Staff profile

Toby Osborne is interested in early-modern court history and diplomatic culture. He has worked on the Piedmontese diplomat, abbé and art patron, Alessandro Scaglia (1592-1641), known throughout the courts of Europe, from London to Rome, during the period of the Thirty Years’ War. His work has a strong international character, with a focus on Catholic Europe and the Italian peninsula. He is currently working on several strands of research, including the papal court, the competition for status and prestige amongst the dynastic powers of Italy, the subject of exile in the seventeenth century, and international diplomatic culture. He would welcome interest in early-modern court and elite history, covering Britain and Europe.

• the courts of Catholic Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean region
• dynastic politics in early modern Europe

• Britain and Continental Europe
• Early Modern
• Political Cultures
• Transnational History
• Visual and Material Culture

• Translating cultures: Diplomacy between the early modern and modern worlds

• 2013: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Standard Grant, Translating Cultures: The Languages of Diplomacy between the Early-Modern and the Modern Worlds.

Authored book

• Osborne, T (2002). Dynasty and Diplomacy in the Court of Savoy: Political Culture and the Thirty Years’ War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter in book

• Osborne, Toby (2019). Diplomatic culture in early modern Rome. In A Companion to Early Modern Rome, 1492-1692. Jones, P. M., Ditchfield, S. & Wisch, B. Leiden: Brill. 60-74.
• Osborne, Toby. (2018). The Thirty Years' War. In The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy. Martel, Gordon Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Osborne, Toby (2018). Confessional (Reformation) Diplomacy. In The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy. Martel, Gordon Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Osborne, Toby (2018). Diplomatic Ceremonial. In The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy. Martel, Gordon Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Osborne, Toby (2018). Treaty of Westphalia/Peace of Münster (1648). In The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy. Martel, Gordon Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Osborne, Toby (2018). Translation, International Relations and Diplomacy. In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture. Harding, Sue-Ann & Carbonell Cortés, Ovidi Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 517-532.
• Osborne, Toby (2017). England and Savoy: dynastic intimacy and cultural relations under the early Stuarts. In Turin and the British in the Age of the Grand Tour. Bianchi, Paola & Wolfe, Karin Cambridge University Press.
• Osborne, Toby (2017). Delineating Early Modern Factions: A Unique 17th Century Document. In A Europe of Courts, a Europe of Factions: Political Groups at Early Modern Centres of Power (1550-1700). González Cuerva, Rubén & Koller, Alexander Leiden Boston: Brill. 219-250.
• Osborne, Toby (2016). Anthony van Dyck: A Painter-Diplomat of the Thirty Years' War? In The Age of Rubens. Diplomacy, Dynastic Politics and the Visual Arts in Early Seventeenth-Century Europe. Duerloo, L. & Smuts, M. Turnhout: Brepols. 26: 181-196.
• Osborne, Toby (2016). Statecraft and the Role of the Diplomat in Ducal Savoy: the Career of Alessandro Scaglia (1592-1641). In Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World. Dover, Paul M. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 140-154.
• Osborne, Toby (2014). 1629-1635. In The Ashgate Research Companion to the Thirty Years' War. Asbach, Olaf, & Schroder, Peter Ashgate. 139-150.
• Osborne, Toby (2014). Language and Sovereignty. The Use of Titles and Savoy's Royal Declaration of 1632. In Political, Religious and and Social Conflict in the States of Savoy, 1400-1700. Alyn Stacey, Sarah Peter Lang. 15-34.
• Osborne, T (2013). The House of Savoy and the Theatre of the World: performances of sovereignty in early-modern Rome. In Sabaudian Studies: Political Culture, Dynasty, and Territory, 1400–1700. Vester, M Truman State University Press. 167-190.
• Osborne, T (2012). 'Renaissance Diplomacy and the Early Modern State'. In Der wiederkehrende Leviathan: Staatlichkeit und Staatswerdung in Spätantike und Früher Neuzeit. Eich,Peter, Schmidt-Hofner, Sebastian & Wieland, Christian Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg. 117-138.
• Osborne, T (2012). 'Notre grand dessein': O projecto de casamento entre o Duque Victor Amadeu e a Infanta Isabel Luisa e a politica dinastica dos Saboia (1675-82). In Portugal e o Piemonte: a casa real portuguesa e os Sabóias. Nove séculos de relações dinásticas e destinos políticos (XII-XX). Lopes, M. Antonia & Raviola, B. Alice Coimbra University Press. 211-238.
• Osborne, T (2011). A Queen Mother in exile: Marie de Medicis in the Spanish Netherlands and England, 1631-41. In Monarchy and Exile: The Politics of legitimacy from Marie de Medicis to Wilhelm II. Mansel, P & Riotte, T Palgrave Macmillan. 17-43.
• Osborne, T (2008). Interessi territoriali e prestigio dinastico. La Casa Savoia e la Corte di Roma durante il pontificato di Paolo V Borghese. In Die Außenbeziehungen der römischen Kurie unter Paul V. Borghese (1605-1621). Alexander Koller Tubingen: Niemeyer. 285-299.

Edited Journal

• Osborne, Toby & Rubiés, Joan-Pau (2016). Diplomacy and Cultural Translation in the Early Modern World. Journal of Early Modern History, 20 (4): Brill.

Journal Article

• Osborne, Toby (2019). Whither Diplomatic History? An Early Modern Historian's Perspective. Diplomatica 1(1): 40-45.
• Osborne, T. & Rubiés, J-P. (2016). Introduction: Diplomacy and Cultural Translation in the Early Modern World. Journal of Early Modern History 20(4): 313-330.
• Osborne, T (2007). Van Dyck, Alessandro Scaglia and the Caroline court: friendship, collecting and diplomacy in the early seventeenth century. The Seventeenth Century 22(1): 24-41.
• Osborne, T (2007). The surrogate war between the Savoys and the Medici: sovereignty and precedence in early modern Italy. International History Review 29(1): 1-21.
• Osborne, T (2000). 'Chimeres, monopolies and stratagems': French exiles in the Spanish Netherlands during the Thirty Years' War. Seventeenth Century 15: 149-74.
• Osborne, T (2000). Abbot Scaglia, the Duke of Buckingham and Anglo-Savoyard relations during the 1620s. European History Quarterly 30: 5-32.
• Osborne, T (1999). The Scaglia di Verrua: aristocratic power at the court of Savoy during the early seventeenth century. Studi Piemontesi 28: 367-90.
• Osborne, T (1997). In the service of Savoy: Abbate Alessandro Scaglia (1592-1641). The Court Historian 2: 29-38.

Working Paper

• Osborne, T (2013). Language and sovereignty: titles of address and the royal edict of 1632.