Abstract
Abstract: This essay examines the role that isolari (books of islands) played in networks of information exchange and diplomacy at the interface of the Venetian and Ottoman Empires, focusing on Tommaso Porcacchi's L'isole più famose del mondo , first published in 1572 and updated in 1576 in response to shifting political realities in the Mediterranean. The book found a key readership among diplomatic travelers, as this essay will show by documenting how one such traveler – Livio Cellini – drew from Porcacchi's isolario directly (without acknowledging his source) in his account of the Venetian diplomatic mission he accompanied to Istanbul in 1582.