Bargains! PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court by Federica Gigante (Research Associate, University of Oxford) at Abbey's Bookshop,
Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici...
— —
Federica Gigante (Research Associate, University of Oxford)

Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy

Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

Federica Gigante (Research Associate, University of Oxford)

$403

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?
English
Edinburgh University Press
31 October 2025
History of art & design styles: c 1600 to c 1800; Religious subjects depicted in art
Series: Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art
This book reassesses the idea that Islamic objects in seventeenth-century Italy were considered mere curiosities, sparking no cultural or historical interest. It focuses on Italy's largest collection of Islamic artefacts of the time, assembled by the Medici agent and Bolognese nobleman Ferdinando Cospi in his public gallery: the Cospi Museum. Through an extensive investigation of inventories, letters, and archival documents, the book follows the objects through the various paths which took them from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, through North African cities, to Livorno, Florence and, finally, Bologna. These paths reveal the presence of a network of enslaved Turks, Arab scholars, Egyptian fishermen and Armenian merchants, all responsible for importing both the items and their stories, biographies and anecdotes to Italy. The book thus brings forward to the seventeenth century a phenomenon of cultural inquisition that was thought to start only a century later.
By:  
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 244mm,  Width: 170mm, 
ISBN:   9781399543095
ISBN 10:   1399543091
Series:   Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art
Pages:   392
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Federica Gigante is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She is a historian of the material and intellectual exchanges between the Islamic world and Europe in the early modern period. She received a PhD from the Warburg Institute and SOAS and held fellowships at I Tatti (The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies), Anamed (Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations) and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. She currently leads a ERC-funded project on the role of slavery in the transmission of Islamic material culture and scientific knowledge in the early modern Mediterranean based at the Khalili Research Centre for the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East, at the University of Oxford. She was previously Research Associate in the History Faculty at the University of Cambridge. She worked for several years in a curatorial capacity at the University of Oxford, at the Ashmolean Museum first and History of Science Museum later, where she was in charge of Islamic scientific instruments.

Reviews for Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

A fascinating tour through the close study of one man's exceptional collections, its catalogues and a vast array of other archives, even down to tiny labels. Through the study of this rich material, Federica Gigante's beautifully written book illustrates the complex transmission, accumulation and transformation of knowledge surrounding Islamic objects - from dazzling art to small artefacts and manuscripts - as they travelled across the Mediterranean to Italy.--Filippo de Vivo, University of Oxford A tour de force of scholarship, this book is also a treasure trove of objects. Through the forensic examination of one collector's fascination with Islamic artefacts, Gigante offers a radically new perspective on commerce, craft and creativity in early modern Italy.--Mary Laven, Cambridge University This book is another milestone in disclosing histories of collecting in the age of Kunstkammer. Set between the Renaissance and the age of Enlightenment, this brilliantly-written study reveals the particular moments of collecting global scientific knowledge in the 17th-century city of Bologna, when marvels of nature and Islamic objects were archived and became the telling documents of the change in scope of the old world.--Avinoam Shalem, Columbia University


See Also

Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

Out of the Shadows

Rediscovering Maria Cosway

Diane Boucher

Hardback

$74.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

Drawing on Blue

European Drawings on Blue Paper,...

Edina Adam

Paperback

$61.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

An Englishman in Madrid

Eduardo Mendoza

Paperback

$24.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

Gainsborough in London

Susan Sloman

Hardback

$72.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

The Monument’s End

Public Art and the Modern Republic...

Marisa Anne Bass

Hardback

$59.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

The Paston Treasure

Microcosm of the Known World

Andrew Moore

Hardback

$124.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +