Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy - (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art) by Federica Gigante (Hardcover)

About the Book

Explores the history of material exchanges between the Islamic world and Italy in the seventeenth century.

Book Synopsis

This book reassesses the idea that Islamic objects in seventeenth-century Italy were considered mere curiosities, sparking no cultural or historical interest. It focuses on Italy's largest collection of Islamic artefacts of the time, assembled by the Medici agent and Bolognese nobleman Ferdinando Cospi in his public gallery: the Cospi Museum. Through an extensive investigation of inventories, letters, and archival documents, the book follows the objects through the various paths which took them from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, through North African cities, to Livorno, Florence and, finally, Bologna. These paths reveal the presence of a network of enslaved Turks, Arab scholars, Egyptian fishermen and Armenian merchants, all responsible for importing both the items and their stories, biographies and anecdotes to Italy. The book thus brings forward to the seventeenth century a phenomenon of cultural inquisition that was thought to start only a century later.

Review Quotes

In the seventeenth century, Ferdinando Cospi created a significant collection of Islamic artifacts. Cospi's relationship with the Medici family gave him access to a world of things and people - Armenian merchants, enslaved Muslims, Catholic missionaries, Tuscan physicians, agents, and other collectors. In this documentary history, Gigante captures historical and contemporary interest in the Islamic world by early modern Europeans, inviting us to consider how and why such objects became meaningful.--Paula Findlen, Stanford University

A fascinating tour through the close study of one man's exceptional collections, its catalogues and a vast array of other archives, even down to tiny labels. Through the study of this rich material, Federica Gigante's beautifully written book illustrates the complex transmission, accumulation and transformation of knowledge surrounding Islamic objects - from dazzling art to small artefacts and manuscripts - as they travelled across the Mediterranean to Italy.--Filippo de Vivo, University of Oxford

A tour de force of scholarship, this book is also a treasure trove of objects. Through the forensic examination of one collector's fascination with Islamic artefacts, Gigante offers a radically new perspective on commerce, craft and creativity in early modern Italy.--Mary Laven, Cambridge University

This book is another milestone in disclosing histories of collecting in the age of Kunstkammer. Set between the Renaissance and the age of Enlightenment, this brilliantly-written study reveals the particular moments of collecting global scientific knowledge in the 17th-century city of Bologna, when marvels of nature and Islamic objects were archived and became the telling documents of the change in scope of the old world.--Avinoam Shalem, Columbia University