EARLY MODERN
HISTORY
Jews and Ottomans; Maps and Text-Mining
In Before the Ghetto Spatial logics, Jewish Experience, and Jewish-Christian relations in Early Modern Florence (Global Reformations, Routledge, 2019, Ed. Nicholas Terpstra), I used digital mapping in conjunction with personal diaries, archival records, paintings, and poems to show how Jews experienced environmental segregation in Florence even before it built its ghetto in 1571.
In Sephardic Diaspora, Ottoman Entanglements, and The Medici State, I text-mined an early modern letters database to show how instead of relying upon traditional trade treatises with the Ottoman empire, the Florentine state depended on upon Jewish intermediaries.
Scroll down to download essays, to see a transcript of the archival Censimento Giudei from 1567 that formed the basis of Before the Ghetto, and to visualize Jewish settlement in early modern Florence.
Using HGIS I mapped and analyzed a census of Jews in Florence taken in 1567 to learn more about Jewish life before the building of the ghetto. Click here for the essay that summarizes my findings.
Florence's ghetto, built 1571. Click here to play with DECIMA data yourself!
Combining Jewish census data with DECIMA data, I was able to show how close Jewish residences were to sites of prostitution and animal slaughter.
Voyant word clouds show how Duke Cosimo I de'Medici was the center of early modern Florence. Click here to see the census we used to map Jews.
To read other essays in the Global Reformations Essay Collection, click here.
This essay used Voyant, Mallett, and the Medici Archive Project letters database to show how the Medici coordinated its relationship to the Ottoman empire through Jewish intermediaries. Click here for the essay!