Professor Silva Authors Chapter

Assistant Professor of Art, Joseph Silva wrote the chapter "To the Victor Go the Spoils:  Christian Triumphalism and the Order of Santo Stefano in Pisa," published in the book Art, Mobility and Exchange in Early Modern Tuscany and Eurasia (Routledge, 2020).  In it, Professor Silva interprets the display of flags, weapons and precious objects violently seized by the Knighthood of Santo Stefano---a holy order founded by Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici of Tuscany, Italy---in their battles with Barbary corsairs and Ottoman Turks on the Mediterranean Sea.  These spoils of war, housed in the Church of Santo Stefano in Pisa, propagandized the duke's success as a modern Christian crusader and Tuscany's identity as an international and formidable sea power.