Networking in Late Medieval Central Europe: Friends, Families, Foes

Description

Exploring the formation of networks across late medieval Central Europe, this book examines the complex interaction of merchants, students, artists and diplomats in a web of connections that linked the region. These individuals were friends in business ventures, occasionally families, and not infrequently foes. No single activity linked them, but rather their interconnectivity through matrices based in diverse modalities was key. Partnerships were not always friendship networks, art was sometimes passed between enemies, and families created for financial gain. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the chapters focus on inclusion and exclusion within intercultural networks, both interpersonal and artistic, using a wide spectrum of source materials and methodological approaches. The concept of friends is considered broadly, as connections of mutual affection but also simply through business relationships. Families are considered in terms of how they helped or hindered local integration for foreigners and the matrimonial strategies they pursued. Networks were also deeply impacted by rivalry and hostility. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures List of map Notes of contributors Introduction 1 Gaudeamus igitur in Bononia dum sumus: A network of Polish students in Italy in the late Middle Ages 2 A Venetian merchant in Poland: The life and times of Pietro Bicherano 3 How to develop a trade network as a newcomer without getting married? Examples from the account book of Danzig merchant Johan Pyre 4 Marriage networks and building structures of power within the urban communities between the Drava River and the Adriatic Sea: A comparative approach 5 Inclusion and exclusion. Intercultural relationships in Old Warsaw in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in light of the municipal registers 6 The diplomacy of Sigismund of Luxembourg in the dispute between the Teutonic Knights and Poland-Lithuania 7 The coat of arms of Louis II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, in the choir of Barcelona Cathedral. The role and significance of the Jagiellonian dynasty in the nineteenth assembly of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1519 8 Rome, Rostock and a remote region: Art commissions and networks of Livonian bishops 9 What links the Last Judgement triptych by Hans Memling with Florence, Rome, Nuremberg, Breisach and Cracow? 10 Across boundaries. Artistic exchange (painting, sculpture) in the area between Gdańsk (Danzig) and Königsberg in the late Middle Ages 11 Distant enemies, yet allies in art? Remarks on supposed artistic relations between fourteenth-century Prussia and the Islamic and Byzantine cultures in the Middle East 12 Late medieval networks of faith: The West and the East. Fortified urbanity and religion in fifteenth-century illuminations produced in France Index