SAECULUM. Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte

Volume 69 (2019), number 1

Contributions

Peter Dinzelbacher: Spätmittelalterliche Askesepraktiken als Ausdruck des epochentypischen Dolorismus
In the religious history of Europe, the High and Late Middle Ages were the era during which ascetic ideals reached their highest pitch. From late antiquity to the 11th century, self-castigation motivated by piety had been nearly exclusively the task of the 'virtuosi' of Christianity, of hermits, monks and nuns, to whom the 'celsitudo perfectionis' was reserved. It was not until the wake of the Gregorian Reform that a change in mentality took place in which asceticism waxed into an ideal for all pious laymen and especially -women. More and more, not only passive castigations such as fasting and chastity became important, but also active practices such as autoflagellation and the willing exposure to sickening situations.
The present paper, based on written and iconographic evidence, largely deals with these religious performances as realities of late medieval pious life, considering shortly, too, statements of medieval theologians and mystics who tried to present an 'algodicy', i. e. an apologetic interpretation of the existence of pain as one step in God's plan of salvation. The will to present the passion of the founder of Christianity in extremely cruel forms and to imitate his sufferings by doing penance for personal and general sinfulness emerge as major reasons for the quest for self-afflicted pain which cannot be understood without taking into account psychological approaches.

Sabine Herrmann: Zwischen Tradition und Innovation. Medizinische Behandlung in den venezianischen Handelskolonien
To date, there has been very little consideration of Venetian physicians' interest in Ottoman medical practices and the different ways in which knowledge was exchanged among these particular groups of historical actors. In personal documents, especially books written by the physicians of the Venetian embassy (medici di condotta), we find, however, a rich array of descriptions of Ottoman medical practices, which can be seen as a reflection of the various interests and observational practices of the individuals involved.

Philip Knäble: "Moralische Ökonomie"? - Zur Wirtschaftsethik der Schule von Salamanca am Beispiel von Martín de Azpilcueta und Leonardus Lessius
The "Moral Economy" approach has become increasingly popular in the humanities and the social sciences as a result of the recent financial crisis. However, the concept of Moral Economy is not so much tapping its full potential because it offers greater insights than the mere statement that moralists talk about economics but beacuse, rather, the approach helps to investigate how actors refer to older or alternative economic semantics or institutions in describing contemporary economic systems. It underlines the ambivalent coexistence of different ideas of the economy and the context of their discursive construction. Hence, starting from E. P. Thompson, this article discusses the main contributions of Early Modern Studies to the concept of Moral Economy and explores their possibilities for the analysis of economic ethical writings by the "School of Salamanca", using the examples of Martín de Azpilcueta (1492-1586) and Leonardus Lessius (1554-1623). The essay concludes with a brief sketch of the potential of combining the approach of Moral Economy with the concept of historical economic styles.

Nicole Wiederroth: Das Mwese Highland Refugee Settlement und (Neu-)Interpretationen des Wandels. Zum Ringen zwischen Mensch und Natur
After gaining independence in 1961, Tanzania was one of the main host countries for refugees on the African continent for decades. The article concentrates on the beginning of systematic (inter-)national humanitarian aid in Western Tanzania. The main focus is on mutual relations of different actors in the context of migration and related processes of transformation. In order to reflect the complexity of a period of radical change in the 1960s, the intention is not only to describe material alterations, but also alternative ways of interpretation. Using the example of the Mwese Highland Refugee Settlement, the article combines migration studies with environmental history, showing specific transformations and possible (new) interpretations of the interaction of human and nature.

Skadi Siiri Krause: Montesquieus Theorie des Föderalismus. Grundlagen, Neuerungen und Anwendungen
Montesquieu described federalism as a principle for legal, political and social design, which is also of interest for modern research on federalism. Thus, he regarded the horizontal separation of powers as a ground-breaking achievement of the theory of the state, which he called the most important constitutional principle of modern states in securing individual freedom. Just as important to him was the vertical separation of powers. For him, this was the basis of collective and local freedom.

Yahya Kouroshi: Das Unendliche und das Böse. Zur Übersetzung eines Korankommentars des italienischen Orientalisten G. B. Raimondi (Laurenziana: Ms. Or. 463: ff. 212r-259v)
Typographia Medicea was a printing house in Rome, specialized in oriental printing and financed by Pope Gregory XIII. (1502-1585) and the later Grand Duke, Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici (1549-1609). This article examines the Italian translation of a Qur'an commentary written in Persian by the orientalist and initiator of the Typographia Medicea Giovanni Battista Raimondi (ca. 1536-1614), hitherto hardly noticed by research. This article investigates the fragment of a commentary on the Qur'an (Mavahib-i 'Aliyya) by the universal scholar Husayn Va'iz-i Kashifi (d. 1504/5), translated by Raimondi around 1600 in Papal Rome. The translation of this Sufi exegetical poetic commentary will be examined in regard to the interlinguistic and intercultural aspects of the practice and theory of translation in the period around 1600.
The analysis of Raimondi's translation practices allows, from a global history point of view, to investigate the study of the translation and printing dynamics of the late 16th and 17th centuries with special consideration of religious, intellectual, and esthetic aspects of the extensive contemporary European Polyglot Bible projects. Following the debates on and around Global (Art) History (connected/entangled histories), particular attention is paid to the current historical-comparative (cultural) research on poiesis and mimesis in the (early) modern era. Furthermore, the current theoretical approaches to scriptographic and typographic media, especially in the context of such entangled historical aspects, will be taken into consideration.