Speaker: Marya Green Mercado, Rutgers University.
Respondent: Seth Kimmel, Columbia, LAIC.
The apocalyptic texts, known as jofores, circulated among Moriscos, Muslims who were forcibly converted to Catholicism in the early sixteenth century. They were attributed to Islamic and Christian sources, and they predicted the loss of Muslim Iberia to Christians, the forced conversion of Muslims, and their persecution by the Inquisition. These texts also presented a future in which Muslims would once again have political control over the Iberian Peninsula. As such, Morisco apocalyptic texts have been previously analyzed within an Iberian framework as reflections of the immediate concerns of Moriscos. In this paper I will argue that the jofores of the Moriscos are best understood within the broader context of the early modern Mediterranean. I will do this by analyzing the presence of Italy in the Morisco apocalyptic imaginary through an analysis of these jofores, as well as Inquisition records against Moriscos where they express their ideas about the End Times. There is no doubt that Italy featured prominently in Christian and Islamic early modern apocalyptic texts in the Mediterranean, not in small measure due to the Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry for the control of the Mediterranean. This paper will analyze the presence of Italy in Morisco jofores to argue that this presence sheds light on Morisco self-conceptions of their role in the political life of the Mediterranean. Through the production and deployment of prophecies Moriscos placed themselves at the center of the Ottoman-Habsburg struggle for the control of Italy and the Mediterranean, which they viewed as the cosmic struggle of the End Times.
Sponsored by: Department of Italian, European Institute, and Hispanic Institute.
To attend, email: [email protected]. Part of the Italian and Mediterranean Colloquium series.