Encounters at sea : paper, objects and sentiments in motion across the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean has always been the unifying element, for good and bad, of the peoples that live on its shores, and today, more than ever before, it is a sometimes unconscious if not indifferent spectator of the hopes of the men and women who cross it in order to escape war and poverty or just in search of a better future. It is not simple to define and explain what this sea is and what it represents over and above its status as a geographic entity. It has been, and continues to be, a place of exchange, a theatre of war and raiding, a grave for the shipwrecked, a trading route of precious and soughtafter goods. It is almost a liquid piazza of an immense country formed by the three continents that give on to it. Sensitive to the theme, the Riccardiana Library was pleased to host the inaugural conference of the COST Action PIMo, whose focus of research is the Mediterranean, and, more specifically, the movement of people, ideas and things across its waters. What is more, the Library was proud to offer readers and the city at large an exhibition on this theme, or rather, through its collections, an authentic voyage across the Mediterranean.-- Acknowledgements -- Preface, Francesca Gallori - Othering, mirroring, and feelings of displacement in the early modern Mediterranean, Giovanni Tarantino -- Objects in motion : mobility, connectivity and the imaginary in early modern global things, Giorgio Riello -- Communication and mobility across the Mediterranean, José María Pérez Fernández -- Catalogue –- Afterword : global insights into encounters at sea, Cátia Antune