Miklós Zrínyi in Venice: Trading advantages, cultural interests and political intrigue in the mid-17th century

AbstractIn the mid-17th century, Venice became the stage on which the Zrínyi family played out its many and multifaceted political, commercial and cultural interests. The elder brother Miklós (1620–1664), besides being one of the most well-regarded poets of 17th-century Hungarian literature, was also a politician (serving as the Ban of Croatia) and a skilled businessman. He spent his entire life fighting against the Turkish Ottoman invaders, while also attempting to reign in the uneasy alliance with the Habsburgs. The focus of this paper is to explore the visits Miklós made to Venice, together with his younger brother Péter (1621–1671) and his sister-in-law Katarina Frankopan (1625–1673), to look after their commercial interests, as well as to purchase Italian editions for their well-stocked library and find a publisher for their own translations and, last but not least, to forge diplomatic ties with the French ambassador Piero Bonsi (1631–1703), in a bid to defend the independence of Hungary, even if this meant upsetting the traditional European alliances.