Introduction

Due to early-modern geographical discoveries and the development of oceanic connections to the New World and the East, Italy was excluded from the inner circle of global powers and her submission to foreign dominations pushed her to the margins of historical processes. From then onwards, first the Iberian and then the northern European powers became the main protagonists on the historical scene, rather than Italy, despite her exceptional artistic and cultural creativity and the magnificence of her princely courts in the age of the Renaissance. This historical thesis, here condensed to relatively few words, requires substantial qualifications, especially from a cultural and intellectual historical point of view, and recent studies in global cultural history might, in this, prove particularly helpful. The present volume, which collects works carried out as part of the Italian National Project (Prin 2015) “Translating Worlds: Towards a Global History of Italian Culture (1450-1914)”, is intended to be a contribution towards this research perspectives. Global Perspectives in Modern Italian Culture presents a series of unexplored case studies from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, each demonstrating how travellers, scientists, Catholic missionaries, scholars and diplomats coming from the Italian peninsula contributed to understandings of various global issues during the age of early globalization. It also examines how these individuals represented different parts of the world to an Italian audience, and how deeply Italian culture drew inspiration from the increasing knowledge of world ‘Otherness’. The first part of the book focuses on the production of knowledge, drawing on texts written by philosophers, scientists, historians and numerous other first-hand eyewitnesses. The second part analyses the dissemination and popularization of knowledge by focussing on previously understudied published works and initiatives aimed at learned Italian readers and the general public. Written in a lively and engaging manner, this book will appeal to scholars and students of early modern and modern European history, as well as those interested in global history.