This book explores an anonymous sixteenth-century portrait of Muley al-Hassan, the Hafsid king of Tunis (ca. 1528–1550), that bears witness to relations between North Africa, the Habsburgs, and the Ottomans. While Muley al-Hassan appears frequently in the vast literature on Charles V Habsburg, he is overshadowed by the emperor. Here he emerges as a protagonist, a figure whose shifting reputation can be traced well into the seventeenth century. Images of the King of Tunis circulated in broadsheets, ephemeral images made for triumphal entries, manuscripts, tapestry designs, engravings, and books. The ceaseless production of Tunisian imagery allowed Europeans to face their North African counterparts through scenes of battle but also through imaginary encounters and festive cross-dressing. This book shows how portraits of Hafsid rulers challenge assumptions about the absolute divide between Christian and Muslim, sovereign and subject, the familiar and the foreign, and they put a face on the entangled histories of the early modern Mediterranean.
Author(s): Cristelle L. Baskins
Series: New Transculturalisms, 1400–1800
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 329
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Praise for Hafsids and Habsburgs in the Early Modern Mediterranean
Contents
List of Figures
1 Introduction
Art History and North Africa
Note on Sources
Transliteration and Translation
Notes
2 Hafsids and Habsburgs
The Lost World of Muley al-Hassan
Hafsid Treasures
The Tunis Campaign
Visible Speech
Notes
3 Sovereign Display
Contesting the Crown: Barbarossa and Muley al-Hassan
The King of Tunis in Triumph: Cosenza and Naples
The King of Tunis in Triumph: Rome and Florence
Tunis Dispersed
Tunis in the Wake of the Habsburgs
Notes
4 Italian Sojourn
Naples: June 1543
De Spenis, Breve Cronica
In Search of Charles: Florence and Rome, Summer 1543
Loss of Face
Notes
5 Vanishing Acts
Muley al-Hassan, Muley Ahmet, and the Sharif of Qayrawan
From Tunis to Augsburg
Face Off with Death
Mourning Muley al-Hassan, Celebrating Mahdiyya
Notes
6 Pious Fictions
Rubens’ Two Kings of Tunis
The Habsburgs and Tunis 1573–1574
Antwerp
Chifflet Unraveled
“God Can Do More Than That!”
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
