IRAN AND THE WORLD IN THE SAFAVID AGE
Abstracts

Rota, Dr. Giorgio, Università degli Studi di Venezia "Ca' Foscari", Dipartimento di Studi Eurasiatici, Venice, Safavid Persia and its Diplomatic Relations with Venice

The paper examines the history and development of Safavid-Venetian diplomatic relations.  These relations can be roughly divided into two phases, corresponding to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (no envoys seem to be recorded for the last two decades of Safavid history).  During the first phase, each of the two states still saw the other as a viable military partner in an anti-Ottoman alliance.  The setting up of such an alliance was then the main aim of most of the embassies and missions exchanged during the years 1500-1600 (if not of all of them).  During the second phase (1600-1700), both Persia and Venice changed their attitude towards their diplomatic relations.  In the first part of the century, Persia was mainly interested in trade.  Therefore, Safavid envoys were (particularly in Shah Abbas I's reign) traders carrying with them royal letters addressed to the Venetian Doge.  At a later stage, especially after the Peace of Zohab (1639), Persia became less interested in maintaining its contacts with Venice and traders were replaced by missionaries or returning foreign envoys.  As for Venice, the Republic seems to have lost most of its interest in Safavid Persia.  Letters to the Shah were usually entrusted to the same Persian merchants who had previously visited Venice.  The only partial exception was the mission of Alvise Sagredo, seemingly aimed at establishing a Venetian trade factory in Persia.  However, he failed to reach Persia and was obliged to return to Venice, so the project came to nothing.  The War of Candia and, to a lesser extent, the War of the Holy League, marked an increased diplomatic effort on the part of Venice: once again, the aim was to build up a military alliance against the Ottomans.  However, these missions were not purely Venetian initiatives but were organised in conjunction with other European states.  Since Persian-Venetian relations in the sixteenth century are relatively better known, the focus will mainly be upon the seventeenth century.  After a brief introduction dealing with the whole history of these relations, I will take into account single embassies in order to highlight specific issues and themes.  The embassies in question will be those of Hakob Margarian (1597), Xwaje Safar (1610), Alvise Sagredo (1629), Ali Bali (1634) and Domenico de Santis (1646).

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