Genoa, Venice, and their colonies compared, 13th to 16th century. People, Power, and Art

Comparisons between Genoa and Venice have been drawn primarily from the perspective of the discipline of history, if at all. Both similarities and differences have been noted, but it has also been questioned whether a comparative approach is useful at all, describing the two sea powers as „incomparable”.

However, this is not true for the way in which Genoa and Venice established their respective systems of colonies along the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea: here, significant analogies in practices and solutions have been suggested. And yet, one can rightly ask why the „colonial systems”, and architectural and artistic features of their colonies were so different in so many respects. This conference aims to re-evaluate a comparative approach and to explicitly broaden the horizon by considering the material and visual cultures of both the cities themselves and their colonies.

By doing so, archival work, epigraphic studies, art history and archaeology, grounded in both local examples and trans-regional field studies, will be brought together. Furthermore, concepts and terms related to research on the phenomenon of colonies will be scrutinized so as to come to a discussion more reflective as concerns terminology. It is hoped that the comparative perspective will prove especially fruitful regarding this aspect.

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 Schedule

 Conference details

Julian Gardner, The Projection of Power in two thirteenth-century Italian Maritime Republics

Venue: Room of Virtues, The Bishop Erazm Ciołek Palace (first floor), branch of the National Museum in Kraków (17 Kanonicza Street)

 

9.00     Welcome Address

Andrzej Szczerski, director of the National Museum in Kraków and Stanisław Sroka, Dean of the Faculty of History of the Jagiellonian University

Introduction Rebecca Müller/Rafał Quirini-Popławski

 

I Deux styles, une réussite? Chair: Rebecca Müller, Heidelberg

9.30     Fiscalità, credito e guerra navale. Genova e Venezia: stati fiscali-militari?

Antonio Musarra, Rome

 

II Relations in comparison

10.15   Framing Commerce between Empire, Crusade and Law Merchant: Venice, Genoa and the Mamluks in the 14th Century

Georg Christ, Manchester

 

Chair: Mateusz Grzęda, Kraków

11.30   Asymmetrical Reactions. Venice and Genoa facing the crisis of the Golden Horde: 1343-1475

Lorenzo Pubblici, Naples

 

12.15   Constructed Communities in the West: Genoese and Venetians in the Iberian Realms Nikolas Jaspert, Heidelberg

 

III Urbanism and Architecture Chair: Mirosław Piotr Kruk, Gdańsk/Kraków

14.30    I quartieri dei Genovesi e dei Veneziani nelle città del Mediterraneo: ricezione e diffusione dei modelli architettonici ed urbanistici tra l’Oltremare e la Madrepatria

Alireza Naser Eslami, Genoa

 

15.15   Da Costantinopoli a Istanbul gli insediamenti dei Veneziani e dei Genovesi: uno sguardo comparativo sul contesto urbanistico

Aygül Ağır, Istanbul [via Zoom]

 

18.30 Evening lecture

Venue: Lanckoroński Room (no 39), Collegium Iuridicum (first floor), Department of the History of Art of the Jagiellonian University (53 Grodzka Street)

 

Welcome Address by Marek Walczak, Director of the Department of the History of Art of the Jagiellonian University

 

IV Art and Power Chair: Rafał Quirini-Popławski, Kraków

The Projection of Power in two thirteenth-century Italian Maritime Republics

Julian Gardner, Warwick

 

 

9.30     Art in Time and Space. Materials in Genoa and Venice and their origin

Rebecca Müller, Heidelberg

 

10.15    Painting in the Greek Way: Genoese and Venetian Perspectives

Michele Bacci, Freiburg

 

                                              

11.30   Genoa, Venice, and Yuan China: Art beyond the Colonies

Romedio Schmitz-Esser, Heidelberg

 

12.15 Final discussion

13.00 Break