THE WORLD AS GUEST IN EUROPE: EXTRA-EUROPEAN EMBASSIES AROUND 1600 AND THEIR PERCEPTION IN THE FUGGER NEWSLETTERS

Around 1600, several extra-European embassies visited the courts of occidental Christian powers; among them, the Japanese Tenshō mission of the 1580s and the embassy sent by the Persian Shah ‘Abbas I in 1599 stand out. Contemporary media were well aware of these events, but they were strongly influenced by the organizers and participants of those missions, who wished to realize specific goals. In the first case, Jesuit interests played a crucial role, while the English participant Anthony Shirley pursued his own agenda in the second case. The article concentrates on the so-called ‘Fuggerzeitungen’, handwritten newsletters that have hardly been studied with regard to this topic. It asks how the authors of the Fugger newsletters perceived the foreign visitors, which aspects of their journey seemed newsworthy to them, and especially what they had to say about the ambassadors’ status and legitimacy. While the embassies’ personal appearances were largely limited to highly exclusive elite circles, the periodical ‘Fuggerzeitungen’ enabled a wider international public to partake in them through reading and information exchange.