Alexander Coscarella

Alexander Luca Coscarella is a PhD student in “Histories, Cultures and Politics of the Global” (40th cycle) at the University of Bologna, under the supervision of Professor Cristiana Facchini. His current research project is titled “The coffee chain and interconfessional mingling in the Mediterranean: the case of Livorno and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the Italian Early Modern Context”. The project focuses on the spaces, practices and relations that developed around coffee in Italian port cities between the late 17th and early 16th centuries. Specifically, this research uses Livorno and Venice as case studies to assess the impact of coffee on the cities’ social and interconfessional relations. During his residence at MAP, Alexander will consult Tuscan archival documents to study accounts of the strategies that the Jewish, “Turkish” and Oriental Christian communities in Livorno adopted in their consumption and appropriation of coffee. This entails analysing the nuanced perceptions of this drink, how it influenced patterns of confessional sociability and its commercialisation at the hands of these communities. In addition to this research, Alexander’s academic interests include Mediterranean slavery, Early Modern Ottoman history, the social history of food and Early Modern travel literature.