MISGLOB
The Project
‘MISGLOB – Catholic missions and the global circulation of people and goods in the early modern period (1500-1800)‘ is a project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MUR) under the ‘FARE Ricerca in Italia‘ scheme (Framework per l’Attuazione ed il Rafforzamento delle Eccellenze in Italia) to expand and complete the scope of the ERC project HOLYLAB.
The circulation of goods was of vital importance for the viability of Catholic missions and the development of missionary networks worldwide during the early modern period.
As a result, recent research has been increasingly concerned with the organization and economy of early modern Catholic missions and the relation between these and early globalization.
MISGLOB contributes to this line of inquiry, focusing primarily on the organization and economy of mendicant missions in the Middle East and West Central Africa in the early modern period.
The aim of MISGLOB is to advance current understanding of the relationship between the global circulation of goods and people and the Catholic missionary endeavour. In doing so it also addresses more general issues concerning the influence of early globalization on the establishment and survival of Catholic missions worldwide.
The project has as its starting point the analysis of the arrival of resources and their impact on the mission’s viability and integration into the local context. Enlarging its perspective, it then goes on to analyse the circulation of goods and people at a regional and global level, with particular attention being paid to the institutions, and primarily the networks, that made this movement possible.
To achieve such objectives, the project’s will rely on the analysis of a wide range of previously unexplored sources and an innovative methodology employing an interdisciplinary and multi-layered approach.
By doing this, MISGLOB will open new paths in research on the global circulation of goods and people in the early modern period while advancing current research on missionary networks. Moreover it will contribute to research on the organization of Catholic, and in particular, mendicant missions, and deepen our general understanding of the complex relationship between early modern globalization, missions, and the diffusion of confessional Catholicism at the time of the global Counter-Reformation.
The project is based at Department of Political Science, Roma Tre University (as host institution) and is headed by Professor Felicita Tramontana as Principal Investigator.
Team members
Nunzia Lastella
Before starting my PhD in Political Sciences at the University of Roma Tre in 2024, I focused my research on the missions of the Catholic Church, especially in the early modern age. I graduated in the same University in History and Society with a thesis about changes to the Church in the New World during the early modern age. My PhD work is centered on the missions of the Mendicant Orders, especially in the Americas.
Previously, in I got a degree in 2015 from the University of Roma Tre in Religious Science, with a work on the Japanese Century and the literary work of the writer Shusaku Endo.
My first studies were in Theology at the Istituto Teologico Pugliese “Regina Apuliae” where I got a BA in Theology. In the following years, I undertook research primarily on the History of Religions and on the dialogue among religions, in particular in reference to the Asian orbit, getting a Licenza from the Gregorian Pontifical University in 2019 with a work on Japanese Missions, especially about the figure of the Jesuit Organtino Gnecchi Soldo.
Outputs
- Felicita Tramontana, ‘Crossing Borders? Conversions and Mixed Marriages in Ottoman Bilād al-Shām (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)’, in Early Modern Toleration. New Approaches, ed. by Benjamin J. Kaplan and Jaap Geraerts (London: Routledge, 2023), 174-194
News
Contacts
For any questions on the project, you can write to the PI, Prof. Felicita Tramontana (felicita.tramontana@uniroma3.it).