ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Order of St John’s characteristic activities even more neglected by the historians of Counter-Reformation Europe than its military or hospitaller functions. An expectation chimed in with the Order's political thought, centre on that notion of a supranational Christian republic which had antedated the building and consolidation of nation states in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Europe. The indirect references both to God and to a Christian republic which had antedated that ragione di stato so beloved of early-modern political theory provide a backdrop against which the diplomatic employments of Knights of St John in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Europe might be highlighted. Close links existed between the duchy of Savoy and the Order of St John, perhaps because neither could be pigeon-holed neatly in the geography or history of Europe. The chapter concludes with a final thought about the value of studying the Order of St John as 'a school for ambassadors' in early-modern Europe.
