The importance of ritual and symbolic use of material culture in diplomatic practices is increasingly recognized by scholars. The study of objects could allow us to understand the role of material culture in political and cultural self-representation and the ways material goods shaped political exchanges. The paper aims to examine the place and importance of precious objects in gift exchanges between the Safavids and Venetians, looking at specific types of gifts given such as textiles and carpets. How various luxury items from the Safavid rulers were viewed and conceived in the court of Venice? Whether did these gifts contribute to the understanding of the Venetian perception of Safavid material culture and vice versa in the 16th and 17th centuries? Furthermore, we analyze the transcultural shift in meaning of textile gifts as a diplomatic gift. What kinds of textiles had a particular significance? Whether these textile gifts were gender specific?
Economic character of gift-exchanges has been emphasized in recent studies. Silk textiles constituted the greatest part of the gifts that the Safavid embassies brought to Venice during the first part of the 17th century. The paper further explores the relationship between diplomatic gifts and economic exchange through looking at the use of Persian silk in gift exchanges from the Safavid court to Venice. How did these gift exchanges influence the silk production and exports in the Safavid Empire, fostered circulation of silk and contributed to its economic and political importance?
The “re-gifting” of works of art and luxury objects across physical and cultural boundaries was a common practice in late medieval and early modern periods. Re-gifting of Venetian commodities by the Safavid embassies to the Russian court in 1593 and to the Mughal court in 1616 were recorded in the contemporary historical sources. However, the ‘re-gifting’ phenomenon in Venetian-Safavid gift exchanges and the role of the Safavids in circulation of Venetian objects has been largely understudied. Research attempts to address the following questions: What were the motivations for re-gifting behavior and what luxury items were mostly re-gifted by the Safavids?
