Özden Mercan

Bilkent Üniversitesi (Ankara, Turkey)

The Ottoman diaspora in Renaissance Tuscany

2019-2020: Fall and Spring

F. Özden Mercan received her master’s degrees from the Department of History at Bilkent University (Ankara) and from the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University (Budapest). She earned a PhD in History from the European University Institute (Florence) in 2017. She has held positions as Instructor in History at Bilkent University (2016-2018) and Tübitak Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the European University Institute (2018-2019). Her research examines the history of Eastern Mediterranean in the late medieval and early modern periods, with specific emphasis on diplomatic, political, cultural and economic interactions between Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire. She has published on European communities and émigrés in Turkey, on the diplomatic relations of the Italian states, particularly the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Republic of Genoa with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, and on practices of coexistence and constructions of the other in the early modern period. 

Among her publications are “The Genoese of Pera in the Fifteenth Century: Draperio and Spinola Families” in Living in the Ottoman Realm: Sultans, Subjects and Elites eds. Christine Isom-Verhaaren and Kent F. Schull, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016) pp. 42-54; “Medici-Ottoman Diplomatic Relations (1574-1578): What Went Wrong?” in The Grand Ducal Medici and the Levant: Material Cultural, Diplomacy, and Imagery in the Early Modern Mediterranean, eds. Marta Caroscio and Maurizio Arfaioli, (Turnhout: Brepols / Harvey Miller Publishing, 2016) pp. 19-31; “Constructing a Self-Image in the Image of the Other: Pope Pius II’s Letter to Sultan Mehmed II” in Practices of Coexistence. Constructions of the Other in Early Modern Perceptions, eds. Marianna D. Birnbaum and Marcell Sebók, (Budapest–New York: CEU Press, 2017) pp. 71-102; “A Struggle for Survival: Genoese Diplomacy with the Sublime Porte in the Face of Spanish and French Opposition,” Journal of Early Modern History vol. 24, issue 3 (forthcoming).

Web page: https://eui.academia.edu/FOzdenMercan