The history of textiles in the early modern world has recently become a subject of renewed scholarly attention. Historians are increasingly exploring the role of textile production on the global evolution of economies, through the circulation of raw materials and of finished cloth. In particular, textile production and consumption was a significant driving force of the late medieval and early modern economy. Whether luxurious silks or simple cottons, textiles served purposes beyond the merely practical. Textiles traveled between cultures, connecting markets, spreading design characteristics and production techniques. More than just commodities to be traded on an economic front, they were sources of cultural exchange spurred by long-distance interactions.

A pertinent area for such an exploration is the intercultural region of the Mediterranean. Textiles defined the development of productive and commercial activities of urban Mediterranean societies where cloth was manufactured or where there was an important market for raw materials. We are particularly interested in the ways in which traded textiles shaped people’s understanding of global processes in the early modern mediterranean.

This session will bring together a group of junior and senior scholars to investigate how textiles connected various political entities, social groups and cultures in the Renaissance Mediterranean The term “textile” covers a wide range of finished products made from a variety of raw materials – a textile is the result of complex interactions between resources, technology, and society. We conceive textiles as ‘boundary crossing objects.’ The circulation of products, the supply chains and markets, as well as the use and consumption of textile products, will form the major topics examined by the participating scholars. We will particularly focus on how trade textiles influenced global economics, social histories, and design aesthetics. The scale of analysis of the different papers will range from local to a broad spatial coverage, with case studies from Asia to Africa.