Cultures of Exchange examines the mercantile culture of the Italian peninsula, whose wealth and geographic location made it a focal point of cultural exchange in the Mediterranean. The volume explores the integration of the peninsula into international and global networks, the effect on societal structures and attitudes, and the role in the transfer and reception of knowledge, goods, and peoples. Susanna Barsella, William Caferro, and Germano Maifreda bring together the work of an array of scholars – literary critics, art historians, numismatists, and historians – using diverse methodologies that provide a genuinely interdisciplinary discussion of a field that is still in its elemental stages. The chapters in the volume deal with interrelated issues from diverse perspectives, questioning whether cultural exchange also involved cultural appropriation, while interrogating the political, economic, social, religious, material, artistic, gendered, and racial aspects of exchange. Essays on cartography offer a strong visual component to the book, and the use of digital humanities adds to the methodological sophistication in assessing primary source materials. Bringing into conversation the work of a broad range of scholars, Cultures of Exchange is written with accessibility and readability in mind and is a major intervention in the growing field of Mediterranean Studies.
