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 policy was made in Early Modern Europe and how informal groups shaped the birth and development of diplomacy.

Wednesday, 19 November

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

Thursday, 20 November

9.30 Alexander Koller (Roma): Saluto

9.40 Alexander Koller – Rubén González Cuerva (Roma): Introduction / Introduzione

Section 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

Section 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

15.40 Coffee Break

Section 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

Section 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

Section 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

Kontakt:
Rubén González Cuerva, Alexander Koller
Via Aurelia Antica, 391
00165 Roma
+39 06 66049261
cuerva at dhi-roma.it, koller at dhi-roma.it