Le orecchie si piene di Fiandra : Italian news and histories on the Revolt in the Netherlands (1566-1648)

This thesis examines the Italian news reports, political debates and histories of the revolt in the Netherlands between 1566 and 1648. Many Italians were directly involved in this conflict and were keen narrators of these wars. Despite this, a systematic study of the Italian interest for the conflict has not yet been undertaken. This thesis argues that the complex political constellation of the Italian peninsula, dominated by the Habsburg monarchy, shaped the Italian news, debates and interpretations of the Dutch Revolt. Chapter one examines the different ways in which news from the Low Countries reached Italian states. It demonstrates that Italian military officers, active on the battlefield in the Netherlands in the Habsburg army, played a crucial role as purveyors of news and opinion on the conflict. The two following chapters study the circulation of political treatises on the Italian peninsula. Chapter two reconstructs the debates sparked by the events in the Low Countries between 1576 and 1577. Chapter three examines the descriptions of the emergence of a new state in the Northern Netherlands and the discourses on war and peace between 1590 and 1609. Chapter four looks into the development of a market for printed news pamphlets and explores the connections between manuscript and printed news. Chapter five studies how news was used by Italian history writers in their contemporary chronicles. It also investigates how these authors celebrated Italian protagonists in the war as Italian and Catholic heroes. The conclusion examines the evolution of all these Italian discourses related to Dutch Revolt