Italian Renaissance Diplomacy

Using the legal literature of the ius commune and a body of texts commonly known as the “treatises on the ambassador”, this research examines the birth and the development of the "experience" of diplomacy from the 13th to the 17th Century. It aims, in particular, to explore the development of the figure of the ambassador within a field of problematization involving ethics, politics and law.
After some methodological and historical remarks, the thesis deals with the development of the status of the ambassador from two perspectives, the legal and the professional. Regarding his legal status, the medieval legal conceptualisation of the role of the ambassador as a genuine public “office”, and that of the diplomatic function as “representation”, are examined. The way in which these conceptualisations help to define the negotiating powers conferred on the ambassador, his immunities and the honours to which he is entitled is then considered. This analysis allows for an investigation of the complex links between the exercise of diplomacy and claims to sovereignty during Europe’s transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity. Regarding his professional status, the thesis reconstructs the functions of the ambassador (particularly in relation to information gathering and negotiation), the means provided for the ambassador to undertake his functions (his salary and the assignment of an escort) and the objective, intellectual or moral qualities required of him. As well as illustrating the techniques which have been required for ambassadorial success since the 15th Century, this analysis offers some hints for studying the professionalization of public officials and the emergence of the modern criteria of political analysis.

Il contributo analizza alcuni aspetti della diplomazia veneziana nel Quattrocento. Dopo aver definito dei parametri generali di riferimento sulle forme della diplomazia rinascimentale della Serenissima nel contesto italiano, viene considerato il ruolo dei cancellieri ducali come ambasciatori informali della Repubblica. Viene infine lasciato spazio all'analisi del caso di studio di Giovanni Dario, di cui si conservano 22 dispacci inviati da Costantinopoli alla fine del Quattrocento, basandoci sull'edizione della documentazione del 1992.

Roma constituyó un referente cultural para Felipe II desde que era príncipe. Ya en 540 recibe unas monedas antiguas del obispo Archinto y durante los primeros años de su reinado, una vez instalado en España, llegan a sus manos algunos presentes diplomáticos como aquel del cardenal Ricci de Montepulciano . Poco después el Papa Pío IV, que le envía a través del Nuncio un Cristo de marfil 3 con indulgencias, y otras esculturas y regalos a través de su sobrino Annibal Altaemps 4 que visita España. Estos regalos venían acompañados por un escultor milanés Valerio 5 , * Este trabajo ha sido realizado gracias al proyecto de investigación y no hubiese sido posible sin la ayuda de Isabel

The paper aims to investigate the role played by the treaties of accomandigia in the Florentine international relationships between the mid-fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Through the accomandigie, the Republic tied itself to different political realities, from rural lordships to other states. Florence oriented the creation of such ties towards different territorial areas and made different uses of them, depending on the context. The accomandigia was therefore a tool with which to enhance its presence within a certain territory (such as in Romagna) or with which to respond strategically to the movements of its opponents (as in Lunigiana and in the Sienese countryside). Finally, in the case of the relationships with Montefeltro and Piombino, the accomandigia may be seen not as a support mechanism, but as the true substance of the interstate relations.

Moving from the “long and great Italian war” (Goro Dati) waged in the first half of the fifteenth century against Filippo Maria Visconti by a shifting coalition of powers, this volume extends to the whole Italian context its analysis of the military and ideological conflict between Florence and Milan, whose roots date back to the previous century.
Based on a rich documentary corpus and a large bibliography, the book also pays attention to the implications of this long-lasting conflict on the political, diplomatic, and cultural changes in Renaissance Italy, and has a twofold goal. First, it offers the reconstruction and the analysis of the origins of these anti-Visconti wars, which are investigated through an interdisciplinary approach. Furthermore, this study presents a wide and new interpretation of this war by clarifying some of the dynamics of that “long Quattrocento” lasting until the mid-sixteenth century.
In the wake of the New Diplomatic History, the perspective adopted by this study is chronologically and methodologically broader, allowing the author to tackle the issues posed—and the possibilities offered—by working on diplomatic history today, on both narrative and epistemological-disciplinary level.

Hungarian version of an earlier English article.

Relations of King Matthias Corvinus and the papacy have been studied by many historians since the nineteenth century. Uncovering and publishing sources that would elucidate this part of papal and central-European history was of prime interest. This paper tries to bring some new light to these relations thanks to a newly discovered instructions of the king to his envoy, Miklós Nyújtódi Székely, bishop of Knin, who travelled to Rome sometime in the beginning of 1472. On the basis of these instructions we can reconstruct the king's intentions and plans in the context of the political situation of central Europe in the early 1470s. At that time, relations to Bohemia and Poland set the framework of the policies, which were influenced from the papal side by the present papal nuncios, especially Lorenzo Roverella.

Despite fragmentation, heterogeneity and the continuous pressure of the Ottoman Empire, early modern “divided Hungary” witnessed a surprising cultural flourishing in the sixteenth century, and maintained its common cultural identity in the seventeenth century. This could hardly have been possible without intense exchange with the rest of Europe. This three-volume series about early modern Hungary divided by Ottoman presence approaches themes of exchange of information and knowledge from two perspectives, namely, exchange through traditional channels provided by religious/educational institutions and the system of European study tours (Volume 1 – Study Tours and Intellectual-Religious Relationships), and the less regular channels and improvised networks of political diplomacy (Volume 2 – Diplomacy, Information Flow and Cultural Exchange). A by-product of this exchange of information was the changing image of early modern Hungary and Transylvania, which is presented in the third and in some aspects concluding volume of essays (Volume 3 – The Making and Uses of the Image of Hungary and Transylvania). Unlike earlier approaches to the same questions, these volumes draw an alternative map of early modern Hungary. On this map, the centre-periphery conceptions of European early modern culture are replaced by new narratives written from the perspective of historical actors, and the dominance of Western-Hungarian relationships is kept in balance due to the significance of Hungary’s direct neighbours, most importantly the Ottoman Empire.

The editors of the volumes—Gábor Almási, Szymon Brzeziński, Ildikó Horn, Kees Teszelszky and Áron Zarnóczki—are based at Hungarian, Polish and Dutch institutions of historical research. Their collaboration is the result of a joint research programme generously financed by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund and carried out at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest.

The one and a half decade between the death of Vladislaus I (1444) and Matthias Hunyadi’s ascension to the throne (1458) is one of the most troubled periods in the history of Hungary. The north-western part of the kingdom was controlled by the Bohemian Brethren under the leadership of Jan Jiskra, Frederick III invaded significant amount of lands in Sopron, Vas and Moson counties, and the Ottoman attacks became permanent in the south. Although the kingdom had a legitimately crowned ruler in Ladislaus V, the infant king, living under the guardianship of Frederick III, could not exercise his power. The barons of the country, mainly the homo novus, the governor and voivode of Transylvania, János Hunyadi and the relative of the king, Ulrik Cillei obtained the control over the internal and foreign affairs. Recently, some yet unknown documents surfaced in the State Archives of Milan. Through investigating these letters written between 1452 and 1453, we can refine our historical knowledge of these years, and, in particular, of the diplomatic relations between the Hungarian Kingdom and the towns in Northern Italy.

Le but de cet écrit est de proposer quelques premières réflexions au sujet du commissaire-orateur ('commissarius seu orator') florentin, figure hybride dans le profil de laquelle les stratégies de gestion de la politique étrangère se mêlaient aux besoins de défense du territoire soumis à la juridiction de Florence. Nous voudrions donc esquisser ici le profil de cet envoyé amphibie et, eu égard à ses fonctions de représentation, information et négociation, montrer quelques éléments de sa nature diplomatique, et son rôle actif dans la gestion des conflits. Parmi les réponses aux 'causae urgentissimae' qui stimulaient constamment l’ingénierie diplomatique de la République, la solution – toute florentine – trouvée de façon extra-ordinaire dans les 'commissarii seu oratores' permettait de gérer les dangers aux bornes du territoire et les nécessités de négociation avec les capitaines et condottieri au service de Florence, aussi bien qu’avec ceux qui étaient, à l’occasion, ennemis de la République. Avec des modalités assez fluides, ces fonctionnaires rentraient dans la grammaire de la domination florentine et se trouvèrent à opérer entre les incessantes crises territoriales florentines du XVe siècle et les besoins diplomatiques des États italiens.

This article examines the series Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini da Napoli, which is part of Fonti per la Storia di Napoli aragonese and saw its eighth, final volume published in 2015. It features a detailed discussion of this work, as well as observations on the features and research potential of the diplomatic source, and on the institutions and policies in the Kingdom of Naples during the 1484-1494 decade.

This book explores the diplomatic role of women in early modern European dynastic networks through the study of Aragonese marriage alliances in late fifteenth-century Italy and Hungary. It challenges the frequent erasure of dynastic wives from diplomatic and political narratives to show how elite women were diplomatically active agents for two dynasties.

Chapters analyze the lives of Eleonora (1450-1493) and Beatrice d'Aragona (1457-1508), daughters of King Ferrante of Naples (1423-1494), and how they negotiated their natal and marital relationships to achieve diplomatic outcomes. While Ferrante expected his daughters to follow paternal imperatives and to remain engaged in collective dynastic strategy, the extent of his kinswomen's continued participation in familial projects was dependent on the nature of their marital relationships. The book traces the access to these relationships that enabled courtly women to re-enter the diplomatic space after marriage, not as objects, but as agents, with their own strategies, politics, and schemes.

«Un livre assez particulier, qui s'inscrit davantage dans la typologie des registres tenus par les ambassadeurs florentins […] que dans l'ensemble des livres de ricordanze que l'on peut cataloguer comme livres de famille» : c'est avec ces mots que Giovanni Ciappelli ouvre les quelques pages qui concernent le Libro di ricordanze di cose di chomune de messer Michele di messer Vanni di Michele Castellani dans la monographie qu'il a consacrée au destin de ce lignage florentin. Bien qu'elle demeure inédite, cette source n'est pas inconnue des chercheurs, mais son caractère particulier nvite à interroger sa nature. Cette contribution replace cette source dans son contexte avant de proposer une édition des passages de la main de Castellani. Dans quelle mesure ce produit mémoriel est-il représentatif du milieu oligarchique florentin du début du Quattrocento dont il provient ?

The primary aim of this study is to provide an overview of the various forms of diplomatic representation of the Florentine Republic toward the King of Hungary in the pre-Medici period and to compare the Florentine case, to the extent possible, with other North Italian examples. The paper looks at the language and the frequency of state letters, which the Florentine chancery addressed to the Hungarian monarchs. It also analyzes the regularity and the composition of dispatching diplomatic contingents aimed at reaching the court while in Hungary. Finally, it intends to assess the relative importance of the Florentine community in Hungary, which represented the Republic on a permanent basis.Since the Kingdom of Hungary, indeed, became an important political ally to pre-Medici Florence, an analyses of the diplomatic relations between the two states might shed a new light on some aspects of Florentine diplomatic practices. Therefore, through the example of Hungary, the article also addresses more generalized questions regarding the pre-Medici diplomacy.

Nous nous proposons ici de poser les premiers jalons pour une recherche portant sur la question de la reconnaissance en tant que pratique fondamentale dans le processus de constitution de l’État, afin de problématiser le rapport entre l’exercice de la diplomatie et la possession de la souveraineté à la fin du Moyen-âge et au début de l’époque moderne. Nous  chercherons à mettre en lumière surtout deux niveaux de la reconnaissance : le premier, qui opère sur le plan de l’existence juridique, constitue la conditio sine qua non de l’établissement d’une relation diplomatique et implique une série de questions comme le droit d’ambassade et l’obligation de recevoir les ambassadeurs étrangers ; le second, qui opère sur le plan de la réputation, intervient après que la relation diplomatique a été établie et concerne plutôt un ensemble de problèmes liés au cérémonial diplomatique, notamment les préséances. Par là nous espérons montrer que la diplomatie, loin d’intervenir après-coup pour relier des sujets politiques déjà formés, a été un vecteur capital dans le processus de constitution des États et de l’ordre « international » moderne.

Im Rahmen der Erneuerung der Studien zur politischen und diplomatischen Geschichte Italiens analysiert dieser Beitrag die Dynamiken des frühen Quattrocento mit dem Ziel, ein neues Licht auf die verflochtenen Beziehungen zu werfen, die die Republik mit den Legaten von Bologna unterhielt, die in den zwanziger Jahren des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts aufeinander folgten (Carrillo, Condulmer, Alamanni). Die vorliegende Studie zeigt daher anhand der Schnittmenge von Archivdokumentation und vorhandener Bibliographie Elemente und Wirkungen der florentinischen Diplomatie mit diesen päpstlichen Vertretern auf und zeigt nicht nur die Bedeutung solcher Verhandlungen im Konflikt mit Filippo Maria Visconti, sondern auch, dass bestimmte sukzessive politische Entwicklungen gerade in diesen Verbindungen grundgelegt waren.