In 1576 Martin Frobisher captured an Inuk man off the coast of Baffin Island using several bells. These sounding objects were viewed in two fundamentally different ways. The Inuk considered them to be soul-filled gifts; all things, and especially sounding things, were said by the Inuit to have a guardian spirit. For Frobisher, however, as for most European merchant adventurers from the late...
Unlikely Christian Humanist
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This article reexamines the intellectual and religious inclinations of Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, or “Bess of Hardwick.” Popular accounts emphasize her wealth, strong-willed character, staunch Protestantism, and dynastic ambitions. This study revises common assumptions about her character using evidence from a set of embroidered wall hangings Bess owned and designed. Their...
Time, Space, and Devotion
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Placed on the altar of the Cappella Altemps in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere (Rome) in 1593, the medieval icon of the Virgin and Christ known as the Madonna della Clemenza was the focal point of a newly decorated space. The chapel’s pictorial program underscores that decisions ratified at the Council of Trent were not only situated in the context of biblical history, but were also...
From Battlefield to Court
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At the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), Raimondo Montecuccoli (1609–80), an Italian military entrepreneur in Austrian Habsburg service, attempted to transition from a career on the battlefield to a career at court in Vienna. In 1653, he won a diplomatic assignment to Queen Christina of Sweden’s court, which allowed him to showcase his political skills and abilities. However,...
Immobile Ambassadors
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Gout was among the most common physical complaints encountered in the dispatches of early modern ambassadors, yet ambassadorial illnesses have received little more than anecdotal asides in the literature on early modern diplomacy and statecraft. This article argues that diplomats’ experiences of negotiating gout had profound effects on the conduct and rhetoric of early modern diplomacy. Not...