Improvisation and Communication in Material Diplomacy: The Circulation of Gifts between Venice and Cairo

• In Event: Negotiating the Levant

Abstract

This paper examines three examples of diplomatic gift exchange between Venice and Cairo between 1480 and 1517. Focusing on the physicality and ritual of the presents exchanged between Venetians and Mamluks in this period, it seeks to highlight the ways in which luxury commodities facilitated cross-cultural communication. Analysis of three ambassadorial missions reveals that conflict resolution involved carefully orchestrated material exchanges. Some of the most sensitive aspects of Renaissance diplomacy, the expression of ideas that could not be easily conveyed in words, found an outlet in ambivalent exchanges of material goods. Exchanges that participants could read in multiple ways helped Venetian and Mamluk leaders to heal rifts caused by ongoing political and commercial tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. Gift giving here functioned as a type of “expression game” in which players possessed the capacity to threaten their partner’s identity but were at the same time cognizant of one another’s interdependence.

Author

• Jesse J. Hysell, Syracuse University