The anti-Ottoman policy of the Gonzagas between the spirit of crusade and dynastic interests: 16th-17th century|La politica antiottomana dei Gonzaga tra spirito di crociata e interessi dinastici: XVI-XVII secolo

For decades there has been a continuous complaint on the lack of an authentic interest and of a general scientific concern regarding the perseverance of the concept "crusade" in modern centuries; in recent years, however, much has been published, although the prevailing interpretation has been explaining the persistence of anti-ottoman military expeditions not as a continuation of the crusade spirit, but merely as an expression of sheer realpolitik or of dynastic interests. Truth be told, without denying the good reasons that lie behind this interpretation, it is the actual inquiry of events and of people that took part in the Gonzaga's expeditions between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, that seem to limit this assumption, especially with the key figure of Carlo Gonzaga Nevers, whose "big dream" of conquering Constantinople and of a "Catholic-Protestant crusade", spot him together with history's major players of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Although this is an eminently "evenemential" work, it provides indeed a still-to-be-completed historical framework, which is not only of great historiographical exclusive interest.