I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Utrecht (UUNL) and an Associate Researcher at the Laboratory of Alpine History (LabisAlp) in Mendrisio. My fields of interest are the history of knowledge, diplomacy and health in the Mediterranean during the ‘long’ nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular reference to the relations between the Ottoman Empire and the European countries in the Balkan area and in North Africa, particularly with Italy and Switzerland. In the course of my education, I have developed a professional historical-humanistic profile, combined with specialised training in Arabic and Turkish. I am particularly well versed in the history of Europe and the Arab-Islamic world in the nineteenth and twentieth century and the current socio-political conjuncture in most Islamic countries in the Mediterranean region, but not only. I am also an expert in sanitary relations, diplomacy, foreign policy, the phenomena of the ‘politicisation or political use of history’ and the ‘migration of ideas’ between the shores of the Mediterranean with a focus on the processes of cultural migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have acquired great flexibility and mobility by studying and working for several years abroad (Germany, Tunisia, Switzerland, Netherlands). I have a variable knowledge of 5 languages, with the possibility of reading in 2 others (Spanish and French). I have gained experience in academic research, teaching at university level and teaching languages, history and culture.
This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites... more This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites represented by the Franco-Prussian War, which inaugurated the process of adopting Realpolitik in the early 1870s. Since the Congress of Paris in 1856, European and Ottoman elites had officially to conform their foreign policy to the Metternichian principles of equilibrium and preservation of international status quo to avoid international intervention. As emerges from the documents analysed, the alteration of the status quo produced by the Franco-Prussian conflict raised doubts among imperial diplomats about the effective durability of the European system and justified among them a reflection on the need to change their approach and diplomatic doctrine towards the unfolding of European affairs. Therefore, going beyond a teleological narrative that portrayed the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century as an isolated state or under the tutelage of the Great Powers, this chapter sheds light on how the autonomous desire to adapt their foreign policy to the rampant Realpolitik gradually began to mature among Ottoman elites.
In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: E... more In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: European experts’ stereotypes and limited knowledge of the Balkans, the Great Powers’ interests, and local populations’ conceptions of their own territories and societies. This article considers how these factors interacted in the demarcation of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders between 1879 and 1881 by not only studying the profiles, statements and actions of regional ‘experts’ at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 but also of the delegates to the Commission for the Delimitation of Montenegro and of the members of the Albanian League. Through critical readings of documents produced by the delegates of ‘secondary’ powers, such as the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, it argues that the effectiveness of the border-demarcation was undermined by the failure of the Delimitation Commission, the Great Powers’ misperceptions and lack of knowledge, which was shaped by poor expert advice, and finally, by the resistance of local populations.
The Franco-Prussian War Turning-Points in European Experiences and Perceptions of Military Conflict, 2024
This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites... more This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites represented by the Franco-Prussian War, which inaugurated the process of adopting Realpolitik in the early 1870s. Since the Congress of Paris in 1856, European and Ottoman elites had officially to conform their foreign policy to the Metternichian principles of equilibrium and preservation of international status quo to avoid international intervention. As emerges from the documents analysed, the alteration of the status quo produced by the Franco-Prussian conflict raised doubts among imperial diplomats about the effective durability of the European system and justified among them a reflection on the need to change their approach and diplomatic doctrine towards the unfolding of European affairs. Therefore, going beyond a teleological narrative that portrayed the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century as an isolated state or under the tutelage of the Great Powers, this chapter sheds light on how the autonomous desire to adapt their foreign policy to the rampant Realpolitik gradually began to mature among Ottoman elites.
Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures, 2024
Between the end of the 1850s and the beginning of the 1860s, courts in various states of the Ital... more Between the end of the 1850s and the beginning of the 1860s, courts in various states of the Italian peninsula convicted members of criminal counterfeiting associations operating between the Ottoman and Italian city-ports. These criminal ‘gangs’ were mainly composed of Italian citizens living in the Ottoman Empire and new members of the Levantine communities. Through the analysis of the documents contained in the Italian and Ottoman archives, this article investigates Italo-Levantine illicit networks between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, stressing the terminology used by diplomatic and juridical actors. It describes how the efforts to contrast these ‘gangs’ and networks shaped the Ottoman commitment against international criminal organisations, and in which way the actions of the Sublime Porte towards these ‘associations’ influenced their diplomatic network toward European countries. Therefore, the article emphasises the role of crime fighting as a key factor in the development of inter-imperial and international diplomatic relations in the 19th century.
This paper aims to highlight the role played and the measures taken by the administration of the ... more This paper aims to highlight the role played and the measures taken by the administration of the Ottoman Vâlî Topal Osman Pasha during the cholera waves of 1866 and 1867 in the vilâyet-i Bosna. Through the study of Swiss, Ottoman, Italian, and French documents, the paper analyses the strategy and the nature of the sanitary measures taken by the imperial provincial administration and their use in border disputes between Austro-Hungarian Dalmatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Montenegro. In this way, it will be possible to answer the following questions: What was the role of the Governor General Osman Pasha in the development and imposition of sanitary measures against the epidemics of 1866-7? Were they based only on medical knowledge or on the defence of local social and economic interests as well? And, finally, did these measures contribute in any way to the strengthening of the political-sanitary borders between Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Montenegro?
Josef Koetschet, a Swiss physician, was one important figure of the 1866 cholera epidemic in Sara... more Josef Koetschet, a Swiss physician, was one important figure of the 1866 cholera epidemic in Sarajevo. He contributed to the health of the Ottoman population with the medical knowledge he had gained in Europe and thus played a crucial role in the containment of cholera in the region. His work as public doctor is of remarkable interest in the history of sanitary measures in the Ottoman Empire – especially in the light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic.
In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: E... more In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: European experts’ stereotypes and limited knowledge of the Balkans, the Great Powers’ interests, and local populations’ conceptions of their own territories and societies. This article considers how these factors interacted in the demarcation of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders between 1879 and 1881 by not only studying the profiles, statements and actions of regional ‘experts’ at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 but also of the delegates to the Commission for the Delimitation of Montenegro and of the members of the Albanian League. Through critical readings of documents produced by the delegates of ‘secondary’ powers, such as the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, it argues that the effectiveness of the border-demarcation was undermined by the failure of the Delimitation Commission, the Great Powers’ misperceptions and lack of knowledge, which was shaped by poor expert advice, and finally, by the resistance of local populations.
This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Easte... more This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Eastern Mediterranean geopolitical area, which came to include the Red Sea. It aims to demonstrate that, in the newly opened Red Sea theatre, the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman sultanate progressively developed a new modus vivendi by pursuing different foreign policies. For both the Italian and the Ottoman governments, the inauguration of the Suez Canal represented a unique opportunity to relaunch their international position by reinforcing their control over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, one preserving the ‘neutral order’, and the other pursuing an expansionist agenda in this area. Going beyond the national rhetoric of the Italian unilateral occupation of the western coast of the Red Sea, the diplomatic dispatches of the Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, BOA) in Istanbul shed light on the new diplomatic dynamics developed by conservative and nationalist Great Powers on the new diplomatic front of the Red Sea.
This article emphasises General Giacomo Durando’s role in the development of Italy’s ‘prudential’... more This article emphasises General Giacomo Durando’s role in the development of Italy’s ‘prudential’ foreign policy in the period immediately following Italian unification and the death of Cavour. This is achieved through the analysis of Durando’s biography written by his nephew Cesare, entitled Episodi diplomatici del Risorgimento italiano dal 1856 al 1863, and Italian diplomatic documents. Following this approach allows us to place the events of the Sardinian-Italian kingdom into the broader context of the Eastern Question and the development of the Historical Right’s foreign policy towards the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in the 1860s.
This paper aims to reconstruct the inter-imperial and international management of the cholera epi... more This paper aims to reconstruct the inter-imperial and international management of the cholera epidemic in the Adriatic Sea during the summer of 1867, through Ottoman diplomatic sources. The main aim is to write a brief history of the fight against cholera in the 1860s from an Ottoman perspective. In this period, the imperial consular network played a pivotal role in monitoring the spread of epidemics between the Red and Black seas, and the eastern Mediterranean. In their diplomatic documents, the Ottoman consuls described and analysed the sanitary measures adopted in their territories and by other countries, such as the Kingdom of Italy, the Principality of Montenegro and Austria-Hungary. In doing so, they highlighted positive and negative outcomes and described their personal contribution to the containment of epidemics.
The Ottoman Empire and the „Germansphere“ in the Age of Imperialism, 2022
When the Ottoman Empire began to develop its diplomatic network across Bern, Geneva, and Zürich a... more When the Ottoman Empire began to develop its diplomatic network across Bern, Geneva, and Zürich at the end of the nineteenth century, the simultaneous absence of a Swiss representative in Constantinople was interpreted by the Ottomans as an issue of inequality. During the First World War and with the mediation of Germany, the Ottoman government and Switzerland finally negotiated an agreement on diplomatic relations based on international law and reciprocity. Despite the affinity of part of the Swiss population with France, Swiss citizens were temporarily placed under German protection, creating a modus vivendi between the Ottomans and the Swiss. In this way, Swiss interests in the Ottoman Empire were included in a diplomatic system dominated by Germany and its Austrian ally.
RiMe Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea n. 9/III n.s., dicembre 2021 Il filo sottile dell’emergenza: controllo, restrizioni e consenso The Fine Thread of Emergency: Control, Restrictions and Consent, 2021
Between 1863 and 1866, the city of Sarajevo was struck by debilitating epizootic and epidemic wav... more Between 1863 and 1866, the city of Sarajevo was struck by debilitating epizootic and epidemic waves. Through the correspondence and personal papers of the Italian Vice-Consul Cesare Durando, this paper studies the reactions of the population of Sarajevo and the provincial administrators to these outbreaks. The main aim is to highlight the different reactions of the urban society of Sarajevo, of the provincial populations and of the Ottoman administrators to the epidemic crises and to the hygienic-sanitary measures suggested by the Italian vice-consul.
Il presente lavoro è incentrato sulle reazioni della popolazione di Sarajevo e degli amministratori imperiali attraverso i documenti scritti dal vice-console Cesare Durando durante le ondate epizootiche ed epidemiche tra il 1863 e il 1866. L’obiettivo di questo contributo è di evidenziare le reazioni della società urbana di Sarajevo, delle popolazioni della provincia e degli amministratori ottomani alla crisi epidemica e alle misure igienico-sanitarie suggerite dal vice-console italiano.
Malattie e Società, edited by F. Cutolo and C. Bonelli, Farestoria, Rivista dell’Istituto Storico della Resistenza e dell’età contemporanea, 2021
This article highlights the link between epidemics and nationalisation processes in the Balkans i... more This article highlights the link between epidemics and nationalisation processes in the Balkans in the 19th century. It summarises the steps that led to the reform of the Ottoman sanitary system and reconstructs the activities of the Sarajevo Sanitary Commission in the 1860s, and those of the Commission for the Delimitation of Montenegro in the 1870s, and how these commissions aimed not only at the construction of effective national borders but also at the control of epidemics through the creation of State borders that were also sanitary cordons.
Italy and the Suez Canal From the Mid Nineteenth century to the Cold War, 2022
This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Easte... more This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Eastern Mediterranean geopolitical area, which came to include the Red Sea. It aims to demonstrate that, in the newly opened Red Sea theatre, the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman sultanate progressively developed a new modus vivendi by pursuing different foreign policies. For both the Italian and the Ottoman governments, the inauguration of the Suez Canal represented a unique opportunity to relaunch their international position by reinforcing their control over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, one preserving the ‘neutral order’, and the other pursuing an expansionist agenda in this area. Going beyond the national rhetoric of the Italian unilateral occupation of the western coast of the Red Sea, the diplomatic dispatches of the Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, BOA) in Istanbul shed light on the new diplomatic dynamics developed by conservative and nationalist Great Powers on the new diplomatic front of the Red Sea.
Made available to the widest possible audience, the multiplicity and
complexity of Italian-Ottoma... more Made available to the widest possible audience, the multiplicity and complexity of Italian-Ottoman relations are placed at the heart of this volume, in order to underline the existence of a common Italo-Turkish heritage and the importance of dialogue between academics from different countries, in order to highlight what unites us in the common Mediterranean mirror.
This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites... more This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites represented by the Franco-Prussian War, which inaugurated the process of adopting Realpolitik in the early 1870s. Since the Congress of Paris in 1856, European and Ottoman elites had officially to conform their foreign policy to the Metternichian principles of equilibrium and preservation of international status quo to avoid international intervention. As emerges from the documents analysed, the alteration of the status quo produced by the Franco-Prussian conflict raised doubts among imperial diplomats about the effective durability of the European system and justified among them a reflection on the need to change their approach and diplomatic doctrine towards the unfolding of European affairs. Therefore, going beyond a teleological narrative that portrayed the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century as an isolated state or under the tutelage of the Great Powers, this chapter sheds light on how the autonomous desire to adapt their foreign policy to the rampant Realpolitik gradually began to mature among Ottoman elites.
In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: E... more In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: European experts’ stereotypes and limited knowledge of the Balkans, the Great Powers’ interests, and local populations’ conceptions of their own territories and societies. This article considers how these factors interacted in the demarcation of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders between 1879 and 1881 by not only studying the profiles, statements and actions of regional ‘experts’ at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 but also of the delegates to the Commission for the Delimitation of Montenegro and of the members of the Albanian League. Through critical readings of documents produced by the delegates of ‘secondary’ powers, such as the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, it argues that the effectiveness of the border-demarcation was undermined by the failure of the Delimitation Commission, the Great Powers’ misperceptions and lack of knowledge, which was shaped by poor expert advice, and finally, by the resistance of local populations.
The Franco-Prussian War Turning-Points in European Experiences and Perceptions of Military Conflict, 2024
This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites... more This chapter highlights the diplomatic-cultural turning-point among the Ottoman diplomatic elites represented by the Franco-Prussian War, which inaugurated the process of adopting Realpolitik in the early 1870s. Since the Congress of Paris in 1856, European and Ottoman elites had officially to conform their foreign policy to the Metternichian principles of equilibrium and preservation of international status quo to avoid international intervention. As emerges from the documents analysed, the alteration of the status quo produced by the Franco-Prussian conflict raised doubts among imperial diplomats about the effective durability of the European system and justified among them a reflection on the need to change their approach and diplomatic doctrine towards the unfolding of European affairs. Therefore, going beyond a teleological narrative that portrayed the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century as an isolated state or under the tutelage of the Great Powers, this chapter sheds light on how the autonomous desire to adapt their foreign policy to the rampant Realpolitik gradually began to mature among Ottoman elites.
Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures, 2024
Between the end of the 1850s and the beginning of the 1860s, courts in various states of the Ital... more Between the end of the 1850s and the beginning of the 1860s, courts in various states of the Italian peninsula convicted members of criminal counterfeiting associations operating between the Ottoman and Italian city-ports. These criminal ‘gangs’ were mainly composed of Italian citizens living in the Ottoman Empire and new members of the Levantine communities. Through the analysis of the documents contained in the Italian and Ottoman archives, this article investigates Italo-Levantine illicit networks between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, stressing the terminology used by diplomatic and juridical actors. It describes how the efforts to contrast these ‘gangs’ and networks shaped the Ottoman commitment against international criminal organisations, and in which way the actions of the Sublime Porte towards these ‘associations’ influenced their diplomatic network toward European countries. Therefore, the article emphasises the role of crime fighting as a key factor in the development of inter-imperial and international diplomatic relations in the 19th century.
This paper aims to highlight the role played and the measures taken by the administration of the ... more This paper aims to highlight the role played and the measures taken by the administration of the Ottoman Vâlî Topal Osman Pasha during the cholera waves of 1866 and 1867 in the vilâyet-i Bosna. Through the study of Swiss, Ottoman, Italian, and French documents, the paper analyses the strategy and the nature of the sanitary measures taken by the imperial provincial administration and their use in border disputes between Austro-Hungarian Dalmatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Montenegro. In this way, it will be possible to answer the following questions: What was the role of the Governor General Osman Pasha in the development and imposition of sanitary measures against the epidemics of 1866-7? Were they based only on medical knowledge or on the defence of local social and economic interests as well? And, finally, did these measures contribute in any way to the strengthening of the political-sanitary borders between Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Montenegro?
Josef Koetschet, a Swiss physician, was one important figure of the 1866 cholera epidemic in Sara... more Josef Koetschet, a Swiss physician, was one important figure of the 1866 cholera epidemic in Sarajevo. He contributed to the health of the Ottoman population with the medical knowledge he had gained in Europe and thus played a crucial role in the containment of cholera in the region. His work as public doctor is of remarkable interest in the history of sanitary measures in the Ottoman Empire – especially in the light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic.
In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: E... more In the 19th century, several factors influenced the development of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders: European experts’ stereotypes and limited knowledge of the Balkans, the Great Powers’ interests, and local populations’ conceptions of their own territories and societies. This article considers how these factors interacted in the demarcation of Montenegrin-Ottoman borders between 1879 and 1881 by not only studying the profiles, statements and actions of regional ‘experts’ at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 but also of the delegates to the Commission for the Delimitation of Montenegro and of the members of the Albanian League. Through critical readings of documents produced by the delegates of ‘secondary’ powers, such as the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, it argues that the effectiveness of the border-demarcation was undermined by the failure of the Delimitation Commission, the Great Powers’ misperceptions and lack of knowledge, which was shaped by poor expert advice, and finally, by the resistance of local populations.
This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Easte... more This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Eastern Mediterranean geopolitical area, which came to include the Red Sea. It aims to demonstrate that, in the newly opened Red Sea theatre, the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman sultanate progressively developed a new modus vivendi by pursuing different foreign policies. For both the Italian and the Ottoman governments, the inauguration of the Suez Canal represented a unique opportunity to relaunch their international position by reinforcing their control over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, one preserving the ‘neutral order’, and the other pursuing an expansionist agenda in this area. Going beyond the national rhetoric of the Italian unilateral occupation of the western coast of the Red Sea, the diplomatic dispatches of the Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, BOA) in Istanbul shed light on the new diplomatic dynamics developed by conservative and nationalist Great Powers on the new diplomatic front of the Red Sea.
This article emphasises General Giacomo Durando’s role in the development of Italy’s ‘prudential’... more This article emphasises General Giacomo Durando’s role in the development of Italy’s ‘prudential’ foreign policy in the period immediately following Italian unification and the death of Cavour. This is achieved through the analysis of Durando’s biography written by his nephew Cesare, entitled Episodi diplomatici del Risorgimento italiano dal 1856 al 1863, and Italian diplomatic documents. Following this approach allows us to place the events of the Sardinian-Italian kingdom into the broader context of the Eastern Question and the development of the Historical Right’s foreign policy towards the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in the 1860s.
This paper aims to reconstruct the inter-imperial and international management of the cholera epi... more This paper aims to reconstruct the inter-imperial and international management of the cholera epidemic in the Adriatic Sea during the summer of 1867, through Ottoman diplomatic sources. The main aim is to write a brief history of the fight against cholera in the 1860s from an Ottoman perspective. In this period, the imperial consular network played a pivotal role in monitoring the spread of epidemics between the Red and Black seas, and the eastern Mediterranean. In their diplomatic documents, the Ottoman consuls described and analysed the sanitary measures adopted in their territories and by other countries, such as the Kingdom of Italy, the Principality of Montenegro and Austria-Hungary. In doing so, they highlighted positive and negative outcomes and described their personal contribution to the containment of epidemics.
The Ottoman Empire and the „Germansphere“ in the Age of Imperialism, 2022
When the Ottoman Empire began to develop its diplomatic network across Bern, Geneva, and Zürich a... more When the Ottoman Empire began to develop its diplomatic network across Bern, Geneva, and Zürich at the end of the nineteenth century, the simultaneous absence of a Swiss representative in Constantinople was interpreted by the Ottomans as an issue of inequality. During the First World War and with the mediation of Germany, the Ottoman government and Switzerland finally negotiated an agreement on diplomatic relations based on international law and reciprocity. Despite the affinity of part of the Swiss population with France, Swiss citizens were temporarily placed under German protection, creating a modus vivendi between the Ottomans and the Swiss. In this way, Swiss interests in the Ottoman Empire were included in a diplomatic system dominated by Germany and its Austrian ally.
RiMe Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea n. 9/III n.s., dicembre 2021 Il filo sottile dell’emergenza: controllo, restrizioni e consenso The Fine Thread of Emergency: Control, Restrictions and Consent, 2021
Between 1863 and 1866, the city of Sarajevo was struck by debilitating epizootic and epidemic wav... more Between 1863 and 1866, the city of Sarajevo was struck by debilitating epizootic and epidemic waves. Through the correspondence and personal papers of the Italian Vice-Consul Cesare Durando, this paper studies the reactions of the population of Sarajevo and the provincial administrators to these outbreaks. The main aim is to highlight the different reactions of the urban society of Sarajevo, of the provincial populations and of the Ottoman administrators to the epidemic crises and to the hygienic-sanitary measures suggested by the Italian vice-consul.
Il presente lavoro è incentrato sulle reazioni della popolazione di Sarajevo e degli amministratori imperiali attraverso i documenti scritti dal vice-console Cesare Durando durante le ondate epizootiche ed epidemiche tra il 1863 e il 1866. L’obiettivo di questo contributo è di evidenziare le reazioni della società urbana di Sarajevo, delle popolazioni della provincia e degli amministratori ottomani alla crisi epidemica e alle misure igienico-sanitarie suggerite dal vice-console italiano.
Malattie e Società, edited by F. Cutolo and C. Bonelli, Farestoria, Rivista dell’Istituto Storico della Resistenza e dell’età contemporanea, 2021
This article highlights the link between epidemics and nationalisation processes in the Balkans i... more This article highlights the link between epidemics and nationalisation processes in the Balkans in the 19th century. It summarises the steps that led to the reform of the Ottoman sanitary system and reconstructs the activities of the Sarajevo Sanitary Commission in the 1860s, and those of the Commission for the Delimitation of Montenegro in the 1870s, and how these commissions aimed not only at the construction of effective national borders but also at the control of epidemics through the creation of State borders that were also sanitary cordons.
Italy and the Suez Canal From the Mid Nineteenth century to the Cold War, 2022
This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Easte... more This chapter shows how the opening of the Suez Canal produced a de facto enlargement of the Eastern Mediterranean geopolitical area, which came to include the Red Sea. It aims to demonstrate that, in the newly opened Red Sea theatre, the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman sultanate progressively developed a new modus vivendi by pursuing different foreign policies. For both the Italian and the Ottoman governments, the inauguration of the Suez Canal represented a unique opportunity to relaunch their international position by reinforcing their control over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, one preserving the ‘neutral order’, and the other pursuing an expansionist agenda in this area. Going beyond the national rhetoric of the Italian unilateral occupation of the western coast of the Red Sea, the diplomatic dispatches of the Prime Minister’s Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, BOA) in Istanbul shed light on the new diplomatic dynamics developed by conservative and nationalist Great Powers on the new diplomatic front of the Red Sea.
Made available to the widest possible audience, the multiplicity and
complexity of Italian-Ottoma... more Made available to the widest possible audience, the multiplicity and complexity of Italian-Ottoman relations are placed at the heart of this volume, in order to underline the existence of a common Italo-Turkish heritage and the importance of dialogue between academics from different countries, in order to highlight what unites us in the common Mediterranean mirror.
Sommario
Il Levante vecchio e nuovo
Introduzione
Marco Moroni, Missionari e mercanti nelle region... more Sommario Il Levante vecchio e nuovo Introduzione Marco Moroni, Missionari e mercanti nelle regioni balcanico-danubiane tra Cinque e Seicento Stefania Ecchia, La controversia tra la Camera di commercio di Roma e il Consiglio del debito pubblico ottomano sulla conversione delle obbligazioni privilegiate del 1890 Giorgio Ennas, The Birth of the Ottoman Colonial Space: the Libyan Case (1835-1918) Vera Costantini, World-business ai tempi della Grande guerra: Léon Menasché & Co. Armando Pitassio, Terrorismo nazionalista e vita quotidiana. Per una storia delle città balcaniche ottomane tra la fine del XIX e gli inizi del XX secolo Alessia Lo Turco e Daniela Maggioni, L’economia turca nel XXI secolo tra commercio e cultura
Saggi Francesco Chiapparino e Gabriele Morettini, Un contributo dimenticato: Luchino Franciosa e la produzione lorda vendibile dell’agricoltura italiana negli anni Trenta Carlo Anselmi, I Registri di sanità marittima di Marciana alla metà del XVIII secolo Grazia Pagnotta, Trasporto urbano e ambiente. L’imprevidenza della politica locale a Roma (1950-1970)
Note Giuseppe Santoni, Castelpagano: frane, alluvioni e piene nei verbali consiliari di fine Ottocento Sergio Salvi, La ginestra e la fabbrica di cellulosa di Castelraimondo
Convegni e letture Convegni Nicoletta Stradaioli, Un “bene comune”: i laghi tra complessità passate e prospettive future (Perugia, 16-17 giugno 2016) Francesco Bartolini, Conflitti, esuli, profughi e popoli in movimento nel mondo contemporaneo (Macerata, 15-17 settembre 2016) Letture Ercole Sori legge Valeriano Balloni e Paolo Pettenati, Vittorio Merloni. Un imprenditore olivettiano Luca Andreoni legge quattro studi su Zara: Michela Dal Borgo e Guglielmo Zanelli, Zara. Una fortezza, un porto, un arsenale (secoli XV-XVIII); Tea Mayhew, Dalmatia between Ottoman and Venetian Rule. Contado di Zara, 1645-1718; Stephan Karl Sander-Faes, Urban Elites of Zadar. Dalmatia and the Venetian Commonwealth (1540-1569); Gherardo Ortalli e Ornella Pittarello (a cura di), Cronica Jadretina. Venezia-Zara, 1345-1346 Augusto Ciuffetti legge Sara Alimenti e Regina Lupi (a cura di), Ambiente e pubblica felicità tra idee e pratiche. Il caso del lago Trasimeno
In the last decades, historians proved in multiple ways the fluidity and fragility of borders and... more In the last decades, historians proved in multiple ways the fluidity and fragility of borders and frontier areas (Sahlins 1989; Baramova-Boykov-Parvev 2015; Blumi 2017). In particular, the studies on the border regions of the (post-)Ottoman world became highly productive fields of research (Pedani 2002; Ateş 2013; Tejel 2023). Moving on from the previous scholarship’s concerns limited to the shaping of borders in the nation-building period, a new understanding of imperial borderlands and their societies emerged (Blumi 2011; Pešalj 2015; Pešalj-Steidl-Lucassen-Ehmer 2022). This understanding does not focus only on the shaping, re-shaping, and formation of borders within the empire/nation-building process, but also on the various aspects of life in the borderlands of an empire or of a newly emerged nation-state. Together with the increasing number of works conducted on the borderlands and their societies in the (post-)Ottoman period, there is still significant room to address and analyze the processes of shaping borders and the transformation that borderland societies underwent between the 18th and 20th centuries. Therefore, with a special emphasis on the very promising South-eastern European area, but also including the other frontiers of the Empire, such as the Northern Black Sea and the Middle East, the present workshop aims to gather early-career and advanced researchers in order to highlight different aspects of the border-building processes and the transformation of border societies, such as security practices in the newly emerged borderlands and the creation of institutions for the administration of migratory waves; health, with the foundation of structures aimed at ensuring the control of pandemics; and, finally, the transformations occurred within human border societies that occurred from the 18th century until the beginning of WWII. The Das Osmanische Europa working group (http://www.osmanisches-europa.de/) will hold a two-day international workshop at the University of Leipzig (Germany) on 19-20 September 2024. The program will start with the inaugural speech by Dr. Jovan Pešalj on 19 September, and consist of three separate sessions throughout two days. The concluding remarks will take place on 20 September at 18:00 followed by a lecture by Dr. Polat Safi. The working language of the workshop will be English.
With the quasi-inclusion in the Congress of Vienna and the process of internal reform that began ... more With the quasi-inclusion in the Congress of Vienna and the process of internal reform that began during the sultanate of Mahmud II (1808-39), European international law was absorbed and vernacularised into a form proper to the government of the Sublime Porte, which involved jurists and diplomats of European, Greek, and Ottoman origin (Davison, 1999; Mardin, 2000; Ozavci, 2021). This contribution analyses the way in which in this period the Ottoman monarchy adopted elements of the European diplomatic practices. By examining diplomatic documents, it claims that, when the sultans were modernising bureaucratic praxis, the new Ottoman ministry of foreign affairs and diplomats voluntarily adopted French diplomatic language and a Euro-Ottoman “modern” genre of diplomatic writing. This evolution is particularly clear when we compare the language, structure and themes of the documents written by the Ottoman chargé d’affaires in Vienna Jean de/Yanko Mavroyeni Bey (1760-1841) in the 1810s with those he wrote in the 1830s (Šedivý, 2013; Ozavci, 2022). In this way, it would be possible to identify the passage from the generation of Ottoman diplomats of Yusuf Ağa Efendi (1744-1824) to that one of Rüstem Pasha (1814-95).
This paper aims to highlight the jurisdictional struggle between France, Germany, and the Ottoman... more This paper aims to highlight the jurisdictional struggle between France, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire to include Swiss citizens within the borders of their own consular or juridical jurisdictions between the 1870s and the 1880s. From the analysis and the comparison of Swiss and Ottoman diplomatic documents, this paper aims to answer the following questions: were there actual differences in treatment between the protégés of the various powers? How was this reflected in the different practices of consular courts? How did this conflict of consular sovereignty take place between the French, Ottomans and Germans for the protection of the Swiss? What were the consequences of this consular confrontation?
This paper aims to analyse and compare Italian, French, and Ottoman sanitary, diplomatic, and con... more This paper aims to analyse and compare Italian, French, and Ottoman sanitary, diplomatic, and consular reports that described epidemics in the Balkans in the 19th century. Through the analysis and comparison of these reports as ‘epidemic records’, it will be possible to demonstrate their usefulness in reconstructing the epidemic situation in the Ottoman Empire during this period, particularly in the Balkans, bringing together different fields, such as the history of diplomacy, consuls, state administration, and public service. Inspired by European documentary typologies that were innovative for the time and quickly adopted by Ottoman bureaucrats and consuls, these documents provided descriptions and evaluations of the sanitary measures adopted by local administrations, and statistics concerning daily death tolls in the affected areas on which to base preventive sanitary strategies. As a result of the information contained in the reports and the quality of their descriptions, these primary sources can be considered as products of cultural techniques developed for the transmission of information and record keeping. Indeed, they represent a peculiar typology of a ‘sanitary culture of recording’. The contribution will answer the following questions: can these Euro-Ottoman reports be considered as products of a shared ‘sanitary culture of recording’? How was their information collected? How were these documents used and stored by respective governments? How were they preserved and how can they be used today by historians of epidemics in the 19th-century ‘Ottoman Europe’?
Through the analysis and the comparison of Ottoman and Italian diplomatic and consular documents,... more Through the analysis and the comparison of Ottoman and Italian diplomatic and consular documents, this paper aims to map and describe the Ottoman quarantine system against the spread of plague and cholera. The system in question was developed between the 1830s and the beginning of the 20th century by the government of the Sublime Porte. This approach will allow us not only to describe the Ottoman re-elaboration of quarantinist, hygienist and neo-quarantinist doctrines before the Pasteurian discoveries, but also to demonstrate the Ottoman Empire's autonomous commitment to stop the spread of epidemics arriving from the Indian Peninsula through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. By the end of the Crimean War of 1853-56 the Ottoman Empire had developed a series of infrastructures between the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Black Sea, and made a significant contribution to preventing the spread of epidemics across the Mediterranean and the European continent. For example, during the Crimean War the Ottoman government adopted measures to the ensure the safe and quarantined transport of allied troops as well. Through the various international sanitary conferences of the 19th century, the Ottoman system underwent further development up until the First World War, making it one of the most complex intercontinental quarantine systems in the world, stretching from Yemen to Bosnia. Therefore, the present paper focuses on mapping the Ottoman quarantine system; explaining its nature and evolution; and, finally, describing the anti-contagionist policies promoted by the Sublime Porte during the long' 19th century.
That "voluntarism", defined as "Garibaldinism" and aimed at exporting libertarian-revolutionary p... more That "voluntarism", defined as "Garibaldinism" and aimed at exporting libertarian-revolutionary principles to Europe and the Mediterranean basin (Acciai 2021), played an important role in the development of Italian national-political thought (Cecchinato 2015), and in that of certain European, South American, and Balkan national realities (Losurdo 1993; Bonvini-Jacobson 2021; Jesné 2021; Acciai 2022; Bonvini 2022). In order to investigate the effects of this cultural influence, this contribution aims to investigate the relationship between Garibaldinism and the thinking of Ottoman, Young Turk, and Kemalist elites, comparing it with that of other post-Ottoman Balkan states such as Serbia and Montenegro. In this way, it will be possible to identify and explain the presence or apparent absence of Mazzini-Garibaldine derived political thought at the foundation of states such as the Republic of Turkey.
This paper aims to analyse and compare Italian, French, Austrian and Ottoman sanitary, diplomatic... more This paper aims to analyse and compare Italian, French, Austrian and Ottoman sanitary, diplomatic, and consular reports that described epidemics in the Balkans in the 19th century. Through the analysis and comparison of these reports as ‘epidemic records’, it will be possible to demonstrate their usefulness in reconstructing the epidemic situation in the Balkans during this period, bringing together different fields, such as the history of diplomacy, consuls and state administration and public service. Beginning in the 1830s, numerous waves of cholera in the Mediterranean made it compulsory for sanitary officers, diplomats, and consuls to describe the health situation in and around the main Balkan centres, such as Constantinople, Dubrovnik, Athens, Sarajevo, and Bucharest. Inspired by European documentary typologies that were innovative for the time and quickly adopted by Ottoman bureaucrats and consuls, these documents provided descriptions and evaluations of the sanitary measures adopted by local administrations, and statistics concerning daily death tolls in the affected areas for the Sublime Porte and the Great Powers. As a result of the information contained in the reports and the quality of their descriptions, these primary sources can be considered as products of cultural techniques developed for the transmission of information, records, and record keeping. Indeed, they represent a peculiar typology of a ‘culture of recording’. In conclusion, this paper focuses its attention on sanitary, diplomatic, and consular reports describing epidemic situations in the Balkans in the 19th century as products of a ‘sanitary culture of recording’. It will centre around the following questions: can these Euro-Ottoman reports be considered as products of a shared ‘sanitary culture of recording? How was their information collected? How were these documents used and stored by respective governments? How were they preserved and how can they be used today by historians of epidemics in the 19th-century ‘Ottoman Europe’?
This conference proposes to address the idea of crossing the Mediterranean between the 15th and t... more This conference proposes to address the idea of crossing the Mediterranean between the 15th and the 21st centuries. We are particularly interested in papers that address the obstacles and opportunities offered by the African, Asian and European trans-regional connections to the Mediterranean as lenses to explain and assess the impact that human mobility has in past and contemporary societies. The thematic focus of this conference circulates around Migration and Trafficking; Conflict (institutional, political); Slavery and Exploitation; Culture and Religion; Identities; and Memory and Heritage.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, imperial politics shaped the socialization of youth and inspired ... more In the 19th and 20th centuries, imperial politics shaped the socialization of youth and inspired the youth’s own revindications. From Southeast Asia to the Middle East, from Eastern Europe to Africa and Latin America, new organizations, representations, and modes of activism related to youth emerged and gained visibility. They strengthened, transformed, and even challenged imperial rule. The workshop seeks to connect imperial and youth history with a global perspective around three main themes: politics of difference, experiences of colonialism, and gendered dynamics.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, imperial politics shaped the socialization of youth and inspired ... more In the 19th and 20th centuries, imperial politics shaped the socialization of youth and inspired the youth’s own revindications. From Southeast Asia to the Middle East, from Eastern Europe to Africa and Latin America, new organizations, representations, and modes of activism related to youth emerged and gained visibility. They strengthened, transformed, and even challenged imperial rule. The workshop seeks to connect imperial and youth history with a global perspective around three main themes: politics of difference, experiences of colonialism, and gendered dynamics.
hosts the Cluster of Excellence "Beyond Slavery and Freedom", which aims to overcome the binary o... more hosts the Cluster of Excellence "Beyond Slavery and Freedom", which aims to overcome the binary opposition of "slavery versus freedom". We approach the phenomenon of slavery and other types of strong asymmetrical dependency from methodologically and theoretically distinct perspectives. The workshop wants to analyze slavery and other forms of strong asymmetrical dependencies in Ottoman South Eastern Europe. We look to the Ottoman Empire from different angles and are thus interested not only in an Istanbul-centered perspective, but also in studies concerning regional aspects in its European provinces and border-regions-from the Crimean Khanate to Dalmatia, from Hungary to Crete, including connections with neighbouring regions.
Da Dante ad oggi: malattie, epidemie e pandemie nella lingua, nella letteratura e nella cultura F... more Da Dante ad oggi: malattie, epidemie e pandemie nella lingua, nella letteratura e nella cultura From Dante to the present day: disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics in language, literature and culture
Identities are powerful drives in human history. They build the understanding of the world of all... more Identities are powerful drives in human history. They build the understanding of the world of all human actors, and inevitably affect their actions. Both collective and individual identities are-now as ever-key features of all political activities. The creation and the control of identities are at the heart of all power relations, and as such they have been deeply investigated by human sciences. Indeed, political historians encounter the performative power of identities in most of their research. Nevertheless, they rarely find spaces to debate on identity issues and the tools needed to understand them. The main goal of the Florentine session of the 5th Workshop of the Political History PhD Network is to provide such space.
Honoured to present Dr. Yiğit Topkaya's brilliant work entitled 'Seidener Handel: Basel und das O... more Honoured to present Dr. Yiğit Topkaya's brilliant work entitled 'Seidener Handel: Basel und das Osmanische Reich im 19. Jahrhundert'. I thank Prof. Roberto Zaugg, Dr. Laurent Burrus, and the Universität Zürich for this opportunity.
Uploads
Il presente lavoro è incentrato sulle reazioni della popolazione di Sarajevo e degli amministratori imperiali attraverso i documenti scritti dal vice-console Cesare Durando durante le ondate epizootiche ed epidemiche tra il 1863 e il 1866. L’obiettivo di questo contributo è di evidenziare le reazioni della società urbana di Sarajevo, delle popolazioni della provincia e degli amministratori ottomani alla crisi epidemica e alle misure igienico-sanitarie suggerite dal vice-console italiano.
complexity of Italian-Ottoman relations are placed at the heart of this volume, in order to underline the existence of a common Italo-Turkish heritage and the importance of dialogue between academics from different countries, in order to highlight what unites us in the common Mediterranean mirror.
Il presente lavoro è incentrato sulle reazioni della popolazione di Sarajevo e degli amministratori imperiali attraverso i documenti scritti dal vice-console Cesare Durando durante le ondate epizootiche ed epidemiche tra il 1863 e il 1866. L’obiettivo di questo contributo è di evidenziare le reazioni della società urbana di Sarajevo, delle popolazioni della provincia e degli amministratori ottomani alla crisi epidemica e alle misure igienico-sanitarie suggerite dal vice-console italiano.
complexity of Italian-Ottoman relations are placed at the heart of this volume, in order to underline the existence of a common Italo-Turkish heritage and the importance of dialogue between academics from different countries, in order to highlight what unites us in the common Mediterranean mirror.
Il Levante vecchio e nuovo
Introduzione
Marco Moroni, Missionari e mercanti nelle regioni balcanico-danubiane tra Cinque e Seicento
Stefania Ecchia, La controversia tra la Camera di commercio di Roma e il Consiglio del debito pubblico ottomano sulla conversione delle obbligazioni privilegiate del 1890
Giorgio Ennas, The Birth of the Ottoman Colonial Space: the Libyan Case (1835-1918)
Vera Costantini, World-business ai tempi della Grande guerra: Léon Menasché & Co.
Armando Pitassio, Terrorismo nazionalista e vita quotidiana. Per una storia delle città balcaniche ottomane tra la fine del XIX e gli inizi del XX secolo
Alessia Lo Turco e Daniela Maggioni, L’economia turca nel XXI secolo tra commercio e cultura
Saggi
Francesco Chiapparino e Gabriele Morettini, Un contributo dimenticato: Luchino Franciosa e la produzione lorda vendibile dell’agricoltura italiana negli anni Trenta
Carlo Anselmi, I Registri di sanità marittima di Marciana alla metà del XVIII secolo
Grazia Pagnotta, Trasporto urbano e ambiente. L’imprevidenza della politica locale a Roma (1950-1970)
Note
Giuseppe Santoni, Castelpagano: frane, alluvioni e piene nei verbali consiliari di fine Ottocento
Sergio Salvi, La ginestra e la fabbrica di cellulosa di Castelraimondo
Convegni e letture
Convegni
Nicoletta Stradaioli, Un “bene comune”: i laghi tra complessità passate e prospettive future (Perugia, 16-17 giugno 2016)
Francesco Bartolini, Conflitti, esuli, profughi e popoli in movimento nel mondo contemporaneo (Macerata, 15-17 settembre 2016)
Letture
Ercole Sori legge Valeriano Balloni e Paolo Pettenati, Vittorio Merloni. Un imprenditore olivettiano
Luca Andreoni legge quattro studi su Zara: Michela Dal Borgo e Guglielmo Zanelli, Zara. Una fortezza, un porto, un arsenale (secoli XV-XVIII); Tea Mayhew, Dalmatia between Ottoman and Venetian Rule. Contado di Zara, 1645-1718; Stephan Karl Sander-Faes, Urban Elites of Zadar. Dalmatia and the Venetian Commonwealth (1540-1569); Gherardo Ortalli e Ornella Pittarello (a cura di), Cronica Jadretina. Venezia-Zara, 1345-1346
Augusto Ciuffetti legge Sara Alimenti e Regina Lupi (a cura di), Ambiente e pubblica felicità tra idee e pratiche. Il caso del lago Trasimeno
Rassegna bibliografica
Summaries
Moving on from the previous scholarship’s concerns limited to the shaping of borders in the nation-building period, a new understanding of imperial borderlands and their societies emerged (Blumi 2011; Pešalj 2015; Pešalj-Steidl-Lucassen-Ehmer 2022). This understanding does not focus only on the shaping, re-shaping, and formation of borders within the empire/nation-building process, but also on the various aspects of life in the borderlands of an empire or of a newly emerged nation-state. Together with the increasing number of works conducted on the borderlands and their societies in the (post-)Ottoman period, there is still significant room to address and analyze the processes of shaping borders and the transformation that borderland societies underwent between the 18th and 20th centuries.
Therefore, with a special emphasis on the very promising South-eastern European area, but also including the other frontiers of the Empire, such as the Northern Black Sea and the Middle East, the present workshop aims to gather early-career and advanced researchers in order to highlight different aspects of the border-building processes and the transformation of border societies, such as security practices in the newly emerged borderlands and the creation of institutions for the administration of migratory waves; health, with the foundation of structures aimed at ensuring the control of pandemics; and, finally, the transformations occurred within human border societies that occurred from the 18th century until the beginning of WWII.
The Das Osmanische Europa working group (http://www.osmanisches-europa.de/) will hold a two-day international workshop at the University of Leipzig (Germany) on 19-20 September 2024. The program will start with the inaugural speech by Dr. Jovan Pešalj on 19 September, and consist of three separate sessions throughout two days. The concluding remarks will take place on 20 September at 18:00 followed by a lecture by Dr. Polat Safi. The working language of the workshop will be English.