ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the concept of radical, both in the theological and political sphere, has a very different meaning for Italian culture in the late seventeenth century than it has for an English one. The Inquisitor's comment demonstrates that in seventeenth-century Italy even people such as the Inquisitor of Pisa who, so far as can be surmised, had no specific interest in English history, knew something about English radical movements. The wealthy English merchant communities residing in Livorno, Venice, Genoa and other parts of Italy led separate lives from the local population and there appears to be no grounds for speaking of a real cultural exchange between British and Irish merchants and Italian urban elites. Similarly, British and Irish travellers, who increasingly took their Grand Tour in Italy, were more curious to acquire information about Italy than to provide their hosts with news and commentary about the political and cultural situation in their homeland.