Dynasty and Diplomacy in the Court of Savoy: Political Culture and the Thirty Years' War.

Toby Osborne. Dynasty and Diplomacy in the Court of Savoy: Political Culture and the Thirty Years' War.

Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. xii + 304 pp. index. illus. chron. bibl. $65. ISBN: 0-521-65268-5.

Savoy ranks, according to Osborne, alongside England, Denmark, and Venice as second rate powers whose activities merit more attention by scholars working on the Thirty Years' War. Osborne knows well the grand narrative of Richelieu and Olivares, and here he places among their company the interesting figure of Alessandro Scaglia (1592-1641) who came from a noble Savoyard family that served its dukes primarily as diplomats. This book, based on impressive research conducted in a number of archives across Europe, has three stories to tell. The first is a closer look at Savoy itself, mainly in the period under Carlo Emanuele I (1580-1630) whose dynastic pretensions shaped the course of Savoy's diplomacy in the greater affairs of Europe. Secondly, Osborne has assembled a great deal of material about Scaglia himself, and the role he and his family played in fostering the dynastic goals of the house of Savoy. Lastly, there are some tantalizing bits of information about art collecting and its connections to diplomacy. Scaglia served as an agent acquiring artistic works for the ducal house, and later in life patronized Anthony van Dyke and worked with Peter Paul Rubens.

The political and dynastic focus of this book does not permit Osborne much space to sketch out the economy and society of early modern Savoy and Piedmont. The house of Savoy had preserved its position by adroitly switching loyalties as required between the Hapsburgs and France. Remaining an independent state that did not become a client of one or other of the powers was no mean feat. Osborne is careful not to join in the triumphalist versions of Savoy history that self-servingly see this state as the harbinger of the Italian nation. Itself a hybrid of dynastic accomplishments, Savoy and Piedmont were no models of liberty, artistic accomplishment, or economic vitality. What its dukes could manage was putting surprisingly large if unsuccessful armies in the field, but Osborne has little to say about the fiscal policies that made this possible. The analysis of the goals and methods of Duke Carlo Emanuele is superb, and this book makes the War of the Mantuan Succession come alive as part of the broader story of the Thirty Years' War.

The best part of the book is the painstaking reconstruction from a wide variety of sources of Alessandro Scaglia's career. The family provided Osborne a good way to integrate state and family history by stressing the themes of collaboration and corruption. The rise of Turin as a capital provides the background for how this noble family excelled at diplomacy abroad, mostly as experts on France. Alessandro, a second son destined for the church, learned his trade as Savoy's representative at the papal court from 1614 to 1623. He came into his own at the French court from 1624 to 1627, where he found a way through French and Spanish power plays by becoming the friend of Buckingham and an expert on England. Scaglia somehow became an enemy of Richelieu, and this probably was the main reason he never made the big jump to the cardinalate himself. Scaglia spent some time in England in 1627 and achieved his place in European diplomacy not so much as Savoy's representative, but as a talented mediator who enjoyed the trust of diverse figures such as Olivares and Charles I of England.

During the War of the Mantuan Succession (1628-31) Scaglia's influence declined after Buckingham's death and as his dukes came closer to France while he remained a firm supporter of Hapsburg alliances. An interlude in 1631 saw Scaglia as a representative of both Spain and Savoy, but the new duke Vittorio Amedeo I (1630-37) recalled Scaglia. Instead of returning to Savoy, Scaglia ended up in Brussels and he remained in the Spanish Netherlands in an ambiguous self-imposed exile for the rest of his life. Osborne has some insightful theories about what exactly Scaglia was doing there and how his vague status may have served Spain, Savoy, and even his own family. It seems that during this period Scaglia became one of Van Dyke's major customers, and Osborne concludes this fine book with a close look at how a few famous surviving paintings are better understood in the broader context of Scaglia's life and accomplishments.

STEVEN A. EPSTEIN

University of Kansas