Archipelagic Italian Encounters

Archipelagic Italian Encounters: Travel, Translation, and Community reframes Anglo-Italian Renaissance studies by expanding beyond England's borders to embrace the interconnected cultures of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Moving past London-centric narratives, this collection of essays challenges traditional frameworks by introducing a diverse cast of writers, travelers, and soldiers—from familiar figures like Thomas Coryate and Gabriel Harvey to lesser-known voices such as Henry Iden, William Fowler, Petruccio Ubaldini, and Tadhg Ó Cianáin—who drew on Italian cultural capital to forge new identities and experiences. The volume reconceptualizes the spatial and geopolitical dynamics of Renaissance exchange, exploring not only travel and translation but also English routes to classical literature via Italian texts, Italian involvement in English colonial administration in Ireland, the Italian-Scottish diplomatic axis, and the cultural geography of diasporic Italian communities across Britain and Ireland, and vice versa.

By adopting archipelagic and global approaches, it dismantles the Anglo-centrism of traditional Renaissance studies and models a richer, more inclusive critical framework that reflects the period's complex networks of mobility, influence, and community.