The New World in Early Modern Italy, 1492–1750 1492-1750

Italians became fascinated by the New World in the early modern period. While Atlantic World scholarship has traditionally tended to focus on the acts of conquest and the politics of colonialism, these essays consider the reception of ideas, images and goods from the Americas in the non-colonial states of Italy. Italians began to venerate images of the Peruvian Virgin of Copacabana, plant tomatoes, potatoes, and maize, and publish costume books showcasing the clothing of the kings and queens of Florida, revealing the powerful hold that the Americas had on the Italian imagination. By considering a variety of cases illuminating the presence of the Americas in Italy, this volume demonstrates how early modern Italian culture developed as much from multicultural contact - with Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and the Caribbean - as it did from the rediscovery of classical antiquity.

1. Introduction Elizabeth Horodowich and Lia Markey; Part I. Italy before and after the Conquest: 2. Italy and the New World Elizabeth Horodowich; 3. Dante and the New World Mary Watt; 4. Venetian diplomacy, Spanish gold, and the New World in the sixteenth century Federica Ambrosini; Part II. The New World and Italian Religious Culture: 5. Three Bolognese Franciscan missionaries in the New World in the early sixteenth century Massimo Donattini; 6. Missionary gift records of Mexican objects in early modern Italy Davide Domenici; 7. Federico Borromeo and the New World in early modern Milan Maria Matilde Benzoni; 8. The Virgin of Copacabana in early modern Italy: a disembodied devotion Karen Lloyd; 9. Jesuit martyrdom imagery between Mexico and Rome Katherine McAllen; Part III. New World Plants in the Italian Imagination: 10. Southern Italy and the New World in the age of encounters Mackenzie Cooley; 11. The impact of New World plants, 1500–1800: the Americas in Italy David Gentilcore; 12. Renaissance Florentines in the Tropics: Brazil, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the limits of empire Brian Brege; Part IV. Representing America: 13. Aldrovandi's New World natives in Bologna (or how to draw the unseen al vivo) Lia Markey; 14. Cesare Vecellio's Floridians in the Venetian book market: beautiful imports Ann Rosalind Jones; 15. Baroque Italian epic from Granada to the New World: Columbus conquers the Moors Nathalie Hester; 16. The conquest of Mexico in the Venetian operatic: Vivaldi's Motezuma Ireri Chávez Bárcenas.

Elizabeth Horodowich is Professor of History at New Mexico State University. She is the author of Language and Statecraft in Early Modern Venice (Cambridge, 2008), and A Brief History of Venice (2009), and is the recipient of awards and fellowships from a variety of institutions, including the Harvard University Center, Villa I Tatti, Florence, The American Historical Association, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Lia Markey is the Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago. She published Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence (2016) and co-wrote the exhibition catalogue, Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum (2014). She is the recipient of fellowships from the Kress and Mellon foundations, the Renaissance Society of America, the Folger Library, the Warburg Institute, Harvard's Villa I Tatti and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, New Jersey and worked at several museums.