Singing Nuns and Soft Power
British Diplomats as Music Tourists in Seicento Venice
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4313508 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alana Mailes (0000-0003-3644-0799, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 330 |
| Publication date | 2022-04-06 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel13040330 |
| OpenAlex | W4224285976 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 21 |
Historians of early modern statecraft and confessional politics have traditionally treated the arts as peripheral to the more official bureaucratic concerns of government agents. Meanwhile, musicological scholarship rarely centers the experiences and exploits of politicians who participated in early modern musical events. This case study on British envoys to Venice in the early Stuart period illustrates how musical activity and political work were, in fact, thoroughly imbricated within the daily mechanics of cross-confessional ambassadorship. Drawing on seventeenth-century diplomatic sources, I detail how both English and Northern Italian politicians made strategic use of sacred music-making-particularly vocal performance in local nunneries-to influence their dealings with foreign states, as well as how English diplomats in the Italian peninsula surveilled Catholic musical devotions in their covert correspondences to communicate information about international affairs. In revealing these moments of interconnection between music, religion, and geopolitics, I seek to further recent efforts in the New Diplomatic History to highlight the contributions of women and artistic practice within histories of international relations
Aesthetics · Art · Confessional · Geopolitics · Literature · Media studies · Musical · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Early Modern Women Writers · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · History · Law · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
Monteverdi [Monteverde], Claudio
The Oxford Handbook of Timbre
Holy Concord Within Sacred Walls
Celestial Sirens
Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500
The First Carlisle Sir James Hay, First Earl of Carlisle as Courtier, Diplomat and Entrepreneur, 1580-1636
International Relations, Music and Diplomacy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |