Early Modern Mediterranean Entanglements

The PIMo researchers have been united in their conception of the Mediterranean as an extensive geopolitical space which has long acted as a flexible locus of exchange for a multitude of cultural transactions. In this space, North, South, East and West have been entangled in a cultural and historical net cast over the centuries, and a primary goal of the collaboration has been to restate and restore the significance of the region as a historic site of engagement and exchange. Wide enough to support radically distinctive civilisations, and yet narrow enough to ensure ready contact between them, the Mediterranean is distinctive, in David Abulafia’s words, as ‘probably the most vigorous place of interaction between different societies on the face of this planet’. The twelve Mediterranean port cities discussed in the present volume are considered places of distance and proximity, conflict and cooperation, order and disorder, autonomy and control.