Early Modern Europe

In this lecture, Fabrizio Bigotti explores the Renaissance rediscovery of Galenic anatomy and how it impacted the making of early modern philosophy. Most notably, he attributes Galen’s influence to the fortune of two main texts, the Quod animi mores and De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis in which the Greek physician discusses the relation between body and soul, mental faculties, the elemental composition of matter, and the passions of the soul. The anthropological vision Galen’ laid out in these texts was sufficient to shift the attention of early modern physicians and philosophers from the Medieval ‘narrative of the body’, whereby the body is seen as a text, to an organic substratum to be cut in pieces on the anatomy table and to be eventually rendered as an image. Galen himself was no longer perceived as a pious upholder of natural theology but as a materialist who denied the immortality of the soul. By challenging a traditional historiographical account that described Renaissance Galenism in terms of decline and fall, Fabrizio Bigotti will argue for a new assessment of Galen's legacy, also read through the lens of those who opposed or reacted critically to it and thus contributed to the shaping of important aspects of the early modern debate on anthropology, ethics, psychology and even quantified experimentation. Among these many innovations and transformations, the notion of 'ingenuity' (ingenium) deserves particular attention. Hidden within this corporeal, inherent and heritable inclination, two major themes that side disquietingly with the development of modern subjectivity can be identified: the 'corporeality of the body', and the common destiny of humans and animals.

En este capítulo de libro abordo el papel de los milicianos de origen ne- groafricano en la defensa de ciudades, pueblos y puertos hispanoame- ricanos, para después relacionarlo con una comedia poco conocida del Siglo de Oro, titulada "El valiente negro en Flandes", de Andrés de Claramonte y Corroy, cuyo protagonista es un esclavo que lucha en los Tercios de Flandes. Se trata de un argumento dramático de gran actualidad, pues desafía los tópicos racistas, planteando la igualdad entre las personas.

Connecting Histories: Jews and Their Others in Early Modern Europe
edited by Francesca Bregoli and David B. Ruderman

Whether forced by governmental decree, driven by persecution and economic distress, or seeking financial opportunity, the Jews of early modern Europe were extraordinarily mobile, experiencing both displacement and integration into new cultural, legal, and political settings. This, in turn, led to unprecedented modes of social mixing for Jews, especially for those living in urban areas, who frequently encountered Jews from different ethnic backgrounds and cultural orientations. Additionally, Jews formed social, economic, and intellectual bonds with mixed populations of Christians. While not necessarily effacing Jewish loyalties to local places, authorities, and customs, these connections and exposures to novel cultural settings created new allegiances as well as new challenges, resulting in constructive relations in some cases and provoking strife and controversy in others.

The essays collected by Francesca Bregoli and David B. Ruderman in Connecting Histories show that while it is not possible to speak of a single, cohesive transregional Jewish culture in the early modern period, Jews experienced pockets of supra-local connections between West and East—for example, between Italy and Poland, Poland and the Holy Land, and western and eastern Ashkenaz—as well as increased exchanges between high and low culture. Special attention is devoted to the impact of the printing press and the strategies of representation and self-representation through which Jews forged connections in a world where their status as a tolerated minority was ambiguous and in constant need of renegotiation.

Exploring the ways in which early modern Jews related to Jews from different backgrounds and to the non-Jews around them, Connecting Histories emphasizes not only the challenging nature and impact of these encounters but also the ambivalence experienced by Jews as they met their others.

Contributors: Michela Andreatta, Francesca Bregoli, Joseph Davis, Jesús de Prado Plumed, Andrea Gondos, Rachel L. Greenblatt, Gershon David Hundert, Fabrizio Lelli, Moshe Idel, Debra Kaplan, Lucia Raspe, David B. Ruderman, Pavel Sládek, Claude B. Stuczynski, Rebekka Voß.

Readership All those interested in early modern history, the history of (informal) diplomacy, the history of cultural transfer, the history of collecting; art history of the early modern period; intellectual history. For more information see brill.com

This study concerns itself with the first Imperial Envoy Gerard Veltwijck (ca. 1500—1555), who negotiated with the Ottoman Sultan Süleymān. Using newly discovered as well as recently published sources, it will focus on the part this diplomat of Charles V played in the negotiations with the Sublime Porte and on the considerable problems the French King and his representatives in Istanbul experienced during the talks. The Most Christian King thus became a victim of his ambivalent foreign policy while his alliance with the Sultan experienced a severe crisis. Finally, this study tries to demonstrate the impact of a diplomatic sojourn in the Levant for the envoy, as such a mission was very often followed by a considerable and far from only financial reward.

This article explores the emergence and significance of printed game boards in Rome at the turn of the seventeenth century. These objects constitute an important and overlooked visual and material aspect of a pervasive culture of gaming that engrossed a huge range of the populace: both the rich and the poor, men and women, the educated and the illiterate. Printed game boards not only served to entertain, but also mirrored and reified deeper social and moral concerns about gambling and leisure, a tension between the prescribed morality of the legal sanctions, decrees, and censures associated with the Counter-Reformation, and the everyday games common both in courtly leisure and play on the street and in the tavern. Visually manifesting a dual understanding of games as both ludic and mimetic, printed game boards enacted the ontology of life’s journey for early modern players, from the courtly, to the religious, to the quotidian.

Scopo dichiarato dell’ordine dei cavalieri di Santo Stefano, fondato nel 1561 da Cosimo I de’ Medici anche per motivi di legittimazione dinastica, fu la difesa della cristianità dalla minaccia ottomana. La politica aggressiva nei confronti dei Turchi, praticata attraverso la guerra di corsa e gli attacchi per mare alle piazzeforti ottomane in vari punti del Mediterraneo, praticata in modo ancora moderato da Cosimo e Francesco de’ Medici, venne ripresa con forza da Ferdinando I, che ne fece un fiore all’occhiello del Granducato nel confronto con le analoghe attività delle altre potenze europee, e poi soprattutto da suo figlio Cosimo II e suo nipote Ferdinando II. In coincidenza con i tre granduchi l’uso di strumenti di comunicazione e propaganda relativi alle imprese navali dei cavalieri, relativamente poco presente fino alla fine del Cinquecento, divenne un progetto sistematico che vide nella prima metà del Seicento la pubblicazione di numerose relazioni, la loro ristampa in altre città italiane, e la loro traduzione, ristampa, o ripresa anche in altre nazioni europee (soprattutto in Spagna), con il coinvolgimento nella veicolazione complessiva dei contenuti anche di intellettuali come il poeta Gabriello Chiabrera. Il saggio mette in rilievo il carattere sistematico della produzione di relazioni sulle imprese dei cavalieri di Santo Stefano contro i Turchi nel corso del Seicento, illuminandone gli aspetti produttivi e il successo editoriale, ed evidenziandone anche i rapporti con la produzione di tipo più letterario.

The book takes an interdisciplinary approach and covers the origins of the Italian Renaissance through the Baroque period. It is comprised of fifteen chapters, organized chronologically, along with an introduction and conclusion. As the Renaissance is central to the teaching of Western Civilization courses, often functioning as a bridge between first and second semesters, this book will help provide background to the social, cultural, and political scene in Italy between the Medieval and Modern eras.

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

Shorter English Version: https://www.academia.edu/966274/The_Kingdom_of_Hungary_and_the_Habsburg_Monarchy_in_the_Sixteenth_Century._Translated_from_the_Hungarian_by_Thomas_J._and_Helen_D._DeKornfeld_Boulder_Colorado_Social_Science_Monographs_Wayne_New_Jersey_Center_for_Hungarian_Studies_and_Publications_Inc._New_York_Distributed_by_Columbia_University_Press_2009._East_European_Monographs_DCCXXXV._CHSP_Hungarian_Studies_Series_18._xviii_410_p

Who was Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun? Swashbuckler, brawler, hard-headed businessperson, soldier, gallant, celebrity, transvestite, nun? How can one fail to be fascinated by her? A woman, yet a man; a soldier, yet a nun; Spanish, yet Basque. Catalina de Erauso embodied the contradictions and conflicts of the Early Modern Period, but she also transcended them in her own way. She became a stage on which we see how tensions between different identities played out in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Spain, particularly the tensions between two sexual identities, male and female, and between the competing and multiple national "identities" already defined and being defined within that new thing that was "Spain." This book explores the different facets of Erauso's persona: her sexual identity and the factors that determined her choice of gender roles; and her Basque origin and its impact on her life and her self-image.

A 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

In this volume, Elisabeth Fraser shows that artists and the works they created in the Mediterranean during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were informed by mutual dependence and reciprocity between European nations and the Ottoman Empire. Her rich exploration of this vibrant cross-cultural exchange challenges the dominant interpretation of European relations with the East during the period, revealing a shared world of fluid and long-sustained interactions.

Voyagers to and from the Ottoman Empire documented their journeys in prints, paintings, and lavishly illustrated travelogues; many of these helped define Europe’s self-identified role as heir to Ottoman civilizations and bolstered its presence in the Islamic Mediterranean and beyond. Fraser finds that these works illuminate not only how travelers’ experiences abroad were more nuanced than the expansionist ideology with which they became associated, but also how these narratives depicted the vitality of Ottoman culture and served as extensions of Ottoman diplomacy. Ottomans were aware of and responded to European representations, using them to defend Ottoman culture and sovereignty. In embracing the art of both cultures and setting these works in a broader context, Fraser challenges the dominant historiographical tradition that sees Ottoman artists adopting European modes of art in a one-sided process of “Europeanization.”

Theoretically informed and rigorously researched, this cross-cultural approach to European and Ottoman art sheds much-needed critical light on the widely disseminated travel images of the era—important cultural artifacts in their own right—and provides a fresh and inviting understanding of the relationships among cultures in the Mediterranean during an era of increasing European expansionism.
ISBN: 978-0-271-07320-0

In this lucid account, Stephanie Porras charts the fascinating story of art in northern Europe during the Renaissance period (c.1400–1570). She explains how artists and patrons from the regions north of the Alps – the Low Countries, France, England, Germany – responded to an era of rapid political, social, economic and religious change, while redefining the status of art. Porras discusses not only paintings by artists from Jan van Eyck to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, but also sculpture, architecture, prints, metalwork, embroidery, tapestry and armour. Each chapter presents works from a roughly 20-year period and also focuses on a broad thematic issue, such as the flourishing of the print industry or the mobility of Northern artists and art works. The author traces the influence of aristocratic courts as centres of artistic production and the rise of an urban merchant class, leading to the creation of new consumers and new art products. This book offers a richly illustrated narrative that allows readers to understand the progression, variety and key conceptual developments of Northern Renaissance art.

10 Kasım 1483 doğumlu Eislebenli keşiş Martin Luther’in öncüsü olduğu Protestanlık, Katolisizm gibi Hıristiyanlığın bir yorumu olarak ortaya çıktığından Luther’in kadına dair görüşleri de elbette Hıristiyanlık temelinde biçimlenmiştir. Hristiyanlıkta da kadın konusu asli günaha değinilmeden anlaşılmayacaktır. Asli günah anlayışı Hıristiyanlıkta,  salt bir karşı gelme olayı olarak işlenmesinden daha çok temel dini görüşlerin belirli şekilde yorumlanmasında ana olay olarak kullanılmıştır.  Hıristiyanlık tarihinde kadının rolü belirlenirken ve yorumlanırken asli günah her zaman temel yapı taşı olmuş ve kadın, erkeği yolundan çıkaran, kötülüklere sürükleyen, erkekten eksiği olan bir varlık olarak görülmüştür. Teolojik düzeyde Hıristiyanlığın mimarı kabul edilen ve görüşleri Hıristiyanlığın her mezhebinde olduğu gibi Protestanlık üzerinde de etkili olan Pavlus da kadını, -Mesih’in kadınlar hakkında erkeği engelleyici herhangi bir ifadesi bulunmamasına rağmen- kilisede sessiz kalması, evde erkeğine itaat etmesi gereken, din konusunda erkeklere bir şeyler öğretmeye kalkışmaması gereken ve yine erkekten eksik bir varlık olarak yorumlamıştır.  Bu görüşler Pavlus özelinde bir yorum fakat genel kabul gören bir görüşler silsilesi olduğundan, her mezhepte olduğu gibi Protestanlığın kurucusu Luther üzerinde de etkili olacaktır. Luther, üzerinde etkili olan görüşleri yaşamının ilk yıllarında daha sert, son yıllarında ise daha yumuşak şekilde dile getirmiştir. Bunda reformun siyasi taraftar sıkıntısı ve kuşkusuz Luther’in 1525 yılında yaptığı evliliğin rolü vardır.

This most recent edition of the bibliography contains almost 21,200 titles in English (64%) and French (36%), with an introductory section on historiography. It deals with every aspect of Italian history and culture from the Late Renaissance to the French Revolution.

Згідно з «просторовим поворотом», простір у містах потрібно розглядати не лише в контексті соціаль-них процесів, але також як продукт людської діяльності та уяви. Назви вулиць є невід'ємною частиною уявлення людей про простір в місті. У середньовічні та ранньомодерні часи назви нерозривно пов'язувались із об'єктами, ремісниками чи громадами, що проживали на території. Тож і досліджувати назви варто в їх хронологічному розвитку та в поєднанні з простором. Найчастіше назви львівських вулиць згадуються в довідниках з перейменування та вивчалися, переважно, на краєзнавчому рівні. Це означає, що назви вулиць у Львові іноді ставали предметом домислів та обростали багатовіковими міфами. Це дослідження спрямо-ване на з'ясування процесів перейменування, вивчення генезису таких назв та відображення їх на карті за допомогою геоінформаційної системи. Це пояснить і дасть нам краще розуміння їх формування. Як перший крок у цьому дослідженні було створено базу даних назв вулиць Львова у 1382-1768 роках. Податкові записи були первинним джерелом, а книги міської ради-допоміжним. У цій базі даних кожна назва вулиці має унікальний ідентифікатор. Потім було створено геоінформаційну систему (додаток QGIS 2.18). Вона має три шари: перший містить карту Львова Фрідріха фон Міга (XVIII століття), другий-сучасну, а третій-об'єкти (вулиці), до яких приєднані імена з бази даних. Завдяки ідентифікатору програма вибирає лише потрібну назву вулиці та хронологічно відображає її розвиток. Це дає змогу проаналізувати зміни назв вулиць, їх приблизне розташування та зрозуміти витоки деяких міфів щодо назв вулиць Львова. Наприклад, аналізуючи формування назви вулиці «Sutorum / Szewska» (вулиця Шевська), з’ясовано, що будівля та роз-
ташування єзуїтської церкви вплинули на сприйняття навколишнього простору, тому назва вулиці стала подвійною: «Єзуїтська або Вулиця Шевська». Другий приклад показує, що назва вулиці «Зарванська / Сербанська» походить від старопольського слова, що означає «галасливий ринок», а не від сербів, які осіли в місті набагато пізніше, ніж виникла назва вулиці.

Protestant and Catholic martyrologies evolved in dialogue; however, they did not articulate a common conception of martyrdom. Viewing Protestant and Catholic martyrologies and notions of martyrdom as essentially similar obscures highly significant confessional differences, which generated fiercely opposed constructions of martyrdom. This argument is examined through an analysis of the treatment of martyrs’ blood in English martyrological texts, since this encapsulated core confessional theologies.

Satires offer themselves to the audience in all kinds of forms: from novels to pamphlets, from cartoons to ritual performances, from learned wit to slanderous attacks. This was as much the case in early modern Europe as it is in contemporary (Western) society. Still, in all their variety, satirical utterances seem to share at least one characteristic, namely their double bind to both seriousness and laughter. In this paper, I analyse this double bind with the help of two Dutch cases of satire from the late eighteenth century.

The first case consists of a political periodical from the 1780’s, that makes use of the ‘magic-lantern formula’, which means that it imitates the live performance of a magic-lantern show or raree show (peepshow), a regular feature at eighteenth-century fairs. This Lanterne magique of toverlantaern applies the ‘magic-lantern formula’ to perform slanderous ridicule. The second case is an almanac-like series of booklets, published between 1792 and 1801 by the eccentric physician Pieter van Woensel, under the title De Lantaarn (‘The Lantern’). In these illustrated booklets, Van Woensel offers his ironic critique on contemporary politics and society.

The two cases differ in many ways. The Lanterne magique is highly partisan and uses a harsh kind of humour that is solely aimed at scapegoating political enemies. Van Woensel’s Lantaarn is ideologically ambivalent and uses the weapon of irony to lay bare the ludicrousness of the day. Nevertheless the two are related through their taking together of seriousness and playfulness/jest, their shared intention to make the audience laugh but at the same time to convey to it a more serious (political or moral) message.

Perhaps it is especially this double face of satire that makes its meaning oftentimes so difficult to grasp, not only for the audience, but also for scholars and literary critics. Looking at satire through the lens of its simultaneously serious and playful intentions might thus lead to a better understanding of the working of satire in general.

"Europe and the Islamic World sheds much-needed light on the shared roots of Islamic and Western cultures and on the richness of their inextricably intertwined histories, refuting once and for all the misguided notion of a "clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and Europe. In this landmark book, three eminent historians bring to life the complex and tumultuous relations between Genoans and Tunisians, Alexandrians and the people of Constantinople, Catalans and Maghrebis--the myriad groups and individuals whose stories reflect the common cultural, intellectual, and religious heritage of Europe and Islam. Since the seventh century, when the armies of Constantinople and Medina fought for control of Syria and Palestine, there has been ongoing contact between the Muslim world and the West. This sweeping history vividly recounts the wars and the crusades, the alliances and diplomacy, commerce and the slave trade, technology transfers, and the intellectual and artistic exchanges. Here readers are given an unparalleled introduction to key periods and events, including the Muslim conquests, the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the commercial revolution of the medieval Mediterranean, the intellectual and cultural achievements of Muslim Spain, the crusades and Spanish reconquest, the rise of the Ottomans and their conquest of a third of Europe, European colonization and decolonization, and the challenges and promise of this entwined legacy today. As provocative as it is groundbreaking, this book describes this shared history in all its richness and diversity, revealing how ongoing encounters between Europe and Islam have profoundly shaped both."

San Juan de Ávila fue un verdadero maestro de la Sagrada Escritura, por su estudio constante, su acogida de la Palabra y su predicación. La primera parte de este trabajo se centra en su formación bíblica y en los modos de estudiar e interpretar la Sagrada Escritura. La segunda parte nos acerca al lugar de la Palabra en el camino espiritual, al carácter entrañable y salvífico del encuentro con Dios en su Palabra.

It is widely known fact that during the conflict between the American Colonies and Great Britain, which resulted in independence and the birth of the United States of America, the insurgents presented their collective actions as a lawful form of resistance and defence against an unjust government in the motherland, which threatened their freedoms. They therefore did not consider themselves either disobedient or rebels. These views and these claims had, moreover, charachterized early modern European history for centuries, on the basis of a shared politico-juridical culture.
This volume analyzes some Italian urban rebellions that occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries (Urbino, Messina, Mondovì, Castiglione delle Stiviere) from this percpective, emphasizing the resemblances with the Catalan (1640) and the Neapolitan (1647) revolts. Fundamental problems emerge from all the cases under consideration: the borderline between loyalty and obedience, between unconditional and conditional obedience, the issue of sovereignty and its limits.
Originally published as Tumulti. Moltitudini ribelli in età moderna, Bologna, il Mulino, 2013.