ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on neutrality. It provides the legal background to the concept of neutrality, placing it in a seventeenth-century European historical context. The chapter then highlights how Tuscany managed to create an innovative ‘system of neutrality’, allowing it to remain neutral in European conflicts. It also demonstrates how Tuscany was the first European state to develop a long-term policy of neutrality, making the latter the primary objective of its foreign policy. This chapter highlights the weakness of the category of ‘small state’ by emphasising how a nation’s contractual capacity depended not only on its military resources, but also on particular political conditions and economic assets.
Tuscan neutrality was endangered by the Plowman case, and England used the controversy as an instrument of pressure against the Grand Duchy. This chapter shows how confrontation between England and Tuscany was fought diplomatically on many levels, with symbols playing an important role in the struggle between the two countries. Particular attention is paid to identifying and analysing the meaning of these symbols, and to showing how England and Tuscany adopted different diplomatic strategies to achieve their objectives.
