Una finestra mediterranea sull’Europa: i «nordici» nella Livorno della prima età moderna

Livorno in the early modern period for commercial and economic reasons was the site of rich British and Dutch mercantile communities and was also one of the few Italian cities where, in the seventeenth century, Italians and Nordics came into direct contact. In the essay Villani examines how the “Nordics” lived in Livorno, going beyond mere mercantile relations and investigating, from the social and cultural point of view, what difficulties they experienced in that context, being communities so culturally and religiously distant from Italy. He also discusses how these foreigners were perceived by the Italians. If St. Petersburg was rightly called “the window through which Russia looks on Europe” (Francesco Algarotti), one can say that Leghorn in the seventeenth century was to some extent the Italian window on Northern Europe. Relying on his earlier research on the religious history of the mercantile communities of Livorno already published or submitted for publication, Villani attempts to capture the view that from that window that was launched on the north in the seventeenth century.