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Dress is a key marker of difference. It is closely attached to the body, part of the daily routine, and an unavoidable means of communication. The clothes people wear tell stories about their allegiances and identities but also about their exclusion and stigmatization. They allow for the display of wealth and can mercilessly display poverty and indigence. Clothes also enable people to play with identities and affinities: for instance, individuals can claim higher social status via their clothes. In many ways, dress is thus open to manipulation by the wearer and misinterpretation by the observer. Authorities-whether religious or secular, local or regional-have always aimed at imposing order on this potential muddle. This is particularly true for the early modern era, when the world became ever more complex. In Europe, the composition of societies diversified with the emergence of new social groups and increasing migration and travel. Thanks to intensified long-distance trade and technological developments, new fashionable clothes and accessories entered the market. With the emergence of a consumer culture, it was now the case that not only the extremely wealthy could afford at least the occasional indulgence in luxury items and accessories. Over recent years, research has focused on a variety of areas related to dress and appearance in the context of early-modern political, socio-economic, and cultural transformations both within Europe and related to its entanglement with other parts of the world. Nevertheless, a significant compartmentalization in the research on dress and appearance remains: research is often organized around particular cities and territories, and much research is still framed by modern national boundaries. This special issue looks at dress and its perception in Europe from a transcultural perspective and highlights the many differences that clothing can express.

European history --- Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 --- body --- dress --- clothing --- transculturality

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This book situates witchcraft drama within its cultural and intellectual context, highlighting the centrality of scepticism and belief in witchcraft to the genre. It is argued that these categories are most fruitfully understood not as static and mutually exclusive positions within the debate around witchcraft, but as rhetorical tools used within it. In drama, too, scepticism and belief are vital issues. The psychology of the witch character is characterised by a combination of impious scepticism towards God and credulous belief in the tricks of the witch’s master, the devil. Plays which present plausible depictions of witches typically use scepticism as a support: the witch’s power is subject to important limitations which make it easier to believe. Plays that take witchcraft less seriously present witches with unrestrained power, an excess of belief which ultimately induces scepticism. But scepticism towards witchcraft can become a veneer of rationality concealing other beliefs that pass without sceptical examination. The theatrical representation of witchcraft powerfully demonstrates its uncertain status as a historical and intellectual phenomenon; belief and scepticism in witchcraft drama are always found together, in creative tension with one another.

Literary studies: plays & playwrights --- Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700

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Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700. --- Military history.

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During the sixteenth and seventeenth century large parts of Italy were under Spanish dominion, the consequence of which was a linguistic contact that lasted over 200 years. However, due to the traditionally tight link between Italian language historiography and national historiography, the multilingual communicative space of Spanish Italy has only recently become an object of research. By focusing on four Spanish-dominated areas – the two metropolises of Naples (Regno di Napoli) and Milan (Milanesado), as well as the two islands of Sicily (Regno di Sicilia) and Sardinia (Regno di Sardegna) – the present work therefore presents a fundamental, extensive, and comparative case study of the history of plurilingualism and of letterpress printing in Italia spagnola. For the first time, even methodologically, letterpress printing will be considered as an indicator of plurilingualism, and not simply as a gauge for Tuscanisation, as scholars have previously concluded. The corpus, which has been elaborated on the basis of a specifically developed online title-database consisting of over 3.000 Spanish, bi- and multilingual printed works, is analyzed by combining quantification and qualification methods. The statistical evaluation of book production and distribution of languages and domains associated therewith have been integrated, or rather validated, by qualitative comments on exemplary single works. Herein, the following questions have been examined: How is multilingualism generally, and with regard to the Spanish language in particular, reflected in book production? How often and in which domains of discourse is Spanish used? Which profiles of competence of the producers (authors and printers) and the recipients can be qualitatively traced through single printed works? What evidence of the conventionalization of multilingualism in the form of linguistic teaching material can be provided? Which plurilinguistic practices can be reconstructed on the basis of the prints? Is bilingualism or multilingualism reflected on (and eventually how), and, if so, how is it discussed and assessed? How does the respective communicative space, characterized by the constant presence of the Spanish language, configure itself in the consciousness of the communicants within the field of perceptive linguistics? Thus, the aim was to investigate the degree of Hispanicization of Spanish Italy on the basis of the quantified printed language, and to discuss the practices of multilingualism, the attitudes towards the Spanish language, and how plurilingualism was reflected in selected printed works and their paratexts.The overall segment of the Spanish book production can be defined as a marginal phenomenon with a limited target group, and therefore multilingualism in Spanish Italy, when considered through letterpress printing, assumes an elitist status. However, the respective empirical results of the four partial corpora offer prominent regional differences, with each of the four communicative spaces presenting with their own, specific profile of multilingualism. The contrast of the single cases thus leads to a typology between Spanish Sardinia and the other three areas. The case reconstructions furnish the evidence that Spanish Sardinia, for reasons beyond existing language politics, represents the exception, or rather, the extreme case of problem-focused plurilingualism and Hispanicization. The remaining three areas (Naples, Milan and Sicily) bundle to form a second type – on account of their indifference towards language diversity as well as their pragmatic, mostly implicit, conventionalized handling of multilingualism, they can be classified as normal cases of language contact.

Sociolinguistics --- Bilingualism & multilingualism --- Historical & comparative linguistics --- Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 --- Social & cultural history

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This book sheds new light on the cultural encounter between China and Europe, by discussing how Chinese religion and philosophy were represented in Dutch printed works between 1595-1700.; Readership: All interested in early modern encounters between Asia and Europe, and anyone concerned with printing and publishing in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.

Publishers and publishing. --- Book publishing --- Books --- Book industries and trade --- Booksellers and bookselling --- Publishing --- Humanities --- Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700