Politics and Culture in 18th-Century Anglo-Italian Encounters : Entangled Histories

This collection addresses Anglo-Italian mutual influences, correspondences and relationships through the lens of an expansive notion of eighteenth-century Political History, explored in its fecund dialogue with Cultural History. Its interdisciplinary approach is meant to flesh out the idea of the Enlightenment community of people linking and sharing different forms and structures of knowledge into a comprehensive picture of the Age of Reason. The book provides an opportunity to probe into fields of great relevance for the cultural interpretation of historical experience and composes a lively and as yet unexplored map of a multifaceted and interconnected European world. Anglo-Italian encounters are analyzed primarily through the interweaving of political and cultural history, adding to contemporary insight into the cosmopolitan nature of Enlightenment Europe. The essays range in scope from public economy and international trade to finance, moral philosophy, the ethics and politics of translation, travel, the cosmopolitan impact of Italian music and taste, and the art of gardening.