the ways in which these roles supported his personal commitment to promote his family’s social status and revealing the fluidity of roles in the patronage system. By obtaining Barberini patronage for his theatrical works and public recognition of the mythology of his illustrious forebear, Buonarroti’s cultural brokerage supported these dynastic ambitions. Spanning nearly half a century, this archival documentation casts new light on a little-known, but significant, area of Italian social relations and suggests directions for further research on other Seicento cultural brokers and new definitions for a broader concept of cultural brokerage in early modern Italy.

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