A Venetian at the Mughal Court

A Venetian at the Mughal Court
Author: Marco Moneta
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9354923623

"An extraordinary character leaps off the pages of Marco Moneta's book..." MARIKA SARDAR, CURATOR, AGA KHAN MUSEUM, TORONTO "...irresistible..." GIORGIO RIELLO, HISTORIAN "...rich and accessible..." AMIN JAFFER, CURATOR AND AUTHOR The man who witnessed India's history in the making Venetian Nicolò Manucci's story is distinct from those of other European travellers and adventurers who documented their stay in India. The young teenager, who arrived on Indian shores with little education and few connections, lived here till his death at the age of eighty-two. He was witness to some of the most dramatic events in the subcontinent's history. Living by his wits, he started his career as chief artilleryman in Dara Shukoh's fratricidal battle against Aurangzeb for the Mughal throne. Thereafter, Manucci joined Rajput general Jai Singh in his campaign to subdue the Maratha leader Shivaji. However, Manucci had no stomach for a prolonged military career. With a great capacity for learning and immense good fortune, he made his way into the Mughal court, incredibly, as a court physician to Aurangzeb's son Shah Alam. In service of the future Mughal emperor, Manucci was to head back to the Deccan once again to meet the challenge posed by Shivaji's son Sambhaji. Manucci would spend the rest of his life within European settlements in Madras and Pondicherry. And his in-depth knowledge of the Mughal court would prove useful in negotiations between the Europeans and the Mughal authorities. Marco Moneta tells the gripping story of a man who was witness to the intrigues and rivalries in Mughal and European territories, and who not just survived but rose to a position of influence and respect in a hostile and alien world.

The Enchantress of Florence

The Enchantress of Florence
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2009-02-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307371662

A tall, yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself “Mogor dell’Amore,” the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real Grand Mughal, the Emperor Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the whole imperial capital. The stranger claims to be the child of a lost Mughal princess, the youngest sister of Akbar’s grandfather Babar: Qara Köz, ‘Lady Black Eyes’, a great beauty believed to possess powers of enchantment and sorcery, who is taken captive first by an Uzbeg warlord, then by the Shah of Persia, and finally becomes the lover of a certain Argalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune, commander of the armies of the Ottoman Sultan. When Argalia returns home with his Mughal mistress the city is mesmerised by her presence, and much trouble ensues. The Enchantress of Florence is a love story and a mystery – the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It brings together two cities that barely know each other – the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire and the treachery of sons, and the equally sensual Florentine world of powerful courtesans, humanist philosophy and inhuman torture, where Argalia’s boyhood friend ‘il Machia’ – Niccolò Machiavelli – is learning, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. These two worlds, so far apart, turn out to be uncannily alike, and the enchantments of women hold sway over them both. But is Mogor’s story true? And if so, then what happened to the lost princess? And if he’s a liar, must he die?

The Emperor Who Never Was

The Emperor Who Never Was
Author: Supriya Gandhi
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2020-01-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674243919

The definitive biography of the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, whose death at the hands of his younger brother Aurangzeb changed the course of South Asian history. Dara Shukoh was the eldest son of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, best known for commissioning the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. Although the Mughals did not practice primogeniture, Dara, a Sufi who studied Hindu thought, was the presumed heir to the throne and prepared himself to be India’s next ruler. In this exquisite narrative biography, the most comprehensive ever written, Supriya Gandhi draws on archival sources to tell the story of the four brothers—Dara, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb—who with their older sister Jahanara Begum clashed during a war of succession. Emerging victorious, Aurangzeb executed his brothers, jailed his father, and became the sixth and last great Mughal. After Aurangzeb’s reign, the Mughal Empire began to disintegrate. Endless battles with rival rulers depleted the royal coffers, until by the end of the seventeenth century Europeans would start gaining a foothold along the edges of the subcontinent. Historians have long wondered whether the Mughal Empire would have crumbled when it did, allowing European traders to seize control of India, if Dara Shukoh had ascended the throne. To many in South Asia, Aurangzeb is the scholastic bigot who imposed a strict form of Islam and alienated his non-Muslim subjects. Dara, by contrast, is mythologized as a poet and mystic. Gandhi’s nuanced biography gives us a more complex and revealing portrait of this Mughal prince than we have ever had.

Universal Empire

Universal Empire
Author: Peter Fibiger Bang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2012-08-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1107022673

This book explores the aspiration to universal, imperial rule across Eurasian history from antiquity to the eighteenth century.

The Mughal World

The Mughal World
Author: Abraham Eraly
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780143102625

It Is Hard To Imagine Anyone Succeeding More Gracefully In Producing A Balanced Overview Than Abraham Eraly William Dalrymple, Sunday Times, London In The Mughal World Abraham Eraly Continues His Fascinating Chronicle Of The Grand Saga Of The Mughal Empire. In Emperors Of The Peacock Throne He Gave Us The Story Of The Lives And Achievements Of The Great Mughal Emperors; In This Book, He Looks Beyond The Momentous Historical Events To Portray, In Precise And Vivid Detail, The Agony And Ecstasy Of Life In Mughal India. Combining Scholarly Objectivity With Artful Storytelling The Author Presents A Lively Panorama Of The Mughal World Emperors And Nobles At Work And Play; Harem Life; The Profligacy And Extravagance Of The Ruling Class Juxtaposed With The Stark Wretchedness Of The Common People. Meticulously Researched And Lucidly Narrated The Mughal World Offers Rare Insights Into The State Of The Empire S Economy, Religious Policies, The Mughal Army And Its Tactics, And The Glories Of Mughal Art, Architecture, Literature And Music.

Gardens of Renaissance Europe and the Islamic Empires

Gardens of Renaissance Europe and the Islamic Empires
Author: Mohammad Gharipour
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 706
Release: 2017-10-12
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0271080671

The cross-cultural exchange of ideas that flourished in the Mediterranean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries profoundly affected European and Islamic society. Gardens of Renaissance Europe and the Islamic Empires considers the role and place of gardens and landscapes in the broader context of the information sharing that took place among Europeans and Islamic empires in Turkey, Persia, and India. In illustrating commonalities in the design, development, and people’s perceptions of gardens and nature in both regions, this volume substantiates important parallels in the revolutionary advancements in landscape architecture that took place during the era. The contributors explain how the exchange of gardeners as well as horticultural and irrigation techniques influenced design traditions in the two cultures; examine concurrent shifts in garden and urban landscape design, such as the move toward more public functionality; and explore the mutually influential effects of politics, economics, and culture on composed outdoor space. In doing so, they shed light on the complexity of cultures and politics during the Renaissance. A thoughtfully composed look at the effects of cross-cultural exchange on garden design during a pivotal time in world history, this thought-provoking book points to new areas in inquiry about the influences, confluences, and connections between European and Islamic garden traditions. In addition to the editor, the contributors include Cristina Castel-Branco, Paula Henderson, Simone M. Kaiser, Ebba Koch, Christopher Pastore, Laurent Paya, D. Fairchild Ruggles, Jill Sinclair, and Anatole Tchikine.

Three Ways to be Alien

Three Ways to be Alien
Author: Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2011
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1611680190

A study of individual trajectories in an early modern global context

Cultures of Empire: Rethinking Venetian Rule, 1400–1700

Cultures of Empire: Rethinking Venetian Rule, 1400–1700
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 516
Release: 2020-07-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004428879

This book investigates perceptions, modes, and techniques of Venetian rule in the early modern Eastern Mediterranean (1400–1700). Against the backdrop of the controversial notion of the Venetian realm as a colonial empire, essays from a range of specialists examine how Venice negotiated control over the territories, resources, and traditions of different empires (Byzantine, Roman, Mamluk, Ottoman) while developing its own claims of authority. Focusing in particular on questions of belonging and status in the Venetian overseas territories, the volume incorporates observations on the daily realities of Venetian rule: how did Venice negotiate claims of authority in light of former and ongoing imperial belongings? What was the status of colonial subjects and ships in the metropolis and in foreign territories? In what ways did Venice accept and continue old forms of imperial belonging? Did subordinate entities join in a shared communal identity? The volume opens new perspectives on Venetian rule at the crossroads of empire and early modern statehood: a polity negotiating and entangling empire. Contributors are Housni Alkhateeb Shehada, Georg Christ, Giacomo Corazzol, Nicholas Davidson, Renard Gluzman, Deborah Howard, David Jacoby (z’’l), Marianna Kolyvà, Franz-Julius Morche, Reinhold C. Mueller, Monique O’Connell, Gerassimos D. Pagratis, Tassos Papacostas, Maria Pia Pedani (†), Dorit Raines, and E. Natalie Rothman.

Storia Do Mogor; Or, Mogul India 1653-1708;

Storia Do Mogor; Or, Mogul India 1653-1708;
Author: William Irvine
Publisher: Legare Street Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-10-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9781016075039

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