Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court

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

Gigante, Federica

Hardcover

Series: Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art

Art HistoryGeneral ArtMiddle Eastern Art

ISBN10: 1399543091
ISBN13: 9781399543095
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: Oct 31 2025
Pages: 392
Weight: 2.50
Height: 1.20 Width: 6.70 Depth: 9.60
Language: English
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.

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