DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-1117-8.10 ISSN: 2704-6362

Francesco Gonzaga, Ṭaghrī Birdī, and the Two Sultans. Crafting a Mediterranean Network for the Marquis of Mantua (1493)

Evelina del Mercato
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This article examines the 1493 Mantuan mission to Mamluk Cairo, in which Francesco Gonzaga sent envoys to sultan Qāʾitbāy to procure horses. Drawing on unpublished correspondence between the marquis, his agents, and the Mamluk dragoman Ṭaghrī Birdī, it explores how a landlocked Italian prince sought to position himself within the late fifteenth-century Mediterranean diplomatic arena. By reconstructing the network that enabled the mission, Venetian consul Alvise Arimondo, Genoese merchant Niccolò de Nigro, and the envoy Rozer de Montesalvo, the study reveals the hybrid nature of Gonzaga’s diplomacy, which relied on cross-regional infrastructures and ad hoc intermediaries. Placing this episode within broader patterns of Italian-Eastern Mediterranean interactions, it argues that small territorial principalities, despite their lack of maritime access, sought to engage in Mediterranean diplomacy through experimental practices.

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