Transalpine Travellers and Friendly Affairs: Alba Amicorum in Early Modern Italy, ca. 1550-1700

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My project offers the first investigation of the presence of Northern-European alba amicorum in earlymodern Italy, mapping networks of travellers, artists, and artisans in the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies. This highly interdisciplinary study, combining approaches from book-, art-, and cultural historyas well as early modern mobility studies, demonstrates how alba both facilitated and reflected atransregional expansion of social networks. Widening the geographical scope of existing scholarship, myresearch will illuminate the yet-unexplored Italian response to this foreign market demand.Alba amicorum were notebooks used to collect dedications (e.g. illustrations, mottoes, heraldic crests)from friends, acquaintances, and notable figures. While particularly popular among Northern-Europeanstudents, alba often travelled across Europe through private and academic tours, thus witnessing variouslocalities and cultures. As many alba show, travels to Italy were especially common. However, theevidence of Italy in northern alba contrasts with the lack of popularity enjoyed by the practice in thepeninsula itself. My project is the first to review this disparity and explore the interactions that followedfrom the foreign use of alba in Italy. Expanding current scholarship, which focuses on the genre in itsGerman and Netherlandish contexts and so has overlooked the prevalence of Italian contributions, thisproject will answer the question: to what extent and in what manner were Northern-European albaamicorum used and produced in early modern Italy?Though Nevinson and Welch have suggested that album illustrations were acquired in Italian shops andmarkets 'just as one might buy a set of coloured postcards' (Nevinson 1979: 169), serving as 'evidencethat the album's owner had been to Italy' (Welch 2005: 59), the production and collection of theseimages have never been studied in depth. Furthermore, since the genre's 'most important characteristicis that it records encounters and the networks behind those encounters' (Reinders 2016: 150), trackingthese networks and reconstructing the hubs and structures behind album production in Italy will pioneera significantly better understanding of the genre. Moreover, by investigating the role of women, I buildon, and expand, Reinders' previous research.I have already identified over 80 relevant alba in international libraries, archives, and museums (mostnotably the British Library (London, M4C partner), Koninklijke Bibliotheek (The Hague), and HerzoginAnna Amalia Bibliothek (Weimar)). I shall bolster my analyses with complementary primary sources (e.g.travel accounts, shop/workshop inventories, university matriculation lists). Upon completion, I aspire topresent my findings to a larger public in a physical and/or digital exhibition. In sum, by exploring thepresence of Italy within alba amicorum and the presence of alba in Italy, this project addresses aconsiderable gap in current literature. Overall, connecting this tradition to today's social media, this PhDexplores how and why we construct, share, and remember social networks.