Vera COSTANTINI

Professional Profile

Specialist in Ottoman History and the Economic History of the Mediterranean based on the comparative analysis of Ottoman and Venetian primary sources. Focused on late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean economic and political conjuncture, currently working on seventeenth-century international trade and comparative commercial policies in the Mediterranean. Passionately committed to tenaciously defending Ottoman and Turcological perspectives as essential tools for understanding past and current events.

Employment history

• January 2017: qualified for Associate Professorship in Turkish and Ottoman Studies at the national qualification exam.

• May 2015-present: associate member of the Centre d’Etudes Turques, Ottomanes, Balcaniques et de l’Asie Centrale (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris).

• November 2013: qualified for Associate Professorship in Economic History at the national qualification exam.

• April 2012-present: member of the Società Italiana degli Storici Economici (Italian Society of Economic Historians).

• Spring Semester 2011: Associate Research Fellow at the Italian Academy of Advanced Studies (Columbia University, New York), with a project on “The scala di Spalato according to Ottoman sources”.

• Fall semester 2008: lectured at Venice International University on “Venice and the Ottoman Levant”.

• January 2007-present: tenured Assistant Professor.

• June and July 2007: lectured at the Ca’ Foscari-Harvard Summer School.

• May 2005-present: member of the Scientific Committee of IAOSEH (International Association for Ottoman Social and Economic History).

• January 2004-present: Assistant Professor of Turkish Language and Literature at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. Courses taught: Ottoman Language and Palaeography; Turkish Language; Turkish Literature; Turkish Culture; European History, Economic History of the Mediterranean.

Education

• March 2005: PhD in Ottoman History at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) in co-tutorship with Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. The title of the dissertation (based on unpublished extensive Ottoman and Venetian primary sources from the Başbakanlı Osmanlı Arşivi and the State Archives of Venice): La guerre de Chypre et l’installation de l’administration ottomane dans l’île [The Cyprus War and the establishment of the Ottoman administration on the island]. Tutor: Prof. Gilles Veinstein (Collège de France).

• 2001-2003 lived in Istanbul and took courses in Ottoman Palaeography (dīvānī and siyāqāt) organized within the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi and taught by the archivists themselves.

• July 2001: obtained a scholarship from the Institut Français d’Etudes Anatoliennes (Istanbul) and worked in the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi.

• June 2001: Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies (MA degree) in Ottoman History at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Dissertation title: “Chypre, Venise, les Ottomans au XVIe siècle” [“Cyprus, Venice and the Ottomans in the sixteenth century”]. Tutors: Prof. Gilles Veinstein and Prof. Maurice Aymard.

• September 2000-June 2001: lived in Paris taking private classes in Ottoman Palaeography (sixteenth-century divānī script) with Dr. Dilek Desaive (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris).

• July 2000: obtained a scholarship from the Institut Français d’Etudes Anatoliennes (Istanbul) and worked in the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi.

• March 2000: Degree in Humanities (MA equivalent laurea quadriennale in Lettere e Filosofia) at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. The title of the dissertation (in Economic History, based on unpublished primary sources from the State Archives of Venice): Il commercio veneziano ad Aleppo nel Settecento [Venetian trade in eighteenth-century Aleppo]. Tutors: Prof. Giovanni Levi and Prof. Suraiya Faroqhi (LMU).

• 1997-98: Erasmus scholarship at the Catholic University of Leuven. Courses attended: Compared Turkic Languages and Literatures (Prof. Aloïs Van Tongerloo) and Avesta (Prof. Wojciech Skalmowski).

• September 1995-March 2000: student in Humanities (laurea quadriennale in Lettere e Filosofia) at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.

• June 1993: Cambridge First Certificate.

Other relevant information

• May 2017: Head of the "Alessandretta Project. Re-building Networks - Networks for Re-building. Guide-lines for an Italian and Turkish Economic Cooperation in the South-Eastern Mediterranean Context in the Aftermath of the Syrian Conflict" (among the initiatives of the Centro Studi di Economia e Management della Portualità and of the İSTE-SEA, Sosyal ve Ekonomik Araştırmalar Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi, İskenderun Teknik Üniversitesi, Turkey).

• May 2015: organized in Venice an international conference on “Past and present divergences: comparative approaches to the history of Italy and Turkey”.

• May 2007: organized in Venice an international seminar on “Tradizioni musicali dall’Impero ottomano: risonanze e interculturalità” [“Musical traditions from the Ottoman Empire”].

• May 2005: organized in Venice with Prof. Giampiero Bellingeri the annual meeting of IAOSEH (International Association for Ottoman Social and Economic History).

• March 2003 : lectured at the Collège de France on “La continuité du commerce vénitien à Chypre avant et après la conquête ottomane” [“The continuity of Venetian trade in Cyprus before and after the Ottoman conquest”], in the context of the course held by Prof. Gilles Veinstein.

• September 2000: lectured at the Centro di Cultura Italiana of Damascus on “Il commercio veneziano ad Aleppo nel XVIII secolo” [“18th-century Venetian trade in Aleppo”].

• 1997-98: Presidency of the International Students of History Association (Belgium).  

Modern languages

• Italian (native)

• English (excellent)

• French (very good)

• Turkish (very good)

• Modern Greek (basic)

Ancient languages

• Ottoman (excellent)

• Ancient Greek (excellent)

• Latin (excellent)

• Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) (good)

• Avesta (basic)