A third way. An attempt to reorient history of early modern Venetian/Italian connections with the Ottoman Empire and its borderlands

Abstract

The history of early modern Italian connections with the Ottoman Empire and its borderlands is often considered separated from those of any other Central/Eastern European state or area. Only sporadically, when referred to moments of anti-Ottoman alliances’ formation, it is presented in a wider geographical context. Depicted even so, it is usually limited to political cooperation between respective Italian and Central/Eastern European polities. Taking cue from a report on Georgia by Pietro della Valle – who indicated a third way from Italy to that country passing through Poland-Lithuania, equivalent to those via Constantinople or Aleppo – the paper aims to reorient studies on connections between Poland-Lithuania, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire in the 16th/17th century. Based i.a. on primary sources mostly taken from the Venetian archives, it invites to adopt an entangled, “triangular” perspective on the study of the considered areas’ history through a closer examination of diplomatic practices, circulation of motifs in diplomatic writings on the Ottomans, and individuals’ migrations.