The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America

Mercedes García-Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano have participated in the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, a panel organized by Alexander Bevilacqua (Harvard University) and Helen Pfeifer (University of Cambridge): Manuscripts in Motion in the Early Modern Mediterranean I, with Adam G. Beaver (Princeton University) as a chair. Their presentation has the title of Arabic Manuscripts and Converted Muslims: Between Spain and Rome.

Abstract: The history of the circulation of Arab books in Spain during in the Early Modern era lies at the intersection of various different interests: the integration of the Muslim and Arab past of the Iberian Peninsula into a coherent historical narrative; the process of confessionalization in relation to the converso population; the relation of Spanish orientalism to that of Europe, strongly mediated by Counter-Reformation logic. Because of this Arab books are an object of a profound redefinition that can be traced from the hidden manuscripts of the Moriscos to the translation of works with historical or polemical objectives. In this case, we will study Spanish Arab manuscripts that can be found in Rome, in the Vatican and Angelica libraries, to illustrate the cultural uses of those works and also illustrate aspects such as the uses of Arabic Christianity or the religious and cultural tension between the Roman and Spanish worlds.