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Three Alba Amicorum from the Habsburg Netherlands
Editors
Title / Series / Name
Early Modern Low Countries
Publication Volume
6
Publication Issue
1
Pages
Authors
Editors
Keywords
Habsburg Netherlands
Ottoman diplomacy
Trans-imperial objects
Costume books
Album amicorum
Ottoman diplomacy
Trans-imperial objects
Costume books
Album amicorum
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/14104
Abstract
This article uses the alba collected by three travellers from the Habsburg Netherlands to Constantinople in the 1570s and 1580s to explore the purposes of collecting and what they reveal about being part of an integrated imperial mission that represented Habsburg territory abroad. The first album was gathered by the imperial ambassador’s physician Arnold Manlius between May 1571 and November 1574. Manlius’s humanist project is filled with over ninety signatures from his fellow housemates and local notables, accompanied by explanatory annotations in Latin. The article contrasts this large collection with the alba of Lambert Wijts of Mechlin and Johann Huenich of Antwerp, both of whom spent two months in Constantinople as members of tribute-carrying delegations. Wijts (who was in Constantinople between July and August 1572) and Huenich (January through March 1586) gathered eclectic collections of signatures alongside sets of costume album images. Taken together, the three alba reveal a range of collecting practices and purposes – intellectual, documentary, and personal – of men from the Southern Low Countries working in the service of Habsburg emperors in Ottoman Constantinople.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2022
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.51750/emlc12173