Cultural translations and glocal dynamics between Italy and the Low Countries during the sixteenth and seventeenth century

This paper serves as an introduction to the thematic section of the number of meetings 2015-2, dedicated to cultural exchanges between Italy and the Netherlands in the Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The article therefore provides an overview of where the cases analyzed in the individual contributions are contextualized and connected to each other in the light of the chronological development of trade. It follows from all of the studies show a wide variety of connections between Italy and the Netherlands, motivated by literary and artistic reasons, but also political, economic, religious. A privileged role in trade is reserved to brokers, who actively participate in the transnational process of transfer and adaptation, or translation, of cultural elements. The membership of a particular social group, religious or professional is crucial factor in the activities of these mediators. Stands out, besides, the local perspective on which the contacts between Italy and the Netherlands s'imperniano: Florentines, Genoese, Roman, as well as the citizens of the southern and northern Netherlands, acted with divergent interests that depended on their target communities , and that conditioned their perception of others. In this sense, the exchanges reflect not only the geographical expansion of the interests and social networks into modernity, but also their local packaging.