Communication and conflict : Italian diplomacy in the early Renaissance, 1350-1520 / Isabella Lazzarini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lazzarini, Isabella, author.

Series:

Oxford studies in medieval European history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Diplomacy.

History.

Italy--Foreign relations--1492-1559.

Italy.

International relations.

Diplomacy--History--16th century.

Diplomatic relations.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 326 pages ; 24 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015.

Summary:

Diplomacy has never been a politically-neutral research field, even when it was confined to merely reconstructing the backgrounds of wars and revolutions. In the nineteenth century, diplomacy was integral to the grand narrative of the building of the modern 'nation-State'. This is the first overall study of diplomacy in early Renaissance Italy since Garrett Mattingly's pioneering work in 1955. It offers an innovative approach to the theme of Renaissance diplomacy, sidestepping the classic dichotomy between medieval and early modern, and re-considering the whole diplomatic process without reducing it to the 'grand narrative' of the birth of resident embassies. Communication and Conflict situates and explains the growth of diplomatic activity from a series of perspectives-political and institutional, cognitive and linguistic, material and spatial-and thus offers a highly sophisticated and persuasive account of causation, change, and impact in respect of a major political and cultural form. The volume also provides the most complete account to date of how it was that specifically Italian forms of diplomacy came to play such a central role, not only in the development of international relations at the European level, but also in the spread and application of humanism and of the new modes of political thinking and political discussion associated with the generations of Machiavelli and Guicciardini. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I The Framework

1 The Political Geography of Italian Diplomacy 11

1 Diplomatic Interactions 11

2 Identities and Chronologies 13

3 Spheres of Activity: Italy and Beyond 16

4 Concluding Remarks: Praxis and Late Developments 29

2 The Polygenesis of Diplomacy and the Trajectories of Change 31

1 Patterns 31

2 A Polygenetic Model: Formal Diplomatic Assignments 33

3 Merchants 37

4 Papal Legates, Nuntii, Collectors 41

5 The Chronology of Diplomatic Change 44

6 Concluding Remarks: Flexibility and Models 47

3 Sources for the Study of Diplomacy 49

1 Letters and Other Representations 49

2 Records 51

3 Narratives 57

4 Laws and Rules 63

5 Concluding Remarks; Images and Perceptions 65

Part II Diplomacy as a Political Action

4 Information 69

1 The Value of Information 69

2 Control and Manipulation 70

3 Information Networks 76

4 Information-Gathering, Ordering, and Transmission: The Techniques 78

5 Concluding Remarks: Information and Anxiety 84

5 Negotiation 86

1 Old and New Meanings 86

2 General Aims and Daily Practices 88

3 Roles and Patterns of Interaction 96

4 Concluding Remarks: The Documentary Lenses 103

6 Communication 104

1 Communication in Diplomacy 104

2 Communication Networks 106

3 A Web of "Words 112

4 Concluding Remarks: Controlling Conflict, "Thinking about Politics 118

Part III Diplomacy as a Practice

7 Diplomatic Agents: An Open Social Field 123

1 An Open Social Field 123

2 Ambassadors 125

3 Occasional Diplomars 132

4 The Gendered Face of Diplomacy 139

5 Concluding Remarks: A Reciprocal Duty 144

8 Forms, Actions, and Rituals 146

1 Forms, Actions, and Rituals of Diplomatic Interactions 146

2 Forms and Practices of Diplomacy 147

3 Ritual and Hierarchy 156

4 Concluding Remarks: The Obsession with Secrecy 165

9 The Spaces of Diplomacy 167

1 The Political and Physical Spaces of Diplomacy 167

2 The Spatial Geography of Interactions 169

3 Cities and Countryside: The Spaces of Diplomacy 176

4 Concluding Remarks: A World on Stage? 184

Part IV Diplomacy as a Political Language and a Cultural Process

10 The Forms of Diplomatic Communication 189

1 Forms and Codes: Speaking, Reading, Actions, Writing 189

2 Spealdng and Reading 190

3 Actions 197

4 Writing 202

5 Concluding Remarks: The Records' Memory 211

11 Argument and Emotion 213

1 Argument and Emotion: Performative Codes and the Transformative Power of Words 213

2 Argumentative Strategies over Time 216

3 The Words and Scripts of Emotions 225

4 Concluding Remarks: Constative, Performative, or Transformative? 235

12 Languages, Lexeis, and Exchanges 239

1 Transfers 239

2 Languages 241

3 Lexeis 248

4 Exchanges 254

5 Concluding Remarks: The Ultimate Exchange 261.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780198727415

0198727410

OCLC:

925361575