'New governing institutions made the early modern centuries an age of secretaries and ministers as well as rulers. This impressive, wide-ranging and notably well edited collection of essays by leading specialists, rescues this key development from previous neglect and will be essential reading for anyone who teaches or studies this period.'
Hamish Scott, University of Glasgow
An illuminating exploration of the role played by state secretaries in shaping inter-state relations in early modern Eurasia
The early modern period has long been seen as an age of great importance in the development of foreign relations. The rise of resident embassies, the development of institutions dedicated to diplomatic activity, and the growth of state bureaucracies were all components in the rise of recognisably modern diplomacy. This was an 'age of secretaries' that assigned important roles in the diplomatic process to a variety of state secretaries, chancellors and ministers. Bringing together case studies drawn from across Europe and Asia, and written by leading scholars in their fields, this collection offers a novel and genuinely trans-regional take on the emergence of modern inter-state relations.
Paul Dover is Associate Professor of History at Kennesaw State University, GA, USA. He has published widely on the political, diplomatic and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe.
Cover image: Ludovico Gonzaga and counselor Marsilio Andreasi, detail from Court Wall by Andrea Mantegna, fresco, San Giorgio Castle, Wedding Chamber or Camera Picta, Mantua, 1465-74, © DEA/M. Carrieri/Getty Images.
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ISBN 978-1-4744-0223-1
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Paul Dover is Associate Professor of History at Kennesaw State University. He has published widely on the political, diplomatic and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe.

About the Contributors

1. Introduction: the Age of Secretaries
Paul M. Dover

2. Records, Politics and Diplomacy: Secretaries and Chanceries in Renaissance Italy (1350-1520 ca.)
Isabella Lazzarini

3. Mercurino di Gattinara (1465-1530): Imperial Chancellor, Strategist of Empire
Rebecca Ard Boone

4. 'This continuous writing': the Paper Chancellery of Berhard Cles,
Megan K. Williams

5. Parables and Dark Sentences: the Correspondence of Sir William Cecil and William Maitland, 1559-1573
Rayne Allinson

5. Axel Oxenstierna and Swedish Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century
Erik Thomson

6. Statecraft and the Role of the Diplomat in Ducal Savoy: the Career of Alessandro Scaglia (1592-1641)
Toby Osborne

7. Richelieu, Mazarin and Italy, 1635-1659: Statesmanship in Context
David Parrott

8. The Learned Ideal of the Mughal Wazir: the Life and Intellectual World of Prime Minister Afzal Khan Shirazi (d. 1639)
Raveev Kinra

9. Reconsidering State and Constituency in Seventeenth-Century Safavid Iran: the Wax and Wane of the Munshi
Colin Mitchell

10. Choreographers of Power: Grigorii Kotoshikhin, State Secretaries, and the Muscovite Royal Wedding Ritual
Russell E. Martin

11. Eberhard von Danckelman and Brandenburg's Foreign Policy, 1699-1697
Daniel Riches

12. Chancellor of State: Prince Wenzel Anton Kaunitz, the Habsburg Foreign Office and Foreign Policy in the Era of Enlightened Absolutism
Franz A.J. Szabo

Index