The Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Islamic Mediterranean, 1574–1610 : self-Fashioning, patronage, and negotiation

This Element reassesses early modern Mediterranean diplomacy by positioning the Grand Duchy of Tuscany at the centre of cross-confessional interactions with several Islamic powers between 1574 and 1610. It demonstrates how a small state shaped and used diplomacy to pursue commerce, security, and prestige in the Islamic Mediterranean, while remaining reliant on papal and Spanish Habsburg support. The argument rests on three case studies: Bongianni Gianfigliazzi's 1578 embassy in Ottoman Constantinople; Medici diplomacy in the Maghreb, facilitated by the Corsican agent Andrea Gaspari, embedded in both Algerian and Moroccan power networks; and the 1610 negotiations with Shah Abbas I's envoy concerning Persian captives in Livorno. Together, these episodes present diplomacy as performative, negotiated, and multi-actor, demonstrating that small polities actively shaped Mediterranean order in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.