Diplomacy in Early Modern Period 1400-1800

About
luca carlevaris the reception of cardinal cesar destrees

This network was funded by TORCH from 2017 to 2019 but has carried on being active.

Please also refer to this article. 

The TORCH Network on Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period (1400-1800) was a platform for the study of early modern diplomacy. It brought together scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including History, Modern Languages, Art History, English, and Philosophy, and was open to everyone working in the field or simply eager to learn more about international exchanges in the early modern period.

Through our events, we aimed to investigate how ambassadors and resident ministers contributed to shaping our modern world. We were interested in their diplomatic and networking activities, in their role as cultural mediators, and in the position they occupied within the Republic of Letters. We invited anyone interested to propose a paper for one of our seminars, and we welcome presentations on individual case-studies as well as broader methodological analyses. The geographical scope of this Network was naturally very broad, and we were interested in diplomatic relations between the Western powers but also in the contributions of small states and in connections with nations beyond the borders of Europe (e.g. with the Middle and Far East).

The Network was running from October 2017 and our seminars were normally held on Tuesday afternoons (4:30-6:30) at the History Faculty.

Contact for this network was Ruggero Sciuto ruggero.sciuto@voltaire.ox.ac.uk.

Generic network email address was earlymoderndiplomacy@torch.ox.ac.uk.
People

Convenors:

Joel Butler

Ruggero Sciuto

Tracey Sowerby

Events
Past Events

Diplomacy in Early Modern Period 1400-1800

 
torch network on diplomacy in the early modern period 1400 1800 image
 
‘Royal Gifts and Diplomatic Ceremonial: The Case of James VI/I’s Apologie' (1609)’ (November 2017) 
Speaker: Dr Tracey A. Sowerby (University of Oxford, Keble College) 
 
Decorative Supremacy: French Diplomatic Gifts in the 18th century (November 2017) 
Speaker: Dr Helen Jacobsen (The Wallace Collection) 
 
Knowledge for Decision Makers: Austrian-Habsburg Foreign Intelligence in the Late Sixteenth Century (November 2017) 
Talk Held: with Dr Tobias Graf (University of Oxford, Faculty of History) 
 
The same game, but with different rules: Western diplomats in early modern Istanbul (February 2018) 
Speaker: Sir Noel Malcolm 
 
Trust building measures in cross-cultural settings: Diplomatic networking practices in early modern Istanbul (February 2018) 
Talk Held: Speaker: Christine Vogel 
 
Multilayered Networks, Information Gathering and Letter-Writing (February 2018) 
Speaker: Prof Isabella Lazzarini (Università degli Studi del Molise), For a “new diplomatic history” of early Renaissance Italy (1350-1520 ca.) 
 
'Europe's diplomatic culture, c.1700-1900: Continuity and change' (April 2018) 
Speaker: Prof Hamish Scott (University of Oxford) 
 
Negotiating peace in early modern Europe: Diplomatic ceremonial as opportunity and obstacle in the peace process (May 2018) 
Speaker: Dr Niels May (Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris) 
 
'Ubudiyet: Edward Barton's service to the sultan' (May 2018) 
Speaker: Joel Butler (Wadham College, Oxford)  
 
'David Hume and diplomacy, 1746-1769': Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period (1400-1800) (May 2018) 
Speaker: Dr Felix Waldmann (Christ’s College, Cambridge) 
Paper Title: ‘David Hume and diplomacy, 1746-1769’ 
 
Diplomacy and Gender in the Early Modern World (1400-1800) (June 2018) 
Two-day Symposium held in Oxford re-examining the interplay between gender and diplomacy in the early modern and invited papers on topics including (but not limited to): 
  • Methodologies for studying gender and diplomacy; 
  • The role of women in diplomatic ceremonial; 
  • Performances of masculinity within diplomatic contexts; 
  • Representations of gender in artistic and literary work connected with diplomacy; 
  • Material culture and gender in diplomatic exchange, such as gifts and ceremonial objects; 
  • Ambassadorial family networks and correspondences; 
  • Female-dominated areas (e.g. salons, harems, etc.) as spaces of diplomacy; 
  • Differences/similarities between the approaches of male/female sovereigns to foreign affairs; 
  • The body of the queen/king and its diplomatic value. 
Keynote Speaker: Lucien Bély (Université Paris-Sorbonne) 
 
Diplomatic Letters as Political Literature: Copying Sir Henry Unton's Letters (October 2018) 
Speaker: Lizzy Williamson 
Talk Held: The paper examined the political letters of Sir Henry Unton, resident ambassador to Henry IV of France from 1591-92 and again in 1595 until Unton’s death the following year. 
 
First discussion session: Relazioni and diplomatic reporting (October 2018) 
Discussion group: discussed the follow articles. 
1) Vivo, Filippo de, ‘How to Read Venetian Relazioni’, Renaissance and Reformation 34.1–2 (2011), 25-59 
2) Vivo, Filippo de, ‘Archives of Speech: Recording Diplomatic Negotiation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy’, European History Quarterly, 46.3 (2016), 519-544 
3) Queller, Donald, ‘The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni’, in John Rigby Hale (ed.), Renaissance Venice, London, 1973, pp. 174-196 
 
Secretaries and the Persian Cosmopolis in the Making of an Anti-Safavid Diplomatic Discourse (October 2018) 
Speaker: Dr Christopher Markiewicz (University of Birmingham) 
 
Second discussion session: Material letters and diplomacy (October 2018) 
Discussion group: discussed the follow articles. 
1) Jonathan Gibson, ‘Significant Space in Manuscript Letters’, The Seventeenth Century, 12 (1997), 1–10: 
2) Giora Sternberg, “Epistolary Ceremonial: Corresponding Status at the Time of Louis XIV”, Past and Present, 204 (2009), 33–88; 
3) Heather Wolfe, “‘Neatly sealed, with silk, and Spanish wax or otherwise:’ The Practice of Letter-locking with Silk Floss in Early Modern England,” in In Prayse of Writing: Early Modern Manuscript Studies, ed. Steven W. Beal and S. P. Cerasano (London, 2012), 169–189. 
 
Diplomatic Correspondence Networks and the Progress of Scientific Knowledge (November 2018) 
Luigi Lorenzi and the Spread of the Practice of Smallpox Inoculation in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany 
Speaker: Ruggero Sciuto (University of Oxford) 
 
Cold War. Dutch Public Diplomacy in the Truce Period, 1609-1621 (November 2018) 
Speaker: Dr Helmer Helmers (University of Amsterdam) 
 
Seminar: How to build a pacific relationship between two neighbours (January 2019) 
Jean-Charles Speeckaert (Jesus College, Oxford) - 'How to build a pacific relationship between two neighbours: France and the Austrian Netherlands after the Diplomatic Revolution (1756)' 
 
The ‘King of Peace’ off Track? The Provoking Strategies of James I’s Diplomats in Germany (April 2019) 
 
Special Issue Launch | Gender and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period (May 2023) 
Event Held: to celebrate the publication, of Gender and Diplomacy in the Early Modern Period, a special issue of the International History Review edited by Ruggero Sciuto (University of Oxford, SEH) and Florian Kühnel (Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz).  
Short presentations by three of the special issue contributors:  
Glenn Richardson (Queen Mary University of London);  
Florian Kühnel;  
Kristine Dyrmann (University of Oxford, Linacre College).  
Discussion introduced by Ruggero Sciuto and moderated by Tracey Sowerby. 

 

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