Conference - A Europe of Courts, a Europe of Factions

Conference venue: Rome, Italy
Period: November 19-21, 2014

Recent political history has paid great attention to non institutional politics and the challenge of the State paradigm for Early Modern Europe. The study of networks and micropolitics has enabled the publication of several works in which royal courts meant the very decision-making centres. According to this personality-centred order around the prince, policy was based on the notions of service, favour and allegiance. Discrepancy and opposition were developed through the building of personal groups which struggled for access to patronage and political influence around the prince.

Only at a European scale arise the problems linked to the research of these groups of power, which are both conceptual and methodological. This conference aims to analyse and compare diverse factional experiences from different European courts (Catholic, Protestant and Muslim) and to contribute to a general debate on how was policy made in Early Modern Europe and how informal groups shaped the birth and development of diplomacy.

Wednesday, 19 November, 18.00–19.30

18.00 Public Keynote Lecture
Jeroen Duindam, Leiden
Groups of Power at early modern Courts

Thursday, 20 November, 9.30–18.30

9.30 Alexander Koller, Roma
Welcome
9.40 Alexander Koller – Rubén González Cuerva, Roma
Introduction

I - The Spanish Habsburgs, the Labyrinths around the Catholic King’s Court

10.00 José Martínez Millán, Madrid
L’immagine e il funzionamento delle fazioni nella corte spagnola della Casa d’Austria
10.30 Giuseppe Mrozek Eliszezynski, Teramo
Il servizio al re e la fedeltà al duca. I Castro e il governo di Napoli e Sicilia durante il valimiento del duca di Lerma
11.00 Coffee Break
11.30 Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, Madrid
Corte reale e corti vicereali: i rapporti fazionari
12.00 Luc Duerloo, Antwerp
Hawks, Doves and Magpies: The Business of Faction at the Court of the Archdukes
12.30 Discussion
13.00 Lunch Break

II - The Habsburgs Courts of the Empire, Mirror of Europe

14.30 Pavel Marek, Pardubice
La fazione spagnola nella corte imperiale? La nobiltà di Boemia al servizio del re cattolico
15.00 Petr Mat’a, Wien
The Court of Leopold I: national, strategic or familiar groups?
15.30 Elisabeth Zingerle, Wien
Tra l’arciduchessa madre e i gesuiti: gruppi di potere alla Corte Arciducale di Graz
16.00 Discussion
16.30 Coffee Break

III - Rome, Theatrum Mundi

17.00 Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Roma
Fazioni o partiti nella Curia del tardo Cinquecento
17.30 Silvano Giordano, Roma
Dinamiche e dialettica politica alla corte di Roma nella prima metà del Seicento
18.00 Discussion

Friday, 21 November, 9.00–13.15

IV - The other great European Courts: Paris, London, Istanbul

9.00 Frédérique Sicard, Caen
Continuity and Identity of the Parties at the Court of Paris around Queen Mary of Medici and Anne of Austria
9.30 Sara Wolfson, Canterbury
Factional Politics, Patronage and dynastic Interest; the Role of aristocratic Court Women at the Court of Charles I, 1626–1640
10.00 Evrim Türkçelik, Ankara
Between Realpolitik and factional Rivalries: Ottoman Policy-Making in the Early Modern Mediterranean
10.30 Discussion
10.50 Coffee Break

V - Factional struggles in the Small Italian Courts: Venice, Florence, Turin

11.10 Stefano Andretta, Roma
Giovani e vecchi: l’immagine fazionaria della Repubblica di Venezia
11.40 Paola Volpini, Roma
Granduchesse e segretari: fazioni alla Corte dei Medici e relazioni fra gli Stati al tempo della Reggenza
12.10 Toby Osborne, Durham
The Court of Savoy: Factions and Family Politics during the Thirty Years War
12.40 Discussion
13.00 Comments and conclusions

Dr. phil. Rubén González Cuerva
Via Aurelia Antica 391
00165 Roma
tel.: +39 06 6604921
fax: +39 06 6623838
e-mail: cuerva@dhi-roma.it