ABSTRACT
The “Renaissance” has long been imagined as a western European phenomenon, even a doggedly Eurocentric one. It was born in Italy on the eve of the European “age of discovery,” and carried from there to the rest of Europe. It has been intimately coupled to, and in important ways fused with, the colonialism, imperialism, and sense of superiority associated with early modern and modern western Europe. The concept, though, is slippery. It has been used to refer to an artistic movement, to an intellectual movement, and to a cultural transformation. It also has been said to mark the beginning of modernity and the critical moment in European history when the past became historicized. Recently, some scholars have tried to broaden the meaning of the Renaissance by arguing that other Renaissances occurred in other parts of the world, and especially in the Islamic Middle East. Others have attempted to modify the significance of the Renaissance (as well as the definition of early modern) by redirecting our focus from artist to patron, from art to commerce and produce, and from regional to global. This latter reinterpretation pays particular notice to the role of the Ottoman Empire in the creation of a Renaissance in Italy and the rest of Europe. Scholars have noted a Renaissance consciousness of the Ottoman East and the movement of diverse commodities from the Ottoman world into the European one. They have paid less attention, however, to the fact that thousands of Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen lived in Ottoman lands and had to negotiate with Ottoman authorities and communities. How did their accommodations with and adjustments to that world influence their own art, literature, and world-views? What might they have learned from that encounter about dealing with others and constructing empires? In other words, how deeply and in what ways did the Ottomans (and others) participate in the creation of Renaissance and early modern Europe?
