Offering a fresh approach to the study of the figure of the diplomat in the early modern period, this collection of diverse readings of archival texts, objects and contexts contributes a new analysis of the spaces, activities and practices of the Renaissance embassy.

Historians of early modern Europe have long stressed how new practices of diplomacy that emerged during the period transformed European politics. Fictions of Embassy is the first book to examine the cultural implications of the rise of modern diplomacy. Ranging across two and a half centuries and half a dozen languages, Timothy Hampton opens a new perspective on the intersection of literature and politics at the dawn of modernity. Hampton argues that literary texts-tragedies, epics, essays-use scenes of diplomatic negotiation to explore the relationship between politics and aesthetics, between the world of political rhetoric and the dynamics of literary form. The diplomatic encounter is a scene of cultural exchange and linguistic negotiation. Literary depictions of diplomacy offer occasions for reflection on the definition of genre, on the power of representation, on the limits of rhetoric, on the nature of fiction making itself. Conversely, discussions of diplomacy by jurists, political philosophers, and ambassadors deploy the tools of literary tradition to articulate new theories of political action.Hampton addresses these topics through a discussion of the major diplomatic writers between 1450 and 1700-Machiavelli, Grotius, Gentili, Guicciardini-and through detailed readings of literary works that address the same topics-works by Shakespeare, More, Rabelais, Montaigne, Tasso, Corneille, Racine, and Camoens. He demonstrates that the issues raised by diplomatic theorists helped shape the emergence of new literary forms, and that literature provides a lens through which we can learn to read the languages of diplomacy.

This 2000 volume was the first attempt at a comparative reconstruction of the foreign policy and diplomacy of the major Italian states in the early modern period. The various contributions reveal the instruments and forms of foreign relations in the Italian peninsula. They also show a range of different case-studies and models which share the values and political concepts of the cultural context of diplomatic practice in the ancien régime. While Venice, the Papal States, the duchy of Savoy, Florence (later the duchy of Tuscany), Mantua, Modena, and later the kingdom of Naples may be considered minor states in the broader European context, their diplomatic activity was equal to that of the major powers. This reconstruction of their ambassadors, their secretaries, and their ceremonies offers a fascinating interpretation of the political history of early modern Italy.

This interdisciplinary volume explores core emerging themes in the study of early modern literary-diplomatic relations, developing essential methods of analysis and theoretical approaches that will shape future research in the field. Contributions focus on three intimately related areas: the impact of diplomatic protocol on literary production; the role of texts in diplomatic practice, particularly those that operated as 'textual ambassadors'; and the impact of changes in the literary sphere on diplomatic culture. The literary sphere held such a central place because it gave diplomats the tools to negotiate the pervasive ambiguities of diplomacy; simultaneously literary depictions of diplomacy and international law provided genre-shaped places for cultural reflection on the rapidly changing and expanding diplomatic sphere. Translations exemplify the potential of literary texts both to provoke competition and to promote cultural convergence between political communities, revealing the existence of diplomatic third spaces in which ritual, symbolic, or written conventions and semantics converged despite particular oppositions and differences. The increasing public consumption of diplomatic material in Europe illuminates diplomatic and literary communities, and exposes the translocal, as well as the transnational, geographies of literary-diplomatic exchanges. Diplomatic texts possessed symbolic capital. They were produced, archived, and even redeployed in creative tension with the social and ceremonial worlds that produced them. Appreciating the generic conventions of specific types of diplomatic texts can radically reshape our interpretation of diplomatic encounters, just as exploring the afterlives of diplomatic records can transform our appreciation of the histories and literatures they inspired.

Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World offers a new contribution to the ongoing reassessment of early modern international relations and diplomatic history. Divided into three parts, it provides an examination of diplomatic culture from the Renaissance into the eighteenth century and presents the development of diplomatic practices as more complex, multifarious and globally interconnected than the traditional state-focussed, national paradigm allows. The volume addresses three central and intertwined themes within early modern diplomacy: who and what could claim diplomatic agency and in what circumstances; the social and cultural contexts in which diplomacy was practised; and the role of material culture in diplomatic exchange. Together the chapters provide a broad geographical and chronological presentation of the development of diplomatic practices and, through a strong focus on the processes and significance of cultural exchanges between polities, demonstrate how it was possible for diplomats to negotiate the cultural codes of the courts to which they were sent. This exciting collection brings together new and established scholars of diplomacy from different academic traditions. It will be essential reading for all students of diplomatic history.

Global Gifts considers the role that the circulation of material culture played in the establishment of early modern global diplomacy.

The present volume aims at outlining a new field of research with regard to the history of diplomacy: the material culture of diplomatic interaction in early modern and modern times. The material culture of diplomacy includes all practices in foreign policy communication in which single artifacts, samples of artifacts, or else the whole material setting of diplomatic interaction is supposed to be constitutive for creating an intended effect in terms of diplomatic objectives. The chapters of this volume focus on intercultural diplomacy in different regions of the world wherein diplomatic actors of various kinds might have been confronted by a whole universe of unfamiliar artifacts and artifact-related practices. Most of them concentrate on gift giving as a diplomatic practice that offers multiple insights in the complex dynamics of diplomatic relations between representatives of culturally highly diverse political entities. In doing so, they gainfully apply different theoretical approaches of material culture as an interdisciplinary field of study to the investigation of diplomatic cultures across the globe. As a result, it becomes obvious that future research into the history of diplomacy should take into account material practices much more thoroughly than has been done before.

A new account of Elizabethan diplomacy with an original archival foundation, this book examines the world of letters underlying diplomacy and political administration by exploring a material text never before studied in its own right: the diplomatic letter-book. Author Elizabeth R. Williamson argues that a new focus on the central activity of information gathering allows us to situate diplomacy in its natural context as one of several intertwined areas of crown service, and as one of the several sites of production of political information under Elizabeth I. Close attention to the material features of these letter-books elucidates the environment in which they were produced, copied, and kept, and exposes the shared skills and practices of diplomatic activity, domestic governance, and early modern archiving. This archaeological exploration of epistolary and archival culture establishes a métier of state actor that participates in – even defines – a notably early modern growth in administration and information management. Extending this discussion to our own conditions of access, a new parallel is drawn across two ages of information obsession as Williamson argues that the digital has a natural place in this textual history that we can no longer ignore. This study makes significant contributions to epistolary culture, diplomatic history, and early modern studies more widely, by showing that understanding Elizabethan diplomacy takes us far beyond any single ambassador or agent defined as such: it is a way into an entire administrative landscape and political culture.

Recent studies on the meaning of cultural diplomacy in the twentieth century often focus on the United States and the Cold War, based on the premise that cultural diplomacy was a key instrument of foreign policy in the nation’s effort to contain the Soviet Union. As a result, the term “cultural diplomacy” has become one-dimensional, linked to political manipulation and subordination and relegated to the margin of diplomatic interactions. This volume explores the significance of cultural diplomacy in regions other than the United States or “western” countries, that is, regions that have been neglected by scholars so far—Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. By examining cultural diplomacy in these regions, the contributors show that the function of information and exchange programs differs considerably from area to area depending on historical circumstances and, even more importantly, on the cultural mindsets of the individuals involved.

The seventeenth-century French diplomat François de Callières once wrote that "an ambassador resembles in some way an actor exposed on the stage to the eyes of the public in order to play great roles." The comparison of the diplomat to an actor became commonplace as the practice of diplomacy took hold in early modern Europe. More than an abstract metaphor, it reflected the rich culture of spectacular entertainment that was a backdrop to emissaries' day-to-day lives. Royal courts routinely honored visiting diplomats or celebrated treaty negotiations by staging grandiose performances incorporating dance, music, theater, poetry, and pageantry. These entertainments—allegorical ballets, masquerade balls, chivalric tournaments, operas, and comedies—often addressed pertinent themes such as war, peace, and international unity in their subject matter. In both practice and content, the extravagant exhibitions were fully intertwined with the culture of diplomacy. But exactly what kind of diplomatic work did these spectacles perform? Ellen R. Welch contends that the theatrical and performing arts had a profound influence on the development of modern diplomatic practices in early modern Europe. Using France as a case study, Welch explores the interconnected histories of international relations and the theatrical and performing arts. Her book argues that theater served not merely as a decorative accompaniment to negotiations, but rather underpinned the practices of embodied representation, performance, and spectatorship that constituted the culture of diplomacy in this period. Through its examination of the early modern precursors to today's cultural diplomacy initiatives, her book investigates the various ways in which performance structures international politics still.