Robert G. Morrison, "Merchants of Knowledge: Intellectual Exchange in the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Jul 10, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Robert G. Morrison, a history of science professor at Bowdoin College, unveils the fascinating world of intellectual exchange between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe. He reveals how multilingual Jewish scholars acted as key intermediaries in the flow of knowledge, trading texts that spanned astronomy, astrology, and philosophy. Morrison highlights the intertwined nature of religion and science, illustrating a Renaissance rich in diversity and collaboration, while reshaping our understanding of historical narratives and cultural interactions.

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ANECDOTE

Jewish Scholars as Knowledge Merchants

Robert Morrison found that merchant families of Jewish scholars were key intermediaries in knowledge exchange.
The families were involved in commerce and intellectual exchange, making knowledge transactional.

INSIGHT

Role of Astronomical Tables

Astronomical tables were large genres of writing used for complex calculations and timekeeping.
Jewish scholars produced highly valued tables used by Christian and Muslim communities.

INSIGHT

Philosophy Among Romaniote Jews

Romaniote Jews descended from Byzantine lands and had distinct intellectual traditions.
They valued Jewish philosophical texts influenced by Islamic science, notably Abraham Ibn Ezra's works.

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Between 1450 and 1550, a remarkable century of intellectual exchange developed across the Eastern Mediterranean. As Renaissance Europe depended on knowledge from the Ottoman Empire, and the courts of Mehmed the Conqueror and Bayezid II greatly benefitted from knowledge coming out of Europe, merchants of knowledge—multilingual and transregional Jewish scholars—became an important bridge among the powers.

With this book, Robert Morrison is the first to track the network of scholars who mediated exchanges in astronomy, astrology, Qabbalah, and philosophy. Their books, manuscripts, and acts of translation all held economic value, thus commercial and intellectual exchange commingled—knowledge became transactional as these merchants exchanged texts for more intellectual material and social capital. While parallels between medieval Islamic astronomy and the famous heliocentric arrangement posited by Copernicus are already known, Morrison reveals far deeper networks of intellectual exchange that extended well beyond theoretical astronomy and shows how religion, science, and philosophy, areas that will eventually develop into separate fields, were once interwoven. The Renaissance portrayed in Merchants of Knowledge: Intellectual Exchange in the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe (Stanford UP, 2025) is not, from the perspective of the Ottoman Muslim contacts of the Jewish merchants of knowledge, hegemonic. It's a Renaissance permeated by diversity, the cultural and political implications of which the West is only now waking up to.

Robert G. Morrison is a professor at Bowdoin College. He is the author of The Light of the World: Astronomy in al-Andalus (2016).

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos

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