Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy
Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court
Published on 31. October 2025
Book
Hardback
392 pages
978-1-3995-4309-5 (ISBN)
Description
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.
Reviews / Votes
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 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 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 In the seventeenth century, Ferdinando Cospi created a significant collection of Islamic artifacts. Cospi's relationship with the Medici family gave him access to a world of things and people - Armenian merchants, enslaved Muslims, Catholic missionaries, Tuscan physicians, agents, and other collectors. In this documentary history, Gigante captures historical and contemporary interest in the Islamic world by early modern Europeans, inviting us to consider how and why such objects became meaningful. -- Paula Findlen, Stanford UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
95 colour illustrations and 1 colour appendix
Dimensions
Height: 250 mm
Width: 178 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
1134 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-4309-5 (9781399543095)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
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 (Koc 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.
Content
List of Figures
List of Catalogue Entries
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Series Editor's Foreword
Introduction: All Things Turkish
1. The Life of Ferdinando Cospi
2. The History of the Cospi Museum
3. Islamic Artefacts Collected by Ferdinando Cospi
4. Acquisitions from the Ottoman World
5. Acquisitions from the Italian Market
6. Patronage and Donations
7. Transmission and Preservation of Knowledge
Conclusions: The Proto-ethnography of Collecting
Appendices
Catalogue
Bibliography
Index
List of Catalogue Entries
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Series Editor's Foreword
Introduction: All Things Turkish
1. The Life of Ferdinando Cospi
2. The History of the Cospi Museum
3. Islamic Artefacts Collected by Ferdinando Cospi
4. Acquisitions from the Ottoman World
5. Acquisitions from the Italian Market
6. Patronage and Donations
7. Transmission and Preservation of Knowledge
Conclusions: The Proto-ethnography of Collecting
Appendices
Catalogue
Bibliography
Index