Images in the Borderlands

This volume offers a unique exploration into the cultural history of the Mediterranean in the Early Modern Period by examining the region through the prism of Christian-Muslim encounters and conflicts and the way in which such relationships were represented in art works from the time. Taking images from the period as its starting point, this interdisciplinary work draws together contributors from fields as varied as cultural history, art history, archaeology, and the political sciences in order to reconstruct the history of a region that was often construed in the Early Modern period as a ‘borderland’ between religions. From discussions of borders as both physical construction and mental construct in the Mediterranean to case studies exploring the Battle of Lepanto, and from analyses of art work produced from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries to a consideration of the influence of the Ottoman Empire in the  Mediterranean Basin, the chapters gathered together in this insightful volume provide a new approach to our understanding of Early Modern Mediterranean history.

List of Illustrations

Introduction. Images in the Borderlands: The Mediterranean between Christian and Muslim Worlds in the Early Modern Period

Ivana Čapeta Rakić and Giuseppe Capriotti

Part 1: Borderland. The Mediterranean Basin between the Two Worlds

Rival Legacies: Islamic Art in Early Modern Europe

Peter Burke

Zadvarje (Duare): The Fate of a Fortress at the Border of Two Worlds

Ivan Alduk

The Bastions of the Ottoman Capital: The Fortresses of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus Seen by French Military Engineers, Diplomats, and Travellers in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Ferenc Tóth

The Image of Elite Corps, from Al-Andalus to Lepanto

Ana Echevarria

Part 2:  Lepanto. The Image and the Reflection of the Battle in the Mediterranean Basin and Beyond

Between Liguria and Southern Piedmont: Images of Lepanto in Religious Contexts

Laura Stagno

Heroic Comparisons in Images of Christian Political and Military Leaders Engaged in the Wars against the Turks: Some Observations Starting from the Battle of Lepanto (1571)

Chiara Giulia Morandi

Johannes Sambucus’s Arcvs aliqvot trivmphal (Antwerp, 1572): Visual and Written Propaganda for the Victor at Lepanto

Juan Chiva and Víctor Mínguez

On the Other Hand: The Battle of Lepanto in Ottoman Sources

Naz Defne Kut

Part 3: Circulation. From Ancient to Modern, across Imagined and Secret Battles Reflected in Images

The Rhetorical Index in the Portraits of Mehmed II: Some Episodes between Words and Images, from the West Shore of the Mediterranean

Angelo Maria Monaco

Representing Africa in the Exequies for King Philip II

Cristelle Baskins and Borja Franco Llopis

Old and New Enemies in Ancient and Modern Battles: Anachronisms in Three Works by Mattia Preti in Malta

Maria Luisa Ricci

‘Macometto in Una Nugola Nera’ (Muhammad in a Black Cloud): The Imaginary War of Giovanni da San Giovanni (and Ferdinando II de’ Medici) at Palazzo Pitti

Francesco Sorce

‘At his Feet’: The Image of the Eastern Prisoner in Late Baroque Iberian Public Sculptures

Iván Rega Castro

Index