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Between 1450 and 1550, a remarkable century of intellectual exchange developed across the Eastern Mediterranean. As Renaissance Europe depended on knowledge from the Ottoman Empire, and the courts of Mehmed the Conqueror and Bayezid II greatly benefitted from knowledge coming out of Europe, merchants of knowledge—multilingual and transregional Jewish scholars—became an important bridge among the powers.
With this book, Robert Morrison is the first to track the network of scholars who mediated exchanges in astronomy, astrology, Qabbalah, and philosophy. Their books, manuscripts, and acts of translation all held economic value, thus commercial and intellectual exchange commingled—knowledge became transactional as these merchants exchanged texts for more intellectual material and social capital. While parallels between medieval Islamic astronomy and the famous heliocentric arrangement posited by Copernicus are already known, Morrison reveals far deeper networks of intellectual exchange that extended well beyond theoretical astronomy and shows how religion, science, and philosophy, areas that will eventually develop into separate fields, were once interwoven. The Renaissance portrayed in Merchants of Knowledge is not, from the perspective of the Ottoman Muslim contacts of the Jewish merchants of knowledge, hegemonic. It's a Renaissance permeated by diversity, the cultural and political implications of which the West is only now waking up to.
"Robert Morrison displays a virtuosity and mastery of Renaissance-era debates and substantially shifts how we narrate the mobility of knowledge between 'East' and 'West.' An extremely important book of impressive intellectual breadth." —Harun Küçük, University of Pennsylvania
"A groundbreaking study of intellectual exchange in the early modern Mediterranean. Masterfully weaving together stories of Jewish scholars and their commercial and intellectual connections across the Ottoman Empire, Crete, and the Veneto, Robert Morrison revolutionizes our understanding of the making of the European Renaissance." —Nükhet Varlık, Rutgers University
"Robert Morrison revolutionizes the study of the origins of the Renaissance, tracking a transregional network of Jewish scholars who engaged in commerce bridging the ottoman empire, Crete, particularly Candia and the Veneto, between 1450 to 1550." —Harvey Sukenic, Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews
"Morrison's Merchants of Knowledge stands as a significant contribution to the history of science, especially to the study of intellectual exchange between Europe and the Ottoman Empire and to Jewish Studies, and deserves, as a result, a place on the reading lists of university programs in these fields. By highlighting the role of Jewish mediators—the merchants of knowledge—Morrison presents a persuasive narrative that uncovers a missing link in the multidirectional chain of transmission between the Islamic world and Renaissance Europe." —Mai Lootah, Nazariyat
"Merchants of Knowledge contributes to the study of intellectual exchange across the early modern eastern Mediterranean. Morrison's achievement is not simply to show that knowledge originating in Islamic societies contributed to Renaissance Europe, but to reconstruct the people and relationships through which knowledge became mobile, treating those intermediaries as intellectual actors in their own right." —Middle East Librarians Association
"Robert Morrison's outstanding book is a must-read not only for historians of Jewish intellectual history and specialists on the Renaissance and the Ottoman Empire, but also for scholars working in connected and global histories, the history of science, and the history of philosophy." —Samet Budak, Medieval Encounters
"Morrison's Merchants of Knowledge is a must-read for any historian of the early modern period, regardless of geographical or research specialization. It addresses multiple fields of historical research, including the history of science, intellectual history, Ottoman history, early modern Europe, Mediterranean history, and Jewish history. To scholars working in these fields of study, Merchants of Knowledge offers a compelling case for the interconnectedness of geographically, culturally, and religiously distinct regions and groups—a dynamic that profoundly shaped global scientific and intellectual movements, such as the Renaissance." —Tommaso Stefini, Review of Middle East Studies
"In this important and absolutely wonderful book, Robert Morrison offers a new reading of the intellectual entanglements between Renaissance Italy and the Ottoman Empire." —Richard Calis, American Historical Review
Preface
Map of the Eastern Mediterranean ca. 1500 CE
Introduction
1. The Network of Merchant-Scholar Families of Candia
2. Astrology, a Shared Hermeneutic
3. Transactions of Astronomical Tables and Instruments
4. Aristotelianism across Borders
5. Aristotelianism and Qabbalah
6. Theoretical Astronomy between Renaissance Italy and the Ottoman Empire
7. Tricks of the Trade in Mechanics and Medicine
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index