17th Century History

The Theses LVI belong to a series of hitherto unpublished early manuscripts of the Dutch humanist and jurisconsult Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) that were acquired by the University of Leiden in 1864. It is not certain when the Theses were written, but preliminary research on the physical manuscript and the sources cited indicate two possible windows. The first is around 1602-1605, that is roughly at a time when Grotius was also working on his Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De Iure Praedae Commentarius). The second dating places the genesis of the manuscrbipt around 1613-1615.
In the context of Grotius’ writings, the Theses LVI assume an important position for several reasons: They raise questions about state formation, the duty of citizens to the state and the right of political resistance in far greater detail than in any other work of the celebrated Dutch humanist. The Theses LVI also feature important reading notes that yield priceless insights into the sources that Grotius directly consulted and their influence on his ideas. The manuscript grants modern scholars a unique glimpse into the working mind of its author. Evidence points not only to the ferocious haste with which Grotius wrote his works, but also the occasional sloppiness of his reading and research habits."""

This article explores the early history of Kensington Palace gardens from the earliest reference in the Doomsday Book, to the purchase of the property by William and Mary in 1689 and the subsequent development of the gardens features, until 1702 when Queen Anne ascended to the throne.

A opinião comum atual atribui com frequência a um passado remoto o que foram os estereótipos femininos prevalecentes no século XIX: um ser emotivo, frágil ou mesmo enfermo, mas naturalmente abnegado e dócil, cuja vocação instintiva era a maternidade e o serviço aos outros. Na verdade, essas imagens oitocentistas eram diferentes das que haviam dominado os discursos ocidentais desde a Antiguidade, pois antes do Romantismo as elites ideológicas insistiam noutras características: a perversidade e a perigosidade das mulheres, as quais configuravam a sua inferioridade moral. Em comum, partilhavam a crença na sua menoridade intelectual e biológica a carecer de permanente vigilância e proteção. É sobre alguns desses estereótipos de género (de corpo, de personalidade e de funções) que este texto se debruçará.

Between 1585 and 1663, during Amsterdam’s Golden Age, the city’s built-up area increased by more than fivefold. This growth over the centuries captured the attention of historians and city planners who analysed Amsterdam’s development from a variety of angles. However, there are two aspects that have attracted most of the attention: the large scale of the city’s expansions and their methodical planning. This second aspect has, since the nineteenth century, been seen mainly from the point of view of the townscape as a whole. Amsterdam was presented as a large-scale,
scenographic composition, a ‘Versailles of the North’, and as a consequence, a work of genius. Later on, researchers began to study the city’s ground plan. Amsterdam’s development was seen as an elaboration of the ‘città ideale’, the apex of urban planning.
In this study, urbanism and city development are looked at from a more pragmatic point of view. The ideal, theoretical city was replaced by the actual city, and, therefore, the optimal city. This study views Amsterdam as an unruly physical reality with an unpredictable spatial and social
dynamism, that had to be organised and managed by the city’s officials, while they coped with the existing landscape, hydrological circumstances, the state of technology and the rudimentary legal instruments that were available to them at the time.
The city’s ground plan was the result of a complex process in which different, sometimes incompatible, interests had to be balanced. A city design is not an isolated work of art, but a solution (or an attempted solution) for a broad range of problems within a specific situation. The city’s government was responsible for Amsterdam’s defence, functioning traffic and water
infrastructures, the provision of sufficient numbers of empty lots for new construction and for the management of various other urban services. This task must be considered in relation to the circumstances in which urban development took place during this period: soil conditions, water
management, traffic, a shortage of space for housing, harbour activities, trade and industry, spontaneous urbanisation, private landownership, and the entire network of infrastructures in which the city was entangled. But the city’s ground plan was not just the result of physical factors. Indeed, the social reality was also a prominent factor in the constitution of Amsterdam’s ground plan. The field of urbanism was a game of interests, interactions and sometimes confrontations between the forces of urbanisation and city design. Each of these factors had its influence on the planning processes and their outcomes. Furthermore, there were also the various instruments of urbanism: the methodology behind fortification plans, city design and the apportioning of parcels, as well as the legislative options.

La dédicace du Palais de l’Amour divin (1614) de Laurent de Paris s’adresse « à la Reine des Cieux tres pure Vierge & mere du Roy des Rois, & puis à vous (Madame) Reinne sur la terre, qui pour le pouvoir, le lieu & la dignité que vous tenez la représentez temporellement en ce bas monde  ». Métaphore symbolique qui révèle par sa transposition iconographique combien le pouvoir symbolique de Marie de Médicis s’identifie à l’exaltation du modèle marial comme l’illustrent son élection, sa maternité royale, son couronnement, ses vertus et sa fonction de médiatrice… Une estampe de Jean Ziarnko synthétise la complexité de l’analyse iconologique du pouvoir symbolique de la reine, orchestrée par un système communicationnel remarquable. La galerie de la vie de Marie de Médicis peinte par Rubens s’inscrit dans la continuité de cette idéalité politique. Les vecteurs de l’idéel sont en ce sens relayés par une symbiose entre le verbe et l’image, sous la Régence, qui assimile la mère d’un roi à la Mère du Roi des rois, la reine terrestre à la reine céleste, la Reine-vierge à la Vierge. Dernière à avoir été couronnée, dernière à porter si haut la royauté féminine, dans une monarchie où la loi salique la reléguait dans une position secondaire et l’exhérédait, Marie de Médicis n’eut de cesse de légitimer son pouvoir, entamé par les contestations des Grands. Miroir d’une royauté christique, le portrait du roi se vit compléter par le portrait d’une reine régnante, miroir de la royauté mariale, habilement transposé sur celui de la Reine du Ciel, sans qui l’Incarnation du Verbe n’eût été possible. Marie de Médicis n’ignore pas qu’une égalité avec le roi compromettrait l’essence même d’une monarchie de droit divin qui ne peut être dirigée que par l’exercice d’un seul mais elle tente de montrer une voie conciliatrice, celle de l’immaculisme politique. La doctrine de l’immaculisme suscita une longue polémique, quant à la fonction théologique et symbolique de la Vierge : affirmer son immaculée conception, n’était-ce pas entacher la position suréminente du Christ, parfait médiateur et rédempteur universel ? Duns Scot et Guillaume Ware, au XVe siècle, mirent en place la notion de « rédemption préservative » qui exalte la Vierge sans diminuer les prérogatives du Christ. La reine ne désacralise ni le roi, ni ne met en péril son exclusivisme politique mais parfait au contraire sa légitimité absolue, comme la Vierge pour le Christ. A la théophanie du portrait royal se superpose la mariophanie du pouvoir féminin, exalté et relayé par les vecteurs de l’imprimé, sous le septennat de Marie de Médicis entre 1610 et 1617. Les vecteurs de l’idéel véhiculent cet immaculisme politique par la tentative de valoriser l’image de la régente, sans pour autant attenter à la majesté de l’absolutisme royal. La Vierge est à cet égard le meilleur parangon pour glorifier des modèles royaux, non antithétiques ou concurrentiels, mais complémentaires. Cette conception d’un pouvoir royal original puisque féminin, a été relayée auprès d’une société politique élargie. Le texte comme l’image ont tenté d’imposer la légitimé du pouvoir de la régente, par l’élaboration d’un pouvoir symbolique et idéel, calqué sur celui du roi.

The present paper explores the shifting roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits from the latter Middle Ages until the opening decades of the eighteenth century. In pursuing this task, I will develop a set of basic questions that historicize and problematize the roles, functions and understandings of the Straits across the centuries, and also tease out historical and historiographical paradigms shaping and underpinning the understanding of the region’s past. In pursuing this programme I will make use of a broad range of sources including chronicles and histories, letters and treaties, navigational instructions and travel literature, as well as (European) cartography of the 16th to 18th centuries. In order to gain deeper appreciation of the multi-faceted roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits across the longue durée, I  not only adduce and evaluate materials of European colonial origin, but importantly also heed special attention to sources of Asian origin in general, and specifically to materials that have originally been written in Arabic, Malay, Chinese and have been made accessible to the wider reading public in various contemporary translations. The modes of enquiry and the insights brought to paper here differ both in terms of scope and objectives from my earlier findings expounded in The Singapore and Melaka Straits published in 2010.

As instituições de proteção social são aqui perspetivadas como ponto de confluência de crenças, sistemas doutrinários e legislativos, interesses e possibilidades. Muito para além do elenco das organizações de proteção social, que se fornecem, procuram-se as razões da sua existência e das suas modalidades. E assim, com o estudo das instituições, dos seus dirigentes e dos homens e mulheres socorridos (e tantas vezes controlados), desemboca-se na sociedade da Época Moderna, na sua arquitetura política, jurídica, ideológica, social e económica

This chapter explores the world of the Gaelic professional hereditary medical families in the context of late 16th century Ireland. Using the Fiants of Elizabeth I to locate Gaelic surgeons and physicians, this chapter describes their relationship with their patrons both Gaelic and Anglo-Irish.

This dissertation focuses on the way in which Crown-sponsored attempts to transplant or domesticate commercially valuable Asian spices throughout the Spanish empire generated production, circulation and institutionalization of empirical knowledge throughout Spain's imperial domains. Although largely unsuccessful, Spaniards perceived spice transplantations as an important component of Spain's imperial expansion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ventures for the introduction or domestication of spices were often initiated and run by networks of settlers, entrepreneurs, officials, friars, and natural historians, who, through empirical observation and experimentation, acquired specific expertise in that field. Successful spice transplantations attracted the attention of Spain's imperial establishments, namely the Council of the Indies and the Casa de Contratación [known also as the "House of Trade"], which, in turn, engaged colonial administrators in Spanish America and the Philippines to call upon relevant experts for information regarding spice cultivation and processing. Consequently, experiments in the introduction and cultivation of spices were conducted in private and Crown estates in Spanish America, the Philippines and Spain, and the results thereof helped formulate Crown policies regulating spice cultivation and trade. It is maintained here that spice transplantation projects reflect an organizational culture in which policies were formed and decisions were made based on expert opinions obtained through empirical observations and experiments. Essentially, the Crown has adopted a scientific approach to direct its policies. Therefore, this study argues that as early as the 1570s, Crown establishments assessed and analyzed complex empirical evidence in variable economic, political, and diplomatic contexts, to form decisions which were perceived to bear critical consequences to Spain's economy and its imperial expansion.

Jáchymov (St. Joachimsthal) was in the 16th century one of the major centers of the Bohemian kingdom. Mining of a silver ore meant a expansion of mining in the western part of the Ore Mountains and brought here also many scholars events, such as Georgius Agricola. Among the German-speaking population has found great success of the German Reformation and soon became the dominant stream of Wittenberg. The teachings of Martin Luther very soon also inclined Jáchymov cantor Nikolaus Herman, a composer and poet, and Luther's pupil Johannes Mathesius, theologian, rector of the local Latin school and preacher. The end of this era has brought mining reduction and recatolisation efforts during the Thirty Years War. In those years, however residents in Jáchymov have shown extraordinary strength in their faith and under their influence converted to Lutheranism Jesuit missionary Franciscus Albanus. In 1652 finally was mass emigration of more than eight hundred inhabitants.

Published in: Evangelicus 2017, Praha 2016, pp. 42-45.

La présente étude traite de l’adaptation cinématographique d’Angélique marquise des Anges d’Anne et Serge Golon, qui a connu un grand succès en librairie. Classé comme roman populaire, le roman des Golon, qui a souvent été ignoré par la critique, est une oeuvre historiquement bien documentée. Adressée à un public essentiellement féminin, Angélique marquise des Anges, dont le casting réunissait des auteurs célébres, a été à l’origine de cinq films réalisés par Bernard Borderie, qui ont connu un succès commercial important. Après une courte présentation de l’oeuvre littéraire, nous analysons la personnalité et l’image de Louis XIV et de sa cour dans les cinq films. Vu l’étendue du roman fleuve, le scénariste et le producteur ont été obligés de rendre partiellement le caractère des personnages historiques ou même de les supprimer dans l’adaptation cinématographique. De plus, ils ont enlevé des descriptions et des passages importants réduisant ainsi les références chronologiques. En outre, quoique dans les romans des Golon,  l’image de la cour de Louis XIV soient représentée de manière réaliste, dans les films de Borderie, qui se focalisent sur les aventures amoureuses de l’héroine, malgré l’utilisation d’un décor naturel,  elle n’a pas été rendue de manière convaincante. Révélatrice des rapports complexes entre la littérature et le cinéma, l’adaptation cinématographique de la série d’Angélique, était, à l’exception du premier film de Borderie, une adaptation libre du roman, ce qui n’a pas nuit à son grand succès commercial.

É sempre como conquista que a história do Brasil holandês foi citada na documentação holandesa da época, nunca como Colônia. Uma prova de que conhecer detalhadamente o nordeste brasileiro foi sinônimo de uma grande conquista para a Holanda do século XVII, cujo entendimento cultural de conquista ultrapassou o de exploração dorrs recursos naturais. Por isso o objetivo deste capítulo é demonstrar o valor do pioneirismo das obras de George Marcgrave e Willem Piso, que foram um dos primeiros a registrar a grandeza da biodiversidade brasileira em documentos produzidos durante a permanência dos holandeses no nordeste brasileiro.

Artemisia Gentileschi recently resurfaced in the discourse of art history, specifically the feminism discourse, thus qualifying her celebrity in modern and contemporary society. Certainly, her painterly techniques categorize her among the Great Masters, where her painted narratives transform the traditional women subject from femme fatal to femme forte. However, much of the vigour, vivacity, and strength that exuded in her paintings and consequently the characterisation of Artemisia as an artist was closely associated with the incident that took place between Agostino Tassi and herself, thereby granting beholders with a prejudiced preconception when it comes to the artist.
From the transcript of the trial, conclusions were drawn that Artemisia was an unlearned artist from Baroque Rome’s lower classes who received no education; during her era, the patriarchal culture deemed that women were the property of men and, therefore, needed their male counterparts to sign off on every aspect of their lives. In this instance, it was believed that women had no autonomy, let alone financial freedom, which was not the case here. This essay will examine and challenge these two particulars and recreate a new context and framework when approaching Artemisia and her oeuvre- one that goes beyond the rape and exhibits the birth of a cultured humanist, where this newly attained knowledge allowed for her tactical entrepreneurial quality as a strategic careerist. It will become pertinent that the two qualities went hand-in-hand in Artemisia’s world.
To do so, Beyond Tassi will first examine what has been written and said by other art historians about her education; it is at this tangent that the transcript of the rape trial will be presented and examined. Later, the examination of two of Artemisia’s works, Susanna and The Elders and Judith Beheading Holofernes, will take place; in doing so, readers will be equipped to understand the preconception of Artemisia as a rape victim. Secondly, to challenge her “unlearned” status, this essay will provide concrete evidence by way of Artemisia’s eloquently written letters and philosophical induced painted narratives. By bringing forward her hand-written letters, readers will be able to witness that this was not an unlearned woman, on the contrary, she was cultured, sophisticated, and clever. In highlighting the references to Ovid, Petrarch and Ariosto and the way she cited them in her letters, readers will be astonished by this cultured humanist.
On the matter of entrepreneurship, this essay will begin by looking at the cultural, social, and political aspects of Italy in the 1600s-1700s, focusing on women’s autonomy, or lack thereof, and their financial dependency on their male counterparts. By examining what scholars have said about Artemisia regarding her paper trail of debts, this essay will be able to challenge previous findings by examining the ways she had curated her lavish lifestyle, the way she handled her money, and the tactical strategies employed in securing merchants, clients, and commissions. And finally, by demonstrating how her strategic entrepreneurial tactic and her transformation from an unlearned woman artist to the cultured painter who frequented the Medici court will allow beholders to witness another side of Artemisia and, therefore, spark a new framework when approaching her work. For one should contemplate her oeuvre beyond the incident, she had with Agostino Tassi and adjust any preconception that viewers may have of her as a rape victim/survivor who engaged her traumatic past into her paintings.

Seventeenth-century painters were masters at painting objects and beings that seem tangible. Most elaborate was painting translucent materials like skins and pulp: human flesh and grapes, for instance, require various surface effects and suggest the presence of mass below the upper layers. Thus, the viewer is more or less convinced that a volume or object is present in an illusionary space. In Dutch, the word 'stofuitdrukking' is used: expression or indication of material, perhaps better understood as rendering of material. In English, 'material depiction' probably captures this painterly means best: it includes rendering of surface effects, while revealing the underlying substance, and it implies that weight and mass are suggested. Simple strokes of paint add up to materials and things that are convincingly percieved.

At first glance, material depiction hardly seems a topic in early-modern art theory , yet 17th-century painters are virtually unequalled as regards this elaborate skill. Therefore, 17th-century written sources were studied to define how these might discuss material depiction, if not distinctly. This study concerns one of many questions regarding the incredible convincingness of 17th-century material depiction: besides wondering why the illusions work (Di Cicco et al., this issue) and how these were achieved (Wiersma, in press), the question should be asked why this convincingness was sought after. Was it mere display of ability and skill? And how was material depiction perceived, valued and enjoyed? First, contemporary terminology is determined: the seemingly generic term 'colouring' signified the application of convincing material depiction especially-which is not as self-evident as it sounds. Second, and extensively, the reader will find that convincing or appealing material depiction was considered a reference to religion and natural philosophy.

The study is about Count Jaroslav Bořita z Martinic. Jaroslav was one of the very important czech aristocrats and politics in the first decades of the 17th century. As a catholic prominent he was a member of the "spanish site" at the emperor court in Prague. In 1618 was defenestrated from the window at the Prague Castle and for few next years lived in exil in bavarian Passau, where he also made the diplomacy for emperor Ferdinand II. When he came back to Bohemia, he hold the main posts in the kingdom.

Published in: Heraldická ročenka 2008, Praha 2009, pp. 7-23 (Summary p. 160).

THE «AZOV PROJECT» OF PETER THE GREAT: NORTH-EASTERN AZOV SEA AREA IN THE FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLITICS OF RUSSIA IN THE LATE 17TH – EARLY 18TH CENTURY

The events that took place in the North-Eastern Azov Sea area in 1696–1711 are characterized by an unique attempt to implement a large-scale colonization project designed to further advance Russia into the Black Sea. The conclusion of the Treaty of Constantinople and the outbreak of the Great Northern War in 1700 only delayed these plans. New administrative-territorial unit with a population of many thousands, a naval base and a number of fortresses were founded. The «Azov project» of the tsar collapsed due to the defeat of the Prut Campaign in 1711.

Report from the historical workshop dedicated to the 600th anniversary of the death of the Bohemian and Holy Roman king Wenceslas IV. of Luxembourg, Prague, 17th September 2019.
Published in: Česká literatura 67 (2019). No. 5, pp. 765-769.

Leonid A. Bobrov, Sergey S. Zozulya
Armour Plates from the Excavations of V.V. Radlov in the Collectiona of the State Historical Museum.
The paper focuses on the armor plates stored in the funds of the State Historical Museum (SHM). They come from the burial mound excavated by V. V. Radlov in the Prichulym region in 1863.
The set consists of 30 plates on which the remains of the organic basis of the armor are fixed. All plates of the series have a prominent (tier-like) surface, 29 of them are equipped with five iron rivets located in a cross. Two plates had buckles that tightened the cut of the shell (only one of them is preserved). The inner layer of the organic base of the armor was made of leather, while the outer layer was made of red woolen fabric. The design features make it pos- sible to classify the armor as lamellar-sewn (lamellar-riveted) shells with internal armor, which were known among the Russians and Turks as “kuyak” (from Mong. “Huyag”), and among the Europeans as “brigandine”. Based on the
typological analysis carried out, it was established that the plates were made by Oirat or South Siberian craftsmen of the 17th – mid-18th centuries, which is confirmed by the find of the Russian copper coins of the first half of the 17th century in one of the burial mounds. Apparently, the SHM plates did not constitute a self-consistent protective el- ement, but were cut off from a larger piece of armor (presumably a bib or back plate). The armor itself could have been cut in the form of a “cuirass” with one or two lateral cuts. Cut in the form of “cataphracts”, “vest” or swing “robe” is less likely.
Plates from the Prichulym region can be used as a standard for dating and attribution of similar plates from the territory of Central Asia and South Siberia.

RESUMEN El objetivo de este ensayo es explorar la historia de los misioneros y comerciantes portugueses en Japón desde una perspectiva tanto económica como política. Los eventos a comentar empiezan con las primeras exploraciones y asentamientos portugueses en las Indias Orientales para después cambiar al establecimiento de las primeras misiones en Japón y el comercio Nanban, concluyendo con la política de aislación. El texto pondrá especial empeño en subrayar las complejas relaciones entre el progreso de la empresa jesuita, el desarrollo político e institucional en el Japón del Sengoku y la evolución del comercio portugués. ABSTRACT The objective of essay is to explore the history of 16 th /17 th Century Portuguese missionaries and traders in Japan from a political as well as economic perspective. The events discussed will begin from the early Portuguese explorations and settlements in the East Indies, then shifting to the establishment of the first missions in Japan and the Nanban trade, concluding with the isolation policy. The text will put special effort in highlighting the complex relationships between the progress of the Jesuit enterprise, the political and institutional developments of Sengoku Japan and the evolution of Portuguese commerce.

The subject of the research paper is the memorial presented to Pope Paul V on the 3rd May 1606 with the title “Il modo de Restaurare la religione in Ungheria” that contains the detailed programme of the Hungarian Catholic reform, and that was most probably issued at the nunciature of Prague. The document, which used the former plan of Cesare Speciano, suggests the foundation of a pontifical seminary at Košice (Kassa; Kaschau) based on the model of that of ClujNapoca (Kolozsvár; Klausenburg). It also urges the realization of those council and papal deliberations that oblige the bishops to establish a seminary, even with the seizure of capitular benefices for this purpose. A particular emphasis is placed on the role of the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum of Rome in the plan. Besides the education of future priests and  providing the institutional background of missions, however as less urgent tasks, such aspects are mentioned as the restoration of the traditional cult of Our Lady and the Italian type fasting discipline, which included also abstinence from eggs and dairy products, and as the introduction of the Roman Breviary because of the neglect of the daily recite of all the canonical hours and the chaos in the liturgy. The plan emphasizes that the nuncio and preeminently an apostolic visitor should be entrusted with the reformation of the bench of Bishops, which had showed yet medieval features, and the clergy.

My undergraduate dissertation used manuscript medical recipe books written by gentlewomen to argue that their authors relied upon a wide range of connections with professional practitioners, the expanding commercial medical economy and fellow laywomen to expand and develop their medical knowledge and practice. They were confident in their abilities to heal and their recipe books, often passed down through the generations, were material sites of knowledge production and transference.

The study is dedicated to the manuscript of Four-Gospels W 150 from the Chester Beatty Library Collection (Dublin, Republic of Ireland). The publication consists of four aspects that disclose the history of the creation, provenance, usage, and migrations of the manuscript. A detailed paleographic and codicological study of the Gospels made it possible to determine the exact location of its production – village of Pniv (Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Ukraine) in the first half of the 17th c., by local priest Ioanne. The study of the inscriptions of 1640, 1641, and 1738 showed the purchase of the book by the family of Kostya and Anastasia, together with their sons Gryd and Stepan, daughter Agafia, son-in-law Petrash, daughter-in-law Christina and Maria, as well as grandchildren. The motive of giving the Gospels to the church in the village Yasinia (Transcarpathian region, Ukraine) was concerned with the salvation of their souls. Spouses Ivan and Olena Strukov and Pavlo Gryd were worried about keeping the codex and together paid for a new binding in 1738. The artistic component of the manuscript was also investigated, which made it possible to find out the identity of the author of drawings. As a result of the research, it was possible to reconstruct the history of its provenience and usage from the time of writing to the time of the migration to the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, cataloguing and the first description of the codex.