Book chapter
Каким московские послы увидели двор Максимилиана I в 1517 г., да и увидели ли они его?
The author compares the final report of ambassodors of the Grand Duke of Moscow after their mission in Innsbrick in 1518 with contemporary accounts concerning the same embassy survived in Austrian archives.
In book
The first detailed analysis of court orders of the principality of Tirol in the 15th century, as well as the court itself as reflected in this specific sort of sources.
One of the first more or less extensive Russian official accounts, describing Muscovite embassies to European courts, depicts the mission of Vladimir Plemiannikov and Istoma Maloy to Emperor Maximilian I in 1517. Its reliability can now be examined anew due to several documents recently found (or reassessed) in state archives in Moscow and Innsbruck. This documentary evidence reveals the official report of the ambassadors to be not ingenuous and complete description of all relevant events (as it presents itself on the first glance) but rather a sophisticated construct. The authors' specific narrative strategy was based on selectivity of their account (where dubious episodes were omitted) and accentuation of those sides of their activity, that could show them in the most favourable light (as most devoted and skilful servants) in the eyes of the Grand Duke and his counsellors.
The series of studies collected in theis book represent different approaches of their authors to the problem of privat life in the past.
In course of analysing the text of a new founded order (Hofordnung) of the "female part" of the Tirolean court in the 15th century, the author asks for patterns, that determined social vision of those courtiers and counsilors, who compiled such orders.
The paper examines different attempts to define philosophy as a discipline in Spain between 1557 and 1627 and thus fills a gap in scholarship on early modern philosophy, in which an analysis of how the early moderns defined philosophy as a discipline is by and large lacking. In the sources under examination, three main strategies for defining philosophy can be distinguished: an analysis of the meaning of ’philosophy’, leading to reflections on the complicated relation between philosophy and wisdom, or an analysis of the end of philosophy, evoking debates on the relevance of practical philosophy and the good life, or an analysis of ’philosophical objects’, discussing the question whether philosophy is a ’science of everything’ and whether it can be scientific at all.
The paper demonstrates that early modern Spanish Aristotelians were united by a common methodology and shared questions rather than by a unified body of doctrine. And it shows that attempts to define philosophy had largely didactic relevance and should not be misunderstood as ’metaphilosophical’ in the contemporary sense of the word.
The anthology provides a very first overview of the history of the Innsbruck Court from the 15th century to the end of the Ancien Régime, thus meeting a substantial research desideratum. It is the result of a colloquium that took place on 6 and 7 June 2002 in Innsbruck, organised by the Historic Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Institute for History at Innsbruck University. No fewer than 13 authors from England, the Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, Germany and Austria analysed the functions, change and appearance of what was largely a residential court that has also had a lasting influence on the visual appearance of the city.
The first section analyses standards and representation, the second deals with the festivities at court and forms of symbioses of court and city, a third section examines the role and cultural transfer functions of women at court and a final chapter gives thought to questions of regional integration. The contributions give, for the first time, a greater preciseness to what was known of the Innsbruck court. In particular, it has made it possible to better determine the position of Tyrolean court society as a mediator and, the old topic of the city of Innsbruck as a conveyer of culture and as a transit station on the way to Italy, particularly during the Renaissance, was able to be identified more precisely. The Innsbruck court acted as a significant link in the intra- and inter-dynastic exchange of pre-modern Europe.