17th Century History

Lisbon, Cádiz and Seville are the three most prominent Atlantic port cities of
the Iberian Peninsula, dating back to ancient times. Olisippo and Gadir/Gades
had been major Phoenician port cities, which were later taken over by the ex-
panding Roman Empire. These cities were among the few Atlantic outposts of
ancient Mediterranean shipping, which only meagerly extended further south
along the African coast or north along the European coast. Hispalis, too, had
a Phoenician background and was also taken by Rome during the Punic Wars.
Although the Christian Reconquista had begun to gather momentum in
the 12th century with the capture of Lisbon (1147), it was the conquest of the
southern strongholds of Seville (1248) and Tarifa (1298) that made shipping
through the Straits of Gibraltar more secure. As a direct result, European ship-
ping began to connect the Mediterranean with the North Sea regions, benefit-
ing the coastal port cities of southern and western Iberia. By the 14th century,
the volume of bulk commodities being moved between these regions via mari-
time routes was probably 40 times larger than the volume transported on the
long-established transalpine land routes.1 Portugal’s coastal areas—hitherto
the poor and unsafe western periphery of Christian Europe—became a hub
for maritime trade. Portuguese shipping established the role of connecting the
Mediterranean with Northern European areas, aligned with the role played by
Dutch shipping in commerce between Western Europe and the North Sea and
Baltic region. Competing claims of the Iberian powers on newly discovered
lands and seas were settled with the Treaties of Alcáçovas (1479, allocating
Africa and the Atlantic south of Cabo Bojador to Portugal), Tordesillas (1494, of Lisbon, Seville allocating the Americas, even though hardly discovered, to Spain), and Zara-
goza (1529, allocating most of the Asian waters and lands to Portugal).2 All
other European sea powers were excluded from these vast spaces. This became
the underlying cause of military conflicts between the Catholic Iberian pow-
ers and northern (and increasingly Protestant) seafaring nations. Regardless of
clashes, Lisbon, Seville, and Cádiz, in particular, became Europe’s first major
ports to the New Worlds.

This chapter explores the world of the Gaelic professional hereditary medical families in the context of late 16th century Ireland. Using the Fiants of Elizabeth I to locate Gaelic surgeons and physicians, this chapter describes their relationship with their patrons both Gaelic and Anglo-Irish.

Em 1675 faleceu em Manila um português que era um dos mais abastados moradores dessa cidade. Fizera testamento a favor da Misericórdia de Coimbra, obrigando-a, entre outras aplicações, a fundar um colégio de meninas órfãs.
Procura-se aqui responder a este conjunto de questões: quem foi este homem; o que o levou a sair do seu país e a testar, várias décadas depois, a favor da Misericórdia de Coimbra; como se integrou e enriqueceu em Manila; como se processou a transferência da sua herança entre dois impérios (difícil, obrigando à intervenção, em Madrid, de Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo); como foi gerida essa herança; que obra permitiu concretizar em Coimbra.
Palavras-chave: Manuel Suarez de Olivera; Manila; império castelhano e português; transferência de bens e pessoas; Misericórdias; cristãos-novos; vila de Pereira; Gómez de Castillo; mundialização; mundialización.

“La extraordinaria fundación testamentaria hecha desde Manila a favor de la Misericordia de Coimbra por un acaudalado portugués al servicio de la monarquía hispánica después de la separación de ambas coronas, es todo un símbolo de la mundialización de los recursos y de las solidaridades”, Ofelia Rey Castelao, “Prólogo”, p. 10.

The study of the relations between the Italian princely courts and that of Bavaria during the Baroque period can make use of five collections of letters, mostly unpublished. They were sent by some aristocrats from Turin, Mantua and Florence, active in Munich or under arms on the Hungarian front under the elector Maximilian II Emanuel of Wittelsbach, to their governments at various times between 1676 and 1688. These letters, now in the state archives of Turin, Mantua and Florence, reveal hitherto unknown information on the ruling family of Bavaria and shed new light on the power dynamics at the top level of one of the most important German states. At the same time, they highlight some of the diplomatic strategies pursued by the Ducal dynasties of the Italian peninsula in the composite world of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The content of the letters also indicates the difficulties and problems encountered by the authors in adapting to a foreign land, partly due to the diversity of climate and customs, but also the prestige and the material advantages they might obtain from the interrelations between the société des princes and the international nobility. For example, whilst Giovanni Battista D’Oria di Ciriè was forced to return to Turin by lack of economic resources, Carlo Maria Vialardi’s successful negotiations in Munich on behalf of the duke of Mantua was rewarded by an official mission to Dresden, from where he sent dispatches that provide us with informations and suggestions for comparing the two electoral courts of Saxony and Bavaria.

RESUMEN El objetivo de este ensayo es explorar la historia de los misioneros y comerciantes portugueses en Japón desde una perspectiva tanto económica como política. Los eventos a comentar empiezan con las primeras exploraciones y asentamientos portugueses en las Indias Orientales para después cambiar al establecimiento de las primeras misiones en Japón y el comercio Nanban, concluyendo con la política de aislación. El texto pondrá especial empeño en subrayar las complejas relaciones entre el progreso de la empresa jesuita, el desarrollo político e institucional en el Japón del Sengoku y la evolución del comercio portugués. ABSTRACT The objective of essay is to explore the history of 16 th /17 th Century Portuguese missionaries and traders in Japan from a political as well as economic perspective. The events discussed will begin from the early Portuguese explorations and settlements in the East Indies, then shifting to the establishment of the first missions in Japan and the Nanban trade, concluding with the isolation policy. The text will put special effort in highlighting the complex relationships between the progress of the Jesuit enterprise, the political and institutional developments of Sengoku Japan and the evolution of Portuguese commerce.