CULTURAL EXCHANGE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE...cultural exchange in early modern europe General Editor:...

C U LT U R A L E XC H A N G E I NE A R LY M O D E R N E U RO P E

As transfer points between different economic and cultural zones,cities are crucial to shaping processes of cultural exchange. Urbanculture embraces cultural traits borrowed or imported from afarand those of local neighbourhoods, professions and social groups,yet it also offer possibilities for the survival and reinforcement ofminority identities. This volume compares and contrasts the char-acteristics and patterns of change in the spaces, sites and buildingswhich expressed and shaped inter-cultural relationships within thecities of early modern Europe, expecially in their ethnic, religiousand international dimensions. A central theme is the role of for-eigners and the spaces and buildings associated with them, fromghettos, churches and hospitals to colleges, inns and markets. Indi-vidual studies includeGreeks inItaliancitiesandLondon; the ‘Citiesof Jews’ in Italy and the place of ghettos in the European imagina-tion; and the contributions of foreign merchants to the growth ofAmsterdam as a commercial metropolis.

Donatella Calabi is Professor of Urban History at the Uni-versity IUAV of Venice. She specialises in town planning historyduring early modern times and in the nineteenth and the twentiethcenturies. Her previous publications include The Market and theCity (2004).

Stephen Turk Christensen (Modern Greek Studies,Copenhagen University) has published articles on European–Byzantine–Ottoman relations during the fifteenth century. His pub-lications include Cultural Traffic and Cultural Transformation aroundthe Baltic Sea, 1450–1720 (editor, with B. Noldus, 2003).

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Cambridge University Press978-0-521-84547-2 - Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe - Volume II: Cities andCultural Exchange in Europe, 1400-1700Edited by Donatella Calabi and Stephen Turk ChristensenFrontmatterMore information

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cultural exc hange in early modern europe

General Editor: Robert MuchembledUniversité de Paris XIII

Associate Editor: William MonterNorthwestern University, Illinois

At a time when the enlarged European Community asserts the humanistvalues uniting its members, these volumes of essays by leading scholars fromtwelve countries seek to uncover the deep but hidden unities shaping a com-mon European past. These volumes examine the domains of religion, the city,communication and information, the conception of man and the use of ma-terial goods, identifying the links which endured and were strengthened throughceaseless cultural exchanges, even during this time of endless wars and reli-gious disputes. Volume i examines the role of religion as a vehicle for culturalexchange. Volume ii surveys the reception of foreigners within the cities ofearly modern Europe. Volume iii explores the place of information and com-munication in early modern Europe. Volume iv reveals how cultural exchangeplayed a central role in the fashioning of a first European identity.

Volumes in the series

i Religion and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400-1700Edited by Heinz Schilling and István György Tótht

ii Cities and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400-1700Edited by Donatella Calabi and Stephen Turk Christensen

iii Correspondence and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400-1700Edited by Francisco Bethencourt and Florike Egmond

iv Forging European Identities, 1400-1700Edited by Herman Roodenburg




CULTURAL EXCHANGE INEARLY MODERN EUROPE

general editor

RO B E RT M UC H E M B L E D

associate editor

W I L L I A M M ON T E R




C U LT U R A L E XC H A N G E I NE A R LY M O D E R N E U RO P E

VO LU M E I I

Cities and Cultural Exchange in Europe,1400–1700

edited by

D ONAT E L LA C A LA B IA N D S T E P H E N T U R K C H R I S T E N S E N




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Contents

List of figures page xPicture credits xivNotes on contributors xviiGeneral editor’s preface xxiVolume editors’ preface xxivList of abbreviations xxix

part i introduction

1 Cities and cultural exchange 3Derek Keene

2 Nodes, networks and hinterlands 28Alex Cowan

3 Cities and foreigners 42James S. Amelang

part ii presence and reception of foreigners

4 Introduction to Part II 59Marc Boone and Heleni Porfyriou

5 The Greek diaspora: Italian port cities and London,c. 1400–1700 65Jonathan Harris and Heleni Porfyriou

vii




viii Contents

6 ‘The city of Jews’ in Europe: the conservation andtransmission of Jewish culture 87Donatella Calabi, Dorothea Nolde and Roni Weinstein

7 Foreigners at the Threshold of Felicity: the reception offoreigners in Ottoman Istanbul 114Edhem Eldem

8 Merchants and immigrants in Hanseatic cities,c. 1500–1700 132Marie-Louise Pelus-Kaplan

9 Foreign merchant communities in Bruges, Antwerp andAmsterdam, c. 1350–1650 154Bruno Blondé, Oscar Gelderblom and Peter Stabel

10 Foreign students in the city, c. 1500–1700 175Stefano Zaggia

part iii structures and spaces of culturalexc hange

11 Introduction to Part III 197Alex Cowan and Derek Keene

12 Fairs as sites of economic and cultural exchange 207Alberto Grohmann

13 Markets, squares, streets: urban space, a tool for culturalexchange 227Marc Boone and Heleni Porfyriou

14 City courts as places of cultural transfer 254Dorothea Nolde, Elena Svalduz and Maŕıa Josédel Rı́o Barredo

15 Exchanges and cultural transfer in European cities,c. 1500–1700 286Donatella Calabi and Derek Keene




Contents ix

16 Merchants’ lodgings and cultural exchange 315Donatella Calabi and Derek Keene

17 Churches and confraternities 349Claudia Conforti and Elena Sánchez de Madariaga (with thecollaboration of James S. Amelang)

Bibliography 364Index 411




Figures

1. Cities and cultural exchange in Europe and theMediterranean region, c. 1500. page 6

2. The major towns of Europe and the Mediterraneanregion, c. 1700 10

3. M. Zeiller, View of Ancona, 1640. 684. Iconostasis of the Greek church of Santa Maria degli

Angeli, Barletta. 715. The Greek church of St George in Venice, alongside the

complex formed by the Scuola di San Nicolò and thecollege of Flangini, designed by Baldassare Longhena,1658–60 and 1678. 73

6. B. Stoopendaal, Napoli, detail. 757. F. Scotto, Livorno, 1737. 778. The Greek diaspora in Europe, 1400–1700. 809. Angelo Sullam’s plan (1936) of the three ghettos of Venice. 91

10. Vertical section of a house in the ghetto of Venice(seventeenth century) 92

11. The area between the Canale degli Ebrei and the Canaledei Marani in Venice, 1688. 94

12. The ghetto of Modena, 1617–19. 9613. Plan of the Jewish district in Rome before 1555. 9814. Emmanuel de Witte, interior of ‘Portuguese synagogue in

Amsterdam’. 10815. ‘Dinner of a European envoy with the Grand Vizier in the

Divan Room’. 12116. The reception of an Austrian envoy by Sultan Selim II. 12217. ‘The City of Constantinople’, c. 1650. 124

x




Figures xi

18. ‘Wife of a Frank going to the bath’. 12919. Hanseatic cities, commercial enclaves (Kontore) and

outposts (Faktoreien) (thirteenth–seventeenth century). 13420. Hanseatic cities’ final participation in the Diet (Hansetag). 13521. View of Lübeck, 1552. 13922. View of Hamburg seen from the Elbe, 1619. 14323. The Artushof in Danzig, 1688. 15124. Langer Markt with city hall, Artushof and the Fountain of

Neptune, 1617. 15225. Bruges: the house of the Hanse merchants on

Ooster-lingenplein, 1602. 15826. Antwerp: the New Bourse of 1531 and its neighbourhood

in 1565. 16227. An allegory of Antwerp trade, 1635. 16428. Estimated composition of Amsterdam’s merchant

community in 1585 and 1609. 17029. The square of Amsterdam called the Dam, 1622. 17330. The salting of herrings in the square of Amsterdam, 1608. 17331. Distribution of universities in Europe in 1500. 17632. Distribution of universities in Europe in 1850. 17733. Doctoral procession in seventeenth-century Louvain. 18134. Inner court of the University of Padua with students. 18835. Students’ feast in the market place of Jena, 1754. 19236. Transporting goods outside a medieval town. 21037. The market at Porta Ravegnana in Bologna, 1411. 21138. Pieter Balten, Village Fair. 21639. Medallions in the courtyard of the Bladelinhof, Bruges. 21740. David Vinckboons, Village Kermis, 1602. 22441. Jacques Callot, The Fair at Impruneta, etching of 1620. 22642. ‘La solennissima cavalcata fatta in Roma per landar di

N. S. Papa Leone XI al possesso di S. Giovani Laterano’(1605). 242

43. F. del Cossa, ‘Palio of Ferrara’ (1476–84). Detail of frescoin the Salone dei Mesi, Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara. 244

44. Piazza Navona (unknown painter, eighteenth century). 245




xii Figures

45. D. Barrière, Easter procession in Piazza Navona (1650). 24646. F. Gagliardi, A. Sacchi and ‘Manciola’, ‘Saracen

tournament in Piazza Navona, 1634’. 24747. G. Piccini, ‘Piazza Navona with firework machines for the

celebration of the birth of the Dauphin of France’ (1729). 24848. M. Cerquozzi, ‘The revolt of Masaniello’, 1648. 25249. Map of the entry of Princess Anne of Austria into Madrid

in 1570. 26650. City and castle of Heidelberg, c. 1617. 27051. Illustration from De Caus’s Hortus Palatinus statue of the

Elector Frederick V dominating that of Neptune. 27452. ‘Vero disegno de la Mirandola con le città, casteli, ville et

poste nel suo sito’ (eighteenth century). 27753. Dealers at the exchanges of Venice, Nuremberg, Leipzig,

Amsterdam and Hamburg, 1730. 28954. Antwerp: the New Bourse built in 1531, viewed from the

south and showing trade in progress. 29255. Jan Berkheyde, The Interior Court of the Bourse of

Amsterdam (1668). 29556. Seville cathedral: sculpture of Jesus driving the merchants

from the Temple. 29857. London: the exterior of the new Exchange, subsequently

the Royal Exchange, seen from the south c. 1570. 30258. London: the interior of the Royal Exchange in 1644. 30459. London: plan of the Royal Exchange in the middle of the

eighteenth century. 30660. Coffee houses, taverns and bookshops in the alleys near

the Royal Exchange, 1748. 31061. View of Venice showing the location of settlements of

foreign communities in the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies, marked on the map by Jacopo de’ Barbari(1500). 322

62. Aerial view of the fondaco of the Germans in Venice,c. 2000 325

63. Bruges: the consular houses facing on to the Place de laBourse. 329




Figures xiii

64. Antwerp c. 1570, identifying some of the principal sites forcultural exchange. 332

65. Antwerp: the Oosterlingenhuis (house of the Hanseaticmerchants), opened in 1568. 333

66. London c. 1550, showing some of the principal sites forcultural exchange. 334

67. Ground-plan of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Rome. 35268. Longitudinal section of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Rome. 35369. Façade of San Antonio de los Portugueses, Madrid. 35670. All cities and other places mentioned in this volume. 362–3




Picture credits

The authors and publisher would like to thank the following indi-viduals, libraries, archives, museums and galleries for permission toreproduce their material. Every effort has been made to secure nec-essary permission to reproduce copyright material in this work, butin some cases it has proved impossible to trace copyright holders. Ifany omissions are brought to our notice, we will be happy to includeappropriate acknowledgements on reprinting. The following numbersare figure numbers:

Amsterdams Historisch Museum: dustjacket, 55Centre for Metropolitan History, Institute of Historical Research,

University of London: 1, 2, 8, 70Diateca/DSA, Venice: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30, 44,

57, 61, 62Archivio di Stato di Venezia: 10 (Ufficiali al Cattaver, b. 277),

11 (Savi ed esecutori alle acque, b. 139, dis. 20); (Archivio diStato di Venezia, Sezione di fotoriproduzione, atto di concessionen. 4/2007)

Archivio di Stato di Modena (reproduced with the permission ofthe Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali): 12 (Archivio permaterie, Ebrei, b. 15; authorisation 2019/V.9)

Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (reproduced with the permission ofthe Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali): 13

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam: 14Edhem Eldem: 15, 18Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul: 16Archives de la Chambre de la Commerce de Marseille: 17

xiv




Picture credits xv

R. Hammel-Kiesow, Die Hanse (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2000): 19, 20Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln: 25 (Hanse IV 106B)L. Voet et al., De stad Antwerpen van de Romeinse tijd tot de 17eeuw:

topographische studie rond het plan van Virgilius Bononiensis 1565(Brussels: Gemeentekredeit van België, 1978): 26

L. Lucassen (ed.), Amsterdammer worden: migranten, hun organ-isaties en inburgering, 1600–2000 (Amsterdam: Vossiuspers UVA,2004): 28

H. De Ridder-Symoens (ed.), A History of the University in Europe,vols. I–II (Cambridge University Press, 1992–6): 31, 32

G. P. Brizzi and J. Verger (eds.), Le università dell’Europa, vol. IV,Gli uomini e i luoghi (secoli XII–XVIII) (Milan: Silvana editoriale,1993): 33, 35

Stefano Zaggia: 34Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels: 36 (detail of miniature in Ms. 9067,

f. 149v).Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna: 37 (ms. n. 93, c. 1)Museo Civico Ala Ponzone – Pinacoteca, Cremona: 38 (inv.

n. 256)Hugo Maertens: 39Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen: 40Alberto Grohmann: 41Museo di Roma, Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe: 42, 45, 47Musei Civici d’Arte Antica, Ferrara: 43Museo di Roma: 46Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, ICCD, Rome: 48Centro de Documentación y Estudios para la Historia de Madrid,

Universidad Autónoma, Madrid: 49, 69Universitätsbibliothek Basel: 50Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel: 51Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Paris: 52

(‘Topographie de l’Italie’)British Library, printed books: 54 (L. Guicciardini, Descrittione . . .

di tvtti i Paesi Bassi (Antwerp: Christofano Plantino, 1588);shelfmark C.73.g.8); 63 (A. Sanderus, Flandria Illustrata, 2 vols.(Cologne: Cornelius ab Egmondt et socii, 1641–4); shelfmark




xvi Picture credits

177.h.10); 65 (L. Guicciardini, Descrittione . . . di tvtti i Paesi Bassi(Antwerp: Christofano Plantino, 1588); shelfmark C.73.g.8)

GermanischesNationalmuseum,Nuremberg:53 (Inv.Nr.HB4099)Ferigo Foscari: 56Guildhall Library, Corporation of London: 58, 59, 66Institute of Historical Research, University of London: 60The Historic Cities Research Project (http://historic cities.

huji.ac.il), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The JewishNational and University Library: 64

Claudia Conforti: 67, 68




Notes on contributors

James S. Amelang teaches early modern history at the Univer-sidad Autónoma, Madrid. He is the author of several works onthe history of early modern Barcelona and his most recent bookis The Flight of Icarus: Artisan Autobiography in Early ModernEurope (1998). He is preparing The Oxford History of Early ModernSpain.

Bruno Blondé is Research Professor at the Centre for Culturaland Urban History, University of Antwerp. His research themesinclude the history of urban networks in the early modern period,transport, material culture and consumption.

Marc Boone is Professor of Medieval History at the University ofGhent, with research interests in Burgundian history and the urban,social, economic and political history of late medieval Europe. Hisrecent publications on urban history include contributions to J. L.Pinol (ed.), Histoire de l’Europe urbaine (2003).

Donatella Calabi is Professor of Urban History at the IstitutoUniversitario di Architettura of Venice, with research interests inarchitecture and urbanism between the early modern period andthe twentieth century. Her recent books include The Market and theCity: Square, Street and Architecture in Early Modern Europe (2004);Storia della città. Età moderna (2001); and, as editor, with J. Bottin,Les Etrangers dans la ville (1999).

Stephen Turk Christensen (Modern Greek Studies, Copen-hagen University) has published articles on European–Byzantine–Ottoman relations during the fifteenth century and, with B. Noldus,

xvii




xviii Notes on contributors

edited Cultural Traffic and Cultural Transformation around the BalticSea, 1450–1720 (special issue of Scandinavian Journal of History28/3–4, 2003).

Claudia Conforti is Professor of Architectural History at theFacoltà di Ingegneria at the University of Rome (Tor Vergata). Herpublications include Giorgio Vasari architetto (1993) and, as editorwith M. Bulgarelli and G. Curcio, Modena 1598. L’invenzione di unacapitale (1999).

Alex Cowan is Senior Lecturer in History, School of Artsand Social Sciences, Northumbria University, United Kingdom.Besides articles on early modern urban history he has editedMediterranean Urban Culture, 1400–1700 (2000), Urban Europe1500–1700 (1998) and The Urban Patriciate: Lübeck and Venice 1580–1700 (1986).

Edhem Eldem is Professor at the Department of History, BoğaziçiUniversity, Istanbul. He is the author of French Trade in Istanbulin the Eighteenth Century (1999) and, as co-author with DanielGoffman and Bruce Masters, of The Ottoman City between East andWest: Aleppo, Izmir and Istanbul (1999).

Oscar Gelderblom is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Utrecht Uni-versity and the International Institute for Social History (Amster-dam). His research and periodical publications are primarily con-cerned with the organisation of international trade in late medievaland early modern Europe.

Alberto Grohmann is Professor of Economic History at theFacoltà di Scienze Politiche at the University of Perugia. His pub-lications include La città medievale (2003) and Le fiere del Regno diNapoli in età aragonese (1969).

Jonathan Harris is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History atRoyal Holloway, University of London. His publications includeByzantium and the Crusades (2003) and Greek Emigrés in the West,1400–1520 (1995).




Notes on contributors xix

Derek Keene is Leverhulme Professor of Comparative Metro-politan History, the Institute of Historical Research, University ofLondon, with research interests in material, cultural and economicaspects of medieval and later cities and their regions. Recent publi-cations include: as general editor, St. Paul’s: The Cathedral Churchof London, 604–2004 (2004); and contributions to The New Cam-bridge Medieval History, vol. IV: c. 1024–c. 1198, Part I (2004) andThe Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. 1: 600–1540 (2000).

Dorothea Nolde is currently in charge of the research project‘Experiences of Alterity and Cultural Transfers in Early ModernEurope: French and German Travellers from the 16th to the 18thCenturies’ (Swiss National Foundation), at the University of Basle.Her publications include works on early modern gender history andon the history of travel and cultural contacts.

Marie-Louise Pelus-Kaplan is Professor of Early ModernHistory at the University of Paris VII. In addition to articleson Hanseatic history, her publications include Wolter von Holsten,marchand lubeckois dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle (1981) and,as editor with D. Tollet, La Pologne et l’Europe occidentale du MoyenAge à nos jours (2004).

Heleni Porfyriou is Senior Researcher at the ConsiglioNazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Conservazione e la Val-orizzazione dei Beni Culturali, Rome. Her publications concernaspects of morphology and the representation of space in citiesafter 1500 and include, as editor, La legislazione relativa ai settori disalvaguardia in Europa (2002).

Marı́a José del Rı́o Barredo is Lecturer in Early ModernHistory, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid. She has publishedMadrid, Urbs Regia. La capital ceremonial de la Monarquı́a Católica(2000) and is preparing a book on the ceremonial of the Spanishqueens in Turin, Paris and Vienna, 1560–1650.

Elena Sánc hez de Madariaga teaches modern history at theUniversidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid. She has published several




xx Notes on contributors

articles on confraternities in early modern Madrid, and is author ofa doctoral dissertation on ‘Confraternities and Sociability in AncienRégime Madrid’. She is preparing a general overview of the conceptand practice of citizenship in early modern Spain.

Peter Stabel is Professor in the Department of History, Univer-sity of Antwerp, where his research focuses on craft guilds, theconsumption of luxury commodities and the role of internationalmerchant in the medieval Low Countries. His publications includeDwarfs Among Giants: The Flemish Urban Network in the Late MiddleAges (1997).

Elena Svalduz is Research Fellow at the Universitá degli Studiat Padua. Besides articles on the Italian architectural and urbanhistory of the early modern times, she has published Da castelloa “città”: Carpi e Alberto Pio (2001) and, as editor, L’ambizione diessere città. Piccoli, grandi centri nell’Italia rinascimentale (2004).

Roni Weinstein currently teaches at Tel-Aviv University. Hispublications cover aspects of Jewish–Italian cultural and social his-tory (family life, education, sexuality, the ghetto, the youth cultureand exorcism) and include Marriage Rituals Italian Style: A Histori-cal Anthropological Perspective on Early Modern Italian Jews (2004).

Stefano Zaggia is Research Fellow in History of Architecturein the Dipartimento di Architettura, Urbanistica e Rilevamento atthe University of Padua. His publications include L’università diPadova nel Rinascimento. La costruzione del palazzo del Bo e dell’Ortobotanico (2003) and Una Piazza per la città del Principe. Strategieurbane e architettura a Imola durante la Signoria di Girolamo Riario(1473–1488) (1999).




General editor’s preface

The four volumes of this series represent the synthesis of works from‘Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700’, a research programmesponsored by the European Science Foundation and financed byeighteen councils for research from seventeen countries. The adven-ture began in January 1997 when its originators decided to conductan international investigation of the cultural roots of modern Europe.Research has increased considerably since this programme began andidentifying the origins of the European identity has become a funda-mental issue at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Ultimately, our programme brought together over sixty regularmembers, plus a few dozen individuals who participated in one ormore of our group meetings. It was a real linguistic Tower of Babelincluding specialists from various disciplines: history, art, architecture,theatre, literature, linguistics, folklore, clothing and dance. We haverecruited well beyond the borders of the European Union, from StPetersburg to Chicago by way of Istanbul, although it was not alwayspossible for every geographical location to be fully represented in eachof our four groups.

This series is devoted to four major themes: religion; the city;communication and information; the conception of man and the useof material goods. The four volumes collectively include about a thirdof the papers presented throughout the programme.1 Most have beendiscussed collectively, revised, and sometimes rewritten.

1 Many other contributions prepared for this programme have appeared or will appearelsewhere: Eszter Andor and István György Tóth (eds.), Frontiers of Faith: ReligiousExchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities, 1400–1750 (Budapest: CentralEuropean University/ESF, 2001); José Pedro Paiva (ed.), Religious Ceremonials and

xxi




xxii General editor’s preface

It was not always easy to conceptualise our theme collectively. Themost difficult and time-consuming task was to get scholars to under-stand each other unambiguously when employing such apparentlyclear concepts as ‘culture ’, which means different things in differentlanguages and cultural traditions. Our first major task was simplyto discover whether or not a European culture existed between 1400and 1700, an intensely conflictual and profoundly tragic period whichseemed to be characterised by ruptures rather than creation. From1517, when Luther broke with Roman Catholicism, until the Peaceof Westphalia in 1648, a series of terrible religious wars drowned thecontinent in blood, ending the medieval dream of a united Christen-dom. This age of intolerance was also one of fundamental inequality,particularly with respect to birth and sex, because any woman wasconsidered fundamentally inferior to any man. Not only was the con-tinent divided into at least five different cultural areas – the Atlantic,the Baltic, the Mediterranean, central Europe and eastern Europe –but also, and everywhere, those frontiers established in men’s minds –both visible and invisible – conflicted with any residual hopes of unity,whether expressed in terms of imperial ideology, papal universalismor Thomas More’s humanistic Utopia, all of them swept away after1520 by a wave of persecutions.2

And yet this very same Europe also bequeathed us powerful rootsfor the slow and difficult construction of a collective sensibility. Ourresearch has unearthed traces of underlying unities, despite (or becauseof ) formidable obstacles. This stubborn growth in some ways resem-bled an earlier process described by a prominent medievalist as the‘Europeanization of Europe’.3 They have given substance and mean-ing to my working hypothesis: that European culture from 1400 to1700 contained expressions of hidden cohesion against a background

Images: Power and Social Meaning (1400–1750) (Coimbra: Palimage, 2002). A volumeon translations will be edited by Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia.

2 Robert Muchembled, ‘Frontières vives: la naissance du Sujet en Europe (xve–xviiesiècle)’, introduction to Eszter Andor and István György Tóth (eds.), Frontiers ofFaith, pp. 1–8.

3 Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change950–1350 (London: Allen Lane, 1993).




General editor’s preface xxiii

of intense conflicts. If those conflicts were destabilising, they alsocreated a dialectic which contributed to the overall advance of Euro-pean civilisation.4 Following Norbert Elias’s argument, I believe thatevery human society is constantly seeking to attain a ‘balance ofpower’ through a mechanism of ‘reciprocal dependency’ which pro-duces a clear evolutionary trend. Culture is a symbolic arena for bothcollective negotiations and the fashioning of the Self.5 The enormousimportance of the Self in today’s Europe (and in the United States) isthe result of a major cultural change which began during the Renais-sance. In the face of the tragedy of real life, this new individualismprovided a fresh means of expressing the continent’s collective vitalityand produced a growing conviction of its superiority and differencesfrom all other places and people in the world.6

The ‘culture’ analysed in this series may be defined as that whichsimultaneously holds a society together and distinguishes it from othersocieties. If the Europe of 1400–1700 had little obvious regard forhuman rights, it did at least prefigure the time when they would beimportant. The humanistic lights which glimmered from time to timein the two dark and bloodstained centuries after 1520 were neverto be completely extinguished. The Enlightenment revived them andhonoured their Renaissance origins. But the tragic events that pollutedits soil during the first half of the twentieth century proved that the OldContinent was not yet fully free from intolerance and persecution.

I should like to thank Wim Blockmans, who warmly supported thecreation of this research programme; the European Science Founda-tion for its constant help; the eighteen institutions which providedgenerous funding over four years;7 all the scholars who participated

4 Robert Muchembled, ‘Echanges, médiations, mythes unitaires, 1400–1700’ (plenaryconference address, published in the programme’s Newsletter no. 1 (2000), pp. 7–26).

5 Norbert Elias, The Society of Individuals, trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Michael Shröter(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991).

6 Robert Muchembled, A History of the Devil: from the Middle Ages to the Present, transJean Birrell (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003); L’Orgasme et l’Occident: une histoire duplaisir du xvie siècle à nos jours (Paris: Sevil, 2005, forthcoming in English translation).

7 Austria: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften; Fonds zur Förderung derwissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF); Belgium: Fonds National de la Recherche




xxiv General editor’s preface

in the experience, notably E. William Monter without whom this serieswould probably not have been published, and the late István GyörgyTóth, co-director of volume i, who passed away unexpectedly on14 July 2005; and last but not least Cambridge University Press forproducing four superb books proving the great vitality of past andpresent European culture.

Robert MuchembledChair of the ESF programme

‘Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400–1700’

Scientifique (FNRS) / Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen(FWO); Denmark: Statens Humanistiske Forskningsrad; Finland: Suomen Akatemia/ Finlands Akademi; Germany: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG); Greece:National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF); Hungary: Hungarian Academyof Sciences; Italy: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR); Netherlands: Neder-landse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO); Norway: NorgesForskningsråd; Poland: Polska Akademia Nauk (PAN); Portugal: Instituto deCooperação Ciêntifica e Tecnológica Internacional (ICCTI); Slovenia: The Slove-nian Science Foundation; Spain: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas(CSIC); Sweden: Humanistik Samhällsvetenskapliga Forskningsradet (HSFR) /Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (KVHAA); Switzerland:Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung(SNF); United Kingdom: The British Academy.




Volume editors’ preface

The genesis of this book lies in the invitation, in 2000, to its editorsto join the European Science Foundation programme on ‘CulturalExchange in Europe 1400–1700’, directed by Robert Muchembled.The brief was to explore the role of cities in cultural exchange over theperiod. A core team of scholars, ‘Team Two’ in the programme, wasassembled to organise and participate in a series of thematic seminarsand workshops held in six European cities between 2000 and 2003, atwhich the ideas expressed here were collectively evolved. The work-shops covered six areas which initially seemed to cover most aspectsof the role of cities in cultural exchange:

1. The migration and status of foreigners2. The zones, buildings and cultural and welfare facilities occupied

and used by foreigners3. Commerce, consumption patterns and the circulation of cultural

models4. Markets and other public spaces as sites for encounters with the

new5. Enclosed and supervised spaces for the exchange of goods, credit

and ideas6. Sites of elite culture, including courts and universities.

Wide-ranging debate introduced new categories and cut across the oldones, which nevertheless continued to inform the emerging themes andstructure of the book. Although it represents a new initiative, the ESFteam’s cross-national, interdisciplinary and comparative approach tocities and foreigners has drawn on previous experience from the ‘per-manent seminar’ on ‘The Foreigner and the City’, organised jointly

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by the Department of History of Architecture in Venice and theMaison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. This seminar’s results havebeen published in two books, one in Italian (Donatella Calabi andPaola Lanaro (eds.), La città italiana e i luoghi degli stranieri (Bari:Laterza, 1998), and the other in French (Jacques Bottin and DonatellaCalabi (eds.), Les Etrangers dans la ville: minorités et espace urbaindu bas Moyen Age à l’époque moderne (Paris: Maison des Sciences del’Homme, 1999)). Several participants in our ESF team’s workshopsare alumni of these Italo-French seminars. Furthermore, the ESF pro-gramme’s approach to cultural exchange from the points of view ofmigration and reception inspired a conference on ‘Cultural Trafficand Cultural Transformation around the Baltic Sea, 1450–1720’ at theCarlsberg Academy in Copenhagen in March 2003, now publishedunder the same name in a special issue of the Scandinavian Journalof History 28 (2003), edited by Stephen T. Christensen and BadelochNoldus. All this continues and develops a long-established traditionof comparative work in urban history.

Cities contain, attract and transform cultures of many kinds. Asshown in Chapter 1, urban cultures, as patterns or gestalts of humanmanners, beliefs, ideas and emotions, are often embodied in and rein-forced by material symbols and the circulation of goods. They encap-sulate and can integrate the individual cultures of neighbourhoods andof professional and social groups, yet they also offer possibilities forthe survival and reinforcement of various forms of minority identity.Many of these complex relationships are determined or made possibleby commercial contacts and exchange. Cities thus play a crucial rolein cultural exchange as transfer points between economic and culturalzones.

The following chapters focus especially on questions concerningspace and networks within and between cities. Social, cultural andpolitical topographies in cities express less visible relationships whichare often not well recorded in surviving textual sources. Moreover,they provided, and still provide, a framework for acculturation and forlearning the rules of city life which is exploited by native and outsideralike. Common to many of the chapters is a concern to compare andcontrast the regions of early modern Europe in terms of characteristics




Volume editors’ preface xxvii

and patterns of change in the spaces, sites and buildings whichexpressed and shaped intercultural relationships within the cities, espe-cially in their ethnic, religious and international dimensions.

Underlying many of these characteristics are important legal andcustomary considerations, which explain, for example, certain differ-ences between the Mediterranean and other regions. These informthe chapters but are not a prime focus of concern. A central themeis the role of the ‘foreigner’, a person from outside the city who wasrecognised as culturally different by virtue of having come from afaror from another political regime. The ‘foreigner’, ‘stranger’ or ‘alien’had a status different from that of the native or citizen, and was oftenalso distinguished by language, religion, dress and other habits ofconsumption. Such a person might be a merchant, craftsman, scholar,artist, ambassador, princess, itinerant labourer or refugee. As is stillthe case today, foreigners sought, carved out or were assigned to theirown spaces in cities. Moreover, despite wide variations, both betweenand within cities, in the degree to which foreigners were assimilatedor acculturated, the presence of foreigners, of which there are manyenduring signs, marked out those European cities which were mostdynamic as centres of cultural exchange (see Chapters 3–10, 16, 17).Since the early Middle Ages, Europe has been characterised by anaccelerating circulation of people, commodities and ideas, the rateof which increased markedly between 1400 and 1700. This patternof change was also reflected in the formalisation of sites, spaces andbuildings that facilitated commercial exchange and the circulation ofnews and ideas, and that in turn assisted the intermingling of cultures(see Chapters 12, 13, 15).

The spaces and buildings associated with foreigners took manyforms, including ghettos (or districts resembling ghettos), churches,hospitals, colleges, inns and other forms of lodging, and buildings towhich markets in certain commodities were confined. In some places,civic or princely regimes regulated or accorded privileges to foreign-ers in ways which had distinctive spatial and architectural expressions,but less strict approaches were also common, especially in northernEurope (see Chapters 5, 6, 16, 17). Princes and their courts had a dis-tinctive impact through their demands for the exotic, their patronage




xxviii Volume editors’ preface

of foreign artists and scholars, their exploitation of public space andtheir reshaping of urban landscapes according to newly devised prin-ciples (see Chapters 13, 14). In considering the built and spatial expres-sions of such forces, the chapters draw attention both to architecturalsigns of the transmission of models and ideas and to the way in whichthey promoted the circulation of knowledge.

Inevitably, the most robust and sensitive approach to the complexproblem of cultural transfer proved to be through case-studies. Thosepresented here provide an uneven geographical coverage of the citiesof early modern Europe. Parts of the Mediterranean region and ofnorth-western Europe are well represented, but no chapter specifi-cally deals with the reception of foreigners and cultural exchange inthe cities of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Nevertheless, the chap-ters and the introductions to each part of the book draw attention towhat appear to have been common phenomena and to approaches tothe topic of cultural transfer and exchange used in a variety of dis-ciplines. In this way, the chapters often reflect the discussions at theworkshops and continuing exchanges among the authors and partic-ipants subsequently, thereby underlining the collective nature of theenterprise.

The editors thank Robert Muchembled (Paris) and Bill Monter(Chicago), the European Science Foundation programme’s directorand scientific secretary respectively, for their suggestions and adviceduring the volume’s editorial phase. We heartily thank Derek Keene(London), who contributed so much to the programme and the presentvolumethroughhisvastknowledgeof thefield,his scientificdedicationand his untiring editorial efforts. Many chapters in this book haveseveral authors, as the editors encouraged the combination of case-studies in order to bring together information and perspectives fromcities often geographically very distant from each other. The materialpresented here, written by scholars from different nations and diverseacademic traditions, is sometimes inevitably partial and tentative. Yetit can be read as a mosaic of different perspectives and points of view,providing an account of the significance of cities as sites and agentsof cultural exchange in early modern Europe which we hope willstimulate further enquiry and speculation.




Volume editors’ preface xxix

The following institutions are thanked for hosting the meetings ofthe European Science Foundation team: Department of Art Historyand Theatre Research, University of Copenhagen 4–6 February 2000(preparatory workshop); Dipartimento di Storia dell’Architettura,Università IUAV di Venezia 30 November–2 December 2000 (‘Pro-moting and Restricting the Foreign Presence in Cities’); Ghent Uni-versity 11–13 May 2001 (‘The City and the Foreigners: Places ofTrade and Exchange’); Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris 2–3November 2001 (publication meeting); Residencia de Estudiantes,CSIC, Madrid 17–18 May 2002 (‘Cities and Foreigners: Centres ofPrestige Culture (Courts, Schools, Academies)’); University of Lon-don 12–13 September 2003 (‘Cities and Cultural Exchange: A FinalOverview’).

For their lively and stimulating contributions to these occasions weare grateful not only to the authors of the chapters in this volumebut also to the following, who contributed to the debate through theirformal contributions and commentaries: Wim Blockmans (Leiden),Simona Cerutti (Paris), Giorgio Chittolini (Milan), Robert v. Friede-burg (Bielefeld), Willem Frijhoff (Amsterdam), Anke Greve (Paris),Zdeněk Hojda (Prague), Paola Lanaro (Venice), Jaroslaw Miller(Olomouc), Ruth Mohrmann (Münster), Badeloch Noldus (Utrecht),David Ormrod (Kent), Maarten Prak (Utrecht), James Raven (Essex),Manuel Herrero Sánchez (Madrid), Knut Schulz (Berlin) and LauraWright (Cambridge).

Donatella Calabi and Stephen Turk Christensen




Abbreviations

ASP Padua, Archivio di StatoASV Venice, Archivio di StatoBAV Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica VaticanaBNF Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de FranceBNMV Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale MarcianaODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford

University Press, 2004; also available online in updatedform)

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