Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe

As transfer points between different economic and cultural zones, cities are crucial to shaping processes of cultural exchange. Urban culture embraces cultural traits borrowed or imported from afar and those of local neighbourhoods, professions and social groups, yet it also offers possibilities for the survival of minority identities. This volume compares the characteristics and patterns of change in the spaces, sites and building, which expressed and shaped inter-cultural relationships within the cities of early modern Europe, especially in their ethnic, religious and international dimensions. A central theme is the role of foreigners and the spaces and buildings associated with them from ghettos, churches and hospitals to colleges, inns and markets. Individual studies include Greeks in Italian cities and London; the 'Cities of Jews' in Italy and the place of ghettos in the European imagination; and the contributions of foreign merchants to the growth of Amsterdam as a commercial metropolis.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Cities and cultural exchange Derek Keene; 2. Nodes, networks and hinterlands Alexander Cowan; 3. Cities and foreigners James S. Amelang; Part II. Presence and Reception of Foreigners: 4. Introduction to Part II Marc Boone and Heleni Porfyriou; 5. The Greek diaspora: Italian port cities and London, c.1400–1700 Jonathan Harris and Heleni Porfyriou; 6. 'The city of Jews' in Europe: the conservation and transmission of Jewish culture Donatella Calabi, Dorothea Nolde and Roni Weinstein; 7. Foreigners at the Threshold of Felicity: the reception of foreigners in Ottoman Istanbul Edhem Eldem; 8. Merchants and immigrants in Hanseatic cities, c.1500–1700 Marie-Louise Pelus-Kaplan; 9. Foreign merchant communities in Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, c.1350–1650 Bruno Blondé, Oscar Gelderblom and Peter Stabel; 10. Foreign students in the city, c.1500–1700 Stefano Zaggia; Part III. Structures and Spaces of Cultural Exchanges: 11. Introduction to Part III Stephen Turk Christensen, Alex Cowan and Derek Keene; 12. Fairs as sites of economic and cultural exchange Alberto Grohmann; 13. Markets, squares, streets: urban space, a tool for cultural exchange Marc Boone and Heleni Porfyriou; 14. City courts and cultural transfer Dorothea Nolde, María José del Río Barredo and Elena Svalduz; 15. Exchanges and cultural transfer in European cities, c.1500–1700 Donatella Calabi and Derek Keene; 16. Merchants' lodgings and cultural exchange Donatella Calabi and Derek Keene; 17. Churches and confraternities Claudia Conforti, Elena Sánchez de Madariaga and James S. Amelang; Bibliography.