HCMH’s post-doctoral fellow and research fellow, Dr. Umberto Signori, will be giving a talk at “The Making and Unmaking of Identities in the Early Modern Mediterranean” Workshop co-organized by the EUI’s Department of History and Civilisation with the support of the EUI Decentering Eurocentrism Interdisciplinary Research Cluster and the Max Weber Programme.

Title: “The Life and Stories of Francesco Luppazzoli: An Italian Catholic in the Ottoman Mediterranean During the Early Modern Period”.

Umberto’s lecture will take place on Friday, 13 May 2022, at 13:30 – 15:00 (Italy local time).

All participants (also presenters and chairs) are kindly asked to register for the zoom link at:
The Making and Unmaking of Identities in the Early Modern Mediterranean • European University Institute (eui.eu)

Abstract:
This paper lays out a framework for rethinking how historians should use a life such as that of Luppazzoli. It explores how the different sources, from his own writings to the various ways he was represented, make sense only when reflecting on the European audience they address. In other words, this paper argues that European readers participated in the identity storytelling of Eastern Mediterranean people and could therefore shape the experience of identification far beyond their own borders. But alongside this, analysis of Luppazzoli’s correspondence reveals a distinct way in which he understood his own identity. Therefore, it contends that the act of writing offered a chance for Luppazzoli to claim his belonging, a bond that took into account as much the European world he addressed as the Ottoman world in which he found himself.