Maartje van Gelder

Position

• Lecturer in Early Modern History. My work concentrates on 16th- and 17th-century Europe and the Mediterranean. I am particularly interested in individuals and networks crossing and mediating early modern political and religious boundaries.

• I have been awarded a VENI-grant from the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme of NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) for a research project provisionally titled "The Rebel Ambassador: Informal Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe". This project will run from 2011 until 2015

Research

In my book Trading places (Brill 2009) I focused on the Netherlandish mercantile community in early modern Venice. Through an analysis of these  merchants' commercial activities, collective associations and assimilation, I showed how they continually renegotiated their relations with the Venetian state.

I subsequently developed an interest in the networks connecting the worlds of early modern commerce and politics in early modern Venice, focusing on Daniel Nijs (1578-1647). Nijs was a Calvinist merchant who in addition to brokering the largest art deal of his times was also an intermediary for Protestant ambassadors and prominent Catholic Venetians, who attempted to form cross-confessional political alliances. This research focuses on how an early modern agent could bridge political, cultural and confessional divides. 

Brill - Trading Places

VENI Project "The Rebel Ambassador"

The period of the late 16th and early 17th centuries is often seen as an interruption in the process of diplomatic modernization. The concept of resident ambassadors developed in Italy during the Renaissance, while the modern state-system and diplomatic professionalization evolved after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) ended religious warfare. Instead of seeing this period as one of temporary regression, I ask how diplomatic theory and practice adapted to a politically and religiously divided Europe. How did non-state parties (such as factions in a civil war) participate in diplomacy? What diplomatic roles could rebels and heretics play?

Taking this line of inquiry one step further, I started to work on Dutch renegades (Christian converts to Islam). In historiography the renegades' conversion is often seen as a definitive break with the past, yet my research uncovers how Dutch renegades continually cultivated and negotiated political and economic ties with their motherland. 

Previous grants & fellowships

• Conference grant, Fritz Thyssen Stiftung (2012)
  
• Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London (2011)
  
• Dr. Ernst Crone Research Fellowship, National Maritime Museum Amsterdam (2008-2009)
  
• Travel grant Fonds Doctor Catharine van Tussenbroek (2008): http://www.cvtfonds.nl
• Travel grants NWO (2006)
• Marie Curie Fellowships, European Doctorate in the Social History of Europe and the Mediterranean -  Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia (2002-2004)
  
• Research fellow Royal Netherlandish Institute in Rome (2001)
  
• Scholarship Datini International Institute (2000)
  
• Scholarship Cultural Treaty Netherlands-Italy (1998)