For decades, early modern diplomatic history (c.1492–c.1700) has languished as a stagnant field of academic research. Aloof to wider currents and trends in scholarship, the study of diplomatic history was in fast decline. In recent years, this trend has dramatically reversed. Scholars pursuing vast and varied routes of historical enquiry – from students of collections or communications to social and economic historians – have found in early modern diplomacy a shared theme in which to mutually contextualise their research. At the forefront of this change has been renewed attention to sixteenth-century Italy, arguably the place and era in which diplomacy as a statecraft matured. This workshop showcases a group of interdisciplinary doctoral students and their current research which further advances the boundaries of diplomatic history.
