Bonds of sweetness: A political and intellectual history of citrus circulations across the Western Mediterranean during the Late Renaissance.

Abstract

This article analyses how intellectual and political conversations about the exchanges of fruits interacted with knowledge-power relations across the Western Mediterranean during the Late Renaissance. I argue that scholarly networks fostered informal diplomacy through the use of paradoxical meaning of citrus goods newly arrived via Iberian monarchies, and that this political communication was articulated around concepts such as tolerance and sweetness. Between Spain, Portugal, and Rome, I demonstrate how political practices and discourses about citruses fuelled struggles for sovereignty during a time marked by continuous wars and debates about the status of religious minorities.