Diplomatie als Familiengeschäft. Die Casati als spanisch-mailändische Gesandte in Luzern und Chur (1660–1700)

Andreas Behr

Diplomacy as a family business. The Casatis as Spanish-Milanese envoys in Lucerne and Chur (1660-1700) The astonishing family career of the Casatis contradicts widespread impressions of early modern diplomacy. This monograph explains how a Spanish-Milanese diplomatic dynasty shrewdly managed, using a highly complex network of confessional, social and cultural connections, to concentrate and deploy its resources upon key actors, and put itself beyond competition from potential challengers. “Other than following God and their own self-interest, this people knows no further impulse,” was the devastating judgment of Alfonso Casati in 1674 concerning the Swiss Confederates. The diplomats nonetheless had to accommodate the needs of these local hosts, or lose their trust and that of their royal employer, the Spanish king. In order to fulfill the demands placed upon him as a diplomat,...