Robert Finlay – författare

Illuminating one thousand years of history, "The Pilgrim Art" explores the remarkable cultural influence of Chinese porcelain around the globe. Cobalt ore was shipped from Persia to China in the fourteenth century, where it was used to decorate porcelain for Muslims in Southeast Asia, India, Persia, and Iraq. Spanish galleons delivered porcelain to Peru and Mexico while aristocrats in Europe ordered tableware from Canton. The book tells the fascinating story of how porcelain became a vehicle for the transmission and assimilation of artistic symbols, themes, and designs across vast distances - from Japan and Java to Egypt and England. It not only illustrates how porcelain influenced local artistic traditions, but also shows how it became deeply intertwined with religion, economics, politics, and social identity. Bringing together many strands of history in an engaging narrative studded with fascinating vignettes, this is a history of cross-cultural exchange focused on an exceptional commodity that illuminates the emergence of what is arguably the first genuinely global culture.

The Republic of Venice experienced relentless crisis in the early sixteenth century-political, military, ideological, and commercial. Focusing on Venice's involvement in the Italian Wars, these essays examine various episodes and dimensions of that time of troubles. These include the impact of apocalyptic speculation on political action, the driving force behind the creation of the Ghetto, the Venetian contribution to the infamous Sack of Rome, links between the spice trade and military disaster, the significance of old age in the ruling class, the role of the family in patrician politics, and the Republic's attempt to preserve itself in the great struggle between the Ottoman Turks and the Spanish-Habsburg Empire. A unifying theme of the essays is the contrast between the exalted reputation of the Republic (as seen in the famed "myth of Venice") and the tangled reality of Venetian politics and diplomacy.