Global Interests

In this groundbreaking, highly provocative examination of the Renaissance, Jerry Brotton and Lisa Jardine raise questions about the formation of cultural identity in Western Europe. Through an analysis of the circulation of art and luxury objects, the authors challenge the view that Renaissance culture defined itself in large part against an exotic, dangerous, always marginal East. Featuring more than seventy illustrations, including many in color and some published for the first time, their book provides fascinating insights into the works of Pisanello, Leonardo, Dürer, Holbein, and Titian. Global Interests explores the trade in portrait medals, tapestries, and equestrian art, all items that Brotton and Jardine demonstrate were markers of power and influence in both the West and the East. The authors reveal that this trade represented a remarkably equal exchange between Renaissance Europe and the Ottoman East. Their findings lead them to argue that the East, and in particular the Ottoman Empire of Mehmet the Conqueror and Suleiman the Magnificent, was not the antithetical "other" to the emergence of a Western European identity in the sixteenth century. Instead, Paris, Venice, and London were linked with Istanbul and the East through networks of shared political and commercial interests. By showing that the traditional view of Renaissance culture is misleading, the authors offer a more truly global understanding of historical experience.

"A fascinating, highly readable yet nuanced cultural history in which a range of artistic objects, both well known and less familiar, are central to the authors' exploration of cultural identity."—Choice, March 2001, "The book is fresh, entertaining and finely presented."—Economist. September, 2000, "As Jardine and Brotton themselves write in their introduction, their book is but the tip of a very large iceberg. Part of its fascination will reside in the discovery of all that its lessons, all that the new mentalities it recommends, might reach. In the end, to expand our sense of the interests that were global can only add to the force of the authors' thesis, and recommend their challenge to a wide audience."—Michael Cole, Univesity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall 2001, "Global Interests. . . is highly recommended to anyone interested in Reanaissance painting and drawing, tapestry and sculpture, and all fine and decorative arts."—Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, Vol. LXIII, No. 2, 2001, "Recommended. . . ."—James Malpas, Sotheby's Institute. The Art Newspaper. October, 2000.

The late Lisa Jardine was Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Her many books include Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution and Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance. Jerry Brotton is Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Studies, Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World, also from Cornell, and The Renaissance Bazaar.