Presented by Dr. Negar Rokhgar

Following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the Republic of Venice was the first European power to pursue a military alliance with the Aq Quyunlu king of Persia against the Ottomans. This late Quattrocento negotiation set the stage for continued alliances brokered throughout subsequent centuries with the Safavid Shahs of Persia. Enduring connections between the two courts resulted in complex diplomatic exchanges fostered through the establishment of reciprocal embassies and gift exchanges. This talk presents a series of objects and visual records associated with the Persian and Venetian missions. These previously overlooked sources go beyond the archival records to add new dimensions to our understanding of relations between the two empires by analyzing how the objects functioned as modes of communication integral to solidifying new forms of cross-cultural relationships in the early modern period.

Negar Rokhgar earned her PhD (2020) in Art History under the supervision of Prof. Sarah Blake McHam at Rutgers University. She is specialized on the material and cultural exchanges between early modern Italy and the Islamic empires of the period. Negar was a Samuel H. Kress fellow of the Medici Archive Project in fall 2018 and has done extensive archival investigation in Florence, Rome and Venice for her project titled “The Overtures of a Muslim Ally: Diplomatic Gifts from Persia to Italy (1453-1630).” She is presenting parts of her work in the upcoming talk on May 20, 2021.

*Offered exclusively to current Save Venice Members.