Project publications

The article titled "Venice’s ceremonial treatment of the Ottoman and Safavid envoys in comparative perspective” was published by the peer-reviewed "Journal of The Center for Ottoman Studies Ankara University” (OTAM) in vol. 48 (2020). https://dspace.ankara.edu.tr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.12575/72739/5-Ahmad%20Guliyev.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Taking a comparative perspective and drawing on the documents from the Venetian State Archives, the paper aims to examine a ceremonial treatment of the Ottoman and Safavid diplomats in Venice. It suggests that the degree of Venetian hospitality was subject to changes and varied in accordance with the importance of the incoming mission and the overall nature of its relations with the Ottomans and Safavids. The article demonstrates that, in its treatment of the Safavid envoys, the Venetian government pursued a cautious policy and tried not to antagonize the Ottomans. Furthermore, the Ottoman factor had an enduring impact both on nature and on the dynamics of the Safavid-Venetian relations.

The article titled “From the Doge to the Shah: Venetian Diplomatic Gifts for the Safavid Empire” was accepted by the peer-reviewed journal Revista Istorică of the ”Nicolae Iorga” History Institute (Bucharest, Romania) and will appear in the vol. XXI, issue 3-4 (2020). The paper focuses on Venetian gift-giving to the Safavid court during the first third of the eighteenth century, types of gifts the Venetians sent to the Safavid shahs, institutional aspect of the Venetian gift-giving, and comparative analysis of the Venetian return gifts to the particular Safavid and Ottoman envoys and members of their retinues. The article demonstrates that the Venetian government applied the concept of reciprocity in calculating return gifts to the Safavid court. The Venetian government put more emphasis on the artistic value and the quality of diplomatic gifts than the quantity.