The Republic of Letters and the Levant

Bart Westerweel Alastair Hamilton

The eleven articles in this book seek to document the interest in the Levant that prevailed in the Republic of Letters from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century. The emphasis is on those collectors of manuscripts and antiquaries who either travelled in the Middle East (the Vecchietti brothers, John Greaves and Patrick Russell) or who, remaining in Europe, acted through agents and correspondents - scholars like Peiresc, John Selden and Robert Boyle. But themes such as the discussion prompted by European translations of the Quran and by scholarly enterprises in the East (like the Mutaferrika printing press in Istanbul) also come to the fore in a volume which contributes to the history of oriental studies in early modern Europe.

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