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In contrast to the lands west of the Hungarian border, where constitutional care for orphans came about as a priority as part of the measures for elimination of street begging and support for factory production, in Hungary the reasons for establishing the first orphanages tended to be confessional. In a country where several Christian denominations existed legally alongside one another, institutional care for orphans became part of the confessional struggle. All four institutes, three private and one state, which were founded in Hungary in the second half of the eighteenth century, were designated for orphans who by means of constitutional care were to be strengthened in the Catholic faith or converted. Apart from orphans, children of living parents were accepted into Hungarian orphanages, particularly if they came from confessionally mixed marriages and who, against the law, had not been raised as Catholics. Orphanages specifically were tools for encouraging the Catholic raising of children in Kőszeg and Tomášikovo. The institution in Kőszeg, administered as of the year 1750 by members of the Society of Jesus, was primarily, according to the foundation document, designated for Protestant orphans or converts, in order to draw them away from their Protestant family environment and provide them with a Catholic upbringing. Protestant children of living parents, however, were also brought to the orphanage for various reasons up to the year 1763, with the goal of obtaining them for the Catholic confession. Poor orphaned converts in particular were to be accepted into the royal orphanage in Tomášikovo in accordance with the will of its founder. In reality, however, the majority of the children found their way into the institution due to their status as poor orphans, although there were also cases of voluntary or forced placement of children into constitutional care for religious reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zbornik Odsjeka za Povijesne Znanosti. Zavoda za Povijesne i Društvene Znanosti is the property of Hrvatska Akademija Znanosti i Umjetnosti, Zavod za Povijesne i Drustvene Znanosti and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Quarterly of the History of Material Culture / Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej is the property of Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The subject of the article is the poem Scachs d'Amor by the Valencian authors Bernat Fenollar, Francí de Castellví und Narcís Vinyoles. Written towards the end of the 15th century, it has attracted much interest of historians of chess, because in it one can find the first known description of chess moves distinguishing modern chess from that of the Middle Ages. The focus here, however, is on its literary characteristics and the literary tradition the poem is part of. Relying on recent research, one can show that the allegorical connection of chess with courtly love was no unknown literary topos. But nobody has asked so far why the 64 stanzas consist of 9 verses each, a number which does not harmonize with the arithmetic of chess, displayed in the poem by its 64 stanzas. The number nine can be linked to the religious subtext hinted at by "Apocalipsi", the last word of the poem, as well as to a hitherto unknown literary tradition of religious poetry, rooting in Dante's veneration of the number nine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows how Protestant scholars wrote about the First Jewish-Roman War and the destruction of Jerusalem, and demonstrates how this story was updated in relation to Jews and anti-Jewish politics in the Bohemian lands after 1550. Drawing on a large corpus of Latin and vernacular texts, the author shows that the Jewish revolt was linked primarily to eschatological expectations and to a critique of the Jews’ disruption of natural law, religious unity and the social order as based on sovereign-subject relations. With regard to individual works, the author traces the collective imagination of the day that helped to shape the alterity of Jews (including imaginary notions of cannibalism, unsettled lifestyles, and non-normative sexuality) and elaborates on the strategies of legitimisation for violence against contemporary Jewish communities through references to the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Investigaciones Historicas is the property of Universidad de Valladolid, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Investigaciones Historicas is the property of Universidad de Valladolid, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ágora: Estudos Clássicos em Debate is the property of Agora: Estudos Classicos em Debate and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper studies the pupils of three Jesuit grammar schools (Gymnasia) in Western Hungary by electronically processing data to create databases of the schools' registers (Győr 1630–1773, Bratislava 1650–1772, Trnava 1616–1618, 1625–1772). In the time-span considered, more than 70,000 pupils were matriculated in these three schools. After introducing the basic principles of digitally processing and recording the registers and outlining the institutional framework of the Jesuit grammar schools, the development of the numbers of pupils, their distribution in cohorts by year, age and social background, their distribution according to nationality and places of birth (i. e. the outreach of the schools) are presented. First analyses show that, contrary to widespread assumption, there was no majority of noble families. Instead, the high numbers of non-noble pupils prove the schools' role of a kind of social melting pot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution describes the adaptation process of the anthroponym Barrabáš/ Barabáš/Barabbáš in Czech versions of printed New Testament text in the Early Modern Period. Following the development in foreign sources, the Czech form changed from Barrabáš and Barabáš, inherited from the Old Czech translation tradition, to Barabbáš. The latter is the form introduced into Czech tradition by the Náměšť New Testament of 1533, it prevailed in Brethren translations from 1601 onwards and in the exile, whereas the Baroque Catholic tradition in the St. Wenceslas Bible opted for Barabáš, a form exceptional in the late pre-1620 editions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Ars Adriatica is the property of Sveuciliste u Zadru (University of Zadar) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper discusses a sabre from the collection of the Archaeological Museum in Kraków (Inv. No. MAK/10244). No information is available on its provenance (neither the find place nor find circumstances are known). It was forged of iron (steel?) into a weapon with a very gently curved blade. The blade is triangular in its transverse cross-section, while the cross-guard is S-shaped and was made from a rod with widened terminals. The artefact survived in a good condition. It can be dated to the second half of the 15th - the first decades of the 16th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many dress accessories were not only fulfilling a functional purpose, in fact, they had a symbolical meaning and communicational significance, unequivocally perceived by all the members of the contemporary society, while, of course, also allowing some particular individual aesthetic preferences of the wearer, whether it be male or female, whom they were defining within their age, family status and social class. This category also includes specific headgears, objects of artistic or craftsmanship character referred to as headbands, more precisely Hungarian partas. The aim of the paper is to illustrate a more complex picture of the findings of female headgears, more specifically decorative headbands or partas, which we interpret within a wide context of related sources of period clothing and and of a deeper symbolical meaning. This is all being carried out within the context of previous exploration and also newly recovered archaeological findings while using an interdisciplinary research. The practical outcome of this project is a creation of an analogical copy of a specific archaeological find of a Hungarian parta that comes from a double-nave Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross in Ruská (Eastern Slovakia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of settlement and building activity is the result of socioeconomic, political and demographic changes in the past. However, accurate information on temporal variation in building activity is rather limited. Dendrochronological databases containing dated historical wooden constructions provide an important resource. We used 6514 tree‐felling dates to reconstruct building activity in the Czech lands for the period 1450–1950. Comparing felling dates with historical events demonstrated that building activity was negatively associated with intense wars, particularly during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). After the Peace of Westphalia (1648), socioeconomic renewal and demographic growth were reflected in an upsurge of building activity, especially ecclesiastical buildings. While the construction of ecclesiastical and noble buildings culminated around the 1720s, rural buildings peaked in the 1780s and the 1820s. Although no direct effect of climate was demonstrated, adverse climatic conditions leading to harvest failures and subsequent famines (e.g. the 'Hunger Years' 1770–1772) significantly contributed to declines in building activity. In contrast, a higher number of felling dates were detected when strong and/or frequent windstorms occurred. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of building activity in Central Europe and advocates the use of dendrochronological databases for the investigation of human activities in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with miracles at Marian pilgrimage sites. On the basis of printed pilgrimage books from selected sites — Svatá Hora near Příbram, Stará Boleslav, Hájek near Prague and Tuřany — it shows what types of events were described as miraculous and how people talked about them. It also touches on the role of votive offerings and material objects in miraculous stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay examines the positions of Catholic doctrine in the early modern age on the connection between sacrifice and sexuality. It was examined a body of moral literature characterised by different levels of specialisation and relative recipients: manuals of spiritual instruction aimed at educated readers but not necessarily members of the clergy, texts for confessors and judges settling matrimonial disputes, works of wide circulation and others that remained in the shadows. A common line emerges: the sacrificial condition is desirable and necessary, and the conjugal status is hopelessly second to that, far more noble, far more sacrificial, of the religious devoted to celibacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Krakowski Rocznik Archiwalny is the property of Jagiellonian University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Grain was the most important food source in early modern Europe (c. 1500–1800), and its price influenced the entire economy. The extent to which climate variability determined grain price variations remains contested, and claims of solar cycle influences on prices are disputed. We thoroughly reassess these questions, within a framework of comprehensive statistical analysis, by employing an unprecedentedly large grain price data set together with state-of-the-art palaeoclimate reconstructions and long meteorological series. A highly significant negative grain price–temperature relationship (i.e. colder = high prices and vice versa) is found across Europe. This association increases at larger spatial and temporal scales and reaches a correlation of - 0.41 considering the European grain price average and previous year June–August temperatures at annual resolution, and of - 0.63 at decadal timescales. This strong relationship is of episodic rather than periodic (cyclic) nature. Only weak and spatially inconsistent signals of hydroclimate (precipitation and drought), and no meaningful association with solar variations, are detected in the grain prices. The significant and persistent temperature effects on grain prices imply that this now rapidly changing climate element has been a more important factor in European economic history, even in southern Europe, than commonly acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the iconography of the heresy and Protestantism in the ephemeral decorations of the Royal entries in Portugal during the Early Modern period. It will be also analysed how these iconographical images changed thanks to the new political alliance between the Kingdom or Portugal and the Anglican England.

Keywords: East Central Europe; early modern period; Riga; Vilnius; Prague; coexistence; Counter-Reformation EN East Central Europe early modern period Riga Vilnius Prague coexistence Counter-Reformation 1409 1414 6 10/12/21 20211101 NES 211101 O'Connor, Kevin C. (2019). The subtitle of Central Europe is a bit misleading, as the overwhelming focus of the book involves Bohemia and Moravia, with Prague itself the subject of a number of chapters. East Central Europe, early modern period, Riga, Vilnius, Prague, coexistence, Counter-Reformation As Kevin O'Connor rightly observes, cities such as Riga rarely figure in larger, sweeping accounts of Europe despite their role in such central events as the Northern Crusades and the Hussite Wars. [Extracted from the article]

Early modern disputation was a phenomenon in its own right, involving both performative and textual aspects. The texts of the disputations were different from modern academic dissertations and articles, while at the same time serving as a kind of model for both. For this reason, they must also be approached as a specific genre that no longer exists today. Disputations are intrinsically linked to the early modern university and its traditions: from the 16th to 18th century, the disputation was the main academic product of universities. It was the basis on which degrees were awarded and jobs were applied for. Changes in universities at the end of the eighteenth century led to the introduction of the requirement of an independently written monograph as a prerequisite for the award of a degree, and this development was accompanied by a gradual disappearance of exercise disputation in the 19th century. Early modern disputations contain a wealth of information for study: they document the attractiveness and innovation potential of universities, the academic developments of the various faculties, the careers of participants, personal relationships, the reputation of professors and, of course, changes within individual disciplines. Often, the printed theses allow conclusions to be drawn about the educational policies and the theological-philosophical background of the schools concerned. The arguments put forward in the disputations and the choice of authorities cited make it possible to place the participants in the context of certain methodological trends or to associate them with leading figures in the discipline. The content of the disputations conveys the debates that took place at a particular place and time, informs about the basic knowledge that students were taught, and gives an explanation of how the hot topics of the time were understood. From the vast number of disputations, which has hitherto been an obstacle to research, digitization, distant reading and other statistical methods can glean very useful information. For example, it is possible to determine with great precision when certain topics were discussed in certain universities or how ideas moved between universities, while gratulations and other paratexts enable one to map (also visually) academic circles of communication, a citation index helps to identify authorities, topic modelling provides access to the central issues of controversy in different time periods, etc. More in-depth study of the disputations has only gained momentum in the last couple of decades, and there are many unexplored themes and problems. Disputations are also one of the main sources for the intellectual history of the Estonian early modern period, and our philosophical, medical, legal and theological disputations will provide ample material for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Architectus is the property of Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wroclawskiej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Architectus is the property of Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wroclawskiej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study deals with questions of the political cooperation of Moravian territorial lord’s towns (the Moravian Fourth Estate) in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. This issue is viewed through the prism of political negotiations about the very high tax burden on the towns. After an outline of the structure of the estate-organized society of the Moravian Margraviate and the role of territorial lord’s—royal and chamber—towns in it, the article introduces the natural and fiscal burdens weighing down the urban organisms and escalating in line with the wars of the Habsburg Monarchy against the expansive Ottoman Empire. The burden on Moravian towns was much heavier than on other segments of the estate-structured society. This was the basis for the towns’ concerted efforts to find relief, which manifested itself during the Fifteen Years’ War with the High Porte in 1593–1606. Surviving sources offer detailed documentation of the 1604 negotiations, when at the initiative of Brno, an attempt was made to counter the pressure of the higher estates that intended to further increase the tax burden on territorial lord’s towns. However, these negotiations illustrate that effective joint action of the town representations was hindered by individual municipalities’ particular interests. Individualism generally exacerbated the towns’ weak position in the political system of the time. In the broader coordinates of early modern Europe, in the Bohemian lands, urban space was less developed and the bourgeoisie was significantly weaker than in their Western and Southern European counterparts. Therefore, the limited coordination of the territorial lord’s towns in the fight against the higher estates did not lead to the desired results.

This study is an overview of the professional interest in archaeology of the modern age in the Czech Republic. Increased interest in the archaeology of the Modern period came after the year 2000. The number of published Early Modern pottery assemblages has increased significantly over the past decade. Recent years have seen a change in the publication strategy of Modern period assemblages. As such, the large Modern period find inventory is forcing archaeology to make a critical selection of assemblages which will subsequently be the subject of detailed processing and evaluation. The most important selection criteria include the complexity of the find situation, the possibility of placing it into the social context or the actual expansion of knowledge of period material culture.

This paper discusses the unusual reference to Homer in Federico Borromeo’s De pictura sacra in which Homer is quoted as an authoritative aesthetic and historical source to justify the depiction of wingless angels by Michelangelo. It is said that the great Greek poet represented the gods without wings as if they could move with their feet joined together. The first part of the article examines this relatively obscure remark and its possible sources. One of the reasons for such a quotation is the general Renaissance attitude towards Classical texts to provide a historical perspective and establish an authoritative argumentation. However, a closer analysis discloses that Borromeo refers to Homer not simply as an aesthetic and historical but as a quasi-theological source of God-inspired wisdom.

Many historians have focused on Charles I, his reign but his representations. Their impact within the context of his personal rule and of the Civil Wars, leading up to the Regicide, has been the object of many studies, yet what can be said of the image of his wife? This paper examines the representations of Henrietta Maria, the French Catholic princess he married, and the influence they held over the king’s own image. While her very presence reinforced the trope of Charles I as husband to the nation and father to his people, she also became a source of anxiety at a period when popery and the very institution of the monarchy came under violent attack from a part of the English people.

In the early modern Finland, the Catechisms were the only literature intended for children. Otherwise, the children from all classes had to read adults’ literature. Finland was a part of Sweden until 1809 and the reading of Swedish literature was possible especially among the upper classes and even the common people in the Swedish-speaking western coast. Three case studies of Finnish upper-class children from the 17th and the 18th centuries tell us about children’s reading habits, attitudes to reading and reading motivation in this situation. Richard M. Ryan’s & Edward L. Deci’s theory of self-determination has been used as a theoretical basis for this study. It highlights the combination of three basic psychological needs as means to motivation: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy was the most limited during the 17th century and emerged step by step towards the end of the 18th century. Relatedness would depend on circumstances in the family. If the family led an active social life, it would also reflect in the reading habits of the household members. All the children in this research belonged to the upper class, so they could read, and they studied diligently. Therefore, they felt competence. The relatives exhorted them in studying, which still increased their self-confidence. Motivation was mostly external at the beginning, but in some cases it gradually grew towards internal motivation. According to these cases, upper-class girls were freer to read what they liked than boys. Comparing to boys they were less educated, but at the same time they experienced less pressure to make progress in literary reading. If the domestic duties permitted, they would be able to use their free time for reading fiction. Boys had to concentrate on thinking about their future careers and subjects relevant to that.

The monograph Forbidden Knowledge investigates the relationship between scientific activity and censorship in the early modern period, bringing together historiographical concerns and fields that have only recently begun to be considered in a joint perspective. It reconsiders questions on the role of scientific cultures and practices in early modern European societies that renewed the history of medicine and of science, and it does so in the light of methodological proposals from the material history of books and reading practices and debates that have allowed for a reconsideration of the history of censorship and its impact on cultural productions in 16th- and 17th-century Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presented synoptic study focuses on the question of the educational migration of children and adolescents in the early modern Czech state. Based on analysis of a variety of sources together with the results of previous research, the study looks at the gender, age, nationality, and social composition of these individuals as well as a number of other aspects of this topic, such as what institutions and regions children and adolescents set out for in order to seek education, what type of education they might have received, how such journeys were organized and paid for and how these nonadults viewed them, etc. Set within the broader context of the cultural, religious, and educational history of the early modern period, the study examines not only peregrination to attain university education but also the journeys undertaken in search of preuniversity education. Furthermore, the paper attempts to trace key developmental trends and, in closing, suggests areas for continued research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to show the possibilities provided by household budgets for the study of economic inequalities of the elites in pre-industrial times, using the city of Venice between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a case study. Based on largely unpublished archival sources, income and consumption inequalities were studied in combination to give a glimpse of trends in economic disparities between the wealthier classes of the Republic. At the general level, we find an increase in the level of inequality throughout the early modern period, both in terms of income and expenditure. Deepening the analysis, we argue how this process is driven by intra-group forces and in particular by a divergence among the nobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charity was an important form of social activity of women in Jewish communities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was also a manifestation of female piety. Charity is also an area—despite a clear distinction between gender and related social roles—where cooperation between men and women can be observed. Women were involved in charities as community officials, associates or members of charity brotherhoods, as well as acting individually. However, their activities were always largely subordinated and overshadowed by activities of men, and acting within the framework of community structures, they were subject to the regulations and control of men. It is also noticeable that women’s charitable work was less formalized than that of men, which was probably due to the fact that women were less mobile and relied on family and neighborly contacts in their activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-examines the origins of printing in Córdoba in the mid-16th century in the light of new bibliographical evidence. Previously only Valdenebro, in his 1900 bibliography, speculated on the main reasons lying behind the arrival of a printing press in the city. Since then new bibliographical evidence has come to light, increasing the number of known editions produced there during the first phase of printing (1555-1583). Material analysis combined with a study of the content of these new editions allows us to question Valdenebro's theory and to propose a new hypothesis according to which it was the influence and sponsorship of the Bishop of Córdoba and the cathedral chapter that encouraged the permanent establishment of printing in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we define the beginnings of human life? Images, science, and culture have offered insight into this question. The early modern period (1500–1800) is particularly rich for examining the understanding of the human fetus. Using the 1712 Essay on the Possibility and Probability of a Child's Being Born Alive, and Live, in the Latter End of the Fifth Solar, or in the Beginning of the Sixth Lunar Month, this paper argues that evolving knowledge of the fetus failed to modify cultural norms for defining the beginning of human life. This compares with contemporary 21st century observations and how our definition of the beginning of human life has not been modified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Maetagused is the property of Estonian Literary Museum, Department of Folkloristics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study summarises Czech and partially Polish texts on medieval and early modern rituals which have been written in the last three decades. The historiographical preoccupation with rituals and ceremonies is subject to criticism, or it is related to the developments in recent European historiography. We can conclude that both Czech and Polish historians primarily focused on the rituals of the monarchy, which they viewed from the perspective of the main actor, i.e., the king, and considered them a reflection of the political power. Contrary to anthropologists, who are interested in cultural meanings and categories, historians leaned more towards a socio-historical perspective. Descriptions, which partly result in the confirmation of the main actors' positions of power and partly in an insight into the everyday life and material culture of the power elite, are prominent in the texts. The overall result is a rather reduced reception of anthropological perspective in the analysis of ritual. The current knowledge, essentially dependent on the quality of the existing sources, could be expanded by taking inspiration from spatial studies, e.g., methods developed in recent archaeology, as the conclusion of the study shows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the early modern period, in various European countries, both Roman Catholics and Protestants provoked a new version of an old myth of "manmade pestilence". The myth originated in Antiquity, and the term pestilentia manufacta was coined by Seneca in his "De Ira". Yet, it was only the XVIth century that it started to evolve and rapidly spread throughout Europe. The myth provoked plague-inspired hatred and persecution that was aimed against people from different social echelons. Generally, the persecuted were the poor employed by local authorities as "low functionaries" during epidemics, above all, gravediggers. Nevertheless, priests, barber-surgeons, and merchants could also be considered plague-spreaders or plague-smearers. This article examines selected cases of presumed plague spreading in Western European cities in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries and three cases from XVIIIth century Poland, two of which have so far been unknown to scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Literature / Literatura is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The analysis of diplomatic relations between two states cannot be separated from the understanding of the geopolitical context in which they developed. This issue does not always allow for an easy approach and, particularly as regards the modern age, dating the beginning of the diplomatic relations between two sovereigns can be complex, often due to the presence of ambiguous or undated documentation. This is the case, for instance, of the Medici Grand Duchy of Tuscany and Safavid Persia, two states that established lasting friendly relations in the early seventeenth century. In fact, the presence of some Persian letters of uncertain attribution in Florence has suggested that the Tuscan court had been visited, maybe even twice, by a Persian emissary more than a decade before the relations between the two states actually began. Thanks to new archival evidence and a re-reading of already known sources, this article aims to clarify who the unknown Persian emissary, named Faḍlī Bayg, was and, consequently, to establish clearly when official and direct diplomatic relations between Tuscany and Persia began. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]