Portugal, the Persian Gulf and Safavid Persia
Conference - Programme
8-9 September 2007
Freer & Sackler Galleries, Independence Avenue, Washington DC
On the 500th anniversary of Afonso de Albuquerque's attempts to take Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, this conference will focus on the contacts of the Portuguese with Safavid Persia and various aspects of their activities in the Persian Gulf basin.
Programme
| 7 September | |
| 18.00-20.00 | Reception and private viewing of the 'Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries' exhibition |
| 8 September | |
| 9.30-10.00 | Registration |
| 10.00-10.30 | Welcome note |
| 10.30-12.45 | Session 1: The Kingdom of Hormuz and port cities of the Persian Gulf Chair: Michael Barry, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, USA, Metropolitan Museum of Arts |
| 10.30-11.15 | Fiscal administration in Hormuz 1515-1543 Willem Floor, Independent Scholar, Bethesda, Maryland, USA |
| 11.15-12.00 | The Portuguese on Qeshm Daniel Thomas Potts, School of Archaeology, University of Sydney, Australia |
| 12.00-12.45 | Signal defeat: Causes of the Portuguese loss of Comorao (Gambrun) in 1614 and its political and commercial consequences Edward K. Faridany, Independent Scholar, East Sussex, UK |
| 12.45-14.15 | Lunch |
| 14.15-17.45 | Session 2: Iberian-Persian cross cultural relations Chair: Michele Bernardini, Instituto Universitario Orientale, Italy |
| 14.15-15.00 | The Persian ventures of Fr. Antonio de Gouveia Rui Manuel Loureiro, Centro de Historia de Alem-Mar, Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal |
| 15.00-15.45 | The Catholic Monarchy's last emissary and embassy to Persia: D. Garcia de Silva y Figueroa and his Comentarios George Bryan Souza, Department of History, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA |
| 15.45-16.15 | Break |
| 16.15-17.00 | Don Juan de Persia and the Society of Jesus Enrique Garcia Hernan, Instituto de Historia del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain |
| 17.00-17.45 | Joao de Barros (1496-1570) and the renaissance Portuguese perception of Persia Michael Barry, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, USA |
| 9 September | |
| 9.30-11.00 | Session 3: Geography, cartography and trade Chair: George Bryan Souza, Department of History, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA |
| 9.30-10.15 | Commerce in opium and medicinal plants between the Portuguese Estado da India and Persia, 1550-1700 Timothy D. Walker, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA and Universidade Aberta de Lisboa, Portugal |
| 10.15-11.00 | Mapping the backyard of an empire: Portuguese cartographies of the Persian Gulf during the Safavid period Zoltan Biedermann, Centro de Historia de Alem-Mar, Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal |
| 11.00-11.30 | Break |
| 11.30-16.45 | Session 4: Regional conflicts and global politics Chair: Willem Floor, Independent Scholar, Bethesda, Maryland, USA |
| 11.30-12.15 | Imperial smackdown: The Portuguese in the Persian Gulf between imamate and caliphate Giancarlo Casale, Department of History, University of Minnesota, USA |
| 12.15-13.00 | Portuguese-Ottoman rivalry in the Persian Gulf in the mid-sixteenth century: The siege of Piri Reis to Hormuz in 1552 according to new sources Dejanirah Couto, Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes - Sorbonne, France |
| 13.00-14.30 | Lunch |
| 14.30-15.15 | Giovambattista and Gerolamo Vecchietti and the Portuguese in Hormuz (end of the sixteenth century - beginnings of the seventeenth century) Michele Bernardini, Instituto Universitario Orientale, Italy |
| 15.15-16.00 | Iran and Portugal: Mutual Interests in the sixteenth century Rudi Matthee, Department of History, University of Delaware, USA |
| 16.00-16.45 | Solving Rubik's Cube: Goa, Hormuz, Qandahar and the Western Deccan between Shah Abbas and Jahangir (c. 1613-1622) Jorge Flores, Department of History, Brown University, USA |
| 16.45-17.30 | Concluding remarks |