ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the problematic reception of the idea of the multiplication of identities, mobility and conversion in the early modern Mediterranean. It argues that before the era of the confessionalisation of empires, the porous space of the Mediterranean offered to travellers and scholars like Anselm Turmeda/'Abdallah al-Turjuman opportunities for the transgression of borders and the multiplication of identities. The 'liquid archive' of the Mediterranean is rich with fictive and real stories of conversion. Places cited in the Tuhfa’s first-person story encompass various important centres of the Mediterranean early modern geography of learning. The place of birth of Anselm Turmeda/'Abdallah al-Turjuman, Catalonia, was the centre of the Aragonese Empire, which dominated the Mediterranean during the fourteenth century, its maritime power confronting the Muslim sultanates further along the coast. The chapter presents the fascinating story of the text's circulation, reception and re-framing across different regions of the Mediterranean during the early modern and modern periods.
