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book jacket
BOOK
Title Agents of empire : knights, corsairs, Jesuits and spies in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean world / Noel Malcolm
Imprint UK : Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2015

LIBRARY / MAP CALL NUMBER STATUS MESSAGE
 Stadsbibl:Slottet vån 4 Geografi och historia  940.2 engelska    CHECK SHELF  ---
Descript xxv, 604 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Note Includes bibliographical references and index
A Note on Names, Conventions and Pronunciations -- 1: Ulcinj, Albania and Two Empires -- 2: Three Families -- 3: Antonio Bruti in the Service of Venice -- 4: Giovanni Bruni in the Service of God -- 5: Gasparo Bruni, the Knights of Malta and Dubrovnik -- 6: War, Galleys and Geopolitics, 1570 -- 7: War, Rebellion and Ottoman Conquest, 1570-1571 -- 8: The Lepanto Campaign, 1571 -- 9: War, Peace and La Goletta, 1572-1574 -- 10: Istria -- 11: Bartolomeo Bruti and the Prisoner Exchange, 1573-1575 -- 12: Intelligence-gathering, Espionage and Sabotage, 1575-1577 -- 13: Giovanni Margliani, Mehmed Sokollu and Secret Diplomacy, 1577-1579 -- 14: Bartolomeo Bruti, Sinan Pasha and the Moldavian Venture, 1578-1580 -- 15: Gasparo Bruni and the Huguenot War in Avignon, 1573-1586 -- 16: Antonio Bruni, Jesuit Education and the Last Years of Gasparo Bruni -- 17: Moldavia, Tatars, Cossacks and Iancu Sasul, 1580-1582 -- 18: Bartolomeo Bruti, Petru Schiopul and Aron, 1582-1592 -- 19: Cristoforo Bruti and the Creation of a Dragoman Dynasty -- 20: Petru Schiopul in Exile, and his Counsellor, Antonio Bruni, 1591-1598 -- 21: War, Geopolitics and Rebellion, 1593-1596 -- 22: The 1596 Campaign and Pasquale Dabri's Peace Mission -- Epilogue: The Legacy : Antonio Bruni's Treatise -- Glossary -- List of Manuscripts
"In the second half of the sixteenth century, most of the Christian states of Western Europe were on the defensive against a Muslim superpower - the Empire of the Ottoman sultans. There was violent conflict, from raiding and corsairing to large-scale warfare, but there were also many forms of peaceful interaction across the surprisingly porous frontiers of these opposing power-blocs. Agents of Empire describes the paths taken through the eastern Mediterranean and its European hinterland by members of a Venetian-Albanian family, almost all of them previously invisible to history. They include an archbishop in the Balkans, the captain of the papal flagship at the Battle of Lepanto, the power behind the throne in the Ottoman province of Moldavia, and a dragoman (interpreter) at the Venetian embassy in Istanbul. Through the life-stories of these adventurous individuals over three generations, Noel Malcolm casts the world between Venice, Rome and the Ottoman Empire in a fresh light, illuminating subjects as diverse as espionage, diplomacy, the grain trade, slave-ransoming and anti-Ottoman rebellion. He describes the conflicting strategies of the Christian powers, and the extraordinarily ambitious plans of the sultans and their viziers. Few works since Fernand Braudel's classic account of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, published more than sixty years ago, have ranged so widely through this vital period of Mediterranean and European history. A masterpiece of scholarship as well as story-telling, Agents of Empire builds up a panoramic picture, both of Western power-politics and of the interrelations between the Christian and Ottoman worlds."--Book jacket
"In the late sixteenth century, a prominent Albanian named Antonio Bruni composed a revealing document about his home country. Historian Sir Noel Malcolm takes this document as a point of departure to explore the lives of the entire Bruni family, whose members included an archbishop of the Balkans, the captain of the papal flagship at the Battle of Lepanto--at which the Ottomans were turned back in the Eastern Mediterranean--in 1571, and a highly placed interpreter in Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire that fell to the Turks in 1453. The taking of Constantinople had profoundly altered the map of the Mediterranean. By the time of Bruni's document, Albania, largely a Venetian province from 1405 onward, had been absorbed into the Ottoman Empire. Even under the Ottomans, however, this was a world marked by the ferment of the Italian Renaissance. In Agents of Empire, Malcolm uses the collective biography of the Brunis to paint a fascinating and intimate picture of Albania at a moment when it represented the frontier between empires, cultures, and religions. The lives of the polylingual, cosmopolitan Brunis shed new light on the interrelations between the Ottoman and Christian worlds, characterized by both conflict and complex interdependence. The result of years of archival detective work, Agents of Empire brings to life a vibrant moment in European and Ottoman history, challenging our assumptions about their supposed differences. Malcolm's book guides us through the exchanges between East and West, Venetians and the Ottomans, and tells a story of worlds colliding with and transforming one another"-- Provided by publisher
"In this fascinating and intimate look at the borderland between East and West--Venetian Italy and Ottoman Albania--distinguished historian Sir Noel Malcolm brings to life not a clash of civilizations so much as their fascinating and nuanced interdigitation. In the late sixteenth century, a prominent Albanian named Antonio Bruni composed a treatise on the main European province of the Ottoman Empire concerning his country's place in the empire. Using that text as a point of departure, Malcolm's Agents of Empire explores and evokes the lives of an eminent Venetian-Albanian family and its paths through the eastern Mediterranean. The family includes an archbishop in the Balkans, the captain of the papal flagship at Lepanto, the power behind the throne in the Ottoman province of Moldavia, and a dragoman (interpreter) at the Porte. Malcolm uses the family's collective biography as a framework on which to build a broader account of East-West relations and interactions in this period. In doing so, he sheds light new light on the interrelations between the Christian and Ottoman worlds, illuminating subjects as diverse as espionage, slave-ransoming and the grain trade, challenging assumptions about the relationship between. The family trees and biography of Antonio Bruni thus reflect a larger story of empire and cultures, and Malcolm's discoveries challenge classic assumptions while also providing an immersive narrative of discovery"-- Provided by publisher
Subject Bruni, Antonio, -1598
Bruni, Antonio, -1598 -- Family
Bruti, Bartolomeo, -1592 -- Family
East and West -- History -- 16th century
Albania -- History -- 16th century
Ulcinj (Montenegro) -- Biography
Albania -- Relations -- Italy -- Venice
Venice (Italy) -- Relations -- Albania
Mediterranean Region -- History -- 16th century
Turkey -- History -- Ottoman Empire, 1288-1918
Europe -- History -- 16th century
Classmark 940.230922
ISBN/ISSN 9780241003893
024100389X
9780141978369 (ebook)
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